Aajonus was unambiguous and emphatic on this point: mental illness, including schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, manic depression, paranoia, clinical depression, anxiety, and related states, is not a psychological problem. It is not a chemical disorder in the way the pharmaceutical industry defines it. It is a direct expression of the biological condition of the body, specifically the intestinal environment, the bacterial ecosystem of the colon, the blood-sugar regulatory system, and the state of neurological toxicity.

He stated plainly: "There is no valid science behind psychiatry. It is all nonsense. Absolute nonsense." He drew a distinction between psychiatry and psychology: "Psychology is a little bit better. It deals with your behavior and your feelings at the time. Psychiatry blames your past, your mother, your father for everything, and your chemistry. And mostly your chemistry is at fault. But it's not a chemistry they control. Pharmaceutical industry controls."

In his framework, the brain and nervous system are entirely dependent on the bacterial ecosystem of the colon for their nutrition. The E. coli and related bacteria in the large intestine are the primary food producers for the brain and nervous system. When that bacterial environment is depleted, compromised, or destroyed, the brain and nervous system are literally starved. The result is depression, paranoia, psychosis, and the full spectrum of what conventional medicine labels as mental illness.

He also framed certain forms of mental illness, specifically the manic, hyperactive, energized states, as expressions of blood-sugar dysregulation, carbohydrate imbalance, and the cascade of adrenaline, testosterone, and estrogen that follows when the body is overwhelmed with high-sugar foods, particularly cooked carbohydrates and fruit.

He said: "If you've got anybody who's got a psychological problem, that means they have low bacteria in the colon. Bacteria digest food. Understand that."

He also noted that what appears as schizophrenia or erratic behavior can be a form of "enforced schizophrenia" produced by the biochemical environment created by toxic food, pharmaceutical drugs, or the damage done by a lifetime of cooked, bacterially-sterile food, not a fixed psychological state, not a genetic destiny, and not something that requires lifelong pharmaceutical management.

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The primary root cause Aajonus identified for depression, paranoia, psychosis, schizophrenia, and bipolar disorder is a depletion of the bacterial ecosystem of the colon, specifically the E. coli environment. He stated: "90% of depression is caused by a low E. coli environment from all the toxic food, all the wastes, enemas, colonics, stuff like that that flushes them out, wipes them out. So you can head into depression pretty quickly. Also head into heavy paranoia."

He explained that the brain and nervous system get their food from the colon, from the byproducts and metabolic outputs of the bacteria living there. He said: "That E. coli in there is very important. Like when I did, did anybody see my segment on the rotten meat eater on Ripley's Believe It or Not?... I had two people who had been on psychotropic drugs, one for five years, one for 20 years."

He referenced the research of John Monroe (referred to at one point as "John Moore's work, Monroe's work"): "In the absence of bacteria and virus in the body, a clinical depression arises. Sure, you get rid of colds and flus, but then you have clinical depression. When you introduce the bacteria and virus again, you have the colds and flus, but you don't have the clinical depression."

This was one of the foundational logical pillars for his use of high meat (bacterially-aged raw meat) to treat depression and psychosis: the bacteria in the high meat perform the same predigestion of fats and proteins that the E. coli in the colon would perform, delivering the resulting nutrients directly to the blood and then to the brain and nervous system.

Aajonus identified several mechanisms by which the intestinal bacterial environment becomes depleted:

• Eating cooked food, which destroys bacteria and produces no living microbial content
• Taking pharmaceutical drugs, particularly antibiotics and psychotropic drugs themselves
• Enemas and colonics, which flush out E. coli colonies and, with repeated use, cause increasing chemical sensitivity, paranoia, and psychological instability: "Also head into heavy paranoia. And all of a sudden you get hooked on doing enemas or colonics. And you'll get crazy if you don't."
• Childhood medical interventions, including polio treatments, asthmatic treatments, vaccinations, and drug therapy: "These are people who've been taking drugs usually, or had massive reactions to things like drug therapy as a child, maybe polio treatments, or asthmatic treatments."
• The psychotropic drugs themselves, which he described as creating a self-perpetuating cycle: "This just keeps people in a cycle of using the drugs but never gets them well."

Aajonus identified the manic, hyperactive, rage-prone pole of bipolar disorder as rooted in blood-sugar dysregulation driven by excess carbohydrate consumption. He described this in detail from his own experience:

"The high amount of sugar made me manic all the time and I thought that was tremendous because gosh I've had all this energy. I was manic... I could easily become hyperactive and manic within 90 minutes after eating lots of high-carbohydrate fruits or juices."

He noted that fruitarians are characteristically manic: "Most of your fruitarians are manic. They're like, Oh, God. You're out of control. And they're very quick at anger. I sure was."

He identified the biochemical mechanism for mania: "If someone gets hyperactive, it means he produces a lot of hormones for physical activity: adrenalin, testosterone, estrogen. Those three produce energy for the body to be physically active. So people who produce a lot of those hormones need to be physically active or they can get high anxiety."

He also noted that grandiose thinking, alcoholism-like behavior, and erratic speech that "does not match up" are "symptoms of carbohydrate imbalances. He has symptoms of blood-sugar irregularities and imbalances, and low bacteria levels."

Aajonus presented another dimension of the root cause, drawing on the work of a researcher he described as having worked at Milholland Laboratories at Columbia University for 47 years, cataloging every chemical in the brain and nervous system. He explained:

"When people have those emotional reactions, they're detoxifying that, they bring up anxiety again... every time my friends have gotten whacked out, this is a scientist, used the word whacked out, she said whacked out emotionally when there was nothing directly that happened in her life, in that woman's life. She would get like that. She found these psychotropic hormones in her blood as waste products, cleaning out from a previous time."

This means that what appears as a psychotic episode, a manic break, a paranoid crisis, or an emotional collapse may literally be the body detoxifying stored neurological trauma, psychotropic compounds that were produced under stress in the past and stored as toxins, which are then mobilized and excreted through the blood. When those byproducts are circulating, the person re-experiences something resembling the original state.

He stated: "These byproducts of neurological trauma when the body produces these psychotropic compounds store in the body like any other toxin. When they get removed, the body goes back into the same kind of behavior as when it was produced."

Aajonus was precise in distinguishing the anxious-manic pole from the depressive pole, and he was equally precise about the root cause of the anxiety and manic end: it is the failure to use the hormones the body produces for physical activity.

"Anxiety is always a need to exercise. Depression is always a need for bacteria in the colon to digest proteins and fats that feed the brain and make you nervous."

He stated: "90% of anxiety has to do with not exercising. A lot of people produce a lot of hormones for physical activity. That's estrogen, adrenaline, testosterone." When those hormones are produced but not consumed by physical activity, they accumulate and drive hyperactivity, rage, anxiety, and manic behavior.

He also acknowledged that physical brain damage, for example, from an accident or concussion, can contribute to paranoid and violent mental states: "Accidents only cause that kind of condition if a part of the brain was damaged, causing too much stimulus to the anger center of the brain, or an inability to buffer neurological impulses to the anger center."

He briefly referenced aluminum as a cause of neurological dysfunction specifically related to synaptic misfiring: "It's created by aluminum, high uncontrolled... the nervous system, your synapse fires and goes, doesn't go anywhere."

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Mental illness in Aajonus's framework spans multiple causal principles simultaneously:

Root Cause / Terrain Theory: The depletion of intestinal bacteria as the primary cause of all psychological dysfunction. The brain and nervous system cannot be fed without E. coli producing their nutrients from the colon. This is terrain theory at its most foundational, the internal biological environment, not external pathogens or inherited chemistry, determines mental state.

Microbes: The role of bacteria, parasites, viruses, and molds in organizing and vitalizing the body and mind. "When the body has bacterial, viral, mold and/or parasitical help, the body and mind get more organized, vital and happy." The intentional introduction of living bacteria through high meat, high eggs, and fermented raw dairy is a direct therapeutic intervention at the microbe level.

Cooked Food: The sterility of cooked food, its complete absence of living bacteria, is a principal driver of the bacterial depletion that causes mental illness. Psychotropic drug use is the direct continuation and amplification of the same sterility problem.

Detoxification: The recycling of stored neurological toxins, psychotropic byproducts, and the resulting re-emergence of psychological states during detox cycles. This is why people appear to "relapse" when in fact they are detoxifying.

Sovereignty: Psychiatry as an institution is framed as a tool of pharmaceutical industry control, not a healing profession. "There is no valid science behind psychiatry. It is all nonsense." The patient's ability to determine their own path, including refusing psychiatric drugs, pursuing diet-based healing, and managing their own psychological states, is a sovereignty issue.

How to Live: The management of anxiety through physical activity, singing, and daily behavior. The management of manic states through reducing fruit and carbohydrates, increasing raw animal protein and fat, and getting sufficient sleep and outdoor physical activity.

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Depression is not a psychological state or a chemical imbalance in the pharmaceutical sense. It is the direct result of the brain and nervous system not being fed. "If you're depressed, it means you have low bacteria in your colon and you're not feeding your brain and nervous system." It is not sadness. It is literal starvation of the nervous system because the bacterial ecosystem that produces its food has been destroyed.

"If you are depressed, if you're paranoid, it's because of a poor intestinal environment."

Paranoia specifically is identified as a symptom of low E. coli in the colon. It is the same process as depression, the brain is not being fed, its function deteriorates, and one of the expressions of that deterioration is paranoid ideation. He stated this clearly: "If you eat meat that's been pre-digested by bacteria... it's pre-digested. It does what the E. coli does. So you... I was depressed. If you're depressed, eat high meat... So you eat some rotten meat. Why is the rotten meat good? Why are the rotten eggs good? Because the bacteria is already pre-digested."

He also noted that paranoia can be amplified or produced by excessive enema and colonic use, which destroys E. coli colonies progressively.

Mania is the expression of blood-sugar dysregulation, excess carbohydrate intake driving adrenaline, testosterone, and estrogen production beyond what the body can consume through physical activity. The person feels energized, even euphoric, but it is not health. It is a driven, compelled state. He described it from personal experience:

"I was manic. And I looked at that mania as having energy. You know? I mean it drove people out of their minds. They could not keep up with me. But for me it was energy and I loved it. However, it was not conducive to good relationships because I was intense."

He also noted: "I was a diehard radical evangelistic fruitarian vegetarian raw fooder. And it did not make good for relationships."

Aajonus framed schizophrenia partly as the result of an imposed, chemically-driven state, a form of neurological fragmentation produced by toxic food, pharmaceutical drugs, and the resulting bacterial depletion. He described his own childhood behavior as "a type of enforced schizophrenia", not an intrinsic pathology but a behavioral response to a poisoned internal environment and an abusive external environment.

He also described the patient who had been "diagnosed with schizophrenia, bipolar, manic depression, everything", multiple diagnoses applied to a single person whose core problem was bacterial depletion and psychotropic drug damage.

Anxiety is consistently reframed as simply an excess of physical energy hormones, adrenaline, estrogen, testosterone, that the body has produced for movement and has not yet spent. "Anxiety is always the nutrients in your body needing to be utilized as energy." It is not a psychiatric symptom. It is a message that the body needs to move.

"If you can't do it because you're not well, sing. And that'll take care of it."

When a person talks about themselves in ways that do not match reality, the kind of grandiose self-image that appears in manic depression and related states, Aajonus reframed this not necessarily as delusion but as blood-sugar imbalance and low bacteria: "Those are symptoms of carbohydrate imbalances. He has symptoms of blood-sugar irregularities and imbalances, and low bacteria levels."

He also offered an alternative interpretation: "He may be trying to think of himself in a way that motivates him to become that. Most yogis teach that you must first imagine yourself, and then believe in yourself, to be that which you want to become."

Aajonus reframed acute psychotic breaks and emotional collapses as possible detoxification events, the mobilization and elimination of stored psychotropic compounds: "She found these psychotropic hormones in her blood as waste products, cleaning out from a previous time. Could have been when her father intimidated her and ridiculed her or something like that as a child, and then she takes that out on her [family]."

He was unequivocal that psychotropic drugs do not heal. They maintain chemical inebriation. "On drugs, you're not going to be sane. You're not going to be coherent. You're going to be inebriated. Like I said, you can't expect a drug to be sober." The drugs that are prescribed to counter side effects of other drugs compound the problem. A patient taking 27 pills a day from 7 different drugs, where each drug is counteracting side effects of another, is not being treated. She is being maintained in a chemically-altered state that precludes any genuine resolution.

"There is no cure with medication."

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High meat, raw meat that has been aged in a jar, periodically opened to air, and allowed to develop dense bacterial populations over weeks to months, is Aajonus's primary therapeutic food for depression, paranoia, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and related mental states.

He explained the mechanism: "If you eat meat that's been pre-digested by bacteria and it stinks and it's foul, like the Eskimos showed me, it's pre-digested. It does what the E. coli does." The bacteria in the high meat have already broken down the proteins and fats into usable compounds, bypassing the need for a functioning intestinal bacterial ecosystem. The predigested nutrients go directly into the blood and feed the brain and nervous system.

"If you're depressed, eat high meat. Why does high meat work? Because the natural bacteria in the meat is breaking down the molecules of fat and protein just like your bowel would. Like the bacteria in your bowel. So that's why when people eat rotten meat, raw rotten meat, they get silly and happy within 10-20 minutes after eating it."

Speed of action: He was specific and repeated about this: the effect is felt within 10 to 20 minutes of eating high meat. He contrasted this with pharmaceutical antidepressants, which take hours to days to show effect and must be maintained daily. "You eat some rotten meat. 10 to 20 minutes. They eat rotten meat as a regular part of their diets because they don't want to take a chance on being depressed again."

Quantity for the severely mentally ill: One patient, the landscape artist he called Tarzan, a manic-depressive schizophrenic who became the most dramatic case, ate one to two pounds of high meat per day, exclusively, once he found it resolved his state. "He eats only high meat. He'll eat one to two pounds a day. Only high meat."

General dosage: A golf-ball-sized amount, 2-3 times per week, for less severe cases of depression, manic depression, and grandiose/dysthymic presentations. "Eating a golf-ball-sized amount of high meat, 2-3 times per week, would probably help him."

For maintenance, after the acute crisis: The patient who had been on 27 psychotropic pills a day for multiple years settled into eating high meat every other day as a maintenance protocol. "She takes it every other day. She eats high meat every other day to control her depression. And it works. Like, 10 minutes after you take it, you giggle."

How it is consumed: High meat is typically eaten outdoors or on a porch because the smell is extreme, intensely foul, which is the indicator of proper bacterial development. "You don't eat it in a house, in a stinking house, for 24, 48 hours. You'll hang it in a curtain or whatever you have."

He described his personal high meat jars as up to one and a half years old.

High eggs are the equivalent of high meat but using eggs, raw eggs aged similarly to develop bacterial populations. He used them alongside high meat in protocols for depression and mental illness.

"If you've got depression, eat rotten eggs, rotten meat, and you'll be out of your depression in 10, 20 minutes."

"For the depression part of it, high meat, high eggs and suppository."

The suppository referenced appears to be a fat-based anal suppository used to deliver nutrients and bacteria directly to the colon, though the specific composition is not detailed in the available source passages beyond a reference to fat.

For a specific case involving a woman with paranoid schizophrenia characterized by paranoia about being pursued, violence, anger, and abuse, who would not commit to a radical dietary change, Aajonus described the protocol that had worked for his own mother who experienced the same degenerative symptoms:

• 2 raw eggs with either a banana or orange juice every morning
• In the afternoon: 2-3 ounces of stone-pressed olive oil and 1-2 ounces of unsalted raw cheese with a salad

He stated this was "enough to stop her downward spiral into devastating health." This was the minimum viable intervention, the gentlest introduction that could still halt the deterioration.

For anxiety states, rage, violence, and the high-energy manic end of bipolar disorder, Aajonus prescribed his nut formula, typically a blend involving raw nuts, which absorbs and binds excess hormones and toxins. He stated:

"Even if a medication is causing you to have high anxiety and be hostile. A lot of psychotropic drugs do that. Even the nut formula and exercise especially exercise can get rid of it."

"If you've got that kind of emotion, eat a nut formula and go sing, go play, do something you like to do to convert that."

He was specific that the nut formula combined with singing or gentle physical activity was the correct response to violent anger, rage, or manic states, not acting out the rage (as in primal therapy), which he argued would only produce more psychotropic byproducts and perpetuate the cycle.

Raw unsalted cheese was prescribed as a calming agent: "help calm the person and the nut formula or lots of cheese to lower the hormone level." Cheese in Aajonus's system absorbs toxins, hormones, and metals in the digestive tract. For the hyperactive, manic, or anxious end of mental illness, cheese helps absorb excess hormones before they enter circulation.

He described a specific preparation used when a woman had been drugged by her ex-husband who had then obtained legal forms during her incapacitation: "Joseph, make her a quarter pound, three pints of raspberries in a blender, but whole raspberries, and six tablespoons of coconut cream." The context suggests this was used for acute neurological support in a situation of drug-induced psychological compromise. The raspberries and coconut cream together provide both the fruit sugars and the fats needed for neurological recovery.

For cases involving neurological toxicity, hallucination, and mental instability related to toxin accumulation in the brain, described in the context of a brilliant person (an astronomer) who was tormented, hallucinated, and had near-breakdowns, Aajonus endorsed raw warm milk, noting that "raw warm milk would supply many alkalizing minerals to attract and bind with the toxins in his brain that were irritating his head." He explained the mechanism: the toxins had collected on one side of the brain, causing the headaches and instability; the alkalizing minerals in raw warm milk would bind with and neutralize them.

Beyond high meat and high eggs, Aajonus recommended fermented raw dairy, kefir, yogurt, as additional bacterial support for the intestinal ecosystem. These are bacterially rich foods that, in their raw form, deliver living microbial populations to the colon. He stated: "If you eat rotten meat, you eat rotten eggs, rotten milk, kefir, yogurt, rotten. They're fermented, full of bacteria. Bacteria has predigested them."

In rare cases where the nut formula is insufficient, Aajonus allowed that cooked starch, specifically rice, bread, or pasta made with only water and yeast, could be useful to "bind with excessive hormones or toxins when my raw Nut Formula is not effective." This is presented as a last resort and exception to the raw food framework, used only when the manic, hyperactive, or toxin-driven end of mental illness is not responding to the standard nut formula approach.

Though not a food, Aajonus integrated physical activity as a non-negotiable component of the protocol for the anxious and manic states: "Anxiety is always a need to exercise, period. That is it. Find an exercise you enjoy and do it." Even the severely ill who cannot exercise conventionally can sing, which he described as mobilizing and clearing hormones from the system. "If you can't do it because you're not well, sing. And that'll take care of it."

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The most consistently described timeline in the source material is approximately one and a half years of dietary work before the most severely ill patients were ready to take the decisive step of eating high meat. Aajonus described this pattern with multiple patients:

• The yoga teacher who had been on 7 different psychotropic drugs for 27 years (up to 27-28 pills per day): "On the diet, year and a half, on and off the diet because of her psychological problems and continued to take the medication on the diet. And I couldn't convince her to stop."

• Tarzan, the landscape artist with manic-depressive schizophrenia: "He was on and off the diet for about a year and a half."

This year-and-a-half period was characterized by cycling, mood swings, going off the diet, returning to junk food and stimulants during crises, abusive behavior toward Aajonus by phone. He described this as both a physiological reality (the drugs, the depleted bacteria, the blood-sugar swings making it impossible to be stable) and a practical management challenge. He did not abandon these patients.

Once the patient actually consumed high meat for the first time, the change was described as rapid and dramatic. The yoga teacher, after a year and a half:

"She called me very depressed and angry and full of anxiety this one day... I said, you've got to eat the high meat. Just try it once. So, she called me very depressed and angry and full of anxiety this one day... By 4 o'clock in the morning, she calls and she's whistling, waiting for me to answer. Whistling a tune. You know, a tune."

The transformation from suicidal depression and rage to whistling a tune happened within hours of consuming high meat for the first time, after a single dose.

For Tarzan: "He got so happy the first time. He eats only high meat."

One patient had been on 5-7 different psychotropic drugs (described at different points in the sources as 5 per day, or 27 pills per day from 7 drugs) for 22-27 years (the number varies slightly across different tellings, with 22, 26, 27, and 18 years all appearing in different passages). She had been "in and out of all kinds of psychotropic problems, manic-depressive, schizophrenia, everything." She appeared on Ripley's Believe It or Not alongside Aajonus, eating high meat.

The timeline: approximately one and a half years on the Primal Diet before the high meat introduction, then within the timeframe of the television appearance and afterward, she was able to come off the medications and function without the suicidal and homicidal cycles she had experienced her entire adult life.

Aajonus described Barbara as a talented singer who had been "diagnosed as incurably manic depressive and schizophrenic. She was suicidal unless medicated." She was approximately 27 when Aajonus and his partner Owanza began counseling her. She had been on medication for nine years and "hadn't been able to", the text cuts off, but the context implies she hadn't been able to function normally or pursue her career.

The specific timeline and outcome for Barbara from the source material as provided is partially cut off.

Aajonus described waiting four to five years before publicly discussing his use of high bacteria to treat depression. "I've been utilizing high bacteria to take people out of depression, clinical depression for a long time, about four or five years. I waited until, you're the first group that gets to hear this, been waiting until almost five years to utilize this to make sure that it worked in all circumstances."

Of the approximately 17 people who used rotten meat during those five years: "All those who did do it and there were about 17 people who utilized in the last five years whenever they got clinical depression or any kind of depression at all, they ate rotten meat. They'd come to my door, got some more of that rotten meat. It'd be so rotten that you'd want to vomit if you smelled it."

The consistency of results was described as total: "In every case, it has worked... You can have a person who's been completely psychotic, neurotic, or whatever, completely medicated for 27 years, on all these psychotropic drugs, all of a sudden stop cold-turkey and be happy. Impossible in any other situation. Yet, repeatedly, in every case, it has worked."

For patients working the full Primal Diet consistently, Aajonus described a general improvement rate of 2.5% to 3% per year for people doing the diet 100%. He also noted that "symptoms can change faster than those percentages", meaning specific acute symptoms like depression episodes can improve dramatically faster than the underlying tissue restoration would suggest.

Aajonus also described a painful failure in his earlier years before he had fully developed his understanding: his Uncle Lanny, who became severely schizophrenic and depressed in his late thirties. "He had been to doctors and they told him that cures were rare and that a lifetime of medication was his only solution. Several years later doctors convinced him that thyroid removal might help. It did briefly. Then he was labeled incurable." Aajonus described this as a disappointment to him, "Failing Lanny was a disappointment to me", that happened "when I didn't know as much as I do now."

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