 Section 25 of A to Z. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. A to Z. By Various. The Hindu Yogi Science of Breath. Yogi Ramacharaka. How to acquire the Yogi Complete Breath. The Yogi Complete Breath is the fundamental breath of the entire Yogi Science of Breath, and the student must fully acquaint himself with it, and master it perfectly before he can hope to obtain results from the other forms of breath mentioned and given in this book. He should not be content with half learning it, but should go to work in earnest until it becomes his natural method of breathing. This will require work, time, and patience. But without these things nothing is ever accomplished. There is no royal road to the Science of Breath, and the student must be prepared to practice and study in earnest if he expects to receive results. The results obtained by a complete mastery of the Science of Breath are great, and no one who has attained them would willingly go back to the old methods. And he will tell his friends that he considers himself amply repaid for all his work. We say these things now, that you may fully understand the necessity and importance of mastering this fundamental method of Yogi Breathing, instead of passing it by and trying some of the attractive looking variations given later on in this book. Again we say to you, start right, and right results will follow, but neglect your foundations and your entire building will topple over, sooner or later. Perhaps the better way to teach you how to develop the Yogi Complete Breath would be to give you simple directions regarding the breath itself, and then follow up with the same general remarks concerning it, and then later on giving exercises for developing the chest muscles and lungs which have been allowed to remain in an undeveloped condition by imperfect methods of breathing. Right here we wish to say that this complete breath is not a forced or abnormal thing, but on the contrary, is a going back to first principles, a return to nature, the healthy adult savage and the healthy infant of civilization both breathe in this manner, but civilized man has adopted unnatural methods of living, clothing, etc., and has lost his birthright. And we wish to remind the reader that the complete breath does not necessarily call for the complete filling of the lungs at every inhalation. One may inhale the average amount of air, using the complete breathing method and distributing the air inhaled be the quantity large or small to all parts of the lungs. But one should inhale a series of full, complete breaths several times a day whenever opportunity offers in order to keep the system in good order and condition. The following simple exercise will give you a clear idea of what the complete breath is. One, stand or sit erect, breathing through the nostrils, inhale steadily, first filling the lower part of the lungs, which is accomplished by bringing into play the diaphragm, which descending exerts a gentle pressure on the abdominal organs, pushing forward the front walls of the abdomen. Then fill the middle part of the lungs, pushing out the lower ribs, breastbone and chest. Then fill the higher portion of the lungs, protruding the upper chest, thus lifting the chest, including the upper six or seven pairs of ribs. In the final movement the lower part of the abdomen will be slightly drawn in, which movement gives the lungs a support and also helps to fill the highest part of the lungs. At first reading it may appear that this breath consists of three distinct movements. This however is not the correct idea. The inhalation is continuous, the entire chest cavity from the lower diaphragm to the highest point of the chest in the region of the collarbone being expanded with a uniform movement. Avoid a jerky series of inhalations and strive to attain a steady continuous action. Practice will soon overcome the tendency to divide the inhalation into three movements and will result in a uniform continuous breath. You will be able to complete the inhalation in a couple of seconds after a little practice. Two, retain the breath for a few seconds. Three, exhale quite slowly, holding the chest in a firm position and having the abdomen in a little and lifting it upward slowly as the air leaves the lungs. When the air is entirely exhaled, relax the chest and abdomen. The little practice will render this part of the exercise easy and the movement once acquired will be afterwards performed almost automatically. It will be seen that by this method of breathing all parts of the respiratory apparatus is brought into action and all parts of the lungs including the most remote air cells are exercised. The chest cavity is expanded in all directions. You will also notice that the complete breath is really a combination of low mid and high breaths succeeding each other rapidly in the order given in such a manner as to form one uniform continuous complete breath. You will find it quite a help to you if you will practice this breath before a large mirror placing the hands lightly over the abdomen so that you may feel the movements. At the end of the inhalation it is well to occasionally slightly elevate the shoulders thus raising the collarbone and allowing the air to pass freely into the small upper lobe of the right lung which places sometimes the breathing place of tuberculosis. At the beginning of practice you may have more or less trouble in acquiring the complete breath but a little practice will make perfect. And when you have once acquired it you will never willingly return to the old methods. End of section 25. Section 26 of A to Z. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Larry Wilson. A to Z by Various. Zaritsky's Law by Ann Griffith. Somebody someday will make a study of the influence of animals on history. Although not as famous as Mrs. O'Leary's cow, Mrs. Graham's cat should certainly be included in any such study. It has now been definitely established that the experiences of this cat led to the idea of quick frozen people which in turn led to the passage of Zaritsky's law. We must go back to the files of the Los Angeles newspapers for 1950 to find the story. In brief a Mrs. Fred C. Graham missed her pet cat on the same day that she put a good deal of food down in her home deep freeze unit. She suspected no connection between the two events. The cat was not found until six days later when its owner went to fetch something from the deep freeze. Much as she loved her pet we may imagine that she was more horror than grief-stricken at her discovery. She lifted the little iced-in-case body out of the deep freeze and set it on the floor. Then she managed to run as far as the next door neighbor's house before fainting. Mrs. Graham became hysterical after she was revived, and it was several hours before she could be quieted enough to persuade anybody that she hadn't made up the whole thing. She prevailed upon her neighbor to go back to the house with her. In front of the deep freeze they found a small pool of water and a wet cat, busily licking it south. The neighbor subsequently told reporters that the cat was concentrating its licking on one of its hind legs, where some ice still remained, so that she for one believed the story. A follow-up dispatch published a week later reported that the cat was unharmed by the adventure. Further Mrs. Graham was quoted as saying that the cat had a large meal just before its disappearance, that as soon after its rescue as it had dried itself off it took a long nap precisely as it always did after a meal, and that it was not hungry again until evening. It was clear from the accounts that the life processes had been stopped dead in their tracks and had after defrosting returned at exactly the point where they left off. Perhaps it is unfair to put all the responsibility on one luckless cat. Had such a thing happened anywhere else in the country it would have been talked about, believed by a few, disbelieved by most, and forgotten. But as the historic kick of Mrs. O'Leary's cow achieved significance because of the time and place that it was delivered, so the falling of Mrs. Graham's cat into the deep freeze became significant because it occurred in Los Angeles. There and probably only there the event was anything but forgotten. The principles it revealed became the basis of a highly successful business. How shall we regard the Zeritsky brothers? As archvillains or pioneers? In the support of the latter view it must be admitted that the spirit of inquiry and the willingness to risk the unknown were indisputably theirs. However their pioneering, if we agree to call it that, was equally indisputably bound up with the quest for a fast buck. Some of their first clients paid as high as $15,000 for the initial freezing and the exorbitant rate of $1,000 per year as a storage charge. The Zeritsky brothers owned and managed one of the largest quick freezing plants in the world, and it was their claim that converting the freezing equipment in storage facilities to accommodate humans was extremely expensive, hence the high rates. When the early clients who paid these rates were defrosted years later and found other clients receiving the same services for as little as $3,000, they threatened a row and the Zeritsky's made substantial refunds. By that time they could easily afford it, and since any publicity about their enterprise was unwelcome to them, all refunds were made without a whimper. $3,000 became the standard rate with $100 per year the storage charge and no charge for defrosting. The Zeritsky's were businessmen first and last. Anyone who had the fee could put himself away for whatever period of time he wished, and no questions asked. The ironclad rule that full payment must be made in advance was broken only once as far as the records show. A certain young man had a very wealthy uncle residing in Milwaukee, whose heir he was, but the uncle was not getting along in years fast enough. The young man, then 18 years old, did not wish to waste the best years of his life as a poor boy. He wanted the money while he was young, but his uncle was as healthy as he was wealthy. The Zeritsky's were the obvious answer to his problem. The agreement between them has been preserved. They undertook to service the youth without advance payment. They further undertook to watch the Milwaukee papers until the demise of the uncle should be reported, whereupon they would defrost the boy. In exchange for this, the youth thinking, of course, that money would be no object when he came out, agreed to pay double. The uncle lived 17 years longer, during which time he seems to have forgotten his nephew and to have become deeply interested in a mystic society to which he left his entire fortune. The Zeritsky's duly defrosted the boy, and whether they or he were the more disappointed is impossible to imagine. They never forgot the lesson and never made another exception to their rule. He, poor fellow, spent the rest of his life including the best years paying off the debt which at 3000 plus 17 years at $100 per year and the whole doubled amounted to $9400. The books record his low but regular payments over the next 43 years, and indicate that he had only $250 left to pay when he died. We may think, I assume, that various underworld characters who were grateful ex-clients of the Zeritsky's were instrumental in persuading the boy to keep up his payments. Criminals were the first to apply for quick freezing and formed the mainstay of Zeritsky's business through the years. What more easy than to rob, hide the loot, except for that all-important advance payment, present yourself to the Zeritsky's and remain in their admirable chambers for five or ten years, emerge to find the hue and cry long since died down and the crime forgotten. Recover your hall and live out your life in luxury. To the shady character of most of their patrons, the Zeritsky's kept all records by a system of numbers. Names never appeared on the books and anonymity was guaranteed. Law enforcement agents, looking for fugitives from justice, found no way to break down this system, nor any law which they could interpret as making it illegal to quick freeze. Perhaps the truth is that they did not search too diligently for a law that could be made to apply. As long as the Zeritsky's kept things quiet and did not advertise or attract public attention, they could safely continue their bizarre business. City officials of Los Angeles, and particularly members of the police force, enjoyed a period of unparalleled prosperity. Lawyers and other experts who thought they were on the track of illegal means, by which to liquidate the Zeritsky Empire, found themselves suddenly able to buy a ranch, or a yacht, or both, and retire forever from the arduous task of earning a living. Even with a goodly part of the population of Los Angeles as permanent pensioners, the Zeritsky's fortune grew to incredible proportions. By the time the Zeritsky brothers died and left the business to their sons, it was a gold mine, and an inexhaustible one at that. During these later years the enterprise began to attract a somewhat better class of people. Murderers and other criminals continued to furnish the bulk of the business, but as word of this amazing service seeped through the country, others began to see in it an easy way of solving their problems, if they were encouraged to, by the fact that the process was painless and the firm completely reliable. There were no risks, no accidents, no fatalities. One could in short have confidence in the Zeritsky's. Soon after Monaghan's great exposure rocked the nation, however, many of these better type clients leaped into print to tell their experiences. One of the most poignant stories came from the daughter of a Zeritsky client. Her father was still, at the age of 102, passionately interested in politics, but the chances of his lasting until the next election were not good. The daughter herself suggested the deep freeze, and he welcomed the idea. He decided on a twenty-year stay because in his own words, if the Republicans can't get into the White House in twenty years, I give up. Upon his return he found that his condition had not been fulfilled. His daughter described him as utterly baffled by the new world. He lived in it just a week before he left it, this time for good. She states his last words were, How do you people stand it? Some professional people patronized the Zeritsky's. Chiefly, movie stars. After the exposé, fan magazines were filled with accounts of how the stars had kept youthful. The more zealous ones had prolonged their screen lives for years by the simple expedient of storing themselves away between pictures. We may imagine the feelings of their public upon discovering that the seemingly eternal youth of their favorites was due to the Zeritsky's and not as they had been led to believe, to expensive creams, lotions, diet and exercise. There was a distinctly unfavorable reaction, and the letter columns of the fan magazines bristled with angry charges of cheating. But next to criminals, the majority of people who applied for quick freezing seems to have been husbands or wives caught in unsupportable marital situations. Their experiences were subsequently written up in the confession magazines. It was usually the husband who fled to Los Angeles and incarcerated himself for an appropriate number of years, at the end of which time his unamable spouse would have died or made other arrangements. If we can believe the magazines, this scheme worked out very well in most cases. There was inevitably one spiteful wife who defined her husband's intentions. By shrewd reasoning she figured approximately the number of years he had chosen to be absent and put herself away for a like period. In a TV dramatization, rather pessimistically entitled, You Can't Get Away, the husband described his sensations upon being defrosted after fifteen years, only to find his wife waiting for him right there in the reception room of the Zuritsky's plant. She was as perfectly preserved as I was, he said. Every irritating habit that had made my life unbearable with her was absolutely intact. The sins of the fathers may be visited on the sons, but how often we see repeated the old familiar pattern of sons destroying the life work of their fathers. The Zuritsky brothers were fanatically meticulous. They supervised every detail of their operations and kept their records with an elaborate system of checks and double checks. They were shrewd enough to realize that complete dependability was essential to their business. A satisfied Zuritsky client was a silent client. One dissatisfied client would be enough to blow the business apart. The sons in their greed over-expanded to the point where they could not even among the four of them personally supervise each and every detail. A fatal mistake was bound to occur sooner or later. When it did, the victim broadcast his grievance to the world. The story appeared in a national magazine, every copy of which was sold an hour after it appeared on the stands. Under the title, They Put the Freeze on Me, John A. Monahan told his tragic tale. At the age of thirty-seven he had fallen desperately in love with a girl of sixteen. She was immature and frivolous and wanted to play around a little more before she settled down. She told me, he wrote, to come back in five years and that started me thinking. In five years I'd be forty-two and what would a girl of twenty-one want with a man twice as old as her? John Monahan moved in circles where the work of the Zuritskys was well known. Not only did he see an opportunity of being still only thirty-seven when his darling reached twenty-one, but he foresaw a painless way of passing the years which he must endure without her. Accordingly he presented himself for the deep freeze, paid his three thousand dollars and the five hundred dollars' storage charge in advance and left, he claimed, written instructions to let me out in five years, so there'd be no mistakes. Nobody knows how the slip happened, but somehow John A. Monahan, or rather the number assigned to him, was entered on the books for twenty-five years instead of five years. Upon being defrosted and discovering that a quarter of a century had elapsed, his rage was awesome. Along with everything else, his love for his sweetheart had been perfectly preserved, but she had given up waiting for him and was a happy mother of two boys and six girls. Monahan's accusation that the Zuritskys had ruined his life may be taken with a grain of salt. He was still a young man, and the rumor that he received a hundred thousand for the magazine rights to his story was true. As most readers are aware, what has come to be known as the Zuritskys' law was passed by Congress and signed by the President three days after Monahan's story broke. Seventy-five years after Mrs. Graham's cat fell into the freezer, it became the law of the land that the mandatory penalty for anyone applying quick-freezing methods to any living thing, human or animal, was death. Also, all quick-frozen people were to be defrosted immediately. Los Angeles Papers reported that beginning on the day Monahan's story appeared, men by the thousands poured into the city. They continued to come, choking every available means of transport for the next two days. Until that is, Zuritskys' law went through. When we considered the date and remember that due to the gravity of the international situation, the bill had just been passed drafting all men from sixteen to sixty, we realized why Congress had to act. The Zuritskys, of course, were among the first to be taken. Because of their experience, they were put in charge of a military warehouse for dehydrated foods and warned not to get any ideas for a new business. End of Section 26 End of A to Z by Various