It’s time to release the barriers that are holding you back

I want you to send me your handwriting.

I want this, not for me, by the way, but for you. Because you owe it to yourself.

We all think we understand ourselves. We believe we have it all together and know what we’re doing. But oftentimes that’s just a story we’re telling. A mask we wear. Behind that mask is a bottomless pit of insecurities, fears, doubts, shame, regrets – stuff that holds us back in life.

By identifying our issues we can take significant steps toward resolving them and moving out of our rut. I call it Soul Mapping – it’s really about learning to move forward by exploring what’s getting in the way of our progress – financially, in relationships, success-wise, even health sometimes. Think of it as emotional archaeology. Actually, think of it as the soul crying out to be heard, but you’re simply unable to pick up on the signal.

So that’s where I come in. I have a gift. There’s an article in Spirituality & Health magazine about it that you can read here, if you want to. I’ve become astonishingly adept over the past few years at taking someone’s writing and seeing the real person underneath. The person nobody else sees. I can look behind the mask and send back a report of several pages basically explaining you to you in a way that’s never been done before, in the hope that you will take the analysis and use it to grow and develop. It’s a foundation for possibly being happier, more contented, more prosperous, and achieving what you want in life. That’s the hope.

Basically, it’s channeled energy, and boy, is it powerful!

“Incredible. This analysis is ridiculously accurate it’s almost scary. This is definitely the insight I’ve been needing. I now am realizing what’s been holding me back all these years. You have no idea how much this means to me.” E.G.

“I want to thank you for opening my mind, my heart, and my whole being. It is extraordinary that you knew the whole me better than I ever knew myself. There is no dollar amount that can measure the value of what you have given me. I am truly grateful.”  K.B.

If you want to see more of the phenomenal testimonials I’ve received from clients in just the past two years, go to my website and take a look. It’ll blow your mind.

OMG. Could THIS be the final solution to our candida problems?

Some years ago, I was lured into having a course of colonics. Not sure why. For kicks, probably, knowing me.

If you’ve never done it, it involves lying on a table while an expert irrigationist in a white coat takes a tube and floods your intestines with warm water, pressing on your belly at the same time and flushing out all manner of horrors into a sink. Horrors that may have been stuck up there since childhood, including undigested food, mucoid plaque, and other debris.

It was more pleasant than it sounds, actually. In fact, I only stopped doing it after I arrived at the clinic one time and found the woman openly smoking a joint. Sorry, dear, but if you’re going to perform a delicate medical procedure on my rectum, I want you firm of hand and mind. That’s just me.

However, before I fired her, she said something alarming that stuck with me. She was examining the tube to see what was being flushed out and exclaimed, “My god, you are a candida factory, aren’t you?”

“I am?“

I tried to sound horrified, but in reality I had no idea what she meant.

Turns out, candida albicans is a sort of fungus. A yeast actually, and it’s essential to our good health. Without being asked to, it consumes heavy metals, undigested food, excess sugar, and various toxins that might overload our system otherwise. So three cheers for candida. But then, at other times, like guests who come to your home and stay too long, it can go nuts and take over.

A candida albicans overgrowth, or candidiasis as it’s known, is NOT fun. At its worst, the yeast turns into a beast. Colonies escape the main pack and start roaming the body, pitching camp and causing trouble. They’re like physiological Vikings. Their steady, slow invasion is similar to having an intelligent malignant force running rampant through your organs. That’s what I’m told. They don’t care what inconvenience they cause, and their meddling can lead to all kinds of weird and mysterious ailments. Doctors might spend years looking at your symptoms and still not figure out that they’re caused by, of all things, yeast.

Symptoms of a candida overgrowth can apparently include prostate problems, fatigue, brain fog, cold hands and feet, spaciness, zits from leaky gut, odd rashes that linger inexplicably, food/sugar cravings, rectal itch, hemorrhoids, loss of sex drive, heartburn, a ringing in the ears, deafness, lack of impulse control - I mean, heck, it goes on and on – there’s a whole scary checklist. I went down it, marking off my symptoms, and found to my horror I had approximately all of them. Well, nine anyway.

There’s another way to test if you have a candida problem or not. According to the National Candida Center (was there ever a more venerable institution?), first thing in the morning, before you go putting anything else in your mouth, spit into a glass of water. Make sure it’s saliva and not mucus. The spit’s activity over the next fifteen minutes will indicate whether you have issues. If it floats on the surface, you’re fine. If it sinks to the bottom in clouds, then you probably have candidiasis at some level. If it forms odd little vertical strings from the top to the bottom, you also could have a candida overgrowth, it seems. This is all according to the NCC anyway.

Most of mine sank and lay ominously about the bottom of the glass like tweens around a McDonald’s. There wasn’t much of it, just three clouds with a couple of strings, but that’s enough, I guess, to set off alarm bells.

So what causes candida to thrive excessively, suddenly turning into a Viking horde? Oh, many reasons.

• Overuse of antibiotics. Doctors routinely prescribe antibiotics for this and that as if they were M&Ms. Problem is, each time we take them, as well as doing what they’re supposed to do, they interfere with our system and encourage candida to spread. Plus, there are antibiotics in milk, meat, and poultry, so over the years we’ve been getting a steady supply. Every regular latte you drink, every unorganic burger you eat, every processed chicken dinner. Oh my god.
• Amalgam fillings. Seems candida loves anything metal. It uses heavy metals as a life raft and clings onto them. Imagine! Which is exactly what Vikings would do too, by the way. Candida thrives on mercury vapors from those old fillings, which are released every time you chew.
• Sugary, oily diet. Anything from bread to cake (the Food of Kings) to nuts to candy to…well, probably whatever you eat most days for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Not to alarm you or anything. Anyway, it’s funny, I think, that eating candy may lead to candydiasis.
• Chlorinated water.
• Birth control pills. (Not guilty on this one. But it’s the only one!)
• Radiation from medical exams.
• Lifestyle. Anything fun, really – alcohol, sodas, chockies…they all feed the Vikings.
• But according to a fascinating post on Curezone not long ago, the real fundamental cause of candida overgrowth may actually be too much fat in the diet. OMG. Really?

And that’s where this experiment we’re about to do gets very, very interesting.

“When you eat too much fat,” the post says, “the fat starts coating all the cells and their receptor sites in your body, which makes it harder for insulin to do its job, and any of the glucose that can’t get into the cells remains in the bloodstream. High sugar in your blood is dangerous, so your backup system (candida) begins to eat all the excess sugar in the bloodstream. A side-effect of this is that the candida population starts to grow in size, but soon returns back to healthy levels once all the excess sugar is gone.

“The problem arises when people continually eat too much fat. That indirectly causes a constant supply of excess sugar in the bloodstream which keeps feeding the candida, causing the population to bloom out of control, and that is why candida is “nearly impossible to kill,” because even if you did start killing off the excess candida population, a person’s high fat diet will just keep indirectly fueling it.”

(I’ve added punctuation to this, otherwise it was just one long breathless rant.)

The post is written under a pseudonym, but whoever’s behind it is a genius.

There’s also a great little video you can watch HERE, in which a smart, healthy-looking woman called Rosslyn Uttley Moore points at blobs on a board, explaining why fat is the root cause of candidiasis.

As you’re aware, I’m no medical expert – if you’re any doubt about this, please click on the Disclaimer tab at the top of the page – so by all means research this for yourself, don’t rely only on what others say. But as far as I’m concerned at least, this revelation is one of the most significant I’ve heard in the past ten years.

Of course fat is the problem. Why did I not think of this before? [Because it may be something else, that's why!]

An Amazing Breakthrough

Almost everything I ever eat has some kind of fat in it somewhere. And yes, the body needs fat, but surely not as much as I’ve been giving it.

For decades I drank lattes – which contain fat; I ate burgers and fries – contain fat; cheese – fat; cookies, cakes, chips – fat, fat, fat. Good grief!

More recently, to help clear up a hearing problem and tinnitus caused, I believe, by candidiasis, I switched to a 70-80% raw vegan diet. And guess what, many of the things I eat on that diet now contain fat as well: avocados, nuts, oils, and seeds, for instance. I also eat salmon – contains fat; I drink goat’s milk – fat; consume bread – fat; chocolate now and then – fat; and will allow myself to splurge and eat normally at parties and dinners, which means I consume even more fat. In short, it’s a disaster. I even drink a tablespoon of coconut oil twice a day. More fat.

With that kind of steady and continual fat build-up, glucose is probably struggling to feed my cells and can’t. So when I put sugar in, in any form whatsoever, it stays in my bloodstream, causing the candida to go bonkers and start running around my body creating havoc – blockages, ringing in the ears, rashes, pimples. To me, it makes perfect sense.

A dear friend of mine, Ruth, died two years ago. She was extremely deaf by the end of her life, sadly, and things became very difficult. But here’s the thing about her – she wrote cookbooks, featuring food that was alarmingly old-school. Lashings of lard, cheese, butter, cream, pastry, oils, sugar, salt, meat, etc. (At her memorial service, guest speakers stood at the lectern and read out her recipes. It was hilarious.)

Ruth used to boast that she never ate vegetables, and would laugh hysterically at my healthy diet. Every day of her life she’d get up and cram down a couple of cinnamon rolls, and what are cinnamon rolls if not two giant lumps of fat, sugar, salt, and wheat crafted into balls?

Every other meal she had was pretty unhealthy too, jammed with all the wrong things. Wheat, I learned recently, creates mucus and can cause inflammation as well as a bunch of other side-effects. Dairy is mucus-causing in a major way. Salt can contribute to blockages in the ears due to fluid retention. (How it does that I have no idea, but it came in a bulletin from the hospital, so I guess there must be some validity to it.) Food additives and preservatives generate problems that we don’t even begin to understand. Additionally, Ruth smoked for most of her adult life – more mucus created.

Anyway, my point is, maybe that’s why her hearing was so bad. Maybe, because she had an out-of-control sugar, salt, wheat, dairy, and fat intake and therefore mucus and inflammation build-up in her body, it resulted in candida overgrowth, caused in part by glucose not being processed properly. I know she struggled with expensive hearing aids for years, when perhaps all she needed to do was cut down on the bad stuff for a while, giving her body time to adjust itself. Just a theory for the moment, but pretty massive if it’s right.

Which brings us to an even more amazing idea.

Hearing loss is rife among the elderly, right? How many of our older friends and relatives are forced to wear hearing aids past a certain age? Doctors tell us, “It’s just a normal part of growing old.” But what if it isn’t? What if hearing loss in seniors is simply a product of eating the wrong things over a lifetime, things the body has problems processing, and, bit by bit, that unprocessed junk has clogged things up, causing candida to go crazy and block the ears? There’s no way for medical procedures to detect that, I don’t think, or even make the connection. And every day, because more fat is being consumed each mealtime in the form of butter, milk, meat, fries, batters, oils, nuts, or whatever else, the condition never gets a chance to right itself.

In which case, all the elderly would have to do is trim their fat and sugar intake back to healthy, regulated levels and, perhaps, over a few months their ears would recover. Wow. (In my case, however, before we get excited, I should say that reducing my sugar, wheat, dairy, and general fat intake is like a license to become anorexic, have no energy, and look ill. People have actually asked me, “Are you sure you don’t have HIV?” Incredible.)

So what now? 

Last year I did a 30-day Humaworm Parasite cleanse and chronicled it. You can read the blog HERE.

The cleanse was extremely successful and, in terms of traffic, is the most popular one I’ve ever written, mainly because of the results. I got a whole bunch of strange things out of my system during those 30 days, including worms. Just recently, I noticed that the same company, Humaworm, makes pills to combat candida overgrowth as well. And of course I can’t see something like that and not get excited. So I ordered them on the spot.

Because here’s the truth – I always have rashes or other odd skin problems; I told you, I get dizzy sometimes, I have cold hands and feet, sugar cravings, ringing in my ears, shifting deafness in one or both ears…it goes on and on. All of them candidiasis symptoms. Plus, the colonics woman confirmed I have industrial-strength candida overflowing out of my system. I’m essentially a walking yeast dispenser.

So, for the next 30 days, I’m going to sweep it all out. The candida won’t thank me, but it has to go. At the same time, I will be cutting down drastically on my fat intake each day. That way I can see if the two are related.

Of course, I’ll be chronicling my progress with Humaworm’s Candida Cleanse – or, as I call it, Viking Be Gone. In the instructions that come with the bags of pills it says you can continue to eat a normal diet while on the cleanse, but I’m ignoring that. I’m hardcore, remember. I’ll be cutting out all the things that cause these rugged Norse invaders to multiply abnormally – sugar, of course, but dairy, wheat, nuts, oils, soy, and even bananas (oh my lord, it seems bananas are horrific in their impact on candida!) Whatever it takes to rid myself of these horrible symptoms.

Hey, here’s an idea: why not come along on this journey with me? Bookmark this page or subscribe to it on your RSS feed, and read what’s happened each day. Let’s suffer together. And I say suffer because, when parasites die off, the effects can be horribly debilitating. That’s been the case in the past; I expect no less from my darling candida.

The 30-day Humaworm Candida Cleanse

DAY 1: Took the first two Humaworm tabs last night. Got drowsy early and fell into bed. This morning, I woke up with a thick head, blocked ear, and awful sensation of DIZZINESS. Yay! We’re on our way. The tabs contain an herb called wormwood, I think. And wormwood, someone just told me, can cause dizziness and other side effects. So if this is true, then dizziness and Humaworm’s candida cleanse may go hand in hand. We shall see.

Feeling very tired and lackluster already, and my very first poop on the cleanse already showed up white blobs, plus strange curly things in the water that look like hairs but aren’t. This is powerful stuff. I’ll keep you posted.

DAY 2: Tiny STABBING PAINS. That’s today’s big news. The first full day on the candida cleanse gave my system fair warning that the next week or so is not going to be pleasant, and it responded petulantly, with shifting aches – above my eyes, in my head, on the bottom of my feet, and so on. I got ZITS as well, even though I didn’t eat the things I’m allergic to, and I woke up exceedingly dizzy yesterday. Same today, as a matter of fact. In other words, the candida die-off seems to be accentuating the problem to begin with, getting worse before it gets better.

Had big gray rings under my eyes, and also the dizziness, which lasted ’til lunchtime and was a little creepy and worrying. Could yeast have such a grip on my body that it controls whether I walk in a straight line or not?

DAY 3: Woozy in the morning and zitty all day – that seems to be what it amounts to. I wake up and am a little unsteady on my feet. Left ear blocked more than usual, and one glance in the mirror tells me I have pimples on my face, especially an eyebrow pimple that doesn’t look like it has plans to leave any time soon. Yesterday, I got a very sharp pain in my abdomen five minutes after swallowing the Humaworm tablets, and I regularly feel recurring aches in different parts of my body, but mostly my head. I’m also very spacey and stumbly, and my memory keeps lapsing.

Overall, then, I feel groggy, lackluster, HALF-DEAF in a weird, echoey kind of way, and ready for a significant development. Make that happen, Humaworm.

DAY 4: This has just become a whole new ballgame. [See breakthrough details above] 

Now that I’ve discovered that a candida overgrowth may be related to an excessive consumption of fat, I’m simply reducing my fat intake each day to miniscule levels for the next three weeks, to give my body a chance to begin redressing the imbalance. How exciting.

Today, though – rash on neck completely gone! Didn’t get out of bed feeling dizzy either. Zits on face already going away too. Hearing still bad, but the ears might take a while to unblock, if this new theory is true.

Every morning I eat the same thing – a homemade breakfast cereal consisting of pumpkin seeds, chia seeds, and hemp seeds. All of these contain fat. I might then have an avocado on wholewheat toast – avocados are really fatty, and the toast contains fat too. It turns out that the health food I’ve been eating is the very thing that’s contributing to the problems.

Normal anti-candida diets tell you to lay off the fruit, since the sugar is feeding the candida. But if you cut down on the fat instead, you can probably have as much fruit as you darn well like. Again, another breakthrough if it’s true. Anyway, that’s what I’m having for breakfast today – an egg white omelet and fruit. I’ll drink green juice, have a plain salad with no dressing for lunch, and some vegetable soup for dinner.

So there we are. To me, this is more interesting than the most interesting thing I can think of. I can’t wait to see what happens next.

DAY 5:  Plenty of MUCUS to go around today. Come one, come all. Blowing my nose a lot, which is the body’s ways of ridding itself of stuff it doesn’t want. That’s why we get colds, of course, so I don’t suppress phlegm, and would never take tablets to dry my nose. I just let it all out.

The candida die-off – if there is any – is relatively tame, I’m noticing. I’d expected to suffer more with headaches, major limb aches, fatigue – at least. But really it’s been very easy. Later today I’ll do a coffee enema, to see if that helps things along. Having cleansed a fair bit over the years, I tend to feel disappointed if the result isn’t seismic. I want to feel bad and I want it now, damn it!

Yesterday’s diet was about as low-fat as a guy could go. Breakfast today has been grapefruit and green tea. (No fat there.) With fresh green juice to follow. (Ditto.) As a result I am not dizzy this morning, which is great. And my hearing has improved noticeably in my right ear. My left is taking its time and keeps fluctuating. Sometimes there’s an exact balance between the ears, in that both ears are blocked to the same extent and therefore I ‘don’t hear’ equally, which, in my world, is the equivalent of hearing pretty well. Happy about that, believe it or not.

Now that the focus has shifted away from eradicating sugar from my diet, which was my preoccupation initially, towards lowering my fat intake, things have become harder. Cutting out sugar is a breeze, whereas navigating my way through the rest of the week without taking in any fat is going to be difficult, since almost everything has fat in it. But we shall see. At the very least, when I eat out, I can always go for the low-fat option.

Feeling buoyed up and optimistic about this now.

Day 6: More zits, less rash. That’s today. Ears are much better, which is excellent news. Very crackly, and not so deaf. Something is shifting.

Last night, though, I woke up in bed with my FEET LIKE ICE. It stopped me sleeping, they were so cold and nothing would warm them. That, I believe, is also candida-related, so I’m not panicking. But there is no sign of actual candida anywhere – nothing coming out, that is to say. So I’m not sure what’s going on. Is it jammed so far up and clinging on so damned tightly that I can’t release it?

Ghee

Anyone here like ghee? No, not the TV show, the clarified butter. I ask, because I made some ghee today, to help reduce fat intake even further.

Method: heat 3 sticks of butter in a saucepan on low for around 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. It will melt, then bubble erratically. The milk solids will rise to the surface and, magically, two minutes later, sink to the bottom. Take it off the heat and strain it into a ramekin. Place in the fridge ’til it goes solid. Voila! Clarified butter. Butter taste without the fat.

Kurt Hummel

I am reminded, incidentally, by a lovely lady called Sylvia Hunter in the UK that ghee is still fat. However, it’s less fatty than butter, so it allows for a little indulgence. Even with this on the plate, I have still cut down on my regular fat-intake by, I would say, 85%. That’s not too shabby.

Day 7:  I have noticed two things, one of them with a certain amount of alarm.

First, I have a zit on my cheek now which won’t go away. It just fills and fills. That is part of the die-off, I must assume. But there’s no – zero, zilch – candida in the toilet bowl ever. If it’s in there, it’s not coming out. I do feel light-headed and I woke up with a head ache, that is to say an ache inside my whole head, which suggests something is happening.

More worrying, though, is that the coldness in my right foot that kept me awake last night has not gone away. It’s on the underside, where all the nerve endings are, and peculiarly has graduated to a kind of weird numbness now. My hope, since cold hands and feet are a side-effect of candida, is that this is just one more aspect of the die-off. If it continues, mind you, and my foot gets colder and more numb, I may have to stop the cleanse.

Clearly, we are approaching a crossroads.

Day 8: Developments.

No light-headedness today, so that’s something. The zit on my cheek has dried up very quickly. Experiencing odd aches and pains that last about twenty minutes then stop. In kidneys, in pancreas. The cold feet thing has cleared up too. I am, though, feeling noticeably colder in my extremities than I did before. That seems to be an element in this confrontation with candida. (That said, it’s cold here, so I can’t ignore that) Also, I have a constellation of small zits that came up across my hairline this afternoon. No reason given, they’re just there. My skin is volatile generally. I scarcely dare look in the mirror. In the mornings especially it’s horrific.

This morning I woke with a nagging headache that lingered all day. I get these occasionally, whenever there’s rain in the forecast. My partner had one too. Something to do with living in California where the air pressure is usually high. When a storm front moves in, we get barometric headaches. However – and here’s the fascinating part – this evening I took my two Humaworm tablets before dinner, the way I’ve been doing, and the headache vanished within two or three minutes. Strange, eh?

Stranger still, I’m leaving FOAMY WHITE ISLANDS in the toilet when I pee. Not Minorcas or Icelands, but entire New Zealand-sized ones. Proportionately speaking. So I’m guessing that’s some kind of yeast deposit maybe? Candida? Not sure. I was expecting it to come out in my poop, so this is a surprise. Poop-wise, there’s very little action. I am a bit constipated. Then again, I’ve changed my diet, so my body’s in shock. Right now my organs are saying, “Where’s the fat? Where’d it go?” I hear this is the #1 hot topic around the water-cooler in my colon right now.

DAY 9:  Wow, is it day nine already?

Oddly uneventful day. No headache, no dizziness – not even a little bit – no cold feet, no zits. No symptoms of any kind really.

Oh, wait, my SKIN’S PEELING. I’ve noticed this happening the whole time – around my eyebrows, like dandruff, constantly coming, leaving patches of redness. And there are red patches down the sides of my nose too. What I’m assuming is that there’s something in the tablets themselves that my body’s not fond of, and I’m having an allergic reaction to it. But it never goes away.

Also, ITCHING. So much itching in my calves and ankles, and it seems to come on in response to sugar and/or salt ingestion. Sugar mostly, I think. Which could tie in with candida overgrowth. There’s a whole forum here of people with the same problem, chronic itchy legs, and they’re completely mystified. Somebody says the solution is a tanning bed, another recommends drinking more water. And a third says it could be allergy to detergent that our clothes are washed in. Fascinating, and also annoying. Another thing that won’t go away.

So not uneventful after all. Sorry to mislead you.

Day 10:  Oh dear. Starting to feel a bit rough now.

Couldn’t get out of bed this morning. Another dizzy attack that took four hours to wear off.  So I spent half the day horizontal. However, d’you know what every dizzy attack has in common? It occurs either just after or just before I deal with my agent. I’m serious. How weird is that? Yesterday we swapped emails and I felt light-headed for an hour afterwards. Today I have a meeting with her at noon and I’m barely able to stand up. I recall clearly, the first time I had one of these episodes was on the day I signed the contract with her. What’s that trying to tell me?

Additionally, it’s possible I’m sickening for something, I suppose, or else it could be part of the wonder of Humaworm. At this stage I’m not sure. All I know is I have a sore throat, my eyes are starting to water, and my arms are very, very itchy. My bet’s on the candida cleanse, if only because when I did the parasite cleanse last year my nose ran for about four consecutive days non-stop. So this might just be the same kind of thing. I’ll let you know in a few hours. But right now, this ain’t good, people. You have been warned.

DAY 11: Another roughie. Not feeling good at all. Spacey, throaty, disoriented.

Somehow managed to work on my new book the whole day without much problem, but everything else – don’t ask. I drank tea and ate leftovers. If I so much as close my eyes, the room turns over on itself. It’s like being locked in a tumble dryer. Stress and sugar – they are now my enemies, which only makes me more stressed, and when I’m stressed I crave sugar. So this is an exercise in endurance as well as deprivation and discipline.

I feel like I could explode into a FULL-BLOWN COLD any minute. My voice has dropped an octave and I’m woozy. But at this stage, who can tell the difference between getting-a-cold wooziness and candida-die-off dizziness.

There have been moments when I think, “Jeez, maybe I’ve got something serious, like diabetes, brain cancer, or some disorder heralding imminent pancreatic failure.” Then I remember, I’m taking tablets to make me feel this way.

On the plus side, the ringing in my ears has completely subsided. Yay. And the hearing overall is better. Not brilliant, but better.

Unbelievably, I still have 19 days to go. Is this a cleanse or just masochism? The two have overlapped this time, that’s for sure.

DAY 12:   I have a confession. Tonight I decided not to take my tablets. I honestly couldn’t face it. This is making me so ill and putting me out of commission to the extent that I needed a rest from going to bed dizzy for once, and feeling as though half my head is numb.

So I’m lapsing briefly. I’ll begin again tomorrow, knowing that within an hour of swallowing the pills I will be stumbling all over the room again, about to pass out. But I have to say, already I feel better without the tabs. The throat’s clearing up, I’m not dizzy, and I actually have a bit of pep in my step. So the die-off symptoms are pretty severe.

Homemade snow globe

Today’s spit-in-a-glass test has a whole host of candida colonies floating around in the bottom third of the glass. If this is really an accurate test, then it looks pretty bad. Which would explain: a) the comment, ‘You’re a candida factory”, and b) why the die-off has to be so horrible.

In other news: the zits seem to have calmed down a little, and the feet are warm, but the tinnitus is back and I’m really deaf. Had to cancel a dinner engagement. Couldn’t face going out and straining to hear what everyone was saying. Additionally, I have had a sore and phlegmy throat for two days. That’s abated somewhat, but I don’t have much of a voice left.

This is turning out to be a cripplingly unpleasant cleanse. Humaworm has given me a shellacking.

Day 13:  Alrightee, then. Back on the program. After a day of feeling great and convincing myself that I probably don’t have brain cancer after all, I’ve downed two more of the Humaworm pills. Back to business. Or dizz’ness. Whichever.

This afternoon, treated myself to a coffee enema, which I thought might help. Got some interesting stuff out, including a couple of large stones from my liver, but no candida.

People cringe when I mention doing coffee enemas. I think they imagine that I stop by Starbucks, buy a vente mocha frappuccino and inject it into my backside. To clear things up, it’s nothing like that. Yes, I do use Starbucks coffee, but it’s brewed at home, and is ever-so-slightly warm, not freezing cold or, worse, scalding hot.

Max Gerson

Personally, after huge reservations initially, I’ve found coffee enemas to be delightfully productive. Or, to give them their full title: coffee implants and retention enemas. So you implant the room-temperature coffee into the downstairs area, then retain it for 15 mins or so. They’d been used for hundreds of years before I ever heard of them, but were pioneered more recently by the legendary Max Gerson M.D. as a hydrotherapy treatment for his cancer patients, to “mechanically cleanse their colon”, and offer all kinds of benefits:

• stimulate the liver
• flush out toxins
• cleanse the intestine walls
• help eliminate parasites
• promote mental clarity
• stimulate bile flow

My partner and I do them twice a month. Not only do I feel incredibly perky afterwards, but the hour or so it takes to do the protocol gives me time to read, which is important. And in terms of this particular one, it removed a couple of hefty stones and hopefully helped with the candida cleanse.

If it stops me, even for one night, getting so dizzy that I fall over while I’m cleaning my teeth, then it will have done its job. Thank you, enema.

Day 14:  Last night I found two CATERPILLAR-LIKE CASINGS in the toilet, probably as a result of the coffee enema. Don’t even ask me what they were. They could have been vegetable-based, from a salad or soup I’ve eaten, but they didn’t look that way. They honestly could have been dead caterpillars. Very odd.

copyright 2013 NASA

This morning the dizziness is back, and I was woken up early by the loudest WHISTLING in my left ear EVER.

So I tried that spitting-in-a-glass experimemt again, which, if it’s a valid candida test, is a handy way of checking in each day to see how fast the blighters are dying off. To the left is today’s glass, and as you can see, it’s HORRIFIC. Like a photo taken by the Hubble telescope in deep space, with long strings that I’m told are candida colonies, as well as clouds of residue across the bottom. No wonder my ears are ringing.

So I take one day off, and this is what happens. It shows up again like an ex who’s been given your new address by someone you thought was your friend. If this kind of test is accurate at all, it’s SUCH bad news.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go cough up some phlegm. (Yeuw!)

Day 15:  Halfway through the cleanse. So many pills left. So many days of discomfort to go.

Non-stop COUGHING and zits – that’s today’s main event. The candida thought it would come out by means of cold-like symptoms, then had second thoughts and decided to stay in my throat. So I’m coughing at the same rate per minute that a dog barks when it’s trapped in a cellar.

Other than that, I feel okay. Decided to supplement the pills with olive leaf extract a couple of times a day. I have found this is a good remedy for the dizziness, and so it has proved. Since taking it, I’ve not been tripping over everything and walking into walls. Yay for O.L.E.

Day 16: Aaaaaah, the first signs of something tangible after all the suffering.

Toilet-talk:  had a bowel movement, and it released a bunch of white objects into the bowl. You know when you scrunch up polystyrene with your hand and it flakes into bits? Well, like that. They floated around in the water for quite a while before sinking to the bottom. This, I must assume at the halfway mark of this cleanse, is candida finally making its way out of my system. (The picture on the left is NOT of the candida, BTW!)

We had a doctor friend staying with us overnight, and she was just as excited as I was. “Ooh, we should put these under a microscope.” Er….no.

Anyway, the zits persist, forcing me to wear a hat to cover them and putting paid to any social life for the time being. Plus, I’m coughing up a ton of phlegm, which is unpleasant. Otherwise, no symptoms at all. The initial fogginess I was suffering at the start has vanished, and my hearing is better. The tinnitus has subsided a fair bit.

I have no idea what to expect next. Do candida colonies just keep coming out from now until the end?

Day 17:  Feeling subpar. On a scale of 1 to 10, about a 4. Coughing up stuff and feeling woozy. Yesterday I had another dizzy spell. This lasted half an hour, then dissipated and I was fine. But it was touch and go for a moment there. On the plus side, my ears crackled a lot this morning and when I blew my nose, my hearing suddenly got a whole lot clearer on both sides. Yay.

Saw a video today by a guy called Kal Sellers. Not sure who he is exactly, or what his qualifications are, and he does seem a little angry for some reason, but what he’s saying about candida makes total sense to me. His theory is that we’re eating too much, and too much of the wrong thing. If we eat sparingly, and switch our diet to things our bodies like and can process effectively, we needn’t even give a thought to candida – that’s his message. It seems to mean eliminating dairy products and animal proteins, and focusing on eating fruit, but always on an empty stomach so that it doesn’t ferment. As with everyone else in this field, he’s selling a course of information, so I’m leery. Still, his point is a good one.

Might I at this point urge you to read the comments beneath this post, because they contain some fascinating alternative takes on the information I’ve found out while I’ve been on this cleanse.

It’s amazing how many ‘experts’ on candida there are, both professional and amateur. And how many of them, by the way, tell you just to eat right and stop worrying, and it’ll all be fine. It’s also amazing how many ideas, myths, suggestions, and protocols there are to deal with it. I’m a little mind-boggled right now. Apparently, there have been 24,000 studies done on candida in the past sixty years. So that’s 24,000 studies, and about the same number of suggestions as to how to bring it under control. This is way more complicated than I thought when I set out.

And harder to deal with when you’re subpar. Bleh.

Day 18:  Turned out to be a rougher day than I imagined. I woke up fine, but then took the candida tablets and within an hour I was UNABLE TO WALK IN A STRAIGHT LINE. The dizziness was atrocious. At one point, I was heading in the general direction of the post office (which is the best you can hope for, I’ve decided) and passers-by must have thought I was drunk, I was weaving all over the place. So I hurried home, took olive leaf extract, lay on the couch, and just waited it out.

I also coughed all day and my feet and hands were very cold.

So last night I had a talk over dinner with my partner about the whole thing. He thinks I should continue and see it through, whereas me – I’m all for cutting my losses before something more serious happens. Normally, you’d never hear me admit that. I have laser-like determination with these things and see them right through to the end, but this treatment is so debilitating that it’s preventing me from functioning on a daily level. I have deadlines and tasks to complete, but can’t because I have to stay glued to a chair or sofa, for fear of stumbling over sideways and throwing up. How do people with regular jobs get through this? It’s borderline impossible.

In the end, it might come down to taking a different route. I may just say no to my best friend sugar from now on, keep the fat-intake low, stay off bread, and gradually allow my body to put itself right. Candida can’t thrive if you don’t feed the yeast. I’ll make the decision later today. But for this morning only, I’m skipping a tablet again, just so’s I can leave the house without risking an incident, because it really panics me. Going to the post office, it was entirely possible that I could have toppled sideways into a hedge and just laid there until I was found, like a homeless person.

Last week, I went to the store a couple of blocks from here. Afterwards, I felt woozy, so I sat down on a metal bar that people use for chaining up their bicycles, and fell asleep. In a way, it felt more like passing out. Then suddenly I woke up, wondering where the hell I was. So it’s possible these side-effects have something to do, not with candida die-off, but with an intolerance to the tablets. I’m going to write to Humaworm this morning and ask. I’ll let you know what they say.

Day 19:  If only you could have seen me. Last night on the toilet, I pooped and then stared for the longest time into the bowl. It was absolutely fascinating, because, as well as the poop, there was a very obvious slick of scum on the surface of the water, and this scum contained all kinds of white strands. Some of it looked like specks of white parsley. Then, around the feces itself, a white blob floated around, as if propelling itself, which it probably wasn’t. More likely, the current within the water was nudging it around. All the same, it looked like it was swimming.

So that’s a result, and cause for jubilation.

Otherwise, here’s the state of play: I didn’t take any tablets yesterday, and as a consequence I had no dizziness or other symptoms of candida die-off. My hearing was a lot better, there were no zits, and my cough is slowly clearing up.

Sadly, I heard nothing back from Humaworm after I wrote to them about the dizzy spells. I’ve seen comments elsewhere that their customer service is horrible when you have a problem. According to other people, Humaworm likes selling you its products, but isn’t so helpful when there might be an issue with those products. Which is now my experience as well. So on that score it’s a huge black mark for them, and you may need to be careful therefore before buying their stuff. Know that you’re probably on your own if you suffer problems.

Anyway, I have a new plan. I have a presentation on Tuesday and can’t afford to be sick for it, so I will begin the Candida Cleanse again on Wednesday morning, then see it through to the end. In the meantime, I won’t be eating or drinking anything that causes the yeast to flourish.

Increasingly, I’m coming around to the view that a candida overgrowth is caused (or certainly not hindered) by eating too much food, including too much fat and sugar. I am a compulsive eater. Often I’ll consume food for no other reason than out of boredom or greed. I just love eating, what can I tell you? As a result, the body gets overloaded, the liver can’t cope, and the entire biology of the system gets disrupted. Well, trust me, a lesson has been learned!!

This blog will continue in five days’ time.

WEDNESDAY UPDATE: Was due to re-start the candida cleanse today, but I woke up this morning DIZZY without even taking a single tablet. Worse, the dizziness has lasted all day. I called to make an appointment with my doctor, gave the nurse the symptoms, and – woah – they’re rushing me in tonight to check me out.

Suddenly my week just got a whole lot more interesting. I’ll keep you posted.

THURSDAY UPDATE:  Lots of tests, lots of guesswork at the hospital last night. “Could be this, could be that – here’s a needle, let’s find somewhere to stick it.” All my vital signs are normal anyway, and today I feel better and am walking around normally. Even took a shower without falling over like an old person. But now, of course, I’m involved. The system has me. I’m being contacted by the hospital every ten minutes about what happened. Apparently, this ropes in several different departments – all of them curious about what might be wrong. I haven’t told them yet that it started when I took Humaworm tablets. I’m a little ashamed.

Oddly, the doctor said, “Your plan includes a course of psychological therapy – would you like that?” “Oooh, yes please,” I said, excited. As always, it’s not necessary, but I want to see what happens.

So the Humaworm candida cleanse is on hold. This all started during those first three weeks. I’m not blaming Humaworm – although they still haven’t replied to my concerned email, which is shocking, and exceedingly negligent of them, I think – but I don’t want to make this worse than it is, so I’m leaving off it for now.

SATURDAY UPDATE:  I’m just about well again now. Hearing’s pretty good, skin much better, tinnitus minimal, and balance restored – but then again, I’ve not been taking the Humaworm tablets these past few days. Indeed, I’ve decided to come off the 30-day cleanse, simply because I felt it might be doing more harm than good. The trip to the hospital freaked me out, as you know. But also the fact that Humaworm don’t reply to messages if you have a problem – that doesn’t sit easily with me at all. There’s a thin line between poor customer service and hiding, and when they don’t reply like this, it suggests they’re hiding.

Therefore, not only would I not take their candida product again, but I can’t in all honesty recommend that anyone else does either.

These side-effects may be just normal candida die-off symptoms, and limited to me alone – entirely possible – but I can’t vouch for a product that puts me in hospital, even if, ultimately, it was only doing what it was meant to be doing. So this experiment is officially declared a bust. I would have continued to the end, but I was in danger of collapsing in the street, and that’s not good.

THE FOLLOWING TUESDAY UPDATE: Still off the tablets, yet last night when I pooped there were white strings in the toilet and a large white blob that had to be candida colony, I guess. It resembled a small flake of tissue paper. So I’m thinking the candida cleanse may still be working.

FOLLOWING WEDNESDAY UPDATE: Got tests back from the hospital. Took me a couple of days to work up the nerve to open them and see the results, hence the delay. But I did and – I’m perfectly fine. Everything tests great, from blood pressure to cholesterol to colon to glucose. Basically, nothing wrong. Which therefore begs the question – if there’s nothing at all wrong, why am I woozy? The mystery deepens.

OSCAR NIGHT UPDATE:  I discovered this today. It’s a list of foods that have to be avoided totally in order to beat a candida overgrowth.

What’s fascinating about it is that almost everything on that list makes me go deaf or gives me zits or headaches or makes my skin peel off. Which once again points to my having a candida problem.

So starting next weekend, and for two months – that’s sixty days – I will be avoiding every item on that list. And instead I will be eating everything on THIS list, which starves candida from the body. In order to keep track of this I will be starting a new blog post, which I will be updating now and then, though not every day, since I don’t expect the changes to be major. The details of this protocol are outlined in a video, which you can watch here.

GENERAL UPDATE: I bought pH strips from the drug store, and tested my alkalinity after one of the dizzy spells, in case that had anything to do with it. Well, it was right off the charts! The strips are color-coded – whatever color it turns, you match it to the guide on the back, and that tells you how acidic your body is. Needless to say, mine isn’t. Not at all. In my efforts to get rid of candida, I have turned myself into Alkalinity Central.

I read somewhere that being alkaline can affect the distribution of oxygen to the body, so maybe that’s what’s contributing to the dizzy episodes. Just playing around here, but clearly nobody should be this alkaline, it’s dangerous, and I have to remedy it immediately.

NEXT TO LAST UPDATE: My hearing is almost back! After six years of searching, it seems that I may be much closer to the answer than ever before.

When I went to the hospital to get some dizziness pills two weeks ago, they gave me an info sheet. On it, amidst thousands of instructions and warnings was a single line that said: ‘Eat a diet low in sodium to reduce fluid build-up in the inner ear.’

That was it. The light bulb went on. Fluid in the inner ear, huh?

So I quit salt. Not altogether, because the body needs salt, after all, but substantially. I kept a close watch of any salt going in and kept it to a minimum. I also cut back on sugar and fat, which are in the mix somewhere too when it comes to the cause, I think.

At the same time, I treated myself to a fresh organic green drink every day from a health food store, with kale, apple, spinach, carrot, wheatgrass, cayenne, and ginger. I did yoga in the morning and meditated at night to counter any stress build-up, in case that was contributing too.

Finally, an energy healer in New Hampshire did some long-distance jiggery-pokery to clear the backlog of emotional issues I might be hanging on to.

Then I waited, and guess what.

My hearing began to come back almost that same night!

It shifted from deafness in my left ear to equal deafness in my left and right, then the deafness began to dissipate overall. By today, I was able to listen to my iPod and actually hear in stereo for the first time in six years. Brilliant. Out in the world, I could hear all kinds of things I’ve not heard before. Very liberating.

However, this is an experiment, and a very important one. I couldn’t just leave it at that. So today I ordered food at lunch with salt in it, and also ate two small cakes from a bakery and a couple of cookies that I know to contain salt, plus sugar plus fat. Within two hours the hearing in my left ear had dulled to about 80% deaf, with a loud whistling.

Conclusion: we are almost there. Almost at the solution. Looks like an excess of salt is the cause – did you know that Trader Joe‘s canned soups sometimes contain 25% salt per serving? – with sugar and fat playing a part in the overall problem.

That’s six years of investigation, a thousand experiments, months each year of diets, cleanses, detoxes, retreats, and other eccentric inconveniences to my partner and friends that made me the laughing stock of the group. But hey, it looks like it’s paid off. Persistence and endurance won in the end, my friends.

The next few days will tell.

LAST UPDATE – PART 1:  The vertigo attacks have continued. It’s now April 2013, and I’m still facing days when I can’t get out of bed.

Two weeks ago, I had a serious attack during a party we threw here at the house. I was supposed to be cooking and serving, but was so giddy on my feet that everyone thought I’d been at the booze since waking up, I was weaving all over the place. It was ghastly.

But then one of our guests said, “I had that too for about a year. In the end I went to see a chiropractor. It was a pinched nerve in my neck. He corrected it, and I’ve not been dizzy since.” The woman sitting next to her added, “I know a GREAT chiropractor, if you want his number.”

Next day I went to see the guy and he took X-rays. Yes, I have a pinched nerve in my neck, it turns out, which is impeding blood flow and could be causing dizziness and hearing loss. Indeed, he’s pretty sure it is. However, that’s not why I’m writing this, because he’s also a huge diet fanatic and he ordered me – ordered me, mind – to quit eating gluten products, gluten being a pernicious enemy causing mucus and inflammation, as well as dairy, excessive salt, sugar, and processed foods.

He urged me to replace this stuff with vegetables and wild fish and meat. “I eat lots of elk,” he said, and glared when I giggled.

Anyway, this accords with what I’ve written above. Candida thrives on wheat products, dairy, sugar, and in conditions of too much fat intake, we’re told. When my hearing came back earlier, I’d come off gluten and the rest and the results soon followed. Then of course I got cocky and lapsed. So now it’s time to give it another shot. I have faith in this chiropractor and his elk diet – maybe he’s right.

I’ll keep you posted.

NOTE: I’m not promoting any product here, and I’m certainly not linked with any manufacturer or producer of candida remedies. This is an independent and honest study. If it doesn’t work, you’ll be the first one to know. Also, you already realize by now, I’m sure – because I keep emphasizing it – that nothing I say has been verified, validated, or approved by the FDA or anyone else in authority. This is a personal experiment only, but one I come at with the same spirit of inquiry I used for exploring the healing of cancer and multiple sclerosis in my A Little Book About Believing, which so many people have read and found incredibly useful. If you, or someone you know, is worried about cancer, this is a great book to read.

THE PHENOMENAL JOHN OF GOD: more about Cash’s remarkable health and healing book

A Little Book About Believing is a real life adventure story filled with insightful discoveries and valuable life lessons. A book you will find hard to put down.

It follows Spirituality & Health writer Cash Peters to a spiritual retreat in Brazil with a group of cancer and M.S. patients who are searching for healing outside the conventional medical system.

For everyone who reads it, it’s uplifting and incredibly inspirational stuff. But if you have cancer or any other treatable disease, or someone you know is currently addressing a serious health issue, then this book is a must-read. It could radically change your, or their, perspective on what it takes to get well. The second half features a section on the Seven Pillars of Self-Healing, exploring ways that even the most advanced sickness might be reversed. It’s incredibly revealing. I know cancer patients who read this part over and over and over again, so it comes highly recommended.

Now, you might be saying, “But it looks like a religious book, and I’m not into religion.” It’s not, though. Let me put that in bold:

This is not a religious book, but it is a life-changing one

Simply put, you can’t possibly look at the world or yourself the same way after reading it.

The savior it mentions – why, that’s you. Doctors can work wonders, but in the end it boils down to this: you are significantly more instrumental in your own healing than you may think.

In short, this is one man’s personal exploration of the subject of health and healing. The discoveries he makes and some of the conclusions he draws could someday help save your life.

It has a foreword by a leading Harvard doctor and an afterword by one of L.A.’s top cancer specialists.

But I’d say everyone needs to know this information. On top of which it’s a really engrossing story. However – and this is important – it must be approached with an open mind and heart, the way Cash approached the subject in the beginning. Some hardened skeptics have read it and learned from it, but many people have blinkers on when it comes to matters of spirituality in any form, and can’t get over their own deeply-ingrained prejudices.

Mind you, if BBC late-night host Rhod Sharp can enjoy it, I’d say anyone can!!

It is available everywhere on Kindle and the iPad, and paperback copies can be ordered on Amazon.com and will be mailed from America. The paperbacks can be signed if requested.

The 30-Day De-Wormer: not for the squeamish

I can’t honestly tell you why I’m doing this. Not why I’m deworming myself, but why I’m writing a daily blog post about it. In what universe could anyone other than me conceivably want to know about my parasite cleanse?

Well, because you may have parasites too. A-ha! Indeed, it’s very likely you do.

I read somewhere that 90% of us have unwelcome creatures of some sort living within us, invaders that lodge in various parts of the body and not only consume nutrients from our food to stay alive, but lay eggs and breed, causing a variety of mysterious ailments, such as rashes, headaches, allergies, boils, etc etc.

How can we contract them? From our pets; from eating sushi, meat, and raw vegetables; from traveling; or simply from everyday human contact. Parasites – and I’m including a candida overgrowth in this – can give rise to unaccountable health issues that doctors don’t know how to treat.

So, in my capacity as a curious layman and ceaseless guinea-pig, I’ve decided, for the next thirty days, to flush away the wee rascals from wherever they’re hiding.

After all, look at my life so far. I’ve traveled extensively, eating countless weird foods along the way in the most unsanitary conditions, in places such as Cambodia, Kenya, Russia, Brazil, Vanuatu, etc. I’ve also been a raw food guy for years, and even regularly kissed and cuddled my cats. I’m the perfect candidate for parasites.

Last year, I was doing a liver flush – my fourth or fifth – and a five-inch white worm dropped into the toilet. I almost freaked out. It was the weirdest thing! It’s this that alerted me to the possibility that I may have other unwanted guests in my system, an idea confirmed by an odd rash on my neck that never goes away, by a constant ringing in my ears, and varying degrees of deafness (which can definitely be a by-product of candida), plus I have food sensibilities that are just plain ridiculous. I get pimples if I so much as look at milk, pig products, sugar, and oil, while nuts and wheat actually make my skin flake off like dandruff. It’s crazy.

Nobody could have been more diligent in pursuing a remedy. I’ve consulted dermatologists, regular doctors, Eastern healers, colonic irrigation experts, aromatherapists, reiki practitioners, and countless others. Everyone had theories, but none was ever able to pinpoint the cause of the problem. Then I read a really great blog about the subject which I recommend (the picture below comes from there) about successfully treating parasites and I was inspired to give it a go.

In some ways this is my list-ditch effort to get to the source of the problem. It’s almost as if it can only be parasites. What else is there left to try? Curious to see if my suspicions were right, I heard from a friend about this treatment called Humaworm, and sent off for a 30-day supply. The directions say to take two tablets twice a day 30 minutes before meals, so that the parasites eat the contents of the tablets, and not the food. Then they begin to die.

 

Once again, therefore, I submit myself as a human crash-test dummy.

I’ve been doing this – detoxing and reforming my diet and approach to life since my trip to the health and healing center in Brazil. You’ve probably already read my book about this. If not, obviously I recommend it. It will open your eyes in so many ways, as it did me. Life will never be the same again. It’s funny to me that many people see the hands on the front of the Believing book and assume it must be a religious work. Trust me, it’s not. It has a foreword by a Harvard doctor and explores the world of health and healing from a self-empowerment point of view, where we become our own saviors and bring our bodies back into balance.

 

That’s why I’m de-worming. I’m not an expert, remember, just a regular guy who’d like to shed a few parasites, if he has them. With that end in mind – and there’s really only one end they’re going to come out of – my 30-day experience begins here.

The 30-day De-Worming Program

Day 1: Not expecting much. The two tablets smelled very strong, and shortly after swallowing them I let out a belch that I could taste for at least fifteen minutes afterwards. Had three extensive bowel movements during the day, including an urgent one in the middle of the night. Otherwise, nothing to report.

Day 2: Noticeably lethargic today. Listless too. Could still be the jetlag from my vacation, or the beginnings of parasite die-off. According to the Humaworm site: “Die-off can take many forms: headaches, body aches, rashes, fatigue, mood swings, body odor, and gas and bloating to name a few. Drinking at least two quarts or more of water daily and having regular bowel movements will help get the parasites and toxins out of the body faster thereby eliminating many common die-off symptoms.”

The rash on my neck is redder, and I woke up with a pain in my neck too, which is interesting. Plus, I had shifting aches in my abdomen, sometimes acute, that reached up to my liver. Additionally, my stomach feels bloated. I’m not psychic, but I do foresee another bowel movement in my immediate future.

Day 3:  No worms, but woke with a headache that dissipated very quickly. More pains in stomach too, and a general wooziness. My left ear is really whistling. That’s not a good sign usually. Though today, maybe it is. All part of the die-off, I assume. Have to go to the cinema this afternoon to watch a movie for the BBC. Hope I can last 90 minutes without an explosive disaster ‘downstairs’. I notice in the list of ingredients that there’s a laxative, senna. Oh great. That explains it.

Day 4: No worms, but still getting shifting aches all over my body. This morning my fingers hurt for some reason. Taking Humaworm leads to several hefty bowel movements a day, which has got to be a good thing. I think I’m maybe expecting too much too soon. The one interesting side-effect – if indeed it comes from taking the tablets – is that they seem to make me extremely horny. I won’t go into details, but it’s very, very noticeable. Strange.

Day 5: Things with tails. That’s what I saw yesterday.

To help the process along, I did a coffee enema, which is more fun than it sounds. And in the second flushing there were a number of small stringy things in the toilet afterwards. Now, I thought, “They’re just bits of undigested lettuce or something”, and that may be so, but they looked suspiciously like worm casings to me.

All sorts of weird pains throughout my body that come and go. And I just collapse with tiredness around 9pm and sleep til 6.30. Odd zits here and there too. Part of the die-off or part of the original problem? As yet, I have no bloomin’ idea.

Day 6: Nothing today, except maybe disappointment. Feeling a lot better. It even looks like the rash on my neck is slowly starting to clear up. However, that comes and goes anyway, so I’ll have to wait a while to give a definitive verdict. Bit disconcerted by the fact that my fingers are aching still. Not sure why that is. But otherwise, still waiting for a big break-through.

Day 7: My little worm friends are back. But they’re different this time. Three semi-transparent coils that at first I thought were hairs in the toilet bowl, but which sat lazily under the surface of the water as if in shock at being dropped suddenly and without warning from a warm, closed environment into a cold, hostile environment.

In blogs about de-worming, the parasites that are shown as most common tend to look like a bear’s footprint or long and  brown. I’ve seen nothing like that. These were slender and quite hard to see, and very different to anything that’s dropped out of my system before.

Last night, we went to dinner at a friend’s house. I tried to talk about my deworming program. It’s remarkable how nobody wants to discuss this topic, particularly while eating.

Today I woke up with an achey stomach – food poisoning type achey (which is possible) – and a yearning to poo. A yearning I am about to satisfy. I ache in other ways too. Yesterday there were times when I felt like my body had been stored in a tight box for three days and just emerged, stiffly and painfully. Today….it’s not so bad, but my intestines are gurgling fitfully, so that’s a sign of something. Thank you, Humaworm, for contributing to life’s eternal conundrum in this way.

Day 8:  The rash on my neck has almost gone!!! That’s the big news. A-ha! Thank  you again, Humaworm.

Otherwise, theme of the day: weirdness. My esophagus overnight was so swollen that I could hardly swallow. It was like I had a huge blockage halfway down. It’s better today, but I sound like I have a major cold coming on. Very husky. Which doesn’t bode well for the broadcast tomorrow.

The website Livestrong.com lists common cold symptoms as among the results of the die-off. “Since increasing the flow of mucus is one way the body tries to rid itself of contaminants,” it says, “you may experience respiratory symptoms like those of the common cold–sneezing, coughing and a stuffy or runny nose. These are the body’s attempts to get rid of the dying parasites and their toxins, which it may perceive as invaders.”

Well bingo to that. So I guess the little blighters are pouring out of every orifice all the time.

BTW, no worms evident in the toilet this morning. I get very disappointed now when that happens. But maybe they’re mixed in with the general dump rather than floating freely. I know that some of the stools had strange little tails hanging off them. And, dead-center, was a white blob about a quarter-inch across which just lay there and could have been anything. Normally, however, I never get stuff like this, so something’s working.

Beyond that, it’s a mysterious process. I know some cleansing people like to take out their poo and dissect it, looking for worms. I am not one of those people. I have 22 days left on the Humaworm cleanse – I’ll trust it’s doing its work.

Jeez, I hope this sore throat disappears by tomorrow. Out, damn worms, out!

Day 9:  Cold symptoms continue to linger, but the worst appears to be over. My nose won’t stop running, but I feel fine otherwise. Once I’d accepted that it was my body detoxing, meaning it was a good thing, it became easier to bear somehow. I’m going to sound ropey on the radio tonight, but that can’t be helped. The show must go on.

Bit of a zit issue today, I notice – on my face and with little bumps like flea-bites on my fingers. Also my ears really itch.

And when I did my first poo of the day, I noticed more of those strange little tails, like ant-legs, sticking out of my stools. I don’t want to give you nightmares, people, but my turds have antennae! This whole regimen piles mystery upon conundrum. Was I really that infested with parasites? It’s hard to believe.

I wish my nose would quit running. This is getting annoying. I’ve run out of handkerchiefs and now I’m using kitchen towels.

Hope to be well for Saturday. Going to do yoga in Malibu. The woman whose home we’re doing it in tells me she’s been getting worms out for a couple of years, and that they’re 12-15″ in length, white and very thin. She’s fished them out of the toilet and taken them to show her doctor but he has no clue why she keeps getting them.

You have to admit, this is a fascinating subject. Gross, but fascinating.

Day 10: Felt rough first thing, but am slowly improving as the day revs up. Cold symptoms persist. My nose is running like a faucet still. There isn’t a clean handkerchief anywhere in the house. Clearly, my entire body was toxic with parasites, though how this can be I have no idea, given than I have been cleansing pretty consistently for five years. Am entering a depressed, ‘nothing’s working and I’ve wasted my money – again‘ phase. Maybe I didn’t have parasites at all, just regular stuff that everyone else has and I simply caught a cold. My powers of self-delusion are well-documented in the health field.

Nose stopped running after breakfast and didn’t run for the rest of the day. Like the faucet was suddenly turned off.

I have multiple zits on my face, but in one small area. They keep on coming. Unpleasant to look at.

Have decided to do coffee enemas every three days to help the process along. If I don’t get some serious worm action soon, I’m going to write to Humaworm and tell them. Oh, and by the way, the name’s appropriate. You really need a sense of huma to do this, otherwise you’d throw yourself off a bridge.

Day 11:  Big thing happened today.

Woke up feeling really, really rough. Sluggish, with a head full of sawdust, and a terrible ache behind my eyes. Found it hard to get out of bed. Actually, the cat was sitting on me too, so doubly-hard. But this is going to be a slow start. I don’t know if I can face another 19 days of this. It’s getting in the way.

Hope to complete my new mystery novel by tomorrow.  Yesterday, every word had to be dragged forcibly out of my head and onto the page. I either couldn’t settle or I couldn’t focus or I wanted to eat, or something. Always something.

However, I did my yoga practice first thing, and while I was mid-asana I had a sneezing fit. Immediately, the headache and the sluggishness went. Vanished. Now I’m fine. Oh, and the zits I kept getting on my left cheek – gone.

It’s typical to go to the toilet three times a day during a cleanse. I think Humaworm contains psyllium, which makes you, not runny exactly, but certainly prolific. Anyway, I noticed a couple of translucent threads in my bowel movement last night. I always think it’s just hairs in the bowl, but it didn’t really look like it. Was very excited that it might be more worms. So I leaped off the toilet, turned around to take a good close look – and, well, I had a little accident. Now I have to add ‘cleaning a rug’ to my list of chores today.

Day 12: Another rough one. Oh my lordy, do I feel awful today! Slept for almost 11 hours. More translucent threads in the toilet bowl, I notice, and also white blobs. These white things are candida, I think.

Decided to double down on the attack. Last year, when I got a five-inch white worm out during a liver flush, I was using a zapper at the same time. This is a little device I imported from South Africa which apparently electrocutes parasites as they sleep and breed, and it seemed to work. So I strapped that onto my arm last night and will wear it for the next few days.

According to the Orgonize Africa site: “All parasites and diseased tissues are positively charged. The zapper introduces negative ions through the skin and into the body’s living tissue, killing the parasites by reversing their polarity and also helping to heal the diseased tissue.”

So there it is. You can feel it pumping electricity through your skin all the time. The more acidic your body is, the more the electrodes tingle. Fascinating actually.

The parasites have had it pretty easy for the past few years, squatting in my system, being fed and watered, swimming each day in a heated pool. Now it’s time to evict them. They’re resisting like crazy, of course, which is why I feel so bad. Tired. Eyes watering. Headaches that come and go, and pains that shift around the body constantly. The cold symptoms vanished as quickly as they came, so that’s good, but I never feel ‘right’ or lively or upbeat, just depressed and drained. I guess August is the perfect month for this. Nothing else is happening – it’s a great time to feel horrible constantly.

18 days to go.

Day 13: Today was a big long day involving the amazing yoga session in Malibu, which was fantastic. I couldn’t afford to have a poo crisis suddenly while I was there, so as a preventative measure I had to skip my morning Humaworm tablets. This will probably have  a knock-on to tomorrow as well. It was worth it, though. Worms, you have a reprieve for now.

Before I left the house, there was a long string of white foamy phlegmy something in the toilet, which may have been mucus, but could have been candida. You’d think I’d get a book, wouldn’t you, and look these creatures up? But I simply flushed it all away without checking. In any case, I’ve not seen that before.

Blew my nose a lot all day. Incredible amount of stuff still pouring out.

My friend who has the 15″ worms that come out regularly (see above) has a vast garden full of organic fruits and vegetables. She took us around, plucking fresh raspberries and strawberries and handing them to me to eat. Fantastic flavor. But she was concerned.

“I don’t understand why I keep getting these long worm things,” she said as we walked. “It’s a mystery.”

But maybe it isn’t. Insects lay their eggs on plants. If you eat stuff straight from the garden, unwashed, those eggs and whatever else are going straight into your intestines, where I guess they hatch, live, feed, and breed. That makes sense to me anyway. And it did to her too. How weird that I would be the one to think of that. It’s so obvious really. Wash your fruit, lady.

Day 14: Feeling fine. All aches gone, feelings of sluggishness gone, and no worms or other suspicious objects in the toilet bowl for once. Things are looking up, finally.

Day 15: Halfway through, and unless it has some uncharted surprises in store for me, it looks like Humaworm has done its stuff. I feel great yet again, with no obvious alien beings wriggling in my stool, so all’s well on that score too.

I do notice that I have to get up to pee between two and four times a night, which suggests that Humaworm is still active, helping flush out smaller parasites, but otherwise…..nothing to report.

Oh, one other thing – for a long time now I’ve had dark crescents lining those little crevices on either side of my nostrils. Well, those have gone too. The skin is no longer dark. Quite fascinating.

Day 16: I was expecting this cleanse to slowly build to a glorious crescendo, but it appears that after a while you simply feel better and the whole rigmarole becomes regular and comfortable. Apart from the copious poos twice a day, there’s really nothing to report. Feel good all around, which, after a horribly shaky two weeks to start with, is a massive relief. So I suppose I should feel happy, not disappointed.

Day 17: The day’s big lesson about Humaworm: if you have a long day ahead and no opportunity to go poo, don’t take de-worming tablets in the morning. How I didn’t burst today I have no idea.  It’s not that anything bad was wanting to come out, but Humaworm, I believe, contains psyllium husks, and they promote colonic wellbeing. And nobody wants to be caught enjoying colonic wellbeing during a meeting.

Other than that, all’s well. Peeing and pooing inordinately, so it’s entirely possible that I’m jettisoning boatloads of parasites I can’t see. It just isn’t dramatic, and I feel great. Which is something, right?

Day 18: Oh lordy, could this be more boring? Apart from the fact that you constantly want to poo, I don’t see any difference between a person on Humaworm and one who’s not on it, that is once you break through the first-two-week barrier. Other people may be so chock full of worms and other parasites that the effects of die-off continue for weeks. Me – I’m just dandy. I’ve done liver flushes and Master Cleanses over several years, so maybe I’m relatively free compared to other folks.

The lasting effect seems to be: clearer skin. I’m not as sensitive to foods any more. That’s a major benefit. I do have one zit, though, that won’t go away. It’s in the dead center of my chin and, no matter what I do, it remains. That’s highly unusual, so I must account for it by saying, “Humaworm.” The tablets are on a covert mission. I don’t know what it is, but the pimple is the result.

Otherwise, as I say, just dandy.

Days 19 and 20: Two-thirds of the way through and feeling great. It’s possible that microscopic stuff is being jettisoned from my body and I don’t even know it, but there’s nothing obvious happening. Some people experience a relapse around this time, as though the body takes a rest to gather its forces then suddenly begins detoxing all over again, but in my case I may have been fairly detoxed to begin with, because I feel as fit as I’ve ever been.

Throughout this what-began-as-an-ordeal-then-got-better, I’ve been doing coffee enemas every three days. Normally, my partner and I, we do these twice a month, but because I wanted to empty my butt completely – it’s a technical term, don’t worry about it – I decided to give it a little help.

A coffee enema is a tremendous stimulant to the liver, increasing its performance in some cases by several hundred percent. You basically fill your small intestine with organic medium roast, following some very simple instructions, and lie on your right side for 12-15 minutes, doing so twice with two separate lots of room temperature coffee. This does wonders for your system. You feel brighter and look perkier afterwards, and the stuff that comes out can be startling.

Day 21: Well, it looks like I’m clean. For the time being, nothing disturbing is emerging. But that could mean, as I said earlier, that things are coming out still, but they’re small. Entirely possible. The side-effects have gone, though. My complexion is definitely healthier looking, and if I do get reactions to foods, they seem to vanish at ten times the speed they did before. That’s tremendously empowering.

So 9 days to go. My Humaworm packet is almost empty. I’ll continue to the end – I never give up on things – but short of a major development, I think we’re done.

Day 22: Look the other way. Please, just go. I am not worthy of your attention today. I completely forgot to take my pills.

Well, it’s understandable – nothing dramatic has happened in over a week and after a while you get sick of staring into the toilet hoping for worms and getting nothing.

The pills are supposed to be taken twelve hours apart before meals. Tonight I ate dinner and didn’t give my Humaworm a thought. Just slipped my mind. I wound up taking them after dinner instead, and now I can’t get the taste off my breath. My punishment for taking my eye off the ball for a second.

So today the parasites won. They got a reprieve. Now, let’s move on and pretend this never happened, okay?

Day 23: BIG NEWS!

Just when I’d given up hope. My landing gear was down and I was cruising toward the terminal building, and there they are – parasites. Ta-daa!

For a start, last night I could not sleep. I lay awake for hours, which I never do. I never have insomnia. Plus, I have a strange zit-like boil thing on the side of my neck, which can’t be explained away by logical means. But that’s only the beginning. I went to the loo just now, and was quite shocked.

First, there was another of those translucent floaty things, about two inches long, a worm casing maybe, floating in the water. Haven’t had one of those in two weeks. But the most interesting thing of all was what lay around the water’s edge. Normally, I put almost everything I see in the bowl down to eating a lot of salad stuff, which can show up later in any manner of odd configurations when it drops out. But this was different.

Around the edges of the water, where the water laps up against the sides of the toilet, there were five little ‘things’. Short things. barely 0.75″ long,  lying half in, half out of the water, spaced around the bowl. Think about that: each one was half in, half out of the water, as though trying to escape. I have never seen anything like it. There was none in the the rest of bowl that I could see, only around the edge of the water.

Then, when I was performing a little cleaning ritual afterwards, on my hand I found a 1″ long yellowy-white hard thing. My first thought: it’s wet toilet paper scrunched up. But it didn’t look like toilet paper, it looked organic and dead.

So after 23 days, including a long vacant gap that was very depressing, something has finally shifted. Humaworm obviously keeps on toiling away, even when you’re not thinking about it. Fantastic.

Day 24: Woke up with pains in my left boobie. Those seem to have dissipated now. Keep waking up in the middle of the night with my body aching here and there.

No parasites in poop this morning. Not visibly anyway.

Day 25: Nothing noticeable in the toilet bowl today, apart from large patches of white stuff, which I think was a form of gas maybe, but not sure. I’m about to do another coffee enema, so we shall see.

However, there’s BIG news you should know about. Last night we went out to dinner at a friend’s house, which is always a difficult proposition for me, due to all the stuff I can’t eat. We didn’t know these guys well, and they didn’t know about my lifelong problem. It was just asking for trouble.

I have horrible food sensitivities. My skin reacts badly to cheese, meat, fried anything, cream, sugar…etc etc, so I almost freaked when every one of these was trotted out during the meal. In fact, it was made up 85% of these ingredients. There was nowhere for me to turn.

Normally, after a night like that, the following day I’m scared to look in the mirror. I can expect hives, rashes, even bits of skin flaking off. It’s ghastly. But today, guess what, people? My complexion is perfectly clear. Not a blip, no redness, no bubbling up, no spots. How wondeful.

So in that respect, it looks like my dear, fantastic new friend Humaworm has performed a very powerful service.

Day 26: Winding down now. Nothing to report. All aches and pains gone, nothing worth mentioning in my stools. There is a strange zit on my neck today that wasn’t there yesterday, so that’s a mystery. Otherwise, zlich.

I’m open to new developments, and even yearning for them, because I love doing this stuff personally, but we may be done.

Let’s see what happens tomorrow.

Day 27:  Oh dear. Well, here’s something unusual – my Humaworm tablets have run out!

I took the last two before dinner tonight. How can that be? I even skipped taking them twice during the past month, so theoretically at least I should have enough to last 31 days, not 30. But no, it’s day 27 and they’re all gone.

Hm.

I may write to the people who make them and raise this point. I’ll let you know what they say, because that’s very bizarre, isn’t it?

I’ll also write one last blog entry tomorrow, in case the parasites enjoy a resurgence and do something spectacular, like the firework display at the end of the Olympics. I’ll also offer some final thoughts on the experience, dispensing wisdom freely to anyone who’s interested and thinking of doing something similar in the coming years.

Otherwise, that pretty much sews up the experience. I confess, I’m a little disappointed that it ran out before the 30 days. I didn’t see that one coming. Bummer.

Day 28: I am Huma-less. It felt strange to wake up today and NOT take my tablets. But the packet’s empty, even though there are, technically still three days to go, including today, on my 30-day parasite cleanse.

I shot off an email yesterday to the Humaworm people, laying out the broad strokes of the situation vis a vis my shortage of tablets. They replied first thing this morning with a response that, unless I’m misinterpreting its finer nuances, indicated that they’re as confused about this as I am.

“We are very interested in your blog and discussions on radio,”a lovely woman called Barbara wrote. “I appreciate you letting us know about the shortage of capsules…I will bring this to Stephen’s attention.”

Two questions about that: 1) who is Stephen? and 2) Although I’m sure he’s lovely too and means well, how will bringing my shortage of tablets to his attention resolve anything?

A friend of mine started her Humaworm course three days ago and feels terrible, she says. Good, it’s working. She emailed me a photo of her poo with a white floaty thing in it. I’ve had several of these. They look like shreds of toilet paper, but they’re not.

I, on the other hand, am feeling fine these days. Not too different to before, but fine. A lot of unidentified alien stuff has dropped out and been flushed away these past four weeks. I can only assume I am better off without it. My skin has improved, the rash on my neck has lessened – although it changes daily – but I still have a whistling in my ears which I wish would go away.

The Hunaworm company does a cleanse for Candida too, so that’s my next one. Whistling in the ears is frequently connected to a Candida Albicans overgrowth. However, during a cleanse, you are not allowed to touch sugar, sweet stuff, or anything that turns to sugar in your body. I mean, not at all. That’s tough and a real trial, but worth it if this pesky ringing will stop.

Can’t do anything for three months, though. Must give traumatized digestive system a rest. But, come October, I’ll be gearing up for the next one. I am determined to beat these little bastards, whatever it takes.

I’ll keep you posted.

See: 30-day Humaworm Candida Cleanse blog post.  

 

 

Cash’s mystery novel, FORCE OF HABIT, rockets up the Amazon chart!!!

Hey, you! Love mysteries? Love thrillers?

If so, I’m betting you’ll really enjoy my new mystery novel  Force of Habit: Sister Madeleine Investigates. Amazon has it listed in two different places, for some odd reason. So it’s available in paperback HERE for a mere $8.99. Or as an ebook HERE for only 99 cents.

The book was featured for one day only on an ereader website, which promotes new mysteries, and rocketed right up the Amazon listings as a result. I was so excited. It was even #4 in a separate listing for Women Sleuths.

Since it was published, the book has been updated and revised twice (kinda the way Apple does with its iPad), the latest time being the new ebook in January 2013. So the one you buy now will be the latest version. Not long ago, someone wrote, saying it was their ‘favorite mystery-thriller EVER’. Please give it a shot. If you got a Kindle for Christmas, you could have it in your hand in seconds.

Only last week, a reader in Florida posted a review on Amazon. I”ve edited it slightly, but here is the broad gist:

“This is not simply a mystery; it’s a comedy, and an incredibly clever one at that. The author has a way of turning phrases that makes the ordinary brilliant. Of all the books I’ve downloaded over the past year or so, this one stands out as an absolute winner. The other reviewers who mention its humor as slight or secondary have missed the point. The entire story is a farce, savaging Religion, Ideology, Government, Society, and Celebrity in one fell swoop. Its Hollywood characters are among the funniest I’ve encountered. A wonderful book from a genius writer. I’m looking forward to the next installment.”

Genius writer, eh?

Well, next day, the review was taken down. By Amazon, I believe. You can imagine how bummed I was. But it was so gushing, they must have thought I hired someone to say it.

Anyway, here’s the story.

                                ‘BILLIONAIRE SUICIDE MYSTERY’

When news reaches Sister Madeleine that her old friend Howard Barley, a global publishing tycoon, has died in grisly circumstances, she is shocked but also very suspicious. Even more so when she learns that Howard left his entire fortune and business empire to her.

Forced to abandon their familiar convent surroundings, Madeleine and her young assistant Roberta take up residence at Milkwood Hall, the billionaire’s luxurious mansion, and immediately find themselves plunged into terrible danger.     

Burned human remains, trembling floors, strangers roaming the grounds, a freezer filled with corpses, and the return of a sinister organization she was once all too familiar with – the puzzles keep piling up, driving Madeleine to use every ounce of courage and cunning at her disposal to solve them, while also tracking down a ruthless murderer before he can kill again. 

 —

One reviewer, in response to reading an advanced copy, said it was ‘superb’.

Someone else: “Just finished devouring Force of Habit…when does the next book come out?  I am not the world’s biggest mystery reader – very particular about my reading – but this was really addictive. Great writing.”

And another:  “Refreshingly different. A brilliant mix of fast moving action packed mystery/thriller and humour…A brilliantly conceived plot with twists and turns that kept me guessing right up to the end. Highly recommended.”

MysteryNet, the site for lovers of mystery books, called it: “Action- packed to the very end.”  

Michy’s Book Reviews said: “The action and voice kept me reading. If you’re looking for a good and quirky mystery-style story, this is an author and a series that should satisfy.”  

From Wendy Hines of Minding Spot book reviews: “Great characters, a twisted plot, entertaining situations and really good writing, I can’t wait for book two!”

And Tristi Pinkston – yes, THE Tristi Pinkston – said: “Cash Peters has created a gutsy, loveable main character, placed her in breathtaking danger, and brought all his readers along for the ride of a lifetime.”

You’ll feel the same way, I’m sure.

A childhood dream becomes a reality

For as long as I can remember, I’ve wanted to write fiction. Specifically, a mystery-thriller – one of those thumping good ‘mysterious lights at night, noises in the corridor outside, body in the library’  type of books. Detective stories and vintage murder stories were my fascination when I was a kid. I gobbled them up by the dozen, and long believed I was capable of creating one of my own.

With that in mind, I thought, “It’s now or never”, shelved most of my workload for the next eighteen months and wrote Force of Habit. A modern mystery with a retro twist. I did it for me, mind. To prove that I could. To validate the kid inside of me and make him proud. It didn’t even matter if nobody else liked it, as long as I liked it.

But here’s the thing:  to my delight, the reaction from those who’ve read it has been incredibly warm and amazing. Beyond anything I could have hoped for.

“Dazzling,” wrote one.

“Compelling and brilliant. Relentless and frightening.”

“It’s so COOL,” someone else said. “I love it.”

Well, yes, me too. I’m as happy with this as anything I’ve ever done, and hope you love it as well.

Published by Penner Press, it’s lots of fun. A gripping wild ride filled with action, intrigue, humor, satire, and strange, unexpected twists.

My Life as a Nun’s Mentor

I had the idea way back in 1983. I was living in Golders Green, North London at the time, renting a small bedsit.

One day, a new tenant moved in next door to me. A nun. I remember her name: Sister Margaret Sherwood. Wonderful woman. Very toothy, quite oversized and shuffling, and absolutely  clueless about everything. She was on an apostolate, she said, which, as far as I could tell, meant she’d been thrown out of the abbey, a bit like Maria, and left to fend for herself.

Though Sister Margaret was in her 70s at the time, she’d led a cloistered life for decades and knew nothing – and I mean nothing – about the modern world. She had no clue how to use a can opener, for example. She’d never watched TV, made a Panini sandwich – in fact, she couldn’t cook a thing – and she absolutely marveled at the way my electric kettle boiled water all by itself.

“That’s fan-tastic!” she’d shriek. “How does it do that?”

It was quite bizarre. Like having Catweazel come to visit. Or the apes from 2001.

For the next three years we lived together in that house. During that time, I introduced her to the concept of convenience, leading her through the basics step by step, as you would a toddler, or someone who’s just arisen from a hundred-year coma, giving her simple instructions on how to cope with life outside the convent wall, such as how to make mushrooms on toast, how a water heater works, how to vacuum a rug without sucking half of it up into the Hoover, and generally demonstrating what’s what.

It was a life-saver for her, I realize that now, and also an intensely interesting character study for me. “Somewhere in this,” I recall thinking even then, “are the seeds of a really good sitcom, or book, or movie, not sure what – but something.”

And that’s where it began. The novel stems from that situation, though with a much darker, sinister edge, and a lot more car chases.

——————————————

Force of Habit: Sister Madeleine Investigates is in paperback and available as an ebook right now as well. Get it HERE for just 99 cents. No strings. Come on, why not let the kid inside of you read the novel that the kid inside of me waited a lifetime to write? You might be pleasantly surprised.

Cash’s astonishing intuitive gift – helping you tune in to the voice of the REAL you

Sometimes I forget that I have the most incredible gift. In fact, I wrote an article about it in Spirituality & Health magazine some while ago. 

And a reminder arrived this morning in the form of an email. It’s from a woman called Pat, whose handwriting I analyzed a couple of days ago – although I should probably stop using the word ‘analyzed’. That’s not what I do. What seems to happen here is that, once I have the writing, I’m able to tune in to a person’s energy. To the voice of their soul, I believe. It’s akin to psychometry. The handwriting merely offers a convenient access point.

When I do it, though, it’s as if floodgates open. Information about the writer is channelled through me in a mad rush, sometimes for a couple of hours. It’s all I can do to keep up, quite honestly. The whole thing feels like a spiritual download and the result can run to seven pages, or even twelve in one case.

For those who are ready, it can point to the next step in their personal evolution.

We’re not dealing with personality stuff here either. When people talk about ‘handwriting analysis’, they’re usually referring to graphology – the scientific study of writing. Again, that’s not what I do. This goes way deeper than that. It’s about the person’s whole life up to this point, their pain, their insecurities, where their road is taking them, whether they’re in their rightful place at this stage of their life or deviating from their soul’s path. That’s what makes it so fascinating.

So anyway, back to the point. This woman Pat sent me the most wonderful email.

Hi Cash,

I can’t begin to thank you enough for this unbelievably accurate summation of basically my entire life. WOW – my head is about to explode with the information (in a good way). I feel like you hit the mark on everything - it all resonates with me! Your gift is truly amazing!!

You’re the best. Have a wonderful day!!

Pat

It makes people feel so connected and validated, that’s what I love about it.

Some 20-odd years ago, I found I had a quite uncanny ability to see beyond the actual handwriting itself, into the very depths of the person who wrote it, with all that this entails. Their motivations, their strengths, their pain, their abilities, any leftover hurt from childhood, and so on. Since then I’ve appeared on radio and TV with it, written books and articles, and must have channelled thousands of writings.

There’s more information HERE if you’re interested.

Because it’s something I can do quite easily, I tend to forget the kind of impact it can have on a person.

Even as I was writing this piece, I received another email from someone else:

Wow is all I can say at this point.  I have read the analysis several times already and it made me cry, so obviously you got it right…. Thanks for being such a good mirror of what is really going on in my life.  As you know, I don’t let many people in to see the real me so this was a great wake up call.

If we ever meet in person, I would like to say thank you face to face.  I am grateful you had the courage to share your gift with others.

K.

In 1998 I had a book published by Warner Books about what I do. To seal that deal, I had to fly to New York and ‘perform’ my gift for a boardroom of editors and assistants. It was a daunting task and really intense, doing it on the fly like that. But they were so blown away by the accuracy that they made an offer for the book right there on the spot.

A couple of years ago, I was invited by a woman here in Los Angeles to meet with her Swedish family who’d flown to the U.S. for a short vacation. The five of us sat at a table and they each handed me pieces of handwriting. Not just their own, but writing belonging to their parents and grandparents. One by by one I went around the table, telling each person about themselves and their ancestors. And of course they were blown away. Mind you, on that occasion, so was I – because every piece of handwriting was in Swedish, and I don’t speak Swedish at all.

That’s how spooky this thing can get sometimes.

Leading astrologer Kristin Fontana said on her radio show, “I’m blown away by it. It was simply incredible. I don’t recommend anything unless it’s top notch, but…I highly recommend getting one of these done.” (You can hear her going nuts over it by clicking HERE.)

It’s a strange talent – some kind of psychometry, I think, or maybe I’m just unnaturally perceptive – and therefore something that, initially anyway, I could think of no practical use for, beyond being a sort of weird parlor game or fairground sideshow trick that I would do at parties or when specific people asked me to. That, however, changed over the years.  In time, I was forced to take it more seriously, not least because the reactions I got were consistently mind-blowing.

“Wow!!! What a gift you have. I have so much to think about since reading this. Thank you for sharing your gift and for doing it with such beauty and kindness. You are “right on” about everything…”  M.L.

“There was just so much that reflected me. I tried to find something (anything) that I can say  ”that is not me” or “that’s inaccurate.” I haven’t found anything”  D.B.

“My ‘report’ felt like a love letter from someone who knows me very well and who cares. I have read it several times and cried. I feel seen. It is truly a gift to me, not something I have often experienced.” D.W. 

And so on. As you can imagine, it’s incredibly heartwarming to receive comments like this, even though it’s for something that I don’t even feel I’m responsible for. I’m a channel for information, that’s all. This isn’t me staring at a piece of writing and thinking to myself, “Hm, now what shall I say about this person?” There’s no judgment involved. All I do is open up, tune in, and, bingo, out it all comes. The more handwriting I analyze and the more feedback I get, the more I sense that it is really helping people move away from the wrong path and onto the right one.

When this is hardest is at corporate events. People sit down in front of me, write something, I start to talk, and, a few minutes later when I look up, they’re crying. This happens a lot. “Finally,” they’re thinking, “somebody understands me.”

“I just wanted to let you know that your analysis was astoundingly accurate and enlightening. Even my family and closest friends would not have been able to articulate the entirety of what you did — especially with such a degree of detail and nuance. I have already found it quite helpful and I’m very grateful for your gift.” K.C.

“This analysis was amazingly spot on.  There is so much there. Reading it felt like I was getting a good, deep look at myself.” C.L.

“Thank you, thank you. I have some new intentions to set, some freedoms to focus on, each moment of the rest of my life to enjoy. You have a beautiful gift. I hope one of these days I run into you in person and I can give you a big hug.” M.M.  

“The first words out of my mouth were, “Oh my God, wow!” You are an amazing man, Cash Peters!! I am astounded at how well you know me…..you pretty much got me pegged.” K.K.

Isn’t that something? It takes my breath away sometimes, the reaction. People find it so life-affirming.

So if you’re interested and want the same done for yourself or a loved one, go to my website and follow the instructions. It’s very simple.

“I want to thank you for opening my mind, my heart, and my whole being. It is extraordinary that you knew the whole me better than I ever knew myself. There is no dollar amount that can measure the value of what you have given me. I am truly grateful.”  K.B.

Well, thanks. I am truly grateful too.

a little book about believing

I want to introduce you to A Little Book About Believing: The Transformative Healing Power of Faith, Love, and Surrender. It follows the quite astonishing events that took place in Brazil when I  underwent ‘spiritual surgery’ from renowned healer John of God, and it opens the door to a new perspective on what it takes to heal from serious illness. Oprah herself visited the same place in March 2012, and that’s about the biggest spiritual endorsement you can get these days.

Anyway, this book, as unlikely as it seems at first, might just change your life. I don’t say this glibly. The effect it’s having on people’s perceptions of life and how they live theirs is quite astounding, even to me – and I wrote it. And this only increases every day as more and more of you read it and absorb its revolutionary message.

Apparently, the U.S. Army has ordered copies of the book twice, a nurse in one California hospital bulk-ordered some to give to patients, and a famous actor who’s seriously ill right now insisted on taking me to lunch after reading it. Plus, countless copies have been mailed around the world to regular people like you and me who were, as they say, “sick and tired of being sick and tired” and hungry for alternatives to poisonous pharmaceutical drugs, invasive surgery, and harmful radiation. More than any of that, though, they were looking for hope, as well as an assurance that there might possibly, after all, be another way.

“Started reading the book last night at elevenish,” someone wrote on Twitter recently. ”Read til 4am, passed out. Finished it today less than an hour ago. I have you and your exquisite little book to thank for changing my life forever, intimately and positively.”

Those words gave me chills, quite honestly. And it’s a common reaction.

Having said all that, this wasn’t an easy book to get through the system. My agent turned it down outright, telling me there was no market for it and she wouldn’t take it on, which was a terrible bummer at the time.

However, rarely down for long, I did the next best thing: I dumped that agent for having no vision and set out to find a new one.

I approached a guy I knew who worked for a big New York agency. He’d loved my previous work, and, sure enough, he loved this too. Adored it actually, and said so. “I couldn’t put it down,” he gushed in an email. Which, to be honest, is what everyone says. “It kept me awake at nights thinking about it.”

So clearly he’d want to represent it, right?

Wrong!  Too dangerous, he said. “If I represent this, I’ll be in trouble. I come from a family of doctors. They’ll never forgive me.”

Unbelievable. But here’s the thing: he didn’t really mean it was dangerous, did he? He meant it was new and different, and he was scared of it. That’s been true of many wonderful books in the past. Everything from Harry Potter to Chicken Soup for the Soul, they’ve all met with resistance at the start. Obstacles are part of the game.

It was then that it struck me.

What I was facing here was not opposition, was it? It was a series of sobering encounters with reality, to help me clarify my intention and galvanize my resolve. That’s all adversity is. It clarifies and galvanizes. Only when you’re faced with obstacles and setbacks do you find out what you’re made of. Did I believe in my wonderful little book enough to keep going with it through thick and thin until it made it to the stores? That was the question.

YES! –  was the answer. Because, although I may lack certain qualities in other areas – God only knows! – I do have one quality which has got me through many a tight scrape in my life, and that’s fortitude. Otherwise called follow-through. Or persistence.

In the words of Sir Winston Churchill, I “…never, never, never, never give up.”

The Pay-Off

And sure enough, my fortitude paid off. The book is now a glorious, wonderful paperback. The kind of paperback I want to stroke and hug and flick through countless times, even though I know every word in it. Because I also know the amount of persistence it took to fend off the naysayers and get it to this point. If I built it, they would come, I was convinced of it.

And you know what? They did come. They came in impressive numbers, gushing praise, proving the naysayers wrong.

“Your book is important, incredibly well written, and totally compelling,” someone else wrote.

And today I found another comment on Facebook: “Wonderful, surprising, challenging, eye-opening, sensitive, touching….I’m running out of words. Just get it and read it. You will discover things about yourself, and about everything else! It’s life changing!!”

On page 18 of a little book about believing, it says the following:

“In this book we are crossing a bridge into the unknown, ready to challenge some of our holiest preconceptions about health and healing. In my view that’s a good thing. The mere fact that we’re discussing this topic at all will bring us to a place of new understanding. A place where hopefully someday we, the ordinary people, may not be such easy prey for serious illness and can instead choose to be its master, or even avoid it altogether.

“It’s an exciting journey, one that requires a flexible mind, a willing heart, and a readiness to release ingrained attitudes.”

Releasing ingrained attitudes is what the book industry needs to do too, by the sound of it. If they can turn their back on my ‘little book that could’, what other gems are they not publishing either? If you too have aspirations to write a book – or do anything else, frankly – and you believe in it enough and feel like the idea came from your very soul, then maybe all you need is to summon the necessary amount of faith and fortitude, keep your head held high, and never, never, never, never give up ’til you push on past the finish line.

a little book about believing: The Transformative Healing Power of Faith, Love, and Surrender (Penner Press).

Read an article on Patheos.com written by Cash about the book and the power of prayer to help heal the body. 

Listen to an interview about the book with Dr. Rita Louise. This is really good.