“THE ANGEL OF SUNLIGHT”: HELIOTHERAPY
Ancient Chinese medical texts describe sunlight as a form of “nourishment for the brain,” and the prescription they give to correct conditions caused by deficiency of this vital “nutrient” is to “administer sunbeams” to the patient’s eyes and skin. These texts clearly state that “sunlight benefits the brain by stimulating production of vital essence.” In the brain, “vital essence” refers to pituitary hormones and essential neurotransmitters.
Many ancient cultures understood the vital link between health and sunlight, and they knew that sunlight could be applied as a form of medicine to purify, heal, and rebalance the human system. In The Essene Gospel of Peace, after teaching his followers how to cleanse their bodies internally with water, Jesus advises them as follows:
Seek the angel of sunlight. Put off your shoes and your clothing and suffer the angel of sunlight to embrace all your body . . . that the angel of sunlight may be brought within you. And the angel of sunlight shall cast out of your body all evil-smelling and unclean things that defiled it without and within.
Modern medical science has unraveled the mystery of the mechanism whereby “the angel of sunlight” casts out “unclean things” from the human body. They call it the “oculo-endocrine system,” and the new branch of science spawned by this discovery is known as “photobiology.” The essential factor in sunlight that “nourishes the brain” is the invisible band of long-wave ultraviolet (UV) light that enters the eye along with the visible frequencies of light. UV light has both long-wave and short-wave forms; it is only excessive exposure to the short-wave variety that damages the eyes and skin. Long-wave UV light, however, is an absolutely essential factor for sustaining human health; it can also be applied as a tool for detox and healing.
Here’s how the oculo-endocrine system works: when natural, fullspectrum sunlight enters the eyes, the visible bands of light excite the cells in the retina known as “rods” and “cones” to produce the colors and forms of ordinary vision. The invisible, long-wave UV frequencies, which hit the retina together with the visible bands, activate a special layer of cells in the retina called “epithelial cells,” which are designed by nature precisely for the purpose of receiving these invisible frequencies of ultraviolet light within the eyes. Long-wave UV stimulation to the epithelial cells in the retina produces a powerful neural pulse that is carried along the optic nerve and delivered directly to the pituitary and pineal glands, where these signals stimulate the production of essential hormones that regulate the entire endocrine system and thereby determine the strength and speed of the body’s natural immune responses.
The pituitary plays a particularly important role in the ocular-endocrine system, especially for immune response. Known as the body’s “master gland,” the pituitary secretes hormones that regulate and balance all the other glands in the endocrine system. Without sufficient stimulation from long-wave UV light via the retina and optic nerve, the pituitary is deprived of its most essential form of “nourishment” and the entire oculo-endocrine system malfunctions, resulting in impaired immune response. With all the smog, smoke, dust, chemicals, and other pollution in the air today, the strength and quality of sunlight reaching the earth has been seriously reduced, resulting in widespread “UV deficiency” and contributing to the overall deterioration in human immune response. The Smithsonian Institute reports a 15 percent reduction in the overall intensity of sunlight reaching the earth over the past seventy-five years, with an even greater drop of 27 percent in the UV part of the spectrum. This is causing problems for human health that are quite similar to the immuno-suppressive effects produced by polluted sources of food, water, and air.
The biggest problem caused by sunlight deficiency is weak immune response and low resistance, which not only reduces defense against disease and degeneration, but also erodes the body’s ability to detoxify and repair itself. The effects of “light pollution” on human health in big cities and heavily industrialized regions are similar to those of pollutants in food, water, and air: critical deficiency of the essential elements and energies required to sustain strong immunity and resistance. This problem is further aggravated by the sedentary, indoor lifestyles of contemporary times, which keep most people out of the sun all day long and usually keep a layer of glass between their eyes and sunlight whenever they do venture briefly into the light of day.
All glass blocks out beneficial, long-wave UV frequencies in sunlight. That means your oculo-endocrine system receives no nourishment and stimulation when you’re sitting behind the windshield of a car, looking through a window in your home or office, riding in a bus or train, or walking in broad sunlight wearing any kind of eye glasses. Only plastic windowpanes and lenses allow beneficial UV waves to pass through and enter the eyes. Herein lies another contributing factor in the modern syndrome of chronic fatigue, ill health, and mental malaise experienced by people who spend their entire working lives seated at desks in glass office towers, and most of their leisure time seated indoors at home watching television in artificially lit homes. The net result of such light-deficient lifestyles is an acquired immune deficiency caused by chronic “solar malnutrition” and the consequent malfunction of the oculo-endocrine system.
Let’s look at a few concrete examples that illustrate this problem. During the Hong Kong Flu epidemic that swept through North America in the winter of 1968–1969, entire factories and department stores in Sarasota County, Florida, were forced to close down due to the high incidence of flu among their employees. At one large factory, however, where plastic windowpanes and full-spectrum indoor lighting had recently been installed, not a single employee fell ill during the entire duration of the epidemic. Similar results have since been observed in other places where full-spectrum light sources have been installed.
Another good example of how crucial the oculo-endocrine system is to human health is the situation in public schools in the United States and other industrialized nations. Severe hyperactivity, chronic violence, inability to concentrate, and other behavioral problems have become so severe among young school children that many of them are now dosed daily with powerful sedatives, tranquilizers, and amphetamines, which in turn lead to even more severe life-long health problems, such as drug addiction and liver damage. When ordinary fluorescent lights, which have an extremely irritating effect on the oculo-endocrine system, were replaced with full-spectrum lighting and glass window panes were replaced with plastic in all classrooms in several selected school districts, however, these behavioral problems virtually vanished within a few weeks of the change in lighting, and many “problem children” suddenly transformed to become model students. Similar positive results were observed in every classroom tested. Incredibly, this research has been deliberately ignored and suppressed, owing to its implications for conventional indoor lighting systems everywhere.
A third example is the “winter blues” syndrome that has been observed for so long in countries such as Sweden and Canada, where long winters and short days produce a critical deficiency in beneficial UV stimulation during that time of year. By midwinter, these countries experienced a significant rise in death due to disease as well as suicide, and the reason turned out to be “starvation” of the pituitary gland due to insufficient exposure to full-spectrum sunlight. Today, these countries have “light clinics” where people can go for their daily dose of long-wave UV light energy, and many homes, offices, and public places use full-spectrum indoor lighting to compensate for the decrease in natural outdoor sources during the depths of winter.
“SKIN DEEP”
Skin is the second important receptor for assimilating essential nourishment and energy from solar radiation. In 1967, a group of Russian scientists reported the results of extensive research in this field as follows:
If human skin is not exposed to solar radiation (direct or scattered) for long periods of time, disturbances will occur in the physiological equilibrium of the human system. The result will be functional disorders of the nervous system and a Vitamin-D deficiency, a weakening of the body’s defenses, and an aggravation of chronic diseases.
The main mechanism whereby sunlight provides essential “nutrition” to the human body through exposure to skin is vitamin D production. Sunlight stimulates the tissues below the skin to produce vitamin D, which is an essential cofactor for the assimilation and utilization of calcium in the body. Without the presence of vitamin D, there’s no way that the body can absorb even the purest, most potent sources of calcium, and without adequate supplies of calcium, there’s no way the body can detoxify and repair itself. Solar deficiency is therefore a primary contributing factor to chronic calcium deficiency, and this in turn is one of the main reasons that modern man and woman, especially in urban areas, have such weak teeth and bones.
It is a fact of modern lifestyle that most people in the Western world do not get adequate exposure to clear, full-spectrum sunlight at the proper time of day. Those who occasionally do go out in the sun usually do so like the proverbial “mad dogs and Englishmen,” tanning their hides in the noonday sun solely for cosmetic purposes. The pursuit of a suntan for the sake of browning the skin is an abuse of sunlight that is tantamount to gluttony in food. The proper daily “dosage” for sunlight is about thirty minutes, more or less, and this should be administered only before 10:30 am or after 3:30 pm As Dr. Theodore Baroody states in his book Alkalize or Die, “At least ½ to one hour of direct sunlight a day is requisite for the body’s system to produce proper hormonal levels and assist alkaline-acid balances. . . . Between 11:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m., the sun is too direct and produces an acid effect in the body through its radiations.”
So here again we see how insufficient exposure to beneficial sunlight, as well as excessive exposure to damaging sunlight, contribute to the current crisis in human health. Not only does this problem produce critical imbalances in the oculo-endocrine system, it also has an acid-forming influence on the blood and other bodily fluids, which makes it a major contributing factor to chronic acidosis and tissue toxemia.
HELIOTHERAPY FOR DETOX AND HEALING
The therapeutic power of sunlight is another reason that health resorts and healing spas have traditionally been located by the sea or high up in the mountains. Like the high negative-ion count in mountain and seaside air, the clear bright sunlight in such locations provides strong support for the many immune responses involved in detox and healing. By stimulating the pituitary gland via the oculo-endocrine system, sunlight assures an adequate daily supply of the essential hormones required to repair and rebalance the body. In addition, by prompting production of vitamin D, the essential cofactor required by the body to assimilate and utilize calcium, sunlight also assures the abundant supplies of calcium needed for detox and healing.
While it is definitely a big advantage to do a detox program at a time and a place with lots of sunshine, you don’t need to spend a fortune at a fancy spa to find good sunlight for a week or two. You can avoid the expense of staying in health resorts and spas by designing your own detox program and doing it in a sunny time and place of your own choosing. If there is no sunny season where you live, or you cannot find sufficient peace and privacy at home, you may travel instead to the nearest mountains or seashore, rent an inexpensive room or cottage for a week or two, and do it yourself. You don’t need luxury and fancy frills for a detox program; what you need is peace of mind, plenty of personal privacy, clean air, pure water, and clear, bright sunlight.
The best times of day for heliotherapy, or “therapeutic sun-bathing,” are before 10:30 in the morning and after 3:30 in the afternoon, when the sun rides low in the sky and doesn’t damage skin or eyes. Twenty to thirty minutes of exposure per session, and one or two sessions per day, are sufficient to achieve the desired therapeutic benefits. Total daily exposure should not exceed one hour. The more skin you expose while sun-bathing, the greater the therapeutic benefits. This exposure principle also applies to the eyes; don’t wear sunglasses during heliotherapy, because they block out the beneficial, long-wave UV frequencies in sunlight—the solar factors that activate the ocularendocrine system and elevate immune response.
Unfortunately, it’s not always possible to find a sunny time and place to do a detox program, especially if it’s midwinter in the northern latitudes and your finances are limited. Nevertheless, when the condition of your health demands that you detoxify your system without delay, you may bring the healing power of natural sunlight into your own home by installing full-spectrum light bulbs and lighting systems, all of which are now widely available. Like food, water, and air, modern technology has analyzed the active ingredients in sunlight and developed “solar supplements” to compensate for the degradation in the quality of natural sources of these essential elements for life. Much of this new light technology is based on the work of time-lapse photographer John Ott, who accidentally discovered the healing powers of sunlight when he stepped on his sunglasses and broke them while working on an outdoor project to film the growth cycles of plants. Too busy to buy new glasses, he worked without them. A few weeks later, Ott noticed that the painful arthritis he’d suffered for many years was swiftly disappearing. Subsequent research revealed that the UV light that his sunglasses had formerly blocked from entering his eyes had relieved his arthritis by stimulating his pituitary to secrete the hormones necessary to signal the adrenal glands to produce the natural steroids that constitute the body’s own built-in remedy for this condition.
Today there is a wide range of full-spectrum lighting available on the market, including the “Ott Light” and the “Ott Bulb,” which produce indoor light containing the complete spectrum of natural light frequencies, both visible and invisible, found in clear bright sunlight. These light fixtures may be used in any home or office. People can even take their own full-spectrum lightbulbs to a health resort or beach cottage and use them to light their rooms there. In the absence of adequate sources of whole, natural sunlight outdoors, full-spectrum indoor lighting provides all the essential frequencies of sunlight required to stimulate the oculoendocrine system, thereby sustaining strong immune response and promoting production of vitamin-D for calcium assimilation. Full-spectrum lighting is an excellent form of preventive medicine in daily life as well. By lighting your home and your place of work with “whole light,” you provide yourself with an additional line of defense against disease and degeneration, and help to counteract the immuno-suppressive effects of harmful artificial light frequencies such as those produced by television screens and fluorescent lights.
Another form of indoor heliotherapy that has recently been developed is the infrared sauna. Unlike ordinary saunas, which heat the bodily tissues and induce perspiration by sheer force of heat, infrared saunas heat the deepest organs and tissues of the body by virtue of the radiant penetrating energy of the infrared band of natural light. This radiant, infrared energy heats the internal tissues without overheating the skin and respiratory system, as ordinary saunas do. As it penetrates into the deeper, denser tissues below the skin, the infrared heat softens deposits of crystallized toxins and acid wastes in joints, nerves, and connective tissues, allowing them to be dissolved, diluted, and carried away for excretion via blood, lymph, and sweat. This kind of heat is particularly effective for eliminating heavy metals from the tissues. Holistic healing centers and health spas are beginning to include infrared saunas among their therapeutic facilities. Smaller units are also available for home installation.
“LET THERE BE LIGHT”
In previous chapters, we’ve already discussed how essential factors in food, water, and air may be utilized as effective tools for detox. Now sunlight may also be added to your growing arsenal of weapons to do battle with tissue toxicity, strengthen immune defenses, and protect your health. Similarly, just as good food, pure water, and clean air may be easily integrated into your daily life as long-term defenses against disease, degeneration, and premature death, so full-spectrum light may also be relied upon as a daily source of life-supporting elements and energies. While getting adequate daily exposure of eyes and skin to natural sunlight outdoors is no doubt the best way to achieve this balance, in reality, most people are either far too busy to take the time to do this on a daily basis, their schedules simply won’t permit it, or else they live in places where the amount of sunshine is limited.
If your living situation does not allow for the right balance of sunlight, then you have two alternatives. If you live in a sun-starved area such as a big city or in a far northern latitude where the winters are long and the days short, you may follow the “let there be light” principle in your own home and office/shop/studio by using full-spectrum indoor lighting systems. Alternatively, if you live in a sunny region, you may harvest sufficient long-wave UV radiation from the sun each day by quickly doing a simple set of eye exercises early in the morning or late in the afternoon. To do this, stand facing the sun anytime between sunrise and 8:30 am or between 4:30 pm and sunset. Without staring directly at the sun, roll your eyes in circles around the sun, so that sunlight bathes the entire surface of the retina. Roll the eyes ten to twenty times in each direction. Then close your eyes facing the sun and blink rapidly ten times, shut them again for a minute and blink rapidly another ten times. That’s it. Your pituitary gland has now received its daily dose of whole, unrefined sunlight, and your endocrine system has received its solar tune up for the day.
Another way to feed your brain with the essential energy of sunlight is by practicing “sun gazing,” a method developed by the yogis of ancient India. This practice should only be done within the first half hour after sunrise, or before sunset, and you are advised to practice this method on a daily basis. On the first day, gaze directly at the sun on the horizon, eyes wide open, for ten seconds, then increase the time to twenty seconds on the second day, thirty seconds on the third day, and so forth, adding ten seconds each consecutive day. For best results, stand barefoot on bare ground, not on concrete or grass, to establish a strong link between the energy currents of sky and earth. Practitioners of this method incrementally increase their exposure until they are gazing at the sun for up to fifteen minutes or more, and most of them report profound healing benefits for a wide variety of chronic conditions as well as an overall boost in vitality.
The “angel of sunlight” is always there, shining in the sky, freely available to one and all. Sunlight is one of the most powerful healers on earth. All you need to do is let it bathe your skin and shine into your eyes, and it will bestow on you the “glow of good health.”