Terrain

Twentieth century medicine was heavily influenced by the debate triumph of a man whose name has been famous and celebrated but that we know today was a at least partly a fraud. Louis Pasteur (1822-1895) admitted on his deathbed that Claude Bernard (1813-1878) had been right but he forbade his family to publish the documents that would have proved the rumor true. Upon the death of Pasteur's grandson in 1975, 10,000 pages of laboratory notes became public—and it became clear that an entire century of medical history would have been different had the facts been presented as we now know them to have been.

For me, the ramifications of the debates are nothing short of numbing, but when I first wrote something on Pasteur, I had, for only the second time in my life, had an article rejected by a publisher. He did not believe what I wrote, but we know better now.

The 20th century honored Pasteur and gave him the dubious title of "Father of the Germ Theory of Disease." How accurate is the theory? According to what we have learned and how the grant money and research were directed in the last century, the germ was "everything." It was necessary to identify it—the little alien organism—and to attribute to it all the pathological consequences that people suffer when they are ill. To eradicate disease, we needed bigger and bigger cannons to shoot tinier and tinier microbes.

Claude Bernard, professor at the Sorbonne and member of the Academy of Science, maintained that the "terrain" is everything. Neither man, Bernard, a physiologist, and Pasteur, a chemist, denied the existence of microorganisms. The question is how the organisms behave and whether or not they invade from outside (Pasteur) or are mainly life forms that behave in different ways depending upon the circumstances, organisms that may not be pathogenic in some conditions.

If this theory had been accepted, the curriculum in medical schools would have been different as would have been the strategies for treating illness. Medicine would have sought relief for suffering by healing the patient rather than attempting to destroy the disease. It is truly the debates in Paris that precipitated the lamentable medicine that is still not sufficiently questioned even by those who admit its limitations.

The crux of the terrainist argument is that microbes change depending on the environment in which they exist. The school of medicine that derives from this theory accepts pleomorphism rather than the static view of microorganisms that prevailed in the 20th century. Pleomorphists study live blood rather than blood that has been stained and fixed for use in electron microscopes. If one observes movement and change, diseases do not appear to be "carved in stone" the way they do when something is frozen in a moment of time. It is therefore not surprising that the thoughtforms that surround such theories are also more flexible.

For me, the tragedy of Pasteur and his public relations victories can only be measured in terms of life: the countless lives of animals that have been sacrificed because of residuals of fear probably tracing back centuries to the Bubonic Plague . . . and humans who have also suffered from the injection of morbid substances into their bodies and the compromised immunity that comes from tampering with the immune system in this manner.

I realize that if one has never thought about such matters before, what I am writing now sounds like the ranting and raving of an iconoclast, but I am not crazy and Pasteur's contributions to medicine have been overcelebratde. The destiny-altering debate was with Antoine Bechamp who died without being able to set the records straight. Bechamp felt that disease begins from within and that the conditions inside the body determine how the microbes will adapt to the "terrain." Physiological conditions are derivative of the pleomorphic processes: change the terrain and the symptoms and disease also change. Countless studies prove that pleomorphism is correct. The conclusive studies are those involving bacteria and viruses. If one has viruses and uses a filter, the bacteria would not be able to pass the filter (because they are larger than viruses) so what has been filtered can only contain viruses, but this is not the case. Bacteria appears despite the care taken to remove it, proving that viruses mutate into bacteria and vice versa depending on the environment.

None of this would be important except that it provides another way of looking at cancer and incentive for those who so choose to expend as much effort on inner healing as on cytotoxic protocols.

For those who are new to this school of thought, I might make reference to inner conditions I have seen clairvoyantly. I have often seen cells that are choked or grimy. Sorry not to use a more technical term, but I see cells that are complaining of the environment in which they are living. They express difficulty breathing.

We know that cancer cells are anaerobic. Whereas normal cells use oxygen, cancer cells subsist on fermentation. The site where they are is acidiic, which is why diagnostic devices such as thermography are effective. Many of the destroy tactics involve yet more heat: irradiation and its counterpart in the alternative field: hyperthermia. There have also been efforts to induce fevers deliberately using weakened bacteria such as Coley's toxins or malaria; and some have used poisonous herbs.

I know this is absolutely unscientific, but I have "interviewed" some of "cancerous" cells. They are gagging and desperate for more wholesome conditions in which to live. This is what Bernard called the environment.

Like many who dare to think outside the box, Dr. John Christopher, a naturopath and prolific writer, subscribed to a theory of terrain. He explained that just as flies do not cause garbage, but garbage attracts flies, tumors may be scavengers. There may, in fact, be such types of tumors. There may also be tumors that had the misfortune of getting caught in biological sludge. When the cells present themselves to my inner vision, they are as pathetic looking as a bird found in an oil slick. They look and behave normally after getting a proper bath. I have used a combination of aromatic, bitter, and sponging herbs to cleanse. Aromatic herbs neutralize toxic gases and make breathing more congenial. Bitter herbs are cleansing and alkalizing. They also arrest fermentation. The sponging herbs soak up the debris. Such cleansing formulae can be used both internally and externally.

Other people, historic and modern, may see different pictures of the inner life of cells. Hildegard of Bingen said that people with spiritual sight could see miniature organisms that died when they licked her violet salve. Tibetan doctors of the same era, roughly 800 years ago, said that cancer is caused by a tiny copper colored organism that can be seen by those who know how to meditate. My visions come and go; and, at the time of this writing, I have not personally seen anything similar to that described by either Hildegard or the Tibetan doctors. As suggested, what I have seen is best compared to a toxic spill.

As the years go on, it will be interesting to see how these insights unfold. Thus far, many damaged cells appear to have the capacity to return to normal. When consulted, they display anger over efforts to destroy them instead of healing them. This must be very hard to understand, but it seems our bodies are host to countless sentient microcosms!

I have reflected on the fact that the thymus is the primary site of immune response. It is related to the heart. The heart does not want to use violence to attain peace. This is an anachronism to the heart. Likewise, part of the difficulty in "fighting" cancer is that the immune system does not attack cells that it regards as part of the host, not foreign at all. The cells I have interviewed definitely express a desire to be healed.

I will continue looking for proper protocols for treating cancer, but for the present, I favor approaches that are less aggressive because they resonate better with my experience and understanding. When working psychologically and spiritually, almost everyone, especially cancer patients, seek peaceful means for resolving issues. Therefore, it makes no sense to me to use violent physical therapies when the esoteric treatments used to harmonize the subtle components of our being are gentle!

Copyright by Ingrid Naiman 2000 and 2005