Why the Cure for The Common Cold would Kill You

January 26th, 2026

The general understanding of the "common cold" nowadays is that exposure to a germ, a malicious type of micro-organism, leads to a high probability that the germ will infiltrate the body and wreak havoc, causing the common symptoms of fatigue, runny-nose, coughing, sneezing, diarrhea, and even vomiting, as a consequence of either the germ itself or the body's immune system fighting it off. This has almost no association with the word "cold", the word that our ancestors chose to describe this disease, which most of us would attribute to their scientific ignorance and/or superstition, other than most illnesses occur during the Winter, when it is cold. Furthermore, based on this understanding of how disease occurs, taking an antibiotic that kills the germ, and pharmaceutical drugs that stop the symptoms, would lead to positive health outcomes; i.e. the germ would die and the symptoms, which are just an annoying byproduct of the germ and unrelated to our recovery except in that we feel better when we are not feeling them, would stop.

I'm not going to get into all of the reasons why Germ Theory, a mid-19th century blunder in flawed scientific reasoning and industrial greed, is at best, dubious, and at worst, is a giant lie. Debunking this catastrophe of medical science is not my expertise. Although, I may touch on the subject a bit more throughout the article. The purpose of addressing it here, rather, is to establish that I no longer subscribe to this theory. All of the overwhelming, albeit suppressed, evidence that contradicts the notion that a sick person can make a healthy person sick by simply being around them aside, it is simply not consistent with my experience that such occurs. Any time I get sick, rather, I can easily relate it back to some event or experience in the days leading to the illness that was much more likely the culprit for why I don't feel so good anymore. Therefore, I will be proposing an alternate model for the disease. In addition, I will propose that, based on this different and more accurate understanding of disease, we will be more empowered, less fearful, and realize how taking antibiotics to kill germs in our body and man-made chemicals to suppress the "symptoms" of the disease would actually be counter-productive, harmful, and could even theoretically kill us.

AN ALTERNATE MODEL FOR DISEASE

As a basis for my alternate model, I'm going to compare the body to a factory. A living organism is, of course, more complex than this. However, I am going to use this analogy to argue that, even on the terms of modern material science's over-simplified, inaccurate, and mechanistic perspective on the human form, that their strategies for treating basic illness are wholly asinine. As it were, with every factory, there are inputs, outputs, and waste. The same is true for a body. We input food, water, and air, which produces energy needed to work, think, and perform various operations to keep us alive. Furthermore, as a byproduct of all this, there is waste.

All operational factories must have a waste management system, which keeps the interior of the factory sanitized, and prevents the accumulating waste from obstructing the operations of the factory. Our daily waste management system is primarily directed by the liver, lungs, and digestive tract. Most of our waste is excreted through the lungs, and the majority of the rest is excreted through the digestive tract. Water soluble toxins are excreted in the fecal matter, and fat soluble ones are sent to the lymph (a liquid garbage collection agency), and then to the lungs to be breathed or coughed out. So, basically, pooping and breathing are the main ways that we get rid of waste (if you were not aware of that).

Every factory has a daily amount of waste that it expects to produce, as well as a procedure for eliminating it, based on the factory's normal daily expected production load. It may be able to handle various amounts of waste within a range of production, but every factory has a point of maximum overload. It's a point where there is too much waste being produced to maintain normal operations, and it has to dedicate more resources to removing that excess waste. Why would it ever get to that point? Mis-management? Maybe. But let's assume, rather, that the body has an excellent operations manager. Then the only problem with waste management would occur if the factory has to work overtime, for whatever reason. When it does so, it must produce more waste. How might that occur?

Why is it called the common "cold"? The body needs heat to run it's operations. You can't have a freezing cold factory. Otherwise, no one is going to get any work done. They're too preoccupied with keeping warm. So, you have to run the heat, which uses energy, and produces waste. Same is true for the body. When exposed to extremely cold temperatures for prolonged periods of time, the body has to work extra hard to keep the interior warm enough to run its normal operations. Unlike a factory, though, body has to run its normal operations 24/7 no matter what, otherwise we die. So, it's going to work overtime, or extra hard, to keep us warm, to keep us alive, even while amassing excess amounts of waste well above its maximum capacity for waste. It can't get rid of all that waste by normal means, because it does not have the resources to dedicate to waste removal while performing its regular operations. So, it's going to stockpile waste, at least temporarily. It probably has some space dedicated for such. If there's not enough space, then it may have package it an alternate storage container elsewhere in the body that is more obstructive to its operations, otherwise known as a tumor. But, for moderate overload, let's assume that there is some space for some extra containers of toxic waste.

Once normal external temperatures are established to the extent that the body can resume normal operations to keep us alive, then the body has to do something about that waste. It's not good to have festering waste in the factory. However, the factory is still running, it doesn't stop, i.e. we're not dead. So, there is still more waste being produced, and there are simply not enough resources to deal with getting rid of the normal load of waste PLUS the excess waste that built up from the period when it had to work extra hard. So, what does the body do? It goes into power saving mode. It reduces its operational load in order to dedicate more resources towards the task of waste removal. We feel this in the form of fatigue. The body is making us rest so that it can focus on the pressing matter of getting rid of toxic waste, while not having to dedicate its normal amount of resources to moving our muscles and doing a bunch of work. Normal metabolic activity, let alone heightened metabolic activity, will distract from the body's focus on getting the waste out. Makes sense?

While a normal waste load is excreted through breathing and regular bowel movements, that's going to take too long. Furthermore, those pathways will not be able to handle much more capacity than normal. How big of a solid turd can you poop out in the morning? - I can't restrain the juvenile humor impulse throughout this whole article, sorry! - So, the waste has to be expelled through auxiliary fluids and outlets. Diarrhea, vomiting, coughing, sneezing, sweating, and mucus pouring out of the nose are the most efficient ways to get toxic waste out of our body. These are called "symptoms", and they can be very unpleasant. However, the alternative is keeping excessive amounts of toxic waste in our bodies for longer than necessary. That's worse. That will cause long-term problems. Furthermore, the quicker the expulsion of that festering waste, the quicker the body can rededicate all of its resources back to normal operations.

So, the reason that the common cold is called the "common cold", is because when the body gets too cold, which often happens in the Winter, then it has to work extra hard, which can generate more waste than it can handle. Then, it has to get rid of that waste by forcing us into alternate power saving mode so that it can focus on getting rid of the excess waste through unusual pathways, which we feel as symptoms. Being subjected to extreme cold is not the only way this can occur. Other sources of illness, in this model, would include being over-worked, sleep-deprived, stressed or suffering from a physical or emotional trauma. All would cause the body to work extra hard and generate excess waste. And the final way that too much waste can accumulate is through toxic exposure, which is like delivering barrels of toxic waste directly to the factory to be stored there for no reason, otherwise known as modern living.

THE PROBLEMS WITH THE MODERN APPROACH

Working within the framework of this model for basic illness, the modern approach to treating it is clearly antagonistic to recovery. Taking an anti-biotic to kill a non-existent germ that is not involved in the cause or expression of the illness, doesn't make sense. Rather, it's going to kill a portion of the trillions of actual germs that live on and inside of us at any given time. I don't know how many other things on and within us that we have hundreds of trillions of, but it gives me the impression that germs are kind of important for our survival. Furthermore, the fact that they line the entire path of the digestive tract probably means that they are frontline workers in the waste removal division of the body factory. Therefore, taking an anti-biotic when your sick is like randomly murdering a portion of your waste removal staff, while expecting them to manage more than their normal load. Then, when symptoms fail to improve, you randomly murder more of the staff with another round of anti-biotics, and keep doing so until you get results that you want. As any successful executive in industry will tell you, this is not good management strategy. And if you still think there's a germ somewhere in the factory wreaking havoc, and causing the illness, ask yourself how the 100's of trillions of good germs in the factory, who are working hard to keep us alive, are going to stand by passively and let one punk germ destroy the whole place? That doesn't make sense to me, anyway.

The other aspect to the modern approach to treating basic illness, symptom suppression, is equally counter-productive. If the common symptoms that we experience, i.e. things unpleasantly flowing out of the holes in the body, is just the body's attempt to expel excess waste, and we take medicines aimed at suppressing body functions that are designed to get rid of waste, like coughing, vomiting, diarrhea, and runny-nose, then that waste is going to stay inside of the body. Maybe it can be excreted slowly over time, and we'll be okay in the long run. However, if we think that the original problem was a germ, rather than some way that we abused ourselves, like staying up too late, working too long, not taking a day off, trying to do too much, staying out in the cold too long underdressed, eating junk, drinking junk, taking red eyes to the east coast on toxic planes and not eating all day, while being stressed out, getting lost, and taking crowded public transportation, then powering through a HIT workout on our phones at 11 pm in the hotel room, etc., then we are not going to learn the lesson that illness is teaching us. Rather, we'll continue to abuse ourselves, accumulate more waste, get sick, blame it on a germ, not change our behavior, and even try to continue the behavior that is causing the illness by taking symptom suppressing drugs, and even anti-biotics that kill the germs trying help get rid of the waste, all of which is toxic and adds unnecessary waste to the load we're already trying to get rid of, which requires even more work to get rid of, creating even more waste. Needless to say, this is very stupid, and it's going to make us very sick, in frequency and magnitude.

Modern illness treatment creates a never-ending negative cycle of waste accumulation. If we are lucky, this will cause chronic illness, as the body keeps attempting, out of the literal goodness of its heart, to power us down, make us rest, expel waste by alternate means, and get us back to normal. At the extreme, if science can create an ingestible chemical that completely stuffs up every auxiliary outlet for toxic waste expulsion, then the waste will pile up, it will be packaged and stored inside the factory so that the workers won't get harmed by smelling and touching it, which is what tumors are. But, the waste cannot pile up indefinitely. There is only so much space. Sometime before every cubic inch of volume of the factory is so pressure packed with toxic waste that the factory is about to explode, the factory will be inoperable, and we die. Thus, an effective cure for the symptoms of the common cold will kill us.

HOW TO ACTUALLY RECOVER FROM ILLNESS

Facilitating the body's waste management operations, rather, needs to be the objective in illness recovery. How can we help the waste management team? Not randomly murdering them is a good start, but there are other things that we can do to help them get the toxic waste out faster, so that we can feel better sooner. Here's a list of such ways to quicken our recovery:

• Drink Ionized Water

The reason that people traditionally drank teas when they were sick was because boiled water carries a negative charge, which binds to and neutralizes toxins in the body, which carry a positive charge. Anything with a negative charge is going to help the body get rid of toxic stuff. It's like hiring more people on the janitorial staff. Negative charged things are given a mop and a cart and their job is to go around the factory and clean up, collect, and package the waste for the garbage trucks (lymphatic system) to take it away.

Boiling water for 15-20 minutes adequately "ionizes" water, i.e. gives it a negative charge, and it will hold that charge as long as it remains hot to the touch. Be sure to ionize well-filtered or spring water so as to not inadvertently increase the toxic load on the body when trying to detoxify, which occurs when drinking chemically-laden tap water. Gravity carbon filters with fluoride filtering additions yield safe drinking water. Here is an affiliate link to the Berkey Filter System that I have. However, drinking spring water is ideal, due to it's mineral content and energetic coherence. There is a website called findaspring.org which I have used locate springs near where I live where I can fill up bottles of spring water for free.

• Magnesium Foot Baths

Magnesium foot baths provide an ionic charged solution in which to extract toxins through the most permeable part of our exterior, the feet. The boiled and salted ionized water pulls positively charged toxins out, with some assistance from enlarged pores, while magnesium ions are drawn in. Thermal mineral spring soaks are the ideal thing to do, but this is a good alternative if you don't have one nearby.

Magnesium, itself, is a mineral needed in abundance in the detoxification process. We burn through our magnesium stores quickly when we are sick or otherwise stressed, and so it is important to intake adequate amounts. Running out of magnesium is like running out of garbage bags and cans. It's what we need to cleanly and efficiently dispose of waste. In addition, magnesium is the "relaxation" mineral. It helps us sleep so that we can stay in the alternate power saving mode longer, and can get back to normal quicker.

Epsom salts and magnesium chloride flakes are common to find in grocery stores. Lately, I like to buy the cheapest plain ancient seabed magnesium chloride flakes that I can get at Oliver's Market here in Santa Rosa, which are often these Now Brand flakes (affiliate link). If I do a footbath every night, which I sometimes have to do, then it will last me 2-3 weeks. Epsom salts are cheaper. Both will knock you out with a concentrated soak.

• Coffee Enemas

Enemas help clear out waste in the main waste elimination pathway chamber, the colon. In times of illness, rather than waiting for a daily bowel movement, which may or may not eliminate all of the waste in the chamber, the most efficient way to reduce the total amount of toxic waste in our body is to do a bowel clearing enema. Furthermore, doing an enema with a coffee solution augments the detoxification effect, because it stimulates bile and, thus, toxin release from the liver, probably the most important organ in the toxic expulsion and overall recovery process.

To do an enema, you must have an enema bag kit, like this one (affiliate link) that I have. If you want to go the old fashioned route, then there are enema buckets, instead of silicone bags, like this one. In addition, I have instructions for making the solutions for and doing a coffee and water enema here, on the Etheric Body page of my website.

• Castor Oil

Castor oil is called "the oil of Christ", i.e. the guy who is famous for healing miracles. So, it's pretty potent stuff. Castor oil has the unique property of sending warmth to wherever it is applied topically. Therefore, an effective way to use it in illness recovery is to rub it over the abdomen and lower back, where all of the organs are that are working hard to get us back to health, especially over the liver. The warmth that the castor oil provides will have a stimulatory effect on the function of the organ over which it is applied, and for the liver it will also boost the lymphatic system, the liquid garbage collection agency of the body. The lymphatic system picks up all of the garbage, and helps haul it out.

To do a traditional castor oil pack, get some organic cold-pressed hexane free castor oil, like this brand (affiliate link), warm it, smear it over the abdomen, lower back, or both, put a thick piece of organic natural fiber rag cloth over it, and a hot water bottle heater over that, and lay down. The reason for warming the oil and keeping it warm with the water heater is that castor oil needs to be and stay warm to deeply penetrate the skin. Alternatively to doing the heating, mixing the castor oil with DMSO (affiliate link), a strong skin penetrating solvent, avoids the need to lay down and keep it warm. Be warned, though. Castor oil is a thick goop that stains badly. Furthermore, DMSO, will drive whatever it touches into the skin. So, be careful to avoid touching unnatural fibers and chemicals with DMSO, and clothes or furniture that you don't want grease stains on permanently with castor oil.

• Broth

Just as tea, broth is a staple illness recovery food for good reason. Since broth is boiled, then it is ionized. Therefore, it provides negative ions that bind to and neutralizes toxins for expulsion. In addition, broth is very easy to digest and full of essential minerals. Conserving digestive energy while maximizing nutrients ingested will help the body factory focus on its pressing waste management task, while having the energy and raw materials to do its job. Finally, toxins come out in a fluid medium, and so keeping fluid intake high is a priority.

Don't buy broth from the store. Rather, get some grass-fed beef or lamb butcher bones, which are cheap, and boil them in filtered spring water (or at least filtered water), and a high quality mineral salt for at least 3 hours. You can keep it on the stove for up to three days even, getting a few ladles full when you need some fluidy mineral nourishment.

• Sunlight and Fresh Air

Sunlight gives us unique nutrition that we cannot get from any other source. In fact lack of sun, may be the reason we are sick in the first place. The Earth, itself, is nourishing too. It wouldn't be referred to as "Mother" Earth, if it weren't. Standing barefoot on the earth naturally pulls out toxins, because the earth has a natural negative charge. This may be counter-productive in northern regions in the winter, if weather conditions are harsh. But, going outside and being exposed to the healing energies of the sun and earth comfortably and for however long you can tolerate is going to speed up recovery.

• Sauna

When we get sick, we have bouts of profuse sweating sometimes because that's another way to purge toxins. If you have access to a sauna, and can breathe well enough through the nose and tolerate the heat, then a sauna would help expedite the toxic purge.

• Relaxation and Gentle Movement

The body needs to focus its energy on getting us better. Doing vigorous activity and/or exposure to a stressful work environment is going to prolong the illness. This is common sense, even if we are still Germ Theorists, and furthermore we shouldn't feel well enough to do these activities anyway. Still, I've been guilty of powering through work outs and work days in the past. It's difficult to take sick days the way we have been socially conditioned to push ourselves, unless you've been raised entirely in snowflake culture. But, not doing so will make us feel worse longer.

While vigorous exercise is bad, gentle exercise can be good. Doing light walks, meditations, or gentle qigong movements can help restore rhythm to our body. Illness gets us out of rhythm. One effective exercise that I have done is the "Rice Paper Walk" which I describe on the Soul Body page here in the walking meditation section.

CONCLUSION

Basically, the point of this whole article, is that there is no "cure" for the common cold. The fact is, we either poisoned or over-exhausted ourselves in some way, and the body has to do its thing to get us back to normal, which will involve these uncomfortable symptoms. Rather than stopping the symptoms though, which is dangerous and stupid, we need to assist the body in what it is trying to do, which requires a different understanding of what illness is and how it occurs, which I hope I adequately articulated in this blog article.

The truth of matter, however, is that the body is not a factory. Rather, it is more like a garden. It's a bio-dynamic ecosystem, which needs a proper balance of sun light/warmth, moisture, minerals, dryness, and coolness, while going through corresponding daily, annual, and lifetime energy cycles of birth, growth, ripening, harvest, decay, and death, in order to thrive, all of which modern lifestyle and man-made chemicals interfere with. The interventions of modern medicine fail because their methods are derived from and implemented based on a fundamental misunderstanding of how life happens on the Earth. When all of the elements are in balance, then the garden, i.e. life, is healthy. When one or more of the elements come out of balance, then we experience disease. Modern medical practices do not address, or even recognize, the imbalance that is source of the illness. Even worse, they confuse the disease with the symptom. The disease is not the symptom. Rather, the symptom is providing information. It's a guide to help us figure out what we need to do to restore balance. Disease is not our foe, but rather our friend. Without it, we would not know how to keep the factory, or garden, healthy.