The Way Toward Health - April 27, 1984

April 27, 1984

I am not advising my readers to refuse to have their children vaccinated, since you now have to take vaccination into consideration because of the prominence of it in society.  It is very possible, however, that science itself will in time discover the unfortunate side effects of many such procedures, and begin to reevaluate the entire subject.

It is true that some native populations – particularly in the past – were free of many of the childhood diseases that are considered natural by western medicine.  It is also true, of course, that some primitive societies have lost large numbers of their populations to disease.  Some of the instances, however, were caused precisely by the sudden introduction of modern medicine.

I am not condemning western medicine per se, however, but merely pointing out its many detrimental aspects.  Medicinal science is also in a state of transition, and it is just as important – if not more so – that it examine its concepts as well as its techniques.

The idea of using animals for experimentation has far more drawbacks than advantages; there is the matter of one kind of consciousness definitely taking advantage of another kind, and thus going counter to nature’s cooperative predisposition.

In the distant past some ancient civilizations did indeed use animals in such a fashion, but in a far different framework.  The doctors or priests humbly stated their problems verbally and through ritualistic dancing, and then requested the help of the animal – so that the animals were not sacrificed, in those terms, nor taken advantage of.  Instead, they united in a cooperative venture, in which animals and man both understood that no consciousness truly died but only changed its form.

Animals have indeed often been quite helpful to man in various healing situations and encounters, but in all such cases these were cooperative ventures.

This leads me of course to at least mention here the cruel methods used in the slaughtering of animals and fowls for human consumption.  The creatures are treated as if they possessed no feeling or consciousness of their own – and such attitudes show a most unfortunate misreading of natural events.  As a direct result, at least as many diseases develop through such procedures as would exist in a highly primitive society with unsanitary conditions.

In that kind of setting, however, balances would right themselves because the basic understanding between living creatures would be maintained.  You cannot divorce philosophy from action, and the cruelty in slaughterhouses would not be perpetuated if it were not for distorted philosophies dealing with the survival of the fittest on the one hand, and the egotistical assumption that God gave man animals to do with as man wished.