Hi Friends,

Years ago “Mr. Cayce” told me that I would do well to start drinking coffee, to help me concentrate better.

Metabolism refers to the chemical processes our bodies use to convert the calories in food into ATP, the chemical fuel our cells are able to use. Our brains are said to be about 2% of the body’s weight, but use 20% of our energy (ATP) production.

Stimulants are chemicals that help the body increase its metabolism and ATP production. Nature’s most common stimulant is caffeine. This is the primary stimulant in coffee, tea, chocolate, and the kola nut (the flavoring used in Coca-Cola or Pepsi-Cola).

Edgar Cayce’s recommendations of Coffee and Tea

The Cayce readings commonly recommended coffee and tea as stimulants:

Teas, coffee, chocolate, any stimulant to the system is good in moderation, never to excess. Body does not eat sufficient of any of these at present.
(288-9 F 19)

Some people were advised against coffee or tea. The recommendations were always for an individual.

The Cayce readings said coffee and tea should NOT be consumed with milk:

19. (Q) Is coffee or tea harmful to the body? (A) In moderation these are well. Do not combine milk with either of these when taken.
(889-1 F ADULT)

Sugar-free coffee contributes to physiological stress

I started out drinking my coffee black, without any cream or sugar. But then I learned about how caffeine’s stimulation causes cells to pull more glucose from the blood. Because there was no sugar paired with the caffeine in my coffee, the only option my body had was to release cortisol.

Our bodies release cortisol when our blood sugar levels get low. The essential function of cortisol is that it tells the body to turn some of its protein into sugar. The pharmaceutical industry has a variety of steroids with cortisol-like functions. Cortisol levels tend to be highest in the morning (before breakfast) as this is the time of day when it’s been the longest since our last meal. ‘Thin skin’ is a common effect of long-term excess cortisol/steroid exposure.

As a part of a carbohydrate-containing meal, black coffee would be fine. Cayce allowed for adding sweetener to coffee and tea, and said that coffee has more food value than tea:

As to the diet – we would keep very much along the line that has been indicated; though, to be sure, through the seasons when vegetables are changing, and fruits and small fruits are in season, these may be taken in moderation – as may stimulant of coffee, but without cream or milk; though if desired a small quantity of sugar may be taken. Coffee is a food when taken in that way and manner.
(TEXT OF READING 326-9 F 71)

Now I make sure I include some form of glucose (carbohydrate) with my coffee or tea. Honey is my preferred sweetener. White sugar is an affordable source of glucose/fructose (our brains need small amounts of fructose, and will transform glucose into fructose if necessary). Edgar Cayce also recommended date sugar.

Cayce more frequently recommended coffee than tea, as coffee has more food value. In a previous email I told of how the pu-erh fermentation process has properties that can help the liver regenerate from being poisoned by acetaminophen / paracetamol. (Green tea uses leaves that are dried after being harvested from a tree. Black tea is fermented. Pu-erh is a type of black tea that has a unique fermentation process.) The caffeine in tea also stimulates the metabolism.

If you’re a tea drinker, you can boost your tea with lemon juice and sweetener:

Coffee or tea may be taken in moderation, but coffee without milk or cream and tea preferably with lemon instead of cream, as a stimulant.
(579-1 F ADULT)

Emotional stress also causes cortisol release. Stressed brains use more sugar than non-stressed brains.

Medical Stimulants

Allopathic doctors commonly put children who can’t pay attention in school on a stimulant drug, such as Adderall (amphetamine). Stimulants like Adderall provide a momentary boost to the body’s metabolism, resulting in a temporary increase in ATP production.

While this is somewhat effective at helping rowdy children focus on classwork they don’t care about, amphetamines and cocaine are known to cause serious metabolic problems. I think using amphetamine or other pharmaceutical stimulants for improving concentration is a “deal with the devil”: the short-term benefits are drastically outweighed by long-term harm.

Coca leaf tea is commonly consumed in the high altitudes of the Andes mountains of South America. Cocaine is the primary stimulant found in the Coca leaf. When purified, this becomes a drug that is easy to abuse.

I think the basic reason cocaine and the amphetamines are destructive is because they harm the mitochondria, our cells’ ATP-producing servants. (My observation is cocaine is less-bad than methamphetamine: my one friend would rapidly recover from cocaine use, but needed several days to recover from methamphetamine.)

Adderall (amphetamine) is less potent than the street drug methamphetamine, but it’s certainly less safe than the caffeine from the berries of the coffee tree.

Coffee would certainly be a safer substance to help children focus better.

What’s your stimulant strategy? Do any of you use chocolate as your preferred stimulant? Let me know.

🙂

-James Knochel
RadialAppliance.teslabox.com

P.S. I’ve gotten a few email asking about my next batch of cold grounding coins. I’m thinking about doing the next batch to be slightly larger: 1.5 inches instead of 1 inch.

– Volume 1.0″x0.1″ coin: 0.079 cubic inches
– Volume 1.5″x0.1″ coin: 0.177 cubic inches

A 1.5″-diameter grounding coin would also have slightly more carbon steel than my grounding pendants:

– Volume 1″x0.5″x0.25″ pendant: 0.123 cubic inches

Would any of you be interested in a slightly larger ‘grounding coin’? If you have a comment on the relative effect you notice with one of my coins vs. one of my pendants, could you share this with me? Thanks!

My last blog post was about Edgar Cayce’s recommendation for ‘Bulgarian Milk’ and Yeast to balance the intestinal microbiome. This quote from Edgar Cayce’s letter was the crux for my figuring out what the Readings meant when they referred to ‘Bulgarian milk’:

R2. 5/15/33 EC’s letter: “Now, I wish I could give you the name of the dried milk. If I remember correctly – Is Hall still there in business? If so, he can tell you about this, I’m sure – for there were several times while I was in Selma that the readings suggested this for our own boys, a certain kind – and, if I remember correctly, it was called Dryco; which, I think, carries all the fats. The Bulgarian milk is put up in tablet form, or in Bulgarian tablets that you put with some other milk – and it works especially for tender stomaches, and where there is needed to be built up fats in the system; though, of course, this is not fattening;

(Edgar Cayce’s letter in Reports of Reading #318-6, M 7)

The ‘Bulgarian tablets’ that Cayce recommended are no longer manufactured. You can mail order a yogurt culture off the internet, but I haven’t done this yet. I just found a substitute for the Bulgarian Tablets at my local grocery store:

These ‘Clio yogurt bars’ have ONLY the “L. burgaricus and S. thermophilus” bacteria on the ingredients. These are the strains to make proper Bulgarian yogurt. You can remove the chocolate coating, chop up the yogurt bars, add a little chunk to turn your plain milk into cultured milk, and store the extra chunks in the freezer.

Here’s the information page about the founder of Clio Snacks:

It all started with our founder Sergey, fearless inventor of Clio Snacks. […] As a Ukrainian immigrant and former accountant, Sergey had a dream to be an entrepreneur […].

–https://cliosnacks.com/pages/a-bite-about-us (emphasis added)

Ukraine is a little ways north of Bulgaria, in Eastern Europe – this founder certainly grew up with the same type of yogurt as the Bulgarians. Both countries are on the Black Sea. Here’s their page to help you find a local store that carries their yogurt bars: Clio Snacks: Where to buy. If no one local to you stocks these Clio bars, and you want to culture your milk, there are various stores online that sell bulgarian yogurt cultures. These bars were 2/$3, which is much more economical than ordering culture ($10 minimum with shipping).

I posted on my Facebook page recently about how easy it is to make your own yogurt: Making Yogurt (Facebook link). I haven’t made a batch of yogurt with these bars yet, but that’s next on my list of things to do.

To get updates about future blog posts, sign up for my email list at this link: https://buttondown.email/teslabox/. My email list archives are at https://buttondown.email/teslabox/archive/ (Not all emails are in the public archives… Sometimes I just email people my latest thoughts to see if I get any responses.)

Also… My ‘Cayce grounding pendants’ are back in stock: Grounding Pendants. These help improve the body’s energetic connection to the earth.

-James Knochel

When I first started reading books written based on the Cayce health readings, most of the authors said that Cayce only recommended the consumption of raw milk. Indeed, some readings told of Cayce telling the recipient to have milk “with the heat of the cow”. This would have been fine advice for someone who lived on a farm, or who otherwise had access to milk that hadn’t even cooled to room temperature. But very few people living today have their own dairy cow. While raw milk is available at some specialty stores, all modern retail milk is chilled very soon after the milking.

Did Cayce actually recommend what was impossible for most people? I’ve decided most the Reading-inspired books that say Cayce only recommended raw milk are mistaken. Read on for my analysis of some of the quotes from Cayce’s Readings. Continue reading “‘Bulgarian Milk’ and Yeast to balance the intestinal microbiome”

Often the easiest way to get better foods is to do more of the work yourself. If you have all the money in the world there are some commercial whole grain sourdough breads that might be okay. But no bread company uses probiotic yeast in their ingredients.

In a recent newsletter I told of the origins of white flour, and the folly of fortified flour. This built on my 2017 blog post about making whole wheat bread. Traditional breads are made with yeast, and have advantages over quickbreads (cakes, etc) made with baking powder.

Supplements of brewers yeast or nutritional yeast are sold by most natural food stores. Brewers yeast is a byproduct of brewing beer. Nutritional yeast is often grown on Molasses. Both types of yeast have most of the B-vitamins: B1 (thiamine), B2 (riboflavin), B3 (niacin), B5 (pantothenic acid), B6 (pyridoxine), B9 (folate), and B7 (biotin, aka Vitamin H), and the micro nutrient selenium. Neither kind of yeast has Vitamin B-12 (synthesized by bacteria). Brewers yeast has the trace mineral chromium, which is not found in nutritional yeast. Many nutritional yeasts are fortified with extra synthetic B-vitamins, including Vitamin B-12. [I avoid fortified yeasts on principle, and because some people cannot turn synthetic folic acid into Folate/Vitamin B-9.]

People have made bread for thousands of years using the yeast found in the air everywhere. Now we distinguish between ‘bread’ and ‘sourdough bread’. Sourdough yeasts are collected from the environment, while bread factory yeasts are selected in a laboratory to best fit the needs of the bread factory. Sourdough yeasts take more time to rise than bread factory yeasts.

Breads made with sourdough yeasts have a much greater amount of B-vitamins than breads made with rapid yeasts.

Some businesses sell ‘sourdough starter’. While these start out with “San Francisco” yeasts in the package, the yeasts in your kitchen will eventually replace the strains in the starter.

I make my own sourdough starter using the Saccharomyces Boulardii yeast supplement. This yeast is said to be an ‘honorary probiotic’ because it helps suppress pathogenic bacteria in the intestines:

When used for making sourdough bread, this yeast is a very slow yeast. I’ve settled on letting my dough rise for 24+ hours before baking it.

The first antibiotic, Penicillin, was isolated from a Penicillium fungus. Yeasts are a type of fungus. I think the various yeasts used by humans — as Sourdough bread, Vegemite (Australian food product made from brewers yeast), brewers yeast, etc — have compounds that suppress bacterial levels in the intestines. Some of the other yeasts have pathogenic properties (mold, fungal infections, etc).

Edible yeasts aren’t entirely made of fairy dust, as some of the compounds are phytoestrogenic (causing tissues to swell & divide). “Yeast Extract”, on many ingredient labels, is code for Monosodium Glutamate (MSG), the excitatory substance that many try to avoid.

Better Whole Wheat Bread

To make good whole wheat bread it’s best to use freshly ground flour. This is not so easy in our modern world: Michael Pollan’s book Cooked said every community used to have a flour mill, but these all went out of business when the flour industry switched to selling white flour.

Pollan’s book featured discussions with the founder of Community Grains in Woodland California. This section in Pollan’s book also talked about how modern wheat strains are very bitter as whole wheat bread. Wheat strains with higher protein content are easier to make into white flour. Softer wheat has less protein, is less bitter, and is more like the wheat humans ate 200+ years ago.

One of my local natural food stores has packages of ground whole wheat flour in their refrigerator. Whole wheat flour can be stored in the freezer to keep it fresh longer.

My mom bought a wheat grinder in the 1980’s, and passed it on to me when she moved a year and a half ago. She also found a similar model at a yard sale 15 years before.

I pilfered a stand mixer from my mom’s 97-year old friend, when they were selling her house. KitchenAid has an attachment for grinding wheat.

If you don’t have any equipment to make bread, you can make your grains more digestible with a variety of strategies. There are many videos on youtube about nixtamalization. Most Mexican grocery stores have packages of hydrated lime:

Soaking and sprouting helps reduce phytic acid and other digestion inhibitors in seeds. The cookbook Nourishing Traditions has various recipes to make grains more digestible.

Nixtamalization is the process where corn kernels are boiled in an alkaline solution. This process makes other grains more digestible too. Specific wood ashes were traditionally used, but lime powder is just as effective.

Most grocery stores sell masa harina that’s ready to use. Bob’s Red Mill Organic Masa Harina is available at Kroger’s and other grocers.

Conclusion

Fruits, Potatoes and Sweet potatoes are very good foods for humans, as they provide the glucose required by our brains and alkaline minerals.

Edible seeds (Grains, beans, legumes) are useful to humans because they store easily. They’re problematic for us because of chemicals that inhibit digestion. Seeds can be made more edible with a variety of simple strategies.

Yeast produce B-vitamins and anti-bacterial substances, which might be useful to some people. At the same time, yeast produce excitatory estrogenic substances which might cause some people more problems than they’re worth.

The proteins in animal products and seeds contain sulfur and phosphorous, which metabolize into sulfuric acid and phosphoric acid. Proteins need to be balanced by an adequate intake of alkaline minerals, from fruits, vegetables, milk or supplements.

Red Light in the Cayce Readings

In various psychic health readings Edgar Cayce frequently recommended sunlight, or artificial light (ultra violet and infra red), to help improve health. For example:

15. Each day, also, there should be at least three to thirty minutes – dependent upon the vitality of the body – of the Infra Red light given, that the very structural portion of the bone themselves may be enlivened, that the red blood corpuscles may become more active and more numerous in the system. These should be altered from the cerebrospinal – or with the body lying on the face, also with the body lying on the back – these changed about from day to day, that we may have the activity of same in ALL PORTIONS of the bone. The ribs, the neck, the head, the back, the hips, the lower portion of the limbs – ALL of these should have their portion of THIS activity.
Edgar Cayce (602-1, F-37)

I’ve previously used heat lamps and red LEDs. This is the prototype Red LED light I built for a friend:

Science Confirms the Rejuvenative Properties of Red Light

The essence of a recently-published report is that short treatments with deep-red LED light was found to help improve older eyes’ ability to distinguish colors: Weeklong improved colour contrasts sensitivity after single 670 nm exposures associated with enhanced mitochondrial function

Some of the reports about this study are more accessible: Morning exposure to deep red light improves declining eyesight and Brief exposure to near-infrared light improves deteriorating vision (both published November 24, 2021).

“Just three minutes of exposure to deep red light once a week, when delivered in the morning, can significantly improve declining eyesight, finds a pioneering new study by UCL researchers.”

The light used by these researchers was not especially powerful. You can get three minutes of red light for free from the sun: close your eyes and direct your face towards the sun. As the reports say, this is most effective when done in the morning. Heat lamps are an inexpensive source of red light, if you live somewhere where the sun is not available.

The earlier study is interesting too: Deep red light reboots aging retinas like “recharging a battery” (June 29, 2020).

One aspect of “cold and flu season” is the changing amount of light we get with the seasons. Vitamin D comes in a pill. There is no pill form for the regenerative effects of red light on the mitochondria.

Quick update: I was asked about a ‘cyber monday’ special. Hmm… Sure? My coins aren’t very scientific, but I have my anecdotes, and lots of repeat customers. About 6.5 years ago I gave a ‘grounding coin’ to a woman I thought really needed it. She immediately noticed the effect. I’ve spent most of the last 6 years trying to protect this friend from the medical system, which is often more aspirational than effective. Sign up for my email list for my occasional emails – I think I’m about to have a decisive victory for natural health over the cruder types of medicine that are sort of like modern bloodletting.

SPECIAL: For December 2021:  ‘Cold’ Grounding Coins are $2 off ($5/coin); Pendants are $1 off ($7/pendant). Use coupon code freeship2 for $3.50 off orders of at least $47. (I’m still not able to ship to Australian or New Zealand, but a customer found Ship7.com, which helps people to consolidate packages from the US to the rest of the world.)

All orders include a short report about how to be resilient during cold and flu season, including a bit about the seasonal use of light.

(UPDATE: Shipping to Australia / New Zealand has been resumed.)
I received an email from a customer in Australia on October 1 2021:

Thank you for the 2 [grounding] coins. I tried to buy a cold coin from [Official Supplier] last year but they wanted $70 to deliver it to Australia, and they wouldn’t move from that price. Mate, if you can, start selling more Edgar Cayce products. Thanks again, Good Wishes for the future!

(My version of the Cayce ‘Coin that Prevents Colds’ are called Grounding Coins. I also sell Grounding Pendants, which have more metal than one coin but less than two.)

Over the last 12+ years, I’m pretty sure I’ve sent more packages to Australia than to Canada. Maybe one of you knows how it is that Edgar Cayce gets more traction in Australia than England or Canada?

Also on October 1, I noticed that the USPS is temporarily suspending shipments to Australia, New Zealand: USPS: International service disruptions:

I think the main reason is there aren’t currently enough flights to Australia. UPS quoted me about $80 for shipping a small package to Australia. I’ve temporarily removed all shipping options for Australia and New Zealand. I’ll restore shipping to Australia and New Zealand as soon as I get notice the U.S. Postal Service has restored this service. If you need to order enough that $80-$100 in postage would work, please contact me at [email protected] and I’ll figure it out.

An important parts of Edgar Cayce’s readings was discussion of the ‘abdominal brain’, the nervous system that runs our digestive system. Cayce pointed out that the abdominal brain is much more important to our ability to manifest our desires than the jumble of nerves above our shoulders. While we think ‘logically’ with our heads, our abdominal brain gives us instant access to our intuitions.

Intuition is the process whereby we are able to receive non-logical ideas through our “gut feelings”. Recently I surprised myself by unconsciously following my gut feelings, which allowed me to find a great deal on something I was interested in.

The path for my find was through a box of old sheets and new and worn out clothes. I’d planned to donate these items to a thrift store that I knew had a deal with a textile recycler. The thrift store sells the clothes/etc that are in good shape and throw everything else into their textiles recycle bin (these are used for rags, upholstery and automotive stuffing, and insulation).

The box had sat around my house for months. I was apparently waiting for the right time to donate. Last week I loaded the box of textiles into my car, and proceeded to the thrift store my intuition had selected for these items.

There was a yard of newly-donated stuff to pick through. While walking to the donation area I saw two tanks. I didn’t really need another carbon dioxide (CO2) tank, but my friend had expressed interest in a CO2 setup like mine, so I asked the employee how much for the CO2 tank. He didn’t know.

Carbon Dioxide and Metabolism

Carbon Dioxide is an important part of a healthy metabolism: our bodies are supposed to burn sugar/fat/protein with oxygen to make ATP and Carbon Dioxide (“aerobic metabolism”). When a body runs out of oxygen (or when a person gets stressed in other ways), it will partially switch to the backup “anaerobic metabolism”, where the body ferments sugar without oxygen to make a little bit of ATP and lactic acid. Aerobic metabolism produces about 15-times as much ATP as anaerobic metabolism.

While CO2 is a waste product of metabolism, it is also important for homeostasis. When a person hyperventilates, they blow off too much CO2 from their blood, becoming “hypocapnic”. The treatment for hyperventilation is putting a paper bag in front of their face, which allows the hyperventilator to recycle (inhale) some of the CO2 they just exhaled.

There are various approaches to using CO2 therapeutically. In a nutshell, supplemental CO2 (via baths or plastic bag breathing) helps stressed people switch back to aerobic metabolism. Edgar Cayce didn’t really recommend these treatments, so I won’t discuss them here (as this post is about “intuition”).

I made an offer for the silver CO2 tank. I thought my offer was more than the thrift store would have asked, but was still a good deal for me. My little e-shop pays for itself, but it doesn’t print money for me like the goliaths (Amazon / Walmart / etc), and I have to budget. The offer was accepted.

“And how much for the black tank?” I didn’t really care about that one because it’s for nitrogen, but it had a regulator and I thought it might be useful. The attendant said my accepted offer was for both tanks. Nice.

The CO2 tank still has gas, so it’s ready to use. The nitrogen tank was empty. My next stop was the local gas store, to inquire the cost of a nitrogen refill. This supplier had previously exchanged my co2 tank from another vendor for one of theirs.

The gas store employee noticed my black nitrogen tank was sold by his company, and said they’d take it regardless of its expiration date. (Compressed gas tanks are tested and certified, and need to be “requalified” every 10 years; cylinders are useless if no one will fill them). Furthermore, he’d be happy to trade my Nitrogen tank for a CO2 tank.

The next day I noticed my newly-purchased regulator had an adapter. Every gas has its own fitting, to prevent regulators from accidentally being used with the wrong gas. There are adapters so inert gasses can be used with regulators threaded for use with other inert gasses.

My nitrogen tank actually had a CO2 regulator on it. For the cost of a tank refill, I got two tanks and a regulator. I sort of made out like a bandit. .

A big part of manifestation is being in the right place at the right time, so we can meet someone particular, or pick up an item that’s been dropped off for us. We can also help ourselves by following our intuitions to help us search for the right set of keywords, to help us create whatever it is we’re working on.

Optimizing the digestive system is an important part of Edgar Cayce’s approach to health. If you’re not familiar with the Edgar Cayce material, sign up for my ‘free reports’ by putting your email address in the box on this link. I promise to only email occasionally, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Gut feelings are generally regarded as not modulated by conscious thought, but sometimes as a feature of intuition rather than rationality.

Intuition is the ability to acquire knowledge without recourse to conscious reasoning.

German doctors seem to be much better at helping their super-virus patients than doctors in most other countries. I’m not able to render an opinion on what they’re doing different, but thought this quote was helpful:

The other question that needs to be asked is whether there is something about Germany’s treatment of coronavirus victims that has resulted in a lower death rate. That is how Dr Thomas Voshaar, a lung specialist who runs a clinic in the town of Heinsberg in North Rhine-Westphalia sees it. In an interview with the Frankfurter Allegmeine, he speaks of how he has treated 29 patients without suffering a single death so far. It isn’t testing that makes the difference, he says – he doesn’t even bother with the tests because he finds them unreliable. Instead, he gives suspected Covid-19 patients a CT scan of their lungs in order to assess the extent of damage – and then treats them occasionally.

What he doesn’t do, he says, is rush to put patients on a ventilator. In fact, only one of his patients so far has been given this form of treatment. It is best avoided for as long as possible, he says, because the machines exert too much pressure on the lungs, and the air supplied is too rich in oxygen. That can lead to patients dying of collapsed lung. He says he was astounded at the extent to which ventilators have been used to treat patients in Italy.

Is Germany treating its coronavirus patients differently? [spectator.co.uk] (emphasis added)

Some of the stories out of Italy are of patients who go to the hospital with mild breathing problems and rapidly deteriorate. One theory is that oxygen therapy directly contributes to these patients’ deterioration.

My understanding is that patients are put on oxygen on the basis of their oxygen saturation levels, as measured by a finger meter. But the finger measurement doesn’t provide context for what’s actually going on in the rest of the patient, and it’s probably inappropriate to start treatment with pure oxygen solely on the basis of one of these devices.

My mom has a 96 year old friend who started hospice care after falling almost a year ago. She’d been prescribed oxygen years before, for reasons unknown to me, and had dutifully worn the hose from her oxygen concentrator every night. But after starting hospice care this 96 year old woman started to refuse her oxygen treatment, as she didn’t care about living anymore. Her oxygen saturation level didn’t change (as measured by the finger meter), and I suspect she may be doing better without the supplemental oxygen. I further suspect, but have no way to prove, that this woman’s oxygen therapy was always counter-productive.

Enough people seem to benefit from oxygen therapy that doctors must assume supplemental oxygen is usually helpful, and that none of their patients are harmed by a larger percentage of oxygen in their inhalations. But “the credibility of the evidence for [liberal use of oxygen] is unclear”:

[…]
Interpretation
In acutely ill adults, high-quality evidence shows that liberal oxygen therapy increases mortality without improving other patient-important outcomes. Supplemental oxygen might become unfavourable above an SpO2 range of 94–96%. These results support the conservative administration of oxygen therapy.

Mortality and morbidity in acutely ill adults treated with liberal versus conservative oxygen therapy (IOTA) (emphasis added)

If you have any anecdotes about people being helped or harmed by oxygen therapy, please share them with me – sign up for my free reports emails, and send a response to that email, or comment on Edgar Cayce on Psychic Health (on facebook).