Hi Jones how you doing? Oh pretty good Smith except for one small problem.
What’s that? Well, since this chiropractor moved into my neck of the woods a couple of months ago, I’ve been a bit quiet. In fact I’m losing many patients to him; sometimes whole families. Patients these days seem to be much better informed about health problems than previously and are questioning our methods of diagnosis and treatment. One would think they had medical degrees .You’re right. Since the advent of the internet, mothers aren’t too keen on having their kids vaccinated, taking Ritalin or even having mammograms. Every process and procedure gets the third degree. It really is quite irritating.
Anyhow I met one of these patients that I had lost to the chiropractor on the golf course the other day and he told me that he still thought highly of me as a G.P. and that if any of his family were poisoned, bitten, shot, burnt had fractures or other obvious traumas they would be at my door very quickly. However, he continued, chiropractic made a lot more sense than conventional medicine when it came to most other aches and ailments including infectious diseases, because it addressed the cause rather than just the symptom .Not only that, he said chiropractic offered a means by which health could be protected. He likened it to maintaining a motor vehicle; in other words preventive. He said that in 1972 the World Health Organization established that the leading cause of death on the planet was Iatrogenic disease .Whatever is that? Iatrogenic means “doctor generated.” Oh come on .So why aren’t we seeing any of these iatrogenic patients dying at our feet? We are .Only it seems that it isn’t called Iatrogenic anymore .It is called AIDS. That’s not all .On the back cover of the book by Lynne Mc Taggart, “What Doctors Don’t Tell You” she claims that every year, 1.17 million British people –a population the size of Birmingham-are put in a hospital bed by a medical procedure gone wrong. Apparently when surgeons in Tel Aviv went on strike in the 1970’s, the death rate in the hospitals dropped by 70% and almost put the local undertakers out of business. In the South African Hupkes report of 1990, which was done in order to show the efficacy, cost-effectiveness and non-invasiveness of chiropractic with a view to establishing equal playing fields for chiropractic in South Africa’s health care delivery system, there are statistics showing that the country with the most medical doctors per capita viz. Israel had the highest infant mortality rate while the country with the least doctors per capita viz. Japan had the lowest. According to professor Hupkes, in 1990, the iatrogenic death rate in South African hospitals was one patient killed by the hospital per one hundred and fifty admissions. I doubt that it that low today.
A recent survey in the US showed that medical doctors are 9,000 times more likely to kill you accidentally than gun owners .I saw that for myself in David Icke’s book ‘Children of the Matrix’ .This book is a real eye opener .You should see what this guy Icke has to say about vaccines and AIDS .He reckons that AIDS is a total scam.
The guy needs help .Does he not read the statistics? Does he not know that thousands are dying every day from HIV? He maintains that they are dying from AZT .Well as we all know AZT was taken off the market because it was so dangerous. It is also a fact that Robert Gallo, the doctor who ‘discovered’ HIV was a fraud as was his research. That I found in a book called ‘Deadly Deception’ in which it is claimed that over five hundred of the world’s leading scientists are questioning the AIDS hypothesis. The author of this book, Robert Willner, M.D. Ph. D. maintains that there is no epidemic and that being HIV positive is not a death sentence, that AIDS is not contagious and that we are the victims of a multi-billion dollar fraud. He also details how the HIV test can be positive because of having a simple “Flu” vaccination, the measles or one of many other infectious diseases.
So what is killing all these people? .Apparently we are .Antibiotics and Chemotherapy actually destroys the Immune system. Says who? That you can find in a book called “Racketeering in Medicine”.
What moron would write such nonsense? It turns out that your ‘moron’ is a highly qualified medical doctor, James P. Carter, M. D. Dr. P.H. .What! One of our own turning against us! No, turning against the lies and deception of Organized Medicine which have destroyed our credibility and turned us against our true brothers in fighting disease. You don’t mean chiropractors? Correct. What you should do perhaps is visit the website
www.davidicke.com. Here you will find much on the subject of AIDS as well as the manipulation of medicine. As you may know, AZT used to be a treatment for cancer but was banned from use. Why? Because it was so toxic. Icke points out that when you consider how poisonous and destructive standard chemotherapy “treatments” are that do have approval for use, just how toxic must AZT be. Icke believes that the Illuminati who are the Global Elite, want to rid the planet of every person that is not clad in a white skin; especially here in Africa. Sounds a bit like the Third Reich. Well there is enough evidence to suggest that there is a Fourth Reich, with much the same objective. With many blacks still being superstitious, if one is able to convince them that they are going to die from a bogus bug, the conspirators are half way there. To complete the scam, convince them that some obsolete and highly dangerous drug will cure them and there you have it. David Icke calls it genocide and in fact accuses Glaxo-Wellcome the manufacturers of AZT accordingly. So what hope does David Icke have for our beautiful South Africa? To quote David Icke “this deadly scam is being played out in Africa like never before with the “victory” of the people to have unlimited access to AZT because of price reductions. If people do not wake up there, the population of South Africa is going to plummet in the next few years and it won’t be from HIV it will be from AZT and its like.” To continue, David Icke says this of Glaxo- Wellcome. “Glaxo-Wellcome, the makers and marketers of AZT, are purveyors of genocide and those directly involved are knowingly doing this. These facts make them guilty of first degree mass murder. If that is not true, Glaxo-Wellcome, then sue me. Go on …make my day.”
It seems that medicine has made a fundamental error by ignoring the fact that the body is a self organizing, self limiting, and self healing entity and is not dependent on drugs and surgery for optimizing health. Yes, medicine used to be a noble profession but that was before certain greedy people, David Icke calls them the Illuminati, saw an opportunity to fleece the world while at the same time doing a little ethnic cleansing and at the expense of the populations they are decimating. This, Icke says, is implemented by creating disease through vaccination, chemotherapy and antibiotics and then convincing these people that they cannot survive without other drugs and medications made by Illuminati owned pharmaceutical companies .By the way did you know that George Bush, who Icke says is an Illuminati operative, owns Prozac and did you know that Prozac is associated with murder? Now where did you find that little gem? That came from the book by Lynne Mc Taggart called “What Doctors Don’t Tell You” sub-headed “the truth about the dangers of modern medicine.” What do you think of that?
That is a tough one. So who is this Illuminati bunch anyway?
They are the Global Elite who control the world, its’ governments and it’s peoples and whose objective it is to have a global fascist state complete with the enslavement of the entire human race .You don’t really believe in all that conspiracy theory garbage do you?
If someone told the sheep on your uncle’s farm that they were destined for slaughter, they would laugh at you. In fact Icke refers to the happily uninformed masses as the “sheeple.” He says we are deliberately kept misinformed in order for the Illuminati to manipulate us more easily. This they do through the advertising media which, by the way, they just happen to own. Even Medicine has been manipulated in order to suit the ends and objectives of the Illuminati owned drug cartels.
Medicine not only doesn’t have too many plausible answers but there is a flood of books exposing a very ugly side to our profession and mostly written by our own. Millions of people are killed and maimed by medical mishaps every year and we have the nerve to call chiropractors quacks. Take Mandrax as an example. How many lives were ruined by doctors prescribing this lethal drug while telling their patients it was good for them? Thalidomide is another case in point. The words ‘trust me I’m a doctor’ really are quite ludicrous. It is also no secret, that the cruelest people during the Second World War were the doctors of the Third Reich. Men and women, who had taken the Hippocratic Oath, committed the most unspeakably horrendous experiments, especially on children and young women. There is also much evidence to suggest that the world’s most notorious serial killer was a medical doctor. That was Jack the Ripper.
Tell me are medical researchers still doing vivisection?
Yes, as far as I know.
SN: Thousands of innocent animals are cut to pieces while they are still alive every year. All of this butchering is done under the guise of research. Often the animal’s vocal cords are removed before the procedure begins so that the ‘researcher’ doesn’t have to listen to the animal screaming—especially dogs. [Taken from the book ‘Inhuman experiments on humans and pets’]
Did I tell you about a study that took place in New York in 1921 by two of our dear and departed colleagues?
No.
As it would be, Henry Winsor M.D. and Abraham Towbin M.D. decided to dissect fifty cadavers in order to determine whether or not there were evidences of the association of visceral [organ] disease with vertebral deformities of the same Sympathetic segments.[ie. disease associated with the same part of the spine from which the organ is innervated]
It was found that there was a very definite association between diseased organs and the spine. For example, twenty six of the cadavers had lung disease. All of them had a problem in the upper dorsal spine [which is just below the neck and is where the nerves which supply the lungs with life force leave the spine]. There were twenty heart and pericardium cases, eighteen of which had spinal problems in the upper five dorsals two with spinal problems in the C/7- T/1 area. Bulls eye again. In fact there was a 100% correlation. Sadly of course all information that could possibly threaten the medical establishment’s monopoly is quickly suppressed.
Medicine will eventually have to admit that the spinal hygiene taught by chiropractors is essential to optimal health and is an area of health care which has deliberately been ignored.
They say that chiropractic began when Daniel David Palmer, adjusted somebody’s neck back in 1895 and restored his hearing. If that was really the case, how come ear nose and throat problems aren’t being taken care of by the chiropractors? Oh but they are. Recent research comparing the health of two hundred chiropractors’ children with two hundred medical doctors’ children showed that there was a 19% no occurrence rate in the medical camp compared to a 79% no occurrence rate for the chiropractic kids. Isn’t it a shame that millions of kids around the world are denied the benefits of chiropractic care, especially in this area, because gate keeper GPs like us are slaves to the pharmaceutical industry and prescribe an Illuminati Industry antibiotic which ultimately helps to destroy the child’s immune system. That is sad.
I suppose chiropractors have even got an answer to multiple sclerosis.
They do.
A website you can visit is
http://www.jvsr.com and you will see that research done on 81 patients shows that correction of upper neck misalignments [vertebral subluxations] may reverse the progression of both Multiple Sclerosis [MS] and Parkinson’s disease [PD].
The research was performed by Erin Elster, D. C., an Upper Cervical Chiropractor in Boulder, Colorado, who compiled data from 44 MS patients and 37 PD patients treated over the past five years. After treating upper neck injuries in 81 patients, 91% of MS patients and 92% 0f PD patients improved, suggesting that correction of neck injuries stimulated a reversal of MS and PD. According to Dr. Elster, traumas to the head, neck and upper spine can result in vertebral subluxations which interfere with the normal functioning of the nervous system. She maintains that by aligning the upper two segments it is possible to effect the necessary correction.
Now for a little background
Let us put our conversation on hold for a moment and examine the reasons why the upper cervical spine is such a potent area for correcting vertebral subluxations and turning sickness and misery into vibrant health and happiness. It is common knowledge that if one wishes to seriously injure or kill somebody, a good place to start is the upper neck. The judicial fracture involves the second cervical vertebra specifically and it interests me that few if any medical practitioners as well as some chiropractors have come to the conclusion that if this is the big ‘switch off’ place in the body it is also the big ‘switch on’ place. If this were the case, perhaps more care would be taken by medical personnel when delivering babies and more cognizance would be taken when sending the victim of a low amplitude motor vehicle accident, who is desperately in need of chiropractic care, home armed only with a packet of pain killers and a cervical collar.
It was determined in the Wilkes vs. AMA law suit [The American Chiropractic Association Successfully sued The American Medical Association, Radiologists and Surgeons in 1987 for conspiring to destroy the profession of chiropractic in America and elsewhere] that at least 40% of all hospital admissions need chiropractic care. Sadly for those people, the ‘dog in the manger’ attitude of the Medical Mafia precludes such a luxury. The time of course will come when the world wakes up to the fact that all patients irrespective of what is wrong with them, will respond quicker and better when chiropractic care is included in the overall application of any treatment program. Yes, the big switch off place in the body is the upper cervical spine and is recognized by chiropractors as the big switch on place in the body. One can liken the spine to the distribution board in the kitchen where there are many white switches for the fridge, stove, lights etc. and one big green switch which controls everything [the big switch off place for home’s electrical supply]. The upper cervical spine can be likened to the green switch.
Because of the potency of the upper cervical spine many of the early chiropractors used to work in this area almost to the exclusion of the rest of the spine. By doing so, they were able to produce results in seemingly remote areas of the body that most students of anatomy would not know were connected.
Apart from the obvious ligamentous and muscular damage sustained in the average motor vehicle accident, other more sinister damage is also incurred which is not even considered by medicine let alone treated. I believe that damaged necks destroy people physically, mentally, socially and professionally. How many people are boarded unnecessarily because chiropractic services are not offered as a treatment option? It is like scrapping a motor vehicle that will not start in the morning because of an electrical problem because it does not suit the racketeering agenda. After all we did send samples of oil and petrol in to the pathology lab and all came back ok. Perhaps we should try changing the air in the tires?.
The reason why the upper cervical spine is so important to optimal health is because of its anatomical structure and the proximity to
Some of the more important anatomical structures affected by the upper cervical vertebral subluxations may include the spinal cord, spinal nerves, recurrent meningeal nerve, vertebral arteries, carotid arteries, vagus nerves, glossopharyngeal nerves the spinal accessory nerve and the sympathetic chain. According to many researchers the most important ganglion in the sympathetic chain is the superior cervical ganglion. This ganglion is of special interest to me because it is found anatomically in very close proximity to the ‘big switch’area. I believe the exact location is at the level of the Atlas vertebra [C/1]
It is believed by many authorities that the Superior Cervical Ganglion is the centre for vasomotor control of the cerebral vasculature [blood supply to the brain]. This is well documented in the section “The upper cervical subluxation.” If this is the case and upper cervical subluxations, often incurred at birth, interfere with vasomotor function in the brain, one does not have to be a rocket scientist to appreciate that the upper cervical adjustments delivered by chiropractors are able to produce such amazing results.
Sometimes Jones I wish that I had studied chiropractic; it certainly makes a lot of sense. Don’t tell me you agree with these charlatans .I mean they aren’t even real Doctors.
I suppose that depends on one’s definition of the word doctor. The Oxford Concise Dictionary defines doctor as “teacher”
So what are they teaching at the end of the day and what education do chiropractors themselves boast of? Essentially they are teaching us that it normal for us to be healthy; that sickness, although common, is not normal and that the body has the inherent ability to heal itself. As far as the chiropractor’s education is concerned it compares very favorably with our own and in fact surpasses ours in some subjects. Then they study adjusting techniques radiography and radiology. And how long does this take? The same time it takes one of us. Chiropractic as a means of restoring health is old news. Apparently spinal adjusting has been around for quite some time. The Egyptians , Greeks , Indians , Chinese and others have been adjusting spines for thousands of years .Even our own father of medicine Hippocrates said “In case of illness look first to the spine and not to medicaments.” It is believed that Hippocrates did in fact adjust the spine according to a painting by Leonardo da Vinci .
In the light of all this iatrogenic disease I have to agree that there is scope for concern .Perhaps it is time we questioned the so called achievements of science .Thomas Edison once said “The doctor of the future will give no medicine but will interest his patients in the care of the human frame and in the cause and prevention of disease.” What we need to remember is that the nervous system- the brain and spinal cord are the first part of the body to develop in the fetus. The nervous system is the master control system of the body .It does control all growth, function, development and resistance. Therefore the chiropractic rationale concerning bio-mechanics and its relationship to bio-electrics does have substance.
Did you say that chiropractic can help raise the level of resistance .Yes-have you forgotten that the immune system is controlled by the autonomic system and the Vagus nerve .That’s great. So that’s how chiropractors deal with infectious diseases. When in doubt give the atlas a clout.
The germ theory of disease as far as I can remember, dictates that there are three basic considerations .Firstly there is the virulence of the organisms, the concentration of the organisms and lastly the susceptibility of the host. It seems that the chiropractor is more concerned with the latter aspect .They maintain that micro-organisms, which they regard as scavengers, do not cause the diseases with which they are associated but rather that by the vertebral subluxation interfering with the immune system, allows bacteria to accumulate .One American chiropractor, Dr .Gold jokingly said “If the germ theory of disease were true, there would be nobody alive to believe it.” The real nail in the medical argument coffin here is to be found in the book Racketeering in medicine on page 23.
“Chemotherapy alone can destroy a patient’s immune system and biological methods usually require a functioning immune system. Sadly in this supposed age of enlightenment ,the ridicule of the medical orthodoxy and a rigid system of testing and approval[ calcified by the same suspicions of alternative therapies that plagued discoveries for centuries] keeps these treatments from ill patients who might benefit from them ,as De Felice , Director of the Foundation for Innovation in medicine ,in 1987 lamented”.
I was told by my delinquent patient that according to his chiropractor stresses of all kinds cause the vertebral subluxation including chemical stress .Therefore using chemotherapy to treat disease is about as stupid as trying to put a fire out with petrol.
From what I have been given to understand, Jones, chiropractors believe that what ever wisdom created the body, designed it to be healthy and without the need for drugs and surgery most of the time. Isn’t that what our own Father of Medicine once said? “Physician heal thyself” What really intrigues me is that Hippocrates might well have been a chiropractor.
So what does it cost to see a chiropractor? The first consultation together with a set of full spine x-rays will cost about five hundred rand and then subsequent visits are around one hundred and fifty rand. When you think of it, chiropractic is very inexpensive. A single stitch at a local hospital can cost in the region of one thousand rand.
If the public get to know about the cost –effectiveness and the efficacy of chiropractic, the monopoly which Medicine has enjoyed at the expense of the suppression of innovation and the ruin of billions of people’s health it is history. What are we going to do? My patient’s chiropractor believes that all disciplines have a contribution to make, however he believes that the most important aspect of health care and maintenance is a good nerve supply coupled with good nutrition and clean air. Nevertheless it seems that he would like to work with other disciplines in a spirit of cooperation with the patients’ needs coming first .That sounds fine for sore backs and stiff necks but please tell me how chiropractic can help something like endocrine disorders. As we all know there is no nerve supply to the endocrine system from the spine.
That is correct; however, there is a nerve supply to the arteries which supply these glands with raw materials and therefore it is feasible that vertebral subluxations by disrupting blood flow to the glands in question could pose a serious problem. Let’s take a look at the thyroid gland for example.
Endocrine disorders
According to our chiropractic friend, Medicine has forgotten that the nervous system is the master control system of the body and that no process or function can happen efficiently without its influence.
The thyroid gland, as with all the other ductless glands of the endocrine system, cannot function for long without the steady stream of raw materials which reach it by way of the blood. Is it not possible that the amount of end product synthesized by any gland is controlled by the demand made by the body and that this is achieved by controlling the amount of raw material made available? This would be done by controlling the diameter of the artery supplying same. This process as we know it is called vasomotor function and is controlled entirely by the sympathetic outflow of the Autonomic Nervous System and as such, is, it would seem, also subject to the ravages of the vertebral subluxation .This is why chiropractic is able to boast of amazing results when it comes to working with disorders of the endocrine system.
So how are these subluxations incurred in the first place? Birth Trauma, sports injuries, horse falls and motor vehicle accidents must account for quite a few. Repetitive stress injury in the work place must also contribute a fair share.
The chiropractor says that all forms of stress even emotional stress, whether singularly or in combination with other stresses cause vertebral subluxations. He says that the ultimate stress is the vertebral subluxation because it is a stress to which the body cannot adapt. He also uses the name “silent killer” because he says that often the subluxation exists and, for example, is interfering with heart function without producing any pain in the lower neck where the nerves to the cardiac plexus exit. It could be said that one is fortunate to have a sore neck because that way one, within the parameters of our cultivated ignorance, courtesy of the pharmaceutical industry brainwashing us with their lies, would at least know to consult a chiropractor. That way the heart would be helped even if nobody knew it was happening. Let us remind ourselves that the nerves which supply the arms and shoulders leave the spine from the same place as the nerves supplying the heart, lungs, and thyroid artery.
You have to admit that medicine has long known about the correlation between stress and sickness both mental and physical. Chiropractic philosophy has simply filled in the gap. Stress produces subluxations and subluxations produce sickness. For example, if a man was mechanically stressed in the area of the spine at age twenty; at age sixty, when subjected to severe emotional stress could easily have a heart attack.
The vertebral subluxation in part, has to be seen as a departure from the norm in terms of structural integrity which then results in neurologic and vascular [blood] disturbances which we interpret as disease.
Actually I have noticed how the health of many patients, once they have been subjected to any sort of major stress, immediately go into a state of steady decline.
Our chiropractor believes that once the cervical spine [neck] loses its lordosis, [curve] especially as the result of a motor vehicle accident, that is when things start to wrong with a patient’s health.
Come to think of it, since Mary had that little rear end collision about five years ago, she has changed in many ways. I even sent her to Bill for a psychiatric evaluation. Then I had her evaluated by an endocrinologist because I thought she was going into menopause.
Surely thirty four is a bit young for that?
Without question but the symptoms spoke for themselves. After her accident she became very moody with things getting even worse at ‘that time of the month.’ She seems to have lost interest in living. Our sex life is almost non existent; she is always ‘too tired’ or she has a headache.
Have you noticed any other changes?
Yes. I have noticed that she has developed this bump at the base of her neck. She is beginning to take on that classic ‘old dowager’ look with a personality to match. Another thing which does little to enhance her sex appeal is that she has put on about six or seven kilograms since her accident. This of course makes her even more depressed and dare I say less attractive. I have to confess that I am not enjoying being married to this “other” woman.
What do you think our chiropractor would do in my situation?
He would most likely look for vertebral subluxations and get rid of them.
You really believe that don’t you?
Yes I do. Let me explain. I have seen many of my own patients, especially female, go through exactly the same metamorphosis as your Mary. A once cheerful, vibrant fun loving slim and attractive woman turning into a monster is an all too common phenomenon. I have seen a lot of it and drugs do not seem to help. In fact seem only to exacerbate the situation. The one thing most of these women have in common is a motor vehicle accident or a horse fall and the strange bump at the base of the neck.
I wonder what the bump could be?
Well if it is as the chiropractor suggests, loss of lordosis, then that bump has to be made by the misaligned vertebrae, usually in the C/5 C/6 and C6 C/7 area. Interestingly enough, this is the part of the spine where the sympathetic outflow that controls the thyroid artery exits the spine. Perhaps that’s where the weight gain problem has its origin.
Does Mary ever complain about chest pain, sore arms or shoulders?
As I recall she does.
Did she have this before the accident?
No. Only recently. She says that she doesn’t sleep well and often wakes up with a lame arm or pins and needles in her fingers.
Sounds like that old C5/ C6 scenario. Perhaps Mary needs to see our celebrated chiropractor. I promise not to tell.
More background
Authorities on whiplash agree that the most highly stressed area of the neck is C5/ C/6.Most x -ray reports on the cervical spine are replete with an almost stereotyped description of loss of lordosis or spondylosis blaming C/5 C/6 as the culprit.
I am willing to bet that everyone with a C/5 C/6 problem will have much more wrong with them than a sore arm or a stiff neck. People will begin to realize that it is of utmost importance to at least keep the neck in well maintained alignment for the sake of general health. It is also interesting that while chiropractic concentrates its entire effort in restoring nerve integrity medicine shows no interest at all. One would expect a cardiologist for example to be interested in the area C/7 to T/5 as shown in the cadaver exercise. One might also expect the gynecologist to look at the nerve supply to the blood supply of the ovaries and uterus occasionally. Sadly their Illuminati controllers do not allow them to think for them selves. The only options open for heart patients are drugs and surgery. The only option for menstrual problems is a hysterectomy which I believe is a ‘money for jam’ procedure. The medical profession are themselves in a tight spot because failure to comply with Illuminati dictated protocols and procedures could spell the end of a career. In other words: don’t rock the racketeering boat.
Are you still there Smith? Go for it.
Another thing I heard is that once you start using chiropractic you sort of get hooked and have to keep on going. That is what I have also heard but what about dentistry and personal hygiene? Once you discover the benefits of any kind of hygiene it usually makes sense to keep on using it. I think what happens is that people under regular chiropractic care become almost addicted to feeling so good and need a regular chiropractic ‘fix’ so to say. The fact is that we live in a very stressful environment and because stress causes subluxations on a daily basis, we probably need chiropractic more often than we think we do. I believe this chiropractor speaks about a constitution/stress-load co-efficient which determines an individual’s tolerance to stress. For example it is conceivable that a man of thirty, who by necessity has to make a fifty meter sprint to save his drowning child, would survive the experience better than the child’s grand father. It could be said that the father of the child had a better constitution/stress-load co-efficient than the grand father. By the same token, there are elderly people who are much fitter than people many years younger than they are. The big question is why? Why aren’t we told that health can be protected? Why are we made to poison our children with dangerous immune system destroying vaccinations and antibiotics? Something has got to be done. We cannot go on like this. We have been lied to by our Alma Maters; telling us that chiropractic was some kind of massage and didn’t make any sense. Chiropractic makes a lot of sense. After all, our own dear father, Hippocrates, did say “In case of illness look first to the spine.”
Of culture and visions
HAZEL FRIEDMAN meets sangoma Credo Mutwa to talk about the future -- and a new exhibition
IHAVE a sick, disgusting obsession to make this country great -- not through guns and revolution but through love and laughter." Credo Mutwa's eyes practically sink behind his tree-thick lenses and disappear into bloated cheeks as he breaks into a smile as broad as the Limpopo. We're sitting in a rented apartment, supplied courtesy of Absa Bank (who recently subsidised his journey to the British Museum of Mankind in London during December 1996).
There, he unearthed and identified various ancient South African artefacts -- retrieved from over 5 000 pieces that have, until now, lain virtually entombed. He brought them home to South Africa for the Living Symbols of Africa exhibition.
They include Zulu love-letter necklaces, Ndebele beaded aprons, ceremonial Zulu spears, knobkerries and beaded cattle horns. They have, inevitably, been stripped of the traditional, historical contexts in which they functioned as integral components of daily tribal life. Yet Mutwa believes -- perhaps naively -- that their presence and once-dense symbolic resonances can be resurrected.
"These artefacts could set South Africa dreaming again for their stories are pointers towards greater knowledge, wisdom and pride," says the man widely regarded as one of the few remaining cultural visionaries in South Africa capable of re-fertilising the eroded soil of South Africa's ancient past.
Yet Mutwa is certainly not one of a kind. Men like him still live in the hills and valleys of rural South Africa, recounting ancient lore and legend and prophesying spiritual renewal. What separates Mutwa from his equally sagacious peers is the public visibility of the man. This, coupled with his extraordinary verbal prowess and a seemingly unlimited database of historical references and parables, has secured him the status of mystic healer -- the last of an endangered sacred species.
But who is Credo Mutwa really? "A foolish man who has dreams," he says humbly. Is he a gentle, unashamedly romantic proponent of love as the cure for all ills; a visionary ahead of his time? Or is he a charlatan and opportunist who consorted with the enemy? That depends on the angle of vision.
A proud Zulu with an unashamedly unpoliticised conscience, Mutwa has travelled the flimsy line between veneration and vilification. He is a celebrated author and sculptor and has published, exhibited and travelled widely, attending conferences on shamanism, philosophy and the arts. People still come to him from afar to be healed. Yet during the 1976 Soweto riots he was labelled an apartheid collaborator.
His son was killed by comrades, his house was burnt down and he was literally chased from the township. He landed up in Mafikeng where, with the approval of his friend President Lucas Mangope, he established a traditional healing village, which developed into a popular tourist attraction.
Then, Mangope fell and Mutwa's sun seemed about to set. Shunned by the new North West Province legislature, in 1995 he was evicted from the village because "it stood on land belonging to the Parks Board". Today his original cultural village is in ruins but he has built another in the Shamwari Game Reserve.
"I believe that if African culture is fully utilised in all its richness it can benefit hundreds of thousands of people, he says, unearthing self-drawn sketches of African warriors engaged in traditional wrestling matches. "Today, we have been inspired by kick-boxing from the Far East but centuries ago this was common practice, alongside bare fist and stick fighting. It was good fun and it served as an outlet for anger and ensured peaceful inter-tribal coexistence. If these sports had to be revived today they would become a major tourist attraction and job creator."
Mutwa makes no claims to cultural purity, nor does he advocate the return to a mythical South Africa untainted by change or outside influence. He translates life as a series of confluences of different histories -- biblical and secular. And these he liquidly conflates into lessons for the present and future.
"During the iconoclastic Middle Ages the monasteries secretly preserved the ancient knowledge of Europe. Not only the Christian teachings but the ancient Greek Homeric philosophies as well. And whoever started the Renaissance built a mountain of creativity," says Mutwa.
He adds: "All humans want recognition, whether they are soccer players or serial killers, because the greatest expression of human freedom is being recognised for one's value. And the greatest anchor for democracy is creativity. One cannot have democracy on the dung-heap of crime. But if you create shining winds of beauty and unleash creativity it can reform even the most hardened of criminals."
Living Symbols of Africa is on display at the Absa Gallery in Johannesburg until April 15
Credo: "I wish to appeal to the world. First, I am not a quack or a charlatan or a sensationalist. I am an old man who has seen much. I wish the world to know that there is a faint ray of hope that emanates from South Africa.It is a plant which is almost on the point of extinction, a plant called 'Suderlandia Fructosate'. This plant works miracles on people who have the terrible disease called Aids. And it is so miraculous that the miracles are seen within a week or a fortnight. A person, who was lying down on the point of death, when given this plant, rises and has much energy and is free of depression and has a good appetite. And I feel that as a nation, as a matter of world emergency, because the big scientists have not produced a viable safe treatment for aids. I say that this plant should be planted by all caring governments, by all caring organisations and that it should be given to human beings free of charge.You don't have do anything with the plant. You are going to laugh about this. You plant the plant okay, but then you take the little leaves and the red flowers from it and you put them in a tea cup and you pour much boiling water on it. And then you let the cup stand there, like tea you know, and you just drink, the patient just drinks.You can take them straight from the garden. You don't need to dry them first? because if you dry them too much they somehow loose some of their good spirit. Now this is all you do.You know, what I say is this. I can't cure the people of Africa without curing the people of the Caribbean, because Aids is running around the world. If I cure the people here and they get better, more Aids will come in and eat the same people whom I tried to cure. So the whole world must be cured.You need to take a fine sandpaper and sandpaper each little seed. The seeds are very tiny, tinier than grape seeds. And you sandpaper each seed and you plant it in a small flower pot. And you allow it to grow until it is about maybe four inches, three inches high. Then you take it and you plant it in the big veld (grassland). You can make a big garden, maybe twenty acres or so and you plant there. They just grow. There are farmers who have already planted them but they are too few. This is a world emergency and we must not be selfish.In the last few years or so there has been many claims made by people about plants and herbs, which they say are beneficial in the fight against aids. Some of these claims have proven to be false and at best have proven to be exaggerations. But in South Africa there is plan, which is on the brink of extinction.This plant is called by white people in English 'Suderlandia Fructosate'. This plant is also called by the Afrikaans people 'kankerbos', which means cancer bush or 'kalkoenbos', which means turkey bush. Now this plant was known in South Africa and other parts of Sub-Saharan Africa for thousands of years. It was an anti-depressant, it was appetite booster, it was also and still is a dramatic booster of the human immune system.For many years African people and Xhoi-xhoi people and Xhoi-san people as well as Bantu people used this plant in the fight against cancer, and it was very effective there, and it still is. And they used it also in the fight against diseases like tuberculosis before there was streptomycin and other drugs to fight tuberculosis.In the old days when ordinary venereal disease like gonorrhea, syphilis and others were as incurable as Aids is today, our people used this plant to fight those diseases. If they had not had this plant, the black people of Southern Africa would have been destroyed just as the Australian Aborigines were destroyed, and other races of aboriginal people in other parts of the world were brought to extinction by diseases brought in from Europe.Now, we have found... me and a group of doctors, that it is having a dramatic impact in creating a better quality of life. People with full-blown aids, people who had been sent home to die find a better quality of life within the space of a month or a fortnight. I do not claim that this plant, dramatic as the results are is the cure for Aids.I say it is a stopgap, which must be used by all human kind in order to halt the disease of Aids. Until such a time as the pharmaceutical scientists can come up with a real cure, a cure which is not at all toxic. I say that this plant 'Suderlandia' is not at all toxic. One 'Suderlandia plant' is capable of treating 10 people, and we need plantations of this plant.There is hope, a little ray of hope, a green ray of hope, emanating from South Africa, and I call on all human fellow human beings to make it larger, to spread hope throughout the world. I challenge you to create a safer, healthier world."
Credo Mutwa - a short biography and bibliography of this KwaZulu-Natal author.
zoomCredo Mutwa Vusamazulu Credo Mutwa (1921 - ) was born in Natal. His father was a former Catholic catechist from the Embo district near Inanda. His mother was the descendant of a long line of Zulu medicine-men and custodians of tribal lore and customs. His parents parted shortly after Vusamazulu's birth, because his mother refused to convert to Christianity. Mutwa was educated by his maternal grandfather, a medicine-man, and carrying the bags for him, the boy learned some of the older man's secrets.In 1928 Vusamazulu was taken to the Transvaal by his father. They lived on a farm near Potchefstroom, where his father was a labourer. After twenty years of different farms the father found employment in one of the Johannesburg mines as a carpenter. Mutwa himself found employment in 1954 in a curio shop in Johannesburg and has been working there ever since. When he visited his mother and grandfather in Zululand after thirty years of absence, he renounced Christianity at their command, and underwent the ceremony of purification, in order to begin training as a medicine-man. He also prepared himself to assume the post of custodian of tribal lore and customs in the event of his grandfather's death. Mutwa has written African tales which have their roots in oral, traditional Zulu culture. Two well known collections of these stories are Indaba My Children (1966) and My People: writings of a Zulu Witchdoctor (1969).
zoomSelected Work
From Indaba, My Children (1966)The beautiful queen of the Wakambi, the peerless Marimba, was walking through the forest with her handmaidens on her way to the riverside to bathe her body in the cool waters. Birds sang in the trees overhead and the forest was heavy with the scent of thousands of flowering shrubs. Myriads of butterflies and colourful insects were fluttering in clouds of white, blue and brown among the wild flowers and the buzzing song of nyoshi, the bee, was clearly heard in the blinding sunlight. Timid hares galloped through the long grass and the cooing voice of le-iba, the turtle dove, added yet more enchantment to an already enchanting day.The sky was the purest of blue, Only a few clouds were to be seen in the eternal expanse of the heavens and those were as soft as wool and as delicate as the body of a Sun-maiden.As the queen went through the forest, her great-eyes were as alive as moon crystal. From the enchanting woodland scene she drank in inspiration as the grateful grass drinks the morning dew. Where the ordinary man sees only the trees,' she saw them in their dignity and superb beauty; and where the ordinary man hears only the rustling of the breeze through the branches of the trees, and the senseless twittering of the numerous birds, she heard the soul-stirring verses of the Song of Creation.She was not very far from the river when she saw a number of young boys gathered together above something that lay in the tall grass, The boys were talking and gesticulating excitedly and were all patting one amongst them on the back in obvious congratulation. Their voices floated through the scented air into the keen ears of Marimba and, as one might expect from this great woman, she left her retinue and went to investigate. What she saw there filled her with anger and disgust, and tears sprang unbidden into her eyes. One of these boys had invented a particularly vicious and cowardly kind of snare. With which to catch young antelopes. He had tried it out and it had worked all too well. Lying on the ground With a cruel noose around her lifeless neck was a young steenbuck ewe which had fallen a victim of this fiendish trap, and the poor animal had only a few days to go before it produced young."Which of you sons of night-howling, splay-footed, green-bellied hyenas invented this thing?" demanded Marimba hotly.The boys made no reply. They just stared at their dusty feet in very frightened silence. Two of them wetted their loinskins at the same time, much to the amusement of the royal handmaidens."I asked you a question, you mud-wallowing tadpoles! " cried Marimba. At last one of them said in a voice that was hardly a whisper: "I . , . I did, Oh Great One.""You did, did you?" cried Marimba in a burst of ecstatic fury. "Now indeed, you are going to suffer for your deed!""Mercy please, Oh Great One," whispered the boy."Marimba has no mercy for bloodthirsty little idiots of your kind," said the angry queen coldly. "Breathe into the nostrils of that animal and bring it back to life."The astonished followers of Marimba saw the boy lift the head of the dead buck and actually try to breathe life back into it. There was a gale of feminine laughter which the angry chieftainess quelled with a look of cold fury in her glittering eyes. A deep respectful silence settled upon the group of watching maidservants while the boy, with sweating face and inflated cheeks, and a heart that was almost stopping with cold fear, huffed and puffed in vain to revive the dead animal."That animal had better come back to life, Oh little vermin," said the princess cruelly. "If it does not you will soon wish that you had never been born."The badly frightened boy tried his best. He tried everything he could while the queen watched him coldly and impassively, and the handmaidens watched with broad smiles on their faces."Why", said Marimba at long last, "it seems to me as if you find it easier to kill an animal than to bring it back to life!'
zoomZulu Huts - from eshowe.com
Bibliography
1966. Indaba My Children.1966. Africa Is My Witness.1969. My People: writings of a Zulu Witchdoctor.n.d. uNosilimela.
Vinyl1980.com: Qba welcome to vinyl1980.com, finally.
