BEYOND the cavils of the ignorant or the sophistries of the learned, fasting is superbly buttressed on sound scientific basis.
To fast is not to starve. Fasting is beneficial: starvation is detrimental. The former is a life-enhancing measure: the latter is a death-dealing experience.
Regrettably, most editors, journalists, physicians and the so-called educated who ought to know better English and correct diction often wrongly employ the two words “fasting” and “starving” synonymously. They perpetuate a popular fallacy that fasting and starving are similar; hence both are hazardous and life-threatening.
To dispel inveterate ignorance, the mis-educated should consult a concise dictionary or the book “The Science and Fine Art of Fasting” by Dr Herbert M. Shelton, the world authority on the subject. To his distinction Dr Shelton had supervised over 40,000 fasts at his sanatorium in San Antonio, Texas. That very volume Gandhi treasured throughout turbulent fasting days.
Fasting radically neutralises ill-effects of gormandising, in compatible food combinations and insensible food choices. While aristocratic feasting inundates the body with filth, fat, fume and royal disease, rational fasting efficaciously empowers the organism to cleanse and heal itself. Our body is self-healing and all healing is a biological process; it’s no art. No physician, no mater how well qualified or experienced heals anyone. Pretenders of healing are mere charlatans.
During a fast the body supports itself on stored reserves within its tissues. Starvation ensues when abstinence is prolonged beyond that time when all stockpiles are seriously depleted or have plummeted dangerously low. Whenever food is denied from a system which is clamouring for sustenance starvation results.
In a fast the body’s built-in self-purification excretory system (kidneys, lungs, liver) accelerates its functions.
Did you know it was therapeutic fasting that restored former British Prime Minister Clement Atlee? Previously pronounced: “incurable” by High Priests of the Church of Medicine, prominent men as Mr. Atlee as well as Emperor Franz Josef of Austria, Aldous Huxley and Paul Bragg son of a former US senator and countless other men and women miraculously recovered through scientific fasting.
In his classic work “Vitality, Nutrition and Health” Hereward Carrington PhD divulged the efficacy of fasting. He explicitly elucidated: “Fasting is the general remedial agent in the world today. Its curative, purifying and therapeutic value is almost unlimited. It can restore health when all else fails. It is the greatest restorative and rejuvenator known to man. It is safe, economical and speedy. It can prolong life and premature death.”
In Guyana decades ago some medical dictators sought to shut down Dr M H Rahat’s Georgetown sole fasting sanctuary.
His arrogant antagonists met their Waterloo after the astute attorney B.O. Adams QC torpedoed and thwarted their sinister subterfuge.
What prompted such reprehensible action was: those, whom the medical experts couldn’t assist, readily recovered from their recourse to Rahat’s adept fasting supervision.
When will the intelligent cease chasing cures and desist from devouring detrimental drugs to acquire health?
Nothing beats fasting as fast as fasting!