Correspondence with Nathan Lipton
Here is a letter published in an HTE newsletter to Nathan Lipton (in his capacity as a medical doctor and distributor of HTE products), followed by his reply:
Dear Dr. Lipton:
Sometime ago (July ,2004) you may recall that I had contacted you wanting information about the Hothouses that your company sells. You may recall my story:
My Mom (Janice) was diagnosed with Stage 3 peritoneal cancer in November of 2003. She underwent 3 different chemo programs and did not respond to any of them. In total she went through 8 months of chemotherapy. Shortly thereafter, she found out about your Hothouses and in desperation contacted one of your sales reps in Winnipeg, Manitoba –Alice J.–to find out more information. She was told that indeed she could be cured if she chose this method of treatment and was strongly urged to purchase the Total Health Spa if she wanted to see any results. As I recall, when I had talked to you in August you had told me that this treatment is not a cure; you were very clear about that. But who was I to tell her to purchase only one dome and shatter all her hopes. So she did purchase the 3 Hothouses and the Chi machine.]
Alice sent her business associate Robert to set up the machines for my mom. My sister and brother happened to be in attendance and of course they had questions about this “unconventional treatment” (as most people would). This sales rep became very defensive that anyone would question him or the machines. In fact he went on to say “I can guarantee that these Hothouses will cure your mom’s cancer”
My mom used the Hothouses and the Chi machine faithfully–at least 4 hours during the day and all night. She started August 19, 2004. On October 11, 2004 she had her last CAT scan and it had shown the tumor to have grown significantly in the past 2 months. She continued to use the Hothouses FAITHFULLY until Nov. 22, 2004 when she was admitted to the hospital never to return home. She passed away on Dec. 15, 2005.
I guess I am writing this for several reasons:
1) First of all, I do not think my mom should have had to purchase the 3 Hothouses and Chi machine. One would have been fine–but when a person has run out of options and is grasping at straws for any kind of hope–and when a sales rep guarantees that their product will cure you–of course my mom would follow their advice. And we couldn’t oppose her and shatter her hopes.
2) Secondly, the fact that she was “guaranteed” that her cancer would be cured using the Hothouses is unacceptable. Even a doctor does not make any guarantees.
3) Thirdly, my mom was told that the more time she spent under the Hothouses the better her chances of being cured–so she used them faithfully every day and night and because of that it robbed her of quality time with her family and friends. And that is the saddest thing of all.
And so I am informing you of this incident in the hopes that this “guarantee” is not given to anyone else. Also, we would like to return the 3 Hothouses and Chi Machine. I realize there was a 2-wk return policy but I believe my mom was given false hope. Also I believe 2 wks. is not enough time for a person to find out whether the Hothouse works for them.
My phone number is ________ if you would rather respond by telephone. Otherwise I will be expecting your reply via email.
Sincerely,
Robin W.
Here is Nathan’s response to Robin’s letter:
Dear Robin:
First I wish to express my sympathy to you for your loss. May your Mother rest in peace.
Last year I lost both my parents. They were living in Moncton, New Brunswick in Canada.
My Father was 90 when he passed. He essentially died of old age. I visited him on his last birthday; he was doing very well at that time and we had a wonderful celebration. My sister, Shiella who lives in Moncton was with us as well as my nephew came in from Baltimore to be with us. I am so happy I was able to spend time with him before he left us.
My dear Mother passed away a few months after my father at the age of 87. She had been living in a nursing home and she had severe Alzheimer’s disease. This was such a tragedy for her; she was always a bubbly, gregarious, warm-hearted person and it was so sad to see her in such a state of mental decline for the last 5 years of her life.
I miss them both so much. They were the most wonderful parents someone could ever be blessed to have.
About 15 years ago my sister Ilana passed away as a result of breast cancer (it was her son David who was with us for my Father’s final birthday. Ilana was an amazing person; she was a doctor, an anesthesiologist although she pretty much retired from her work as a doctor to be a mother. She really was an angel — always very loving, with never a bad word for anyone.
Losing our loved ones is always so hard to accept. The way I try to console myself is as follows: I feel that my parents and my sister are all living with one another in another place far away. Regrettably there is no direct way to communicate with them such as by phone. I know that they are very happy where they are. Since going there they were all totally restored to excellent health. The place where they live is also the most amazing and wonderful place — truly paradise. And best of all they are there with God; what could be better than that? Plus I know that one day in the future I will be reunited with them.
As well your dear Mother is there with them and I have a feeling they are all good friends.
I am so sorry you were not given accurate information about the Far Infrared HotHouses. I never tell anyone that these machines can cure cancer or any other disease. As well the company who makes these machines makes no such claims. The company also makes it very clear to their distributors about this. Unfortunately some distributors can be overzealous in this type of thing. It was wrong for anyone to tell you that these machines can cure cancer or any other disease.
Concerning your request for a refund I recommend that you contact the company directly; they can be reached at 631-454-1600. From my experience with this company for the past few years I can tell you that it is a very reputable, honest, with a great deal of integrity.
If you wish to discuss this with me any further you are most welcome to phone me at 972….
Best wishes,
Nate
Victor wrote to Nathan privately:
Greetings in the Lord Jesus Christ (Yahshuah HaMashiach), Nathan (and Vera),
Thank you for doing the job you are doing, both of you. It is helping all Hsin Ten distributors who avail themselves.
Nathan, it seems someone steered Robin’s mother wrongly in guaranteeing, or holding out unreasonable hopes of, recovery from her cancer by use of FIR domes. Yes, that is sad, perhaps more so for those left behind with the sour taste. However, I would like to say that it does not occur to you that in trying to console and sympathize with Robin, you may be doing something like what the distributor did to her and her mother, and she may well base some of her hope, thinking, and actions toward God on what you have said.
The question is: Do you know that what you are saying to her is true? You yourself seem to admit to speculation, in that you say:
“The way I try to console myself is as follows: I feel that my parents and my sister are all living with one another in another place far away.”
You then speak as though with conviction when you write:
“I know that they are very happy where they are. Since going there they were all totally restored to excellent health. The place where they live is also the most amazing and wonderful place — truly paradise. And best of all they are there with God; what could be better than that?”
But is that true? Do you know? Though you or anyone would like to believe these things, can you honestly say? How do you know that there are not other worlds and realms of trials and testings, of purging, of disciplines, chastenings and more?
In the Torah, it says:
“If you will carefully listen to the voice of the LORD your God, and will do that which is right in His sight, and will give ear to His commandments, and keep all His Laws, I will put none of these diseases upon you, which I have brought upon the Egyptians; for I am the LORD Who heals you” (Exodus 15:26 MKJV).
Can any disease be much worse than cancer? If people are getting cancer, does it not follow that it is because they are not listening to the voice of the Lord, or doing that which is right in His eyes? I know of several of my own family members who have died of cancer, and in every case, there was known sin.
In one case, for example, God spoke to me and to a woman, who was a total stranger to me, concerning my brother and why he died in 1977 of leukemia. Months later, we met, she introduced herself to me as a believer, and asked me if I was “David’s brother.” I said, “Yes,” and she proceeded to tell me why he had been taken. God had told me the very same thing two or three weeks after he died. He used her to confirm to me what He had told me.
If people have not been obeying God, then will death solve everything, giving them an immediate ticket to paradise and perfect health? Does not the Torah teach that death is the consequence of not listening to God? How then shall death be the redemption, particularly if one dies of a terrible disease that God promised wouldn’t happen if one obeys Him? Given there was disobedience in this life, consider that there will be more to face in the next to deal with that disobedience.
Surely, you must therefore consider that you’re in error to say the things you say to Robin. As the distributor gave false promises and hopes to Robin’s mother, and they discovered otherwise in this life, so your promises and proffered hopes, if not justified or legitimate, will be found to be false in the next.
Nate, these things are serious matters, and not to be trifled with. It is one thing to give our opinion on whether it is better to use the Chi or the Hot House in some situations (even there we can have consequences if the opinions are irresponsible), or we can speculate on whether it will rain tomorrow or not (there too we can have consequences if wrong), but when it comes to our relationship to God, and how we ought to conduct ourselves, or what He is like, or what He expects or does not expect of us, we begin to step on holy ground. Most people don’t know that, but the ramification isn’t altered or lessened through ignorance. He is a holy God, expects reverence and worship, and it behooves us to relate to Him accordingly. How can we speak loosely of Him to others?
You are familiar enough with the power of thoughts and words to know that we ought to be sober with them. Saying “nice” things or things people would like to hear or find comforting is no justification for saying things that may or may not be true, especially concerning our Creator. I happen to know that in principle, and by the testimony of the Word of God, the things you said to that woman are false, not that I accuse you of deliberately attempting to deceive her. I believe you were trying to console and to appease her, and perhaps try to prevent trouble.
I bring these things to your attention as a friend.
Contending earnestly for the faith once delivered to the patriarchs,
Victor
This next letter from Victor was about ungodly celebrations and manpleasing:
Greetings in Yahshuah Ben Yah/Yahshuah HaMashiach/the Lord Jesus Christ, Nathan and Vera,
I am responding to your recent greeting to all, wishing them a Merry Christmas, a Happy Hanukah and a Joyous Kwanza.
Nate (and Vera), I want to tell you the great error in what you do as Jews who profess faith in God. Firstly, Christmas is a pagan festival, originating long before Jesus Christ, in honor of deities concocted in the minds of the heathen, as promoted by spiritual powers (demons) influencing them to their idolatrous practices. By Moses and by Jeremiah, as well as by others, YHWH strictly forbade any association with these gods or forms of worship and practices. As it is written:
“Take heed to yourself that you do not become snared by following them, after they are destroyed from before you, and that you do not ask about their gods, saying, How did these nations serve their gods, that I too may do likewise?”
(Deuteronomy 12:30 MKJV)
And: “Hear the Word which the LORD speaks to you, O house of Israel. So says the LORD, Do not learn the way of the nations, and do not be terrified at the signs of the heavens; for the nations are terrified at them. For the customs of the people are vain…” (Jeremiah 10:1-3 MKJV).
And: “But they would not hear, but hardened their necks, like the neck of their fathers who did not believe in the LORD their God. And they rejected His statutes and His covenant which He made with their fathers, and His testimonies which He testified against them. And they went after the vain thing, and became vain, and after the nations around them, concerning whom the LORD had charged them not to do like them” (2 Kings 17:14-15 MKJV).
Christmas has nothing whatsoever to do with Yeshua/Jesus Christ. God has nothing to do with Kwanza. These are not innocent celebrations or festivities, Nate. All suffer the consequences of partaking in these apparently harmless activities. I know; I was there and now I am here. Being there only, I didn’t know, but where I am now, I can and do know. God once spoke to me in 1976, telling me His people were hurting because they were indulging in all these things, and doing them in His Name, thinking to please Him. They are grieving, not pleasing Him.
Why would you encourage these things, contrary to the Torah, as though you were ignorant of, or wilfully disregarding the Torah, while at the same time presuming to go to the synagogue and worshiping the One Who condemned these things?
I will tell you why. Perhaps you haven’t known any differently, but you are choosing the acceptance of man over the praise of God, and the pleasures of this world over the fulfilment of the spirit.
Nate and Vera, I don’t say these things to fault you. You are already at fault, know it or not, and I tell you how, as a friend, so that you will know and seek to honor the Creator, and not men who choose, whether ignorantly or otherwise, to worship and revel as they please, against His will. It is not easy, to be sure, but it is necessary, if one will live.
Victor
The final letter from Victor and Paul is about the lie of achieving whatever we put our minds to by “positive thinking” and application of willpower:
Greetings, Nate.
Thank you for your help over the phone yesterday. I sent along the information you gave me, and we’ll see where that goes. Regarding our brief discussion about our ability or inability to achieve anything we set our hearts on, I am including a letter from Victor responding to one of your latest newsletters, and will add a couple thoughts after his letter.
Hi, Nathan, Victor here,
I repeat your quote from Murray:
Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative(and creation) there is one
elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: That the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in
one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material
assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. I have learned a deep for one of Goethe’s couplet’:
“Whatever you can do,
or dream you can, begin it.
Boldness has genius,
power and magic in it.”
— W.H. Murray
The Scottish Himalayan Expedition
Those words are very true. Very true. However, the application is what is questionable. Is this a case of the horse behind the cart? Fellows like Harv Eker and other motivators (perhaps Zig … not sure) come along and say, “You can do anything you put your mind to doing. Look at ‘So-and-So,’ who did this or that. He had commitment and concentration; he had enthusiasm; He did it! With those things, so can you!”
Nate, I want to ask you: Did a successful person have a calling on his life from above, and therefore the enthusiasm, drive, and conviction were naturally present, provided in sufficient supply to accomplish the calling, or, did the person make a decision to accomplish something, decide to be enthusiastic, apply his will and concentration to it, and thus succeed?
A bystander will see the enthusiasm and drive in Bill Clinton, or George Bush, or Thomas Edison, or Bill Gates, and think it was those things that made them what they are or were. The observers conclude that if they then nurture those qualities or attributes, that they can therefore accomplish the same. Isn’t that what you are saying in telling all these people that if they just set their minds to it, they can become HTE presidents, or anything they want? Who is getting the credit here? The cart or the horse? Man or God?
We can take many lessons from God’s works all around us. Is it not true that a chicken lays eggs because it is in her nature to do so? She does not lay eggs because she conceived the desire and goal in herself of her own volition, committed herself, and after undaunted persistence, laid an egg.
Let’s face it: a terrier can never become a setter, no matter how much it aspires to be one. A Clydesdale will never be a racehorse.
You may argue that while a chicken does not have free will, man does. One cannot grow an inch taller, no matter how much enthusiasm or willpower. Some are scientists and some are musicians. I could never have been another Vladimir Horowitz, or Itzhak Perlman. The passion and drive are there in the beginning because the calling is there.
I see the difference here as giving man the glory or giving God the glory. Man desires to be the “master of his own destiny.” It doesn’t work. Nebuchadnezzar one day said, “Look at my great empire! Look at what I have accomplished!” We then read the words:
“While the word was in the king’s mouth, a voice fell from Heaven, saying, O King Nebuchadnezzar, to you it is spoken. The kingdom has departed from you. And they shall drive you from men, and your dwelling shall be with the animals of the field. They shall make you eat grass like oxen, and seven times shall pass over you, until you know that the Most High rules in the kingdom of men, and gives it to whomever He will” (Daniel 4:31-32).
All was taken from him, even his sanity. By the time the Lord was done with him, Nebuchadnezzar, in humility, declared:
“Now I Nebuchadnezzar praise and exalt and honor the King of heaven, all whose works are truth and His ways judgment. And those who walk in pride He is able to humble” (Daniel 4:37).
What is the problem with motivation or encouragement? That depends. How are we doing it? What are we promising or suggesting to people? Nate, we can be very presumptuous without realizing it. Nevertheless, the consequences still come. I have seen many people motivated to try many things, told they could do it. I have been one of those people motivated by others. It didn’t work, and not because I didn’t try. Read, if you will (I know you don’t care to hear these things), AMWAY on our site.
I discovered that it is all in God’s hands, and there is no denying or escaping it. Fatalism? No. A knowledge of God and His ways.
Victor
Paul again:
Here is what Solomon, given wisdom above all others of his day, and many other’s day, had to say:
“I returned and saw under the sun that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favor to men of skill; but time and chance happens to them all. For man also does not know his time; as the fishes that are taken in an evil net, and as the birds that are caught in the snare; so are the sons of men snared in an evil time, when it falls suddenly on them” (Ecclesiastes 9:11-12).
Unless we repent, we are all snared in an evil time. If this seems negative, it is only because there is the positive, which is God’s grace and power in Jesus Christ, Messiah and Savior of all men. He is the One of Whom all Scripture speaks, and what life is all about. It is not about how many machines we sell, or even how many people we help. It is not about how great a business we build, or how many friends we make. Solomon summed it up like this:
“Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter. Fear God, and keep His commandments. For this is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it is good, or whether evil” (Ecclesiastes 12:13-14).
Jesus said: “What shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul” (Mark 8:36). We owe Him our lives, Nate. There we will find unfettered success, as God defines it for us.
“For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, Who was preached among you by us; by me and Silas and Timothy; was not yes and no, but in Him was, yes! For all the promises of God in Him are yes, and in Him Amen, to the glory of God by us” (2 Corinthians 1:19-20).
Paul
We received no reply to any of these letters.