IN the days when Adam and Eve were of recent memory to their great-great-grandsons and grand-daughters someone developed a pain under the waist-belt. No such art as medicine and surgery was in fashion, and the instinctive thing to do was to rub the inflamed part with the hand-from which primitive means of attracting the life-giver we call blood to melt down and disperse the deposits or obstruction to the melt down and disperse the deposits or obstruction to the life-forces we name “a pain” scores of artificial methods of apparently doing all the human hand does in much quicker time have come back into fashion.
But Nature is not deceived or, as the Bible puts it, “God is not mocked” by imitation and there never has been, or ever will be, any improvement in reality of the primitive instrument Mother Nature supplies us with. The human hand is the greatest all healers and, after seventeen years of daily experience of hand rubbing practised on thousands of cases, I suggested it to be, properly, regularly and thoroughly performed, the cheapest, best and most natural of all strictly “Nature Cure” practice.
I have before me as I write an impressive looking and at one time very popular machine-one of many similar gadgets to take mans attention away from the most useful appendage Creation left us to fend for ourselves within the year- one of the thousands of things brought into fashion by art mans device which I often amused my earliest disciples with by saying it would in time be gazed upon (and never used) by a wiser generation, as relics of the barbaric age, in museums, with the towel and flesh-glove beloved of athletes to keep them company if not employed to dust and polish them with.
But surely electricity, massage-rollers, oils, scents and the thousands and one inventions are useful, and surely God showed us by inspiration how to construct, mix and control them, you say. Most surely not, I reply, for the articles, whether they be in gadgets, extracts or chemicals, only serve to stimulate the blood in action (to draw the life-force through the pores of the skin and lose itself in the outer atmosphere), and, if oils or scents are used, to clog and poison the skin with dead (artificial) matter.
The heat and motion (life is motion) worked up by the hands is natural and more lasting and can be exercised every minute of the day without reaction if it is considered necessary to go to such lengths. Everyone who uses powders, oils or electricity knows by experience that care must be exercised in administering “scientific” treatment, or the end-results are quickly found to be the opposite of what is aimed at. In working with Nature by using Natures own tools (the hands and water only) no such rules need be observed and no evil results follow.
How did this idea occur to me and when?.
I was fasting on clod water and feeling as most orthodox faster feel, weak, ill and depressed for penance I was doing was for a disease of which depression is one of the chief symptoms-a state which is revived (only temporarily) by nourishment to rouse the blood and which leaves one weaker when the temporary stimulation has worn off, as it all too quickly does in any state of health and especially pancreatic and kidney troubles.
I was watching a cat anoint its head, case and ears with its paws with its own saliva, and it seemed to derive great satisfaction from the performance. I dimly remembered reading something in a book I had read anent fasting which goes something after this style (this is the water of the matter- the meat is much stronger) :.
“When thou fastest fast not as the unenlightened do, but anoint thine head and wash thy face, that thou appear not unto men to fast.”.
How one feels brighter after rinse with water. (I never use soap for any part of my body except my hands, if necessary, after some particularly dirty job, and my face, when I shave.) I procured a bowl, put a pint of water into it, wetted my hands and rubbed the moisture into my skin and hair were dry. I repeated the performance time after time and in half an hour I felt wonderfully refreshed.
The effect on the mental outlook was most marked by being brighter. I wondered what would happen if I rubbed my chest, arms and shoulders the same way. To think was to act and the result was amazing. I doffed everything and spent four hours in giving an outlet to my new-found energy by rubbing every part of my shrunken frame with this water until I had rubbed the whole pint in. Then I began to reason anent the results. I said to myself : “I was not dirty, for I bathe often, yet I feel cleaner and more wholesome.
Ill keep this up as long as I live.” I did keep it up, and having nothing else to do I made myself my own drill sergeant and every day for over two years after that day in June, 1917, I rubbed and was rubbed (back) by others for not less than two hours three times a day and whether I ate or not-for I often fast at least two days in a week, and I never eat more than twice in a day (omitting the unneeded breakfast and supper of orthodox civilization) and being most natural and careful in my selection of foods, my only drinks being water and milk straight from the cow, or fresh fruit juices now and again.
The tendency to perspire without apparent cause disappeared, my temper became more even as my mental outlook was cheered by the end-results of my self-imposed task and a feeling of general well-being spread over my body, both mental and physical, which no other way of feeding, cooling and at the same time refreshing the body through the blood has ever achieved.
My own cure complete, in 1919-20, I began to teach others the simple lessons Nature herself inspired and reason urged me to continue. For many years I have spent several hours every day (Sundays included) in helping others to see at least one of Natures best healing forces, the combinations of ones own hands in action with water and the outer flesh. Yes, I know water is useful to sail boats on and I also know by long experience it is the cheapest, best and most natural and fruitful (by end-results) of all medicines, inside and out.
I have had thousands of letters since 1920, when I first began to broadcast my experiences from other “cranks” (isnt it cranks who make the wheels of progress go round?) in many parts of the world who used a similar philosophy and who condemned oils, lotions, powders and other artificial “dead” agents to stimulate the flow of blood and bring it to the decaying surface of the body to heal with.
Some used raw, fresh milk, other cream only from milk, others sour milk, others fruit juices, others the straining of vegetables or meats boiled in water, others potato or carrot juices obtained by grating and shredding the tubers, while still others used whisky and other dead spirits mixed with raw eggs and even pepper, mustard, salt and other condiments. I converted them to water only and in time received letters congratulating me on the amazing results achieved by reliance on strictly natural and acidless elements like water, air and sun (the real sun, mind you) where the practice was became a habit fixed and regular for each day in the week and in all times and seasons.
Wet-hand rubbing is simple but effective : there are no academic lessons to learn, no diplomas to obtain and nothing to buy. Many business men and ladies of my acquaintance go through the performance for from ten to thirty minutes only a day- it helps to keep them fit and their mental faculties clear.
Many athletes, policemen, busmen and nurses I know do much longer to remove the feeling of ennui after a hard test of physical strength, stamina and fitness (to refresh the whole machine), or after many hours spent in standing about as policemen have to do, or in jobs that dull both the physical and mental parts of the machine in which the life-spirit or essence of energy we call “Nature” exists. Nothing is more simple, but isnt all Nature not only wonderfully simply but simply wonderful?.
