HARDENED MUCUS
During a cold on the lungs, you cough up much of the mucus, but not all of it. The mucus which remains in the lungs aids in the process of lung degeneration. It remains in the tiny cells and tubes of the lungs and goes through a process of hardening in time, clogging the cells and tubes and they lose their breathing function. No more can the life-sustaining oxygen flow into them. To that extent your lung capacity and vital capacity have been decreased.
As a child you could run and romp all day without tiring. That indicated good lungs. At 30 some begin to slip. At 40 more begin to go down, and a little exertion makes them puff and pant. At 50 the shortness of breath becomes painfully noticeable. The lungs are going. Poisoned air is doing its destructive work.
Sir Jonathan Hutchinson (1828-1913) noted English physician, discovered that man’s vitality comes from the air he breathes, not from the food he eats; and he termed the lung capacity the Vital Capacity (Greene, P. 284).
The respiratory capacity continues to increase as a rule until about the 35th year at the rate of five cubic inches per year. Then it should remain stationary, but it does not. Polluted air continues its destructive work.
From the 35th to the 65th year the respiratory capacity diminishes, as a rule, at the rate of about 1 ½ cubic inches per year. The rate of diminution depends upon the land of labor one performs and the kind of air. It is less in the case of the farmer working out in the open air, and more in the case of the clerk working in a stuffy office filled with tobacco smoke. As a general rule the lung capacity of a man of 60 is about 30 cubic inches less than when was 40.
There should be no such decrease. With the decrease in lung capacity comes a decrease in vitality. The decrease denotes the damage done by polluted air.
The man who finds himself growing short-winded, should know that lung degeneration is the cause, and that polluted air is the cause of lung degeneration. But he thinks it is caused by the earth’s turning on its axis. That has nothing directly to do with it.
Cite some facts says the skeptic. The press of October 5th 1937, stated:
“In the depression, the death-rate in Pittsburgh decreased. Since prosperity started to return, and factories began pouring out more smoke, the pneumonia deaths are increasing sharply. In the depression they were 91.8 per 100,000. Today they are 167.4. Before 1927 the rate was 200.”
There we have the cause of colds, influenza, pneumonia, etc. But some say it is the work of germs.
AN INVISIBLE FOE
The press of December 8th, 1944, said:
“An unseen enemy with which they never had to cope in their native jungle, struck down scores of wild animals and birds today in a lower Manhattan (New York) menagerie. Gas from a defective heater killed 24 specimens and overcame a dozen more before a watchman discovered their plight.”
“SMOKY CHICAGO”
“Oh Chicago,” said the star,
“How I wonder what you are;
“Hidden there beneath your cloak
“Of whirling soot and filthy smoke.”
—John M’Cutcheon, Jr.
With that verse M’Cutcheon begins in the Chicago Tribune, of May 5th, 1946, a story about “Chicago’s Smoke Screen.” He says that the recorded soot-fall per square mile per month in Chicago for 1945 was 67.7 tons.
THE AGING PROCESS
As you weaken and wrinkles appear in your face from your ailments, you imagine you are growing old. We have shown the cause of your ailments and the cause of your increasing weakness.
The dropping water wears away the stone, not the revolution of the earth. Stop the action of the water and eons of Time may pass, but that will not affect the stone.
It is not the imaginary flight of Time but the cumulative effects of your ailments that drag you down to decrepitude.
In the “Precepts of Ptahhotep,” in the Papyrus Prisse said to be the oldest book in the world, a forbidding picture of the miseries of old age are recorded from the mouth of Ptahhotep himself. When he was 110. He said:
“The progress of decay changes into senility. Decay falls upon may and decline takes the place of youth. A vexation weighs upon him daily Sight fails; the ear becomes deaf; the strength disappears; the speech fails; the mind weakens, remembering not the day before. The whole body suffers. Taste disappears. Old age makes man altogether miserable. The nose is stopped, breathing no more from exhaustion.”
In his word-picture this man does not say that sickness is responsible for the decline into senility. He terms it the progress of decay, and he is right.
Decay of man’s body results from definite causes, and the turning of the earth on its axis is not one of them.
Notice the reference to the nose that is stopped and breathes no more from exhaustion. The nose is not exhausted. Poisoned air has caused the lining membrane to thicken, thus closing the air passages.
The nose took all it could and lost its function because its air passages were closed by a thickened membrane caused by polluted air.
You know not that you are constantly surrounded by an unseen enemy to health. You know not that you are constantly suffering from a mild case of blood poison
THE BLOOD
The condition of your body can be no better than that of your blood. You control the condition of your body by controlling that of your blood.
Sickness is impossible if your blood and its circulation are normal. So health is impossible if your blood is poisoned by every breath you take,—poisoned by that invisible enemy of health by which you are constantly surrounded.
Polluted air enters your body at every breath. It will cause every ailment that poisoned blood can produce, and that includes all ailments known.
You can be happy only by keeping well, and you can easily keep well by keeping your blood normal.
You may not know that your blood is changing constantly. It changes completely three, times in one day. By fasting one day, drinking nothing but clean ram water (or a fresh fruit juice diet), and breathing the best air found only in country regions, away from cities and highways, the blood is purified, and will immediately begin to build health.
The law of HEALTH may be briefly summarized as follows:
1. Cosmic Rays, as air are the creative agency and vitalizing force.
2. In health, the vitalizing force functions smoothly and insensibly. When its function is hindered, the body’s intelligence increases its physiological powers in an effort to remove the obstructing object or condition. The super-active state thus produced in body function is falsely termed disease, and named according to the location of the most marked symptoms. There is good health and bad health, but no such thing as disease per se.
3. The body is created complete and perfect, wanting in nothing not supplied by the creative power, and incapable of receiving anything more from human hands. It is self-building, self-operating, self-regulating, self-preserving and self-repairing.
4. All the so-called healing power on earth is within the body itself. That power nothing can aid but the natural elements of the cosmos which are produced by the creative agencies.
5. The condition of the flesh depends upon the condition of the blood. Insofar as the blood is active and normal, and to that extent only, will and must the organs, tissues and cells remain healthy and function normally.
6. In exact ratio as the blood becomes stagnant and abnormal will and must all organs, tissues and cells show a decline from the normal state. That is what is called disease.
7. The healthful existence of the body depends upon the condition of the blood. Normal flow of normal blood maintains the body’s healthful equilibrium.
8. Retarded circulation and polluted blood disrupts the body’s healthful equilibrium. Remove the cause and the effect disappears.
9. Purification of the blood and acceleration of its movement is scientific treatment. There is no other.
10. The blood is readily purified and quickly normalized by the natural process of fasting, followed by e
very wild animal by instinct. No liquid should be taken but clean rain water or fresh fruit juice, and one should breathe the best air that can be found only in areas far removed from cities and highways.
WONDERS OF THE AIR
Late discoveries in the field of atoms have scientists running to and fro as they begin to search out the wonders in the air. Cosmic rays and cosmic radiation are terms being used by the scientists as they delve into the wonders in the air.
The late Sir James Jeans, F.R.S., was one of the first scientists to call attention to the “impact of cosmic rays upon human beings.” He wrote:
“Cosmic radiation falls on the earth in large quantities....Every second it breaks up about twenty atoms in every cubic inch of our atmosphere and millions of atoms in our bodies every second, and as yet we do not know what its physiological effects are.”
In 1935 Professor R. A. Millikan, one of America’s foremost physicists, said:
“Cosmic rays are raining enormously energetic bullets of some kind (Photons, electrons or both) from all directions upon the heads of mortals who live on the face of the earth.”
In 1939 Professor P. M. S. Blackett, F.R.S., stated that:
“The earth is being bombarded by atomic particles of surprisingly high energy....We know almost nothing about the effects of cosmic radiation on man.”
Professor Wilfred Branfield, in an article entitled “Continuous Creation,” sought to show that the substance of living things comes from the air. As to Trees he said:
“In tree life, so much comes from the air and so little from the soil....Every change, every new intra-atomic spatial re-arrangements of protons, neutrons and whirling electrons, every addition or displacement of electrons, sets up vibratory resonance...building up atoms of higher mass....The reactions are electrical, and it is useless and foolish to apply chemical methods.”
The Prana of Yoga is the Cosmic Radiation of modern science, and the presence of radiant force is proven beyond disputation by instrumental indicators and recorders—above all by the use of the Geiger counter, the Compton cosmic-ray meter, sensitive electroscopes and specially prepared photographic emulsions.
The highest powers of the body are Spiritual, and they fade out first in degeneration, caused by polluted air and dating from the birth of the infant.
The nose, sinuses, trachea, bronchi and lungs are the Gas Chambers, the Life Organs. Cosmic Radiation, appearing as air, seems to be the Life Essence. For to stay the breath is to stop the life. When we cease to breathe we cease to live.
If Life is God, then the breath is of God and in God. “With every breath we are linked with the Divine more closely than we realize.”
The mystery of Life itself, of all that is, may be discovered by studying the Breath of Life (Gen. 2:7).
In civilization the Breath of Life is polluted beyond description, and the Life Organs of civilized man are crippled by polluted air while he is a little child.
LESSON NO. 28—COSMIC AIR PURIFIERS
The press of August 19th, 1939, stated that gases and acids in the air of the Paris (France) area were:
“Eating away and disintegrating the historic monuments of that city. The rapid decay of these stone monuments dates from about 1900, since when the smoke and fumes from factories, river tugs, motor cars and trucks and heating plants have steadily increased. The smoke, mixed with the exhaust of motor cars, trucks and buses, produces a compound of sulphuric acid gas that chemically attacks everything it strikes.”
The air must constantly be purified. Even in the country the air becomes foul. In desert regions, like New Mexico, Arizona and southern California, the air becomes laden with dust particles and is bad to breathe.
There are seven cosmic agencies of air purification, as follows:
1. Rain
2. Wind and hurricanes
3. Vegetation
4. Earth rays
5. Violet rays
6. Cosmic rays
7. Electric radiation
Air is washed and cleansed by rain. Places that have much rain have much pure air. Places with little rain have less pure air, unless located in high regions or near the sea.
In the Midwest, and especially in the desert region of the southwest, with little rain and lots of desert dust, dirty air kills thousands. The press in 1935 reported that “70 persons died of ‘dust pneumonia’ in ten days in one small community, and asthma, tuberculosis and varying disorders of nose, throat and lungs are on the increase.”
Winds and hurricanes are purifying forces. They send the stagnant air flying in streams that dissipate the impurities in it. On windy days the highways and cities are purged of their polluted air. The purification lasts only until the wind subsides.
The press of October 6th, 1937, quotes Dr. Haythorn and Dr. Schnurer on this point, as follows:
“High winds blow pneumonia out of cities on the wings of smoke in winter. Calm days, in smoky cities, are usually followed in about fifteen days by a rise in pneumonia.”
These doctors prepared a chart of winds which showed a frequent rise in deaths from pneumonia fifteen days after calms in Pittsburgh, and a fall after good blows. There is the evidence to prove that the foul air in cities causes sickness and death.
In the Carboniferous Age the atmosphere was highly charged with carbon dioxide gas. Ferns were abundant, some being as tall as trees. In the carboniferous forests grew the Lycopods or club-mosses, now represented by insignificant forms, but then growing sometimes 75 feet high or more, with trunks three feet in diameter, and spreading branches.
The Vegetable Kingdom is not strictly an air purifier, but an air conditioner. Plants possess the power of absorbing carbon dioxide, assimilating the carbon and rejecting the oxygen in a free state, thus making the air suitable for the larger land animals.
Only after millions of years of plant life on earth, say science, was there enough oxygen in the atmosphere of the earth to support the higher forms of land animals. This fact constrains some authors to assert that forest regions are the most healthful areas for man. Thus we see how man disturbs nature’s equilibrium by destroying the forests to provide fields for his artificial crops.
The purest air comes from the ocean where there is nothing to pollute it. The foulest air is found in cities. The larger the city the fouler the air.
In the wide open spaces of country and sea, the other four agencies continuously create Ozone to clarify and purify the air. When man is not polluting the air with the fumes of his fires and inventions, they keep it in good condition. They also help destroy harmful gases and acids produced by man’s work. As they were never intended to do so, they cannot overcome the excessive air pollution of homes, hospitals, factories, stores and city streets.
These cosmic agencies cannot break through the layers of poisonous gases and acids, created by man’s work, with sufficient force to convert oxygen into the essential quantities of Ozone.
Outside air in the country, or in fairly open spaces, such as a high-class suburban residential district, comparatively free of motor car and truck traffic, while it may seem pure, is still far from being the activated, ozonated air intended for man as the Breath of Life.
The air of the average home, in city or country,
1. Is saturated with carbon monoxide gas from fires, cigars, cigarettes, cookery fumes, fumes of motor cars, trucks, gas engines, locomotives, etc.
2. Is saturated with the fumes of filthy barn-yards and hog-pens, farm tractors, and sprays used on gardens and groves.
3. Is saturated with the fumes of garbage and paint cans.
4. Is saturated with the fumes of refuse from the streets.
5. Is filled with tiny particles of filth flying in the air.
6. Is saturated with numerous gases and acids, with small particles of solids, wafted by the winds for miles in all directions.
THE HOME
Put up a roof and you have obstructed three of the natural ozone-creating forces. Add the walls, and you entrap the
fumes flowing in from without and those generated within by man and his work.
The hermit’s hut in the hills would soon be filled with polluted air unless doors and windows are kept open all the time.
Filth that destroys health and shortens life is constantly generated and eliminated by the body itself.
Your bed should be left open all day to dissipate the filth generated and eliminated by the body during the night. The sun’s purifying rays should shine in the bed several hours each day, and pure air should fan it for hours before it is made up. It is much better of course to hang the bedding on a line in the air and sunshine.
The ordinary bed is not fit to sleep in. The material of which beds are made, including the feathers in the pillows, go through a steady process of decay, and constantly emit foul, musty odors that are injurious to health, but not noticed because one gets used to them. Furthermore, the polluted air of civilization has ruined the sense of smell in most people.
Insomnia can often be traced to foul air in the bed-room, some of which comes from the bed itself. That is the language of the body’s intelligence as it tries to tell you to move into better air. But you believe in taking sleeping-tablets, and thus force your body to endure a condition that is slowly destroying it.
Those with weak lungs do fairly well in the good air during the day, but have trouble and cough after they have been in bed long enough for the foul fumes of the room, bed and bedding to fill their lungs. Some have serious coughing spells during the night and find it hard to breathe—all due to the damage done their air organs by the foul fumes of their bed, bedding and bed-room.
This philosophy is too new to impress many, but one will soon be convinced if it is given a trial. Just as sure as you live and sleep in the fresh outside air, you will see health improvement.
Man’s Higher Consciousness Page 28
