Edmund Szekely - Sleep

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SLEEP

A SOURCE OF HARMONY EDMOND BORDEAUX SZEKELY

ESSENE SCHOOL OF LIFE 1. We believe that, in the present state of society, it is possible for every one, by judicious use of the best available methods of hygiene and individual improvement, to achieve considerable betterment of the quality of his life. 2. We believe that it is the worth of individuals which makes the worth of societies and which conditions the effectiveness of public institutions. 3. We believe, consequently, that every man owes a bounden duty to himself, to the community and to the future of Humanity to make his own improvement the essential task of his life. 4. We believe that this work of improvement has the sure effect of introducing into the life of the individual a quota of happiness proportional to the value of his efforts. 5. We believe that it is the study of the laws in Nature and in faithful adherence to what they prescribe, that man finds the surest guides in his effort to improve himself. 6. We believe that human thought and will have considerable power and that they should be used conscientiously in the service of good, that is to say, in the service of the force that leads Nature towards ever higher forms of manifestation. 7. We believe in the irresistibility of progress and in the certain triumph of beauty over ugliness, of truth over error, of good over egotism and hatred. 8. We believe that expansive love, fraternity and co-operation are the only effective means of collective progress, and that nothing true, beautiful or good can be built upon hatred, the spirit of party, cliques, rivalry, revenge and oppression. 9. We believe that there cannot fail to be universal sympathy for every sincere effort to do good, even when it seems to be in opposition, as the ways of realizing a better future are as numerous as are human temperaments. 10. We firmly believe that we shall overcome evil, not by attacking it, but by maintaining and strengthening the good. Evil exists not; Only the past. The past is past. The present is a moment. The FUTURE is all!

ESSENE SCHOOL OF LIFE DEDICATED TO THE ESSENE RENAISSANCE OF HEALTH, HAPPINESS, ABUNDANCE AND WISDOM UPHOLDS THE ESSENE IDEALS OF THE FATHERHOOD OF GOD THE MOTHERHOOD OF NATURE THE BROTHERHOOD OF MAN AN INDEPENDENT—NON SECTARIAN—NON POLITICAL — NON PROFIT — EDUCATIONAL. WORLD ORGANIZATION SPECIALIZED IN ALLSIDED EDUCATION FOR LIFE LIBERTY AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS The First Essene Organization in Europe and America Founded in Nice, France, 1928. Transferred to Elsinore, California—1935. FOUNDER AND PRESIDENT: Edmond Bordeaux Szekely MAIL ADDRESS Tecate, California, U.S.A. OFFICIAL LANGUAGES English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Latin, Esperanto BRANCHES AND REPRESENTATIVES Australia, Canada, England, France, Ireland, Mexico, New Zealand, Oceania, Palestine, South Africa, United States, West Africa, West Indies. SERVICES FOR STUDENTS AND MEMBERS International Quarterly of the Essene and Cosmovitalist World Movements Periodicals—Yearbooks—Books Weekly and Monthly Lessons Courses for University Entrance Credits Recognized by Several Universities Certificates and Diplomas Individual Guidance and Supervision for Students Special Co-operative Services for Members

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION send 25c for our 48 page Digest and Guide-book, 8½ x 7", profusely illustrated with 50 pictures, containing concise condensations of all above books with detailed introductions to the Essene Teaching and Cosmotherapy. Address THE ESSENE SCHOOL OF LIFE, TECATE, CALIFORNIA.

First Edition 1939 Second Edition 1941 Third Edition 1942 Fourth Edition 1945 Copyright 1945 by Edmond Bordeaux Szekely. Printed in United States of America—All Rights reserved.

MEMBERSHIP Membership shall be open to all persons, of any race, creed, or nation who believe in the Essene ideals of the Fatherhood of God, the Motherhood of Nature and the Brotherhood of Man, based on creative altruism and scientific knowledge of the Natural and Cosmic Laws. The School shall always be free to maintain Essene principles by giving its services without charge to any person, member or non-member, wherever it considers such action desirable. The membership fee shall be one dollar ($1.00) per month, payable in advance, quarterly ($3.00), semi-annually ($5.50) or annually ($10.00). The membership fee has been computed from experience, based upon the net administrative cost per member (stenography, printing, stationery, postage, etc.). In accordance with Essene principles no other charge is made.

ADVANTAGES OF MEMBERSHIP Quarterly members receive our International Quarterly "Health, Life and Wisdom" for a whole year, membership card, 10% discount on all our publications, and five semi-monthly lessons. Semi-annual members receive all the above, and in addition, five more semi-monthly lessons (a total of ten lessons during the six months), as well as systematic help and guidance in their studies by the staff of the Essene School of Life. Annual members receive all the above, and in addition, ten more semimonthly lessons (a total of twenty lessons during the twelve months), as well as the personal assistance of Professor Edmond Bordeaux Szekely in their individual Life-problems.

LIST OF PUBLICATIONS BOOKS BY EDMOND BORDEAUX SZEKELY Health, Life & Wisdom, International Quarterly subscription for two years

$1.00

COSMOTHERAPY, COSMOVITALISM Guide to Health, Happiness & Abundance Health, Youth, Longevity Cosmotherapy, the Medicine of the Future Scientific Vegetarianism The Cure of Constipation One Health Day a Week The Therapeutics of Fasting The Diet Chart of Cosmotherapy

.25 .50 5.00 .90 1.75 .75 .75 .50

BIOCHEMISTRY, DIETETICS Introduction to Minerals, Vitamins, Herbs Mineral Therapy of Biological Functions Vitamin Therapy of Biological Functions Natural Herb Therapeutics The Biochemical Diet Book

.25 2.75 2.00 2.00 2.75

MODERN MAN'S PHILOSOPHY Modern Man's Philosophy—Vol. I & II Origin of Christianity—Vol. I & II Sexual Harmony and the New Eugenics The Dialectical Method of Thinking Books, Our Eternal Companions Natural Economics & Sociology One World—One Language Esperanto, World Language

2.75 2.75 2.00 1.00 .75 .50 .90 .50

ESSENE SCIENCE OF LIFE The Essene Gospel of John The Natural and Cosmic Laws Essene Communions with the Angels Essene Renaissance The Sevenfold Peace The Ancient Essenes GREAT TEACHINGS OF HUMANITY The Living Jesus The Teaching of Buddha Zoroaster, The Master of Life Quetzalcoatl, the Soul of Mexico The Essenes, by Josephus The Future of Humanity The Meaning of Christmas Yoga in the Twentieth Century Will-Power, the Creator of Happiness Sleep, A Source of Harmony . Beethoven, Prometheus of the Modern World Guide to Scientific Thinking Creative Simplicity NOT FOR SALE—RESERVED FOR MEMBERS Edmond Bordeaux Szekely's Personal Semi-Monthly Letters The Art and Method of Study—10 lessons General and Applied Dietetics—50 lessons The Biochemical Health Garden—10 lessons Semi-Monthly Lessons on Vital Subjects

$1.00 3.75 4.75 3.50 2.50 .50 .50 .50 .50 7.50 .50 .50 .50 .50 .50 .50 .50 .50 .50

SLEEP, A SOURCE OF HARMONY FROM a physiological point of view sleep is a process of elimination. During sleep breathing is much deeper than in the daytime. There is consequently a more intensive elimination of poisons and waste matter through the lungs. The toxins derived from eating unwholesome foods and toxins that are the product of fatigue are to a large extent disposed of during the hours of sleep. The length of the night's sleep must depend on the individual concerned, on his age, condition and many other factors. The larger the accumulation of toxins in the organism, the longer the sleep required. And the greater the fatigue of the organism, the longer the sleep necessary to re-establish equilibrium. More sleep is also required when wrong foods are taken, as these produce fermentation in the organs of digestion. But sometimes unwholesome food can have an opposite result; it can lead to insomnia. For the fermentation of food has a stimulating effect upon the nerves. We can lay down the general rule that the length of sleep required is directly proportional to the quantity of toxins present in the organism, and inversely proportional to the organism's degree of detoxication. An intoxicated organism needs from nine to ten hours of sleep, while a healthy one will only require to sleep for five or six hours in similar circumstances. Sleep effects a reparation of the organism. Food makes up for loss of quantity, while sleep makes up for loss of quality. It repairs the nerves. Both kinds of reparation are indispensable, but sleep is even more essential than food. It is physiologically possible to go without food for days, weeks or even, in certain cases, months. Sleep, on the other hand, can only be dispensed with for some days. Sleep supplies something even more important than the elements furnished by food. In the waking state there is a difference between all plants, animals and men, and also between all individuals. But sleep is universal; it abolishes all differences. Sleep is the same in plants, animals and men; in rich and poor, in wise and foolish, in poet and peasant. The differences between individuals consist of the differences in the activity of their respective cerebro-spinal systems. It is the cerebro-spinal system which regulates individuality and personality. During sleep this activity stops and the differences between individuals are consequently removed. The organo-vegetative system presides over the organism while sleep is in progress. It is this which is responsible for all unconscious activities of the organism, while the cerebro-spinal system directs all our conscious activities. The organo-vegetative system governs the beating of the heart and the various processes of metabolism, while the cerebro-spinal system controls attention, intelligence, association of ideas, memory, etc. The former system is the executive organ of all the natural laws and forces in every organism, while the latter is the director of the individual's actions. When a man is awake, he makes many deviations from the natural laws, but when he is asleep he obeys them wholly. The results of these deviations (fatigue, weakness and the toxins

of disease) are repaired by sleep at night when harmony with the laws of Nature is restored. It is, therefore, impossible to live without sleep. Prolonged fasting, on the other hand, is perfectly possible, and often beneficial. Such is the explanation of sleep from a physiological standpoint, as given by Zoroaster in the Avesta between seven and eight thousand years ago. Contemporary official science does not, however, look at sleep in this fashion. While a poisoned organism cannot dispense with sleep for long, a completely healthy and clean one can manage without it for many days. Conversely, a very overintoxicated organism may sleep for weeks or months on end. There are many examples to be found of these phenomena in antiquity, in the Middle Ages and at the present day. Reports are occasionally given in the newspapers of persons whom doctors are unable to wake up. In the Avesta Zoroaster also tells us the significance of sleep for a detoxicated and pure organism. Where there are no toxins present, there can naturally be no elimination of them. Sleep, then, has quite another significance. Instead of repairing the organism, it improves its vitality. While the right food effects a quantitative improvement of it, sleep leads to an improvement in quality. It is a rule that in a!l the vital functions qualitative changes arc more important than quantitative. During sleep there is an absence of pain. It is for this reason that artificial sleep is created for performing surgical operations. It has been shown experimentally that the organism when asleep can resist poison and that death from poison while sleep actually lasts is impossible. It only occurs on waking. This great power of sleep was observed by various peoples of antiquity. It is not uncommon to find our problems solved during sleep. The diaries of scientists and writers often relate that they always invented or composed at night or in the morning after sleep. So sleep is a source of knowledge— in addition to the usual ones. It brings the organism into contact with quite different forces to those which influence it during the day. In the daytime it is in contact with harder, inferior forces; it is in contact with finer and higher forces during sleep. During the day the solar rays are predominant and are the strongest as the daylight half of the globe is turned towards the sun. The sun's rays are strong and stimulate corporeal, physical activity in the organism. At night, on the other hand, the influence of the sun's rays is weak, and the cosmic radiations, of which the source is more distant than the sun and which are of superior quality, become predominant. These cosmic radiations come from a direction opposite to that where the sun now is and are not counteracted at night by its rays. Their source is very distant— even in the ultra-galactic systems of universal space. These higher cosmic radiations influence the higher activities of the organism—activities that are finer and more imponderable than those of the daytime. It is thus that sleep comes to represent another source of knowledge. The more detoxicated an organism is, the more capable is it of establishing contact with the higher radiations during the night. "When an organism is poisoned, all its forces are paralysed by the elimination which must take place during sleep. In a healthy

organism, however, all its forces are liberated and it is capable of effeccting contact with and receiving the higher radiations. Antiquity provides us with numerous examples of superior revelations. The explanation of these phenomena must be sought in the laws of the Universe and of Nature. All the great teachers and thinkers of antiquity led very sober lives, lives of great simplicity and harmony. In consequence, they were extremely healthy and free from toxins. It was not mere chance that they, and not other people, received these higher revelations. The knowledge they received was natural; there was nothing mystic about it. Simply their organisms had developed certain capacities lacked by those of others. Sleep, then, represents a higher source of knowledge for the detoxicated, while for the intoxicated it is merely a means of detoxication. For a majority it represents a process of physiological reparation, while for a small aristocracy of will and intelligence sleep represents the psychological perfection of the individual. For the intoxicated, sleep is at best only a fragmentary source of knowledge, which will always remain incomplete and one-sided. And a one-sided improvement always leads to disequilibrium. There is a close affinity between genius and madness. Onesided geniuses are mad as well as geniuses, while every-sided geniuses are supermen. According to Lombroso, eighty or ninety per cent of geniuses are one-sided and mad, while only ten per cent can be called complete. The majority had sick unbalanced organisms; only a small minority had complete, equilibrated organisms. Zoroaster, the author of the Avesta, was a complete genius, Omar Khayyam was incomplete. Plato and Pythagoras were complete; Plotinus and Philo incomplete. It is impossible to lay down dogmatically the amount of sleep required. It depends on the degree of intoxication of each individual. In order to establish the quantity of sleep necessary, one must first go through a process of detoxication and see how much sleep is needed at the end. So much for the physiological aspects of the question. On the psychological side we find a certain correlation between our waking and our sleeping life. When a person is unable to satisfy his inner needs and tendencies during the day, the repressed and unsatisfied tendencies remain in the unconscious and cause dreams at night. According to Freud, dreams are a satisfaction of sexual tendencies repressed by social or other external factors. In the conception of Adler, where there is a sense of inferiority or failure in life, the opposite tendency will be manifested in dreams. Thus the poor will dream that they are rich. Naturally the process is not so simple as this in reality. An entirely healthy person, on the other hand, has no dreams. (They can be provoked by over-eating.) Equilibrium consists of harmony between the tendencies of an individual and his environment. Dreams are always a warning of an unbalanced organism or consciousness. Sleep without dreams, on the other hand, becomes an enrichment of the ideas and consciousness. The practical psychological consideration is that attention should be paid to one's thoughts, ideas and sentiments before going to sleep, since the latter's quality and content is influenced strongly by the thoughts and sentiments

entertained prior to sleeping. If we go to sleep with harmonious thoughts, our sleep will be a source of energy, harmony and knowledge. In harmonious thoughts, on the contrary, are sources of inharmony. Sleep supervening on such thoughts fails to bring refreshment to the sleeper, who wakes with a feeling of fatigue and lethargy next morning. If, before sleeping, the energies are directed towards certain objectives, the conscious forces aroused will be transformed into unconscious forces during sleep, with the result that in the course of the night the objectives will progressively be attained. The morning will find the goal reached automatically. On the other hand, if we go to bed with a fear of certain things, the fear will paralyse our psychological capacities and forces, lowering our resistance and causing the danger to arrive more quickly. Fear attracts the danger of which one is afraid. We should bo afraid of nothing except of being afraid. The process of eliminating fear consists of two processes. The first is an intellectual process and consists of a close analysis of the thing feared. The danger is not a real one; it is only real in the imagination. In death, for instance, as Thomas d'Aquinas pointed out, it is the pomp and circumstance of death that terrifies us rather than death itself. Death is perfectly natural. But we exaggerate it with ceremonies', with dolorous behavior and with sorrowful thoughts. Epicurus observed that we have no relation to death. When we are alive, death is not with us, while when we are dead, we are no longer alive to be grieved about it. The second phase in the avoidance of fear is voluntary. It is not sufficient simply to understand the fear with the intelligence and realise that it is not too good to have it. The realisation must also become a strong sentiment within us. It cannot be overcome intellectually; the force of an awakened sentiment is necessary as well. The technique for awaking the sentiments is discussed below. It is part of the education of the will.

EDMOND BORDEAUX SZEKELY SCIENTIST AND PHILOSOPHER A Review by DION BYNGHAM (Health and Life, July 1936) If the contents of a book could save our contemporary world, which is eddying and crashing to ruin, that book, I believe, has been written. If the contents of a book could redeem us as individuals from a common destiny of disease and death, that same book has appeared. If between the covers of a book might be found the sure path to creative peace, to superb health and beauty, to an optimal abundance of Joy in Life, let us open and read. For if, while reading, we should perchance resolve to try and live what "we read, all these seeming miracles might assuredly happen. How and where shall one begin? As a reader, certainly, at the beginning, meditating and mastering every word to the end. But as a reviewer, the significance of some 800-odd pages to compress within four or five . . . ! For nothing less than Cosmos, Man and Society is the theme. And the author, Professor Edmond Szekely, is a philosopher, a sage and a scientist of immense erudition who—albeit with perfect lucidity and simplicity—has well-nigh taken the reins of infinity within his grasp. Primarily a research-ethnologist, he has been directed in all his researches by the light of one dominant motive: to discover and formulate for himself and his fellowmen the laws of an optimal life, to focus the entire forces of Eternal Life for the ultimate conquest of death. As a pre-eminently and practical outcome, Professor Szekely has arrived at a comprehensive restatement of Natural Therapy which excels in completeness, applicability and precision anything so far achieved.

And so, as promised in his preface, his book becomes virtually "the encyclopedia of a new science—Paneubiotics or Omnilaterial Aristology—whose purpose is to realize the best and optimal forms of omnilateral life based on the totality of the natural and cosmic laws and their manifestations in the individual and society (cosmic, solar, terrestrial and human radiations)." COSMIC RADIATIONS In that word "radiations" is really the core and gist of the matter. We live as witnesses to the dawn of the radioactive era. It is therefore essentially in tune with the times that natural therapy itself should be synthesized around the conception of radiations, cosmic, solar, terrestrial and human. This, in the first place, is what Professor Szekely has accomplished—not, however, as a merely metaphysical theorist discoursing vaguely on "vibrations," but with all the authority of a realistic research-scientist whose findings have been tested and confirmed in every detail by his therapeutic practice and experience in many parts of the world. It will unquestionably be of supreme interest to the practical reader, whether lay or professional, to find in this book the whole rationale of sun, air, water and earth therapies and hygiene, as well as the properties of properly grown living foods like uncooked fruits and vegetables, re-interpreted and. applied in a new light as accumulators and transmitters of cosmic radiations for the healing, health and optimal vitality of man. The entire technique of hydropathy (baths, packs, compresses, the internal douche and so forth) is incidentally restated and brought up to date. This makes a valuable section for all who wish for a working knowledge of water; treatment, which, in many respects, was the original basis of nature cure. Dietetic science is likewise fully re-formulated with special reference to the organic salts, vitamins and aromatics as basic constituents and stimulants of the life-processes, as transmitters of vital vibrations to glands and organs and to all the living cells of the body and brain. Fifty foods, "accumulators of cosmic energies," are detailed, together with. specimen daily menus for each season of the year. Of several particulars that impress me about these menus I must mention three. First, their extreme simplicity and frugality—yet it is obviously the frugality of a man who enjoys every mouthful he masticates with unperverted taste and unspoiled piquancy of appetite. Secondly, the frequent combination of proteins and vegetables. Thirdly, the stress laid on aromatics: onions, garlic, chervil. chives, shallot, mint, parsley, thyme, celery and the rest. These aromatics are undoubtedly nature's own aperitifs. Through both taste and smell and by virtue of their volatile essences they stimulate digestion and vitalise our internal functions and secretions, in addition to their valuable, antiseptic and blood-cleansing properties. Professor Szekely, who is everywhere insistent upon the importance of teen healthy senses, practically identifies such imponderable neural excitations from our food—transmitted through sight or through taste and smell— with the vitalising vibrations which are the vitamins themselves. Many a person, probably, remains obsessed by the blandishments of cunning cookery and dependent upon the eondimental savour of flesh foods, solely through ignorance of these superlatively natural flavourings which would minister to his instinctive craving for appetising aromas and palatable meals. The raw diet regimen would never be dull were this understood, and no one can be a true initiate of Professor Szekely's "natural optimal dietetics" by whom it is not understood. To trophotherapy and dietetics is added a section. describing fifty medicinal plants and herbs with their properties and remedial uses, so

that the gist of botanical therapy is also included. The regenerative role of fasting fills a fundamental place, as also does deep rhythmic breathing, since Professor Szekely regards sun-irradiated air as the medium for direct transmission of solar and cosmic vital forces through the lungs to the body and mind. From this point of view the yoga doctrine of pranayama receives corroborative evidence. A practical chapter on the Art of Breathing, included in the section on "Individual Harmony," is a revelation in itself. Air, as well as water, must, for instance, have been recently sun-irradiated to be of any living value at all. 'Man's roots are his lungs." CELL-REGENERATION IN SEVEN MONTHS All of these practical measures and many others are combined in a complete system of what Professor Szekely calls "omnilateral cosmotherapy." This term "omnilateral," connoting as it does extension along, and convergence from, all sides and all fronts as correlated to the central objective of optimal healing, health and life, is what distinguishes Professor Szekely's truly "cosmic" conception from all limited, "unilateral" or one-sided methods hitherto applied. As a therapeutic system, competently administered and with the faithful collaboration of the patient, he has proved that it will not only cure specific and chronic diseases but will actually regenerate the individual entirely, through intensive cell-renewal, in from three to seven months. Adopted thereafter as a way of life, anthropocentric "cosmovitalism" becomes the basis of Paneubiotics, the art and science of optimal vitality and integral well-being which, Professor Szekely believes, will lead to maximal longevity and even to the ultimate conquest of physical death. Having said so much I am barely at the beginning of any adequate disclosure of the wealth that this book contains, in fact I have left out the beginning, plunged into the middle, and thereby postponed all reference to what for me personally, along with the end, form the most fascinating features. To those who, like myself, arrived at "naturism" and natural therapy not primarily through concern with illness but as the practical outcome of a sifting of cultural values and intuitive philosophy of life, by far the most interesting aspects will relate to how Professor Szekely reaches his conclusions and the logical consequences to which he carries them. ATOMS AND STARS To the whole vast sidereal, astrophysical and astrochemical purview, the correlative etheric and ultra-etheric, ultra-atomic and intraatomic vibratory milieu through which Professor Szekely traces life in evolution from nebula to man, I can make but a passing and meaningless reference here. That man is one with the cosmos, a microcosm within a macrocosm, has been taught by the seers through immemorial ages and notably by Edward Carpenter and D. H. Lawrence among poet-philosophers of recent times. It has remained for Professor Szekely to give scientific formulation to that "eternal ocean of cosmic radiations" whereby solar systems and atoms are reciprocally related and the cells of man's body and the thoughts of his brain vibrate in tune with the farthest stars. "The most elementary dynamic formations are those of matter (matter being merely an aggregate of the movement of atoms), while the highest dynamic formations are those of currents of thought." So the long history of this vertiginous dynamism of thought itself is reviewed by Professor Szekely in terse summaries of nearly a hundred philosophers from Thales down to date. For as part of his omnilateral system is included "the entirely new and original application for therapeutic purposes of the masterpieces of universal literature, philosophy and the arts based on psychotechnical diagnosis of

individual natures." To Professor Szekely's own philosophic formula of "dialectical correlativism," in which is woven really the whole fabric of his thesis, I cannot do justice in this outline. MAN AND TREES There remains still to be noted the ethnological and ethnographical backbone of the book. This—if more than the others—has been Professor Szekely's especial line of research, in which he has made some original and significant discoveries. As a pragmatic consequence he is able to correlate all that is best in the most recent scientific and cultural developments with a modernistic renaissance of the heliolithic culture of homo sapiens sylvanus, the original fructivorous man of the forests and trees. It was from this dominant species, characterised by maximal longevity and endowed with a cerebral capacity for unlimited intelligence, that subsequent culture and civilization took its sources. Identifiable with the Cro-Magnon family, with the pre-diluvian patriarchs of the Old Testament, and with other legendary figures of the earliest folklore, this great race received its first severe set-back from that planetary and climatic disaster recorded as "the Flood." This destroyed its first optimally favourable natural milieu and caused its scattered survivors to become more pyrolithic (fire-using and food-cooking) and omnivorous (flesh-eating) in their habits—and much shorter-lived. It might almost be said that, dating from that event, a progressive series of enforced adaptations, complicated by human follies, has brought us down to "the present pessimal milieu of homo sapiens faber"—the office and factory age of treeless cities and towns we exist in to-day. Trees and forests, declares Professor Szekely, "are accumulators of the cosmic forces and radiations and are the generative source of cerebral energies." (Italics mine.) Reflecting that it was the forest sages of India who wrote the profound and unsurpassable Vedas and Upanishads, one can well believe that this is so. Forests, moreover, afford the best protection against storms, floods, droughts, extremes of heat and cold, by acting as natural regulators and distributors of the moisture and temperature of the air. Modern man, in his commercial, money-maniac blindness, has devastated and laid waste the green earth. It is a ruin compared with what it used to be, and man himself—''is a veritable bundle of rags and bones compared with the perfect, statuelike forms of his paleolithic sylvan ancestors." The more human beings have destroyed the forests and cut down the giant trees, the more frequent and terrible have been the calamities, storms, hurricanes and cyclones that have descended upon them, raging in recent years with unparalleled violence. It is cause and effect. Yet still must walnut trees be felled to make rifle butts, and miles of forests be sacrificed to provide paper for the Daily Mail! Those of us who have always loved trees will be wholeheartedly with Professor Szekely in his campaign to combat every plan for destroying and cutting them down, to promote re-afforestation over the whole earth and restore "the Holy Alliance between Men and Trees." Our "mere sentiments" on the matter are, after all, radically justified, just as they are when along with Professor Szekely we deplore the "senseless stupid men who relentlessly hunt down little birds, slaying them without pity and without remorse"—with the result that crops are ravaged by vermin and men themselves are plagued by mosquitos and flies. (News now comes to hand of a modified death-ray soon to be commercialised for the destruction of vermin and insects and, doubtless, of more little birds. The pious hope is expressed that it may never be amplified and turned, on the human insect himself!)

WORLD CHAOS AND CALAMITY Yet it would be futile to denounce the world's evils—alas! as so many still do—with no clear recognition of their root causes in the world-wide economic crisis and crashing chaos of which they are all merely symptoms. It would be equally pointless to evolve grandiose and Utopian conceptions of "omnilateral aristology," "paneubiotics" and optimal well-being without facing the fact of a corrupt financial system that can only spell their frustration. Professor Szekely is undoubtedly a man of great Vision, but he is much too penetrating and uncompromising a realist—and much too good a natural therapist—to be guilty of either defect. His is no idealistic flight into phantasy. He sees through to pauses. His analysis of the present world situation is among the most masterly I have read. Multiplying unemployment, poverty amidst plenty, the unprecedented crisis of "over-production," the impending fearful collapse of finance, the false foundations and futility of the League of Nations, the pell-mell preparations for war (which is only held off for the moment by the very complexity of interlaced imperialist antagonisms), slave-mentality everywhere, confusion, jobbery, and antagonism among the ruling classes (themselves but slaves who lord it over slaves), the desperate attempts through dictatorships to bolster the bourgeoisie, the whole piled up impossible impasse—all this is but "the prelude to the frightful disaster which is soon going to overwhelm humanity in all its intensity." Only, it would seem, after terrible catastrophe, can come the "Great Renaissance," for which, however, in the name of humanity we must even now prepare. THE GREAT RENAISSANCE We must, in the words of Romain Rolland, "unite all the spiritual forces of Life against the forces of Death." In that spirit, too, we must utter "an unqualified 'No' to war." We must vow our devotion to "the Optimal and Omnilateral Restoration of All Things." By extending into Society and social behaviour the paneubiotic law of the healthy body, whereby every organ functions for the wellbeing of every other organ as bound up with its own, we must combine to build the kingdom of active love upon earth. Professor Szekely's remedy is, again, no regress into "back to nature" primitivism. For him "naturism" and individualism are necessarily correlated with all that is truly valuable in community and technological achievement. He believes in the future, yet his motto is "always and everywhere, Here and Now." And so when, in conclusion, Professor Szekely outlines his plan for the new order of self-supporting, co-operative, paneubiotic gardencommunes (one at least having already been successfully established) it is an eminently realistic and practical plan, and, as far as I can see, about the only way out. None the less, on that account, will these communes be devoted to realisation of optimal individual and social wellbeing through the practise of active love, the omnilateral pursuit of knowledge, unison and harmony with the eternal currents of cosmic life. Professor Szekely has followed his cosmotherapeutie premises to their logical conclusion, not even faltering before the menace of a worlddisease, imbecility; and impending disaster which may soon reduce all personal aches and pains to pitiful insignificance. Because of that alone his book would tower like a giant above all the smug little panderings to hypochondria which are too often described as "health" literature! The colossal task of translation has been nobly accomplished by Mr. L. Purcell Weaver, but for whom, declares the author, this book would still be lying in manuscript form in French among the records of his various scientific expeditions. The decorations in black and white by Arthur Wragg aptly interpret the theme. No more massive, profound or far-reaching work on Health and Life has ever been published.