INTERESTING LECTURE

Manawatu Standard, Volume LV, Issue 90, 14 March 1935, Page 2

INTERESTING LECTURE

BY DR ULRIC WILLIAMS. PR.OBLEAI OF HUMAN SUFFERING _On Sunday evening last, at the Thoosopldeal Society’s Hall, Dr. Ulric AVilliams delivered a most interesting address, “New Light on tho Problem of Human Suffering.” The audience was too great for tho capacity of the J building, the nature of the speaker’s ■ subject being sufficient in itself to awaken considerable interest in the lecture. Dr AVilliams, in the course of his address, said: “Such understanding as I now claim is the result of 18 months intensive study. Knowledge has come by every known channel, by reading, ! by talking, by discussion, bv practice, and by prayer; and to condense what I have been taught into the short space of an hour’s talk is a task that may well prove beyond anyone’s powers. AA 7 hat I want to try to bring before you is this: that almost all disease is immediately preventable; that practically all the knowledge necessary is in our hands now; and that the require- ; incuts.are so simple that a child could fulfil them. It was not until, in my own case, I had made a spiritual change—what is called in the churches conversion—that the truth began to dawn upon me. By conversion 1 mean turning from my way of living to God’s way. I had boon brought up in tho orthodox medical school, had been satisfied with, and oven proud of, the methods 1 had been taught, and up to 18 months ago had seen no particular reason to doubt their efficacy - . Therefore I make public acknowledgment that it is by the grace of God alone that I am able to stand here before you. It shows what the Spirit of God can do, by taking hold of a useless and wasted life, to make it something which may be said to hold out some promise. I began to ask myself, as dissatisfaction with the existing conditions and methods increased,'certain questions. For instance, why is it, if doctors can cure disease, should there be such widespread sickness and suffering? And why do so many people who lead quite beautiful lives spiritually suffer grievously from disease? 1 think 1 can answer both ‘these questions. There is a third; what is the meaning of personal suffering—and I think 1 can, partly at least, answer that- too. Faced with these three questions, to which I could then find no satisfactory answer, 1 did what 1 had been taught to do, and what 1 had since found increasingly effective, 1 inquired of the spirit of Truth. I asked in prayer of God to show me what is the real cause of disease, and what His method of dealing with it would be. The answer came—l find it generally does —in ways quite different from what I had expected. I expected to be shown healing on the lines of what is commonly understood as Faith Healing. In my early idealism that seemed to me the form of healing that people with spiritual understanding ought to be practising. I can see more and more clearly the extent to which the Spirit would be defeating His own ends if He consented to relieve people of their uncomfortable symptoms without taking any precaution to prevent their continuing to do the ignorant or vicious tilings that were causing them. So it didn’t come that way. The first tiling that came, and I failed lo recognise it, was information of many kinds and from many quarters, on diet. For three months I rejected the information as the rankest quackery. Many of ray colleagues are still doing the same. But the Spirit had a purpose to achieve; and no one has ever yet prevented the Spirit from achieving His purpose; and when 1 rejected one method, another was'tried. A book came into my hands by Upton Sinclair, containing accounts of his own and many other people’s recovery from so called incurable complaints, through fasting. This was the means used to concentrate my attention on the fact that diet, and evidently fasting also, had some important part to play in the problem of disease. If diet is concerned with health, and if fasting ever results in recovery from disease, then wrong feeding must be a fertile cause of sickness. It must be obvious to everybody, that wrong habits of living, wrong sex habits, etc., have much to do with spoiling health ; and the part played by wrong thinking began to loom more and more prominently in my consciousness until I was led to define the cause of sickness under three headings; and 1 tliinx it will be found on close study that no matter what the symptoms may be, the cause can nearly always be traced to one or more of three causes. These are wrong thinking, wrong feeding, wrong habits. “To begin with feeding. I don’t think many will quarrel with the statement that right feeding consists of moderation and wise choice. AA’ise choice consists in using the foods nature has provided for human use as nearly as possible in the form in which they occur. AVrong feeding consists in the immoderate abuse of .denatured and adulterated substitutes. Surely the body must he built up of the foods we'put into it; so that if we are guiity of building it from immoderate quantities of unsuitable foods, we can j liardlv blame the Designer, the Great Architect, should His glorious plan prove defective in its consummation. As with the body, so with the mipd. Just as. the body consists of the things we put into it, so is the mind built up of the thoughts we allow, and if we admit into our minds thoughts of fear worry, anxiety, hate, resentment, self-pity, greed, disease, weakness, pessimism, or cruelty, we can baldly expect to have an effective mind. And how many people’s minds are compounded of just some such mixtuie. And how many people’s nnnds are negative, destructive influences. l)estractive not of mind only, but through the functioning of the sympathetic nervous system and internal secreting glands, destructive of the body also. Tho emotions definitely influence the body and cause ' actual physical changes; and many diseases such as some goitres, diabetes, high blood pressure, with accompanying brain, cardiac and renal disease, rheumatoid arthritis, and very many others, have their roots deep in processes or thought. AVhatever is in our mind will grow. Negative breeds negative to destruction. Right thinking will grow to fruition. AVrong tlnnking will grow equally inevitably to fruition. AVhile I mention such effects, the way to deal with negative thought is not to fight it, and so wear oneself out in futile attempts to exclude it. No. The only wav to prevent the entry of these foul influences is so to keep the mind filled at all rimes with positive thoughts, of courage, cheerfulness, joy. peace, gentleness, kindliness, unselfishness, generosity, health, strength, confidence and love, that there is no room for their opposites, and love is the highest of them all. Should you find that without touch with the only source of these qualities the task of consistently refleeting them proves beyond you, then your experience will coincide exactly with my own. £ t < ‘Now we come to the real root of the matter. Right thinking,, feeding and habits are the expression of very simple laws through which the Creative Spirit will, it we would but let Him successfully control in health and efficiency the functioning of mind and body—which brings us to the highest of all laws, the spiritual law of love The Great Teacher pointed out so plainly, ‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God' with all thy heart, with all

thy mind, with all thy soul, and with all' thy strength—and, tliy neighbour as thyself.” Four-fold emphasis in the necessity for perfect love to one’s God. But surely, let alone the four-fold emphasis of perfection, if wo loved our Father but a very little we would not forbear to acquaint ourselves with His modest requirements, and accord them our humble obedience! And here we j come to the real root of the cause <?f disease. Men do not worship God in I His Spirit; neither do they observe I obedience to His Law. ‘Seek ye First | the Kingdom of God and Ilis j Righteousness, and all these things shall bo added unto you.’ “How many of us would dare to assert that we love the Lord our God with all our being, and that the seeking of His Kingdom forms tho first passion of our lives? And look at human bodies! Palo, flabby, and disease-ridden caricatures of the glorious instruments God designed to be tlie temple of His spirit! So there’s the real root of the matter. AA 7 e care little for God, and as little for His Laws; | and wrong thinking, wrong feeling, and wrong habits are tho logical outcome. “I have tried to show very shortly how disease comes about; now, I will try to show you what disease is. Disease may. be defined as an abnormal condition of blood and tissues due for j the most part to : —(a) Accumulation in the body of uneliminated highly poisonous waste, partly metabolic, partly due to absorption of products derived from fermentation and putrefaction in the bowel of excess foods, and partly the result of ingestion of extraneous poisons, (b) Vitamin and mineral salt deficiency; associated with acidosis, and infection by bacteria—scavengers whose activities are limited by the pathogenic material available. This disease is the consequence of wrong thinking, wrong feeding. and wrong habits. Nature has made adequate provision for maintaining the | body in health, provided we obey the j simple laws concerned ; and further if j through failure to obey these laws 1 disease should commence to develop it may be got rid of by the channels she has provided for the purpose. If disease be growing in the body to the point where the body’s existence is .threatened nature will always make an effort to throw it out. The body’s elimination system—the kidneys, liver, lungs, bowels, and skin—form a very important part of the whole ; and if given sufficient opportunity will nearly always succeed in getting rid of disease. Fasting is one of the' commonest essentials ; for if you cease to take in fresh supplies of waste-producing material, nature will be left a free hand to deal with accumulations (the I disease), and. will usually, get rid of ! them in a Very short time. But if j while nature is trying to eliminate, ! more food be forced m, not only can 1 this food not be utilised but it will ! often interfere with the achieving of j her beneficient purpose. This is the I common reason why acute symptoms become chronic, and many lives lost ' which might have been saved. Disease l is not some hostile and mysterious force which attacks us from without; it is, on the contrary, an abnormal condition which develops from within, j Nature always warns of the presence ; of disease by symptoms; which in ; diagnosis are' often mistaken for. the 1 disease. Too often diagnosis achieves little beyond giving a name to a particular set of symptoms, and the fact I that the symptoms may be nothing i more than evidence of nature’s method lof treatment; and tho man who con- ; centrates his energies on attempts at 1 their suppresiou succeeds only too ! often in laying the foundation of one ! of the chronic manifestations which are j the despair alike of sufferer and I physician. Thus those actuated by j the highest motives are often unwitI tingly the cause of greater suffering. ! A remarkable paradox, yet one with a ! simple solution, because these efforts to deal with disease represent man’s attempt to deal with the problem, without reference to the spirit and •law of God. It is not the men but the methods which must he condemned. I admit freely that 1 am not fit to black j the boots of half the members of my profession, who by talent and character are far ahead of myself. But neither talent nor character avail unless harmonised with the spirit and law of God. The reason, then, of our failure to solve the problem of disease is the very same as the reason of our failure to maintain our bodies in health. Thus we are brought to the conclusion that all suffering is beneficient: it serves to warn of dereliction from the law. The ideal for us is happiness and health, but these can only be had at the price of obedience to His law.” The speaker then went on to cite a few of the many cases which had come into his hands illustrating how men can mislead themselves when they try to deal with symptoms without knowing anvtliing of the causes. “Many remarkable results,” Dr AVilliams added, “have been achieved in the almost total absence of facilities, and in the face of ridicule, discouragement and opposition of many kinds.”