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and choking on the material that was being eliminated. After that clearing-out process they were able to
breath much more freely. Likewise I have had people who have had sinusitis have nothing but non-stop pussy
discharge from their sinuses for three weeks. Some of this would run down the throat and cause nausea. All I
could say to encourage the sufferer was that it needed to come out and to please stand aside and let the body
work its magic. These fasters were not grateful until the sinus problem that had plagued them since childhood
disappeared.
The interesting thing about healing crises are that the symptoms produced retrace earlier complaints; they are
almost never something entirely unknown to the patient. Usually they are old, familiar somatics, often
complaints that haven't bothered the faster for many years. The reason the symptom is familiar but is not
currently a problem is because as the body degenerates it loses vital force; with less vital force it loses the
ability to create such acute detoxification episodes in non-life-threatening secondary elimination routes. The
degenerated body makes less violent efforts to cleanse, efforts that aren't as uncomfortable. The negative side
of this is that instead of creating acute discomfort in peripheral systems, the toxemia goes to more vital organs
where it hastens the formation of life-threatening conditions.
There is a very normal and typical progress for each person's fatal illness. Their ultimate disease starts out in
childhood or adolescence as acute inflammations of skin-like organs, viral or bacterial infections of the same.
Then, as vital force weakens, secondary eliminations are shifted to more vital organs. Allergies or colds stop
happening so frequently; the person becomes rheumatic, arthritic or experience weakness in joints, tendons,
ligaments, or to have back pains, or to have digestive upsets. These new symptoms are more constant but
usually less acute. Ultimately, vital organs begin to malfunction, and serious disease develop. But a hygienist
sees the beginning of fatal diseases such as cancer in adolescent infections and allergies.
Retracing is generally seen only on water fasts, not on extended cleansing diets. The body begins to repair
itself by healing conditions in the reverse order to that which they occurred originally. This means that the
body would first direct healing toward the lungs if the most recently serious illness was an attack of
pneumonia six months previously. In this case you would expect to quickly and intensely experience a
mini-case of pneumonia while the body eliminates residues in the lungs that were not completely discharged
at the time. Next the body might take you through a period of depression that you had experienced five years
in the past. The faster may be profoundly depressed for a few days and come out of it feeling much better.
You could then reexperience sensation-states like those caused by recreational drugs you had playfully
experimented with ten years previously along with the "trippiness" if it were a hallucinogen, speediness if it
was "speed" or the dopiness if it was heroin. Retracing further, the faster might then experience something
similar to a raging attack of tonsillitis which you vaguely remember having when you were five years old, but
fortunately this time it passes in three days (or maybe six hours), instead of three weeks. This is retracing.
Please do not be surprised or alarmed if it happens to you on a fast, and immediately throw out the baby with
the bath water thinking that you are doing the wrong thing because all those old illnesses are coming back to
haunt you. It is the body's magnificent healing effort working on your behalf, and for doing it your body
deserves lots of "well done", "good body" thoughts rather than gnashing of teeth and thinking what did I do to
deserve this. The body won't tell you what you did to deserve this, but it knows and is trying its darndest to
undo it.
Chapter Three 44
The Unrelenting Boredom Of Fasting
Then there's the unrelenting boredom of fasting. Most people have been media junkies since they were kids;
the only way they believe they can survive another day of fasting is by diverting their minds with TV. This is
far from ideal because often the emotions of a faster are like an open wound and when they resonate with the
emotions portrayed on most TV shows, the faster gets into some very unpleasant states that interfere with
healing. And the emotions many movies prompt people to sympathetically generate are powerful ones, often
highly negative, and contrary to healing. Especially unhelpful are the adrenaline rushes in action movies. But
if TV is the best a faster can do, it is far better that someone fast with television programming filling their
minds than to not fast at all. I keep a library of positive VHS tapes for these addicts--comedies, stories of
heroic over-comings, depiction's of humans at their best.
Boredom is probably the most limiting factor to fasting a long time. That is because boredom is progressive, it
gets worse with each slowly-passing day. But concurrently, the rate of healing is accelerating with each
slowly-passing day. Every day the faster gets through does them considerably more good than the previous
day. However, fasters rarely are motivated enough to overcome boredom for more than two weeks or so,
unless they started the fast to solve a very serious or life-threatening condition. For this reason, basically well
people should not expect to be able to fast for more than a couple of weeks every six months or year, no
matter how much good a longer fast might do.
Exercise While Fasting
The issue of how much activity is called for on a fast is controversial. Natural Hygienists in the Herbert
Shelton tradition insist that all fasters absolutely must have complete bed rest, with no books, no TV, no
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