AT THE OPENING of The Golden Sayings of Epictetus, he notes how young artists practice with the eye, musicians the ear, athletes the body — and wonders if it is not possible to strengthen the mind before taking on the issues of philosophy. After all, weight lifters do not start out with the most massive objects.

So, he says, put these questions about the nature of the divine aside, and deal only with simpler issues to acquire the skill to think clearly. He also advises proper diet and exercise.

And now, after all this time, the sciences like neurology, brain chemistry, sociology, and psychology show he was correct: It is possible to increase the power of the mind and deal with these great issues more rationally.

A lot of this insight comes from recent studies on childhood development. But we also see how trauma and other environmental effects can preclude maximal mental development — which many of us now struggle with.

So then, after Epictetus’ example above, is it possible to design a community, that, from the outset, is designed to maximize the mental powers of each of the children raised in it — and minimize the risk of trauma?

Don’t we use car seats for kids even though only a few have been harmed? I can’t, for instance, prove organic vegetables are necessary, but studies have shown the developmental damage some kids suffer that traces back to the contamination of the food supply by organophosphates. Because the FDA and other agencies have been corrupted, we can’t depend on government to solve this problem: Citizens in every community must oversee food production ourselves.

Medical science also reveals how exercise increases blood flow, that then washes toxins out of the brain for clearer thinking. If all you do is sit at a PC, brain function may be far from optimal — maybe even neurotic denial will kick in as you read these lines, and you’ll find some reason not to change your lifestyle. In any case, we have a clue as to why the kids that went to one room schoolhouses — and then walked home — scored better than those now who ride the bus.

Epidemiology shows how, in large schools, pathogens mutate going from one kid to the next, which keeps the “bugs” in constant circulation. And studies on autism show how viruses can trigger its onset. But in small rural schools, with only a few hundred kids, the pathogens run out of new victims as the student body acquires immunity. The result, seen in the small schools of my neck of the Ozark woods, is attendance over 95%.

The cities are designed for adults. The suburbs were set up to provide “each man his castle.” They all inherit law codes and customs from early civilizations that don’t much look like our world, which is driven by electronic media manipulated by those motivated by money and power for the “in crowd.”

Hominids evolved in villages, and so kids are born with sets of instinctive behavior patterns that still work in villages. Not cities. There are no strangers with candy in a village. Kids do not need to be brought up fearful, and that expands creativity and a sense of freedom. Villages are usually homogeneous too — no ethnic conflicts.

The posted national rate for autism is 1:155. Amish kids are still raised on home grown vegetables and go to small schools. Their autism rate is 1:15,000. This fact is never mentioned in the corporate media which profits so handsomely selling us the sugary cereals, junk food, and soda our kids are raised on. That’s another point few will consider.

We can’t reform the world, just that small part each of us lives in. This article is not meant to be a well defined plan, merely an outline of some of the dangers and opportunities we need to be thinking about. Hominid adults evolved in villages too; which all had kids. It was the responsibility for the kids that primarily motivated the adults to be adult and responsible.

We have strayed so far from healthy ways that our women are bringing fewer and fewer children into the world. If women do not have kids, then, as we can see, they will make children of their men — in a self-reinforcing cycle of decline and despair.

“AVOID DOCTORS if you want to live a long life” said a wise uncle of mine who just happened to live to the age of 82 with perfect health. He was writing imaginative fiction, penning incisive essays, and ardently pursuing a romantic relationship with a lovely fortysomething woman until the very last week of his life in 1947, when — you guessed it — he was persuaded to enter a hospital in Chichester over a minor complaint and came under the “care” of the medical establishment. That, as they say, is all she wrote.

Doctors know much more today than they did in 1947, and for some things they are indispensable. But note well the endless string of recalls and horror stories of drugs that, ten or 20 years on, have unexpected and severe side effects that the FDA somehow didn’t catch. And recall how many times they have flip-flopped on what is good and what is harmful to take into your body: There were times when Thalidomide and cigarettes were said to be A-OK, and butter and eggs were called positively dangerous. Up until a year or so ago they thought we needed a whopping eight glasses of water a day — until they discovered no one knew where that dictum had even come from. Medicine is not yet an exact science.

And doctors have, sadly, been captured by Big Pharma and Big Insurance and are (usually unwitting) collaborators with the psychiatrists in the effort to medicate us all to the limits of our sanity and our bank accounts. Most of this drug-a-thon is unnecessary. Giving Ritalin to millions of perfectly normal energetic kids is just one outrage out of thousands.

Today, with the collective intelligence of the Internet and the unselfish efforts of researchers and writers like those at the Life Extension Foundation (LEF), more often than not you no longer need to consult a licensed practitioner or take his licensed drugs to treat what ails you. An intelligent man or woman, armed with an inventory of symptoms and his or her own history, can easily cut through the dross (which is out there) and find informed and even advanced opinion on what should be done. And supplement providers are still more or less free to sell you the substances you might need to treat yourself.

But, just as in the fields of spirituality and politics, there are con men galore in the health field. They mostly fool the uneducated and the uneducable. American Mercury readers would probably never fall for their blandishments, any more than they fell for those of Boy George Bush or Barack Hussein Fetchit. But Big Brother wants to “protect” us all. They don’t think we’re able to make decisions about our own health care.

Every year, Washington bureaucrats overreach their mandate and try to increase their power to control what vitamins and supplements we’re allowed to buy. Every year, especially this year, Pharma-linked and Insurance-company-linked lawyers write laws (that the Congressmen seldom even read) designed to make medicine an ever more tightly controlled cartel with monopoly-like powers. They’ve even tried to regulate Vitamin B6 — and walnuts — and green tea!

Yes, I agree that frauds who prey on the ignorant need to be brought to heel. But the best way to do that is to eradicate ignorance as much as possible. And the worst way to do it is to give more power to the servants of the Drug Trust and the Insurance Cartel in Washington, DC.