A House Divided

In the Gospel story of St Matthew (12:26) a group bring a blind man to Jesus, who heals him. The Pharisees attempt to put him down by saying he can only drive out demons because Beelzebul allows it. Jesus asks them this simple question to make it clear that he is working from a completely different level – ‘If Satan drives out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then can his kingdom stand?’ During my childhood I heard this scripture many times and today I relate to it differently. Some weeks ago I heard the story again and the thought that immediately came to mind was the futility, even evil, of conventional chemotherapy. Our standard of treatment is based on the premise that we can poison and drive out the evil cancer before it kills you. The agents used are carcinogenic of themselves and so dangerous that staff administrating the chemicals are protectively dressed. There has to be a better way, a non-toxic alternative. It turns out there isn’t just one, there are many, but medical practice is slow to change and there is also an enormous inertia in the system that produces large profits for the pharmaceutical industries. Indeed, the measures taken to defend the status quo are very similar to the defensive strategies employed by cancer tumours themselves to avoid detection and attack from a vigilant immune system. Later I found myself reflecting on Donald Trump’s election cry to ‘Drain the Swamp’ in Washington. So what has happened since his election? The corporate players of the oil industry have entered government so that Trump, and the Republican Party in general, continue to deny the threat of global warming and back out of negotiated treaties of the previous administration. (Not that Obama’s time in office has done anything to make the world a safer place) The banksters too, whose greed orchestrated the last great recession, were criticized on the campaign trail only to have several senior appointments of Trump’s administration filled from Goldman Sachs. Trump is certainly controversial and his administration, if not the entire country is divided against itself. Greedy corporations are determined to continue profiting from wanton destruction, until our world is uninhabitable. This is very similar to the strategy employed by the cancer tumour shielding itself from attack. It will greedily consume resources until its host dies. As we plot a course for enduring health we must also ensure that our house is not divided against itself. We must adopt lifestyle practices that unify Body, Mind and Spirit so that we can develop holistically and in sustainable harmony with our societies, countries and planet. So what are your goals? How do they reinforce each other - personally, in your family and community? What will you do today to begin this journey to Holistic Health?

Race For Life

Around the World millions of women are donning their pink T shirts and campaigning tirelessly to raise funds for Cancer Research. They do so in the belief that this scourge on humanity can be ended and the cure found just around the corner. It’s a cynical exploitation by those who know the cure’s already here, hidden in plain sight, but whose clever research and medical magic misdirects us to look for cures where they cannot be found. They’re grateful for the efforts of the pink armies because their research still needs to be paid for. Venture Capitalists weigh up investment propositions to determine their most profitable opportunities. If they thought for a moment they could patent a cancer-busting drug, they’d be queuing up to support it through to market introduction. However, the cancer industry works a little differently. The big players have a cosy scam going and aren’t interested in sharing the pie – except on their terms. Visionaries like Dr Maxwell Gerson, Rene Caisse, Otto Warburg (Nobel Prize-winner in 1931) and modern day Stanislav Burzynsky etc are hounded to sell out their ideas or, like Otto Warburg, are studiously ignored. The end result is that the status quo is protected. Cancer industry profits grow as ordinary people die – about 1600 per day in the USA and thousands more around the world. Just as supermarkets are influenced by what their customers buy, causing unpopular brands to lose their shelf space, when we as a public stop buying into the idea that a cancer diagnosis is a death sentence and demand access to non-toxic treatments, current oncological practice will be forced to change. When Warburg identified the mechanism by which cancer cells feed on glucose it immediately suggested that a diet containing minimal carbohydrates would cause healthy cells to switch over to burning ketones (from healthy fats) causing cancer cells to starve. Similarly, when the population at large appreciate that our environment and lifestyle are the major arbiter of health, fewer of us will get cancer and the cancer industry machine will start to disintegrate. Such a scenario would be inevitable were it not for the defences of the cancer industry itself. One of the hallmarks of cancer is its ability to protect itself from the immune system. The proteolytic enzymes that help us digest meat can instead eat away tumour defences rendering them visible and vulnerable to attack from strong immune systems. The parallel defence of the cancer industry is to misdirect and mislead populations and even to use instruments of state, police and FDA SWAT teams in the US, to strengthen their stranglehold on oncological practice. If only enough of the population could awaken to the simplicity of health protection measures we could both dramatically reduce the incidence of cancer and improve the prognoses for the newly diagnosed. Campaigns to quell dissent and perpetuate the status quo are well funded. Cancer charities have even signed up a volunteer army to provide an effective fifth column against health development. They have locked in public opinion around the status quo so that Functional Medicine practitioners, Naturopaths and Nutritionists, who would end the charade, are viewed with suspicion or denigrated as quacks. It may take some time, but I look forward to the day when Race For Life events will involve thousands of activists wearing green T-shirts and raising money for organic vegetables, for juicing festivals and to cover the costs of their local community gardens.

Business Chiropractic

Until a few years ago I knew nothing about chiropractic and in my ignorance, like most of the population, I thought it the practice of quackery. But ten years ago I was recovering from surgery (most excellently conducted by the UK NHS), and discovered that conventional medicine had no explanation for my illness and no suggestions about how to avoid it happening again. It took me a year to understand that my lifestyle was the culprit and that I’d brought it on myself. I’m not good with pain so I decided it made more sense to protect my health than to manage illness. Deciding to change lifestyle was probably the best decision of my adult life. More recently, and before the election of Donald Trump, I realised that the world was in serious trouble and that the unchecked march of corporate expansion was largely responsible. The comparisons between my personal ignorance of healthy living and current standards of business life are striking. But having earned a painful hospital experience through my negligence, I’ve come to believe that a holistic approach to health makes sense in both personal and business life. Since conventional business methods, and support services, are so similar to standard practice in our ‘sick-care system’, and with equally ineffective outcomes for chronic illness, then perhaps we need to develop a new way of thinking that is concerned about overall business health. We need a complete reassessment of business practice that aims to optimise health rather than continue with the current truly unsustainable model. We need a Holistic solution. We need ‘Business Chiropractic’. Entering a hospital today presents visitors with a bewildering choice of departments that serve to segment the body into ‘problem areas’ requiring their own specialists. It’s a Frankenstein approach that fails to provide the life spark or to understand the body as a complex system. This approach spawns opportunities for often competing perspectives, unnecessary and ineffective surgical procedures and long medication lists to treat diseases rather than curing them. In modern medicine, ‘science’ trumps healing. In the business world a similar approach prevails. Many parasitic types of organisations have embedded themselves in the corporate psyche as indispensable support specialisms. Deciding how best to meet an organisation’s needs is a non-trivial leadership task but there is a danger of such deliberation detracting from the central purpose of an organisation. – What need does the organisation exist to meet? What are its core values? What cultural values are held by its staff? Supporting departments, even if outsourced, need always be a secondary consideration to a firm’s leadership. Here the firm’s CEO is more accurately considered to be the Chief Cultural Officer (CCO). His of her primary task is to nurture the creative culture both internally and externally and to underscore the purpose for which the organisation exists. This sends a clear message through the organisation and empowers local managers and their staff to buy into the vision or depart. Such an environment facilitates decision making as all departments share a common vision. Decisions are made for the health of the whole rather than the aggrandisement of individuals or fiefdoms. The Servant Leader models the behaviour expected of employees and replaces traditional command and control structures with decentralised decision making where staff can display the organisation’s sense of purpose. The Business Chiropractor of the 21st century helps the organisation’s leadership to establish the environment for optimum health. He or she engages the organisation in achieving a sustainable ‘Triple P Bottom Line’ that honours People, Planet and Profit and thereby encourages staff to increase discretionary effort in the service of their communities. Who are the key figures in your organisation that could benefit from such Chiropractic Adjustment?