Greetings! Today, we shall learn how to maintain or restore normalcy in the body, and how the mind, and the imagination plays a significant role in our well-being.

Listening to Life Processes

Dr. George W. Crile, when Director of the Cleveland Clinic and the Cleveland Clinic Hospital, publicly stated: “Man is a mechanism run by electricity and chemical reaction, a machine made up of twenty-eight trillion electric cells. Every one of these twenty-eight trillion cells is a tiny wet battery, with negative and positive poles. The greater the difference in electric potential -the difference between positive and negative- the greater the energy. Electricity keeps the flame of life burning in the cell, and the flame-oxidation-supplies the electricity used in operating the animal.

“The medical man of the future will ‘tune’ in on the living body as one does now on the ordinary radio. By ‘listening in’ to the short waves transmitted by the various organs, he will hear the symphony played by the living organism and will determine the rhythms of the ‘dance of life’…Long before there is any outward evidence of disease, the physician-radio-engineer of the future will thus be enabled to tell by the ‘reception’ of the ‘life waves’ whether they are playing a melody of health or signaling an S.O.S.“

The Effect on Health

One worker has found that positive electric ions, introduced by air into the body, produce feelings of fatigue, dizziness, headaches, roaring in the ears, and nausea; while after inhaling negative ions of high concentration for an hour, in most cases, a feeling of exhilaration is produced. In a study of two hundred cases of high blood pressure, there was a permanent improvement in eighty percent of the cases, by frequent inhalations of negative ions.

Here let it be remembered that there are positive and negative elements in foods -that the elements which make a food acid-forming take on a positive charge, and the alkalies a negative charge.

Normal Program, Normal Health

Man ought by this time to begin to understand that nature possesses  a very delicately arranged balance of all elements and forces, and that when we disturb any of these balances, abnormal conditions must arise; and that if we would maintain or restore normalcy in the body, we must have normal balanced rations, pure fresh air, sunshine, exercise, rest, and all the other factors which make up normal life and living.

The Mind In Action

“The minds of thinking men labor too hard. They frequently use their mental powers prodigally, while there is another class whose highest aim in life is physical labor. The latter class do not exercise the mind. Their muscles are exercised, while their brains are robbed of intellectual strength; just as the minds of thinking men are worked, while their bodies are robbed of strength and vigor by their neglect to exercise the muscles. Those who are content to devote their lives to physical labour, and leave others to do the thinking for them, while they simply carry out what other brains have planned, will have strength of muscle, but feeble intellects. Their influence for good is small in comparison to what it might be if they would use their brains as well as their muscles. This class fall more readily if attacked by disease, because the system is vitalized by the electrical force of the brain to resist disease. Men who have good physical powers should educate themselves to think as well as to act, and not depend upon others to be brains for them.

Everyone knows that he who is determined NOT to be sick is less likely to be, than he who expects to be sick; the mind vitalized the cells. A discouraged army cannot win the battle, but an army will win against heavy odds if the soldiers believe they can and are determined to do so. In that case, each man is a likeness of each cell in the body which is vitalized by the mind with the idea of keeping well.

The Power of the Will

“The power of the will is not valued as it should be. Let the will be kept awake and rightly directed, and it will impart energy to the whole being and will be a wonderful aid in the maintenance of health. It is a power also in dealing with disease. Exercised in the right direction, it would control the imagination and be a potent means of resisting and overcoming disease of both mind and body. By the exercise of the will power in placing themselves in right relation to life, patients can do much to co-operate with the physician’s efforts for their recovery. There are thousands who can recover health if they will. The Lord does not want them to be sick. He desires them to be well and happy, and they should make up their minds to be well. Often invalids can resist disease simply by refusing to yield to ailments and settle down in a state of inactivity. Rising above their aches and pains, let them engage in useful employment suited to their strength. By such employment and the free use of air and sunlight, many an emaciated invalid might recover health and strength.” MH 246

The Emotions

Dr. Crile has said that the emotions -worry, fear, hate, and jealousy- affect even cells in the body. Some organs are stimulated; others are inhibited; all are disturbed; waste products are increased; foundations of certain characteristics of human diseases are laid.

“The relation that exists between the mind and the body is very intimate. When one is affected, the other sympathizes. The condition of the mind affects the health to a far greater degree than many realize. Many of the diseases from which men suffer are the result of mental depression. Grief, anxiety, discontent, remorse, guilt, distrust, all tend to break down the life forces and to invite decay and death.” MH 241

“ Many are lifelong invalids who might be well if they only thought so. Many imagine that every slight exposure will cause illness, and the evil effect is produced because it is expected. Many die from disease the cause of which is wholly imaginary.” MH 241

Therefore it is of first importance that the mental attitudes be right. Furthermore, if one is to have abundant health, he must find and know the great Burden Bearer who can assuage human grief, relieve anxiety and discontent, take away remorse and guilt by pardoning transgression, and so lift these loads off the mind. The fullness of health cannot by enjoyed while the mind is weighted with woe. A health message cannot be complete until the remedy for these ills is found.

And the reverse is equally true. “Courage, hope, faith, sympathy, love, promote, health and prolong
life. A contended mind, a cheerful spirit, is health to the body and strength to the soul. ‘A merry heart doeth good like a medicine!’

Grab a friend and share the wealth, from what you’ve learned in the School of Health! In our next class, we shall learn about the connection between the mind and body. God bless!

 Previous Class: Part 1, Part 2