I would first like to get into some of the factors of the dietary system of the American public in particular. Some of these concepts, such as the harmful effects of the robot feeding of infants from the bottle, were entered into by a predecessor named Pasteur. The whole trend of the time is actually, in a sense of the word, to create people into actual machine-like robots.
They are going about their numerous tasks in an every day sense, by the ticking motions of the clock; they must arise at a certain time, hurry down to the office or to the factory, turn out a specified amount of their various and numerous tasks and efforts and hurry home where they can rest so that they can get up and repeat the whole thing all over again. This, in itself, is something of a treadmill-like existence which is highly productive of neurosis. The acts of civilization, while they present, on the outside or the exterior surface, some very glittering attractions — the beautiful automobiles which swirl up and down the highways, the lighted windows of the numerous shops which display a vast and glittering assemblage of wares and artifacts of jewelry and household appliances — are, in themselves, creative of the very earnest desires in the breath and the mind of every passing individual.

The housewife, who does her shopping on the busy thoroughfare of an American city does so under the continual and abortive fact that she has a very limited budget. In looking at all of these vast and lovely arrays of merchandise, she must continuously shake her head, count the pennies in her purse and turn sadly away. This, in itself, will produce resentments which she must take out on her poor husband, or her children may also suffer something of the compromise which she is trying to arrive at or achieve in her mind. So, the husband must, in turn, take out his compromise on his fellow man in whatever field of endeavor in which he is related, and so this continual treadmill of emotional exchange goes on and on. One thing builds up to another. I would not have you believe in your minds that I am a misanthrope, that I dislike civilization, or that I dislike people; our opinions, as we express them here, are strictly from an objective viewpoint. We have arrived at the point where we do not become affected seriously, one way or another, with the evolutions and the various trials of mankind as he exists on the earth. While we are devoted and in the service to preserve his way of life, we do so in the full measure of a compassionate understanding; but it is one in which we can see much further ahead than the individual life of such of the many persons who go to make up the sum and total of such civilizations. We do not attach the importance to the small span of years of the mortal as he exists or lives on the earth, and as he is so wound up with himself in the expression of his few years; that, therefore, is only a small twinkling of his eye in the sum and total of the numerous evolutions of his existence. If he could be even partially far-sighted enough to see the unimportance of his existence on the earth, he might lose a lot of the urgent drives which force him into very unrelated factors of the expression of life in his terrestrial dimension. You know, it is a very interesting thing to view the American life as it exists today.

We could start out by saying we see the thousands and thousands of trucks which start out with their numerous and sundry cargoes in the very early and darkened hours of the morning; they start rolling towards the big cities, carrying their numerous loads of dairy products, poultry, meat, fish and other things which are necessary. The cities are like, huge mouths and very hungry; they require tons and tons of foodstuffs to be poured down these hungry mouths every day. The way in which civilization of your time has contrived to feed these multitudes and masses of hungry mouths is, indeed, one of the amazing advances of your time.

In looking about in the different ways of the world, we can still see in India and China and in other Eastern and near Eastern countries, markets which are in existence and flourishing today just as they have been for thousands of years. There the various venders are carrying their numerous foodstuffs, just as their ancestors have carried on since the beginning of their civilization. Strolling through some of those market places, you would see woven baskets containing pigs, poultry, and numerous other types of livestock. You might also see huge heaps of different kinds of fruit and vegetables, and the owners of these piles of fruit standing patiently waiting for the nearest customer. Every morning the housewife or the servant of the palace must go to these markets and purchase the possible one or two meals in advance, and sometimes return for a second or third trip before the day is over. Usually, by the end of the day, and in the hot sun of the tropical countries, much of the foodstuff has suffered badly, as no one there knows what refrigeration is.

The average citizen of those Oriental or Eastern countries has developed a resistance to certain types of diseases which would very quickly kill the American, as the armies and navies, in going into these countries, found out during the last world war. The types of dysentery and venereal diseases which the average citizen of those countries has, and goes about hardly noticing, would kill an American in a few hours. Contrasting these market places, they indeed would cause the American housewife, doctor, scientist, or sanitation engineer to literally throw up his hands in holy horror.

We can picture the modern supermarket as it exists in the American city. Walking through the doors and going into this huge market, we will see the cleanliness, the sanitation and the utmost order and precision in the arrangement of the thousands of different types of foodstuffs on the shelves and bins. In walking up and down the aisles, looking at these various foodstuffs, we can say that, here, the problem of danger is actually reversed. If the Oriental or the Easterner could come into your supermarkets, perchance, and use many of the numerous foodstuffs which he saw upon the shelves, he might quickly begin to show signs of malnutrition. He would not be accustomed to the very highly refined and processed foods to which you have somehow built up some sort of resistance and immunity.

In looking at these numerous and brightly adorned packages and labeled articles in their sanitary cellophane and plastic bags, it is not possible to see that some of them are actually dangerous. It is a well-known and established fact among nutritionists and food experts of America, that about twenty-five percent of the people of your country are suffering from malnutrition. This is a strange paradox inasmuch as America is supposed to be the best fed nation of the world, and indeed this is so. The shelves, the granaries, and various places where food is produced, are literally bulging and overflowing. Also, the government pays farmers every year to plow their crops under or have them hauled out into the ocean and dumped because they cannot use the surplus of food!

Now, this, in itself, is another subject which I would like to discuss just a little more fully later on, but for the present, we shall investigate this supermarket which we have entered. Here is a section which is devoted to different types of flour. Now, most of the flour of your country is produced from wheat. Wheat in its natural state contains an outer layer which is called the bran, a second layer or cambium layer, which contains the most nutritional elements of the grain. In this cambium layer are found the vitamins and the minerals which are so necessary to sustain life. The interior of the wheat kernel is largely starch and gluten. Gluten is merely a form of protein. In refining this wonderful and beautiful white flour, the miller strips off both of these layers and also the little kernel of the wheat germ. The wheat germ has an oil which is literally nothing more than vitamin A. The remainder of the wheat, the gluten and starch is ground up and bleached, and usually formed into some sort of a chlorine or a lime by-product, which is, in essence, highly poisonous. Chickens will starve to death in three days time on a diet of white flour. The miller has felt a little guilty in depriving his fellow citizen of all of the nutritional elements of the wheat, so he slyly sneaks in a little bottle of vitamin B and another little pill of iron and puts on the label of the bag of flour that it is ‘enriched’. The baker who uses this flour to make the numerous loaves of bread wrapped in bright packages will also print on them ‘enriched’.

Now, this word ‘enriched’ is very misleading as the small amount of iron, or vitamin A and B which is added, does not in any way compensate for the vitamins and minerals which have been stripped from the grain.

Here, next to the flour is the sugar bin; sacks and bags and packages of sugar — most all of it with hardly an exception — is white sugar. That means that in the process of manufacturing, a certain percentage of lime has been interjected into the sugar crystals to bleach the brown or molasses part, which remained after a certain process was completed. This refined or purified white sugar is almost indigestible in the human system.

Passing on into another section, you see brightly labeled metal containers, which are called tin cans, containing the different fruits; here again, has been entered into, some more of that processing. Most all of these fruits have been peeled which means that the outer skin layers which are, in themselves, laxative in nature, have been stripped off from the fruit, along with a good portion of the vitamins and minerals, which are also contained in the cambium layer on the outside of each peach or apricot or whatever the fruit may be. The metal container is, in fact, something which is very destructive to vitamin C. The mere contact of a grapefruit knife in paring and cutting the sections of grapefruit for your morning breakfast, will destroy about 75 percent of the vitamin C of that grapefruit. The vegetables, too, have suffered some processing and some contamination. We must not forget for one moment that many of these fruits and vegetables have been grown in orchards or in soil which has been in very concentrated production for many years. Usually, nothing has been added to the soil other than a few phosphates. Actually, most of the minerals and vitamins have long ago been bleached from the soil through the process of growing numerous crops, so that these fruits and vegetables have arrived at the canning plants as nothing more than effigies of what a fruit really should be.

Here are some packages of rice. Now, rice is a staple food of many of the Asiatic and Eastern countries. In its natural state, rice is very much like the wheat, containing a rough outer bran layer and an inner cambium layer which is full of minerals and vitamins. In stripping off and polishing this rice, it has suffered just the same as the wheat. The corn meal which you see on the shelf has also suffered somewhat the same drastic fate. The elimination of the small germ cell, along with the oil and the vitamin which it contained, has likely converted corn meal to nothing more or less than a starchy substance. Even the bran which is so necessary and vital for some sort of roughage in the intestinal tract, too, has been lost. Formerly these products, or the extractions from the grains were fed to the livestock, and, as a consequence, the livestock were very well fed. Now, however, these different refining processes are used in chemistry to manufacture and extract the vitamins and minerals which are again sold back to the public in fancy bottles at very fancy prices as vitamin supplements.

Another word about vitamin supplements would be in order; a chemist can synthesize certain vitamins, especially the B complex type. Although, in most cases, the natural vitamins are quite naturally the best to use, it cannot be said that any manufactured vitamin or synthesized vitamin is, in any sense of the word, equal to the original product. There are different reasons for this; the most important one is, that through the processing of these chemicals which enter into the manufacture of the vitamin, various metals are contacted and, in themselves, destructive to certain psychic qualities of the vitamin.

This word ‘psychic’ quality is a concept which I would like to enter into, as it is very important in remembering what you actually take into your bodies, in the way of food. We could begin by saying you take a drink of water from the faucet; now, this water has run through miles of metal pipes. The iron, itself, is a metal which can very easily be magnetized. Magnetic structures exist in many different forms and dimensions, just as in other relationships of energies. Some of these magnetic structures are psychic in nature and exist in relationship to certain psychic qualities of the individual’s makeup. In other words, the psychic energies of the water which runs through the pipe have in coming in contact with the metal, been largely dissipated or discharged. The water is not as useful a substance in the body as it formerly could have been, had it been supplied directly from a spring from the ground or from some stream high in the mountains.

You could further simplify this concept by assuming that all foods — whether water or in any other form which you eat or take into your body — are atomic structures and consequently energy which has to be converted. As in the case of isotopes, the energies in the atomic structures are not only contained in the atoms which compose the numerous molecules of the different foods which you eat, but you are also consuming a large quantity of such substances which we might call isotopes — in other words, they are psychic atoms which exist in the higher orders of frequency relationships, just as atoms do exist in the different elements and are related to their own atomic structures. To make a long and rather technical discussion simple and short, it would be best to remember that the more natural the source of food, in relationship to the individual, is by consequence, the most vital and related process and one from which the individual derives a much greater amount of nourishment.

Sustaining the human body is merely a process of reinstating enough energy back into a usable or transferable form. When you have progressed into the astral dimensions, you will know that such usable energy as you need in your daily life will not be assimilated from the alimentary canal; as you will then have none. Neither will you need the oxygen you breathe which is used as an aid in the metabolism of the body, as you will have no lungs. The mere act of eating and breathing to sustain life in your dimension is one which links you with the lower orders of animal and the earth plane existence. As a direct consequence, the process of eating and breathing should be simply followed through in its closest relationship. The further one deviates from this path of relationship, as far as the body is concerned, the more the body will suffer from different types of malnutrition.

There are many kinds of malnutrition which are not measured in the general sense or term of the word or can be detected by the physical, such as the more extreme cases of malnutrition, as they are expressed in physical forms of beri-beri, as it was known by the mariners, or to various other types of bodily decomposition, which set in simply from lack of certain vitamins and minerals. In reinstating these vitamins as substances back into the body, the individual rapidly recovers. However, these related the individual to the metabolism of the body in a purely physical form. There are other types of malnutrition which are somewhat in a more related or psychic form. The psychic centers and the psychic body itself can suffer very seriously if certain psychic elements and atomic structures are not eaten by the individual. Strange to say, but not all of the energy which you derive and use in your psychic body is from the astral or higher dimensions. Much of the energy which is used in the lower orders of subconscious reflexes are contained in these organic substances — called food. You will be able to prove this to yourself much more easily as you will see that many of the psychosomatic disturbances which children have been experiencing in eating various foods, actually developed into very strong neuroses in later years, simply because the foods which they were forced to eat did not contain certain psychic elements.

The children being a little wiser than the parents in the matter of being closer to, shall I say, an instinctive or psychic relationship with their true selves, rebelled or revolted against the idea of eating certain foods for the simple reason that the child instinctively knew that this food did not contain the right psychic elements. A little thought on this concept will easily convince you that eating foods is something more than making an effort to balance your budget from the commissary of the supermarket. A housewife must be very conscientious in selecting the various foodstuffs in the large varieties which are at her disposal; and that in selecting these foods, she must always bear in mind that she is trying to evaluate a certain balance in the calories, such as are termed the carbohydrates, the proteins, fats, the starches, etc. However, she must always, in the selection of these foods in the supermarket, by consequence, select either partially or fully processed foods. Do not think for one moment that because there are frozen foods in the large bins of a refrigerator that these foods are any better either, or are of a higher food value than any of the other foods which are so processed. The act of freezing is just as serious in destroying vitamins and altering other foodstuffs as is boiling. The extremes of temperature in either case are exceedingly destructive. Furthermore, rapid thawing and returning the food to a high temperature of boiling, creates another extreme which also alters the vitamin and mineral constituents and bleaches them out into the water which is usually drained down the sewer.

It has been said that in America, the drain pipe is the best fed mouth in the world, and this is literally true. If the American housewife spent much less time slaving over the kitchen stove to prepare the numerous dishes by such cooking and processing, her family would be much better off and they would be much more properly fed than from the different developments of the highly processed dishes which she manages to contrive. Another very fallacious thing which some housewives do — and they are not particularly housewives, but other business women — they must return hurriedly from their various jobs or positions; they go to the pantry and grab a few pans and do a little opening with the can opener with the result that some such concoctions are placed upon the table which give rise to a great deal of dyspepsia and to a large amount of irritation with the other members of the family who are forced to eat these very hurriedly and often unrelated and unbalanced meals.

The future problem of dietetics of the nation must be a problem which will have to be solved in a somewhat more realistic fashion than by continually processing foods and re-emphasizing new short cuts to preparing meals quicker, so that the American mouth can be fed with food which is more nutritional and contains not only the basic elements of the various vitamins and minerals but which also contains the numerous psychic elements of which the earth scientist is not yet quite aware. These concepts are just beyond his immediate horizon in the future evolution of the earth, and in his science as it exists, just as he has found in the hormones and enzymes, as they are manufactured and used, or as they are manifest in the human body, they are very necessary and mysterious agents which are somewhat catalytic in nature. In recent years the scientist and chemist developed an artificial cortisone, or as it is termed ‘ACTH’, which is used so widely in treating arthritis.

Arthritis is a disease of frustration and disappointment; any person who has suffered a large dose of sudden bereavement or disappointment in life, is subject to arthritis in some later period of his life. The various incurable indispositions of the human body present to the doctor problems which have been, up until now, unsolved simply because he has not penetrated beyond the borderline of the physical body. He has visualized the origin of these conditions as being in the physical body and has, therefore, not arrived at their true cause which is strictly psychic in nature, and which usually develops through a combination of bad nutrition, not only from the physical standpoint but from the mental standpoint as well.

If a person’s philosophy of life is not sufficiently substantial to enable him to go through a period of time which separated him from a loved one in what is called death in a more normal way, he can manufacture a condition in the physical body known as arthritis. It is well known that a person who worries and nags very frequently develops stomach ulcers, and it is generally conceived by the earth doctors and scientists that most all of the human ailments can somehow be traced to the emotional values of life as they are manifest in your civilization at this time.
So, as direct consequence, the pure and curative values do not come from the test tube or the scalpel, but they must come from a civilization which begins to live closer to the true functional orders of dispensation as they have been so conceived in the Immortal Mind of the Creator. Deviations from the pure channel of relationship from the Infinite Self always lead to disastrous results if these deviations are continued for any length of time. This is true, not only in the dietary sense, but is very true in a psychic or a mental sense. Deviates are not only sexual or mental, but they can also be dietary as well as in many other types of human relationships. As a consequence of these numerous deviations, the masses of humanity, as a rule, soon develop certain predominances of character which are always characteristic of the time and age in which the person or race of man so lived and existed at that time.

The numerous artifacts of civilization are literally producing a type of man which — while it is indigenous to its particular evolution — will be one which can be very definitely marked by future archaeologists, who may dig beneath the surface of the earth and uncover, at some future time, some remnants of this present civilization; he will look at the skeletons and at the traces of this civilization and he will mutter under his breath and sadly shake his head and say such things as “Well, the poor people,” and, “How badly they had strayed in their efforts for civilization.” You may well imagine that people on other planets who have advanced somewhat in a position of social structures which are very superior to your own, at your present day, may be looking down their noses on their long-ranged telescopes, and they, too, are sadly shaking their heads and muttering under their breath, and hoping in some way that they can shake you all loose for just a few minutes time from what looks like a very mad race to oblivion; and well it may become such a mad race.

The numerous artifacts of civilization were primarily contrived as instruments for convenience. These various inventions are immediately seized upon by the diverse manufacturing concerns so that they may be manufactured and turned out in vast numbers at competitive prices, and, as a consequence, the American public suffers a great deal of exploitation. These numerous contrivances and artifacts have, as I have said, created a strange paradox. While they should have contributed considerably towards the easement and relief of some of the more laborious aspects of life, they have, however, actually reverted man back to a process to sustain this civilization so that he must exert much more mental and physical effort than he would normally be required to do if he had followed a simpler path of life. You may think for a moment that the farmer who, fifty or a hundred years ago, arose at the crack of dawn with the crowing of the cock, tilled the fields behind the plow with the old grey mare, milked the cow, and tended the chickens, was leading a very laborious life; but this was not so. He was very happy in his way of life; he raised a large family and they usually all lived to be a ripe and happy old age; they spent many hours around the fireside, celebrating the Christmas festivals, the Thanksgiving time and numerous holidays of the American tradition.

Christmas time in America is a time which has become somewhat of a nightmare to most American housewives, and to the fathers as well. To rush madly about from shop to shop, what to get for Harry, or what shall I buy for Jane, or all of a sudden a half dozen new presents or possibilities or reciprocations have appeared on the horizon stems from the old idea of keeping up with the Joneses. Christmas, as it exists in America today, is not the traditional Christmas that existed a hundred years ago. By the time Christmas day arrives most members of the household are too exhausted to enjoy Christmas as it should be enjoyed. Christmas time should be a time of observance of spiritual contemplation just as Thanksgiving was contrived and devised too, as a period of thanksgiving to our Creator and supplier of all man’s needs. Christmas should be a time which is remembered and meditated upon in the elements of Christianity, as they have been so contained and interwoven into the American way of life. It should not be the hustle, worry, and bustle, or the idea of reciprocation as to who can buy the best gifts to exceeding one’s budget, or to incurring debts and committing oneself to numerous financial obligations which will further worry and encumber him. These ideas and practices are nonsensical and entirely without foundation, for the true Christmas should be as it formerly existed in America during the time of the Puritans, or up until the beginning of the age of machinery.

In my time, the Christmas custom was one to which we all looked forward, not with dread or a vague sense of some sort of impending doom, or overwork or catastrophe; but rather, we looked forward to Christmas with something of a reverence and respect in our hearts for perpetuating in the minds and the American way of life, the idea of inception of the Mission of Jesus into the world and to what His Mission really meant to the races of people who have since come to know His philosophies.

The subject of Christianity, itself, is one which would bear a great deal of discussion, and one in which I would like to participate. However, I will leave that up to the powers that regulate these great Centers, and I believe that I have given as much here as can possibly be utilized at this particular moment. So, until such further continuance — God Bless you all there in America.

— Washington Irving.

Excerpt from The Voice of Muse