Replies

Nothing new under the sun?

BELOW is a transcript of pages 169-170 from the book TOTAL VISION which I read way back in the early 80’s .
Light, in addition to being necessary for vision, stimulates both the pituitary and pineal glands and possibly other regions of the mid-brain which control the endocrine system and the production of hormones. It is not only the portion of the spectrum which we can see that is important, but also the bands that are present but not visible to the naked eye. The process is not unlike the photosynthesis of plants. Without certain ultraviolet wavelengths human hormone production is altered.

Several researchers working at various medical centers and laboratories throughout the country have found that when any part of the natural sunlight spectrum is blocked from entering the eye for a long period of time, abnormalities may develop. Women living above the Aortic Circle, where the night goes on for three months at a stretch during the winter, are likely to become infertile then because they stop ovulating. When sunlight returns, so does fertility.

Perhaps the most startling relationship disclosed concerning limited-spectrum lighting is the linking to it of some types of cancer. At least a half-dozen animal studies have come up with the same conclusion: reduced spectrum lighting influences the growth and the incidence of some types of cancer. Anything other than the full spectrum appears to change the course of nature.

And when the few reports of remission of terminal cancer in humans are looked at, a connecting link in a number of the cases appears to be getting plenty of natural sunlight. The people decided to spend their last days outdoors in the sun. One such story was reported a dozen years ago in TIME magazine: the man quit going to his office and started reading in a rocking chair on his back porch and tending roses in his garden. His cancer disappeared.

In a 1959 study with 15 cancer patients at Bellevue Medical Center in New York City, the doctor conducting the research said that while it was difficult to make a definite evaluation, it was her opinion and that of her assistants that 14 of the patients showed no further growth of the cancerous tumors after spending a summer outdoors as much as possible, without wearing sunglasses or prescription lenses.

Subsequently, it was learned that the one patient whose condition detiorated at the expected rate did not understand the instructions and had continued to wear her prescription lenses when outdoors. The glasses naturally blocked the ultraviolet rays from reaching her eyes.

It appears that not only do we need sunlight on our skin to provide vitamin D from the ultraviolet rays, we also need invisible rays to reach our eyes, where the nerve fibers in the retina react to stimulate the master glands of the body. (Longwave blacklight ultraviolet rays are the beneficial ones; shortwave ultraviolet, which is filtered from natural sung light by the atmosphere before reaching us, is so harmful to living tissue that lamps which emit only those bands are used to sterilize implements. Shortwave ultraviolet is also the spectrum emitted from sunlamps, and it has been shown in animal tests that the over-exposure is harmful, possibly causing skin cancer.)

A prominent light researcher, John Ott, tells in his book, Health Light, of a conversation he had with the daughter of the late Dr. Albert Schweitzer:

” Our conversation dwelt mostly on her experiences as assistant to her father at Lambarene, on the west coast of Africa. I asked her about the rate of cancer of the people in that area, and she replied that when her father had first started the hospital, they found no cancer at all, but that now it was a problem. I asked if the people living there had started installing glass windows and electric lights in their otherwise simple surroundings and she said they had not.
“Then I half jokingly asked her if any of the natives wore sunglasses. She looked startled and then told me that the natives paddling their dugout canoes up and down the river in front of the hospital often wore no more than a loin cloth and sunglasses and indeed, some wore only the sunglasses. she further explained that sunglasses represented a status symbol of civilization and education and had a higher bartering blue than beads and other such trinkets. There is, of course, no scientific proof of a correlation between the wearing of sunglasses and cancer, but it does raise an interesting question.”

Very well researched and presented.

The people who have made a science of growing (medical) marijuana indoors, know that there are two requirements for growing (beneficial) light — range (spectrum) and intensity (power).

Usually what is referred to as “artificial” light, is Edison's original incandescent light or the original fluorescents — which if they tried to grow plants, would fail to do so either — because they lack the necessary spectrum and power. So to compare that light with sunlight, is not an equivalent — but if they start talking about halides and the latest state of the art lighting, then it approximates natural (sun)light, including those tanning bulbs — that cause tanning, while you can lie naked under a regular lightbulb all your life and not get any tanning effect.

And particularly important is that range and intensity of light to health and growth of the eye and brain — despite optometrists (eye doctors) saying light doesn't matter. That is what you're seeing — some people more sensitive to these differences than others, just as some people can hear ranges of sound beyond what others can, or sense anything else (taste, smell, touch).

There's a tendency among the social scientists (the politically correct) to make an equivalency of everything — so that no distinctions (and discrimination) of anything anymore, is possible.

In many cases, a person just needs to optimize the lighting, not to need glasses — as often is the case when one uses an Ott light. Another alternative technology that works is the use of a pin-hole (reading glass) instead of
the polished optical glass — that many find helpful staring at computer screens all day, in reducing eye strain. Again, many optometrists (eye doctors) insist that it's not possible or doesn't make a difference when even they use a pinhole instrument to first detect whether one’s vision problem is refractive or eye disease of greater seriousness.

Other vision experts have claimed that they can correct vision defects with the proper training in how to see correctly — because all of our organs don't come with instruction manuals on how to use them properly, correctly and optimally, as most people have to discover on their own — or not.

That is often the case with one’s muscular development, as well as mental development, social, psychological, moral, spiritual, etc. Most often, we learn from those around us — but whole social strata (ghettoes) can often be dysfunctional in that way. That is a common cause of behavioral problems like obesity, addictions, codependencies and mental health issues.