kmud-151120-steiner-schools-and-education.vtt

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 Well, welcome to this month's Ask Your Herb Doctor. My name is Andrew Murray.

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 My name is Sarah Johanneson Murray.

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 We're both trained in England and graduated there with a degree in herbal medicine.

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 And clients consult with us regarding their health issues and we recommend personalized advice in nutrition, supplements, herbs, diet and lifestyle.

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 And we can be reached toll free 1-888-WBM-HERB or on www.westernbotanicalmedicine after the show or Monday through Friday 9 to 5.

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 So, for tonight's show, this November, clocks have gone back, it's getting darker and colder and winter is on its way and we'll hopefully start getting some rain here soon.

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 For this month's show, I wanted to, Dr. Raymond Peat is going to join us as usual here. We're fortunate to have him on the show.

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 And I know maybe that people who've listened to the show fairly frequently have heard Dr. Peat speak on a very wide range of topics.

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 Well, tonight's topic is no exception, believe it or not. He'll bring out, I won't even talk for him, he'll speak for himself as usual.

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 I want to bring out the topic of Steiner schools and Rudolf Steiner and Anthroposophy and biodynamic gardening and medicines, etc, etc.

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 All ties into itself as a very kind of complete system that Rudolf Steiner brought out in the early 1900s.

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 And I know Dr. Peat has his own very pertinent and personal background in education.

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 But anyway, we can get into that if Dr. Peat is willing to talk about that. I haven't actually asked him, but we'll see.

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 Okay, so Dr. Peat, are you with us?

00:02:56.000 --> 00:02:57.000
 Yes.

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 Thanks so much for joining us. And for those people who perhaps have only just tuned into the show for the first time and haven't actually heard you before,

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 would you just give an outground of your academic and professional background before I ask you the first question here that I don't think I have asked you,

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 but you can always say no if you want to.

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 Okay. I studied humanities as an undergraduate and eventually went to graduate school in biology,

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 although linguistics and painting had been most of my previous study.

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 And since graduating with a PhD in biology, I've done a lot of counselling in nutrition and general health issues.

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 Okay. Well, I think what I wanted to get at, and it's not something that I've actually kind of written up beforehand or discussed with you,

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 and you can always just say no, but I'll let you decide on that.

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 In terms of your work, your life's work in education and academics, would you want to mention anything about a college that you were part of at one time?

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 Yeah. It was very directly related to everything I did before and after.

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 I had been a critical consumer of education right from the first grade.

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 I knew how to read when I went to school, and so I didn't take it very seriously when they went through their routines.

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 My third, fourth, and fifth grade experience was exceptional in a one-room country school where there were eight grades in one room.

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 So that made it more interesting and it was completely unregimented.

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 I think that gave me the idea that maybe kids would do better in a freer learning environment.

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 My college experience, I found that there were only two or three professors that knew anything that I wanted to learn.

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 My first teaching experience confirmed to me in the belief that the institution tended to be an impediment to learning.

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 The trustees had the right idea of what the students should do with their lives,

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 and the students' and teachers' interests really were antagonistic to the trustees'.

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 As a result of that, I got the idea of starting a school in Mexico where we could be somewhat beyond the reach of the trustees and government types who wanted to tell us what we couldn't study and talk about.

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 What year was this, if that matters?

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 1961.

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 I had been reading and studying William Blake's work, so I named the school Blake College.

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 The idea was that we would incorporate it, but the students and teachers would be the only trustees.

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 There would be no curriculum.

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 Students could bring up topics they wanted to study.

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 Instructors could offer courses.

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 Students didn't have to attend, just complete independence.

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 Everyone was interested in something.

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 We had the idea that since the students would use their bachelor's degree to go on for a master's or PhD,

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 that the requirement for getting the degree should be passing the graduate record exam that students normally have to take to qualify for graduate school.

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 That's established in the US, I'm not familiar with it.

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 It's a very standardized system.

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 At that time, they had both advanced tests in specialized fields and a general area test.

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 We said that if a student would be able to pass at the 87th percentile of American college graduates level on that test,

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 that they could have their degree because practically any graduate school in the country would be willing to have someone who scored in the upper 12% of American graduates.

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 As it turned out, students generally chose to take that exam after being there only a few months, six or seven or eight months.

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 Their average was over the 90th percentile.

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 No one flunked the test.

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 You could see the process happening. People would come thinking that they needed to be structured somehow.

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 What they learned was that they were full of knowledge and what their business would be to structure reality for themselves to make sense out of what they already knew.

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 They would use that orientation to then ask questions about what they really wanted to learn.

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 They could use any resources that we had.

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 They could ask anyone of the teachers to help them find the resources or figure out the problems.

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 You could just see a very quick change in their sense of confidence about knowledge.

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 So, I don't want to sound too ignorant, but okay, so within a few months you said that the students could take this exam and actually scored in the 90th percentile.

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 How much of that in part was due to them being the right kind of people that would typically choose to go to that establishment in that place and have that fairly free-minded, free-thinking or maybe critical thinking or just alternative thinking as opposed to what they learned while they were in that place for that amount of time that enabled them to then score highly?

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 I'm not too sure I grasp what you're saying in terms of a year's education or two years education and then being examined on that.

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 It's not what you're saying, is it?

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 You're saying...

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 No, some of them had been flunk outs at state universities and such.

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 A couple of them had even scored poorly on standardized tests and thought they were idiots.

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 When they had the opportunity not to be imposed upon and to be able to talk to other students and teachers, they realized how much they knew and could think about what they knew and who they were.

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 And you could see the change from someone who felt helpless coming around to seeing themselves as a responsible citizen having all the abilities that anyone has.

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 And then they went on to score 90% in the college entrance exams?

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 Yeah, they varied from around 90th percentile up to about 98th percentile.

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 And did they get accepted into...

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 Yeah, some of the state schools said that simply having that high score wasn't enough, so some of them had to go to private graduate schools.

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 But all of the good schools let them in on the basis of their scores.

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 Without having had their previous bachelor's or master's.

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 Yeah.

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 That's incredible.

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 Yeah, excellent. I never did plan to ask you that question, but it ties in very well to the thought that I had drawing this up for tonight.

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 It shows that the Steiner School environment would be a good discussion for topic.

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 And I know that you've been involved in education for a long time, and you obviously have a very, very different approach to problem solving that's radical and it's very cutting edge in terms of the way science understands the concepts that you describe so eloquently in your own way that current research is proving.

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 And that this topic of education, especially Steiner School education, for all the benefits that we'll bring out in the discussion this evening, how that ties in with herbal medicine, ties in with biodynamic gardening, sustainability, conscious behavior as sentient human beings, regardless of gender, race or political background.

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 Whatever.

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 None of those things matter.

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 But for the pure sake of intelligent, creative consciousness, the Steiner approach to education does seem to be full of little gems that I think if most people were aware of and the Steiner concept was more broadly distributed, disseminated, and people had a chance to send their children to Steiner schools,

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 I think there'd be a huge conscious rise in the call for it.

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 In terms of the educational background of Steiner and the developments, we'll get into that in a bit too, but has some very different approaches to educating children in terms of their readiness for education.

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 And I know that's also something that we can discuss as the time goes on.

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 While you're listening to Ask Your Herb Doctor, my name's Andrew Murray.

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 From 7.30 until 8.30, callers are invited to ask any questions related to this subject of Steiner schools, education, biodynamics, free thinking, lack of government control.

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 And the number if you live in the area is 9233911, but the toll free number for those people living outside of state or outside of here is 1-800-568-3723.

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 So we'd love to hear from you perhaps if you've been to a Steiner school and/or you switched from a public school to a Steiner school and how you saw the changes.

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 But anyway, getting back to you, Dr. Peat, and the college and your philosophy surrounding the college, you said there was no curriculum.

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 Right. We had people, the professors were doing it just for fun basically. We only paid a couple of professors. There just wasn't enough money for tuition fees to the students.

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 But there were well-known people, painters, philosophy professors, psychology professors, writers, even a math professor.

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 And usually they would end up saying they were learning more from the students than they had to teach the students.

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 And when you look at the ideology of public education over the last couple of hundred years, you see that a whole theory of what an organism is, is related to the theory of education.

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 And what they're doing is based on an authoritarian social system that's based on a mechanical conception of what the person is.

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 And the progress of biological knowledge in the last 50 years has illuminated some of the problems with the theory of education.

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 The brain is the body's energy organizing system. And if you have education that conflicts with the body's own processes, you're going to impair the body's energy system,

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 lead to a reduction of ability, create a tendency to lack of adaptability in biological as well as mental processes.

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 Are you speaking about like children being forced to sit for eight hours a day? Energetic children?

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 There have been studies, for example, in New York City, kids were given an IQ test every year that they were in grade school.

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 And they saw these slum kids coming in with an average IQ. Each year their scores would get lower as they spent the year sitting in school being oppressed.

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 And with our students at Blake, just the opposite happened very quickly.

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 They would come out of their oppression and realize that they were creative minds, not just passive learners.

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 And that same process was discovered 50 years ago in rat studies. The rat that was given an entertaining free environment became more intelligent,

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 grew a bigger brain with a thicker cortex, and their offspring would have a bigger brain and be more intelligent.

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 So it could be inherited, passed on to the...

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 Yeah, and so the students were being impaired by bad public schools are actually probably passing it on to generations of oppressed.

00:18:56.000 --> 00:19:07.000
 I found it interesting in reading about Steiner and his philosophies that, and he must have borrowed this from Galen or from...

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 Yeah, probably from Galen, but the four humor classification, the H-U-M-O-R classification of personalities that he used in his temperamental assessment of children

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 that would enable them to be... children of these characters would be segregated, if you like, within a classroom environment or given completely different curricula to follow that best suited their temperament.

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 And he mentioned the melancholic, the sanguine, the phlegmatic, and the choleric temperament.

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 And these classic temperaments here, they were actually described by Galen in 400 BC and have formed part of the tenant for alchemical medicine, for healing via information on the humors,

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 and without getting too out there and being "unscientific" about it, there's a lot of scientific rationale to support it.

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 So he used the children and their temperaments to guide their education. What do you think about that?

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 Yeah, we called it student-centered education, following on Carl Rogers' client-centered therapy. He used a non-directive approach of empathy with the client.

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 And in our non-curriculum, the sense of empathy was really the guiding principle.

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 The teachers and students tried to understand each other, and they together created questions that none of them had thought about before.

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 So the empathy tried to listen to the character or personality of the other person, which would, if you had them categorized according to humors and such, that would be a way of organizing that process.

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 With our small group, it was a purely individual, adaptive, empathetic approach.

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 I know, again, looking at Steiner and how he was described by his peers as having formulated this system of education, the students themselves were what I thought was particularly mindful,

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 and I have some of this background myself from schooling in England, but the students were taught to observe and depict the scientific concepts in their own words and drawings, rather than encountering these ideas first through textbooks.

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 And the students that came out of Steiner schools were shown to have an above-average number of students that became doctors, engineers, scholars of the humanities, and scientists,

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 because they were able to investigate the world about them in a far more objective and scientific manner than school-taught students, perhaps, who would have been taught by rote or repetition.

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 Or memory.

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 Or memory, yeah, without truly applying their own basis for understanding a concept in their own terms.

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 The typical professor has his understanding of how a student's brain works, and they think they have to impose their abstractions on such.

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 The science textbook idea that the professor has assimilated, they think they have to impose that on the student's brain,

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 but the actuality of a student's brain and personality is analogous to any organism.

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 A simple mammal, for example, understands physics very well.

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 Birds, crows in particular, are very intelligent and can figure out physical processes and make predictions that many graduate students in physics wouldn't understand.

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 They can predict that if you left meat out on that rock the day before, it might be there the next day at the same time.

00:24:28.000 --> 00:24:41.000
 Okay, so then the other notable point then about Steiner education, and I'll ask you the question about some of the previous history of how state education came into being,

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 because I'm not sitting here making an argument against state education and purely illuminating the alternatives, as always,

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 and looking at the holistic side of all sorts of things, and education is one of them.

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 But from a Steiner perspective, they were looking at the main thing was the method of inquiry,

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 and how this strengthened the interest and the ability to observe, and that was the main fundamental guide that every student,

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 being very different and individual, would have unique ideas and unique talents that they could bring to bear on the science,

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 because it was a very, well, not say was, is, it's a very science-based rational education.

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 I don't know, I think perhaps when I first heard the word Steiner, I kind of thought, well, it was a pretty loose kind of hippie education,

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 where you could just sit around and, I don't know, bake cakes and play games and perhaps, I don't know, play music,

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 and it wasn't particularly intelligent, but it's actually the opposite, it's very true.

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 That given the individual's creative ability in an environment where they're not stressed,

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 they're not forced to perform and they're not forced to, you know, compete,

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 which I think does lead to a lot of suppression of expression in certainly in individuals that are not naturally competitive,

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 because we're not all naturally competitive, but everyone's so very different that these people,

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 given the sense to inquire and find the natural world wonderful, which I think is an excellent, excellent example of how to teach people,

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 to show that the natural world is an excellent tutor in its own right,

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 and that's how I think it plays into biodynamic cultivation and that whole philosophy of giving back to the earth,

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 for want of a better phrase, but to not just take away, but to give back and to build up and support and sustain

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 and all these kind of cool hip terms that we hear now as a just a part of being hip,

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 it's just a very real part of being a conscious human being.

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 So, in terms of getting them to cultivate this sense of meaningful wholeness of nature,

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 where the person wasn't separated from it or alienated from it, that would enable them to get a better grasp of concepts

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 that them individually as free-thinking people could bring to the table that perhaps would not be thought of or borne out in regular teaching environments.

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 So, what do you think about the whole thing about from the ages of 3 to 7,

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 there is no pressure whatsoever to learn ABCs and to learn facts and figures and rudimentary education,

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 but that the child is to be immersed in that environment of nature,

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 where they're to look at nature with awe and to get into gardening and learn about animals and create that whole side of their being

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 before they do anything structured with math and science.

00:28:00.000 --> 00:28:07.000
 I think as well they don't read till they're 10. On average, I think that's when they start to teach them to read.

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 In my experience, I saw people reading and talking about things they saw in the newspapers,

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 and so I just spontaneously wanted to see what they were doing.

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 It had nothing to do with curriculum or being taught. I just wanted to find out what was so interesting.

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 The Summer Hill School started by A. S. Neal in England, I think around the late 1920s.

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 It was finally recognized in the 1960s by universities and such as really having achieved something in education.

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 He had no curriculum at all. Students could stay there for 12 years if they wanted and not study,

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 but the ones who did stay there and graduate were superior in their achievement to those who had gone through taking classes every day for 12 years.

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 They demonstrated that the curriculum is completely unnecessary.

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 If the student is aware that there is something to learn, they can learn it just in a flash compared to what the schools expect of them.

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 I know, didn't you tell me, Dr. Pate, one time that you learned to read, like you were saying, watching people read the newspaper,

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 and so you learned to read because you wanted to read the comics?

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 Yeah, the funnies were the first thing. Alley Oop and Smokey Stover and such were my favorites.

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 But then my parents had a shoebox full of little blue books, classics that were printed in a very small size.

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 And then the newspapers, I wanted to hear what was going on with the war, so I learned the various types of things that were available.

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 And what year was that? Or how old were you?

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 Four.

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 Wow.

00:30:38.000 --> 00:30:39.000
 Thank you.

00:30:39.000 --> 00:30:43.000
 Hello, you're listening to Ask Your AbDoctor on KMED Galberville 91.1 FM.

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 From now until the end of the show, you're invited to call in with any questions,

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 either related or unrelated to this month's subject of free thinking, alternative education, Steiner Schools, biodynamics, etc.

00:30:55.000 --> 00:31:06.000
 A number if you live in the area is 923 3911, or if you live outside the area, there's an 800 number, which is 1-800-568-3723.

00:31:06.000 --> 00:31:10.000
 We have Dr. Raymond Peat with us, and I'm very welcome to have him on the show again.

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 Dr. Peat, again, I was wondering, and I guess don't want to get into it too far, because it kind of sounds more like politics than anything else,

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 but in terms of education, I know that in this country, I think around the beginning of the '70s,

00:31:26.000 --> 00:31:35.000
 homeschooling started to become prominent or possible, and I think in the early days, there was quite a movement against it.

00:31:35.000 --> 00:31:39.000
 I think both probably federally and on a state level.

00:31:39.000 --> 00:31:49.000
 But what do you think about the concepts of homeschooling in terms of the overriding, and again, I don't want to get too political about this,

00:31:49.000 --> 00:32:01.000
 and I'm not asking you to be political about it either, but in terms of state schools, the state being the government that the people put in power,

00:32:01.000 --> 00:32:11.000
 really to do the people's bidding, not to be told what to do by, but the state schools that educate our children obviously have their own agendas,

00:32:11.000 --> 00:32:18.000
 and I think you can see this a lot in some of the subjects that are borne out, taught in schools.

00:32:18.000 --> 00:32:39.000
 This comparative analysis with homeschool children and how the rise of state education came into being to become the totalitarian source of education in many other countries,

00:32:39.000 --> 00:32:53.000
 I read that there was at one point in time the concept of education by the government for the children of the people the government was helping or whatever you want to call it, supporting,

00:32:53.000 --> 00:33:00.000
 was because at one point in time, both of the parents of children didn't work.

00:33:00.000 --> 00:33:08.000
 It's typically in the olden days, the woman would stay at home and be the homemaker, take care of the home, take care of the children,

00:33:08.000 --> 00:33:17.000
 would then ultimately school them and/or get together in groups, while the male person was the person who did the physical hard work, works on the farm, etc., whatever,

00:33:17.000 --> 00:33:23.000
 and did all those kind of things to bring food in and just keep the household going.

00:33:23.000 --> 00:33:45.000
 But that taxation came into play in the early 40s, federal taxation, which made it actually very financially unsound to have just one person working and actually cause the need for two people to be working in order to make ends meet,

00:33:45.000 --> 00:33:52.000
 and that actually the children were then left as the question, "Well, we'll educate the children for you, so you just come to work and pay more taxes."

00:33:52.000 --> 00:34:05.000
 But without getting too political about it, I know there is a true case in point for having that freedom of choice, and that actually it's just not even thought about these days.

00:34:05.000 --> 00:34:18.000
 Do you have anything to say about that in terms of being an educator or looking at it from a perspective of where it was and where it's come to now in terms of not really having?

00:34:18.000 --> 00:34:23.000
 Well, I guess we do have a free choice. Homeschools do exist here in America.

00:34:23.000 --> 00:34:41.000
 I think the state can set the curriculum to a great extent even in homeschooling, and the federal government approves the agencies that accredit high schools and colleges and universities.

00:34:41.000 --> 00:34:54.000
 And so there are private accrediting agencies which really are responsible to no one.

00:34:54.000 --> 00:35:13.000
 They are kind of an abstract authority that the citizens can't affect directly. The government approves them because they meet the government ideological standards apparently.

00:35:13.000 --> 00:35:32.000
 And the state bureaucracies are set up so that no school can grant degrees or credits or transcripts if they don't conform to those accrediting agencies.

00:35:32.000 --> 00:35:52.000
 So really the power to grant a transcript or a degree is pretty much a matter of mind control unless people realize that there is reality and then there is the official curriculum.

00:35:52.000 --> 00:36:06.000
 My experience in grade school and high school was just not to pay too much attention to them.

00:36:06.000 --> 00:36:19.000
 In high school some of our teachers were openly fascists and Hitler worshippers, racists and such.

00:36:19.000 --> 00:36:32.000
 So it was just a matter of getting through it without having to interact too much with them.

00:36:32.000 --> 00:36:39.000
 I mean I hear this from you a lot when you're either talking to me or on the radio show.

00:36:39.000 --> 00:37:01.000
 In terms of the way that you think, the way that you conceptualize, the way that you bring to life concepts that you won't find in mainstream medical journals, in mainstream government type research that you won't find typically in any abundance.

00:37:01.000 --> 00:37:17.000
 Unless you're just looking for the independent research that is available and you can find on the web and/or the research that's being done by PhD students when they're writing their papers for submission for peer review, etc. that do get published.

00:37:17.000 --> 00:37:32.000
 In terms of that free thinking that brings about that lack of control, that lack of dominance in the direction of the thinking, I know that you've had a lot of personal experiences with that.

00:37:32.000 --> 00:37:45.000
 You mentioned that when you were studying that most of your professors didn't even really understand what it was you were trying to get across to them that you had read.

00:37:45.000 --> 00:38:08.000
 And when you studied the papers that were in the libraries that since were withdrawn, that you had a very different way of looking at it that they were completely dumbfounded by because it was not typical, wrote, just repeat repetitive kind of, yeah, not facts but repetitive statements that were poor science.

00:38:08.000 --> 00:38:34.000
 The system, not only the explicit accrediting process and agencies and curriculum, but the official high status publications, journals, publishing houses, all of the major institutions have ulterior motives.

00:38:34.000 --> 00:38:43.000
 And you have to look for people who are motivated by reality.

00:38:43.000 --> 00:38:55.000
 Remember a few years ago, someone in the White House said, your problem is that you belong to the reality based community.

00:38:55.000 --> 00:39:05.000
 Well, we're creating a new reality here studying the old one.

00:39:05.000 --> 00:39:25.000
 The concept of a reality based community was officially in the White House at that time of futile outsider business that was being left behind.

00:39:25.000 --> 00:39:28.000
 But I think there is really a possibility still in the reality based community.

00:39:28.000 --> 00:39:32.000
 Yeah, I hope so. We do have a caller, Dr. Peat, so let's see where this call is going.

00:39:32.000 --> 00:39:45.000
 So you're on the air? I'm here. Yeah, where are you from, caller? I'm from Colorado Springs. Colorado Springs? Yeah. Okay, good. Well, what's your question?

00:39:45.000 --> 00:40:03.000
 Dr. Peat, I was wondering if you had any suggestions for a person that wants to self-educate in biology?

00:40:03.000 --> 00:40:16.000
 I think it's important. The journals are too expensive. Even buying articles over the Internet, they cost $30 or $40 per article.

00:40:16.000 --> 00:40:36.000
 So if you have, like the University of Colorado probably has a good science library where you can find journals and current recent books, old books, old journals and such.

00:40:36.000 --> 00:40:55.000
 If you have questions and things that you think you should know, just start looking them up in the library, asking anyone that has possible information on the subject.

00:40:55.000 --> 00:41:04.000
 Sometimes professors can be helpful if they don't know what your real purpose in is.

00:41:04.000 --> 00:41:08.000
 Do you have any specific textbook suggestions?

00:41:08.000 --> 00:41:31.000
 No. There were good textbooks published periodically many years ago, but in the last 10 or 20 years, even the textbooks that were good have been revised under the name of the good author.

00:41:31.000 --> 00:41:50.000
 Now most textbooks are created by committees that look for the professors who have the biggest classes, preferably professors who have 400 or 500 students in each class.

00:41:50.000 --> 00:42:06.000
 And they say something nice in the textbook about the work of that professor, and that means that every time they flatter a professor, they sell an extra 500 books at $100 profit each.

00:42:06.000 --> 00:42:19.000
 So the textbooks become really a matter of profit for the publisher rather than information for the student.

00:42:19.000 --> 00:42:27.000
 Didn't you recommend a physiology textbook one time that was published maybe in the 50s or 60s?

00:42:27.000 --> 00:42:33.000
 Yeah. Wasn't there a physiology? And you said if you could find the original one, it's pretty accurate.

00:42:33.000 --> 00:42:56.000
 I'm not sure which one I was referring to, but there are some good ones from the 30s, 40s, and 50s. I have a little handbook of physiology from I think 1965 that has the basic information

00:42:56.000 --> 00:43:11.000
 and doesn't have the stuff on membrane pumps and channels and so on, which is misleading a lot of present students.

00:43:11.000 --> 00:43:28.000
 I was going to ask you, what was the name of the, it was Index Medicus that you said at one time at the university there in Oregon that the basement had all of this data that suddenly got taken out of the library and you...

00:43:28.000 --> 00:43:42.000
 No, that was biological abstracts, which had references to international journals, all fields related to biology.

00:43:42.000 --> 00:44:05.000
 And when I would compare Index Medicus, which was the paper precursor to PubMed, National Library of Medicine, I found that any interesting discovery of recent years that I found in the journals or in the biological abstracts,

00:44:05.000 --> 00:44:29.000
 it took usually about 10 or 20 years before it would show up in Index Medicus and then it would be put down as these people are now saying that coenzyme Q10 has biological value and would scoff.

00:44:29.000 --> 00:44:40.000
 So it would scoff for a few years and then 30 years after it was published in the science literature, the medical literature would finally accept it.

00:44:40.000 --> 00:44:59.000
 Okay, we're getting on to, let's just make sure everyone knows what's going on here first before I ask you the next round of things.

00:44:59.000 --> 00:45:12.000
 Dr. Raymond Peat is with us on the show tonight, our special guest. We're talking about Steiner Schools, alternative education, biodynamics, and you're listening to Ask Your Herb Doctor on KBD Gallagherville 91.1 FM.

00:45:12.000 --> 00:45:33.000
 So Dr. Peat, I think just to get onto the topic of medicinals and anthroposophy kind of joined together, you did mention the Iscador and I don't know if anyone is listening knows what the Iscador is, but it is an anthroposophical preparation.

00:45:33.000 --> 00:45:48.000
 And that is very closely allied to the alchemical preparation of viscomalbum, the European mistletoe. Do you want to say anything about European mistletoe and what it's been used for and how that's come about?

00:45:48.000 --> 00:46:14.000
 No, I've just been following the issue for more than 50 years. I knew people in the biodynamic Steiner approach and they told me various interesting things about the influence of fields created by the moon cycles and so on.

00:46:14.000 --> 00:46:42.000
 And following up some of that stuff, I found that there were fairly mainline researchers continuing ideas that Steiner had proposed doing the interaction between the moon cycles and botanical processes.

00:46:42.000 --> 00:47:03.000
 From the 20s through the 40s, there were several people doing very good research, unrelated apparently to Steiner, but showing that organisms are biologically coordinated through the earth and moon fields.

00:47:03.000 --> 00:47:23.000
 I mean that's the basis for lunar planting where entire calendars are devoted to the phases of the moon and the benefits or the adverse effects of doing certain plantings at certain times of the moon are shown.

00:47:23.000 --> 00:47:43.000
 And that again, that's kind of resonance with the way that the moon affects water through gravitational pull and how that biological effect is exerted on all of us as living water-filled beings and so not just seeds but mammals and even bacterias, etc.

00:47:43.000 --> 00:47:50.000
 They all feel these influences and so that's a pretty real scientific approach to it.

00:47:50.000 --> 00:48:10.000
 For people who want some other background besides Steiner, Harold Saxton Burr, a book, Fields of Life, he was a Yale professor I think, who did some of the measurements showing these lunar cycles.

00:48:10.000 --> 00:48:31.000
 A professor named Brown at Indiana University did a whole series of biological cycle studies, day and lunar cycles both.

00:48:31.000 --> 00:48:51.000
 Salko Tromp was a Dutch biologist and ecologist who wrote a book called Psychical Physics, how the nervous system interacts with these fields.

00:48:51.000 --> 00:49:13.000
 I think that also reminds me some of the points that were brought out about the pathology amongst Steiner school students versus students in the general population of mainstream education is that Steiner students had a significantly or statistically significant difference,

00:49:13.000 --> 00:49:37.000
 a lower incidence of gastrointestinal distress as one of the main symptoms of the stress I think that was brought out in the regular school environment as opposed to the free-thinking, liberal in the sense of being liberal, not the kind of modern sense of the word liberal but the kind of liberating environment that students were in.

00:49:37.000 --> 00:49:55.000
 A little bit like the animal experience you first mentioned when we first started talking about the rats that were given the kind of environmental enrichment having better and greater intelligence and their progeny bearing from that, benefiting from that also.

00:49:55.000 --> 00:50:15.000
 But in terms of the lack of stress I think probably and the lack of like I said in the beginning, the lack of competition and that kind of all that competition nurtures, all the negative side of the competition, this competition is not necessarily a bad thing but I think the way that most people compete with other people is usually in a fairly negative way.

00:50:15.000 --> 00:50:27.000
 What do you think about the mind-body connection? I think we all agree that it's a real connection both in our nervous system and in our psyches.

00:50:27.000 --> 00:50:55.000
 The issue of helplessness, learned helplessness or inescapable stress, that shows up first in the stomach as ulcers and then intestine as bleeding but it's really happening in the brain and if it continues you can see it now with

00:50:55.000 --> 00:51:09.000
 MRI studies of the brain you can see the chronic stress thins the cortex of the brain, makes the brain smaller and emptier.

00:51:09.000 --> 00:51:36.000
 The main parts of the brain that relate the digestive damage to the nerve damage, the serotonin system contains components of excitatory like the toxic excitatory amino acids,

00:51:36.000 --> 00:51:52.000
 glutamic excitation processes that release nitric oxide. Nitric oxide reduces the energy producing capacity of the brain leads to atrophy.

00:51:52.000 --> 00:52:10.000
 The intestine releases both serotonin and nitric oxide. The system goes back and forth between the brain and the intestine affecting every other organ in the process.

00:52:10.000 --> 00:52:26.000
 You can see these same processes even in fruit flies. If a fruit fly has a traumatic brain injury for example it develops ulcers and the leaky intestines.

00:52:26.000 --> 00:52:28.000
 They can do that?

00:52:28.000 --> 00:52:40.000
 Fruit flies are just like us.

00:52:40.000 --> 00:52:51.000
 That makes me think of lemon balm because it's so calming on the nervous system but it's also very soothing on the intestinal tract.

00:52:51.000 --> 00:53:06.000
 Keeping the brain steroids up and the inhibitory GABA transmitters up, this preserves the brain and all of the organs.

00:53:06.000 --> 00:53:09.000
 Keeping the brain energy up keeps the structure up.

00:53:09.000 --> 00:53:14.000
 I don't mean to cut you off right there but the lights are going on and someone is on the air.

00:53:14.000 --> 00:53:17.000
 Where are you from caller?

00:53:17.000 --> 00:53:20.000
 Windsor, Ontario in Canada.

00:53:20.000 --> 00:53:23.000
 Great, good to have you on the show. What's your question?

00:53:23.000 --> 00:53:30.000
 Hi, as far as intestinal problems go I was wondering how Dr. Peat felt about chia seeds?

00:53:30.000 --> 00:53:32.000
 Chia seeds?

00:53:32.000 --> 00:53:38.000
 I know he doesn't like seeds but they always seem to have helped with stomach problems.

00:53:38.000 --> 00:53:42.000
 They're good for making funny fuzzy animals.

00:53:42.000 --> 00:53:46.000
 But not for eating? He doesn't like them for eating?

00:53:46.000 --> 00:53:51.000
 No, I don't really know any virtue they have as a food.

00:53:51.000 --> 00:53:53.000
 They're very mucilaginous.

00:53:53.000 --> 00:53:55.000
 Yes, exactly.

00:53:55.000 --> 00:53:57.000
 Like psyllium.

00:53:57.000 --> 00:54:02.000
 With intestinal problems they always seem to have helped before.

00:54:02.000 --> 00:54:08.000
 What do you think about intestinal mucilages because I think that's the key component in chia seeds that the lady is talking about.

00:54:08.000 --> 00:54:11.000
 A little bit like slippery elm or psyllium husks.

00:54:11.000 --> 00:54:16.000
 Or flax seeds, I know they have the oil too but they're also very mucilaginous.

00:54:16.000 --> 00:54:20.000
 Yes, as long as they aren't allergenic in themselves.

00:54:20.000 --> 00:54:28.000
 I've known a few people who had a bad reaction to even psyllium seeds.

00:54:28.000 --> 00:54:33.000
 But the omega 3's and stuff in them aren't that bad for you?

00:54:33.000 --> 00:54:43.000
 There isn't much. I think it's the risk of an allergic reaction to some of the proteins in them that would be the only risk.

00:54:43.000 --> 00:54:47.000
 I mean you'd have to eat a lot of them to get a really large dose of omega oils.

00:54:47.000 --> 00:54:52.000
 And the other thing that's helped before is shirataki noodles. Have you ever heard of those before?

00:54:52.000 --> 00:54:59.000
 They're made from a tuber in Japan that grows in water I believe.

00:54:59.000 --> 00:55:01.000
 What's the name of it?

00:55:01.000 --> 00:55:03.000
 Shirataki noodles?

00:55:03.000 --> 00:55:06.000
 Is it a starchy noodle?

00:55:06.000 --> 00:55:10.000
 I think it's a cognac root.

00:55:10.000 --> 00:55:12.000
 So it's a starchy tuber?

00:55:12.000 --> 00:55:13.000
 Oh yeah.

00:55:13.000 --> 00:55:19.000
 I think it's all insoluble fiber. Like no soluble fiber, just all insoluble fiber.

00:55:19.000 --> 00:55:26.000
 Yeah, I read that they were having a problem with people choking on it I think.

00:55:26.000 --> 00:55:31.000
 Yeah, they don't digest, but they really help with bowel movements.

00:55:31.000 --> 00:55:36.000
 Well cascara does the same thing for bowel movements and it's a lot safer.

00:55:36.000 --> 00:55:42.000
 Have your issues ever been with constipation then? Is that why you use chia?

00:55:42.000 --> 00:55:47.000
 Mostly, I think just like intolerances, like pain and stuff like that.

00:55:47.000 --> 00:55:53.000
 But I found anytime I ate the chia seeds or the cognac, those shirataki noodles,

00:55:53.000 --> 00:55:56.000
 the bowel movements were always like perfect.

00:55:56.000 --> 00:56:00.000
 Well if it's anything like Dr. Bede always recommends, carrots.

00:56:00.000 --> 00:56:05.000
 But he doesn't like seeds, so I was just wondering if the chia seeds were not really good to eat?

00:56:05.000 --> 00:56:09.000
 I've just not had any experience with them myself.

00:56:09.000 --> 00:56:16.000
 No, no. Because they do have that mucilage or whatever you want to call it around it.

00:56:16.000 --> 00:56:20.000
 Yeah, I know. Solium seeds work for many people.

00:56:20.000 --> 00:56:25.000
 Yeah, I think I've tried that before and I've had cramps.

00:56:25.000 --> 00:56:30.000
 Well then you're obviously having an allergic reaction then.

00:56:30.000 --> 00:56:32.000
 To the psyllium.

00:56:32.000 --> 00:56:33.000
 Okay, thank you.

00:56:33.000 --> 00:56:34.000
 Alright, you're welcome.

00:56:34.000 --> 00:56:35.000
 Thanks for your call.

00:56:35.000 --> 00:56:38.000
 Well I know we do only have a few moments left, but I do want to ask you Dr. Peat,

00:56:38.000 --> 00:56:45.000
 and again, it ties into education, it ties into research, it ties into suppression of research.

00:56:45.000 --> 00:56:53.000
 And this is the latest findings of a product called lanosterol.

00:56:53.000 --> 00:57:00.000
 And it's use in the treatment, in the very real treatment of cataracts without surgery,

00:57:00.000 --> 00:57:03.000
 and it's extremely inexpensive and it works.

00:57:03.000 --> 00:57:08.000
 So what do you think about lanosterol and eye cataracts?

00:57:08.000 --> 00:57:15.000
 I was just a little surprised to see a big publication in Nature.

00:57:15.000 --> 00:57:20.000
 And this group at the University of California, San Diego,

00:57:20.000 --> 00:57:30.000
 was actually reversing the majority of cataracts in something like half a dozen or a dozen rabbits

00:57:30.000 --> 00:57:37.000
 and then dogs, both using eye drops and injecting it directly into the eyeball.

00:57:37.000 --> 00:57:41.000
 They actually got established cataracts to clear up.

00:57:41.000 --> 00:57:46.000
 And when I wrote a newsletter about cataracts a couple of years ago,

00:57:46.000 --> 00:57:56.000
 I noticed that research in treating and curing cataracts had been suppressed

00:57:56.000 --> 00:58:03.000
 because of the immense amount of money there is in removing the lens.

00:58:03.000 --> 00:58:07.000
 Curing cataract surgery is a multi-billion dollar business

00:58:07.000 --> 00:58:19.000
 and that money interest had just wiped out practically all curative research in eye studies.

00:58:19.000 --> 00:58:26.000
 Interesting. So we'll keep our eyes open for lanosterol and any other future publications

00:58:26.000 --> 00:58:29.000
 and hopefully it doesn't get suppressed and buried.

00:58:29.000 --> 00:58:31.000
 So that's something to keep an eye out for.

00:58:31.000 --> 00:58:35.000
 Mushrooms happen to be a good source of that steroid.

00:58:35.000 --> 00:58:40.000
 Okay. And you said it was a precursor to cholesterol.

00:58:40.000 --> 00:58:48.000
 Yeah. It's preceding between the polymer that cyclizes,

00:58:48.000 --> 00:58:53.000
 forms lanosterol and that turns into cholesterol.

00:58:53.000 --> 00:58:59.000
 So boil your mushrooms for 45 minutes to an hour and make a yummy winter soup.

00:58:59.000 --> 00:59:02.000
 And don't think of cholesterol as a bad thing because it's not.

00:59:02.000 --> 00:59:04.000
 Okay. Well, thank you so much for your time, Dr. Peat.

00:59:04.000 --> 00:59:07.000
 I'll just tell people how to find out more about you.

00:59:07.000 --> 00:59:08.000
 Okay. Thanks.

00:59:08.000 --> 00:59:09.000
 Thank you.

00:59:09.000 --> 00:59:12.000
 Okay. So people who would like to find out more about Dr. Raymond Peat,

00:59:12.000 --> 00:59:16.000
 read his articles. Everything's free. It's online. He doesn't sell anything.

00:59:16.000 --> 00:59:21.000
 His web address is www.raypeat.com.

00:59:21.000 --> 00:59:24.000
 And for those of you who listened, who might want to get in contact with us,

00:59:24.000 --> 00:59:29.000
 Monday through Friday, we have a toll-free number, 1-888-WBM-ERB.

00:59:29.000 --> 00:59:34.000
 And/or through the much-needed revision website,

00:59:34.000 --> 00:59:38.000
 which will be up and running here again in about four weeks' time.

00:59:38.000 --> 00:59:39.000
 It's going to be finished.

00:59:39.000 --> 00:59:43.000
 But our web address is www.westernbotanicalmedicine.com.

00:59:43.000 --> 00:59:45.000
 So thanks so much for listening.

00:59:45.000 --> 00:59:50.000
 And until December of next -- third Friday of next month, December.

00:59:50.000 --> 00:59:52.000
 Until then, good night.

00:59:52.000 --> 00:59:53.000
 Good night.

00:59:53.000 --> 00:59:55.580
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00:59:55.580 --> 00:59:58.580
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