MKitch3|Sept. 29,2025
Source: Max Heindel, Jan.1917
As this is the time of the year when people are apt to catch cold, it may also be in
season to consider the causes of colds, how prevented, and, in case one has already been
contracted, how it may be cured.
We live in an age of germs and serums. Every disease is supposed to have its
microorganism and an antidote is given either as a preventative or a curative. One may
even be inoculated for a cold and it is claimed that if the operation is successful, one is
henceforth immune. Perhaps someday all the different antidotes may be compounded
into elixir vitae, which will make us immune from the whole horde of dreaded germs.
Seriously, what an anomaly this condition is. Man has conquered the whole world and
stricken terror into the hearts of all the creatures which he can reach by the various
devices he has made for their destruction. Even the largest of creatures fly before him in
fear. But he himself is afraid of creatures so minute that he can only see them by the help
of the most powerful microscope. And these little microbes are so dreaded that some of
the ablest men of the world spend their whole lives in efforts to restrain the ravages of the
minute foe.
It is true that the microorganisms exist, but it is also true that they cannot obtain a
foothold in any organism that is in a state of normal health. It is only when from other
causes our bodies have become debilitated that disease germs are able to get a foothold at
all and commence their destructive processes. Those who are in radiant health, and we
use this word literally, may go without fear into any plague camp, even if there are more
germs on a square inch of the patient’s bodies than there are people in all the world, so
long as the man is in radiant health they cannot affect him.
To make our meaning clear concerning this phrase, “radiant health,” we must reiterate
the fact so often insisted upon, a fact which science is beginning to discover, that our
bodies are interpenetrated by the ether in such a volume that under most conditions it
radiates from the body. One who is endowed with spiritual sight sees within the dense
physical body another vehicle resembling it exactly, organ for organ, and formed of ether.
He sees also that through the spleen there is a continued influx of etheric life force which
undergoes a chemical change in the solar plexus and is then circulated through the whole
body as a pale rose-colored fluid that radiates from the whole periphery of the body
through every pore in the skin, carrying with it an enormous amount of the poisonous
gases which are generated by the food we take into our systems, selected usually because
it pleases either the eyes or the palate, rather than for the nutritional value which it
contains. So long as this vital radiation of the etheric life force is sufficiently strong, it
not only carries away the poisons from the body, but keeps deleterious organisms from
entering, on the same principle which makes it impossible for flies or other insects to find
entrance into a building through an aperture where an exhaust fan is sending a current
outward. But the moment the exhaust fan is stopped, the way is opened for the various
classes of insects which infest our buildings. Similarly, if for any reason the human
organism becomes unable to assimilate a sufficient amount of vital force to keep up this
radiating emanation, it is also possible for the dreaded microorganisms to enter and
obtain a foothold in the body, where they then commence their ravages, to the further
detriment of health. In view of these facts, the prevention of disease narrows itself down
to the problem of how to keep the system from becoming clogged so that the radiant life-
force may have an unimpeded flow; and when diseased conditions have set in, the
curative process must have the effect of opening the clogged channels to be successful.
Dr. Harvey W. Wiley, former Chief of the Bureau of Chemistry at Washington, is
reported as having said that the best way to cure a cold is to take a bottle of cough
medicine, set it on the table in the patient’s room, open all the windows and throw the
bottle of medicine through one of them. In other words, instead of taking cough and cold
remedies, use plenty of pure, fresh air, and without doubt there is much wisdom in this
advice.
But it does not go far enough. If he had said, “Bring in also a good dinner, breakfast,
and supper for the patient and throw them after the bottle of medicine,” he would have
come much closer to a cure of the cold. For it may be said, without fear of successful
contradiction, that the greatest number of the diseases to which the flesh is said to be heir
come from taking too much food and not the right kind, also from lack of mastication.
This latter perhaps is the greatest of our sins. Baron Munchausen, the celebrated
champion prevaricator, relates how when he visited the Moon he found that the people
cooked their food there as we do, but instead of sitting down to the table and eating it bit
by bit, they simply opened a door in their left side and put the food into their stomachs.
We have not reached that point at present but we are very close to it. The way in which
the average American bolts his food is deplorable to say the least. The quick lunchrooms
with their uncomfortable stools where it is impossible to rest and relax while partaking of
the so-called food are a national menace. Everyone who sits down at one of these places
seems intent upon setting a record for swallowing the greatest amount of food in the
shortest possible time. And the abominable methods of preserving everything on ice for
many months in order that certain middle men and large wholesalers may make prices
soar for their personal profits is adding in no small measure to the dangers of ill health,
which threaten every community in the so-called civilized world where these
questionable modern methods are in vogue. From these pure foods (God save the mark!)
surcharged with poisons we endeavor to build our bodies, and this, as is well known, is
accomplished by transforming as much thereof as possible to blood while the rest is to be
eliminated as waste. It is the custom of the medical profession to see that the proper
elimination of waste takes place, no matter what the nature of the disease may be, and
anyone who attempts to break up a cold must necessarily imitate this wise method and
see that the proper excretory function is stimulated to the highest possible degree, for that
is one important method of freeing the system and enabling the life-force to again flow
through it. The other part of the food, which is transformed into blood, does not remain
in the fluid state but is evaporated or even etherealized, according to the development of
the Ego in whose body it flows. It surges through the whole body as steam through a
boiler and when it comes in contact with the cold air through pores clogged by a surplus
amount of food poison and partly anesthetized so as to be unresponsive to the nervous
impulse which otherwise closes them partially against the chill, the blood is liquefied or
partly liquefied and becomes a burden and a clog to that part of the blood stream which is
not affected. As a result, microorganisms are generated which form the pus we sense as a
cold.
A person who is injured and loses a quantity of blood feels weak. So does the person
whose blood has been chilled within him, and for the same reason; but who has a cold
must further expend effort to get rid of the deleterious waste before he can be cured.
Gluttony, bad food, and faulty mastication are not the only causes of colds. It is a fact
well known to every occultist that all that is in the visible world is a manifestation of
something that was pre-existent in the invisible realms of nature, and cold is no
exception. When we know that there is an immutable law of cause and effect and that
there can be no effect without an underlying and adequate cause, we may easily realize
the truth of this statement. It is also certain that nothing can come to us which we have
not in some way deserved and therefore if we are to look for causes in the invisible realm
we shall find that they must naturally have to do with ourselves. The cold that we sense
here and which is a disagreeable manifestation to us is an outcome of something that
existed within ourselves previously, but what? To this question it may be confidently
affirmed that our own attitude of mind is an all-important factor in the state of health.
This also is well known to medical science and all observing persons. A man who is
habitually optimistic, whose mouth has an upward turn at the corners, always on the
verge of expanding into a broad smile, will be found to be singularly immune from colds
as well as all other diseases, whereas the person with the drooping mouth and the drawn
face, who is always worrying about things that never materialize, who sees an enemy in
every human being and persistently holds an attitude of anger and malice toward his
fancied or real enemies, by that very attitude of mind shrinks into a shell and prevents
assimilation of the radiant etheric life forces and is therefore a prey to all the ills to which
the flesh is heir. Nor can he be cured by all the medicines ever made until he learns to
abandon his dark outlook upon life. These cases are of course extreme and there are all
gradations as well as mixtures of the two natures, but it will be found that the health of a
person varies with their view of life in almost exact ratio.
From the foregoing remarks, we may therefore draw the following deduction; viz., that
the best preservative of health is an optimistic attitude of mind, which looks upon life
fearlessly and sees a friend in everyone.
Circumspection and discrimination in the matter of food. We must avoid excesses. It
is better to eat too little than too much, and we should make it a point to have a
comfortable seat where we may relax the body while we leisurely masticate the meal.
Proper attention should also be paid to the matter of elimination and when it is not up
to normal, certain foods also which contain a superabundance of cellulose should be
taken to promote this perfect action.
To sum up in a sentence: be cheerful, be temperate in food. Cheerfulness, temperance
in food, and right elimination are a compound that would cure almost all the ills to which
the flesh is heir.