To help his patients regain resonance with the universal system, the physician of the new medicine may have to look to areas not often enough considered. He should study the patient's environment, for one example. The physical body's loss of sensitive attunement may be due to such external causes as environmental sources of pollution. These might include chemicals in the air, fallout from atomic testing, more than minimal diagnostic x-ray exposure or other forms of medical radiation, long hours in front of television or microwave ovens, or under fluorescent lights. It might come from drinking fluorinated and chlorinated water, from medically prescribed as well as psychedelic drugs, from synthetic foods along with additives, and in the cases of quite a number of people, even from the artificial materials used in the clothing they commonly wear.

The fast can be most helpful in treatment of patients whose problems have such causes, for it tends toward freeing the body from having to ward off these conflicting sources of energy, and toward freeing the mind from the power of much of the negativity that is all about us today. Once freed, the patient is in a far better position than he was to use his vital energies in a constructive way and so restore homeostasis.

A person needs all of the energy he can healthfully derive, for much is required simply to break down food into its nutritive components, convert the carbohydrates and proteins into glycogen for storage in the liver, and to provide the ready energy needed for healing and optimal physical and mental functioning.

All of this should be within the awareness of new medicine, both for the physician who accepts the new challenge, and for the person who is learning to look within for his own healing powers.

We speak of the fast as being a part of the new medicine. It is a rediscovered part, for the fast as an integral part of life is as old as life itself, and its healing power is to be seen all along evolution's pathway. In the insect world, the feasting caterpillar is followed by the fasting butterfly. Then there are the hibernating reptiles and the bear who take their annual prolonged fasts. If nothing more, this indicates that fasting and stanation are not the same things. Many animals when sick know enough to stop eating, but few humans have retained this healthy insight that intuitively bids one eat or fast as the proper occasion arises and in its natural timing. As William Wordsworth so beautifully comments:

The world is too much with us, Getting and spending we lay waste our powers, Little we see in Nature that is ours . . . Yes, we are out of touch, and the fast provides an ideal setting for renewing this all-important contact. Allow me to quote from one of Meadowlark's recent fasters who began the recontact: I am awakened in the morning full of quiet expectation which was deepened by an experience as I sat on the lawn after my simple breakfast of fruit. A honeybee settled on my knee and set about his elaborate grooming of his small person. I was pleased and touched at its confidence in me and extended to him the same. I was struck by his kindness and appreciation showed in every part of his body. I watched with interest and amusement at his insect version of body awareness (referring to an exercise program of that name employed at Meadowlark).

Throughout history, at some time fasts have been used by practically every culture to bring man back in touch with his source of BEING. But unfortunately, Western religion with its only occasional use of fasting has become more and more separated from actual life on an hour to hour basis and needs once more to become interwoven into life's innermost experience, as is still taught by the Shaman of Africa and the Indian medicine man.