New Zealand's Greatest Doctor:
Ulric Williams of Wanganui
A Surgeon who became a Naturopath
By Brenda Sampson
ULRIC WILLIAMS IN HIS OWN WORDS
"The tongue of the wise heals" (Proverbs 12;18)
Ulric Williams was a popular speaker and writer. Some people were cured by reading his books, without ever consulting him in person. This could still happen today. He wrote five books. They are out of print, but some are still available in public libraries or by inter-library loan. For a list of his books, pamphlets, articles)
Teachings and sayings of Ulric Williams (bracketed notes are by B.S.)
He said "Everyone comes to me seeking health. Health is not a thing to be sought for its own sake. Health is one of the rewards for living in the right relationship with God." What is this right relationship?
Most days when I was at the Home, the weather was fine and the Doctor would come for his morning talks on a bicycle, with his dog, a golden spaniel. One hot day he pointed to his dog asleep in the shade of a tree, and said, "I love him and he loves me, and trusts me. He is delighted if I invite him to come with me. He is happy to wait for me, and goes peacefully to sleep until I am ready to leave. We should have this same loving, trusting relationship with God."
He believed intensely in the goodness and loving-kindness of God. Also his idea of the right relationship with God, was to respect Nature and the laws of Nature. He said that disease comes from breaking these laws, and that not knowing them is no protection against the ill effects of breaking them.
About Doctors
"Doctor means teacher. A doctor's chief duty us to teach people how to be well." He used his morning talks to do this.
"Most disease comes from fear. A doctor's first duty is to allay fear." (A Nelson chiropractor, Earl Conroy, said, "50% of our life is fear. This is what pays for the livelihood of all the chiropractors, doctors and psychologists and psychiatrists in the world.")
Although he was a medical doctor, trained in diagnosis, Dr Williams didn't think naming the diagnosis helpful to the patient. He said, "When you tell a patient the name of his disease, this fixes his mind on it, and that is the worst thing that can happen."
He respected doctors, many of whom are dedicated people. But he did not respect medical training. "I never became a real doctor till I forgot 95% of what I learnt at Edinburgh."
About Diet
"If you are well and want to stay that way, half your food should be eaten raw. If you are sick and want to get better, three quarters of your food should be eaten raw." (Helpful books are - Leslie Kenton's Raw Energy and Raw Energy Recipes, and Julie Stafford's Taste of Life, and Taste of Life for Children.)
About Fasting
"Man is the only animal that hasn't got enough sense to stop eating when he is sick."
He told me a story of a butcher who cut his upper arm badly with his butcher's knife. It became infected and swelled out as big as a football. The butcher was frightened, but the Doctor said, "Don't be afraid. If you do what I tell you, it will be better in three days". And so it was. The treatment was to fast, to drink lots of water and take lots of lemon juice and vitamin C with the water. This will alleviate most acute infections.
About Faith
"Faith means expecting good!" (Faith is an old fashioned word for optimism.)
(An old rhyme says, 'Life is mostly froth and bubble. Two things stand like stone; kindness in another's trouble, courage in your own.'
Courage is what faith looks like to other people. If you know there is something in the future that is so good it is worth waiting for, this gives you the courage to keep going. If you have faith in a good outcome it gives you courage to keep going in the face of difficulties.
He taught me about the power of belief; that by believing or expecting that a thing will happen, we help to create it. Fear is expecting a bad thing to happen, and our fear helps it to happen. Faith is expecting a good thing to happen, and by expecting good we help to create it.
He taught people to throw out fear by trusting in God's loving care and protection; and to throw out resentment by forgiving people who annoy us. Forgiveness means saying, "It doesn't matter!")
He said "Faith means to expect a good outcome. Our faith must be so strong that nothing can upset us. Our aim must be to become imperturbable."
"Expect to be healed! Know that God can heal you, and that he loves you and wants to heal you. Don't watch and measure your symptoms while waiting. A watched pot never boils."
He said, "Faith is like posting a letter. You expect it to be delivered, and forget about it. You don't sit and worry whether it will be delivered."
About Prayer
"When you pray, don't say please, say thank you."
(If it is a good thing, God has already given it to you. Like a loving human father, He wants his children to have every good thing. Our job is to say thank you and wait happily for it to appear.
He said, "Everything begins first on the spiritual plane, then becomes mental, then becomes physical". (People think physical things are more real than mental and spiritual ideas. Perhaps it is difficult to believe you are healed when you aren't aware of it, and may be still in pain. But things can be real when they are coming to you. Sunlight is real from the time it leaves the sun, before it is felt as warmth on the skin.)
About Disease
"The body can mimic ANY disease that has ever made a strong and frightening impression on the person's mind."
"Disease is nothing but a mental habit, a disgusting mental habit." (Collet Saunders said in his interview that Dr Williams' shock treatment moved his mind from one mental picture to a new one. When his mental habit changed, he recovered.)
A boy working in an office was asked what his job was. "I'm the doer." "What do you mean?" "Well, the boss tells the accountant what he wants done; and the accountant tells the chief clerk, and he tells me, and I do it." In the same way the subconscious mind is the body's doer. It overhears everything that we think or say, and does it. If a person says, "I have arthritis", this is what the subconscious does. It maintains the arthritis. Dr Williams called this habit, "a disease consciousness".
Because Ulric Williams thought happiness is such an important ingredient in health, he used to come for an hour each morning and talk to his patients in a group, about how to use one's mind to create happiness and health. He used a projection box in a cinema as an example. It has a light, and a film, and throws a picture onto a screen. The light is the Life Force. The film is one's thoughts. The picture on the screen represents all our experiences. He said, "If the operator wants to change the picture, he changes the film. If we want to change our circumstances, or our experiences, or our environment, or our health, we have to change our thoughts".
About Change
He was trying to get me to make changes in my life and thinking. I said, "I'll try." He said, "I don't want you to try, I want you to do it. You are going down hill. I want you to turn around and go up hill, and you say, 'I'll try!".
He spoke about people's unwillingness to change, and their resistance to change. "There are no incurable diseases, but there are some incurable people; incurable because they don't want to change."
He said, "The thoughts in our minds, fight like the citizens of a besieged city, to keep new thoughts out!"
He said, "No disease is incurable; but some patients are, because they don't want to change. They go down to death like sheep in a slaughter race; just because they will not change!"
The matron of one of Dr WIlliams' convalescent homes was a Sister Agnes MacDougall. I visited her years later; probably in the late 1970's, and asked her while there, how many of the Doctor's patients were cured. She said, "Not everyone could stay long enough for a complete cure. But I think almost all improved while they were here. I only remember one man who didn't; he was so angry about the whole treatment that he went home in a week!"
About Healing
"You don't have to do anything to get better; all you need is to stop doing what is wrong. If you really want to know what that is, your divine intelligence will tell you. Your body has a healing power that will heal you when you stop making yourself sick."
