THE REAL STORY OF

MONEY, HEALTH, AND RELIGION

Loren Howe

Published by Lulu Press

Available in paperback and ebook at:

www.lulu.com

Copyright © 2006 by Loren Howe.

All rights reserved. However, this book may be reproduced for free distribution with the written consent of the author who can be contacted at lorax2013@aol.com

Printed and distributed in North America by Lulu Press

www.lulu.com

Acknowledgments

This book would never have been possible without the cumulative knowledge and assistance of many extraordinary friends including Mike, Ofori, Karen, Laila, and Dan.

Thank you.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Part One - Money

The Real Story of Money

How to Free Yourself from the Central Banking System and Financial Industry

Investment Strategies your Broker and Financial Advisor will Never tell you

The True Use of Money

Part Two - Health

The Real Story of Food and Health

Traditional Health Advice your Doctor and Pharmacist do not Know

Part Three - Religion

The Real Story of Religion and Spirituality

Where Science and Society Lost their Way

Traditional Spiritual Guidance your Clergy and Professors Probably Never Learned

The “Monster and the Warrior” and “The Secret of Reality”

The Most Important Thing

Introduction

This isn’t your average self-help book. Here you won’t find motivational jargon or conventional opinions. There is no reason to add another pep talk to the literature that is already common knowledge. Instead, this book will give you a history and vantage point hidden from nearly everyone in our society. You will learn secrets that stop us from achieving the wealth, health, and connectivity which most of us desire. Nearly every chapter provides new insight that can put you far ahead of conventional wisdom.

History and ideas in this book should give you a freedom and perspective few people realize.

Most of the statements made in the following pages are written in a tone of certainty to avoid constant caveats. The chapters on money in particular, have some concepts and history simplified for the sake of brevity. Rather than take my word for anything, however, I’d encourage you to investigate or test any fundamental statement that you disagree with.

It is only natural that we resist challenges to the commonly accepted beliefs keeping the status quo intact. The collective mind of society, just like an individual, has both positive and negative beliefs and practices that are slow to change. Every individual is constrained by this “cultural faith” to varying degrees. After many generations, the evolution of a belief or institution is understood by almost no one but accepted by almost everyone. In other words, most people no longer know the truth, but accept their own society’s convictions, for better or worse.

Society’s beliefs evolved in the collective mind in much the same way as your own personal beliefs evolved in your own mind. The good and bad elements of our modern culture grew from our ancestors’ actions and words over decades, centuries, and millennia. In a very real sense we live with both the good and bad karma of our forebears. By facing the historical truth of our situation, however, we can finally begin to overcome problems that have plagued us for generations.

The Real Story of Money

“It is well enough that the people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.” - Henry Ford The first questions I ask any investment (or other) advisor are about their success rate, training, and experience – so here is mine. I was fortunate, perhaps, to have no formal training in economics, and instead studied engineering. Everything I learned about money was self-taught and based on logic rather than economic theory. Over the last five years of investing I’ve averaged an annual rate of return over 20% without a day of debt or its associated anxiety.

Like most investors, I started out following the standard guidance that is pushed in the media: the stock market offers the highest returns; mutual funds are the best way to invest; bonds offer a safe steady income. The more I researched standard investments, however, the more I felt they were all just forms of gambling. Rather than a casino, it was financial institutions and the government that took a percentage of savings while the individual played an unwinnable game of stock and bond speculation disguised as “investing.”

Moreover, it appeared that the general public had subconsciously come to the same conclusion as the savings rate in America plummeted towards zero and finally went negative in 2005.

Since money is such a broad and important field I began to wonder why economic theories were so conflicting and inadequate. The average person is taught inconsistent and childishly simplistic theories, such as Keynesian economics, draped in irrelevant mathematical models to confuse and impress. I felt there must be some basic truths behind all the media hype and academic posturing.

Retracing history is probably the best way to reconstruct lost knowledge. A much clearer but surprising picture came in viewing economics from a historical vantage point.

The first step is to define money – which is harder than you’d think.

Money can be considered many things such as time, power, or commodities. Perhaps it’s easiest to consider money as commodities- the way in which it evolved. Our ancestors often used sheep, pigs, or cattle as the basic unit of trade. As societies grew they transitioned to more compact and transferable (fungible) commodities - finally settling on gold, silver, and copper as the most common. Next came two steps that helped found the modern financial world. First was the charging of interest on loans and second was the creation of paper money to represent metal. Both of these inventions are similar since they represent a promise to pay rather than an actual payment.

Some people are against all paper money and others against charging interest or “usury.” Historically, however, these devices often served a useful purpose when managed properly. Paper and now electronic money is even more convenient than metals. Most people today get annoyed with even a little spare change and certainly don’t want to use it as the only form of pocket money.

Interest, on the other hand, provides for the compensation of risk and logical distribution of funding to new enterprises. If money could not be lent at interest, there would be little funding available for innovation and new enterprises.

The vulnerability is that all paper money and all interest are simply promises rather than actual goods. Therefore paper money and interest are based entirely on trust and honesty over long periods of time. There has always been a great potential for dishonest people to steal from the honest and inexperienced using the devices of interest and paper money. Historically, when promises were made to strangers who could not be held accountable, the end result was nearly always theft. Greater complexity in a financial system increased the scale and ease of this theft.

Today we have a financial system that dwarfs any other in human history. For the first time, a significant percentage of our population earns its living in banking and financial services – basically the trading and analysis of promises. At the same time, people are less knowledgeable than ever about the design of this complex system. It would not be surprising if the potential and scale of theft exceeded that in earlier generations.

America’s financial system went from simple to complex in a relatively short period of time and so it serves as a clear example of the aforementioned changes and problems. In colonial times, Americans often used precious metal itself as money. Sometimes coins ran short and other commodities would be substituted (we call a dollar a buck because it once represented a buckskin). Eventually paper money became common. This paper currency was backed by the government’s guarantee of convertibility to precious metal. Since America’s government was never deposed, the country’s gold hoard was always available to sustain the paper currency and the system worked more efficiently than the earlier use of gold, silver, animal skins, etc. (Historically most nations, including the Confederate South, were not so lucky and at some point lost their gold to war or corruption and had to default on their paper notes.) Private banks, in addition to the US Government, also began issuing paper money in the 1800’s backed by their own promise of convertibility to precious metal. The banks tried to entice customers to trade their commodities for this bank paper. Interest paid on the deposit was the main inducement to trade gold for bank notes. In theory, the bank would take the depositor’s gold, hold it, and then issue paper money as loans backed by this gold. Loans would theoretically be paid back at higher interest. Part of the interest would be given back to the original depositor and part kept as profit by the bank.

Unfortunately, such a system relies on two conditions to function.

One is a constantly increasing pool of commodities (gold and silver) to maintain the constantly increasing interest payments being promised to everyone. The second requisite is scrupulous honesty by the bankers. As you can imagine, one or both of these conditions occasionally failed. This led to the bank’s customers panicking and demanding the promised gold or silver for their banknotes. The bank would then go broke and the depositors would suffer the loss.

After many instances of this bank default scenario repeating throughout the country, the American public began to catch on. The public realized that the banks were basically gambling with depositors’ money. If loans were repaid, then the bank’s owners would pocket much of the profit. If the bank’s loans did not pay off, the bank’s depositors were the ones to suffer the loss. Secondly, there was often outright fraud such as unpaid loans to the banker’s friends or direct embezzlement. Much of the public realized that they were far better off either holding their gold and silver or loaning it themselves to people they knew and trusted. These personal loans were more likely to be repaid and had no banking middleman to keep part of the profit.

Since the public had caught on to the risks of depositing money in a bank, the banking industry remained one small facet of the American economy for over 100 years. Rather than let the free market prevail and the banking industry dwindle, however, an interesting thing happened. In 1913, banking interests passed legislation to form the Federal Reserve System. The history of the Federal Reserve System is superbly documented in the book, The Creature from Jekyll Island by G. Edward Griffin. I’ll try to give as simple an overview as possible for this purposefully complex subject. If you have trouble following how the system works, you are not alone. Henry Ford’s insight bears repeating, “It is well enough that the people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.”

The Federal Reserve was created to benefit both the banking industry and the Federal Government – mainly at the expense of the average American. First, Federal Reserve legislation was the banking industry’s salvation in several ways.

You’ll remember that Americans were catching on to the risks of trading their wealth for banknotes. Savvy investors were keeping their money as gold or making loans themselves to people they trusted rather than letting a banking “professional” loan their money to strangers and pocket much of the profit.

Under the Federal Reserve legislation, however, when private banks made bad loans, depositors would no longer suffer any loss. The US taxpayers would be forced to bail out the bank and its depositors.

People could then deposit their money in a bank and even get guaranteed interest with the risk being shifted to taxpayers. This provision served to revitalize the banking industry by creating vast new flows of deposits.

That was just the beginning, however. Federal Reserve legislation also created a United States Central Bank. Today we refer to our Central Bank as the “Federal Reserve” because the name Central Bank had a bad connotation after experiences in Europe. Many conspiracy theorists have argued about the form of our Central Bank and who exerts control over it. Here’s the short version as I see it.

The Federal Reserve/Central Bank is basically a quasi-government agency that takes its direction from consensus within both the Federal Government and the financial industry that it was created to serve. Regardless of who controls the Federal Reserve, its purpose is fairly straightforward once you cut through the opaque language and theory with which it disguises itself. The Federal Reserve/Central Bank’s overriding purpose is to create ever-greater quantities of currency and inflation.

The creation of controlled inflation has proven immeasurably valuable to the banking industry and Federal Government.

First, how does the Federal Reserve create currency and inflation?

Amazingly, they ultimately just create money from thin air because they were granted the right to do so. This currency is then “lent” out to the banking industry and the Federal Government. When these loans are repaid to the Federal Reserve, the money is just lent out again along with even more newly created currency. Banks themselves are also legally allowed to self-create even more money using a fraudulent form of fractional reserve lending whereby the banks lend money and promise it to depositors at the same time.

The Federal Reserve attempts to govern the creation of all this new money by raising and lowering its loan rate. Nonetheless, the overriding goal, as well as the reality for nearly a century, is the creation of more money each year.

So how does the growing supply of currency benefit the financial industry and Federal Government? First let’s look at the banking industry. Remember that the banking industry’s main goal was to obtain as much depositor money as possible so they could loan it at higher rates and keep part of the profit if their loans paid off. Now the banks could always get deposits directly from the Central Bank that created deposit money out of thin air. Fractional reserve lending also legally allowed banks to create even more money for themselves.

The net result of all this self-created loan money was that banks could continue their old game of lending money, keeping the profits, and defaulting when they made mistakes. Thanks to nearly limitless funding from the Federal Reserve, individual banks no longer needed to desperately seek depositors of “hard”/real money. Inflation induced by the ever increasing currency also insured that the profitable banking loan cycle would not collapse despite the percentage continually skimmed and retained by the banks as interest.

Imagine that every loan was paid back to the banks in inflated (less valuable) money. The banks would still make a profit because they are simply skimming interest on money which they and the Federal Reserve created out of nothing. In fact, inflation is necessary to insure that extra money is available each year for loans to be repaid at interest, so banks can continue shaving their percentage of the newly inflated money supply. The Federal Reserve, as well, doesn't care if it is repaid in inflated money. The Federal Reserve’s purpose is not profitability, but to inflate the money supply. Regardless of repayment value to the Federal Reserve, it will always continue self-creating additional money to loan out again in an ever-increasing supply.

Now, imagine an individual trying to lend money in competition with banks. The individual lender can never compete for two main reasons. First, the lent money is not guaranteed at taxpayer expense or backed by injections of credit from the Federal Reserve. Therefore the individual lender runs the risk of losing his or a depositor’s principal if loans go bad. In other words, the individual lender is not allowed to conduct fraudulent fractional reserve lending where money is both lent out and promised to be on deposit at the same time. More importantly, the individual lender is constantly losing due to inflation of his principal whereas the bank is simply skimming interest and is not affected by inflation. If either inflation or defaults get high at any point, then the individual lender will be wiped out. After a while under this system, banks are left with a monopoly over money lending and over the money supply itself.

What if the economy takes a strong downturn and banks have a default rate that threatens to destroy profitability? The first thing which will happen is that banks will ask the Federal Reserve for more money. Banks will then loan this newly created money to many of the same businesses that are in danger of defaulting. These additional loans will stop many defaults and continue the profit cycle for banks.

Also, when occurring on a national scale during a recession, the newly created loan money tends to increase the overall currency supply. Increased currency supply makes it easier for businesses to repay their loans in inflated dollars.

If business loan defaults get terribly bad, like they were in Japan in the 1990s, the Federal Reserve/Central Bank can even loan money to banks at zero interest. This is basically just printing money and giving it away for a period of time. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke famously compared this scenario to, “dropping money from helicopters.” Businesses can then take out a loan from banks at near zero interest. The businesses can buy almost anything, and be assured that the price will rise. The price will rise because everyone else is also taking out cheap loans and bidding up the price of anything in sight. With such large amounts of money being created and pumped into circulation, almost any degree of banking mismanagement or bad loans can be salvaged by the rapidly inflating currency.

In an unusual case, let’s imagine that a bank made more bad loans than average and becomes unprofitable and insolvent during a recession despite injections of money from the Federal Reserve. The owners of the bank aren’t taking a personal loss because they are not loaning their own money. The owners of the bank probably had a good run of profitable years from their risky loans. After the bank closes, taxpayers bail out the bank’s depositors. The owners of the failed bank may buy a controlling interest in some other bank or they may just retire to a beach house in Miami. The Federal Reserve will, with a few keystrokes, restore any desired money that the failed bank cannot repay to the Federal Reserve.

Here’s the key point to remember. The banks with access to Federal Reserve and taxpayer backed fractional reserve funding have a continual stream of profit by skimming the interest on this self-created money as the currency inflates. Bank owners also take no risk and are not hurt by inflation because they are not loaning their own money.

The seed of this original idea has now, after three generations, grown to such a degree that few people recognize its original elegant simplicity. Even financial industry professionals have grown blissfully ignorant of the fact that the entire scope and form of American finance was largely a gift from one piece of legislation a century ago.

The results are undeniable, however. The financial industry now accounts for nearly half of all profit among the top 500 US companies.

Look at the tallest buildings of any town throughout history and you can see who is the ruling class. Sometimes it is the Church with its cathedrals, sometimes a monarchy with its castles, in earlier American history it was often local government’s town hall or industry’s Sears Tower or Chrysler Building. Today, the skyline of most cities is dominated by banks. Incredibly, all of this wealth was basically transferred in exchange for nothing. No product was ever made and little was done other than skimming a percentage of loaned money as it inflated. Just remember, when nothing is created there is a loser for every winner.

Before analyzing who gives up this flow of wealth to the banks, let’s look at the Central Banking system’s second beneficiary. Part of the genius of the Federal Reserve Act was that it didn’t simply give al benefits to the banking industry. It aided the Federal Government as well, thus assuring that the government would become dependent on the system and slow to change it.

First, the government takes “loans” directly from the Federal Reserve Central Bank but with one critical difference. The Central Bank gives back the interest “paid” on the loan. This is a convoluted way for the government to obtain perpetual zero interest loans – more correctly called free money. As if that were not enough, the US Treasury is also given the Federal Reserve’s interest charged to commercial banks on the money created out of thin air. This practice of giving the Federal Reserve’s interest to the government basically insures that inflation on all dollars in existence is split as profit between both the government and the commercial banks. These benefits alone transfer a vast and well-hidden source of income to the government.

A simpler way for the government to achieve exactly the same result would be for the Treasury Department to print itself free money every year. However, this method would be more straightforward and citizens would intuitively realize that the resultant inflation robbed them of their savings and earning power. Secondly, this method of printing free government income would not allow commercial banks to also skim their percentage of the inflating money supply.

The government’s free benefits don’t end there, however. Next, as the currency inflates, the government’s zero interest debt obligation is gradually erased. This debt is continually rolled over and eventually inflates away to nothing.

Lastly, the government gains enormously in one more hidden way.

Taxes on the public's savings are based on the imaginary “gain” from inflation. If a person owned a home or gold under a stable currency, the value would remain relatively constant. Under an inflating currency, however, the government is able to tax the “gain” on savings as their cost in dollars rises every year. Basically this amounts to a well-hidden tax on only those Americans who save money. The more you save, the more you are taxed. Is it any wonder our savings rate is now negative and the general population looks to the government and bank loans rather than savings in difficult times?

In relation to government’s involvement with the Federal Reserve Bank, it is easy to see the winners and losers. Those on fixed wages and those who save money are the losers from inflation and tax on inflated savings. The winners are anyone benefiting from bigger government. Winners include political power brokers, industries like defense and health care, and the ever-growing segment of the population that is partially or entirely dependent on government entitlements. This process has now been building for three generations. It is doubtful that the creators of the Federal Reserve legislation could have foreseen its ultimate effect. Even today, no one seems to recognize why so much of our society has become dependent on government and so few still save for themselves or future generations.

The banks, on the other hand, don’t get to take the public's savings through taxes. If banks have become so wealthy, without producing anything, then who is the loser?

Remember, the banks basically gain by skimming a percentage on a loan cycle artificially enabled by an inflating money supply. A bank’s only concern is that the perpetual cycle of loans continues to grow.

Under the Central Banking system, this loan structure is protected in two ways. First, an ever-increasing supply of currency (inflation) insures that few loans will fail. Secondly, liability for banking mistakes has been shifted away from the banks and onto the taxpayers.

Taxpayers are one obvious loser in this system since the cost of banking default has been shifted to them. More frequently, however, when even a small number of banks are in danger of failure, the Central Bank simply produces more currency. This necessary inflation carries a heavy price.

Remember the banking system gets to create money out of nothing, lend it, and keep the interest for themselves. All of this skimmed interest is permanent new money created out of nothing. This new money serves to lower the value of all other money in the system.

Wages and savings of working Americans must compete in purchasing power with this new money being created, skimmed, and spent by the banking industry.

The process of money being created, skimmed, and kept by banks and government may seem subtle. Some people don’t realize the damage done. Try to view the most simplified form. This process is the same as a counterfeiter printing money and earning a free living without producing anything. Imagine the simplified economy of a small town with its own currency. Imagine the town has all the normal industries plus a counterfeiter who can print as much free money as he likes. Guess what? First the value of the townspeople’s savings will be eaten up by inflated counterfeit currency. Next the counterfeiter will buy up all the valuable goods from the town’s producers. The working townspeople will have to work even harder to try to buy what’s left. But the harder they work and the more they produce, the more the counterfeiter can buy. Ultimately, the counterfeiter will be left as the only person in town with wealth. He will then have ultimate control over the town newspaper and government. It will become difficult to educate anyone or pass a law against counterfeiting. Unless the townspeople learn a method of personal or collective escape, they will be left in a state of servitude to the counterfeiter.

There is one more way in which the working class loses from inflated (counterfeited) money. Inflation and the tax on inflated savings insure that holding money is a losing proposition for most people - especially a family over the generations. Workers then have less money available for large purchases and must take out loans (from a bank) for nearly everything. Hardly anyone can save money in quantities to loan in competition with banks as was done under true free market systems. The banks are then left as the only viable lender due to their exclusive access to Federal Reserve funds. The average American is left in a cycle of servitude to loans because of a tax system skewed against those who save. The net result is an ever-growing number of people who need loans in place of savings and a banking industry with a virtual monopoly in issuing those loans.

In totality, this system is what fuels the financial industry’s immense profits without production.

I should note that many borrowers do gain by the loan process, especially if they shift risk to the Federal Reserve in the same basic fashion as commercial banks do. There are now many shrewd individuals and families in the US who take out loans on various business ventures with the conscious or unconscious intent of shifting their risk to “someone else.” Sometimes the venture succeeds and the family becomes rich. Sometimes the venture fails and one family member simply declares bankruptcy and waits years while the next person takes out a loan and gambles that their luck will be better. Some individuals even run this scam on a continual basis through the use of corporations. These shifted risk losses are ultimately absorbed and erased by the Federal Reserve along with the commercial banks’ shifted loss from inflation on loaned principal. The Federal Reserve factors all these losses into the necessary rate of currency inflation to absorb them. Again, the “someone else” who ultimately loses from this shifted loan risk is the average American.

For the majority of borrowers the situation is different, however.

Honest borrowers, and those who hold jobs, generally cannot play the same game as the minority of parasitic borrowers. The average borrower, which now includes most Americans, is first forced to take loans because of an induced shortage of savings. Due to their honest intent, and the fact that they have jobs, the average borrower generally makes a down payment and their salaries are held hostage in the event of default. It is these borrowers who often lose more in interest than they gain from inflation through the loans.

So there are many individuals who give up this flow of wealth to the financial industry. First are those who save money and therefore lose from the necessary inflation. Next are those who have no remaining savings and must borrow at disadvantageous terms. Next are taxpayers who must bail out the few banks that still manage to lose money. Lastly, American workers lose collectively. Each dollar of their pay must compete in purchasing power with newly printed dollars being created, skimmed, and spent by the banking establishment.

So there you have it. After less than a century under this system we now have a middle class deeply in debt, a negative savings rate, an enormous but often unproductive government, and a wholly unproductive financial industry. What's more, our government has been in increasing stages of financial default for the last two generations and can no longer honor its previous pledges to redeem currency in gold or anything of value. Most amazingly, the entire structure of wealth transference was so well hidden and self-fulfilling, that few individuals grasp what is occurring or the negative impacts to society.

Before you get too depressed or angry about the situation however, it is important to remember two things. First, some people will always take advantage of others when given the chance. In that sense the current system, though ingenious, is nothing new. The financial industry's theft is probably less harsh, and less conscious, than straightforward military campaigns in the past or present. The second piece of good news is that once you understand the system, you are well on your way to freedom and wealth.

How To Free Yourself From The Central Banking System and Financial Industry

“The evils of this deluge of paper money are not to be removed until our citizens are generally and radically instructed in their cause and consequences, and silence by their authority the interested clamors and sophistry of speculating, shaving, and banking institutions. Till then, we must be content to return quoad hoc to the savage state, to recur to barter in the exchange of our property for want of a stable common measure of value - and to deliver up our citizens, their property and their labor, passive victims to the swindling tricks of bankers and mountebankers." -Thomas Jefferson The most common and natural reaction upon understanding our financial system is an attempt to rally others toward a reform movement. An extremely useful book for people suffering this reaction is entitled, How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World, by the famous libertarian Harry Browne. Reform is a noble goal and hopefully education can someday free America from the current Central Banking system just as we freed ourselves from previous Central Banks (such as the one Thomas Jefferson referred to above) and from monopolistic trusts. However, while doing your part to educate others, don’t forget to free yourself first - and profit as well.

Escape from theft will only hasten any parasitic system’s collapse.

Communism, for example, wasn't defeated by a popular rebellion but rather by countless individuals gradually freeing themselves from economic exploitation until that system went broke.

You might also think the Central Banking system will die when the pyramid of debts comes crashing down and the currency collapses.

That scenario plays out nearly every decade in the average Latin American country - yet their central banks and financial industries retain control. Many of the rich in Latin America protect themselves from theft (by transferring money to safe havens) and this periodically collapses the system. However, too few people understand the nature of the banking industry’s exploitation and the public does not insist on reform. Instead the Latin American middle class has their savings and wages decimated again and again.

Ultimate reform comes when large segments of society understand the effects of the Central Banking system and popular opinion demands that new laws are passed. Examples of such laws include the exemption from tax on home appreciation. In parts of Europe there is a similar tax exemption on commodity appreciation. Tax on these types of appreciation would otherwise represent too blatant a form of theft for those societies that are partially aware of what is occurring.

The more pressing question, though, is how individuals can free themselves today. As discussed, there are winners and losers under the current system. One apparent solution would be to join the winners. This would include people living on government handouts, those in the financial and government contracting industries, and people growing wealthy as predatory borrowers. After further consideration, you will hopefully conclude that joining these groups to consciously prey on the average American is morally unacceptable.

People who live by theft are always vulnerable to those who actually produce. Although theft may work in the short term, we and our descendants always pay the price in some form at some time.

What other choices are available? You could run away and escape the system's grasp. Options would include tax haven countries or rural subsistence economies such as the Amish or a commune. For most of us these choices would be a difficult transition. I mainly offer them tongue-in-cheek while noting that people in such communities are nonetheless often happier due to their freedom from debt servitude. Why should we be driven out of our own society however?

Luckily there are solutions within the framework of your current life.

Once you understand the multiple venues through which wealth is transferred to the financial industry, you can cut off every one of them. The first step, however, is to overcome a lifetime of conditioning by the popular press.

Most people secretly hope and are even encouraged by popular media to get rich through "investing." The press is full of stories about stocks quadrupling in price, a hot new company, and which mutual funds offer the highest rate of return. Always remember, the "investment" vehicles pushed in the press are simply a form of gambling. There are so many “news stories” because the investment industry (like most other industries) is trying to drum up interest for its products through press agents and other means.

People with a true ability to analyze and invest money generally don’t spend much time advertising for clients – especially small clients.

These talented venture capitalists and speculators do, however, spend years practicing and training to develop their ability. Then they make a good living despite intense competition and long hours. This is not you or me. Repeat, this is not you or me. The average person will not get rich by "investing" short term because they don't have 60 hours of spare time per week to research and they don't have primary access to financial data. Most importantly, the average person doesn't have the native talent shared by the miniscule handful of individuals who actually earn a living investing THEIR OWN money short term. The analogy to traditional gambling is a good one. There are a handful of people who earn a living at gambling due to extreme talent, the casinos earn far more by taking the house's cut, and the vast majority of individual gamblers lose in the end.

Rather than view savings from a gambler's perspective, as we are encouraged, it is necessary to first view savings in the traditional way. Savings are traditionally a store of value that protects you from hard times and financial exploitation. If you are skillful and avoid theft, your savings can give you freedom from debt servitude, an early retirement, and a bequest to future generations. Perhaps, after becoming skillful enough, you can even begin to make true gains as a long-term value investor. First, however, let’s cover the avoidance of theft.

To determine if you are gaining or losing on your savings you need to compare them to true inflation. The Consumer Price Index (CPI), unfortunately, does not represent true inflation. The numerous ways in which the CPI is manipulated to show low inflation are explained in articles from the alternative press and online. Since we can’t use the CPI, a general idea of inflation can be gained by watching the rate of currency growth. This used to be easy to track from the M3 (total) currency data published by the Federal Reserve. Unfortunately, the Federal Reserve recently stopped publishing M3 statistics entirely (after years of what some claim was lesser manipulation).

When data is hidden from you, it becomes necessary to take a larger view. I find it easiest to assume that real inflation is higher than the interest rate on government bonds. Once a government begins to hide and manipulate economic statistics, it is unlikely they will borrow money and pay it back at a higher value. Historically as well, nearly all bond investors worldwide have lost in the end. Sometimes the loss is gradual because returns fall behind true inflation. Often the loss is total. One currency collapse or government default wipes out bond investors, and this has been the norm from a historical perspective.

At any rate, now we can avoid wasting time and money on the entire range of interest bearing certificates. The private certificates that pay more than government bonds have a corresponding risk premium.

Remember, all public and private bonds are simply promises made by strangers to repay at greater value. These promises can be directly defaulted or partially defaulted by subtle currency inflation. In either case, the best you can generally hope for from strangers is to get most of your principal back.

After bonds, the next popular investment vehicle is stocks. The press is full of stories about how the stock market out-performed all other investments over such-and-such time period. We hear statements like, “the value of all stocks on the NYSE has increased 10,000% over the last 50 years” or, “the value of the Dow Jones Industrial Average has increased 5,000% over the last 50 years.” These are meaningless statements akin to saying, “the value of all houses in America has increased 10,000% in 50 years” or, “the value of the 30 biggest houses in America is now 5,000% greater than the value of the 30 biggest houses in 1950.” These misleading statements disregard the fact that houses are constantly being demolished and new ones built. If you had purchased a particular house (or stock) 100 years ago it would likely be worthless rubble today, despite the fact that the average home (or company) today is worth much more in inflated dollars. Looking past the financial industry's hype, stock analysis is an extremely complex field with an enormous number of variables. Let's try to simplify it. The fact is, nearly all corporations eventually go broke. If corporations didn't go broke, the stock exchanges would be dominated by names like the British East India or Hudson Bay Company.

If all companies go broke then how are people supposedly making fortunes in the stock market? First, even when a company goes broke it was still paying dividends for a long time and it is often merged or sold for some residual value that partially compensates stockholders. The overwhelming amount of lost historical data makes it nearly impossible to calculate the true return on stock markets. At their core, however, stock markets are simply a mechanism for distributing capital to companies. In other words you are again loaning money to a company in hopes of being repaid with interest based on the company's success. There is also a large element of gambling because a lot of excess capital is being pumped into the markets through inflation and uninformed investment. So people are trying to profit from the stock market in two ways - through repayment of interest on investment capital, and from outsmarting other speculators.

We have already discussed the track record of depositing money with strangers and expecting a greater return in value. Do you think most CEOs or unions will give up their pay increases to add to the company's dividend rate? In the relatively honest and successful US economy, a stock investor might expect to get nearly a full return in value on the average stock purchase (loan). To expect more, on average, or to consider that this situation would continue in hard times would be wishful thinking. The only stockholders in a different position are the majority shareholders who actually control the company. This is an entirely different and lengthy subject but irrelevant to the experience of most investors.

So if you aren't going to earn true value appreciation on the loan aspect of stock investing, what about the speculation aspect? Yes, many people do consistently earn money on stock speculation.

These people again have the necessary time, ability, and information access to exceed other investors. In the stock market, however, there are an abundance of foolish investors, countless “investment” (gambling) strategies that can be tapered to your individual skills, and relatively low broker commissions. If you want to gamble, this is perhaps a good place to try. Personally I prefer to earn money producing something of value. Gamblers only gain by taking others’ money. Producers can choose a field they enjoy, make something of value, and help others at the same time. This leads to a less stressful and more satisfying life. Besides being good karma, production of value is actually easier. Even if you are a mediocre worker, you still have something to show for it at the end of the day. When you are a mediocre gambler, you end up having less than you started with.

If stocks and bonds generally do not retain full value, what about real estate or commodities? These investments are unique in that you actually own and control the asset yourself. You are not simply purchasing a promise of interest or dividends and hoping that strangers will repay you with greater value. Perhaps more importantly, real estate and commodities are better protected from the effects of inflation and taxes set in place by the Federal Reserve Act. This protection makes real estate and commodities somewhat unique in the ability to preserve value.

First let’s look at real estate. Since many wealthy (influential) people traditionally owned real estate they have, for the present, generally insured that this investment can be legally protected from the tax on inflated value (savings tax). Real estate is also basically a commodity, not an interest-bearing certificate, and so is not subject to the subtle theft of loan repayments in depreciated money as are stock dividends and bonds. Real Estate also generates rental income. Once an owner becomes experienced, the rental income - after expenses and property taxes - will generally compensate the owner at a professional's hourly rate. If rental income truly paid any more, then everyone would get involved, and if it paid less then most wealthy people wouldn't be bothered and would purchase commodities instead.

Purchasing and managing real estate requires a special skill set that not everyone is suited for. Often, however, an owner can contract out the management aspects they dislike and concentrate on what they enjoy. Perhaps you enjoy landscaping but prefer to contract out tenant management or vice versa. An important fact to remember is that if you take no part in property oversight, you will again make yourself vulnerable by having other people control your assets – in this case a property management company. The vast majority of people will eventually lose in any investment that they allow strangers to manage. Real Estate, despite its advantages, is no exception to this rule. Before becoming heavily involved, it is best to study and start small. Local real estate management clubs – listed at www.creonline.com are a good starting point. Lastly, real estate is not as easy to hide as other commodities. This makes it a bigger target for a variety of subtle or direct thefts such as tenant lawsuits, rent control ordinances, and changing tax laws. However, since many wealthy people own real estate, they have insured that the legal structure currently allows protections such as trusts and corporate ownership. To research these protections further, good resources are the books by Bill Bronchick Esq.

The next true store of value is commodities. For the average investor, commodities may be limited to gold, platinum, silver, and palladium.

These are the main precious metals that have broad enough markets to allow low commissions and ease of exchange and transport.

Again, the purpose is not to get rich but simply to protect your savings. By following recommendations in the next chapter, commissions can be minimized and precious metals can be used to protect nearly the full value of your savings. It is important not to confuse precious metals with mining stocks that are subject to the same disadvantages as any other stock certificates. Mining companies may appreciate rapidly, but their ore reserves are eventually exhausted and most finally become insolvent. Metal bullion, however, holds its intrinsic value better than any other investment. This is probably why precious metal was used as the main form of money and savings for most of human history.

Investing in platinum, silver, and palladium also puts capital to good use in creating a commodity that will eventually be used to produce something of value. Gold serves a valuable purpose as an efficient medium of exchange, unfortunately its main end use is as a display of wealth in jewelry. Investing in gold may be considered a somewhat wasteful use of capital the same as investing in any other luxury industry which produces nothing of positive value to society. Some very ethical investors may avoid gold (and many other investments) for that reason. Regardless of personal ethics however, the government’s regulatory and tax structures strongly discourage ownership of precious metals for a different reason. Despite enormous benefit to the public as a savings tool, precious metal ownership is legally discouraged simply because it undermines the use of inflating paper currency necessary to fuel the banking industry and government. The legal disincentives to bullion ownership in the US are mainly limited to very biased tax treatment. Other more repressive governments forbid import or ownership outright – as the US has done for much of its history under the Federal Reserve Act.

Luckily, precious metals are widely accepted and relatively easy to transport. Records of ownership are not easily tracked. For the moment, this makes it possible to escape much of the confiscatory tax on inflated value. Confiscatory tax can be minimized with precious metals by long term ownership, transfer to heirs and others in the informal economy, and even resale overseas. Basically, the Internal Revenue Service has no easy way to prove when you purchased metals and what their dollar inflated “gains” were.

Nonetheless, the choice of avoiding confiscatory taxes and protecting yourself from inflation is a personal decision. Individuals should understand the laws and penalties applicable to their situation. In many Communist and Fascist countries (or even in a mugging) citizens may have felt they had an innate right to protect their property from confiscation. This “innate right” unfortunately did not protect them from punishment if they failed. The piecemeal theft of property set in motion by the Federal Reserve Act is the same as all other extortion. Risks and penalties are associated with any attempt to protect your property. You should not ignore the risks even when standing up for your rights.

Rather than fear of reprisals, some people have guilt about protecting their savings from confiscatory taxes. In that case, you may want to review the ultimate result of the savings penalty. Allowing your savings to be confiscated by inflation and taxes, under a Central Banking system, funds the inflationary cycle. This cycle is not only destructive to your savings, but destructive to a self-sufficient and productive society in general. If you still feel guilty, then you may have to accept that saving much money will be a losing proposition for you. It is extremely difficult to retain value if you play by the standard rules under the Federal Reserve Act. For most Americans, an Independent Retirement Account and home appreciation are the only savings vehicles protected from partial confiscation. An IRA and a house won't make you rich but you may manage a comfortable retirement if you don't live too long. The next chapter discusses specific strategies for people wishing to become wealthy by investing rather than simply saving for retirement.

Investment Strategies Your Broker and Financial Advisor Will Never Tell You

An important step towards financial freedom is recognizing and extricating yourself from the propaganda which directs the herd of “investors.” Before developing our own independent investment strategy, let’s look at what happens to the average person caught by the investment industry.

The great mass of investors and their money cycle through whatever happens to be the popular sector of the day. It is important to realize that much of the buzz surrounding an investment vehicle is generated in the same way as publicity for any other product. Press agents are hired, stories are written, and the media seems full of experts talking with certainty about the direction of a market. Never forget that these reports are not meant to educate, but simply to generate revenue for brokers or advisors who make a living off of commissions and “management” fees. Brokers and advisors are the two main classes of people who make a living off of investors. First let’s analyze brokers.

I’m certain most brokers have convinced themselves that they serve a useful purpose - in the same way that most bankers don’t realize the history and negative impact of their industry. Let’s analyze the facts. Just as with the banking industry, brokers of every sort generally earn a living without producing anything. Again there is a loser who enables brokers to earn this living without production. The losers are the buyer and seller. Brokers are basically middlemen who have found various ways to insert themselves into transactions between buyers and sellers. The more money is kept in motion, the more commissions are generated. A common example is the real estate broker.

In an efficient process, homebuyers and sellers could simply go to an open database of properties, contact the other party, and hire a lawyer to review sales paperwork. However, most people are nervous and unfamiliar with such large decisions and become easy prey for real estate brokers. This fear has enabled an entire industry to skim 5% on the sale of most properties. Unfortunately, many brokers are not satisfied only taking 5% off the top. Brokers will often try to convince their selling client that a home is worth less than its true value. If the seller agrees to an extremely low price, the real estate broker will buy the property through a friend and then re-sell it at a mark-up. Even if the price is just a little lower than market value, the broker can at least make a quicker sale and move on to the next deal.

It is important to remember that real estate brokers earn twice as much money when they are both the buyer’s and seller’s agent.

Therefore, brokers have a big incentive to suppress the sale of your property through an outside agent. Many brokers are so brazen that they don’t even bother to place photos or prepare a thorough description of their listed property. A low priced property is referred to as a “pocket listing” and is jealously guarded by all but the most honest brokers. If an outside broker calls to show their client a pocket listing, the call is rarely returned by the listing broker. Instead the property will be sold within a few days to one of the listing broker’s clients, thus generating a double commission. The entire scheme is kept afloat because the Multiple Listing Service, that serves as the main clearinghouse of properties, is controlled by the real estate brokerage associations. Outside parties are not allowed primary access to this database and thus cannot sell directly among themselves while cutting out the broker commissions. When competing databases were started in the past, they were boycotted by the real estate industry and driven out of business.

These same basic methods are used by brokers in all sectors.

Precious metal dealers will try to promote numismatic coins that have a higher markup than simple bullion. Brokers in the stock and commodity markets hold buy and sell orders coming from their clients. If you place an order to sell too low, some brokers will simply buy the order through a friend and immediately re-sell at a higher price. There are often laws against this type of self-dealing on the part of brokers. Such laws are very difficult to enforce, however. It is important to understand the concept of loss through brokerage commissions. Once you are aware of what is occurring, you can minimize it.

Always thoroughly research prices rather than rely on the biased advice of any broker. Exhaustively seek the lowest-priced form of ownership and the brokers with the lowest commissions. In real estate, the best price may be a direct transaction with the seller or purchase at an auction. In precious metals or other commodities the best prices may mean buying through delivery of futures contracts, wholesale, or at auction and perhaps eventually re-selling to an end-user. Alternative real estate clearinghouses and electronic stock and commodities sales are powerful tools to minimize skimming by brokers. The internet has reduced the middleman’s cut in every arena. Websites such as Ebay.com and Craigslist.com are now beginning to sell real estate and commodities directly between buyer and seller. Real Estate has also traditionally been sold directly through newspaper classifieds, auctions, and various foreclosure related transactions which exclude or minimize broker commissions.

More commodities contracts are now being sold electronically where they are protected from self-dealing brokers. Commodities are also available at public auction (for example, State auctions of the contents of abandoned safe deposit boxes) and online where hefty commissions can be avoided.

In addition to brokers, financial “advisors”, are the second class of people making a living off of investors. While brokers steal in a small and straightforward manner, “advisers” play a confidence game.

Mutual funds are the largest and perhaps worst offenders in this category. Mutual funds often skim 2% or more of an investor’s money annually under the pretense that they are providing expert investment guidance. This is akin to hiring an advisor to gamble in Las Vegas and giving them 2% of your grubstake whether you win or lose. If you don’t understand an investment and need outside management by strangers, then it is probably not something you should be involved in. Always remember, the primary goal of saving is to preserve value, not to gain by speculation through the guidance of others. If you are going to speculate you need to become skillful at it yourself.

With awareness and practice, you can learn to protect your wealth by avoiding confiscatory taxes, “advisors,” and brokers. At that point, new and profitable opportunities for using your saved money become possible. The first wonderful benefit of protected savings is freedom from debt servitude. You will no longer be forced to borrow for large purchases. You will then escape the disadvantageous terms that honest and employed borrowers must generally accept from the banking industry. This benefit alone can save you great amounts of money, time, and peace of mind.

The second enormous benefit of protected savings is the ability to take full advantage of the business cycle. Especially under an inflating currency, the economy tends to cycle through periods of growth and stagnation. During stagnant periods, some commodities and real estate are under-priced. If you are one of the few people with savings, you can purchase some commodities at low prices when other people are unable to borrow to do so. At this point you are no longer simply saving but also engaging in speculation, so caution is advised. It takes a great deal of research and experience to learn the supply and demand fundamentals of any commodity.

First an investor should concentrate on buying and holding the real estate or precious metals while minimizing commissions and eliminating taxes on inflated value. After accumulating an array of commodity investments you will naturally become more familiar with the market fundamentals of each asset. You can then begin to speculate and earn additional money if you are skillful in recognizing overvalued or undervalued assets.

The investment fundamentals for any single commodity are extremely complex and far beyond the scope of this book. There is an important point to remember, however. Concentrate on the big picture and the long term. The entire investment industry focuses on the short term for one reason - turnover increases commissions.

Thus you will see monthly or weekly price graphs and daily updates on how the market is doing. If you try to find a 20-year price graph or a historical discussion of market conditions, you will have much more difficulty. Nonetheless, long term data and conditions are what really matter. Short term price fluctuations are governed by information to which the average investor does not have priority access – a union strike, a politician’s statement, a new economic report. You will usually lose to industry insiders and specialists when buying short term. Short term purchases also generate greater commissions and increase the government’s ability to confiscate by tracking and taxing inflated value.

Long term investing, in addition to preserving the maximum value of your savings, also puts you on a more level playing field. Analysis, research skill, logic, and experience matter more to the long term investor than rapid information access.

I have no idea what may happen to the price of oil in the next week or even the next year. However, I know that evidence indicates oil production will begin to slow and eventually decline sometime in the coming decades. Since most investors were unaware of this trend, long term oil contracts were a good investment in recent years as inexpensive oil supplies began to tighten.

I have no certainty what may happen with inflation during the next year. However, I know that the retiring baby boomers will eventually place a great strain on private and government pensions. There will be a temptation to ease this strain by inflating the dollar and euro more than normal. Higher inflation would be a positive factor for investing in gold. As the market became collectively aware of these and other inflationary factors, the price of gold rose in recent years.

The minority of investors who discerned the trend earliest profited from those who saw the trend later.

South Africa is moving towards greater democracy, thus decreasing the supply of exploited labor and increasing the population’s ability to vote themselves a percentage of mining profit. These factors should continue to add to the production price of platinum. Photographic film is the main end use for silver, and this use may decline as digital imaging increases. In the absence of all other factors, that would be a negative for the price of silver over the coming decades. Localized conditions, such as a military base closure, can cause a temporary downturn in an area’s housing market. At those times, buildings often sell for a fraction of their normal cost. Assuming the region will eventually absorb the local job loss, real estate in a temporary down market can be a good purchase – especially if it’s an area the retiring baby boomers might enjoy.

What you can see here is that significant movement in the markets comes from a combination of long term trends. The important point to remember is that, in order to actually gain, you need to become an expert in a given field and accurately predict the long term trends. As someone with money, you will be in a unique position to capitalize on price discrepancies and wait out the down trends. Those without money, and industries which can take years to adjust usage and decades to adjust production, are not as flexible. The broader and longer term view you have, the more success you will enjoy in predicting and profiting from trends.

Markets are basically made up of the collective subconscious of all persons with money. Commodities are valued based on both the knowledge and emotions (fear and greed) of the collective mind. For people who think the collective market always determines the correct price of a commodity, I recommend Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds by Charles Mackay. Written in 1841, this classic book documents spectacularly irrational emotions in the collective mind/market.

By researching the broadest overview of data, you will be able to best estimate a commodity’s true value. Next, by recognizing the irrational effects of fear and greed in the collective mind, you can determine when a commodity is priced out of balance with its true value and should be bought or sold. The most successful speculators are those who can free themselves from fear and greed, disregard the investment industry’s hype, and develop an overview of as many long term factors as possible. Factors that are significant (but not yet fully accepted in the collective consciousness) are the ones that give the greatest potential for speculator profit.

One of the most hidden and important economic factors is the Central Bank and its impact on the value of money. Luckily, if you are invested solely in commodities, and do not borrow money, you needn’t waste much time analyzing the Central Banks’ complex manipulations. If you plan to speculate in stocks or interest bearing certificates however, an understanding of the Central Bank’s role is vital. This is a terribly complex field and most investors are better off minimizing their required degree of knowledge by minimizing their exposure to stocks and bonds. Don’t become distracted by press releases regarding this month’s rise or fall in the prime lending rate.

Watch the long-term trends. The rate of inflation growth that is being induced by a Central Bank is an extremely important determinant of market changes. Yet even the Central Bank is constrained by the ebb and flow of societies themselves. Europe’s industrial base slowed as America’s rose and American manufacturing now weakens in the face of China’s expansion. The Central Banks merely attempt to moderate these trends while fulfilling their purpose of inflating each nation’s currency.

Occasionally a nation’s debts build so high and economies turn down so sharply that the Central Bank fails to produce controlled inflation and instead the currency partially collapses. Alternately, a sharp economic downturn in the absence of excessive debt often causes deflation. The Central Bank “fixes” deflation by producing even more money. The Central Bank fixes currency collapse by printing a “new” peso or “new” dollar worth 100 or 1000 of the “old” currency.

If all of these factors seem too complex to track, don’t worry. No one can track everything at once. That is why the market is a collective mind. All you have to do is gain a broader view than the average investor. It takes years of practice to develop skill at long term speculation. If you choose to focus on saving, you will only need to concern yourself with minimizing commissions and the confiscation of savings by taxation. Rather than speculation, you can then concentrate effort on your normal career or business that is hopefully more enjoyable and productive to society.

The True Use of Money

No advice on investing would be complete without discussing the most important and overlooked aspect of money. Nearly everyone saves or fails to save without understanding the logic (or lack of it) behind their behavior. If you are handling money based on subconscious motivations then you are likely to fail in achieving your real goals. Take an honest look at your life. What do you truly enjoy and how much of a sacrifice are you willing to make to attain those things? Are you really willing to give up over half of your life in a stressful job to attain status symbols or escape an irrational fear of poverty? What are the precise items you are saving for and how much time and effort are you willing to give for these things?

Our handling of money comes from several influences. Societies which evolved in areas subject to severe droughts or winters tended to develop a stronger hoarding mechanism. This carried over from saving food to saving money. The opposite was true for societies surrounded by plenty. Many of these behaviors may no longer be optimal in the modern world. People also handle money based on negative emotions such as fear, greed, and pride. People fear that they will die destitute and alone if they run out of money. Other people’s greed pushes them to save and become rich in a subconscious attempt to prove themselves better than others. Still other people can’t wait to prove themselves better in the future, and instead mortgage themselves immediately to acquire possessions they believe will give them worth in the eyes of society.

So much time is spent acquiring money that it is vital we understand the reasons for our actions and learn what we really want. Nearly everyone today is using money for more than the basics of food and shelter. Instead, our society is desperately consuming money in an attempt to show status. Although few people are willing to admit it, generally the desire to project wealth comes from insecurity about social standing. However, true improvement in social status doesn’t come from borrowing against your future to gain a temporary appearance. Ultimately, your status is determined by al aspects of your personality - not just your money. When you project wealth, you are simply making the statement that you are a member of the class that feels insecure about their money – the nouveau riche. Instead, consider that the upper class is judged by their intellect and manners as well as their possessions. Although you may not be able to quickly increase your net worth, you can increase your knowledge and manners rapidly. Or you may decide that you are happy with your current social station and seek a positive self-image in ways that are more natural and enjoyable to you.

I enjoy travel, boating, reading, and having as much leisure time as possible. I’m willing to forgo almost any status symbol in order to have free time, an early retirement, and money to travel. If people judge me by my small car, they probably aren’t compatible with me.

Nonetheless, projecting a degree of wealth may be necessary to attract certain people you wish to associate with. If that is the unfortunate case, you can at least try to project wealth in a cost-effective manner. For example, you could simply borrow or rent a luxury car for the rare occasions you need it - that’s all you’re doing anyway when you lease or take out a car loan.

The main reason I save money is to gain greater freedom from economic exploitation. I don’t ever want to be trapped in a job or a mortgage with no way out. We often assume that debt and wage slavery are a normal condition of modern life. This is not the case if you are knowledgeable and patient.

The following advice may seem difficult and unreasonable to many who are currently trapped in wage and debt slavery. In order to escape from economic exploitation, however, you essentially must overcome the cumulative actions of your ancestors over many generations. This effort will never be easy, but it will insure that you and your children have a chance at freedom from what is otherwise an endless cycle of servitude.

Mortgage debt is the main thing that traps the average American in both his job and an exploitive banking contract. Yet, housing traditionally costs only two or three times annual salary. It is the interest payments which make the home cost many times more and keep people trapped over the course of a 30 year mortgage.

During recessions, repossessed or run-down homes are sometimes available for half price or less. This can sometimes be as little as a person’s annual salary. By saving just 20% of your annual salary for five years, with a little luck and a lot of searching, you can buy a starter house or condo for cash during a recession. This is what I was lucky to do at age 27. Alternately, you can buy land or a ruined house and gradually build. A third option is to relocate with your savings and buy housing in a cheaper area. Once you are free from a mortgage (debt servitude) and rent, you are close to financial freedom.

Furthermore, your children will be closer to freedom when they inherit the home from you one day.

Saving 20% of one’s salary for five years seems incredible to many Americans today. This was not always the case. Difficulty in saving is often due to conditioning. We are bombarded by an ever-growing array of consumer products and encouraged to buy everything on credit. These products are often purchased for status or to fill some emptiness a person feels. It’s important to analyze and remember what you really want in life. Are you buying on impulse or to impress others? If not, then you should often buy used items. When a product doesn’t have a lot of moving parts, it generally functions about as well used as new - for half price or less. Buying pre-owned should cut your discretionary spending in half. The next big expense for many Americans is a car. Here again, many people pay double the price they need for basic transportation. Rather than buying on impulse, consider what is more important – a few inches of legroom, an annual vacation overseas, or the chance to save and start your own business someday. Even greater consideration should go into the apartment you rent or the home you buy.

Now that you’ve hopefully saved half of your luxury and automotive expenditures, the next big cost is food. Learning to cook for yourself will help a lot in this arena - as well as promoting better health which will be discussed later.

Beyond food, you can save money by learning to repair and maintain all of your possessions more carefully. Although it may seem “impossible” people can quickly learn many methods to save 20% or more of their salary. After all, when given a 20% pay cut or forced to take a lower salaried job, few Americans starve but instead rapidly learn to become more frugal.

The preceding chapters have laid out the state of affairs for the average person in the modern world and given options for changing one’s situation. Likely you will find even better financial plans for your own life. We were born into a state of subtle servitude to banks and employers. Moreover, if we do not learn to escape, we consign our children to the same situation. If you are happy and function well as a quasi-slave in this system, then it is certainly not worth the sacrifice to “escape.” However, if you want real financial and employment freedom, it is vital to understand the system and then take action.

Knowledge and action can eventually give you an unimagined degree of freedom once your efforts are no longer subtly siphoned away by others. Hopefully this information will assist you in learning about a misunderstood topic and eventually improving your life to enjoy the happy and fulfilling work and freedom that should be the birthright of everyone.

Money is only one of the greatly misunderstood areas of life, however. Even more important topics – perhaps understandably – are shrouded in even greater ignorance. Food and health are vital to our quality of life yet we have gradually lost much of our knowledge over the course of generations. Just as with money, our lack of understanding about food and health has led to the virtual enslavement of society. In this case however, the ignorance is so ingrained that no one benefits. Worse than economic servitude, we are imprisoned by sickness and diminished mental and physical ability. If you thought the real story of money was surprising, wait until you hear the real story of food and health.

The Real Story of Food and Health

“A wise man ought to realize that health is his most valuable possession and learn to treat his illnesses by his own judgment.”

- Hippocrates

“Having good health is very different from only being not sick”

- Seneca the Younger

Often it is argued, “I would rather enjoy my life and eat what I want rather than live a few years longer.” This overlooks two significant issues. First is the negative impact that chronic conditions have on your quality of life. Living one year longer might not matter (now), but living one decade with Alzheimer’s disease or a lifetime with poor health will matter. Secondly, health not only increases your physical ability, but also your mental aptitude and outlook. People are designed to live happy, healthy, and fulfilling lives. If we are not doing so, it is often because we have dietary and physical constraints that are outside of the natural state for humans.

It is a tribute to our adaptability that many people endure years of inadequate diet before a breaking point is reached. Yet, despite our modern surroundings, we can always incorporate lost elements from our intended lifestyle and diet. People obtain truly remarkable health results by simply restoring lost elements of a traditional diet and lifestyle. An unbelievable potential for improvement is often within easy reach when we simply reclaim the knowledge of health that has been gradually forgotten.

Society today often makes the mistake of acting as if all dietary knowledge has been discovered. In order to achieve optimal health, it is vital to escape this mindset. Remember that only 100 years ago, we did not even know what vitamins were. Prior to the discovery of vitamins, many “doctors” advised that vegetables only be eaten if people couldn’t afford higher caloric foods. It is nearly inevitable that a broad range of generally unstudied substances exist in our foods that are harmful, healthful, or neutral depending on dietary intake, combinations, and individual genetics. There is such a broad range of variables involved in diet that no one can analyze everything at once and definitively determine the “perfect” diet. For this reason, empirical and traditional knowledge are some of the best starting points.

A second problem with dietary knowledge is, the same as with investing, much harmful information is disseminated through press agents on behalf of industry. Most information has little to do with health and a great deal to do with profit. The larger the profit margin and industrialization of a food product, the more positive press will be created. Thus you hear about the purported benefits of soybean and dairy products while negative stories are run on fish that is produced by smaller, less organized businessmen. A classic example was propaganda convincing most of America that tropical oils were bad and margarine was good. That tragedy is partially documented in the book The Coconut Oil Miracle by Bruce Fife. Even cigarettes were at one time promoted as healthy for various ailments.

Most widely publicized studies are actually funded and (if positive) disseminated through an industry group that will profit from more people eating their products. These industry-funded studies are often so biased that only the most unethical “scientists” can be paid to participate. If the biased researchers still obtain a negative result, the study generally never sees the light of day. Of course there are also many extremely valuable (mostly government funded) dietary studies. Just remember that much of what you hear in the popular press regarding diet is about as useful as what you hear regarding investing.

The average American, including myself, probably grows up rarely questioning their diet. Sickness is generally seen as inevitable or genetically predetermined. I might still be following this mindset if I had not been fortunate enough to visit many other countries and see many foreign friends attempt to adapt to the American diet. After years of observation, it finally began to dawn on me that perhaps the modern diet was not optimal and was partially to blame for much of the “inevitable” sickness we suffer. Many people probably have a similar intuition just as many people have a vague understanding that the financial system is skewed against them. The average person, however, never really sees and feels the cumulative impact of our radically modified diet. If you make significant changes, however, the benefits are often far greater than could have been imagined. You may realize that chronic conditions such as allergies, headaches, and colds simply disappear. Some people may have improved mood, higher energy, and heightened mental or physical ability. Only by making changes will you know what to expect and whether the benefits are worthwhile.

Just as with money, we can best understand our current dietary and health conditions by comparing them to historical norms. Upon first glance, we see that many great improvements have been made over the past 200 years. Killers such as cholera have been defeated by modern infrastructure’s clean water delivery and waste elimination systems. These modern systems, combined with insecticides, have minimized diseases such as the plague and malaria. Vaccinations have wiped out killers like smallpox. Lastly, modern agriculture has insured a plentiful and varied diet with less physical toil than in the past. Medical advances and antibiotics have also helped to improve our longevity. The evidence is undeniable. The average person today has a much longer lifespan than the historical norm.

So what is left to improve? How can anyone promise even greater health or contradict the current system that has provided these wonderful benefits? In economics, it is easy to see that the wealth of modern society comes from technology (particularly in combination with fossil fuels) and not the parasitic financial establishment. Our health is much more complex, however. Some health issues are buried in our ancient past while others are still developing and hidden from view. Each step in our dietary evolution up to the present day created a new set of opportunities and problems. Some of these problems have now become embedded and forgotten. To search for optimal health, we need to understand the big picture of diet and human evolution. This will take us back quite a way.

Organisms evolve over millions of years to depend on a specific range of nutrients, calories, and natural compounds in their food.

Around five million years ago, our early human ancestors began evolving from primates. These ancestors were probably very similar to chimpanzees. They lived in small groups within a forest environment and ate mostly fruit, nuts, vegetation, meat, and roots.

Changes were occurring rapidly, however. First, the primates became more skilled at hunting and moved out onto the savannas.

Some likely obtained a greater percentage of their diet from meat.

Next the primates spread even further. They adapted to new sources of food such as fish in certain areas and different plants in others.

Then came even more overwhelming events.

Early man learned the technology of fire. Fire was first used for heat and hunting and then became common in cooking between 100,000 and 40,000 years ago. A second massive event came with the advent of farming and animal husbandry around 8,000 years ago.

Cumulatively, these changes created an upheaval in the human diet that few species have had to face in such a short evolutionary time period. Humans are still struggling to adapt to this dietary revolution after many thousands of years. These events in our past continue to shape our lives and our health far more than we realize.

It is useful to understand why our ancestors made such fundamental changes in their diet and way of life. The surprising answer is that they changed for the same reason we change our food and technology today. They changed because the new system allowed for an increase in population. An additional source of calories from meat allowed a higher population, particularly on the open plains that had few other traditional sources of food for a forest primate. The use of fire for cooking allowed our ancestors to eat or store meat that otherwise would have been contaminated or rotten. Fire also enabled early man to consume various roots and seeds that were toxic in an uncooked state. Lastly, fire unlocked a greater percentage of calories and nutrients from food. The use of farming and animal husbandry caused an extreme increase in the availability of food.

The story is exactly the same today when our vaccines, infrastructure, corporate farms, chemicals, and genetically engineered crops have allowed a massive increase in human population. There is one important point to remember in any technological advance, however. While culture and society can change rapidly, our genetics are not as nimble. A human’s genetic code may take millions of years to completely evolve to a new lifestyle. Until the genetic evolution is complete, there will continue to be some disadvantages that partially offset the advantages of a new lifestyle. Let’s further analyze the advantages and disadvantages of mankind’s early dietary changes.

The use of fire in food preparation was perhaps the most earth-shattering event in the history of human dietary evolution, and yet today it is entirely forgotten. Almost no one considers the implications, benefits, or problems associated with our most basic food processing technique.

First let’s look at the benefits. As mentioned, cooking degrades toxins in rancid meat and poisonous plant foods. Cooking also kills deadly bacteria in infected meat or dairy products. Secondly, cooking weakens the cell walls within our food, making calories and nutrients more available to digestion. After living thousands of years with these benefits, humans have become dependent to varying degrees. Many people have lost some of their ancestors’ digestive efficiency and toxin resistance. Animals, including chimpanzees, may be able to eat large quantities of raw leaves for example. However, without cooking, modern humans are often unable to resist the toxins or obtain sufficient nutrients from our original foods. Humans now have difficulty obtaining sufficient calories and nutrients from many uncooked food sources. Most of our current food staples would be poisonous or provide diminished nutrition without cooking. These benefits have allowed the human population to grow so large that for the most part our society is now dependent on cooking.

Once a behavior is accepted by society, few people question it, however there are often hidden disadvantages. When food molecules are heated it is not only the toxins that are destroyed. Heat indiscriminately destroys toxins, vitamins, and any other complex molecules. Essentially, the entire structure of the food changes. A simple example is a clear egg albumin turning white as the heated protein is denatured. As this process continues, proteins, fats, and carbohydrates degrade and recombine in nearly infinite variety. The more radically affected protein and carbohydrate molecules change color to black or brown. These darkened particles are generically called Maillard particles. Maillard particles are simply random compounds formed by cooking. So while it is clear that food is radically changed by heat processing, it would be extremely unlikely that all of cooking’s changes were positive, or that humans had time to fully evolve and overcome all of the negative aspects.

There have been a vast number of claims regarding the damage which cooking does to food. These include destruction of enzymes, creation of toxins, destruction of beneficial nutrients/phytochemicals, and allowance of poisonous and sub-optimal food sources into the general diet. As with any dietary controversy, we could endlessly analyze each side’s argument. There are easier ways however.

Societies have empirically adjusted to dietary changes. Over thousands of years, most cultures develop standard diets and food preparation methods based on trial and error. This knowledge represents the cumulative experience of millions of individuals over hundreds of generations.

Rather than theorize or conduct limited studies, it is almost always simpler and more effective to learn what our ancestors traditionally ate and how they prepared their food when given choices. It is also important to recognize that every sub-population and individual has genetic variability. It is necessary to keep an open mind, experiment, and follow your instincts in order to arrive at an optimal individual diet for yourself at any given period of your life.

So what do traditional diets indicate regarding cooking? Unlike modern society, traditional diets seem to recognize there is a trade-off between the benefits and disadvantages of cooking. Northern cultures, where bacteria were less of a problem, often ate a great deal of their meat raw. The Eskimos, who ate nearly all meat raw, are a classic example. Traditionally, fermentation was generally preferred over cooking when time allowed. Raw, fermented vegetables and fermented dairy/grain drinks were a staple food in many societies.

Examples are sauerkraut, kimchi, yogurt, kvass, chicha, and ale.

Even when foods were heated, prior fermentation seemed to add benefits such as decreased cooking times and improved digestibility.

A common example is sourdough bread.

Furthermore, traditional diets seemed to favor low heat when cooking was necessary. Foods were often steamed or cooked very slowly at low heat even though this greatly increased the difficulty of preparation for people who were heating with wood. It is likely that this slow cooking was effective in killing bacteria and unlocking nutrients while creating a minimum of toxic Maillard compounds. In contrast, many foods today are heated rapidly, pressure cooked, or fried in order to save time (money) in preparation.

Each food had its traditional method of preparation that generally differed from the modern method. A common example is beans that were traditionally soaked first to remove toxins, improve digestibility, and reduce cooking times. Today, however, beans are usually just boiled or pressure-cooked for a longer time to produce the same texture, thus simplifying preparation at the expense of quality.

Unfortunately, nearly every food today is processed in a new and often radically non-traditional manner. Few if any long-term studies have been conducted to learn the effects of these changes. The best guidelines, therefore, are to copy traditional methods, develop skill in observing the effects foods have on your body, and use instinctive taste as a guide.

In addition to minimizing cooking and eating more raw and fermented foods, humans also traditionally had different food sources from today. Until the advent of agriculture and animal husbandry 8,000 years ago (less than 1% of human existence) dairy, grains, and beans (legumes) were an insignificant part of our diet. Adoption of these foods allowed an enormous new source of calories, however, our genetics could not fully adapt in such a short time. A well-known example is the fact that most adults worldwide are unable to digest milk’s lactose. Similar problems exist for the compounds in grains and legumes. Problems with gluten digestion in wheat are perhaps the best-documented example. Hemagglutinins in beans are similar to the gluten in grains. Basically these substances in grains and legumes are a natural defense. An animal that is not adapted or eats too much of these food sources will have their systems clogged and blood flow decreased in the capillaries. Such clogging has a relatively unstudied effect on nutrient and oxygen flow to tissue like the brain.

Traditional food preparation methods such as fermentation or soaking improved the digestion of dairy and reduced agglutination factors in grains and legumes. Unfortunately, these methods are rarely followed in modern commercial food processing.

There are so many variables and interactions involved with any food source that it becomes impossible to fully determine the long-term effects of one food on a given person. While non-biased studies are helpful, the best method is probably to study the traditional diet of your ethnic type and region while observing the taste and effects of modified diets. Simply making one or two changes, however, will not alter an overwhelming unhealthy trend. In order to truly feel the potentially enormous benefits, it is necessary to make a significant transition back to some semblance of what our ancestors ate.

At this point we have, briefly, covered the broad field of “ancient” dietary changes. In summary, our ancestors had a very different dietary foundation (fruit, nuts, roots, greens, and meat) compared to our current staples (grains, legumes, meat, and dairy). For nearly all of human history most foods were also eaten raw or processed through fermentation or low-heat cooking when necessary. By experimenting with these traditional practices we can begin to overcome endemic food-related health problems that have been accepted as unavoidable for millennia. Examples include frequent colds, headaches, and a wide range of degenerative diseases.

However, these “ancient” problems were only the beginning.

In the last 50 years, humans have developed an incredible new array of food production and processing techniques. Each change had its benefit and usually had negative impacts as well. In most cases the benefits were an increase in food production or a time (cost) savings in preparation. The negative impacts were generally a decrease in nutritional value or an increase in various toxic substances which humans were not evolved to perfectly eliminate - especially at elevated levels. In reality, what has happened in the last 50 years is simply an extension of what happened with the adoption of cooking and grains/legumes/dairy thousands of years ago. Humans have adopted new food sources and production methods. We are not fully adapted to these changes, but the new methods give us the opportunity to increase our population despite the negative health impacts. Those who adopt the new methods/foods will often out-breed and displace those who don’t. This displacement occurs despite the diminished health of those adopting the new foods. In other words, a family raising one healthy child on a natural diet will probably be displaced by a family raising 10 sickly children on a cheap but unhealthy diet.

What you need to determine, however, is whether the time and expense of healthier food is worth the benefit to you as an individual.

To eat a truly natural and traditional diet may be costly in both preparation time and the actual price of the food itself. Only by making changes and experimenting can you determine what the benefits and costs will be for you. These benefits are often far greater than you might imagine, however. In the case of nervous system health, for example, a better diet can improve your entire mental process and outlook. Most people may never know their true potential without adopting traditional dietary practices and experiencing the benefits firsthand. The more knowledge you accumulate, the greater the return should be.

The preceding overview of our dietary history and evolution just scratched the surface. I simply touched on the main changes without great detail regarding traditional diets. These subjects are so complex that volumes could be written on them – but rarely are. The subject of how modern food is modified through synthetic fertilizers, genetic engineering, storage methods, chemical treatment, and heat/pressure processing is even more overwhelming. Suffice it to say that one could write a book on the production and potential impacts of even the simplest of commercial foods. Before becoming overwhelmed by detail, however, it is much easier to start improving your health by following the basic principles contained in the next chapter.

Traditional Health Advice your Doctor and Pharmacist do not Know

I would like to present an overview of the many traditional dietary and health practices that have been forgotten by most of society today.

These general guidelines can dramatically improve both mental and physical health for many individuals and reduce the need for continual research. If you try to become attuned to your body’s reaction to these practices you will hopefully be able to learn what is most helpful to you. Effects are not always readily apparent or noticed, however, so when in doubt I try to simply follow traditional wisdom. These and other subjects can be studied in far greater detail, but this overview serves as a good starting point. In fact, only a small fraction of modern society comes close to following this basic traditional wisdom, so for most people extreme study is superfluous.

First, eat varied and natural foods when in season. In the modern world of commercial food production, this is easier said than done.

Much of our diet is now based on a few staples such as corn and wheat. Over dependence on a few foods can increase the chance of deficiencies in some nutrients or phytochemicals as well as increasing the intake of mild toxins beyond a threshold where they are easily eliminated. An example would be someone who can handle a certain level of wheat gluten but develops mild allergies on a modern high gluten diet, or an adolescent who can handle a small amount of rancid oil but develops severe acne on a modern diet of fried foods.

Substitute fruit and nut mixtures for dessert and sweets as much as possible. Conventional sweets cause insulin spikes and also have the effect of revving up and then crashing the body. This effect mimics a mild stimulant taken several times a day. Eventually the process leads to a drain on the body’s energy. Fruit and nuts cause less of a spike and contain numerous healthy factors such as vitamins, minerals, enzymes, antioxidants, and other phytochemicals that are missing in modern over-processed foods such as granulated sugar and corn syrup.

Substitute lightly cooked grains, legumes, and root vegetables for processed white flour whenever possible. Substituting these for white flour helps to deliver a wider range of nutrients as well as contributing complex carbohydrates in a more natural form. These substitutes also reduce white flour’s harmful contaminants such as oxidation products and gluten. Toxic substances such as gluten and oxidation products have always been eaten in minor amounts, but they may overwhelm some people’s genetic defenses when consumed in the unnaturally large quantities of today. You may also wish to experiment with soaking or sprouting the grains and legumes slightly before preparation. Soaking or sprouting generally increases nutrient content and aids digestion. The traditional fermentation process of preparing sourdough bread also aids in removing some of the grain’s toxins and increasing digestibility.

Oil is an extremely important but complex and unstable molecule.

Processing, heating, and oxidation can damage oils and fats more readily than proteins and carbohydrates. Our body evolved an extreme sensitivity to rancid smells in order to protect us from damaged oil molecules. Unfortunately this instinct is tricked by modern scent removal methods used in commercial oil production.

Oils are the building blocks for our nervous system and are critical for the construction and function of the rest of our bodies as well. Eat only cold pressed oils from traditional sources like olive or coconut, avoid (like the plague) hydrogenated oils, and substitute whole nuts, seeds, oily fruits, and organic meat for pre-processed oils in your diet. Traditional cultures were particularly careful to eat oils fresh, unheated, and unprocessed whenever possible. One of the most important things you can do for your physical and nervous system health is to begin eating fats and oils in natural forms and ratios. In particular, the modern diet is deficient in essential omega 3 fatty acids that go rancid quickly and therefore are not compatible with the long storage periods of today’s food industry. For those wishing to learn much more, the definitive book on this subject is, Fats that Kill, Fats that Heal by Udo Erasmus.

Do not continually deny your appetite. We instinctively crave the foods that contain nutrients our body is lacking. We also feel aversion to foods once we have obtained enough of the needed nutrient or the food’s natural toxin level builds in our body. Rather than constantly fight our body’s better judgment, it is often easier and healthier to simply eat what we desire as long as it is in a totally unprocessed form. For example, try sweet fruit and nuts instead of a donut or eat a little fresh sashimi or “grass fed” beef instead of a preservative laden hot dog. I would stress that it only helps to fol ow your instinctive taste if you are eating natural food. Modern processed foods contain flavor enhancing chemicals and additives that are designed to trick our instinctive sense of taste. Also, it does little good to gorge your body with calories and toxins trying to get limited nutrients from an over-processed and adulterated food source.

Eat high quality foods raw when the taste is preferable to the cooked version. It should go without saying that low quality foods and foods with a serious potential for contamination should never be eaten raw – and arguably never eaten cooked. Unheated foods contain the maximum nutrient and phytochemical potential as well as avoiding toxic by-products of the heating process. If cooking does improve taste, it is likely due to increased nutrient availability when the food’s cell walls are ruptured in the heating process. Try to use low heat methods such as steaming or slow baking whenever possible. These are the traditional methods that increase nutrient availability, or kill pathogens in contaminated food, while creating a minimum of new toxins and nutrient damage. Despite thousands of years of culinary traditions, few societies ate as large a percentage of cooked food as we do today.

Fermentation and marination are other alternatives to cooking which were often traditionally preferred for foods such as milk and fish with a moderate potential for contamination. Proper fermentation or marination kills pathogens and increases nutrient availability. Natural fermentation may also add healthy by-products to the food such as anti-biotic and anti-fungal properties.

Past societies often ate bitter vegetables that were believed to have a cleansing effect on the system. Perhaps the bitter compounds assisted in the production of bile or were intermediary products used to bond and flush toxins from the body. At any rate, such vegetables are almost completely missing from the modern diet. Once common cleansing vegetables included greens in general - especially the more bitter varieties such as dandelion.

Stimulants such as caffeine have been around for millennia. Many groups with the strictest and most advanced dietary guidelines, however, refrained from these drugs. It appears that these advanced cultures felt the end result of stimulants was to over-tax or tire the nervous system.

Electrolytes are critical to nerve and other cell functions. A much wider range of electrolytes and minerals was once common in our diet. Nearly every traditional culture has a common dietary source of electrolytes and minerals. These sources include fruits and vegetable juices, various herbal teas, mineral water, soup broth made with bone, and fulvic acids naturally occurring in unchlorinated water.

To the extent possible, eat organic food and heirloom varieties. This is especially true for meat that is a more concentrated food source than plant products. The debate about organic vs. conventional food could fill volumes when fully analyzed. Suffice to say, it is likely organic foods contain less pesticide residue and a higher nutrient concentration since they are grown in a more traditional manner. The true benefit vs. the cost of higher priced organic food is impossible to determine due to infinite variables. I generally choose to save money in other ways rather than gamble with health. It is amazing how many people are conditioned to believe health insurance (and the associated job) are critical, while gambling on health with a questionable diet is acceptable. Organic food also tends to support smaller, more environmentally conscious and sustainable farms as well as more ethical animal husbandry practices.

The preceding dietary recommendations may seem reasonable from an intellectual standpoint however many people find them extremely difficult to implement long-term (or even for one day in some cases).

One of the main reasons for such difficulty is that we are no longer taught basic culinary techniques that were once a fundamental part of education. Considering the health and economic importance of diet, it is not surprising that most societies placed great emphasis on teaching skillful food preparation techniques. There are various reasons this knowledge is being lost in modern society, but the good news is that you can regain culinary skill with practice.

By visiting local immigrant and farming families or visiting other countries you can gradually pick up many quick, economical, and healthy recipes which have been time-tested for centuries. The recipes followed by such people are usually economical and easy to prepare in contrast to the recipe books that many Americans consider when they think of “cooking at home.” Preparing traditional foods yourself will enable you to regain a healthy diet that can be sustained and improved with practice.

Another healthy concept related to diet is fasting. Few topics seem to evoke such strong emotions as the discussion of fasting does. Eating French fries and soda for an entire day will rarely raise as much shock and concern as eating nothing. Despite its current lack of favor, fasting has been encouraged by many societies and most major religions throughout history. Historically, people often conducted at least one short fast per year in the winter or spring.

Current medical studies are beginning to rediscover the benefits of fasting for health and longevity. Although modern studies have not focused on nervous system health, this is the area traditionally considered to benefit most from fasting. Fasting was historically believed to aid mental clarity and calm the emotions.

During a fast, your body is able to re-direct its energy away from digestion toward repair functions. Enzyme potential that was once needed to break down heavy food can instead be redirected to dissolve toxins and cleanse waste from the body. Unfortunately, this release of toxins often creates effects such as headache or nausea just as the toxins of a hangover or mild food poisoning do. The best way to relieve these symptoms is by drinking water, resting, or ending the fast if the initial release of toxins is too uncomfortable.

Traditional wisdom recommends fasting only when you are able to rest and drink plenty of water. The first food eaten afterward should be something light and preferably raw such as fruit or vegetables.

A fast should never be a display of willpower or a competition with yourself. Fasts should generally be started when you have already achieved good health and a well-balanced nutritional intake. Our bodies are designed to warn us when we are doing harm to ourselves. When symptoms of a fast become too unpleasant, it is best to end your fast early and begin eating small amounts of natural, healthy foods.

In addition to food, another important component of health comes from the fluids we drink. Again, it is easy to get bogged down in countless considerations related to water and its healthiest source.

Modern treatment methods have made enormous strides in reducing disease but questions remain as to the long-term effects of some sterilization processes that introduce chemicals and upset the mineral balance in our water supply. Fluoridation is another lengthy topic but, in short, there is growing debate over potential neurotoxic effects from fluoride. As always, the simplest course may be to follow nature and traditional knowledge. Numerous studies now indicate what our ancestors knew – mineral water is good for general health.

When societies couldn’t obtain mineral water from local sources they often substituted by drinking various herbal teas.

Try experimenting with several brands of mineral water and natural low-caffeine tea to see which you prefer. Bottled spring water can often be delivered at a relatively low price and generally has a much higher mineral content than tap water without chlorine residuals or added fluoride. Distilling or reverse osmosis treatment of water unfortunately removes nearly all minerals along with potential toxins.

Minerals in solution are more easily absorbed than those in food and may replenish trace elements that are generally lacking in the modern diet. Natural drinks such as teas, mineral or spring water, and fresh fruit/vegetable juice can also provide substances (lacking in our modern diets) such as electrolytes and negative hydrogen ion that may boost nerve and overall body functions.

Beyond food and water, another vital environmental factor is air.

Many advanced cultures proclaimed the health benefits of deep breathing techniques and taught these methods through systems such as yoga. The importance of clean air has also been demonstrated in numerous studies. Vehicle exhaust and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from foam, glues, and paints in modern homes are some of the most common pollutants. Effective methods of reducing air pollution can be as simple as keeping windows open (to lower VOC concentration) or as complex as relocating away from major streets (to reduce exhaust pollutants).

An overlooked but important aspect of air is negative ion. Air charged with negative ions feels fresh such as that near a shower or waterfall, while air that is deficient in negative ions feels stuffy and stagnant.

Negative ions occur naturally through processes such as falling water droplets, plant transpiration, and wind friction. The ions are likewise removed by grounding on solids such as dust or surfaces in a closed room. Preliminary studies and anecdotal evidence suggest that negative ion replenishes energy and lifts mood. You may have felt this difference firsthand in high ion environments such as surf, waterfalls, or rain showers. Since we can’t all live by a waterfall, the next best thing is to keep your windows open when possible, plant vegetation around your home, use fans, and spend time outdoors.

Keep in mind that commercial negative ion generators will charge dust particles entering the home and cause the particles to stick to grounded surfaces (such as your walls, furniture, and lungs).

Therefore ion generators should be used in conjunction with a high quality air filter.

There is another forgotten element of health similar to negative ions.

This factor is called by various names including prana, chi, and orgone. Just as with any other subject, it is unlikely that science has discovered everything about energy and how it interacts with organisms. For example, some religions and traditions teach the importance of walking barefoot on the earth (although for most ancient people this was a fact of life).

Science now recognizes some types of “earth energy” which might be considered forms of chi. One example is the charge created by the solar wind which is only visible at the poles as the aurora.

Another energy is the continual exchange between the atmosphere and the earth visible at times as lightening. Lesser invisible exchange is occurring daily to equalize the charge between the atmosphere and earth (if not we would be subject to constant random lightning strikes). These continual flows of energy have only recently been discovered, are rarely considered, and may only be a part of additional unknown and unstudied energies.

Organisms have evolved for hundreds of millions of years in these natural energy fields. Yet modern humans are apparently the first species to accidentally insulate our cells from the surrounding energy environment. We spend much of our lives in cars and buildings that act as shielding Faraday cages. We travel in cars and shoes with insulating rubber soles. We stand on asphalt and synthetic carpet and even swath ourselves in an insulating layer of polyester fabric. It may be wise to consider the guidance of ancient religions before assuming that energy has no effect on us just because we can’t see or haven’t analyzed it.

Sunlight is another critical but overlooked environmental factor proven to greatly benefit health and mood. I mention sunlight after the other factors that affect our health because, in order to process it optimally, your body must have a good diet. When a person has dietary deficiencies or toxins, sunlight appears to give reduced benefits and can cause harm at lower levels. In particular, you should insure a sufficient intake of essential fatty acids before beginning to increase your sun exposure. Sunlight appears to work in conjunction with essential fatty acids. The combination of these two factors may be vital for physical and mental health, but both sunlight and essential fatty acids are severely lacking in society’s modern lifestyle and diet.

The proper quantities of sunlight vary greatly depending on individual factors and pigmentation. Unfiltered sunlight entering the eyes is also believed by many cultures to have positive effects. Optimal sun exposure is relatively easy to judge. The skin should never burn and only receive a minimal tan if any. This is best accomplished with repeated short exposures rather than long sessions. If possible, try to receive sun on large areas of skin every week. Sun exposure on the face and hands alone tends to burn and damage these small areas before significant benefits are gained for the entire body. For some individuals, sun exposure appears to be a pivotal factor in health and mood.

Along with exposure to sunlight I’d like to discuss another once common practice that has nearly been forgotten in modern society absorption of minerals and excretion of toxins by the skin. The skin grows from the same group of tissue as the intestines and serves the same absorption and excretion functions. Although rarely studied, many cultures place great importance on soaking in mineral springs or mud. Hot springs, and mud in particular, are a concentrated source of dissolved minerals. Mud often also contains natural fulvic acids that are produced by microorganisms to greatly aid mineral absorption. Springs and mud can be a valuable source of sulfur and trace minerals that may be lacking in the normal diet. If you do not have time to exhaustively research this inadequately studied field, it is easier to rely on the wisdom of countless cultures, movie stars at the spa, and even other animal species. After trying this practice with an open mind your body will hopefully tell you if it is helpful.

Positive or negative impacts to health are generally magnified the earlier they occur in an organism’s development. Although a lengthy discussion is beyond the scope of this book, there are some basic health considerations for children. Perhaps our greatest deviation from the historical norm occurs in formula feeding infants. Some benefits of breastfeeding have been shown to last for the child’s entire lifetime. If you want to spend years sorting through the data, keep in mind that formula producers have poured millions of dollars into “studies” attempting to find benefits, while the non-profit opposition has had little funding. After the quest for formula benefits still failed, the industry’s revised tactic was to quietly and quickly admit that breastfeeding is best. The millions of dollars are now spent trying to hook new parents on the “convenience” of formula with a barrage of advertising and starter samples. It should be clear however, that the traditional method of nursing for extended periods with human milk is likely preferable to feeding dehydrated milk of a different species (or soybean extract) augmented by natural and artificial nutritive replacement factors. While there is often a great time cost associated with traditional nursing, this price should be weighed against formula’s known and potential risks. Practices such as formula feeding which deviate severely from our evolutionary standard inherently create an additional risk potential from currently unknown or unstudied interactions.

Even before nursing infants, fetal growth and conception itself are topics worth consideration. Many societies have lengthy practices to promote a newborn’s optimal potential. Listing all practices is beyond the scope of this book, however, there are two common themes. First is the concept of detoxifying the woman’s (and sometimes man’s) body prior to conception. This is often done by short fasts or cleansing herbs before the planned conception. In addition to improving the health of a child, this practice is believed to minimize morning sickness that may otherwise be the body’s naturally induced detoxification process. Second comes the concept of increasing a man’s semen supply with the idea that the best child is born from the greatest “pool” of potential. This is generally done by abstinence for about two weeks prior to conception.

No discussion of health would be complete without mentioning the modern pharmaceutical industry that is inextricably tied to medical care in our society. It is tempting to say that this entire industry represents an extreme departure from the human norm. But that is only partially true. Native cultures often relied heavily on herbal remedies for nearly every disease. History shows that these herbal treatments were helpful, harmful, or neutral for varying conditions.

The main benefits were generally to alleviate symptoms - except in bacterial and fungal infections where cures where common. Modern society has allowed for the creation of a massive pharmaceutical industry stemming from these early herbalists. The starting point for many drug classes was originally an herbal remedy. The main differences are that synthetic medicines can be customized, can be produced more efficiently at standard dosages, and have patent protection insuring profitability to fund research and marketing.

Not surprisingly, our modern pharmaceutical industry’s success tends to mirror the traditional herbalists. We have eradicated most bacterial and fungal infections and alleviated symptoms in most diseases to varying degrees. As with herbs, pharmaceuticals also sometimes do more harm than good through direct toxic effects or masking symptoms and diverting attention from surgical or dietary cures. The pharmaceutical industry is basically the most complex, scientific, and profitable system of “herbal” medicine in history. As such, we should realize its potential benefits but also recognize that good health through diet is the preferable or only cure for many conditions.

Exercise is a final critical factor for health. Traditionally, most people were more active than we are today. Exercise may have been particularly important to the strong development of children’s organs such as the cardiopulmonary system. This brings into question the current practice of training children to sit for long periods of time at school in preparation for future office careers. If you are not able to get much physical activity in your job, it is important to pick exercises that you enjoy the most, rather than activities you must force yourself to pursue. If you don’t like lifting weights then try hiking or vice-versa.

Experiment with yoga or ride a bike around your neighborhood.

Group activities can be a great opportunity to meet new people who will provide fun and encouragement.

The reasons for exercise’s benefits are not fully known - just as with sunlight, negative ions, and mineral waters. However, exercise is one area where modern medicine seems to be in complete agreement with traditional practices. Perhaps the billions of dollars spent on sporting equipment have helped to get the message out.

In the absence of good baseline health, however, exercise tends to quickly deplete the body and wear down reserves. The body senses this and we become tired and quit unless a good foundation is first developed based on diet and other factors. Traditional cultures also agree that excessive physical toil tends to decrease lifespan. A healthy balance of activity and rest is the way humans lived before the invention of agriculture, and this lifestyle still appears to be optimal.

By following these basic but forgotten health practices, you will likely achieve results beyond your best expectations. We live under such unnatural conditions that few people can see or imagine the feeling of true health. While economic freedom is a great achievement, it is nothing compared to the joy of well-being. Even beyond the direct physical and mental benefits, health will aid in all other facets of life including economic and even spiritual progress.

The final section of this book will discuss perhaps the greatest freedom of all – spiritual growth and the history of how it was lost and hidden from us. Because it directly pertains to the final section of this book, I would first like to briefly discuss vegetarianism as a part of diet.

Vegetarianism is a specialized diet requiring even greater skill to implement. Unfortunately, few Americans are able to create a healthy diet even including animal products. The difficulty is compounded when people continue to eat unhealthy food but simply remove animal products. On the other hand, vegetarianism has many proven health benefits and has been viewed as an ideal diet by some advanced cultures.

The first step towards vegetarianism is to simply eat better quality food in general. One reason that our modern diet contains an excessive amount of meat is likely because modern diets are deficient in nutrients from all other sources. Once you have implemented the dietary practices already outlined, you may find that you can more easily reduce meat in your diet.

A second overlooked fact is that native peoples ate practically all parts of an animal. Foods which are very common worldwide but absent in the modern diet include soup broths made with bone, organ meats, marrow, and foods made from collagen rich tissue such as skin and tendon. By eating a wide range of animal products, native people were able to get the full spectrum of beneficial nutrients. If only muscle had been eaten, as is often the case today, greater quantities of meat would have been needed to supply the same nutrients. As with all food products, it is impossible to know every nutritional factor in meat and its countless interactions for a given person’s genetic makeup. There are hundreds of beneficial or harmful substances in meat just as there are in vegetables - with more being discovered each year. Traditional diets recognize that eating only the muscle tissue of an animal is both wasteful and provides unbalanced nutrient ratios.

As previously mentioned, organic meat provides greater nutrition and also contains fewer toxins for reasons too lengthy to explore here.

Most people who have tasted organic or wild meat, compared to that produced by agribusiness, can appreciate the difference. Again, the use of organic animal products should further reduce the overall proportion of meat in the diet as well as promoting more ethical animal husbandry practices.

The next step in moving toward vegetarianism is to follow the example of successful vegetarian cultures. By visiting vegetarian families or regions you can gain an overall view of the diet and staple foods. This is vastly better than just picking a few recipes out of a book. If you don’t have the opportunity to visit Indian families, then strict Seventh Day Adventist or Buddhist families are other groups that have obtained long-term success. These groups are often quite happy to help spread their knowledge and vegetarian ethic.

There are numerous enthusiastic and admirable American vegetarians. Unfortunately many people new to any diet have insufficient practice to follow through. Deficiencies in some nutrients (that will be discussed shortly) may take years or decades to manifest. Dietary guidelines perhaps shouldn’t be considered successful until followed for at least a generation. Also, studies show that many American “vegetarians,” “vegans,” “fruitarians,” etc. are often less than honest about their diet due to guilt over “cheating” and “failures.” Such dishonesty is very harmful. Some people simply have greater genetic ability to adapt to various dietary changes including vegetarianism. In any undertaking, practice and honest self-assessment will lead to far greater success than an attempt to meet predetermined ego-driven goals.

On the subject of genetic variability it is necessary to discuss the nutrient deficiencies that seem to be more difficult for some individuals to overcome when animal products are reduced or eliminated. First, vitamin B12 is the main nutrient now universally accepted to be missing in plant sources. This may be the reason there are no traditional vegan cultures worldwide. (Although there are apparently individuals and even multi-generational families who have successfully adopted a vegan diet). Successful vegetarian cultures such as Hindus obtain vitamin B12 from dairy products although this source may not be optimal for every individual’s genetics.

Taurine and carnitine are two “semi-essential” amino acids found only in animal products. Luckily these two amino acids can be synthesized by the human body, although the degree of synthesis may eventually lead to deficiencies in some individuals. As usual, synthesis largely depends on individual genetics and overall dietary nutrition. Proper ratios and adequate levels of “essential” amino acids (particularly lysine and methionine) aid in synthesis of taurine and carnitine.

EPA and DHA are forms of essential fatty acids not readily available in vegetable sources. Luckily, EPA and DHA are also synthesized from omega 3 essential fatty acids that are themselves lacking in the modern diet. Also, some individuals have a greatly reduced ability to synthesize EPA and DHA. One theory is that EPA and DHA (which are highly concentrated in oily fish) were common in the diets of some northern coastal cultures. These people lost the genetic ability to synthesize EPA and DHA. Higher levels of essential fatty acids in the diet should help in synthesis of EPA and DHA. Supplements are also available from fish oils or even marine algae.

The topic of vegetarian nutrition can be studied in much greater detail, although far too little research has been funded in most cases.

Much of the information is unfortunately biased by well intentioned but ill-informed vegetarian groups. To return to our recurrent theme, when pursuing a vegetarian diet, it is important to keep an open mind, don’t deny the messages your body is sending you, and copy traditional recipes and practices. By honestly evaluating your body’s reactions you will hopefully begin to realize the many benefits of a reduced meat or vegetarian diet.

As previously mentioned, vegetarianism is a lead-in to the final section of this book because vegetarianism is an important part of the story of religion.

The Real Story of Religion and Spirituality

I’m somewhat hesitant to write on the topic of spiritual enlightenment or even religion. The phrase, “the blind leading the blind” keeps coming to mind. Despite my imperfect spiritual knowledge, however, I can at least unearth much of the religious falsehood that has been incorporated into our culture over the last two millennia. In order to facilitate progress in any arena, it is necessary to tenaciously search out the truth. Once we begin to understand reality (as opposed to the stories we have been “sold”), we can use this knowledge to free ourselves. I hope that my spiritual journey and experiences can provide useful guidance for other people on the same path. The following chapters are written with a tone of certainty only to avoid constant caveats. However, it seems very few things in life are absolute, and my advice may not work for everyone. Please keep an open mind, evaluate everything for yourself, and accept my apologies in advance for any mistakes.

Throughout my life, I studied religions and philosophies from around the world. Although money and health are also interesting topics, they are somewhat insignificant compared to understanding the true nature of reality. I always felt that if you have no idea of how the universe functions, then everything else you do becomes frivolous and random. I felt that thousands of years of religious traditions must have uncovered some wisdom, although it seemed hidden from most of us. Here is the fascinating story that I gradually discovered. These findings laid the groundwork for me to finally move forward spiritually after decades of frustration and confusion regarding religion.

Religion is a human institution. This is the first fact to consider.

Although divine inspiration may guide religious leaders, this wisdom is filtered through people and time and is gradually lost. Religion must be continually reanimated by new inspiration in order to counteract this worldly trend. The Book of Tao says, “In the beginning there is the Tao (perfection), when the Tao is lost virtue remains, when virtue is lost kindness remains, when kindness is lost morality remains, when morality is lost the law remains. The law is the shell of good faith and the beginning of confusion.” Throughout history, religions lost their way again and again, along with the people who collectively made up those religions. During the low points, some religious groups only served worldly goals of controlling people and stealing from rival groups. On the other hand, there have been high points (usually during or immediately after the religious founder’s lifetime) where religions seemed to have the highest degree of enlightenment and inspiration.

Christianity is no exception to this cycle of religious decline and renewal. Some people observe these imperfections in religion and use it as a complete indictment. This trend has been accelerating in the West over the last two centuries. Unfortunately when you throw out all of religion, you are left with little spiritual guidance. Thus the West has turned to science and philosophy. Science is an attempt to understand the universe by taking nothing on faith and beginning anew using only the facts that can be proven. Science has made great strides in accumulating knowledge, but it is far from offering a path to perfect enlightenment.

Disappointment with science has led some people to pursue philosophy. Modern philosophy is basically intellectual meditation after purposefully disregarding most previous religious knowledge and practices. Modern philosophy has proven less successful than science at conferring “spiritual enlightenment” (which is disappointing for me to admit after having spent so much time at it). Finally, in recent years psychology has been developed as an attempt to understand the human condition. Psychology basically uses a combination of science and philosophy and has obtained similar results to those disciplines. Before going further into our current situation, however, it is necessary to understand how we got here.

Understanding Judeo-Christian history is not simply an academic exercise. By understanding our own religion’s partial fall from enlightenment, we can then begin to regain the lost elements. As usual, let’s start at the beginning.

The oldest religions are often generically dismissed as “animists.”

Today’s remaining animists are usually from the Afro-asiatic cultures that, 30,000 years ago, spread in a continuous band from Africa to Australia and beyond. These ancient Afro-asiatic groups inhabited early Egypt and India and formed the seeds of later religions in those areas. In Egypt an advanced system of religious practices was in place over 4,000 years ago. This Egyptian religion has been largely lost to us today. In India the advanced and complex religious system evolved into the many facets of Hinduism.

Judaism was strongly influenced by the Afro-asiatic and Egyptian religions surrounding Judea in ancient times. The enlightened Father of Judaism was Abraham who is also credited with being an important founder in the evolution of Christianity and Islam. Abraham (or the prototypical Semitic leaders he may represent) had learned African religious traditions. For example, circumcision was an earlier African practice and many of the Torah’s stories such as the Tower of Babel come from African myths.

Moses was the next widely recognized religious leader in Judaism.

Moses had learned the religions of ancient Egypt before wandering in the desert and receiving enlightenment. Later in history, Judaism continued to produce spiritual leaders such as Elijah and Elisha.

Gradually however, as with most religions, the mass of the followers of Judaism came to depend on “religious law” in the absence of an immediate enlightened leader. This was the world of the Pharisees as discussed in the Bible’s New Testament.

The Pharisees were only one of three Jewish sects during Jesus’ time. The second sect was the aristocratic Sadducees who seem to have been heavily influenced by nearby Greek “deductive philosophy.” Pharisees could be compared to Orthodox Jews today, while the Sadducees might seem similar in some ways to our scientists and philosophers.

The third Jewish sect in Jesus’ time was the Essenes. At this point the story must be partially reconstructed, since Christian tradition makes no mention of the Essenes. Roman records state that the Essenes were an extremely devout and ascetic religious group that lived in small desert communities. Jesus was clearly at odds with the Pharisees and Sadducees, but his teachings seem to have been more attuned with the Essene tradition. The Essenes appear to have been Judea’s only religious group that could have provided the foundation for Jesus’ spiritual life as well as the immediate social foundation for Christianity itself.

So who were the Essenes? We can reconstruct much of the Essene tradition by studying early Christian beliefs. The early Christian/Essene groups were influenced by the Jewish, Zoroastrian, and Hindu religions surrounding them. However, the Christian/Essenes were remarkably similar to one religion in particular – the Krishna traditions of Hinduism.

Like other Hindu groups, the Krishna traditions believe in reincarnation, prohibit killing animals, and encourage asceticism.

They and other Hindus have detailed practices such as water ablutions (from which baptism derived) and blessing pure food in temples (from which communion derived). Another feature of the Krishna traditions is their strong focus on Avatars (messiahs) who return periodically to cleanse and renew the religion and society.

Clearly Christianity changed radically from these early devout groups of Essenes following Christ and perhaps Krishna. Such changes occur in every religion as it attempts to survive in an imperfect world that calls for continual compromises. Despite its inevitability, the story of Christianity’s devolution is perhaps the most amazing of any religion.

In various times and places throughout history there are periods of spiritual revival. The Mediterranean from 0 to 300 AD was such a place. Many Roman subjects had begun to question their society’s ever increasing wealth, power, corruption, and worldly passions.

Intellectuals considered religion a relic of the past, and yet people were becoming discouraged with the increasing moral decay of society. Into this void sprang new religions of the East that the Romans were encountering. Two of the most important were Christianity and Mithraism. Jesus’ teachings had sparked a movement that combined with others and spread like wildfire through the Roman Empire. These religions taught denial of worldly passions, non-violence, and spiritual enlightenment – all of the things that were incompatible with a large and aggressive empire.

Romans first attempted to stop the threat by murdering Christians in some of the cruelest genocide ever recorded. The more Christians that were slaughtered, however, the more starkly the line was drawn between “good and evil.” This rift began threatening to tear Roman citizenry apart. Yet Rome was still the most complex empire in history, and it had centuries of experience in overcoming and adapting to challenges.

In 312 AD a Roman Emperor came to power named Constantine who was a follower of the new religions of Mithraism and Christianity.

As a loyal Roman and a follower of Eastern religion, Constantine represented someone who could bridge the chasm facing the Roman world. Constantine has been alternately glorified and vilified by religious historians. I believe that he simply saw himself as a realist.

Constantine and others in government knew that Roman culture and the extreme new religions were incompatible. Furthermore, it was uncertain whether either could survive alone in the Mediterranean world. Roman culture without spirituality would continue to decay into corruption and collapse. Non-violent religion, without protection from the Empire, might be overrun by barbarian hordes.

For those determined to continue the glory of Rome, the problem remained of how to have these new religions compromise their principles and somehow incorporate into a kinder, gentler Empire.

One comprehensive state religion would solve the divisiveness, but it would present monumental problems. First, an inclusive state religion could no longer promote non-violence. This would allow the Roman Empire to continue defending itself. Secondly, a state religion could not prohibit the killing of animals since few Romans would accept vegetarianism. Lastly, the Eastern teachings of reincarnation were logically incompatible with a Roman society that ate animals.

Constantine was the leader of an element in Roman society that conceived an ingenious plan. Whenever you want to usurp power in an opposing group, a good first step is to find divisions within the opposition. To that end, Constantine made the innocent proposal of

“standardizing” the new religious doctrines and bringing them under the “protection” of the Roman Empire in the form of a state-sponsored religion. To Christians who had seen their friends and children slaughtered for generations, this must have been an irresistible offer. Constantine then called the first in a series of

“religious councils” and stood back watching for leaders to emerge and rifts to develop. Oddly enough, the main rift occurred over doctrine describing the human vs. divine nature of Christ.

Constantine continued to wait – probably subtly fanning the flames – as this issue became an enormous debate that spread throughout Christian society. The more aggressive Christian leaders, and those concerned with their own advancement, were certainly at the forefront of this and other council arguments. These “leaders” would have found themselves elevated above their more spiritual peers who chose to ignore petty debates and power plays.

The first “standardizing council” created the situation Constantine needed. Religious leaders could be identified who would compromise with the Roman Empire. Meaningless debates over small points of doctrine could be used to obscure the real changes that Constantine and others wished to make. Constantine then stepped into the fray and “saved the day” by forcing compromise among the now fractionated religious groups. In 325 AD, with great fanfare, Constantine’s Council of Nicaea adopted the Nicene Creed. This Creed finally settled the intense and frivolous debate over the semantics describing Jesus’ divine vs. mortal nature. Meanwhile, in the shadows, a process had begun which would eventually decimate Christian theology and “standardize” the gospels and doctrines.

References to vegetarianism, non-violence, and reincarnation – the heart of Essene/Christian teachings – were erased in this and future councils. Mithran theology was all but forgotten. A few token relics of Mithraism were incorporated into the “state religion” such as Sunday replacing Saturday as the Sabbath. Principled religious leaders had been pushed out of the process, banished, or perhaps worse.

Constantine’s approach had succeeded where countless massacres had failed. The Roman Catholic Church was now an arm of the Roman Empire and could enforce doctrine and crush religious rivals for over a thousand years to come.

Fortunately, a few clues were left in our gospels to refute the changes imposed by the Romans. For example, an early transcriber of the Gospel of Matthew 21:2 pointedly described how the disciples went in search of a colt for Jesus to ride into Jerusalem for the Passover. No mention was made of obtaining and later killing the Passover lamb that should have been the main focus of the day for all traditional Jews. In fact, this Gospel pointedly states that the Passover meal was a feast of bread.

In other cases, inconsistencies point to the original message. For example, there is only one story in the Gospels where Jesus displayed extreme anger (John 2:14, Matthew 21:12, Mark 11:15).

Today we are taught that Jesus was angry and drove moneychangers from the temple. Concern over dishonest moneychangers would seem inconsistent after continually preaching against wealth and materialism and asking followers to “turn the other cheek” when robbed. Looking more closely you will see that the Gospels mention Jesus drove out moneychangers and, “those that sold oxen, and sheep, and doves.” Sacrificial animals such as these were sold and killed in a holy temple in accordance with Pharisee tradition at the time. It seems obvious that Jesus’ only display of anger was aimed at the killing of innocent life in a holy place rather than a few shaved shekels. Roman records are clear on this point and state that many early Christians were executed for refusing to sacrifice animals as a tribute to Rome. Likewise, traditional Catholic and Eastern Orthodox doctrine required numerous vegetarian days throughout the year, although this doctrine has been minimized in recent years.

Even vague references to reincarnation remain from the early Essene tradition. Jesus’ followers constantly speculated that he and John the Baptist were reincarnations of previous holy men (for example Luke 9:19) "…one of the prophets of long ago has come back to life." Perhaps the clearest acceptance of reincarnation, however, is the Catholic Church’s own retained doctrine of “purgatory” which is simply an afterlife (reincarnation) separate from heaven (nirvana).

Although a few vague references escaped revision, an incalculable amount of Christian theology and history was certainly erased outright. Even more tragically, the Roman Empire and later Catholic Church did not stop with merely eradicating Christian teachings.

Unimaginable losses were ripped from ancient wisdom again and again. Burning the library at Alexandria, destruction of the Druids, closing the Greek temples, and burning the Mayan codices were all tragic examples. Any theologies or teachers that conflicted with the sanctioned Catholic religion were either assimilated or ruthlessly destroyed. By the time some Moslem sects decided to follow a similar model of religious intolerance, there was little Western spiritual knowledge left to obliterate.

So that is the state of the world we live in. We inherited a religion decimated by our ancestors and stripped of its spiritual teachings and practices. In exchange for worldly control, our forebears gave up knowledge. Now, lacking guidance, we attempt to reconstruct wisdom from the beginning using the new religion of science. Others lurch through attempts at understanding in the unproven fields of modern philosophy or psychology.

Before you get too depressed about our present situation however, it is important to remember two things. First, some people have always taken advantage of others, compromised their morals, and traded knowledge for power when given the chance. This has not stopped the re-emergence of truth, knowledge, and divinity. The situation we inherited, though incredible, is nothing new. Jesus himself described earlier instances saying (Luke 11:47), “ye build the sepulchers of the prophets, and your fathers killed them.” The good news is that, once you understand our situation, you can begin to deal with it.

Where Science and Society Lost their Way

Today, without true religious guidance, what we learn about reality and the universe general y comes from science. Science has made incredible strides in understanding the universe but, as with diet, it is vital to remember that only a fraction of total knowledge has been discovered.

Imagine taking a radio and a phonograph back in time 600 years to the brilliant scientists of the Renaissance. Those men would quickly learn the mechanical function of the phonograph. Yet, try as they might, the same scientists could never determine the radio’s use or mechanism. Science would remain unable to measure radio waves for another 500 years. If you had told the Renaissance scientists that invisible, undetectable radio waves existed throughout the universe, they would have shrugged and moved on to more quantifiable studies.

Living organisms are far more complex than either a radio or a phonograph – and yet this analogy is useful. Our DNA is a physical data storage mechanism that scientists have only recently discovered. You can imagine that this stored data is similar to a phonograph disk’s data storage. Current scientific theory states that our entire physical being is written on DNA and is passed mechanically to the next generation. This is only one of countless instances where people have clung to incomplete theories.

Life is more complex than the DNA model. Imagine, in addition to the “phonograph” function, life also has a “radio” communication function.

One example clearly occurs in humans with the use of language. To a distant observer, language would be an unknown invisible signal that allows the human race to share knowledge and act in a concerted manner. Speech and writing enable our collective human consciousness. This collective consciousness is an element of human development beyond the data “physically” transmitted in our genes. Our DNA and mental capacity is similar to that of humans 50,000 years ago. It is the collective consciousness enabled by language that has allowed us to develop a lifestyle, civilization and knowledge so radically different from our ancestors.

While individuals generally can’t feel the collective human mind, there is a second more immediate example of collective consciousness.

Each nerve cell in our brain contains only a fraction of the data of the whole. By linking connectors between nerve cells a “collective” mind is formed which we are able to feel as our individual mind. These examples are relatively indisputable, though rarely considered.

Ancient religion taught a much larger and more complex model however.

Imagine again that each living thing has a “radio” function – a transmitter and receiver using signals that are unknown to science today just as radio waves were 500 years ago. There is significant statistical and anecdotal evidence to support this hypothesis.

Numerous studies of subtle ESP functions give enormous odds in favor of an unknown communication method. Anecdotal evidence of ESP is also extremely strong, particularly in cases between identical twins or parents and children. The more similar the DNA, the more “attuned” this ESP function appears to be. Viewed this way, all life would form a collective subconscious with stronger influences from the life forms, races, and family members most closely related to us.

This model finally begins to explain transmission of knowledge, such as instincts, which are beyond the scope of DNA. For further examples of evolution beyond the scope of a DNA model, I highly recommend the excellent book, A New Science of Life by Dr. Rupert Sheldrake.

Formation of a collective subconscious for all life, shocking as it may seem, is only a fraction of the knowledge lost to us today. I bring it up for two reasons. First, the collective subconscious is the easiest part of ancient wisdom for us to understand or envision based on our current knowledge. Secondly, it is necessary to theorize the “radio”

function and collective subconscious of life in order to comprehend lost elements of religion and to become aware of important warnings.

Much of early religion was concerned with this subtle transmission of knowledge within the collective subconscious. However, religious methods to aid transmission were strongly guarded. Ancient religion recognized the power of knowledge and took protective measures to ensure that people and institutions grew in a sustainable balanced manner. Having lost our religious traditions, we lost our guide to the connectivity of consciousness. More importantly however, we lost controls over how quickly and in what order knowledge (power) was transmitted. Science has been very prolific in reconstituting knowledge, but it has not replaced religion’s methods of ensuring that individuals and societies learn in a balanced sequence.

To illustrate this point, let me tell the story of two famous scientists.

The first man was very devout as both a Christian and a scientist. He tirelessly studied esoteric traditions such as alchemy in an attempt to understand God and the universe. He, and many scientists of his day, believed in prisca sapientia – a spiritual wisdom that was first revealed by God. It may surprise you to learn that this spiritual scientist was Sir Isaac Newton.

The second man strove to, “read the mind of God.” He claimed, “I never came upon any of my discoveries through the process of rational thinking." Rather, he believed in a “cosmic intelligence” and once stated that most profound scientists believed in, “an intelligence of such superiority that, compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings is an utterly insignificant reflection.” This man was Einstein, the second founder of the modern scientific era.

The stories don’t end here. Newton published his inspired theories and, not surprisingly, the “secular” world of commerce and engineering quickly put this knowledge to practical use. The theory of gravitation was particularly useful in developing long-range artillery.

Preeminence in this field of knowledge helped the British Empire dominate the world. British soldiers could destroy lives in a terribly efficient and impersonal manner that kept them largely unaware of the suffering they inflicted.

You may have already guessed the story of Einstein. He had wanted to keep his enlightened knowledge separate from the world of material applications – just as the Greeks and other ancients had traditionally done with their science. It must have been devastating for Einstein to realize his enlightened theory might become responsible for the Germans developing an atomic bomb. Einstein knew that he had to initiate an effort for America to develop the atomic bomb first. Again, a new weapon had been discovered which made warfare even more horrific, detached, and impersonal.

Einstein’s final wisdom came too late when he said, “It has become appallingly obvious that our science has exceeded our humanity” and that science, “has changed everything except our way of thinking…

the solution to this problem lies in the heart of mankind.”

Religion had recognized for millennia the importance of Einstein’s quote. Individuals will connect to consciousness and knowledge outside of themselves. The insights and wisdom imparted in this connection have a great potential to throw individuals and sometimes all of society out of balance.

Our world is in a balance. This duality is described variously as good and evil, knowledge and ignorance, or yin and yang. Anything that is too far out of balance tends to disappear from our particular part of the universe. As any religion, society, or individual moves to one side of this balance, a foundation must first be built to support that change. Insights need to be supported by prior spiritual development in the individual receiving them. Secondly, before these insights are given to all of society, the culture itself must be prepared - our science must never exceed our humanity.

To have a spiritual experience is not really so difficult. Many people have had some type of epiphany or moment of clarity. It can be brought on by something as clumsy as hallucinogenic drugs or a crisis. The difficult thing is to sustain increased clarity in a useful manner rather than sinking back to your prior level or in some cases even depression or insanity over what was lost. The people who end up worse off after having a spiritual insight may be the ones who pushed themselves too quickly, perhaps with drugs, before they built a foundation.

There are numerous references and metaphors for spiritual setbacks in most religions including Christianity. Icarus’ flight and the Tower of Babel are two ancient metaphors. Jesus more directly states (Matthew 12:43), “When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walks through dry places, seeking rest, and finds none. Then he says, I will return into my house from where I came; and when he returns, he finds it empty, swept and garnished. Then he goes, and takes with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there; and the last state of that man is worse than the first.”

All of the possible types of spiritual setbacks could fill volumes.

Examples range from an LSD user who goes insane upon “seeing God," to a society whose enlightened science threatens to destroy it.

The key point is, as with anything, there will be failures. In the absence of a perfect teacher, the only course seems to be preparation and dealing with setbacks rather than denying or ignoring them or turning to anger and self pity.

Religious traditions often stress the need to carefully consider the effects of your actions. When negative outcomes (karma) do occur from one’s actions, it is always stressed that this karma should be dealt with before moving forward and compounding the mistake. If you take time to consider your actions before rushing down a particular path, you will often sense whether or not your intentions are positively inspired or driven by negative desires. Changes in the balance of your life (or in our society) should never be motivated by any form of egotism. People should always consider the possible negative outcomes of a change and work to correct any problems before moving along further. This focus on resolving existing problems before rushing ahead is a message from ancient religion that is vitally important to modern man.

Traditional Spiritual Guidance your Clergy and Professors Probably Never Learned

As previously mentioned, I spent decades of my life painfully and often futilely searching for spiritual insight. All of that study resulted in very slow progress, partially because our modern society has lost most of its spiritual teachings and practices in the history just described. Gradually, however, my study showed certain parallels emerging between diverse religious systems. Some of these parallel practices and teachings were obvious while others were more obscure. Fortunately, I finally began to take a pragmatic approach and put all of my study into actual use. Later I heard an Indian Guru say it best, “an ounce of practice is worth a ton of study.”

Simplistic as it may seem, I feel that the underlying foundation of spiritual development is diet. Many religions have extremely detailed guidelines for what, when, and how to eat. Today we dismiss these rules as simple health advice. We often ignore religious dietary restrictions - and most of them were edited out of Christianity anyway. We forget that health and diet directly affect the nervous system that, in turn, is our link to consciousness.

The more you study religions, the more you see they tend towards two dietary ideals. First is food that “does the least harm” and second is “clean food.” The more spiritually rigorous a religion is, the more they first try to remove red meat, then even fish and eggs, from their recommended diet - while advocating smaller meals with more fruit and vegetables. Secondly, religions recommend “clean” food which I feel is a slightly different concept that has been lost in modern interpretations. The most rigorous religions tend towards the freshest food possible prepared by someone in “the proper mindset.” The food is often cooked as little as possible with greater and greater quantities being raw. Again, the ideal tends towards fruit, seeds, nuts, and vegetables. There are a number of issues that I feel the need to address here.

First, I’m not recommending that everyone rush out and become fruitarian. We all have karma and part of that karma is written in our genes. The bible frequently mentions (for example Exodus 20:5),

“visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation.” In scientific terms, although our evolutionary precursors may have been fruitarian, the ability to manufacture many necessary nutrients (such as vitamin B12) has been partially or totally lost by organisms like humans that eat meat for many generations.

The whole concept of sustainable spiritual growth, to me, means not charging ahead before you are ready. At the same time, however, you can’t simply continue down the wrong path while hoping to avoid paying any price. It may turn out that some people cannot sustain a diet as ideal as that recommended by advanced religions in the past.

However, with persistence, many people do reach the ideal or at least get closer. Another principle of many religions is, “with God all things are possible” meaning that spirit can gradually change karma and even the physical world. My only warning is to not expect that it will be easy or necessarily quick and not to lie to yourself and pretend that things are going well if you need to regroup instead. Spiritual development often means experiencing the suffering that comes when we finally accept our karma - or perhaps even the karma of our distant evolutionary ancestors who first “cheated” and began eating one another.

If you can reduce animal products or at least improve the quality, you may improve the body’s health and perhaps your general emotional state. The benefits of reducing one’s intake of animal products have been shown in numerous empirical studies but, again, the reasons are not fully understood. It is likely that there are many potential detriments from eating meat including: natural and synthetic hormones, known and unknown pathogens such as bacteria and prions, biomagnification of toxins, and perhaps a different physical structure at an infinitesimal level. Many religions discuss the “negative vibrations” of food that was prepared in anger or food that died in fear. I believe there is an element of truth to this claim and the physical explanation(s) will hopefully be discovered by science one day.

As for “clean food” it is an even more obscure concept. Relatively little research has been done on the effects of cooked food, stale food, or food which was raised or prepared under unnatural conditions. Few people would argue however that a natural, fresher, and less processed diet is preferable. Like so many other things, we all “know” this but never bother to implement it. Try your best to remove “unclean” food from your diet. This includes stale, overcooked, and adulterated food - in particular, all but the freshest organic meat. Pay attention to your body after you implement this change in diet and you will actually feel the health and spiritual benefit instead of just thinking about it on a theoretical level.

As discussed in previous chapters, vast amounts of dietary information certainly remain undiscovered. No one even has the time to study and learn all of what has been scientifically documented.

Traditional diets, however, contain a wealth of empirical information accumulated over generations. Traditional recipes usually contain a balanced combination of nutrients and are prepared in ways that minimize damage to the food’s value and structure. It generally comes down to following your instincts, your reason, and your spiritual insight as you try to eat healthier food that does less damage to animals and our environment. Eat the more natural version whenever possible – natural in regard to the strain of plant or animal, the practices of raising the food, and the method of preparation.

Sometimes, you can improve your diet but then have different nutritional deficiencies or other problems arise. This simply means that it is time to re-evaluate and make further modifications. Keep an open mind rather than forcing yourself to follow a diet based on dogma.

The benefits of improved diet come in many ways. The most basic is that you will hopefully enhance your nutrition, giving you greater physical and mental health which then allow you to advance spiritually. Beyond health, however, dietary guidelines seem to “tune” life’s consciousness to receive inspiration more clearly. It was believed that a body clogged with toxins and built from the flesh of dead animals was a poor receiver for insight. On the other hand, a body free of toxins and guilt was believed to make a better connection to the wisdom of the universe. Although science is currently unable to test this hypothesis, you may find some truth in it.

Beyond diet, there are still numerous religious practices to improve your health and create a foundation for spiritual growth. Many religions stress the need for bathing. The reason may be assistance in washing away excreted toxins or perhaps some unknown benefit.

Some traditional cultures also recommend mud baths and bathing in mineral springs. Some religions and cultures went out of their way to mention the value of sunlight exposure although this was rarely a problem until modern times. You could spend years trying to determine and explain all of the benefits derived from clean air, water, and sunlight. I found it best to try these practices and continue the ones that felt beneficial.

Many religions stress movement and exercise. These exercises are generally not competitive or overly strenuous but rather focus on increasing circulation and breathing. One of the most commonly recommended exercises is simply walking. Beyond that, yoga is perhaps “the standard” of a religious exercise system.

Once you have begun to reach your own optimum physical state through diet and exercise you will likely notice many changes.

Foremost is a greater feeling of clarity, calm, strength, and well-being. You may also begin to see and feel previously unknown or ignored problems that need to be addressed in other areas of your life. Strengthening and cleansing yourself will prepare you to meet these challenges and progress to higher levels of development.

For most people, work and career are a profound influence in their lives although they may not immediately recognize it. As with nearly everything we, and/or our ancestors, have accumulated negative karma. We often “must” earn a living in ways that are not optimal.

Perhaps your job calls on you to be less than truthful, or to be harsh with others, or to interact with people who have a negative influence on you. Perhaps you have simply spent much of your life earning a living in a way that hasn’t helped others or created a sense of satisfaction for you.

Once you have enhanced your physical and mental state, work may be one of the first areas of your life that you will feel the need to improve. A job that necessitates negative actions or delivers negative influences can often hamper spiritual growth. Luckily, in the developed world, work can generally be adjusted. You don’t have to choose between career change and potential starvation as many people have done in the past. Today the decision is simply a matter of giving up luxuries or changing one’s mindset. This can be difficult to do - so again don’t feel that you must radically change everything overnight. You could carefully investigate and consider all of your options and gradually move into a new line of work or modify your interaction with your current situation. Perhaps you simply need to give up some lucrative clients who ask you to compromise your principles. Perhaps you want to change your entire career to one that is more productive, fulfilling, and never requires you to act in a way you feel is wrong. The important thing is to make steady progress in the right direction. Although a rash decision might be bad, it would be much worse to do nothing and continue down a path of dissatisfaction.

Family, friends, and general surroundings also exert a major influence on most people. This influence is often obvious and overt such as disapproval of your choices. A more subtle level would be gradual desensitization and acceptance of negative behavior surrounding you.

Nearly everyone has some negative habits. It is important to recognize these influences and try to focus on creating surroundings that support and enhance our spiritual growth. Many religions in the past did this by developing special communities of like-minded people. For those who chose an even higher path, there were monasteries and ultimately hermitages where nearly all of the negative influences of society were eliminated. If this path seems too extreme, we can try to recognize and no longer continue the pattern of the negative actions of our society. An example is to be mindful and show courtesy and compassion rather than engaging the anger of people who are simply acting out their frustration with karma. It is important to note that you can’t achieve perfection overnight. Most people will continue to engage others who act negatively and nearly everyone is prematurely proud of themselves for temporary victories.

Practicing compassion and kindness is often its own reward, however. Perfection in anything generally comes from continual practice.

Many religions believed that not only our cultural surroundings, but even the physical locale exerted subtle influences. The ideal spiritual place was often seen as being close to nature, especially in a desolate area such as the desert or high mountains. The idea seemed to have been that in those places you could attune yourself to the spirit or vibration of God more easily than when surrounded by the emotional vibrations of a city. Science has not documented any evidence of this subtle energy, although many people take it for granted that they can feel a different “vibe” from various people and places.

Astronomy was a similar concept integral to most ancient religions. In recent times, popular perception has confused ancient astronomy with astrology and fortune telling. Our Western tradition has unfortunately lost nearly all religious astronomical knowledge.

Pythagoras and Kepler were perhaps the first, last, and only significant members of the Western scientific tradition who studied the “music of the spheres.” This subject would certainly be too lengthy to discuss in detail even if the knowledge were still available.

However, the fundamental astronomical beliefs and practices can be pieced together and understood from other world religions.

The basic theory of ancient astronomy appears to be that the universe has a resonance or spiritual vibration that spreads like waves on the ocean. This resonance flows past heavenly bodies to create what physicists call constructive or destructive wave interference. The interference is basically a wave pattern just like the one created in the lee of an island as waves flow past. The state of “spiritual vibration” on earth is said to be partially dependent on this planetary interference. This belief led to a virtual obsession with planetary mechanics in some ancient traditions like the Maya.

Beyond the complexity, there are some basic practices in world religions based on this theory. The spiritual vibration was believed to be optimal at night during the winter solstice and new moons. Today we know that at these times a person is most directly facing away from large masses (the sun and moon) and their associated gravity and “interference.” It was believed by ancient people that these times were optimal for meditation and spiritual insight.

Another common thread among religions is the practice of fasting.

Beyond the health benefits that have already been covered, many religions believe fasting has a cleansing and calming effect that greatly assists in spiritual insight during the fast. Regardless of the reasons, it is such a common recommendation that you may wish to try it. I’ll note here again that, strangely, many people have an irrational fear of the very practices that have been promoted by religions. The bible mentions Jesus fasting and there are scientific studies indicating that controlled fasting has proven health benefits in laboratory animals. However, in direct conflict with their religion and science, the average American usually sees fasting as odd or dangerous. A similar phenomenon exists for issues such as sun “exposure.” As with anything, you should do your research first, follow your reason and insight, and be honest with yourself to modify your actions according to results. The worst thing to do is try to reach some pre-determined goal based on pride.

In addition to fasting, a few more ascetic traditions are common to world religions. The first of these is celibacy. Most ancient religions seemed to believe that some “vital quality” was retained by the practice of celibacy. This vital energy was believed to aid in spiritual development. In the detailed Hindu tradition, spiritual advancement was believed to first free the lowest/sexual chakra of the soul. This caused an increase in libido that had to be moderated by celibacy before further chakras of the soul could be freed.

The next common ascetic tradition is freedom from worldly possessions. (The irony of this discussion in a book also about money does not escape me.) The ideal was generally to maintain only what was needed for survival with no attachment or ego regarding possessions. Many traditions meditated on the impermanence of all worldly possessions including the body itself.

You have also probably observed that people attached to their possessions are generally less happy and free than those who are unencumbered. Attachment to possessions and sexual desire were often listed as the most difficult obstacles in human spiritual advancement. A great deal of practice was often focused in these areas to build a foundation for higher advancement.

A final ascetic tradition is “moderation in words” or, in some cases, a vow of silence. Our speech often simply serves to project and reinforce the ego. It is particularly difficult for a social animal like humans to remain mindful of speech projecting ego. For this reason, some individuals take temporary or lengthy vows of silence as an effective way to recognize and quiet egotism.

There is another important religious practice that is often forgotten – although Christian doctrine does an unusually good job of retaining and emphasizing the concept. This is the practice of forgiving and asking forgiveness. Early Christians in particular seemed to stress that spiritual advancement beyond a point is nearly impossible without dissolving entangled feelings of anger or guilt towards others.

One difficulty is that we often deny the existence of our anger or guilt.

Particularly in the critical relationship without our parents, many grown children in the West often have repressed resentment perhaps stemming from unnatural child raising practices that will be touched on later.

Freeing yourself from guilt and anger by asking forgiveness and forgiving others is a difficult but unavoidable step in spiritual growth.

Perhaps focusing on connecting the pain you have caused others, with the ways in which people have hurt you, will help nurture your desire to ask forgiveness and likewise forgive. However, the concept of true forgiveness is experiential and is impossible to explain or even provide much guidance from a book. One exceptionally good but difficult experiential program focused largely on forgiveness is the Landmark Forum class provided in cities around the world.

The most common and major thread in all religions is meditation or prayer. There has been more instruction in this area than perhaps any other. The common denominator is trying to attune your spiritual consciousness to a higher level of calm and clarity. There are so many specific methods that I could never list them all much less give instructions. Most systems tend to recommend meditating/praying in a calm and spiritual place. Often breathing techniques are initially used to help clear and focus the mind. Some traditions massage the pressure points of the thumbs and big toes to stimulate certain areas of the brain. The most advanced techniques often focus on the third eye or pineal gland. This is done by concentrating the consciousness on the center of the forehead or on the pineal gland at the very center of the head. Again, intuition rather than dogma is the best guide in choosing which practice to follow.

Sleep and the dream state are considered very important in many religions. During sleep, the consciousness is believed to enter a more sublime state where it is able to receive insights more easily. Many cultures paid particular attention to dreams in order to understand the state of the subconscious or to receive answers to important questions.

There is one final and uniquely powerful spiritual practice in most advanced ancient religions. I hesitated greatly to pass on this practice since it was likely hidden from people (even in the past) for a reason. I know from experience that following advanced practices without first building a foundation, can lead to even greater discouragement, confusion, and negative consequences for yourself and others. However this knowledge has always been available to those who searched, and is greatly needed in the modern world.

Please stabilize all of your other practices before considering trying this in earnest.

The past’s residual collective consciousness is constantly repeating something that almost no one hears. Look at our sacred symbolism - many of the flags in the world and most of the religious icons. Our holiest symbols are the cross, the halo, and the ubiquitous Hindu and Buddhist swastikas. These are all ancient symbols for the same thing – the sun. We even know that ancient religions, “worshiped the sun” but we pass this off as some primitive simplistic belief. Instead, ancient holy men and women followed an advanced practice called sungazing.

Here is the basic practice which people would follow when they chose to embark on a more difficult and higher spiritual path. Please note that this was generally considered the beginning of an ongoing path that was difficult to reverse. First, purify the body through diet and fasting. Stare at the dawn’s sunrise or final sunset with the same mindset and straight posture used in meditation. You should stand with bare feet on bare earth (preferably a hill or beach) while doing this. Start with just a few seconds a day and gradually increase the time periods as your intuition guides you. A general guideline is to increase staring by 10 seconds per day. This can be continued for months until you are staring for 15 minutes or even more. Let your intuition guide you and stop if you are uncertain or feel a headache.

You can always resume again later. In conjunction with sun gazing, take long walks with bare feet on bare earth while letting the sun fall on large areas of exposed skin. Various additional guidelines are available today online from several leaders worldwide.

Further spiritual guidance can be received through symbolism that aids inspiration, or even by direct insight or “gnosis.” In the modern world we tend to think only in terms of mechanical and material functions. It should not be such a stretch, however, to envision a collective consciousness created by a “radio” function inherent to life.

Ancient religions clearly believed that it was possible to “tune in” to this consciousness. Primal myths and symbols common to disparate cultures served as guideposts at this advanced stage.

While not a “practice” there is a fundamental belief running through most ancient religions that has been lost to us today. The implications of this belief are so overwhelming that most people and institutions simply choose to consciously ignore what they unconsciously suspect to be possible. Nonetheless, to advance spiritually it is necessary to face the truth. We will often be unable to fix problems or even make changes immediately, but facing the truth is at least the first step.

The fundamental belief of our ancestral religions and holy men was that all life has a spirit and even a consciousness the same as our own. In particular, higher mammals and even trees were believed capable of developing a strong spirit similar to human. Ancient knowledge, unlike present reasoning, recognized that intellect and spirit are distinct and separate qualities. You may have observed the same fact in seeing some simple children who have a much stronger “spirit” than the typical intellectual. Today our instinctive reaction is to scoff at this concept of a “kindred spirit” in other life forms - rather than face the possibility or its staggering implications. Our reaction, however, is simply a defense mechanism – the same one used by slave owners and countless others in the past and present, to deny that “other” groups of humans have, in essence, a consciousness or spirit the same as us and deserve our compassion.

Sadly, “science” has often been incorrectly applied to “prove” that other races and life forms somehow lack our capacity for consciousness or feeling. Consider, however, that science is currently unable to even explain what consciousness and emotion are or how they are produced. We have no “scientific proof” that humans or any other organisms have a spirit or feel any emotion whatsoever. In fact, the only way you know you are able to feel pleasure or pain is by direct experience. You have no ultimate scientific proof that any other human has those same feelings.

Instead, it is our intuition that leads most of us to realize other people are in essence the same and deserve respect and compassion.

Gradually, as this intuition grows in an individual or a society, the realm of people, races, and life forms seen as deserving of compassion and protection is gradually expanded.

The concept of simply denying another life form’s consciousness is a coping mechanism that was only recently incorporated to such a large extent into Western religion and intellectual society. In the past it was more common to simply accept that people will, in the process of life, inevitably do some harm to themselves, other people, and other creatures. The focus was on reducing the harm done rather than denying its existence. Instead of recoiling in denial at the immense damage done by modern factory farming and forestry, it is just as easy to see this as a wonderful opportunity to improve practices and greatly aid countless lives that need our assistance.

Many of the spiritual practices outlined in this chapter were always considered too advanced for the majority of people to incorporate in a sustainable manner. Ancient religions were perhaps wiser than our current mentality of all-or-nothing. For example, rather than deny vegetarianism entirely, other religions considered any increase in practice to be useful. This belief survives today in Orthodox Christianity’s lengthy vegetarian fasts and Catholicism’s vegetarian Fridays. The difficult practice of celibacy was often recommended only for the most devout or for certain periods of time. It was stressed that people should stabilize their basic practices before undertaking or receiving more advanced methods. Teachers carefully analyzed a student’s ability and motivation rather than blindly passing on knowledge (power) that could harm or corrupt an unprepared student. Advancement always had to be driven by love and wisdom but never by egotism or “craving.” The important point seemed to be sustainable movement towards improved practice and compassion.

The “Monster and the Warrior” and “The Secret of Reality”

The “Monster and the Warrior” is an important religious theme and cultural myth which recurs around the world. The core story always contains a frightening creature slain by a spiritual hero. In American Indian religions, spiritual adepts are even called spiritual warriors.

The idea of a spiritual “warrior” is somewhat foreign to Christian and other pacifist theologies, but it is an important concept to understand.

Deep in our subconscious, we usually have terrible fears that we learn to suppress as adults. When we are small children, however, we have not learned to hide from these fears, and they emerge as night terrors and visions of “monsters.” Likewise, some religions teach that as our spirit is freed at death, we lose our coping mechanisms and the nightmares and monsters re-emerge. These fears are said to cause spiritual confusion as we are driven, terrified, before them. It is important to understand what these nightmare creatures are. These “monsters” are simply a representation of the ego’s fear of death.

It is not just an individual fear learned during our lifetime. Instead, these fearful visions are our psychic inheritance from all incarnations of life that died before us. For example, one of the most common nightmares is falling. Although few people die from falling today, it was one of the most frequent deaths during the formation of the collective primate psyche. Likewise, there is a common “monster” in countless disparate cultures. It is always a cross between a giant reptile and a bird - what we call a dragon. This creature is simply an amalgamation of the larger reptiles and birds that were deadly to mammals during the formation of the collective mammalian psyche.

Without knowing it, we are linked to these past fears of the collective human consciousness. Understanding the existence and cause of these repressed fears is just the first step, however.

As children, we run and hide from these dream manifestations of death. As adults we block out the visions and become so busy with business that the average person rarely has time to consider and truly come to peace with the eventuality of death. However, as someone advances towards overcoming the ego, they often must face these dream manifestations of the ego’s fear of death.

The difference between a spiritual “warrior” and a layman is the same as the difference between a military warrior and a civilian. A warrior attacks while a civilian is driven away by fear. In other words, a spiritual adept is portrayed in many traditions as someone who finally stops running from the collective fear of countless life incarnations.

Instead of being driven by fear, the spiritual warrior finally learns to turn and overcome fear of death and its manifestation as “monsters.”

Tibetan Buddhism is particularly specific on this subject: “When reality dawns on you, let go of the hallucinations of instinctive terror.

Recognize all objects as the mind’s own visions. Do not fear your own fierce visions. The very moment you recognize them, you will be liberated.”

I would like to discuss one last hidden element of past religion that also relates to dreams. I’l even go so far as to cal it, “The Secret of Reality.” This subject was rarely discussed directly until earlier progress had been mastered and an individual was ready to become more fully conscious. Today, however, as the human race moves towards greater connectivity in the information era, it is becoming inevitable that this knowledge will spread.

One of the first things placed deep in your subconscious may have been the nursery rhyme:

Row, row, row your boat,

Gently down the stream.

Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily,

Life is but a dream.

Few people ever recognize the truth or power of this simple rhyme.

We all know that in a dream, we are the dreamer (although the dream takes on its own life until we realize we are dreaming). We create the fantasy and we control it. In a dream we also act according to habits. For example, we generally walk in our dreams although we could just as easily fly if we consciously chose to. Our dreams also tend to be positive or negative depending on our general outlook and state of mind.

Many religions teach that life itself is much like a dream. In life, the original dreamer was said to be a vast segment of consciousness. In this dream, the vast consciousness dreamed that it was no longer one entity but divided into what became a countless number of individual entities/egos. Each individual ego no longer recognizes that it was formed from and is still part of this original spirit of our universe. But the metaphor of a dream still holds true. The original spirit is still dreaming and creating this universe and each individual life is dreaming its tiny part of the collective “dream of the universe.”

“That’s nice,” you say. You’ve heard the nursery rhyme, and maybe you’ve heard the same metaphor elsewhere in Eastern religion – so what? Well here’s the amazing thing. Just like any other dream, you can control this one.

“No I can’t.” you say, “I’ll wish for a million dollars. Do I have it? No!”

Remember, there is no longer one dreamer. The original dreamer has split into countless individual dreamers forming the same collective dream. In a regular dream we can have anything we want when we became conscious of the dream. However, we generally remain unconscious and are constrained by our habits and conditioning. In the “dream of life” we are still constrained by habits and conditioning in addition to the individual, separate beliefs of all the other dreamers inhabiting this same collective dream. As individuals, we can’t trample into the dreams of others. In short, our life, our dream, is constrained by karma.

In a regular dream, we all know that we can have anything we want – we only have to imagine it and it manifests. So ask yourself - why aren’t all of our dreams perfect bliss? Why would anyone have a nightmare? Because our dreams are generally controlled by the unconscious inertia (karma) of our past actions and experiences.

Only rarely do we become a little conscious in the dream and begin to exert a little control. The exact same concept holds true in the dream of life. Although constrained/asleep we still have the ability to take conscious control over our dream of life. It is vital to remember that any control we exert can be positive or negative. If negative, our actions will simply constrain us further.

You don’t have to believe in the supernatural aspect of manifesting to see negative examples of conscious control we take over our lives.

For instance, one person may have no sense of the fact that he is part of a larger dream and may only see himself as an individual ego.

In the extreme, this may lead that person to rob, kill, etc. without regard to the other egos that he sees as totally separate from himself. This individual may end up in jail. He will then be constrained, physically, to an even greater degree. This occurs because all the other human egos inhabit the same dream and do have a connection and ability to control the first individual. If the first individual still does not learn, he may murder again in prison and will then go to solitary confinement – a jail within a jail. This person is now living with terrible and worsening constraint (karma) because of the conscious decisions he made and conscious control he took over his dream of life.

Remember that life is truly a dream with all the potential for extreme change once an individual becomes conscious of the dream to a degree. As Christianity teaches (Matthew 17: 20), “If you have faith as a grain of mustard seed… nothing will be impossible for you.”

Whatever we hold in our minds will come to us – often in miraculous and unexplainable ways. In a “regular” dream we recognize that whatever we fear or desire or imagine will tend to manifest. When we are asleep, this process of manifesting is often quite a surprise to us.

But when we awaken (become conscious) we realize, “Oh, it was just a dream, of course the red Ferrari popped up when I wanted it or of course I was robbed the moment I feared it.” In the dream of life, however, we rarely “awaken” enough to realize that this same principle is at work and we are manifesting our individual part within the constrained framework of a collective dream.

You don’t have to believe in the “miraculous” or unexplained instances of people manifesting thoughts and intentions into physical reality. All you have to do is observe the fact that people tend to attract and manifest things they think of most strongly and often. A person who concentrates his passion on money will tend to acquire money. A person who concentrates on fear of poverty will tend to attract poverty. A person who constantly fears sickness will tend to attract ill health. A person with an overwhelming desire to help others will tend to achieve that goal. None of us have an unchanging destiny. We simply have an inertia or karma that is our current tendency and path based on our past actions. But we also have free will. By exerting this force of will we can begin to change our direction at any time – for better or worse.

Now for the warning. Many people are discovering this amazing principle of manifesting reality through excellent media such as thesecret.tv or the Landmark Forum. You may think this is a wonderful discovery to realize you can manifest things into your life simply by changing your thoughts. But manifesting reality is what you have already been doing all along. As Buddha said, “All that you are is what you have thought.” In the initial excitement of this discovery, people forget what folk wisdom has warned for centuries, “Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it.” There are countless folk tales where a person is granted three or more wishes. In most of these stories, the moral is that desire for worldly gain eventually leads to greater suffering – often in terrible unforeseen ways. Why should it be any different? Choosing personal gain is what the human race has generally been doing all along, and is the exact karma that has put us right where we are. If you learn the “dream power” to manifest worldly desires even faster – guess what? You simply increase your negative karma and future constraints even faster.

So what is the solution? Remember the stories of people who chose their wishes correctly. King Solomon was offered anything he wanted but rejected wealth and power to choose wisdom instead. Likewise, in the New Testament, Jesus was offered control over all the world but rejected it and was taught by angels instead. The Chinese “Rice Bowl” parable gives a similar message. Religion and folk wisdom teach that the only correct choice, the only correct thing to wish for and manifest, is knowledge, empathy, and assistance to others.

If we don’t first understand the nature of existence, everything we do and manifest will just represent blind stumbling in the dark. We all believe, or at least habitually act, as if we are separate entities.

Therefore most of our actions and desires are premised on this individuality. Most actions we take and most things we manifest in our individual part of the collective dream only reinforce our individuality and separation.

The more we lose our original connection to “other” life the more desperately we try to regain it through more actions premised on our individuality. We desperately try to impress and look attractive or superior to “others” until practically every action in our lives (whether we realize it or not) is ultimately an attempt to gain worth in the eyes of others. Regardless of the intent, however, any action taken on behalf of an individual ego will not restore connection but will have exactly the opposite effect – and thus increase our suffering. Rather than continue to dream and manifest our individual parts in a collective nightmare of separation, religion teaches us how to awaken. “Be still, and know that I am God.”

Our entire spiritual evolution, to a certain point, is nothing but a descent into separation and constraint. We build an inertia or tendency or karma in this direction. No matter how powerful we become, no matter what we can manifest/dream into our individual lives, it only increases our inertia towards separation, constraint, and suffering. When we finally learn to stop, to be still, to seek wisdom, we can overcome this inertia – our karma. Then we can finally begin to actually feel (not just hear about) and know the interconnection of all life. We can then begin to move in the other direction – away from separation and towards connection. Ultimately this inspiration will grow to a complete and perfect connection, at which time we have re-awakened from the dream of separation and rejoined Universal Consciousness.

There is one last philosophical issue that may be difficult for some people. Few religions even appear to tackle this question but I believe it may have been the initial stumbling block that sent the Western World’s intellectual leadership on its current nihilistic bent. A logical person may ask, “If we fall from Unified Consciousness, we suffer, and then we rejoin Unified Consciousness – what is the purpose?” It may seem like a hopeless process which consciousness is doomed to repeat. Isn’t all the joy and love of a reconnection with the Spirit of the Universe simply counteracted if we again fall into separation and suffering?

Look what is happening though. A cycle or wave function or vibration is occurring of separation and reconnection. This type of resonance (in anything) indicates added or growing energy. What you see is not simply the linear continuation of consciousness – but the expansion of Consciousness, the expansion of Love. Each time Love and Consciousness re-awakens, it does not simply counteract the previous suffering – it exceeds the original state. As a Hindu sage once said, “God is ever-expanding love.”

The Most Important Thing

In just a few short pages we’ve covered the development of physical and mental health needed to improve spiritual practice; the creation of a lifestyle and community which can sustain higher levels of spirituality; the more advanced practices such as fasting, meditation, and sungazing; and finally the nature of reality.

One beautiful verse from the bible (1 Corinthians 13: 1) reminds us that all of this is only words or “a clanging bell” unless it is guided by love. You can follow every practice available, but unless you can also cultivate love in your heart you will not be able to grow spiritually or receive the proper guidance. Many religions in the past took it for granted that everyone had a great capacity for feeling love. People in our modern society, however, often have a deficiency in the ability to first awaken love for themselves and then for others.

I imagine there may be many reasons for the somewhat unique lack of initial love in our society. Our treatment of babies may hurt the parent-child bond through practices such as formula feeding and allowing the infant to cry him or her self to sleep in a separate room.

Although we brush off these practices as harmless, I believe they leave a psychic imprint. If there were no imprint, then there would be no logic in letting a baby cry him or her self to sleep “in order to become more independent.” Beyond infancy, other people may simply lack love because they experienced mistreatment or abuse and rarely knew true caring or love.

Much of what we consider love is simply veiled self-interest. When you analyze your kind actions you often find genetic self-interest behind the love of your children, or social gain behind assistance to others, or the desire for feelings of pride and self-worth behind seemingly virtuous gifts.

Nonetheless, every living creature has the ability to feel love and compassion. If you have difficulty feeling pure love and compassion there are numerous things you can do. The wrong path is to simply focus on the reasons for your difficulty as psychology often does.

This is another example of the study vs. practice syndrome. Rather, you can practice seeing things from others’ viewpoint and begin forgiving them and yourself. It helps if you can understand that everything is ultimately a result of your own karma although this karma may not appear to be in perfect balance at any given moment.

A wonderful fresh start is to do one tiny thing with a perfectly pure and loving heart. You should feel the joy of the other being, without any thought of yourself or your action. Although the ultimate physical result may even be negative, it doesn’t matter. Pure unconditional love will eventually lead to the correct path and it is perhaps the only thing that creates true happiness. You could do something as simple as giving a tiny gift which will make a child happy. Help an animal in distress. Do something anonymously for a poor or lonely person. As you learn to feel empathy you will naturally be drawn to love and care for others more and more.

Beyond a certain point all religions say the same thing. Words cannot describe the final path to God. You will simply be guided by love.