The Legacy of Dr. Hazel Parcels

THE LEGACY OF DR HAZEL PARCELLS
Frisky enough to follow me to San Francisco? Don’t miss Wise Traditions 2008 where I’ll introduce the original Naughty Nutritionist, the incomparable Dr. Hazel Parcells (1889-1996).

Dr. Parcells was a feisty redhead whom I’m doing my very best to emulate. A total original with a talent for chopping and slicing through nutritional dogma, she had little patience with most health “experts,” saying that they were unteachable because their cups were already full.    She broke the rules of establishment nutrition by recommending red meat, raw milk, butter, no soy and no margarine. And she understood body/mind/spirit medicine long before it became popular. Dr. Parcells liked to say that “If you want to be healthy, you need to trade your wishbone for a backbone and get to work.” That’s excellent advice on many levels, including broth making!

I am deeply grateful to The Doctor because I took her advice and became healthy. I noted that she earned several advanced degrees after the age of 50 and gathered the strength to go for my own PhD. I was so intrigued by her findings about the health problems caused by soy protein and soy margarine that I researched and wrote The Whole Soy Story: The Dark Side of America’s Favorite Health Food. As for her naughtiness, she set a high bar for wit and wisdom delivered with a wide smile, knowing winks and infectious laughs.

It is her story, however that is most inspiring. The verdict Hazel Parcells heard in 1931 was not good.  Incurable tuberculosis, a collapsed lung, a hemorrhaging kidney and an enlarged heart. Curable, said the learned MDs, only by death.

She responded by firing the doctors whose 18 years worth of efforts had left her with a deteriorated body and depleted bank account. “They told me there was nothing more they could do for me, and I took them at their word,” she said. Though only given a few months to live Parcells looked forward to the chance to experiment on herself and learn what her body needed. “One thing was certain, I wasn’t going to get any worse.”

Sixty four years later Parcells died in January 1996 at the age of 106 years young. She was, according to Joseph Dispenza, author of Live Better Longer: The Parcells Center Seven-Step Plan for Health and Longevity (Harper San Francisco, 1997) “vibrantly and vigorously alive.”  A sharp dresser who favored bright colors, she was proud of her curly red hair and patronized a beauty shop just a few days before her death, enchanting all who were there.

When Parcells began her healing journey in 1931, she was very much on her own. Few alternative therapies existed and there were few health books to read.  “Out of necessity, to keep yourself well, I began to study the chemistry of food,” she told Dispenza. First, she tuned in to her own body.

Listening to her inner voices, and hearing the words “fresh” and “green,” she began eating the only green vegetable available in quantity in Colorado at that time — spinach. Though her consumption rivaled Popeye’s she rejected the canned  variety for raw, steamed and juice.d  parsley and other greens followed and six months later Parcells was perky enough to report back to Fitzsimmons Army Hospital near Denver to show herself off to the doctors who had condemned her to death.

Her energy soaring and mind wide open to possibility. Parcells made it her life’s work to explore the field of health and healing.  Drawn to many ideas that appeared — and perhaps still appear– improbable or impossible to establishment scientists, she ran her own laboratory and also explored homeopathy, light and color therapy, radionics, Bach Flower Remedies and other modalities. She earned four advanced degrees, including doctors of chiropractic and naturopathy and PhDs in nutrition and comparative religions.

In time, word of the Doctor’s unusual methods and miraculous healings spread. “From the first, I recognized her as a master healer and pioneer, far ahead of her time,” said Ann Louise Gittleman, author of Beyond Pritikin (Bantam, 1988), Guess What Came to Dinner: Parasites and Your Health (Avery, 1993) and other books.  Parcells introduced Gittleman to many of the underlying causes of disease and malnutrition in the late 20th century, including parasite infestation, pesticide poisoning, mineral deficiencies, radiation sickness and aluminum and other heavy metal toxicities.

“I never heard of her methods not working,” said Sam Berne, O.D., the Santa Fe-based author of Creating a Personal Vision: A Mind/Body Guide to Better Eyesight (Color Stone Press, 1994).  “Her reputation was impeccable.  She didn’t work with disease.  She just cleaned up the body.”  And she never spoke of “cures.”  “Only taxidermists and undertakers do curing,” she told Dispenza.  “As for miracles, no it’s just nature’s way.”

The doctor’s most frequently used methods included fasts and bowel cleanses, parasite riddance programs, therapeutic baths and food cleansing baths.   Food cleansed using the Doctor’s special methods gain levels of freshness and energy that belie that reality of long transports and extended stays on supermarket shelves.  According to Parcells’ measurements, untreated foods  — whether commercial or organic — generally rate so low in life energy that they can scarcely support health   The same foods cleaned with the Clorox bath, however, become health promoting.  Parcells also designed special lights incorporating magnets that help clear foods of negative energies  — including the “fear” energy left in the flesh of slaughtered animals.  Known as Thea Lites or Balancing Lites, they also raise the energy of foods — such as milk, salt or Chinese takeout — that could not survive a Clorox soak.

Radiation was another of her deepest concerns.   She said she found it everywhere in America, even in remote, beautiful locations such as Sapello, NM, where she lived during the last few years of her life.  Accordingly, she recommended that people clear themselves several times weekly with sea salt and baking soda baths and as soon as possible after X rays or plane trips.  “She would say, “You can’t stay dry if you keep going out in the rain,” said Larry Martin, a friend and follower who worked closely with her during her last few years of life.   “You clear it but it comes back because you are exposed.”

“Doing this work, you start to really know what the environment is like,” said Terry Kast, who followed Parcells for two decades learning her methods and who teaches workshops in Albuquerque. “She found high readings nearly everywhere of dioxins, arsenic trisulfate, cobalt 60, you name it.” In her final years, the doctor also began detecting mutant viruses, mutant fungi and other microbiological alients.  Night after night she worked in her laboratory seeking and praying fo remedies, only to catch yet another mutation a few months later.

Over her 65 year career, Parcells recognized many of her peers but esteemed very few. She especially admired Weston Price and illustrated points with tthe photographs in his book Nutrition and Physical Degeneration.  Parcells was also drawn to another dentist — Royal Lee (1895-1967) a nutritionist, inventor and forward thinker who exposed the adulteration and commercialism of our food supply.

Despite her long career and unquestionable success, Parcells was little known to the general public. One reason was that she preferred to work in peace.  Another, she did not want to butt heads with the FDA, the AMA and other medical police.  “She kept a low profile because of her unorthodox work,” said Gittleman.  “She was very, very careful. She had students, not clients or patients.  She didn’t want to be made a spectacle of like Ruth Drown, Max Gerson or Royal Lee.” All three were persecuted for their pioneering work. Indeed when Dispenza first discussed a book, Parcells resisted saying that the world wasn’t ready and her message would be misconstrued and mocked. She agreed to work with him, however, when her spirit guides told her to get the information out to as many people as possible.

© Copyright  2008  Kaayla T. Daniel, PhD, CCN