[PASTOR FELKE was a great healer like Pastor Kneipp. Both specialized in nature cure. Both were extremely successful.
Felke was generally known as the “Lehm pastor” (the clay pastor) because he treated thousands of patients with clay, by outward applications of clay, clay bandages, etc., and inwardly as well. He was eminent as a dietician and iris diagnostician.
Mrs. Davies – Hofels is a disciple and admirer of his.
Editor, “HEAL THYSELF”.
By MRS. M. A. DAVIES-HOFELS.
WOULD it not be a joy to find a method of healing that does what it claims to do ! To turn away from harmful drugs, to turn our backs on operations so often unnecessarily performed, to reject the insidious injections, the inoculations with so often distressing reactions, and leaving more often than not permanent injury to the whole system, to refuse the thousand and one unnatural ways of trying to give back to the poor sufferer that which he has lost, health! Health– what is health?
Health is harmony, perfect harmony in the functioning of all the different parts of the body; it is a blood stream (the life-stream) that is pure and rich in all its elements producing perfect balance in all its parts and bringing forth a sparkling radiance of controlled energy, a joy in life, and a vivid interest in our daily work, going forth in gladness, to return in supreme satisfaction because of work accompanied — that s health.
Hippocrates claimed two thousand three hundred years ago that “all disease comes from impurities in the blood”. It is essential for health that the blood be pure, and rich in the vital elements so that the body which is nourished by the blood in all its parts, be fed and invigorated with a pure life stream.
Only in this way can we make our bodies immune from disease. Vain is the thought that health can be kept or acquired by unnatural means, the unnatural methods of treatment mentioned above, unnatural feeding of the body, unnatural living, wrong direction of thought. You cannot protect yourselves against the dreaded draught, which after all is only a current of air, you cannot protect yourself against the inclemency of our erratic climate, wet feet, damp hotel beds and so on. Protection is not possible, however you may cover the body with heavy clothing, have numerous hot-water bottles, nips of alcohol “to keep off the flu”.
Let us now look at the simple things, so simple that they are overlooked, which will help to restore us to health, vitality and happiness. Let us first take breathing. Dr. Knowles, the great specialist on breathing, tells us how vital correct breathing is. “How can breathing affect me,” you will say. Naturally we all breathe to live. Just so, but it is because your breathing is faulty, superficial or hasty that the body suffers from a lack of sufficient oxygen.
Why do you yawn when you are tired, or in a badly ventilated room, train or hall? It is the cry of the heart for more oxygen. So you draw it in deeply in a yawn. It is evident if there is a lack of oxygen in the body the organs become sluggish and store up poisons instead of eliminating them. Proper breathing is essential to all and it is particularly important that all children should be taught to breathe properly.
Then we should see to the proper feeding of the body. Oh ! how grievous are the mistakes we have made and so many still do make in what they partake to nourish the body. How far we have gone from. . . .
Believe me we must retrace our steps and obey these simple laws. Let us make a definite effort to find out what are the right foods. The body s built up of the oxygen we breathe in, the food we eat and the thoughts we think. Is it not therefore imperative that we give this subject some study?
It does matter what we eat and drink, it does matter even how we eat and drink. One of the greatest follies is the way all kinds of foods are taken at the same meal; hot things, cold things and fluid added to the lot.
If a glass had been put to our tummies like a window and we could see what we had to deal with after such a meal we should take pity on them and try and find out another way.
How often is food swallowed almost boiling hot ! The right temperature of any food should not be hotter than what can be placed under the tongue, you will be amazed how cool it will have to be. Then, how hastily soft foods are swallowed, and again the poor tummy has to do the work the teeth ought to have done.
The teeth are placed in the mouth to masticate the food, the saliva to be mixed with it to prepare it for the stomach, (as in the stomach there are no teeth), the stomachs duty is to churn the masticated food and so prepare it for the small intestine from which the substances are withdrawn into the blood and so on to nourish the body. Therefore it behoves us to put nothing into the body that is not good for it, because, as we have seen, the blood takes from the food that which it needs for its upkeep.
The blood then flows to every part of the body to nourish it. It the blood has drawn poisonous matter from the intaken food, then all parts of the body are supplied with a defective blood with consequent ill-health. Organs improperly nourished become sluggish, cannot perform their functions properly. So more poisons are accumulated until the patient body at last breaks down and we have our numberless troubles of middle and old age.
Now, to add to our duty of being and keeping healthy, we need not only to breathe properly and feed properly, but we need to have sufficient exercise, we need to have the knowledge of the scientific use of water. Yes ! we have even forgotten the wonderful healing qualities in water. Then nature has another wonderful thing up her sleeve for us, and the best of all it costs nothing. All these things written of above cost nothing. Everyone can share in these gifts of nature.
And so we come to clay. How endless are the healing qualities of pure virgin clay, used rightly for all such things as old leg sores, putrid wounds of all kinds, skin diseases, carbuncles, boils, etc., in healing cooling compresses for stomach troubles, even for cancer. Then there is the use of it to avoid operations for mastoids, swollen tonsils and countless other troubles including varicose veins. Taken also internally as clay-water it is invaluable for stomach and bowel ulcers, tuberculosis of the bowels, etc.
Then we come to other gifts of nature, the herbs. Healing herbs grow almost at our doors and we often ignore them or misname them weeds!.
Then when our poor bodies are worn out with wrong feeding and wrong treatment, we can call upon those homoeopathic remedies of which so many people are beginning to realize the value. We give massage with oils and lotions to encourage the working of the skin (which is our largest organ) to ease the pain of arthritis, rheumatism, neuritis, etc., encourage the sluggish circulation, stimulate or soothe the nervous system, whichever may be necessary, and countless other discomforts.
Then we draw on light and heat and colour in radiant heat, infra red rays, using the colour therapy which is as yet only in its infancy– endless are natures gifts. In gathering up all these things into one great whole we are speaking of the “Felke Method of Healing”. There is one more thing to take note of in our healing process and we turn our minds from anger which over heats the blood, from fear which disturbs vitally the nervous system, worry and haste and jealousy which corrode and poison the whole system, self-pity which is the worst of all these and weakens the whole body.
