A Christmas Gift

One of the things I love about the holiday season is the compassion that it brings out in people! I've never quite understood how it is that people can attend church on Sunday - learn about the "Golden Rule" and then go back to 'business as usual' on Monday morning.

During the holidays, however, more people reach out in kindness and charity to those around them and it brings a wonderful spirt to the planet. One of the people I have studied alot over the years has been John R. Christopher. I never knew the man personally, but as I have read and studied the events of his life - I feel, in my heart, he was a very compassionate man. People were more important than money, prestige, or material possessions. (In fact, he ended up in jail, more than once for his convictions and practices).

As a Christmas gift to all of you, I would like to share a piece of his early writings.

Dr Christopher wrote: "What is the origin of herbs as medicine? Methusalah is specifically noted as the dissaminator of this knowledge (and we all know of his achievement in health and longevity), but I believe that Adam and Eve taught some principles that were given them by God, and which have come on down through time to a greater or lesser extent, according th the righteousness of the people. Many references to this herbal knowledge are found in the Bible, as I have mentioned, as well as the abundant Apocryphal literature.

Several hundred years ago, some of the herbalists decided they were going to get a little fancier by incorporating some of the up-and-coming notions of chemistry into the healing art, to make it more "scientific". With learning on the rise, they figured that for so many years they had been in a rut (outwardly, it always appears that the going or current theory is "progress"), so they ground up some gold right fine and prescribed gold. Then they come into quick silver (mercury) and various other things. Well, in their language it was called "quack silver". So the doctors who used it were called "quack silver doctors". Finally that designation was too long, so they just were called "quack doctors". And they continued to add inorganics more and more, and then they became known as "quacks". Well, the time came when they became more munerous and powerful than the true natural physicians and they didn't like that name "quack", so they wiped it out pertaining to themselves. But notice how they have it reversed, and they call us (who are the old-type doctors) "quacks". If you desire to read more of this story, much of it is found in "Back to Eden", pp. 47 - 50, and other places. So often these designing and deceitful changes have been slowly worked into the cultural fabric of the life-ways and behavioral habits over the centuries, so that only the inner-motivated and seeking persons can discern and are willing to pay the high price for the stark truth - which will entail some definite obligations to the finder or receiver.

General Motors will make a car and it goes on down the line, and eventually a man will pair up with it; then with minor up keep he can drive it and get many, many miles on it just by taking good care of it - or, it could rapidly end up in the junk heap by driving it abusively. It depends on us just what we do with the auto, and it depends on us what we do with our bodies. However, it isn't just the physical body that we are concerned about - also, the spiritual body. And as we go along, I want to show how the herbs, the foods, and the things we use, not only improve the physical body, but they will also give higher discernment and a clearness of thinking. The reason is this: this body is made up in such a way that it will accept almost anything we put into it - up to a point, and then it rebels. On our lower plane of life, we tend to follow only our "taste-bud desires" (or whatever you want to call it) - anything that seems to taste good to us and we only go to work on it. If it doesn't taste like we want it, we won't eat it - whether it is good for us or not. So here is something we have got to educate - and this is the little old palate.

I've been called so many things: "witch doctor", quack", etc. But here is the difference: I have a little book here (and, by the way, it is in awfully small print) which is a list of the diseases that man today has found for the body, and this is only a part of them, and for each of those diseases, there are various types of medicines used. The pharmaceutical houses have become quite wealthy from making up medicines. Now BECAUSE of many diseases and so many different names, etc., we find that it takes an extensive period of schooling - many, many years - just to learn names and type of diseases. There are thousands of diseases, and many, many remedies - NO CURES, just remedies - and so-called orthodox practitioners admit that in their theory and practice they have no cures.

We herbalists have just one thing to be concerned with -- A HEALTHY BODY. And with a healthy body, you can't get disease. It's a natural impossibility, because the only thing that causes disease are those little critters that are the scavengers or body cleansers. Then come in ther form of "germs", or something else. The "germ theory", now - that is another fallacious thing! Well, we are only interested in one item instead of thousands (ours is the positive healing science): and that is, A HEALTHY BODY! And with a healthy body, you have no fear. It's like having a car that's all carboned up - a car with sludge in it jerks and eventually stops. A human body gets "carboned up" quite badly, too, with our low-grade living habits.

Recently, I dropped in on a little lady about eleven o'clock at night: I read the iris and gave the diagnosis. Her body was so full of mucus - the tissues were loaded. This was just a young lady. She was tired; she was sluggish. And what was she? She was a nurse's aid. She was under the best care in the world . . . the best? -- well, the most expensive. Please forgeve me if I get a little ironical at times. But after having been thrown into litigation five different times -- five times into court -- winning every time, I have some cause. Of course, because we're on the Lord's side here, and I don't care how hard they try, the herbal knowledge will continue to be discriminated. They even took me to Denver the last time and tried to finish me off there; this was a demand of trial by jury, and we won again. Now I can practice as long as I want; but as long as I follow a practice by natural and orgainc methods - herbs - they will still send someone in after me to file a malpractice suit on me. It isn't easy to do the right thing: it has already cost a fortune. It has broke me time after time, and so what are we doing now? -- trying to teach you people how to take care of yourselves and your families. Because the time is coming (and not far away either) when , as our Early Church leaders said, medical science will throw up their hands and walk off and say, "There's nothing more we can do; we are baffled!" And then, we'll all go back to the old forms of healing, in the natural manner as the Lord intended before man started getting smart in his own conceits. So, when I was laughed out of the doctor's office, I went ahead and learned about the herbs - and to my own immediate and future blessings, and I believe to do this very work of teaching others."

Dr. Christopher was put out of practice as a naturopathic doctor, he was run out of town and his family paid a big price for his beliefs. I know one of his sons well and am aware of the trauma and heart-ache he was put through in his young life because of his father's trials. However, out of the tragedies their family endured, a great legacy was born. If he had been allowed to continue practicing, he would have touched the lives of hundreds of people, but because he could no longer practice, he began to teach and has now touched the lives of tens of thousands of us who have had the privledge of learning from his experiences.

I hope this quote will help you grasp an extremely important concept that it took me several years to learn. That is - we should not spend our live treating symptoms and disease - conventionally or herbally - we should spend our lives working toward 'optimal' health so that we can be 'disease free'.

May you have a wonderful and healthy holiday season, Dr Mom Tweet