Fasting as a religious rite has long been practiced “for the fulfillment of certain benefits.” Religious fasting has ancient origins, going back into prehistory. Partial or complete abstinence from food or from certain types of food at set periods of time existed in Assyria, Persia, Babylon, Scythia, Greece, Rome, India, Palestine, China, in Europe among the Druids and in America among the Indians. It was a widespread practice, often used as a means of penance, in mourning, and as preparation for participation in religious rituals such as baptism and communion.
At the very dawn of civilization, the ancient sacraments, secret worship or religion that flourished for millennia in Egypt, India, Greece, Persia, Thrace, Scandinavia, the Goths and the Celts, prescribed and practiced fasting. The Druid religion among the Celtic tribes required long periods of transitional fasting and prayer before the initiate could advance further. The religion of Mithra (ancient Iran) required a fast of fifty days. In fact, fasting was common to all the sacraments, which were similar to the sacraments of ancient Egypt and perhaps originated from them. It is said that Moses, who was taught "all the wisdom of Egypt", fasted for over 120 days on Mount Sinai. The ordinances of Tire, which were introduced into Judea by a secret society known as the Essenes, also prescribed fasting. In the 1st century AD in Alexandria there was a sect of Jewish ascetics called the Therapeute, who resembled the Essenes and borrowed much from the Kabbalah and from the Pythagorean and Orphic systems. Therapists paid great attention to the sick and highly valued fasting as a therapeutic measure. Fasting is mentioned quite often in the Bible, where several long-term fasts are recorded: Moses - 40 days (Exodus 24:18, 34:28), Elijah - forty days (First Book of Samuel), David - seven days (Fourth Book of Kings) , Jesus - forty days (Gospel of Matthew, 4:2), Luke: “I fast twice a week” (Gospel of Luke, 18:12), “This generation is driven out only by prayer and fasting” (Gospel of Matthew, 17: 21). The Bible warns against fasting for the sake of vanity (Matthew 6:17,18). She also advises the holy fathers not to wear a sad expression on their faces (Gospel of Matthew, 6:16), but to seek pleasure in fasting and doing their work (Book of the Prophet Isaiah, 58:3), fasts should be fasts of joy (Book of the Prophet Zechariah, 8 :19).
We may well assume that some great good was the purpose of many of the fasts mentioned in the Bible, even if (one might take it) they were not always intended to “cure” “diseases.” We can also be sure that the ancients had no fear of mortal famine as a result of missing several meals.
For two thousand years the Christian religion has recommended "prayer and fasting," and thousands of preachers have told the story of the forty days of fasting in the desert. Religious fasting was often practiced in early Christianity and in the Middle Ages. Tommaso Campanella relates that sickly nuns, during periods of hysterics, often sought salvation by fasting “seven times seventy hours” or for twenty-one and a half days. John Calvin and John Wesley both strongly advocated fasting as a beneficial measure for both nobles and common people. Among early Christians, fasting was one of the rites of purification. To this day, fasting is a common practice among the peoples of the Far East, especially among the Indians of East India. Gandhi's numerous hunger strikes are well known.
Members of the early Christian church who were subject to penance often retired to the desert for a month or two to overcome temptations. At this time, they drank water from an old decrepit vessel, and the intake of even a grain of millet was considered by them as a violation of the vow and destroyed the virtues of repentance. At the end of the second month, the “emaciated and detached from the world” usually had enough strength to return home without outside help.
The author of the book "Pilgrim Sylvius", describing the Great Lent in Jerusalem when visiting it around 386 AD. e., notes: “During Great Lent, they completely abstained from all food, with the exception of Saturdays and Sundays. They ate on Sunday afternoon and after that did not take anything until the following Saturday morning. And so on throughout Lent.” Although the Catholic Church does not have a law requiring fasting, it has been voluntarily practiced by many Catholics in the past. This church views abstinence—either total or from prescribed foods—as penance. It also teaches that Jesus fasted to teach and encourage faith in the practice of repentance.
The Roman Church has both “days of famine” and “days of abstinence,” which are not necessarily the same thing. The “law of abstinence” is based on food differentiation and regulates not the quantity, but the quality of permitted food. It reinforces the intake of meat or meat broth, but not eggs, milk or seasonings of any kind, even from animal fat. In fasting, the rule of the church is: “What constitutes fasting is only one meal a day.” In ancient times, strict fasting was observed until sunset. Nowadays, a full meal can be taken at any time after noon or, as recognized church authors believe, shortly after it. Some even believe that a full meal can be taken at any time of the day. However, this one full meal in twenty-four hours does not prohibit eating any food in the morning and evening. In fact, "local custom", which is often some vague expression emanating from the local clergyman, determines what additional food can be taken daily. In America the rule is that the morning meal should not exceed two ounces of bread; in Westminster (England) the limit is three ounces of bread. Of course, this kind of “fasting” is not what we mean by actual fasting, for in this way a person can eat enough to gain weight. Hygienists also cannot accept the so-called moral principle of the Roman Church - “parvum pro nihilo reputator” and “ne potus noceat”: “small things are considered nothing,” so that “drinking, not accompanied by anything solid, does not become harmful.” We believe, as Page stated, that small, split meals are not fasting.
Lent for Catholics is only a period of abstinence from certain types of food, although some of them use this period for fasting. The ancient practice of fasting until sunset followed by a feast is similar to the practice of Muslims - their so-called fasting during Ramadan. During this period they do not eat, have no right to drink wine, or smoke from sunrise to sunset. But as soon as the sun goes down, they start smoking and feasting. The nightly feast compensates for their daytime abstinence. In the cities there are night carnivals, restaurants are illuminated, the streets are filled with revelers, the markets are illuminated, and street vendors selling lemonade and sweets are celebrating. Rich people sit up all night, receive and return visits, and hold receptions. After days of such feasting and fun, people celebrate the end of the month of “fasting” with the holiday of Bayram.
When we are told that Archangel Michael appeared to a certain priest from Sipponte after the latter had been fasting for a year, we must understand that this priest then abstained not from food at all, but from some types of it. This is only a religious application of the term, behind which many of the stories that have come down to us about religious fasts are hidden; we are not always sure that a person abstained from food, he probably simply abstained from taking certain prescribed types of food.
When religion obliges people to abstain from meat on certain days of the week to reduce their "animal appetite", but allows them to drink wine, freely consume fish (which is also meat), to which are added spicy and stimulating sauces, such as are added to eggs, lobsters and shellfish, then this is clearly a rejection of what may originally have been a sound dietetic view and the observance of a superstitious ritual. When Muslims are forbidden to drink wine, but allow themselves to be poisoned by the unlimited consumption of coffee, tobacco and opium, then this is definitely a departure from the previous rule against intoxication of any kind. If during Ramadan a Muslim is obliged not to touch either solid or liquid food from sunrise to sunset, but has the right to wallow in gluttony, drunkenness, and debauchery from sunset to sunrise, then what is the benefit of this? Here we have only symbolic abstinence, a mere ritual or ceremonial rite that only loosely imitates what was originally a healthy practice.
The fact is, and this should be clear to anyone who thinks the slightest bit, that there is nothing in the law of Nature that allows for any violations or deviations from sobriety, abstinence, moderation and righteous behavior. The laws of Nature do not indicate any specific days or specific numbers of days for special fasts or special periods of abstinence from any food or excess. According to natural law, fasting should be followed when there is a need for it, and one should abstain from it if there is no such need. Hunger and thirst should be satisfied on all days and in all seasons, and they should always be satisfied with healthy food and clean water. A person who refuses to satisfy the normal needs of the body, prompted by thirst and hunger, is just as guilty of violating the natural law as a person who tortures his body with excesses.
Nowadays, Christians of all stripes and denominations rarely expose themselves to real fasting. Most of the fasts of the Roman, Orthodox and Protestant churches are simply periods of abstinence from meat foods. Abstaining from meat, but not fish, during “fasting” days seems to be simply to promote the fishing and shipbuilding industries.
Among Jews, fasting always means complete abstinence from food, and at least one of the days of fasting is spent also abstaining from water. Their periods of fasting are usually only very brief.
Although the Hindu nationalist leader Gandhi fully understood the hygienic benefits of fasting and often fasted for hygienic purposes, most of his hunger strikes were fasts of "purification", repentance and a political means by which he forced England to agree to his demands. He fasted even in the name of purification of India, not just his personal purification. “Self-purification” fasts of several days are a common occurrence in India. Several years ago, Indian Socialist Party leader Jayaprakashan Narain undertook a twenty-one-day hunger strike to enable himself to better perform his own tasks in the future. He did this cleansing fast at a natural healing clinic under the supervision of a man who had observed several of Gandhi's hunger strikes.
Fasting was part of the religious rituals of the Aztecs and Toltecs in Mexico, among the Incas in Peru and among other American peoples. Fasting was practiced by the Pacific Islanders, and fasting was noted in China and Japan even before their contact with Buddhism. Fasting persisted in East Asia and where Brahmanism and Buddhism were widespread.
According to Dr. Benedict, many recorded cases of long and more or less complete religious fasts are somewhat "clouded by superstition and lack clear observation of them, and are therefore of no value to science." Although I agree that their value for science is limited, I do not agree that they are devoid of any value. They certainly have value, confirming the possibility of abstaining from food for a long time in various life circumstances. The point is that scientists have so few observations of starving people that their views on the process of starvation are as confused as the stories of the starving people themselves.
FASTING AS MAGIC
We have nothing to do with fasting as magic, except to study this phenomenon. Fasting among tribes, for example, among American Indians, in order to ward off impending danger, or by Gandhi to purify India, there is the use of fasting as a magical remedy. Among the American Indians, fasting was widely used in private and public ceremonies. In Melanesia, the father of a newborn is required to fast. Among many tribes, fasting is often part of the rite of passage at the age of a man and woman or in the name of sacred and ritual acts. David's seven-day fast (as described in the Bible) during his son's illness was a magical fast. Ceremonial fasting in some religions can also be called magical. If we carefully consider the difference between magical fasting and protest hunger strikes, such as during strikes, we can say that magical fasting is carried out to achieve some desired goal outside the personality of the starving person himself. We are interested in such fasting simply as another evidence that a person, like a lower animal, can fast for a long time and do it not only without harm to himself, but with obvious benefit.
FASTING AS A DISCIPLINATING FACTOR
As Dr. W. Gotschell says, “Fasting is nothing new. The ancients recognized it as an excellent method of achieving and maintaining better mental and physical activity. Two of the greatest Greek philosophers and teachers, Socrates and Plato, regularly fasted for ten days at a time. Another Greek philosopher, Pythagoras, fasted regularly for forty days before taking an exam at the University of Alexandria. He required his students to fast for forty days before entering his class.” In “The History of the Chectaw, Chickasaw and Natchez Indians,” H. Cushman says that the Chectaw warrior and hunter “often undertook long fasts” in order to train himself to “withstand hunger.”
PERIODIC AND ANNUAL FASTING
The Gospel of Luke mentions the practice of fasting for one day each week, which was apparently very common in his day. Intermittent fasting has been practiced by many peoples and individuals. It is said that the ancient Egyptians had the custom of fasting for a short period of time - about two weeks every summer. Many still do this today; They go hungry once or twice every year. Others follow the custom of Luke mentioned, fasting one day every week. Others fast for three to five days every month. The practice of intermittent fasting takes different forms for different people. Usually these are just short fasts, but they always bring distinct benefits.
HUNGER STRIKES
Such hunger strikes have become very frequent over the past forty years. Probably the most famous of these were the hunger strikes protested by Gandhi and McSweeney and his political associates in Cork (Ireland) in 1920. Joseph Murphy, who began a hunger strike with McSweeney, died on the 68th day of fasting, McSweeney on the 74th day. Older readers will remember that a few years ago, when the suffragettes of England went on hunger strikes, they were force-fed, which was very painful, although at the same time there was much talk about them being allowed to starve to the point of exhaustion in prison. Since Gandhi began popularizing the practice, the number of men and women who have fasted in India, largely as a protest against some kind of oppression, numbers in the many thousands. In many cases, mass hunger strikes were carried out on a large scale. Most of them lasted only a few days, but in some cases they were declared “hunger strikes to death” until the goal was achieved. Until now, every hunger strike has been interrupted to death, usually due to persistent requests from relatives, friends, and doctors to stop it. One of the hunger strikes "to death" that did not go that far was carried out by the leader of the Workers' and Peasants' People's Party of India, Shibban Lal Saxena. Ramchandra Sharma carried out a forty-day hunger strike, and Swami Sitaram carried out a thirty-six day hunger strike. All these hunger strikes were in the nature of political strike hunger strikes.
Political hunger strikes are not complete without a humorous touch. On October 2, 1961, the media reported on Sikh leader Tara Singh's hunger strike demanding the creation of a separate Sikh state in Punjab, India. On the same day, the ascetic and religious leader Khojraj Survadev, aged seventy-six, began his hunger strike to protest the Sikh demands for their own staff. Both hunger strikes neutralized each other, although, clearly maintaining the status quo, Survadev won the contest. It must be admitted, however, that I think that a struggle of this kind is less burdensome for the people and involves less bloodshed than a traditional bloody revolution.
Gandhi's four hunger strikes were generally protests against British policies in India, although he sometimes went on hunger strikes to cleanse India because of mistakes it made. But he was well acquainted with the hygienic benefits of fasting and was aware of the literature on this subject. His longest fast lasted twenty-one days. In all parts of the world, many men and women went on hunger strikes for more or less long periods of time.
"EXHIBITIONIST" OR STUNK FASTING
There were people who were more or less professional starvationists and starved for the sake of show and money. They fasted in public and exacted payment from those watching their hunger strike. Such were, for example, Sacchi and Merlatgi in Italy, as well as Jaques. In 1890, Jaquez starved in London for 42 days and in 1891 in the same place for 50 days. In Edinburgh in 1880, he fasted for 30 days. Merlatgui fasted for 50 days in Paris in 1885, and Sacchi undertook several long fasts for the same purpose, ranging from 21 to 43 days. One of his hunger strikes was carefully analyzed by the famous Italian nutritionist Professor Luciani.
EXPERIMENTAL FASTING
There are probably more experimental fasts involving both men and women than we think. Several years ago, Professors Carlson and Kunde (University of Chicago) conducted several similar experiments. Their fasts were relatively short. Shortly before his death, Carlson conducted several experimental fasts with patients and had several short ones himself. A number of experimental fasts of long duration were carried out. Thus, professor of physiology Luigi Luciano (University of Rome) studied thirty-day fasting. The director of the Imperial Military Medical Academy in St. Petersburg, V. Pashutin, carried out a number of experiments on animals and studied deaths from exhaustion in humans, publishing the research results in the work “Physiology of Pathology in Exhaustion.” Several years ago, Dr. Francis J. Benedict (Carnegie Institute) published a book called "Depletion Metabolism."
Despite the careful observation of the progress of experimental fasting and the use of various tests and measurements, these experiments yielded very few results, because they were based on short-term fasting, the longest of which was seven days. The first few days of fasting are when the most severe anxiety is observed, so the results of these short fasts were very misleading or, as Professor Levanzin says, “that big book on which the Carnegie Institute spent six thousand dollars is not worth the paper on which it is printed.” . And Dr. Benedict's study of earlier experiments with fasting is devoted to fasting of healthy people, which may shed only a little light on the value of fasting in illness.
In 1912, Professor Agustino Levanzin (Malta) arrived in America to study by Professor Benedict Levanzin's own fast of thirty-one days. This fast began on April 13, 1912, with the hunger weighing “a little over 132 pounds, normal by Yale standards, and standing five feet six and a half inches.”
Levanzin believes that this is an important indicator during every fast. Professional fasters, like hibernating animals, typically overeat before they begin their fast and accumulate large amounts of fat and other reserves. He believes that thanks to this, long-term fasting, previously studied, occurred at the expense of fat, and not the whole body. He tried to get around this “mistake” by starting the fast at a “normal” body weight. In his opinion, the duration of fasting does not matter if it is not started at normal body weight. He believes that a person can lose sixty percent of his normal weight without any risk of death or harm to his body, since the largest part of the normal body weight is food surplus. “At the beginning of the fast, my exact weight was just over 60.6 kg. At the end of the thirty-one day fast I weighed barely 47.4 kg, i.e. lost 13.2 kg. During the fast, pulse, blood pressure, breathing rate and volume were measured, blood samples were taken, body measurements were taken, urine tests were performed, hair growth was checked, not to mention countless daily observations of my mental and physical state.”
FASTING IN CASES WHEN NUTRITION IS IMPOSSIBLE
There are pathological conditions when nutrition is impossible. Conditions such as stomach cancer, destruction of the stomach by acids, and other factors make it impossible to eat. People in these conditions often stop eating for long periods of time before finally dying. Several such cases will be discussed below in the text as our research progresses. In some cases of gastric neurosis, food is vomited immediately after ingestion, or it passes into the small intestine at a rate almost equal to its intake and leaves the body undigested. Such a patient, although he eats, is practically deprived of nutrition. And such a state can last for a long time.
STARVING OF SAILORS AND PASSENGERS DURING A SHIPWRECK
Shipwrecked sailors, as well as pilots who have fallen into the sea, in many cases are forced to live for a long time without food and often without water. Many endured long periods without food in the harsh conditions imposed by being at sea. Many similar cases during the last war were widely reported in the press.
BURIED MINERS
Often, in mine collapses, one or more miners are buried for a more or less long period of time, during which they are left without food and often without water. Their survival until they are rescued depends not on food, but on air. If their oxygen supply runs out before rescuers reach them, they die; otherwise, they survive without food. A buried miner is like an animal buried in a snowdrift for days and weeks. And he is able to live for a long time in such conditions and survive, like this animal.
FASTING IN ILLNESS
It has been established that fasting to alleviate human suffering has been practiced continuously for ten thousand years. There is no doubt that it has been used since the time man first became ill. Fasting was part of the healing method in the ancient temples of Aesculapius 1300 years before Jesus. The mythical Greek “father of medicine” Hippocrates, apparently prescribing complete abstinence from food when the “disease” is active and especially during its crisis period, in other cases a modest diet. Tertullian left us a treatise on fasting, written around 200 AD. e. Plutarch said: “Instead of taking medicine, fast for a day.” The great Arab physician Avicenna often recommended fasting for three weeks or more. I think, undoubtedly, man, like animals, always starved during acute illness. In later times, medicine taught the sick that they must eat to maintain strength and that if they did not eat, their resistance would decline and they would become weak. Behind all this is the idea that if the patient does not eat, he will surely die. But the truth is the opposite: the more he eats, the more likely he is to die. In the work “Nutrition for Strengthening,” the outstanding hygienist of the last century M.L. Holbrook wrote: "Fasting is not some clever trick of the clergy, but the most powerful and safest of all medicines." When animals are sick, they refuse to eat. Only after they have recovered, and not before, do they start eating. It is just as natural for a person to refuse food when sick, as animals do. His natural aversion to food is a reliable indicator to not eat. The patient's antipathies and dislikes, especially towards food, noise, movement, light, stuffy air, etc., cannot be ignored lightly. They express the protective measures of a sick organism.
HUNGER AND WAR
War and famine caused by drought, pests - insects, floods, snowstorms, earthquakes, frosts, snowfalls, etc., often deprived entire peoples of food for a long time, so that they were forced to starve. In all these cases they had limited food supplies, and in some cases there was no food at all for a long time. The ability of man to fast, even for a long time, turns out, like that of lower animals, to be an important means of survival under such circumstances. Such long periods of deprivation were more common in the past than they are today, when modern transportation and communications bring food to people in famine areas in a very short time.
FASTING WITH EMOTIONAL STRESS
Grief, excitement, anger, shock and other emotional irritations are almost as fraught with a decreased desire to eat and the practical impossibility of digesting food as pain, fever and severe inflammation. An excellent example of this is the case of a young woman from New York who, several years ago, attempted to drown herself and, after being rescued by two sailors, explained that when her lover, who had been in port for two days, did not call to meet her, she thought that she had been deceived . Her sailor friend, who was delayed on duty and unable to meet her, was allowed to visit her in the hospital. In particular, he asked her when she ate. And she answered: “I haven’t been able to eat anything since yesterday, Bill.” Her suffering and sense of loss led to a cessation of digestive secretions and a loss of desire to eat.
FASTING IN MENTAL PATIENTS
Mentally ill people usually exhibit a strong aversion to food, and unless they are force-fed, they often go for long periods of time without eating. In institutions where the mentally ill are housed and treated, patients are usually force-fed and often by very crude methods. This aversion to food in mentally ill patients is undoubtedly an instinctive urge, a movement in the right direction. In Natural Cure, Dr. Page gives a very interesting case of a patient who regained his mental health by fasting for forty-one days after other treatments had completely failed. A mentally ill young man who was under my supervision fasted for thirty-nine days and on the morning of the fortieth day he resumed eating, greatly improving his condition. I have used fasting for various types of mental disorders, and I have no doubt that it is an instinctive remedy designed to assist the body in its restorative work.
Hibernation in humans
It is said about possible hibernation in humans that it is “a condition absolutely inexplicable by any principle.” However, there are a certain number of people who exhibit a state close to hibernation during the winter. This is true for the Eskimos of northern Canada, for some tribes of northern Russia. By accumulating fat and hibernating like a bear, only to a much lesser extent, the Eskimos prove that humans have the ability to hibernate by keeping themselves warm by huddling together. And, moving little, during the long winter they make do with half their usual diet. With the onset of winter, the Eskimos wrap themselves in their fur clothing "parka", leaving only a small opening in it for certain physiological needs, and remain in their homes, eating dry salmon, sea crackers, flour cakes and water. By exhibiting little physical activity, they reduce their energy expenditure, thereby maintaining nutrient reserves in the body at a level at which there is no danger of harming themselves.
INSTINCTIVE FASTING
Fasting is the only one among all other means that can claim to be a natural method. This is undoubtedly the most ancient method of overcoming those crises in the body that are called “diseases.” It is much older than the human race itself, since sick and wounded animals instinctively resort to it. “The instinct to cure hunger,” Oswald writes, “is not limited to our silent animal friends. Our common experience is that pain, fever, gastric and even mental disorders discourage appetite, and only unreasonable nurses try to ignore the expediency of nature in this regard.” The doctrine of "total deprivation" is taught to instill distrust in the impulses of his natural instincts, and although it is slowly disappearing even from religion, it is still as strong as ever in medicine. Instinctive urges are ignored, and the sick are stuffed with “good nutritious food” in order to “keep them strong.” “There is a very common view,” writes Jennings, “that the aversion to food, which characterizes all cases of acute disease, and is directly proportional to the severity of its symptoms, is one of the failures of Nature, requiring skillful intervention and, therefore, force-feeding, regardless of the aversion to it. " Dr. Shew stated: “Abstinence from food is too often feared in the treatment of disease. We have good reason to believe that many lives have been ruined by the indiscriminate eating so often practiced among the sick.” In the human sphere, instinct prevails only to the extent that we allow it to.
Although one of the first things that Nature does to a person during an acute illness is the cessation of all desire for food and goodwill - the patient’s friends encourage him to eat. They bring him delicious tempting dishes to appease his palate and whet his appetite. But the most they can sometimes do is get him to eat a few bites. An ignorant doctor may insist that he eat “to maintain strength.” But Mother Nature, who is wiser than any doctor who ever lived, keeps saying, “Don’t eat.” A sick person who is not yet able to work complains of lack of appetite. He doesn't like food anymore. This is a consequence of the fact that his natural instincts know that to eat in this case in the usual way means to intensify the disease. A person usually believes that loss of appetite is a great disaster and strives to restore it. In this he is helped by a doctor and friends, who also mistakenly believe that the patient must eat to maintain strength. The doctor prescribes a tonic and feeds the patient and, of course, worsens his condition.
STARVING ABILITY AND SURVIVAL
From the above it is clear that fasting by man is practiced under as many different circumstances as by living beings of lower forms of life, and for many reasons of adaptation and survival. Fasting is an important part of human life until the present day, when we have a fetish and have developed a ridiculous fear of being deprived of food even for a day. It is quite obvious that the ability to go for long periods of time without food is just as important as a means of survival under many conditions of human life as in lower animals. It is likely that primitive man was forced, even more often than modern man, to rely on this ability to survive periods of food shortage. In acute illness, in particular, the ability to go a long time without food is very important for man, since he apparently suffers from disease much more than lower animals. In this state, when, as will be shown below, there is no strength to digest and assimilate food, he is forced to rely on his internal reserves, which, like lower forms of life, stores within himself nutritional reserves that can be used in an emergency or when absence of new substances.
| | | Hunger is a problem. Hunger is a punishment.For people who know that God exists and that He, and not chance, rules the world, hunger is a sign of God’s wrath. People must be ossified in some very wrong way of thinking and acting, so that at some point it will be said: “Behold, the Lord, the Lord of hosts, will take away from Judah the staff and the reed, all the strength of bread and all the strength of water” (Isa. 3:1 ).
If people make walls out of their pride and hide behind them from the face of God, if people make God an enemy for themselves and laugh at His words, then hunger will become a battering weapon from which the god-fighting walls will fall. It is said about this: “If after this you do not correct yourself and go against Me, then I will also go against you and strike you seven times for your sins. The bread that sustains a man I will destroy from you...” (Lev. 26:23-25).
Is it worth rummaging through recent archives, remembering the besieged Leningrad, the artificial famine in Ukraine and the Volga region, in order to develop this topic? Isn’t it clear that whether it is a natural famine, born of the earth’s refusal to give birth, or an artificial famine, born of an evil human will, we are dealing with trouble - with great trouble and, most likely, with punishment.
But there is also a special kind of hunger. The prophet says about him: “Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord God, when I will send a famine on the earth—not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but a thirst for hearing the words of the Lord. And they will walk from sea to sea, and wander from north to east, seeking the word of the Lord, and will not find it” (Amos 8:11-12).
For us, “born in the USSR,” it is easier to understand these words as having been fulfilled in our recent past.
Our Motherland is amazing. If you love her, then (Lermontov is right) - “strange love.” My whole Motherland is made of paradoxes, everything is above logic or below it.
The country that won and eradicated illiteracy, the country that put all its citizens behind desks, stood in lines for bread in the days of war and for books in the days of peace, this country took the Bible from its citizens who could read. And people really wandered in search of Living Words. And people went to prison for reading and possessing the Book. And they copied the Book by hand, unwittingly turning into the kings of Israel, to whom the Law charged them with the duty of rewriting the Torah and learning from it.
Who among the older generation does not remember that caustic literary garbage called “Funny Bible”, “Funny Bible”, etc.? “Over there,” in the West, such characters as Shaw or Twain tried to make the Lord “the talk of the sharp and poisonous tongues.” In our graceless field, smaller workers sweated profusely. But the lack of talent was made up for by government orders, and these vile little books collected dust on many shelves.
And this is how the hunger for hearing the words of the Lord can be connected with the era of public printed ridicule of the Lord God!
One day I read in the Journal Hall a scholarly discussion about the possibility or impossibility, appropriateness or inappropriateness for a scientist to be a believer. Scientists, as usual, sometimes talk about nothing, sometimes so cleverly and subtly “about their own” that no one understands. And the brightest sparks are struck not from cool reasoning, but from an argument between two people, one of whom clearly does not believe, and the other truly believes. M. Gasparov, expressing his learned “not credo,” take and inappropriately touch upon the sacrament of the Eucharist. And then I hear a woman’s voice in response. On a high note of concern, with good knowledge of the topic and in beautiful language, the venerable scientist was pointed out his place in those issues where faith is involved, which Gasparov, unlike colossal knowledge, does not have. I'm looking for the author's name - I.B. Rodnyanskaya, literary critic. By the way, I. and B. stand for Irina Bentsionovna. Eh, I would give that article to any anti-Semite, from home-grown to ideological, to read. Look, some little head would have cooled down.
And Irina Bentsionovna writes there (God save her), among other things, about how she taught Gogol’s correspondence with Belinsky according to the program. About how, among the usual phrases of criticism about the rightness of Vissarion and his victory over Gogol, she for the first time felt the sweetness of the name of Jesus and vaguely felt that in Him was the Truth.
She also writes about how one old and seasoned priest told her about homemade “prayer books” of the Soviet era. These were more quotation books than prayer books, and they consisted of carefully cut out sacred quotations, for the sake of laughter and criticism placed in atheistic little books, in which the atheist laughed with sick proletarian laughter at the creation of the world, at the rites of the book of Leviticus, at the Immaculate Conception, at the feeding of the five thousand five loaves. He laughed and... gave quotes. It was these quotes that the believers carefully cut out and made small books out of them.
This is what many people had to go through, what they had to change their minds and re-evaluate, what doubts they had to overcome, what sighs they had to exhaust their chests in order to get through the red era and preserve the faith!
Here is a clear picture for you, here is a drop of blood taken to analyze the era of “the famine of hearing the words of the Lord.” Here is a small touch, small, like an iota or a line in the Law, upon examination of which much becomes clear.
The people survived, enduring various hunger strikes, and finally entered an era rich in everything, including access to information.
Here we gradually approach the topic of hunger not as a punishment, but as a sign of health. A sick body turns away from food. A healthy person wants to eat. In this sense, we understand the command of Christ about the daughter of Jairus healed by Him: “She immediately stood up, and He ordered to give her something to eat"(Luke 8:55). This means that the girl is not only alive, but also healthy.
If a healthy body wants food, then a healthy soul wants the word of God, remembering that You can't live on bread alone(See: Matthew 4:4).
Our Bible was returned to us today. But now we don't want it. It lies on many people’s shelves, like a rusty weapon from a drunken deserter, and rarely do human fingers carefully touch it.
It is worth repeating a few thoughts, otherwise there is a risk of confusion.
Man lives in two ways and from two types of bread - earthly and heavenly. Any hunger is terrible - both the hunger of bread and the hunger of Divine words. Both lead to cannibalism. Not at all figurative, but very real. The book of Leviticus says so: “You will eat the flesh of your sons, and the flesh of your daughters you will eat” (Lev. 26:29).
Our history is so full of evidence - photographs, documents, eyewitness accounts, that to indulge in evidence is a waste of words.
Our people “during this time” turned away from healthy food (we won’t go into the reasons here) and wanted to eat only cakes, which a bright future will bake for them. As a result, I had to mix the bread for a long time, either with sawdust, or with pine needles, or with bran. Moreover, this applies to “both breads” (see above about quotation books cut from books on atheistic propaganda).
Now we have food on the table and the Bible on the coffee table. It’s time to be hungry for the word of God and read it, read it, committing it by heart, making extracts and notes, searching for meaning, filling the emptiness of your heart. Like the ancient fathers of the Sinai, Palestine and other deserts, when we meet, we need to share words about what we have read, what we have penetrated, what we have felt from the Divine Scriptures. This is healthy hunger, that is, hunger that indicates the health of the soul. And this hunger is not a punishment, but a blessing.
If heavenly bread and pure milk of words are not loved and in demand, then only religious fast food will be eaten, namely: the pursuit of miracles, unraveling worldwide conspiracies and “eschatological paranoia.”
What practically can you offer? You came to visit me, and before I seat you at the table, I say: “Let’s read five psalms from the Psalter.”
You and I met on the street, and immediately after shaking hands you tell me where the Messianic prophecies are contained in the book of Job.
Well, of course, we will never leave the church without taking with us in our memory either the explained word of the Lord or a remembered apostolic expression.
What do you think of these practical examples?
“If this is in us and increases, then we will not remain without success and fruit in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ” (see: 2 Pet. 1: 8).
If we don’t have this in us, and even worse, we don’t want it and we’re not interested in it, then I don’t know what to say.
If the Sweetest Jesus is not sweet to the people and the heavenly bread is not tasty to the people, then who knows whether we will soon disappear like vapor, and whether a random passer-by will say: “People once lived here.”
And if parents can often be told: “Take away the chewing gum and chocolate bars from the children. Teach them to feel the taste of simple bread,” then it is also worth reminding everyone on whom it depends: “Teach the people to God’s word. The people are destroyed without the word of God.”
The last one seems to be a direct quote from Dostoevsky.
The Seven Deadly Sins, or Psychology of Vice [for believers and non-believers] Shcherbatykh Yuri Viktorovich
Therapeutic fasting
Therapeutic fasting
The look of one woman at another is reminiscent of baggage control at customs.
Yanina Ipohorskaya
Therapeutic fasting is widely used in various health systems - both classical and “traditional” medicine. It is used both in the treatment of various diseases and for hygienic purposes - to preserve health, prolong life and prevent obesity.
As noted by the famous abstinence promoter Paul Bragg, fasting under reasonable supervision or deep knowledge is the safest path to achieving health ever known to mankind. Temporary deprivation of food puts the body in such conditions when all its vital force is used to cleanse and heal a person. Fasting helps the body help itself, increases the performance of internal organs, and restores the internal adjustment of self-regulation systems. In addition, fasting promotes the release from the body of inorganic chemical poisons and other accumulations that cannot be removed by any other ways or means. According to Bragg, fasting sharpens and strengthens mental abilities. It improves the mechanisms of digestion, absorption and excretion of food. The liver, known as the chemical laboratory of the human body, changes during fasting to increase vitality and functions more efficiently after fasting. The personal experience of Bragg and his followers shows that after fasting, food is better absorbed, endurance and muscle strength increase, and the mind becomes more receptive to new knowledge. Fasting brings self-confidence, gives a person a positive mental attitude, brings peace of mind and a desire for body activity, which cannot be achieved by any method of drug therapy.
Bragg wrote: “With a complete knowledge of fasting and its rules, you can get rid of the fear of premature old age. By doing a weekly 24-hour fast, which is 52 days a year, cleansing your body and finally doing three 7-10 day fasts every year, you will be able to remove all the unnecessary deposits and waste from your joints and muscles. Fast for 4 days, drinking only distilled water. Pay attention to the tone of your muscles, skin and the fact that your body will look thinner and younger. Body lines become natural, fullness disappears, and you see your natural figure again. You will hardly believe your eyes, the amazing change that occurs during hunger. The powerful vital force that was spent on processing food is now used to remove waste, waste, poisons that accumulate in the cells and organs of the body, and thus each of the millions of cells of our body is rejuvenated.”
Bragg believed that fasting was a natural process that our ancestors went through from time to time (out of necessity). Accordingly, the human body has adapted to periodic abstinence from food and reacts positively to it. According to Bragg, abundant and regular eating is unnatural and harmful, and a person must consciously take breaks from eating if he wants to keep his body clean and healthy. In his famous book, The Miracle of Fasting, he wrote: “Fasting is a natural instinct. Illness is nature's natural way of indicating that you are filled with toxic waste and internal poison. By fasting, you help nature remove toxins and poisons accumulated in the body. Any wild animal knows this. Fasting is the only way that helps him overcome physical suffering. This is a purely animal instinct. We humans have lived in a comfortable civilization for so long that we have lost this instinct when suffering takes over our body. When we feel physically unwell, we don't feel like eating. Food even repels you, but “caring” relatives and friends force you to eat in order to maintain strength to fight the disease. Nature wants to make you starve, because only if you are hungry will it be able to cleanse your body using your own life force. But Mother Nature’s soft voice is not easy to hear and understand.”
Bragg himself lived to be more than 90 years old and maintained mental clarity and muscle strength until the end of his life.
The fact is that the organisms of different people can differ quite greatly in gender, age, metabolic level, hormonal and vegetative status, etc. As one of the leaders of the Doctor Bormental center, Candidate of Medical Sciences M. A. Gavrilov notes, The energy requirement of young people is 1.5–2 times higher than the energy consumption of older people. Accordingly, if a 70-year-old person can normally endure a week-long fast, then for a 20-year-old person such an experience can negatively affect his health.
As a physiologist, I will add that there is also such a thing as vegetative status. If a person has a predominant activity of the parasympathetic system (he is a vagotonic), then he will easily endure fasting, but sympathicotonic people require an increased amount of energy, and its reserves are small. Accordingly, fasting can do them more harm than good. In addition, therapeutic fasting has many medical contraindications, in the presence of which it is not used. These are malignant neoplasms, tuberculosis, thyrotoxicosis, hepatitis, chronic renal failure, persistent disturbances of heart rhythm and conductivity, periods of pregnancy or lactation and, of course, severe body weight deficiency. In general, the author’s opinion is probably clear - it is better to fight gluttony under the guidance of experienced specialists - doctors and psychologists. Then victory over this sin is guaranteed to you!
This text is an introductory fragment. From the book The Autistic Child. Ways to help author Baenskaya Elena RostislavovnaTherapeutic education Since the 70s, experts are increasingly inclined to believe that the main treatment for an autistic child is educational treatment. We would, however, like to clarify this formulation. The fact is that it is not enough to simply teach such a child: we know that even
From the book The Psychology of Deception [How, why and why even honest people lie] by Ford Charles W.Therapeutic effect on children's lies All children lie. How do parents deal with “ordinary lies”? When is it time to seek help against persistent lies? Not a single question can be answered unambiguously. There are a huge number of cultural norms and styles in the world
author Shcherbatykh Yuri Viktorovich From the book How to Stay Young and Live Long author Shcherbatykh Yuri Viktorovich From the book Forensic Medicine and Psychiatry: Cheat Sheet author author unknown18. OXYGEN STARVATION In forensic medical practice, much attention is paid to the diagnosis and study of health disorders, as well as death and changes that occur as a result of oxygen starvation. Oxygen starvation (hypoxia) is
From the book The Scum in Your Head. Get rid of the devourer of your happiness! author Harris Daniel BenjaminOxygen starvation According to the Nielsen ratings, 5,019,000 people saw me go crazy on June 7, 2004 on Good Morning America. I was wearing my favorite black tie with silver stripes and a thick layer of makeup. At the request of my superiors, I replaced
From the book Intelligence: instructions for use author Sheremetyev KonstantinGoltis and long-term fasting One of the most famous records of Goltis is his 54-day fast. In medicine, it is believed that a person can live no more than a month without food. But Goltis overcame the mortal limit. Only the experience of fasting showed an amazing result. Until 17 days
From the book Dialogue with Readers author Lazarev Sergey NikolaevichNUTRITION AND FASTING How to fast properly? Is it necessary to completely exclude all food, I can’t stand it. - We need to understand why we are starving. If we starve in order to renounce all aspects of humanity, then the most optimal, from my point of view, is before
author Anokhin Petr Kuzmich From the book Problems of therapeutic fasting. Clinical and experimental studies [all four parts!] author Anokhin Petr Kuzmich From the book Problems of therapeutic fasting. Clinical and experimental studies [all four parts!] author Anokhin Petr KuzmichThe ancient Egyptians, according to the ancient Greek historian Herodotus (425 BC), believed that the basis was systematic (three days a month) fasting and cleansing of the stomach with emetic and clyster. And the Egyptians, he noted, are the healthiest of mortals. There is also evidence that the ancient Egyptians successfully treated syphilis with dry fasting. Looking ahead, let's say that in the 19th century, or more precisely in 1882, during the occupation of Egypt, the French recorded numerous cases of getting rid of this disease in this very way.
As you yourself understand, if people had not known the cleansing and healing value of dry fasting for a long time, they would not have insisted on fasting in all cultures and religions with such tenacity. The therapeutic value of meaningful fasting for human life has always been masked by its religious significance. And what, strictly speaking, is surprising in the fact that nature knows its benefits better than man? If you ever take a course of therapeutic dry fasting, then you yourself will understand how the doors will open for you into a closed society purified by nature. Yes, all people are externally equal, they all have two arms, two legs and a head. However, just as outwardly identical bottles can contain excellent wine in one and vinegar in another, so the inner content of people is fundamentally different. Some people's quality is clearly more valuable and seasoned than others, especially as they age.
The Old Testament, called the Tanakh in Jewish literature, reports fasting 75 times. in Exodus, the second book of the Old Testament and the Jewish Pentateuch, it is said that Moses, before receiving the Ten Commandments from God, fasted on Mount Sinai for 40 days and nights (Exodus 34:28), and only then did God honor Moses' attention. The Bible also mentions fasting. So, Moses starved without water on the mountain for 40 days, and more than once. After fasting, “his face began to shine with rays,” so that “they were afraid to approach him.” After such prevention, Christ discovered supernatural abilities. Buddha starved for 40 days, Muhammad starved for 40 days. and nothing happened, it was only good. the reward is a connection with heaven, a conversation directly with God. But our medicine still does not want to take this into account. You clean and wash the dishes, why don’t you want to give your body the same opportunity? If diseases attack us, then there must be a natural, natural way of getting rid of it. Every force must have a counteracting force. In times of danger or public disaster, it was customary and considered a religious obligation for the Jews to fast, that is, to abstain from food and water, to pray and make sacrifices. Fasts were observed by Jews with particular strictness and were distinguished not only by abstinence from food, but even from all other sensory needs. Thus, the word “fast” means “prohibition.” in our sense, it means refusing to eat any food for a certain period of time. There was no question of any lean food during this period of time. Eating lean food during the period of fasting is a gross violation and distortion of this concept.
Fasting was an essential part of Judaism. One entire treatise from the 64 volumes of the Jewish Talmud, “Megillat Taamit,” which translates as “Scroll on Fasting,” is devoted exclusively to fasting. This treatise examines in detail the approximately 25 days during which Jews are required to fast. When danger approached the people, the Sanhedrin of the Elders of Zion had the power to impose a general famine to seek salvation. These mass fasts usually lasted several days, up to a week. Until now, Orthodox Jews, celebrating the days of tragic events in Jewish history, do not drink alcohol at all, but they always fast. All modern religious Jews fast on Judaism's holiest day, Yom Kippur, a day of atonement that occurs at the end of September when they do not eat or drink for 24 hours.
In Christianity, everyone knows the legend that Jesus Christ, like Moses, before he began preaching God’s message, went into the desert and did not eat or drink for 40 days and nights. Jesus Christ did this fasting in full accordance with the laws of Judaism, to which he himself belonged by birth and within the framework of which he was raised. In those days, fasting was of great importance in the life of the country of Judea, and members of the Pharisees' party regularly fasted for two days every week. It was at the end of his 40-day fast that Jesus Christ said:
“Man does not live by bread alone, but by what the Lord God speaks to him” (Gospel of Matthew 4:4), thereby, like Moses, confirming with his personal experience that the Lord God himself begins to speak to the hungry.
In Russia in the Middle Ages, fasting was widely practiced in monasteries. in those days, as we have already said, fasting most often meant complete abstinence from food, and often from water. in the 14th century, so-called deserts appeared in Rus', many of which later turned into monasteries. Peasants settled around them, especially north of Moscow, away from danger from the Tatars. Contemporaries of Sergius of Radonezh described how he very often went hungry himself and encouraged the monks to fast, but they were strong in body and strong in spirit.
But at the same time, reasonable fasting without extremes does not harm a healthy person. Here we can recall examples from the Holy Scriptures (at least three youths who, eating only vegetables in Babylonian captivity, were stronger and healthier than their peers who ate meat), but even more striking are examples from the lives of holy ascetics of the Orthodox Church, which truly showed the whole world that the flesh can be subjected to the spirit.
Rev. During Lent, Macarius of Alexandria ate (bread and vegetables) only once a week. He lived 100 years. Rev. Simeon the Stylite ate nothing at all during Lent. Lived 103 years. Rev. Anthimus also did not eat anything during the entire Holy Pentecost, and lived even longer - 110 years.
However, in general, in the Christian environment, fasting has degenerated into a kind of self-sacrifice, suitable only and only for special people - monks, and which, they say, is not necessary for an ordinary person. It turned out that in Christianity some “professionals” were tasked with atonement for the sins of others, while the rest could relax without looking back. This purposeful policy, that, they say, there are special people who will atone for their sins and, of course, will not be free of charge, will be forgiven, and has led the Christian world to complete decay. A reminder of the once serious attitude towards fasting among Christians is the period of Lent, when Christian believers adhere to certain food restrictions, having previously eaten a ton of pancakes at Maslenitsa.
Muslims strictly observe a month-long fast - Ramadan. During this month, all Muslims strictly do not eat or drink from dawn to sunset. The beginning and end of Ramadan are major public holidays. Ramadan is so serious that people who are unable to observe it due to illness or pregnancy must observe Ramadan later, that is, repay the debt. Strictly speaking, during the hours of Ramadan nothing should enter the gastrointestinal tract - you should not even swallow saliva. Private Muslim canteens and restaurants are open but empty during Ramadan. However, after sunset, Muslims consume modest foods such as beans, spiced lentil soup and dates. Therefore, during this month, shops where Muslims sell are filled with dates. Muslims believe that fasting helps a person avoid sin. Therefore, the Prophet Muhammad believed that a true Muslim should abstain from eating two days every week (just like the Pharisees).
American researchers have indirectly confirmed the benefits of Muslim fasting. They were able to uncover a cellular mechanism that explains the connection between fasting and lifespan in humans and other mammals. Islam prescribes abstaining from food and liquids during daylight hours during the month of Ramadan. Scientists David Sinclair and his colleagues found that during fasting, the SIRT3 and SIRT4 genes are activated, which prolong the life of cells. Perhaps this information can be used to create drugs for diseases associated with aging.
In the old days, people in Rus' knew well what fasting was. Nowadays, this concept has been lost or greatly distorted, and now many people do not understand the essence of Orthodox fasting, reducing it to simple abstinence from certain types of food. And there are those who confuse the concept of fasting and dieting or even fasting. Various books by modern authors, in which completely incompatible concepts are mixed, play a significant role in this. Thus, at the scientific conference “Traditional Medicine and Nutrition” in 1994, a report was read out “The importance of short-term fasts for the treatment of colds” - obviously an incorrect use of the word “fast”, which has become fashionable. Let's try to figure out what fasting and therapeutic fasting are.
In medicine there is the concept of “therapeutic fasting”. This is a non-drug method of treating certain diseases, which is possible only with the participation of a specialist. Fasting for medicinal purposes has been known since ancient times; Pythagoras, Socrates, Hippocrates and Avicenna resorted to it. In the Middle Ages, the idea of fasting was supported by Paracelsus and F. Hoffman. In Russia, the ideas of therapeutic fasting were developed in the middle of the 17th century. At the beginning of the twentieth century. The founder of this method was the student S.V. Botkin Professor V.V. Pashutin.
Since the 1940s in practice, the method of fasting-dietary therapy of Professor Yu.S. Nikolaev was successfully used (he introduced the term RDT). According to this technique, which is still popular today, neuropsychiatric diseases, alcoholism, asthma, hypertension, and patients with drug intolerance are treated. According to Yu.S. Nikolaev himself, RDT is “not a specific method for any disease or group of diseases. This is a general strengthening method that mobilizes the body’s defenses, and therefore has a wide range of indications.” But in this author’s book one can again observe a confusion of the concepts of fasting and therapeutic fasting (dietary nutrition). He further writes: “In Russia in the Middle Ages, fasting was widely practiced in monasteries... Sergius of Radonezh very often went hungry himself. ...Fasting, in essence, was an expression of folk wisdom; the need for periodic cleansing of the body, prompted by instinct, helped to maintain health.” One can only guess how they “maintained health” and “cleansed the body” in Rus' before the adoption of Christianity with its system of fasting? In addition, Nikolaev’s system is not exactly a scientific method, it is rather naturopathy, calling for a return to “nature”, giving preference to natural food that has not undergone chemical treatment, seeing the cause of disease in “departure from nature and violation of its laws.” This is already quite far from the Orthodox doctrine, especially from the Orthodox concept of fasting.
Medical therapeutic fasting can be complete (“wet”) and absolute (“dry”); partial (“malnutrition”) has no therapeutic value. The most common and studied method is complete (“wet”) fasting. “Dry” fasting, without drinking water, is carried out less frequently and is limited in duration. Therapeutic fasting has its limits. Thus, the loss of body weight should not be more than 20–25%, the period of fasting should not exceed 40 days, the extreme age of fasting people should be from 17 to 60 years. With RDT, the body's excretory systems are activated, and regular cleansing procedures ensure the removal of toxins. Changes occur in metabolism, and “internal reserves” begin to be used up. One of the most important conditions of RDT is the correct “exit from fasting”, i.e. strictly gradual restorative nutrition. There are contraindications for performing RDT, so doing “amateur activities” is unacceptable here.
As we can see, the RDT technique is scientifically based and is carried out in specialized clinics under the supervision of specialists. However, there are also various proprietary methods, of which the systems of healing and fasting by P. Bragg, G. S. Shatalova and G. P. Malakhov are the most famous.
Paul S. Bragg - American physician (1881–1970). He attached the main importance to human health to therapeutic fasting and proper nutrition. We published his book “The Miracle of Fasting”, which had a wide resonance. Bragg considered a vegetarian-oriented diet to be optimal for human health, the basis of which is vegetables and fruits, the consumption of meat and eggs is limited, sausages and canned food are not recommended - anything that contains food colorings and preservatives. Sugar is replaced with honey and juices, salt is completely excluded from the diet. For some diseases, Bragg recommends daily - 24-hour - complete abstinence from food, once every three months fasting for 3 days, once a year - 7-10 days.
From a medical point of view, the P. Bragg system contains many controversial issues. The short fasts recommended by him do not lead to a restructuring of the body to internal nutrition and cannot have a therapeutic effect, rather promoting simple “rest” of the gastrointestinal tract. He also paid insufficient attention to cleansing the body during fasting and the correct “exit” from it. And in general, the Bragg system is practically inapplicable in our conditions of a limited labor regime, a limited choice of plant foods and a high content of toxins in it.
You can also see in P. Bragg’s system many points that do not correspond to the Orthodox faith. In his “commandments” and “moral guidelines” he reveals a worldview that is alien to Orthodoxy in spirit. Thus, someone who wants to cleanse the body must: “... honor your body as the greatest manifestation of life... devote years of dedicated and selfless service to your health... keep your thoughts, words and emotions pure, calm and sublime.” During fasting, Bragg recommends moving away from everyone, shutting yourself off from the outside world, and not telling anyone about your abstinence in order to “avoid the influence of other people’s negative thoughts.” P. Bragg himself, in the preface to his book, says that he speaks in it “as a teacher, not a doctor.” There is a call to “follow the natural laws of life,” i.e. Nature is elevated to a cult. Bragg insists on the need to “cultivate positive thoughts... Consider your thoughts as real power. Through fasting, you can create the person you would like to be" (The Miracle of Fasting). This can already be attributed to visualization techniques, and the author himself can be blamed for the fact that he goes beyond the scope of popular scientific work on physical health and claims to have some kind of control over the consciousness of readers, imposing on them various mystical views. The book talks about a certain “life force”, and the main concern of the starving man is the extension of human life. However, in Orthodoxy, the cause of death is not a violation of the laws of nature, but sin - a violation of a person’s connection with his Creator. Confusing the concepts of diet, fasting and fasting, P. Bragg gives the example of “therapeutic fasting” of Moses, David and Christ Himself, which, of course, comes from his complete misunderstanding of the essence of fasting as an ascetic feat. We also know that the life force for a Christian is Divine grace (Acts 17:28), which does not depend on the properties of the food eaten. A Christian does not elevate the health of the body into a cult, which is what P. Bragg does; we remember that the body does not exist for food, but food for the body. Thus, we can conclude that P. Bragg’s system is inherently not acceptable for an Orthodox person.
Another author of the popular method of healing the body using fasting and diets is Galina Sergeevna Shatalova (born in 1916), candidate of medical sciences. There is already an appeal to “solar energy products”. It is proposed to completely exclude meat and dairy products from the diet (meat is considered a source of troubles, such as acceleration in children, and milk is completely harmful to health; after 3 years the body no longer needs it), eat vegetables, herbs, and fruits collected in season. It is advisable to use those fruits that grew “in your climate zone.” However, WHO experts have established that a person needs animal protein in an amount of at least 1 g per 1 kg, otherwise undesirable changes begin in the body. G.S. Shatalova also recommends “chewing food at least 50 times,” “do not mix plant and animal foods,” “do not reheat cooled food,” and do not use frying pans and pressure cookers.
If you take a closer look at this system, you can find here the same anti-Christian elements of the deification of nature that are present in Bragg’s systems and Nikolaev’s reasoning. According to G.S. Shatalova, her system is based on “the indissoluble unity of man and the nature of the Earth, the Universe as a whole. The idea of a rational beginning of Nature was expressed in ancient times." According to Shatalova herself, her system is based on Eastern teachings about human health (including yoga, qigong) and the experience of “traditional healers” (for example, P. Ivanov), i.e. far from traditional medicine. The disease, according to Shatalova, is a violation of the “man-nature” connection, and its treatment, accordingly, will consist in restoring this connection. Fasting is recommended as an integral part of a specific (i.e. separate) diet. The first place in the system of natural healing is “achieving a positive mental attitude.” The system itself is openly declared as “a transition to a different way of life, life in unity and harmony with nature and oneself.”
Another popular technique in our country is the “separate nutrition” technique, popularized by the American physician Herbert Shelton (1895–1985). He wrote the book “Orthotrophy. Basics of proper nutrition”, in which he outlined his views on the problem of proper human diet. However, upon closer examination, it turns out that this system is erroneous and is based on ignorance of the processes of digestion. Thus, it is assumed that the digestion of proteins occurs in the acidic environment of the stomach, and carbohydrates in an alkaline environment, greens and fruits are digested in any environment and are “compatible” with everything. But these ideas are wrong! In the stomach, food, firstly, is mixed under the influence of peristalsis, and secondly, digestion occurs in the small intestine, where the environment is alkaline, while in the stomach only the preparation of proteins for this process takes place. Another important point should also be taken into account - there are no “mono-products”, i.e. proteins and carbohydrates in their pure form, these include only salt, sugar and butter, the rest consist of a harmonious mixture of different substances. Thus, Shelton's statements are untenable from a medical point of view. The separate nutrition system has two disadvantages: psychological discomfort (fear of eating something “wrong”) and a restructuring of enzyme production (with systematic adherence to the system), so that at a certain time only certain enzymes are produced to digest protein or carbohydrate foods. A failure in nutrition can lead to very serious consequences and threaten a person’s life. The Shelton system was developed in the southern states of the United States, where the diet of the inhabitants was overloaded with meat products, so that this led to serious digestive problems. However, in Russia, meat consumption is much lower (approx. 62 kg per year versus 180 kg). Instead of separate meals, it is enough to reduce the level of protein consumption to 100 g per day.
Encyclopedia of rituals and customs.
Medical and hygienic aspects of nutrition during fasting (meat.ru).
Yu.S.Nikolaev, E.I.Nilov, V.G.Cherkasov. Fasting for health. - M., 1988.
Therapeutic fasting. Methodological recommendations for doctors (lenmed.spb.ru).
Yu.N. Kudryavtsev, Candidate of Medical Sciences. Critical analysis of the P. Bragg method (abgym.ru).
P.Bragg. The miracle of fasting (lib.ru).
“The miracle of fasting” as the eighth wonder of the world (tvplus.dn.ua).
St. John of Damascus. An accurate exposition of the Orthodox faith. - M., 2002.