Sunbathing

In Aajonus's account, vitamin D is made in the skin when sunlight strikes fat on the skin's surface. The sun's radiation hits the fat, and the skin converts that radiation into vitamin D, which is then absorbed up into the body. As the body absorbs the vitamin D, the skin color deepens, which is why tanning is a sign that conversion is occurring. People with very high vitamin D uptake absorb it rapidly and may have little visible color change because the body is pulling the vitamin D in almost immediately.

Aajonus distinguished sharply between the fats that can perform this conversion and those that cannot. Cream alone placed on the skin will not produce vitamin D because cream cannot be converted in that way. Butter on the skin or whole milk on the skin can be converted into vitamin D when sun strikes them. He was specific: "Cream cannot be converted into vitamin D. So don't put cream on your skin and expect to get vitamin D. Use either whole milk to put on your skin or butter and you will convert that fat on your skin will be converted into a vitamin D."

The same conversion fails when the body is highly toxic. Aajonus explained that toxic bodies draw fat out of the skin and use it to bind with poisons and carry them out through the skin. Once that fat is consumed for detoxification, the skin is left deficient, and the sun then burns and blisters instead of nourishing. He described this as a systemic problem rather than a localized one: the more chemicals a person carries, the more fat the body conscripts from the skin for neutralizing toxins, and the more sun-vulnerable the skin becomes.

Aajonus was unequivocal that sunscreen is toxic and causes disease rather than preventing it. He stated directly that sunscreen causes cancer, multiple sclerosis, and lupus. His description of MS was that it is disintegration of the connective tissue, and his position was that sunscreen contributes to this by poisoning the skin and smothering its function. Any skin lotion at all, including all suntan lotions, poisons and smothers the skin and prevents it from performing the fat-to-vitamin D conversion.

He also rejected the premise behind sunscreen use. If the skin has adequate utilizable fat from a raw diet that includes plenty of raw fat, there is no need for artificial sun protection. The conventional position that the sun is dangerous and must be blocked with chemical barriers was, in his framing, a marketing device rather than a scientific finding. He stated that the only thing working against a person outdoors is poison, not sunlight itself.

The single most important factor determining how well a person tolerates the sun is the quality and quantity of utilizable fat in their body, particularly in their skin. Aajonus was consistent across many passages that people on a raw diet including abundant raw fat become progressively more sun-tolerant. He stated that people who had previously burned easily were able to sunbathe without any protection and without burning after one to five months on such a diet.

He gave the example of an albino at a yoga ashram, a person with reddish-white hair who had never been able to go into the sun at all and who had kept himself completely covered throughout his life. Aajonus put him on approximately three quarters of a pound of butter per day along with honey, some raw dairy, and avocado and oranges. After ten days, the man went onto a roof and stayed in sunshine for an hour with no burn. Two days after that, he fell asleep in the sun for six hours and did not burn, developing only a slight redness. Aajonus described the man's skin as having transformed from a dry white appearance to an oily look, and attributed the change entirely to the butter fat moving into the skin within ten days.

He told a similar account of a female client with red hair and very white skin who had been on his diet for nearly ten years but had been afraid of the sun because she had cancer and had always experienced second-degree or worse sunburns before the diet. She spent several hours on a beach in Los Angeles without preparing her skin the night before. She turned bright red and was very sore and believed she had burned severely. She applied raw cream to her skin to soothe the feeling for thirty-six hours. Three days later, the redness and soreness were completely gone with no peeling at all. Aajonus noted that this was the first time in her forty-two years that a sun exposure had not resulted in peeling, and he told her she would now be able to use the sun much more easily for the rest of that summer.

Aajonus acknowledged that even people eating correctly may experience some burning on the first significant sun exposure of each year, particularly those who go many months without any sun access. He described this as an expected recalibration rather than a sign of pathology. After the first burn of the year, burning again becomes rare if the diet is adequate.

He gave specific guidance: the first outing should be regulated to no more than twenty minutes per side per flip. Some people feel burned but are not truly burned in a damaging sense, and the feeling often resolves within a few days without any peeling. If a person continues to burn and peel on two or three consecutive outings despite following the oil protocol, Aajonus offered an alternative interpretation. In that case, it may be a sign that the person already has enough oil in the skin to prevent sunburn and that additional topical oil is actually counterproductive. For people in that situation, including himself, he stated that no oil should be applied for twenty-four hours before sunning, and no bathing for twenty-four hours before sunning either. He wrote: "I always feel burned for a day and then it fades to a tan without peeling."

One of Aajonus's consistent and firm protocols was that a person must not shower or bathe on the morning of a planned day of sunbathing. Washing removes the body's natural oils, which serve as a natural sunblock and mediating layer between the skin and the sun. Removing those oils through washing leaves the skin unprotected and increases the likelihood of burning.

His recommendation was to apply unrefined cold-pressed coconut or peanut oil, pressed below 96 degrees Fahrenheit, the night before sunbathing. This gives the oil time to be fully absorbed into the skin before sun exposure begins. Applying oil the same morning as sun exposure does not provide the same protection because the oil needs time to integrate.

He also stated that for people who are already well-oiled or who continue to burn despite following the oil protocol, no oil should be put on the skin for a full twenty-four hours before sunning. This appears as a conflicting instruction across different situations: for those starting out or who are oil-deficient, oil the night before; for those who already have ample oil in the skin and continue to experience burning with topical applications, no oil at all for twenty-four hours before, and no bathing for twenty-four hours before.

Aajonus developed and refined his recommendations for topical preparations over time, and the sources reflect different formulas at different points.

His foundational recommendation was unrefined cold-pressed coconut oil or peanut oil applied the night before. Coconut oil is a tanning lotion in his framework: it draws more sun into the skin and causes greater sun absorption, which is exactly why it must be applied the night before rather than immediately before exposure. By morning, after full absorption, the tanning-promoting effect is built in without the risk of overexposure that comes from applying oil immediately before going out.

He described coconut cream as having approximately 78 percent oil content and as functioning as a sunblock when applied in a certain way. The distinction between coconut cream and coconut oil in this context is meaningful: coconut oil promotes tanning and draws more sun in, while coconut cream applied appropriately can block excess sun.

Milk applied directly to the skin before or during sun exposure functions as a complete sunblock in Aajonus's account. He stated that milk "completely blocks the sun" and that even if a person turns very red, the redness will be gone within a day. He recommended that people who are getting too much sun during exposure put milk on every few hours. The milk helps convert vitamin D or pulls excess radiation out of the system.

He later developed a skin formula he described as his newest, consisting of equal parts coconut cream, butter, and raw cream, combined with a small amount of honey and royal jelly. His specific proportions for an eight-ounce jar were two ounces of butter, two ounces of raw cream, and two ounces of coconut cream, plus half a teaspoon of honey and one-eighth of a teaspoon of royal jelly, blended together. He emphasized that none of these ingredients works as a sun preparation on its own: applying coconut cream alone causes burning, applying cream alone causes burning, and applying butter alone causes burning. Only the specific combination works as intended. He described getting a tan from thirty-five minutes of sun after using this formula.

He also mentioned getting butter and bone marrow rubbed into the body during sun exposure as part of his own practice when in Asia, where he described receiving two hours of sun per week during a massage, with the butter and marrow applied while in the sun.

Regarding butter specifically, he consistently placed it as the most effective substance for preventing burn and promoting the fastest recovery. One account in the workshop transcripts describes a situation where butter was confirmed as working better than coconut oil or aloe for converting sun exposure and preventing burning.

When burning does occur despite precautions, Aajonus offered several specific remedies.

Rubbing tomato directly on the burned areas was one of his primary suggestions. A mixture of good water and a small amount of honey in a ratio of one part honey to ten parts water applied to burned areas was another, though he noted it is sticky.

Raw cream applied to the skin soothes and nourishes sunburned skin and also helps the skin absorb the sun that has been captured in the skin layers. This is the preparation he recommended for the red-haired client described above.

He also described a bath remedy for sunburn: bathing as soon as possible after burning in a bath containing at least one cup of raw unpasteurized apple cider vinegar and, when available, two cups of raw milk stirred into the bath water. After the bath, he recommended gently rubbing plain raw kefir, raw milk, or egg white into the sunburned skin every two to six hours and leaving it on the skin. He stated this soothes the skin and relieves pain.

Clay was mentioned as another option, specifically as a paste to apply to the skin. He described both clay and milk together as one of the best combinations for soothing radiation from the skin. Aloe vera gel from the plant directly, not from a store, was described as useful for soothing radiation absorbed from the sun.

A formula he listed in his book for burns included raw egg white alone applied to sunburn, or a combination including sun-dried powdered clay and stone-pressed olive oil. He described these preparations as capable of making sunburn "disappear magically" and as quickly soothing first-degree burns while increasing relief and healing in second-degree burns.

Aajonus addressed the question of how often and for how long a person needs sun exposure, including differences between summer and winter.

In summer, one hour in the sun can produce enough vitamin D for two weeks. In winter at northern latitudes, he suggested going out once a week to once every three days for an hour to maintain adequate vitamin D. He was clear that vitamin D production from sunlight continues as long as there is sunlight, including in winter, though the intensity is lower.

He described his own practice in Asia as spending approximately two hours per week in the sun, often during a massage with butter and bone marrow applied to the body, and in periods where he was in Asia continuously, receiving sun almost all day.

Aajonus returned repeatedly to the idea that sun sensitivity is fundamentally a fat-deficiency problem. The more raw fat a person eats and the better their body utilizes it, the more fat is available in the skin for the vitamin D conversion, and the less they burn. The relationship is direct.

He explained the ice cream craving phenomenon in this framework: in summer, people crave ice cream because the sun's radiation is striking skin that lacks adequate animal fat. The body is being hit by radiation it cannot properly convert, and it is craving the cream as a way to supply the missing fat. He noted that when radiation is absorbed into animal fat in the skin, it transforms into vitamin D and is absorbed into a complex array of fats and cholesterols that support strength, protection, and energy throughout the body. When those fats are absent, the sun's radiation cannot be converted and instead burns the skin.

He also distinguished between the redness that signals toxin elimination and the redness that signals sunburn, noting that some people with conditions like rosacea have red skin because the blood is pushing toxins out through the skin, and the sun is reacting with those surface toxins rather than with fat. The way to read the difference is whether the skin is irritated in response to the sun's conversion process or in response to the outward movement of toxins.

For people with hair, Aajonus stated that hair itself protects the scalp from sun damage and that covering the head is not necessary if a person has hair. For bald people, he recommended either wearing a hat or applying mud to the scalp. He noted that he himself, having lost hair in specific areas from chemotherapy that never regrew, would apply mud to those areas if he was in the sun for an extended period.

Several of the workshop transcripts describe periods of Aajonus's own life during which he depended on sunlight for pain relief before his dietary recovery was complete. During the period when he was living outdoors and severely ill with multiple myeloma and joint pain, he was immobilized when temperatures dropped below fifty degrees. Every morning when he woke before dawn, he would lie in pain until the sun had been beating on his sleeping bag for one and a half to two hours, at which point he could crawl out. Then he would lie naked in direct sun for thirty to forty-five minutes before he could move with any degree of functionality. He described this as a period during which the warmth of the sun was essential to his ability to move at all. As his diet improved, particularly after eating certain high-fat animal foods, he found he could emerge from the sleeping bag in forty-five minutes and needed only ten to fifteen minutes of direct sun exposure to become mobile.

Aajonus acknowledged that vitamin D is available in raw milk, raw butter, and raw meats, but he maintained that in the current toxic environment, people need higher levels than food alone can supply because of the extent of bone loss, mineral deficiency, and osteoporosis in the modern population. Getting in the sun is, in his words, "an important factor" for reversing those conditions, and he recommended it alongside rather than instead of food-based vitamin D sources.

He was critical of commercial vitamin D supplements as not genuine vitamin D. He described supplement-grade vitamin D as hydrogenated vegetable oil exposed to radioactive material, bearing no relationship to true vitamin D produced through the skin's interaction with sunlight. Fermented cod liver oil was noted as a potential food-based source, with the qualification that fermentation matters.

He also addressed the black races' physiological advantage in this regard: darker-skinned people have a reserve of vitamin D stored in their pigmentation such that, according to Aajonus, they could go an entire generation without sunshine and remain relatively healthy as long as their diet was clean. White-skinned people have no such reserve and must produce vitamin D continuously through regular sun exposure combined with adequate raw fat in the skin.

Drawing across the source passages, the full protocol as Aajonus described it is as follows. The night before sunbathing, rub a small amount of unrefined cold-pressed coconut oil or peanut oil, pressed below 96 degrees Fahrenheit, into the skin. Do not shower or bathe the morning of sunbathing. Begin with short periods in the sun, as much as feels comfortable, especially early in the season. For the first outing, limit to no more than twenty minutes per side per flip. If burning occurs on the first outing of the year, it is expected and usually resolves without peeling within a few days. If burning and peeling continue on two or more consecutive outings despite the oil preparation, stop applying topical oil and do not bathe for twenty-four hours before sunning, as this may indicate that the skin already has sufficient oil and additional topical fat is interfering.

For sun exposure without any preparation the night before, it is still better to go out without any lotion than to apply conventional sunscreen. If burning occurs under those circumstances, tomato rubbed on the burned area or a dilute honey-and-water mixture applied topically are the primary remedies, along with raw cream for soothing. Milk applied to the skin during exposure, every few hours, blocks excess sun and helps the system manage radiation.

For optimal ongoing practice, apply the equal-parts butter, raw cream, and coconut cream formula with honey and royal jelly as described. Get regular sun exposure, building up duration as the diet and skin condition improve. In summer, one hour per week or session can supply two weeks of vitamin D. In winter, increase frequency to several sessions per week.

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