Dear Subscribers,

Back to herbs! My introduction has now spanned half a century, but there were some turning points. The publication of Cancer Salves was one of those. Officially, it occurred in 1999, i.e., one eclipse cycle before this one! The parallels are that the Spanish translation will probably see the light of day around the same time of the year as the English edition that I have lately seen on Amazon priced as high as $1600, but I still sell it for $42.50 which is actually a steal. Several points stand out from the work that went into that book. The first is that the herbs used to treat cancer invariably had other traditional uses so those conditions actually had to shed some light on cancer. Bloodroot was, of course, the main focus of the book, but goldenseal was always a major contender for attention also. Bloodroot, red puccoon, was used for body paints and dyes but also to aid vision. Goldenseal, yellow puccoon, was likewise used to adorn the body and dye fabrics. It is massively disinfecting whereas bloodroot appears to be a formidable anti-viral herb. So, we look again at the secondary and tertiary uses and try to gain a deeper understanding of the imbalances that might lead to tumorous growths.

The other issue was more financial and political and had to do with maintaining monopolies over cures by refusal to share protocols and formulas and/or suppressing competition. I broke the silence by publishing what I then knew. Of course, I have more experience today and will be adding a bit to the Spanish edition. There are other parallels because prepublication editions made the rounds and resulted in quite serious issues over authorship in the 90s and again now. Our world is woefully out of balance.

Elixirs

The development of my own line of herbs started very innocently. An amazing herbalist, my "turtle brother", asked me which formula in my book was most believable. Those were not his exact words, but when we have a mixture of lay and professional practitioners, you can imagine what it is like to sift through the claims and theories. My answer was however instantaneous: Compound Syrup Scrophularia, which we make under the name Seneca Elixir because as time went on, I wanted to give credit where credit was due and restore some interest in Native American herbalism. What our history shows us is literally mortifying so the paradox was why people who were alleged to be savages would share knowledge of how to survive on this side of the ocean with the very people who were trying to annihilate them. I desperately wanted to give back so I bought huge books on ethnobotany to see who used which herbs for which conditions and I renamed many of the Eli Jones formulas as well as the Hoxsey Elixir. I will talk about that more, but right now I want to tell a story.

Try to keep in mind the era and imagine what it was like to have a clinic in 1990 as compared to 2018. Dr. John Christopher wrote that he helped to start three herb companies and got into law suits with all of them. I hope my memory is correct on this. What hurts most here is that the love of healing is very pure. First, there is compassion and then intent and knowledge eventually follows. By a certain point, some people have managed to manifest many gifts and others have amassed a mountain of knowledge. Sometimes they go hand-in-hand but not always. In any event, challenges may perhaps make us stronger but they do not nourish the soul so I felt for Dr. Christopher, and I also would like to mention that he managed to get a lot into print for the generations to follow.

What was interesting is that he told a story about meeting Chief Sundance. They began exchanging formulas for cancer and discovered they had the same formula. As it turned out, it was also the same as the Hoxsey formula about which a documentary film and book have been produced by someone who studied a bit with me in the early 80s. He has gone on to significant fame. So, I renamed the Hoxsey elixir Sundance Elixir. I did so reverently and respectfully, as a tribute, not to steal a sacred word from Native Americans. My goal has been to restore knowledge of the survival tools First Nation People shared with Europeans and to do so sincerely and humbly.

For the record, I did a DNA test and I seem not to have a drop of Native American blood which makes perfect sense since my grandparents were all born in Europe and were not part of brutal history of the Americas. That said, when I travel, I often have flashbacks so I think I have been here before, in other incarnations, not because my kin came over on the Mayflower.

Anyway, let me get back on track. I had a small apothecary room in my clinic in Santa Fe and we had the Christopher formula in tea, capsule, and liquid form, a syrup with sugar. Since sugar is "bad", we would have expected that this was the least desirable of the three options, but curiously, the patients who were taking the syrup got better whereas no improvement was noticed in the others. This goes against modern logic, especially since the syrup was made with sugar, not molasses, jaggery, honey, or stevia.

I want to make two comments. First, recent studies of Lyme protocols suggested that stevia improves the outcome so I did what we did years ago. I took Spiro Pro and added stevia and called it Spiro Plus. Sure enough, the feedback is better on the Plus than the Pro. It is the Stephen Buhner formula, one he has kindly shared with the world.

Sugar is theoretically going to feed both fermentation processes and the tumor, but this is not what we have seen clinically. Some high profile health nuts, even MDs, were very suspicious and did their own tests and were dumbfounded. Theoretically, anything sweet makes a good carrier since the herbs are introduced into the blood stream very fast. Historically, cancer was considered a wasting disease and sugar was regarded as nourishing and sometimes even necessary where there is cachexia. That said, I went to a sugar refinery near the Tibetan Temple in Wood Valley. It was a very unpleasant experience and I swore I would not eat sugar again. Of course, there have been slip ups, but I do not have any white sugar in my house and have not had any in the house for at least 45 years. However, we used to give our cockatoos raw sugar cane, organic, because it has many nutrients, including iron. In short, sugar is a food but refined sugar is probably a dangerous food.

Beet sugar is mostly made with GMO beets, the white beets, not the red ones. So, my elixirs use organic molasses, jaggery, aged honey, or stevia. Being both observant and curious, I have watched how the blood cells pick up nutrients in the plasma and the effects the nutrients have on those cells. I am absolutely convinced that elixirs are preferable to extracts, which does not mean that all extracts should be made into elixirs but I will share one of my secrets. Being at least part Viking, I probably have more than the usual interest in mead. When I find it at an affordable price, I sometimes buy a bottle and put the extracts into the mead so I am actually taking some extracts in a sort of elixir form. Anyone can do this with any of the extracts. You can get a bottle of mead or just mix equal parts of honey and water. Never heat the honey and use only honey that is at least six months old. The honey that tastes most like sugar comes from the Big Island of Hawaii. It is called kiawe, a sort of mesquite that grows on lava. It is probably not the most medicinal honey, but it tastes very sugary as compared to manuka and some of the highly medicinal honeys.

My Elixirs

Because elixirs are more tonifying than extracts, I have created them partly for people who are what we might call yin deficient, people who are weak due to lack of sufficient nutrition or poor assimilation of nutrients. For example, Triphala, the three fruits of the famous Ayurvedic formula, is available in powder form, capsules, tablets, extracts, and elixirs. The powder form has the least shelf life and hardest delivery method because the taste is not wonderful. The capsule is easy to swallow and by-passes the taste buds but some people can't handle the gumminess of capsules and their systems get clogged. People on a lot of medications often have this problem so they can consider other forms of triphala. Tablets have to have binders so some people do not like them, but digestion begins long before nutrients reach the stomach. Ideally, there is titillation by aroma and then more stimulation with taste and salivation. Liquids are therefore much more digestible, but some people do not want teas or tinctures. The truth is that the chemicals in the herbs are such that water extraction, i.e., teas or infusions are sometimes medicinally different from alcohol extractions. Try it. Take shilajit for example. It will not dissolve in alcohol, not in 15 minutes or a month. Of course, one can dissolve it in water and then add alcohol, but why bother? It tastes fine once dissolved in water. Alcohol or honey can act as preservatives, but you can use vinegar or glycerin or even soup. I suggested to someone recently that she use my Ayurvedic teacher's cold remedy in tomato soup: heaping teaspoon of black peppercorns, 3-5 whole cloves, and an inch of grated ginger root. It breaks up the mucus.

At this time, I have produced a number of elixirs and there is a purpose behind them. Think really carefully now. The first elixirs were all re-creations of historic formulae: Seneca Elixir and Phytolacca Syrup from Dr. Eli Jones, Sundance Elixir from Dr. Christopher, Chief Sundance, and Hoxsey, and Yellow Dock Elixir from Dr. Christopher. The first "original" one might have been my Goji Elixir, available both as a Tonic and Elixir. I developed it mainly for people on chemotherapy. It offers some protection to the blood, liver, and heart as well as spirits. Next, I think was Hibiscus Elixir. I formulated it after the Fukushima disaster to stabilize electrolytes and protect the heart. It is basically a heart tonic. Brahmi Elixir is a brain tonic based on a combination of both Brahmis: bacopa and gotu kola, but there are other herbs that help not only with cognitive functions but also with telomeres and free radicals. Then, there were three for stress: Sattva Elixir is calming and supports getting to one's center and finding inner peace. The Yin and Yang Elixirs offer support to the adrenals. Yang is for type A persons who are on the go and and Yin is for those who try to avoid the madding crowd.

There are only two more so take a deep breath. I already mentioned Triphala Elixir. It is much more than an intestinal cleanser. It more like a roto rooter for arteries, veins, and all channels and canals of the body. It is both cleansing and rejuvenating in action. Lastly, there is the newest, the Ayur Blood Elixir which is truly a nice blood tonic. I prefer it to Tang Kwei Gin and the Yellow Dock Elixir. It is blood boosting and gently detoxifying. I think is the deepest of all my tonics because it uses almost exclusively rasayana herbs, meaning it is rich in antioxidants so is also adaptogenic, and it should promote longevity because that is what rasayana herbs are supposed to do. I do not know if we can negotiate with fate, but if we can, this tonic is something to consider.

Many blessings,

Ingrid
http://bioethikainternational.com/

Copyright by Ingrid Naiman 2018

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