Draped in loose flowing garments and with long hair they worked in the gardens and fields, built spartan timber cabins and found relaxation in dancing and naked bathing, exposing their bodies to light, air, sun and water. Their diet excluded all animal foods and was based entirely on plants, vegetables and fruit.
Joseph Salomonson – plant eater & ‘dietician’
Salt is the first link in a chain of modern evils.
It leads to the eating of animal food,
which in its turn necessitates the taking of liquids.
Born: 13 Jan 1853 – Amsterdam. Expected to live until ~ 2103.
The Math – 2103 – 2015 = 88 more years – but where is he?
While you are drinking beer and wine
I eat the grapes so sweet and fine;
And when you kill the little birds
They sing for me their latest flirts.
Postcard – Ernest Bell Library Collection – more.
Wonderfully eccentric! Joseph’s great-grand-children could have been at Woodstock. He lived on raw fruits and vegetables – without salt or other seasoning.
Here we follow contemporary newspaper reports, as he was travelling from Switzerland, to America, to England and back to Paris. The journalists make many errors in their reports, they seem to have been ‘phased’ by Joseph.
Joseph believed that humans should live to age 250. He does not seem to be ‘still with us’. We have not discovered how or when he died.
Vegan Joseph Salomonson lived, in the first years of the 20th C, at the counterculture colony of Monte Verità in Ascona, Switzerland. He then became a wandering ‘teacher’.
An article in the Phrenological Journal of April, 1904 reports his lecture at the March meeting of the American Institute of Phrenology, where he stated.
“I find that by taking the raw carrots, raw turnip, raw onions, and fruit, I now have no thirst, and I have come to believe that thirst is artificial, and that it only accompanies cooked food when salt is put into it, but the natural life does not demand drink. I have not drank any water, tea, coffee, or spirits of any kind, since September, 1901.”
“……there are social questions to consider. One should sleep on the ground, for the ground is much healthier than conventional beds. Of course I would not advise meat-eaters to begin at once to sleep on the ground, for they are not prepared for such a change.”
source
………………
LONGEVITY ASSURED.
HOW TO LIVE TO BE 250.
(From our Special Correspondent.) London, November 6, 1903.
source
A curious-looking man of strange habits, and with a mission that is even stranger, has just arrived in London from Ascona, on Lake Maggiore, Switzerland. He has taken up his residence in Colney Hatch lane, N., and he believes that in abstinence from salt and water lies the secret of long life.
Herr Joseph Salomonson, the gentleman in question, wanders about the North London highways wearing a cassock of brown corduroy encircled at the waist by a girdle.
His long brown, wispy hair, unencumbered by hat, hides his collarless neck, and ragged-edged beard droops over the open part of his gown. His feet are encased in sandals, and at times he carries a staff that reaches to his shoulders. Altogether his appearance is reminiscent of figures in scriptural illustrations.
Herr Salomonson’s object is to try to induce London’s 6,000,000 inhabitants to refrain from eating salt and drinking liquids-all manner of liquids, even water. He himself, so he asserts, has not taken any kind of liquid since September 1, 1901, and he has eschewed salt for a longer period.
At Ascona he has established a colony of devoted ‘disciples, male and female, who do likewise. Moreover, they work in a state of primitive absence of attire, separated by wooden partitions, and, when the weather permits they even sleep in this state on the bare ground. Herr Salomonson appreciates the difficulty of this part of his programme being carried out in London. “But,” he explained to an Express reporter, “there are plenty of suitable sites within an hour’s railway journey from the city.”
He saw no reason, however, why London should not at once abandon the eating of salt arid the drinking of liquids. “Salt.” he averred, “is the beginning of all evil. It is ruinous to the body, damaging to the soul, and destructive to the intellect. Water or any other form of liquid is a mere burden to the stomach and has no value at all.”
In short, Herr Salomonson, who is a man of considerable intelligence, believes that if people followed his example there would be no sickness. During the twenty-six months that no drop has passed his lips he has lost in weight 62 lb., but feels many years younger and much stronger.
“There is not a sound man in the world,” he declared, “and yet people who eat salt and drink water live to be as old as ninety or even a hundred. When we live a natural life I see no reason why we should not attain to two hundred or two hundred and fifty years. I believe in the ages mentioned in the Bible, and I believe we should live as long in these days if we lived on the line intended for humanity. That is my mission here.”
Wiki – ~ Biblical scholars that believe in literal translation give explanations for the advanced ages of the early patriarchs. In one view man was originally to have everlasting life, but as sin was introduced into the world by Adam and Eve, its influence became greater with each generation and God progressively shortened man’s life. The Biblical upper limit of longevity was categorized by the Bible scholar Witness Lee as having four successive plateaus of 1,000, 500, 250, and finally 120 years, and “four falls of mankind” correspond to these four plateaus. In a second view, before Noah’s flood, a “firmament” over the earth (Genesis 1:6–8) contributed to people’s advanced ages. ~ – more.
………………
The Falls City Tribune – April 29, 1904
source
How to live 200 years.
Bar Salt and Liquids, Says Herr Salomonson, and You May.
A man with a strange mission has arrived in London from Ascona, on Lake Maggiore, Switzerland, says the London Mail. His object is to induce the English people to abandon the use of salt and all liquids. He himself has not drunk of anything for two years and two months, and hopes to attain a great age by persevering with that peculiar form of abstinence.
At Ascona he has founded a colony of men and women disciple, who rigorously eschew salt and liquids, work in the field in primitive garb, and, when the weather is suitable, sleep on the bare ground, from which they are supposed to extract natural magnetic currents.
Herr Joseph Salomonson, the “reformer” in question, has already gained a number of adherents in London and on the continent, including several well known physicians and scientists. He asserts that the mode of living advocated by himself and his followers is the only one that is natural and healthy, and by its adoption a man or woman may add considerably to the span of life.
“There is not a sound man in the world,” he told the writer, “and yet the people who eat salt and drink water live to be as old as 90, or even 100. When we live a natural life I see no reason why we should not attain 100 or 250 years.”
Salt, according to Herr Salomonson, who is a man of considerable education, is the first link in a chain of modern evils. It leads to the eating of animal food, which in its turn necessitates the taking of liquids.
“The abolition of these three so called ‘necessaries,'” he proceeded, “would do away with all sickness. Drugs would not be required; in fact, they would have no effect on a body, built up by natural means. In this country you establish sanatoria for ailing persons, whom you continue to supply with food upon which the very bacteria you seek to destroy thrive the best.”
“Salt is not only ruinous to the body, but it is damaging to the soul and destructive of the intellect, while water or any other form of liquid is a mere burden to the stomach, and has no value at all.”
sanatoria – plural noun: singular = sanatorium = establishments for the medical treatment of people who are convalescing or have a chronic illness.
Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Transfer from the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, Social Museum Collection source
………………
Colonist, Volume XLVIII, Issue 11692, 30 July 1906,
Page 4 – source
An Apostle of the Simple Life.
Joseph Salomonson, who calls himself “Meva,” is exciting much amusement in Paris, where he parades the streets dressed only in a flowing white robe reaching to the knees, and wearing a gilt circlet on his head. ‘Meva,” who says he is an apostle of the “simple life,” has walked all over France in his singular costume.
When the wandering mystic, Joseph Salomonson, arrived in Brighton, UK in 1906, dressed in a long white robe and holding a staff, he created quite a stir. Fenwick & Son published several postcards of Joseph, who styled himself Meva, Apostle of Natural Life. At least two of the cards were collotypes printed by Mezzotint, though labelled “Published by Fenwick & Son” on the back. source
No Comments