The three stars are for this book, not the cleanse, which is five-star all the way!
I am on day 18 of the master cleanse, so I think my opinions on this book have some validity. I have in fact been drinking less than half the recommended daily amount of the stuff, and as long as I get enough prana/chi from fresh air and drink tons of pure water, I never need more than that. I feel wonderful and will keep doing it until my body tells me it's time to stop. My body never lies to me.
Having been vegetarian for 20 years this summer, and organic-only much of that time, I am no stranger to fasting, cleansing and detoxing. For those who are, this is a fair introduction to going for maximum internal cleanliness...but there are many much better books on the subject (Bernard Jensen is a good start). As well, Woloshyn puts far too much extraneous personal stuff about his life in the book; it's really about him more than the cleanse.
The cleanse is largely about eliminating pointless things from your system, and I think this book is also somewhat pointless, considering that all of this info and about a hundred times more is available for free at various websites, most specifically themastercleanse in dot-org-land. That site has endless testimonies and much more info in general than this book. And it's free.
Woloshyn also doesn't give enough credit to Stanley Burroughs, the real mastermind behind the master cleanse. Burroughs wrote a very simple little booklet to sell as cheaply as possible. His goal was true health for all, not personal aggrandizement or profit. Woloshyn merely does what so many modern health writers are doing: take a proven old idea and market it under his name.
All you really need to know is this: you MUST use organic lemons and grade B maple syrup (wherein live the essential nutrients; buy it bulk online and save a ton over Whole Food's price).
Above all, use as much cayenne as you can stand. I use about ten to twelve times the recommended amount, but my body loves the stuff (endless thanks to Jethro Kloss for that idea, in his incomparable Back To Eden). Perhaps that's why I need so little every day: the peppers really get the body humming.
And then drink at least 12 glasses of water a day.
And really, that's it.
Enemas are highly recommended to take the cleanse to another level. But even then, they are not essential, though very wise. Making sure everything is organic and going into top-grade filtered water is. That, and lots of sun and fresh air. One quickly learns that that's where the real source of life lies. Stepping into air conditioning and feeling one's blood sugar plummet is a strong lesson about our lifeless modern environment. I've ingested maybe a few thousand calories in the last 18 days. How could I be feeling so healthy and alive if we really needed 2,000 calories a day? Long walks in the woods (alone or with a happy dog!) also aid immensely in grounding the spirit and bringing much joy. Nature never looks and feels so sparkling as when one is cleansing.
For those who need a book in their hands to guide them, this is ok. But the original booklet works just as well, and the website I mentioned covers all that's in this book, and so much more.
Not a bad book...but hardly essential. And when the whole point of cleansing is stripping away all but the essentials, why buy something that's hardly essential?