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I received the following e-mail recently from a visitor who lives in Italy. My reply follows.

Dear Kaare,
There is something I would like to ask you about George Ohsawa's death.Yesterday I read a book about the modern macrobiotics which surprised me a little bit. It was written that Ohsawa died of a heart attack dining at his home, while in a book written by him I read that he died because of an accident, but he was really healthy at the time.
Do you know how he really died?
Thanks a lot.
Warm regards,

Hello xxx,
Thanks for your e-mail and my apologies for the delay in replying to you. My take on Ohsawa's death is that the seeds for it were laid down on his trip with Lima to visit Albert Schweitzer in West Africa in the mid-'50's. He went there to convince Schweitzer of the benefits of macrobiotics for the world - as Schweitzer was a highly respected world figure at the time.
Anyway, when they got there Schweitzer was away in Europe and wasn't going to be back for three or four weeks. So, George decided he and Lima were going to teach the local natives about macrobiotics. One of the conditions that had a devastating impact on the native population was a condition allegedly caused by an amoeba which leads the person infected with the condition to develop a serious blood condition that leads to the development of huge blood blisters and eventual death by loss of blood. George reasoned this was from excess yin and taught the natives how to cook & eat the proper local food, avoid eating so much yin like fruits and sugar, alcohol, cutting back on liquid intake etc.
And, of course, the people started to get better and healthier who listened to him.
Then Schweitzer came back and wouldn't listen to Ohsawa. So, Ohsawa decided to convince Schweitzer by deliberately contracting the disease - I think it's called African Sickness - by eating extreme amounts of excess yin and drinking alcohol and copious amounts of water, and walking about barefoot (the amoeba gets into the blood by being bitten by an insect called a 'jigger' carrying the amoeba, and jiggers live in the soil).
Well, sure enough, he developed the disease and he was soon in very bad shape, his body covered with huge blood blisters and Schweitzer was called into his room to take a look and he said - "there is nothing to be done, he is finished" and left.
That VERY day a package arrived from New York City sent by the Kushi's or Aihara's or maybe both, which contained sea salt, brown rice and aduki beans. So, George started eating nothing but the rice and beans cooked with the sea salt, drank very little liquid and within two weeks he was right as rain.
He presented himself to Schweitzer who rose from his desk, pointed at the door and shouted at Ohsawa to leave IMMEDIATELY!
So, what has this to do with Ohsawa's death from a "massive heart attack" in 1963 some ten years or so later? My reading of the situation is that when he was lying in bed dying from African Sickness his blood was full of the amoeba. As he started to eat the rice and beans cooked with the sea salt and cutting his liquid intake to virtually nothing, his blood became very yang relative to the condition in which the amoeba thrive in the bloodstream.
This made the blood environment very hostile to the amoeba.
One of the characteristics of parasites is that when the conditions in which they thrive become hostile to them, they have a defense mechanism where they "hide out" in cells of their hosts, creating a protective coat around themselves and go into a dormant state. They can exist in this state for decades, if necessary, only coming out of it when the conditions in their environment (the host's blood quality) improve, from their perspective.
I feel that Ohsawa's sudden change from an extreme yin to an extreme yang condition meant that many of the amoeba in his body hid out in cells and went into this dormant state, and it seems reasonable to me that one of the places where they would be concentrated would be the cells of the heart.
Remember that these "dormant" parasites will come out of their dormant state when the condition of the host's blood
improves from the perspective of the parasite - that is, it becomes very yin.
And what was Ohsawa doing at the time of his death? He was experimenting with making a "macrobiotic quality" coca-cola! ( Some people say it was beer, but coca-cola makes more sense to me). This experimenting with various ingredients to make this good quality, but nevertheless very yin concoction(in either case, beer or coca-cola), entailed having to test his recipes by drinking the concoctions he came up with.
So, it seems reasonable to me to state that his drinking this more yin concoction every day as he experimented made his blood quality more yin. This made the environment in his body very attractive to the amoeba hiding out in the cells of his body. The ones in his heart cells came out "en masse" and caused the heart failure.
Hope this makes sense to you,

Well, you might say, so what has this story got to do with AIDS?



In 1980, if you recall, President Ronald Reagan was inaugurated for his first term as president. One of the first decisions of his tenure was to cut back on funding for basic scientific research. One day, since I lived then in Berkeley, I was out and about and I picked up a copy of the Daily Cal, the University of California's Student Newspaper. And in there that day was an interview with a physiology professor who spent the bulk of the interview bemoaning the fact that funding for basic scientific research was hard to come by as a result of the president's decision.

Very soon after we started to get the headlines in the newspapers of this deadly, new "killer" disease called AIDS. A particularly prominent individual, a California Senator, 'contracted' the disease, and was featured heavily in these stories. The propaganda machine then began to really get rolling, whipping up a frenzy of fear and hysteria about this "deadly killer" which was "sexually transmitted" and we heard all this useless and pointless talk of "safe sex", etc., etc., ad nauseam. The same antiquated, voodoo superstitions of modern medical science, the epitome of a poverty of consciousness, were screamed across the world ad infinitum.

Meanwhile, back in Boston, Michio Kushi dropped everything to help the gay community in New York City (at least those few who listened) to give free lectures on a macrobiotic approach to dealing with AIDS. He initiated a study of individuals who had been diagnosed with the illness, in conjunction with the medical school of a prominent university in Boston. The gay people who enrolled in this study were given cooking classes and counseling and they held regular support group meetings throughout the three years of the study, 1982-1985.

The study consisted in drawing blood from the individuals participating in the study every three months and testing the blood for the T cell count. It was completed in time for presentation at the First International AIDS Conference, 1986, in Paris.

The results of the study are that the T cell count of all the individuals who completed the study returned to normal.


At this time, my wife and me held macrobiotic dinners in our apartment every Sunday and one of our regular guests was a gay man I will call Electra. Electra was a very flamboyant personality, he always came to the dinners dressed to the hilt; I especially remember an electric pink day-glo jumpsuit he was fond of wearing. He was always friendly, cheerful and chatty, just a joy to have as a guest. He had been diagnosed with AIDS and through his macrobiotic practice his body healed itself and he was in great shape, fully of vitality and enthusiasm.

Electra, being compassionate, decided to share his experience with macrobiotics and AIDS with the gay community in and around the Bay Area. He traveled to many meetings and groups to share his knowledge and experience to any gay meeting to which he could gain access. And by and large he was met with deaf ears.

I remember the last time I saw Electra. I was over in San Francisco giving a lecture on a macrobiotic subject and Electra was in the audience. After the lecture, we got to-gether and he was very depressed. He said to me, "Kaare, I have been going all over the place talking to gay groups about how macrobiotics can be very helpful to them in dealing with their AIDS symptoms, but no one will listen. Not even my friends and the people I know and love. I simply cannot go on watching all these people die while they show absolutely no interest in macrobiotics, when I am a living example of its benefits."

I asked him what he was going to do. He replied,"I am going to quit eating macrobiotically and go back to my old eating and lifestyle habits and I will get the symptoms of AIDS and I will die. I simply cannot go on while no-one in the gay community seems to care about what I am saying to them and they are all dying; I will join them." He died about four months after that conversation.

The last memory I have of Electra, after that conversation, is as I was leaving the building, I looked back through the window and I saw his shadow outlined, sitting slumped in a chair.


In 1987 I was at French Meadows Summer Camp lecturing and a man by the name of Mark Mead was also lecturing there. I initially met Mark when he came to one of our Sunday night dinners, when he happened to be in the Bay Area and came over. Mark did the bulk of the research for the book "AIDS, Macrobiotics and Natural Immunity" (1990), principally authored by Dr. Martha Cottrell, along with Michio Kushi. He was also involved in the study on the T cell count of the individuals in New York City and he was one of the delegates at the First International AIDS Conference. His talk at French Meadows was on macrobiotics and natural immunity and he made a remark that I will never forget. He said, "the condition of your immune functions are a reflection of the way you relate with the world."

During the course of the camp we had a conversation about his experience at the First International AIDS Conference. This was held in The Palace of The Legion of Honor, a circular-shaped building. Inside the building is a concourse which goes around the perimeter of the entire building and for the conference, summary monographs of all the research being presented or which had been done by that time, were placed on a bulletin board which is on the inside wall of the building. Thus the delegates, when they weren't involved in any of the sessions, or between sessions, could walk around the concourse and read each of the summaries of the research and look at the graphs and see who were the researchers of each study.

The study done on macrobiotics and AIDS was stapled up there along with all the others. Its chief feature was a graph with the x axis showing the T cell count and the Y axis showing the time. The graph showed the T cell count steadily rising in a an even line from the bottom left side of the study(when it began) to finish at the top right side of the graph(when it ended). The caption underneath said "Results of T Cell count of participants with AIDS on a macrobiotic vegetarian diet for three years."

Mark told me that he wanted to see what the reaction of the delegates would be as they came around the concourse reading the research summaries when they came to the macrobiotic study results. He stationed himself behind some potted plants and observed. I asked him what he saw.

"Well," he said, "it was pretty incredible. All these delegates would be walking slowly around looking at the monographs, intently studying them and take notes diligently. They would arrive at the spot where the macrobiotic study was placed, see the graph showing the steadily rising T cell count. They would then look at the caption at the bottom, and instantly they saw that, they hurried to the next monograph."

"Yes," he said softly, "They acted like scared rabbits."


Dr. Cottrell, known as Maggie to her friends, and I know her well enough to call her Maggie, at that time of the early AIDS epidemic (she is now retired) was a physician in residence at the New York School of Art and Textile Design and she saw many patients who had developed AIDS. She kept records of her own and she later presented the results of her research in an article published in a now defunct macrobiotic journal called Macromuse, published by Michael Rossoff.

In this article of hers, she listed seven what she called "co-factors " she had identified as being common to all or most of the people who had developed AIDS that she counseled. They are as follows:

1.) Appendectomy.

2.) Tonsillectomy.

3.) Long term use of antibiotics.

4.) Long term use of recreational drugs.

5.) Long term diet high in simple, refined sugars.

6.) Long term diet low in complex carbohydrates (whole grains).

7.) Long term diet low in mineral content (that is, lacking sea salt).

Unknown to most medical researchers, the appendix is a key component, along with the large intestine, of the immune functions of the body. The tonsils are the front line organs of the immune defenses of the body.


This week the International AIDS conference opened with a speech by the President of South Africa, Mr. Mbeki. Now, here is a man who is prepared to be a statesman, in contradistinction to a sycophant well practiced in the art of "walking barefoot across cut class" to broker a deal for some multi-national corporation so they can remain in office for another term.

The President of South Africa has the common sense to state that AIDS is more complex than reducing it all to a "virus" and had the audacity to say that poverty was the main reason for the epidemic. This speech occasioned the largely close-minded delegates at the conference to walk out of the room during his speech, proving once again that most medical research scientists are arrogant beyond belief and have no civility in them either.

A joke that caught my eye recently :

"Do you know how many medical researchers are needed to change a light bulb?"

"No. How many?"

"The results of our research were inconclusive. We need more funding so that we can do further studies."

Cited in "The Journal of the Society for the Advancement of Advanced Trivia," July 2000.

I conclude this preamble to my macrobiotic discourse on AIDS with the statement that AIDS is the result of the poverty of consciousness of the medical community, as a result of the one hundred year long singular inability or unwillingness to look at the mounting scientific evidence, by the scientific community, that modern scientific methodologies, concepts, ideas and tools are totally and completely useless at best, and fundamentally promote, at worst, the worsening unhealthy condition of the human race. That AIDS should have served notice, 20 years ago, that this is the case, and that if the warning of AIDS is not heeded in the right way, more devastating disease symptomologies than AIDS will make their appearance in the not too distant future.

AIDS is also the result of the poverty of consciousness of modern culture, and poverty, lack of resources to live a human life of dignity, with good organic whole foods to eat every day, a sound roof over the head, and clothes on the backs of EVERY SINGLE HUMAN BEING ON EARTH, is another symptom of this poverty of consciousness.

This poverty of consciousness is the result of the fact that modern science can be best characterized as "a science whose heart has been ripped out", to quote Rudolf Steiner, and that modern culture is a culture which also has had its heart ripped out. Rudolf Steiner actually did not complete the second sentence of the proper and accurate description of modern science and modern culture.

The complete description is as follows:"Modern science and modern culture are accurately described has having had their hearts ripped out and had them replaced with a cash register."


So, to the task hand.

I begin this essay with the heading ACQUIRED IMMUNE DEFICIENCY SYNDROME, where I highlight the word "acquired" in red. For indeed, the symptomology of AIDS, like every disease symptomology of a chronic nature experienced by human beings, is acquired by us. And we acquire these symptoms through longstanding habits of diet and thought and lifestyle which are "out-of-balance with the order in all creation".

To begin the study we need to first go to the Introduction and read it over again. In the discussion of Stage 5 of the process of disease/healing you will recall I make the following statement, "An organism is not pathogenic because it causes pathogenic changes in human tissue; it is pathogenic because it is attracted to human tissue which is undergoing pathogenic deterioration."

And there you have the answer to the problem of infectious diseases. ALL chronic infectious diseases, whether the infectious organism identified as ONE of the presenting symptoms of the individual experience the symptoms of disease in question is a bacteria, virus, worm, spirochete, amoeba, flagella, etc., etc. The answer is to cease and desist from the habitual eating of foods which, over a long period of time, lead to the development of pathogenic deterioration of the organs and tissues of the body.

This syndrome of AIDS also has the words Immune Deficiency in its title. And of what does the immune functions consist? They consist of the functions of the liver, kidneys, spleen, white blood system(which is intimately tied in with the condition of the SMALL INTESTINE - Get my book"The End of Medicine" for more detail on this relationship) AND, most importantly, the LARGE INTESTINE. It these organs, then, that are undergoing the pathogenic deterioration which leads to the symptoms of AIDS, and the virus is only ONE of the presenting symptoms, and an ancillary one at that.

Now, we turn to the term HIV +ve. What does it mean? It means that your blood has antibodies to the Human Immuno - deficiency Virus. The presence of these antibodies in your blood mean your immune functions, especially those of the white blood cells, have SUCCESSFULLY dispatched the virus when your body initially developed the conditions which created the suitable environment for the proliferation of the virus in your body!

Now, where does the virus come from?

The following appears as a footnote in Chapter Two of "The End of Medicine":

Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, from the perspective of the dynamics of the symptomology of the process of disease, appears to be a concatenation of the six stages of the disease process in one syndrome, which is an interesting observation. From what was said about the sixth stage of the dynamics of the process of disease, AIDS is not caused by the Human Immunodeficiency Virus, or any other virus. The scientific medical research community is belatedly beginning to catch on to this reality (long held by virologist Peter Duesberg of the University of California, Berkeley) , as was reported in the September 26, 1991 issue of Nature.
AIDS is a syndrome characterized as the acquisition of deficiency of function of the immune system, so a line of enquiry to understand it is futile if it is maintained it is caused by a virus, the Human Immunodeficiencey Virus. It is more accurate to say that the presence of the virus indicates the deficiency of the immune functions of the body.
As for the etiology of the virus, it is proposed here (with due respect to Michio Kushi as the first person who came up with this idea, at least to my knowledge, and to a program on mitochondria I saw on BBC television in 1975), that the decay or deficiency of the immune system, which is comprised of the spleen, kidneys, liver, white blood/lymphatic system and additionally, in my view, the large intestine, is such that the internal environment of these organs becomes so weakened through increasing toxicity resulting from the modern diet and lifestyle that the normal organelles of the healthy cell degenerate, and the process of degeneration is their devolution to primitive organisms, i.e., viruses.
We can readily understand, from the description of the process of disease, that these organs become damaged and toxic after many years of eating a diet based on meat, sugar, eggs, chemicals, refined, processed foods as well as taking antibiotics and recreational drugs, etc., to the point that the normal functions of immunity are compromised and the symptomology of AIDS develops.

So, there you have it. Diagnosis complete, now what is to be done? For it should be obvious by now that no drug therapy of any description, or any biotechnological palliative will ever make the slightest iota of difference to the problem of AIDS, or any disease symptomology.

The people of South Africa, and the rest of the world where it is feasable, (i.e., in those geographical locations where grains and vegetables grow!) need to adopt a daily dietary regimen based on cooked whole grains and vegetables as described elsewhere in The Alchemycal Pages.

They need to do at least three rounds of the Ginger Compress Regimen and at some point, around 6 months after starting their macrobiotic life, do the anti-parasite remedy:

Anti-Parasite Remedy.

Parasites are undoubtedly present if a person has chronic intestinal stagnation, including worms, bacteria, viruses, amoeba, flagella, spirochetes, funguses etc. Candida itself is probably endemic throughout society, taking root in the intestinal stagnation in the walls of the intestines and thus impossible to get rid of unless steps are taken to remove the intestinal stagnation.

In addition to adopting a macrobiotic dietary practice and doing the ginger compress, to get rid of parasites the following anti-parasite remedy is recommended:

Dry roast together in a cast-iron skillet over medium heat, stirring constantly-
3 cups Organic Short Grain Brown Rice.
2 cups Organic Aduki Beans.
1 cup Organic Brown unhulled Sesame Seeds
until the grains of brown rice turn golden brown. Remove from heat and let cool. Store in a clean glass jar for two weeks. Then for five days, for breakfast, chew thoroughly 1/4 cup of this mixture as is, following with a cup of either Corsican Seaweed Tea or 1/2 Mugwort:1/2 Kukicha Roasted Twig Tea. Have a normal macrobiotic lunch and dinner. Repeat this procedure twice more at intervals of two weeks.

I finish my discourse with a song - at least the lyrics to a song. I wrote these lyrics some 18 years ago when the AIDS debacle was at a crescendo of orchestrated hysteria in the media:



I heard the news today

About beating the disease

Anyone can be a victim

Look who's getting diseased


They said we gotta live clean

We can't have sex no more

We gotta start using condoms

What a corpse of idiot bores


Feel your disease, feel your disease, feel your disease

Listen, I know it ain't so

They don't have a clue

They understand nothing

And cannot tell you true


For the black specter of science

Has long since splintered the earth

Its search for truth wrenched

In a trail of impotence


Feel our disease, feel our disease, feel our disease


The wires and the test tubes

The nodes and the pliers

Are the malevolent lattice

Of its cadaverous biers


And you, you silent ones

Yes, you, your sons and daughters

Follow like sheep to the altars

Where the white-robed, cold-eyed priests

Handle their scalpels and needles

As precisely as they cover their spreadsheets


Feel her disease, feel her disease, feel her disease


This is the death wish

Of the ignorant and the pusillanimous

Misanthropic scientists in the laboratory

Who got snake-eyed looking for easy money


Go ahead, be a victim

Walk into that sterile maelstrom

Littered with technophiles

well practiced in the art of self-deception


Feel my disease, feel my disease, feel my disease


You can choose to die like a fool

A sub-human idiot or a beast

But don't go crying to me

As you hurry to find a priest


I got better things to do

Than watch your funeral pyre

A weak spirited death is justice

For a life lived in caricature

Feel earth's disease, feel earth's disease, feel earth's disease


Oh, I DO shed my tears for you

For you created your disease

And if you refuse this poverty

you can heal your disease


Don't blame no virus

It's only doing its thing

Mopping up the decay in your body

Of a life wasted away


Life is full of trials and errors

But for goodness sakes

Quit lying to yourself

And admit your mistakes


Medical science will never help you

But there are many here among us

Who know what you can do

Seek them out and AIDS is no longer your VOODOO!

A-I-D-S - FEEL... YOUR... DISEASE...!!!!


Kaare Bursell
Penned 1/17/82-1/28/82
(copyright-The Alchemycal Pages: 1996-2003)

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