Historical Use of EnemasI don't think this is real The second sentence of the middle paragraph looks like it's based on Matthew 23:27, only reapplied to colonic irrigation. And "the temple of your body" has a New Testament ring as well (cf. 1 Corinthians 6:19). And overall it just doesn't sound right. Does anyone know what the source is?
The use of therapeutic coffee enemas began during WWI; however, water enemas have been used for detoxification throughout the ages. In fact, the Vatican holds a third-century Aramaic manuscript in which enema directions are graphically transcribed. In the book The Gerson Therapy by Charlotte Gerson, daughter of famed cancer specialist Max Gerson M.D., and Morton Walker, D.P.M., these ancient instructions for detoxification are recorded:
I tell you truly, the angel of water shall cast out of your body all uncleanness which defiled it without and within. And all unclean and evil-smelling things shall flow out of you... I tell you truly, holy is the angel of water who cleanses all that is unclean and makes all evil-smelling things of a sweet odor...
Think not that it is sufficient that the angel of water embrace you outwards only. I tell you truly, the uncleanness within is greater by much than the uncleanness without. And he who cleanses himself without, but within remains unclean, is like to tombs that outwards are painted fair, but are within full of all manner of horrible uncleanness and abominations...
Seek, therefore, a large trailing gourd, having a stalk the length of a man; take out its inwards and fill it with water from the river which the sun has warmed. Hang it upon the branch of a tree, and kneel upon the ground before the angel of water, and suffer the end of the stalk of the trailing gourd to enter your hinder parts, that the water may flow through all your bowels. Afterwards rest kneeling on the ground...and pray to the angel of water that he will free your body from every uncleanness and disease. Then let the water run out from your body, that it may carry away from within it all the unclean and evil-smelling things... And you shall see with your eyes and smell with your nose all the abominations and uncleanness which defiled the temple of your body... tormenting you with all manner of pains. I tell you truly, baptism with water frees you from all of these. Renew your baptizing with water on every day of your fast, till the day when you see that the water which flows out of you is as pure as the river’s foam... (1)
1. Gerson, C. and Walker, M.: The Gerson Therapy. NY, NY: Kensington Publishing Corp., pp. 156 - 172, 2001
UPDATE: Stephen Goranson e-mails:
This text appears to be based on Edmond Bordeaux Szekely's "Essene Gospel of Peace," which he claimed was a translation from ancient Aramaic, Hebrew, and Old Slavonic texts, but which is instead a twentieth-century fabrication. Another book with a similar text, The Holy Movement, Matters of the Colon by Debora Lee Meehan (2000, according to Google Books, which sometimes gets the dates wrong), oddly attributes (p. 50) the translation to "Edmund Waldo Schecklee" and introduces it with "Following is s condensed citation of the Essene gospel of peace." Perhaps in modified (condensed here should read paraphrased or altered) form to avoid copyright disputes? Even though the Szekely text is fiction. I am reminded that Morton Smith in 1958 claimed copyright on "Manuscript Material from the Monastery of Mar Saba, Discovered, Transcribed and Translated by Morton Smith."Szekely's Essene Gospel of Peace is online here. The passage quoted above is in Book 1.