Glenn Beck went into new territory this morning, telling his audience that he felt that possible “toxins” and “poisons” affecting his health could be traced to his studies of progressives. After detailing several recent health ailments he has been experiencing, he suggested that the “poisons” his doctors are looking for are linked to his attempts to “understand the minds of” progressives, which he termed “drinking that poison which others may not find poison but I do because it is exact opposite of me”:

BECK: In the last 24 hours as I've been thinking about the doctor saying “we're looking for toxins, we're looking for poisons in your body,” I know what they are. For four years, I have tried to understand the mind of what I believe are monsters. It started with Walter Lippman, the first book that I closed and said “I can't read this anymore” was Walter Lippman and it was about how they can breed better people and how there are undesirables. I never finished the book, that was the first one.

And for four years I have been trying to understand the minds of people that I ... I think are so misled. And they are the exact opposite of what I have tried to be, what I want to be, what I strive for. But I have done it because I have to, I have to understand it, I have to see what's... try to understand to explain what's coming, what's happening ... not for you, but for my children.

I believe we can be better people. I believe in the American experiment. But I also believe there are very misguided people and I have been drinking that poison which others may not find poison but I do because it is exact opposite of me. And I have been ... “that which you gaze upon you become” and I have been trying not to become that. And that is the internal struggle, and that is where I want to take it next. A warning to you and a... an ask for specific help on something, next.

Beck later denied believing “Van Jones and the left” poisoned him (a claim he said progressive media outlets would promote). But after acknowledging that “there is a physical reason for all of these” medical problems, he added that he feels his “physical wounds” may be a manifestation of “spiritual wounds.”

BECK: And I want you to know that there is a... there is a physical reason for all of these. I don't know what it is yet and neither do the doctors. We don't even know what all of the symptoms are at this point. And that's what we're... that's what I'm gonna be taking Monday and Tuesday off and I'm going out west to a hospital and I'm gonna be doing all kinds of tests on those two days just to get 'em all done. And we're... they're going under every rock.

So there's a physical reason but I believe physical, mental, and spiritual are all tied. It is the... you can't injure the soul of someone and not have physical wounds appear eventually. This is something I believe in. You may not believe in that, but I do.

A lot of physical things, a lot of mental things, are from spiritual wounds. And vice versa. And, as I was laying in bed the other day, and I closed that book and I said “I just can't read it any more” I started to think about it: How many times have I said, “I just can't look at this stuff any more. I can't read it any more.” But I do, because it's the task that I have had.

I have said, so many times “I don't want to be this guy.” I... I can't continue to say this. And, I have said to my wife, that this journey has taken years off my life.

It is so diametrically opposed to me and people in the media don't believe it, and that's fine. There are so many people that have written and they don't understand that I mean what I say when I say, “I don't want to be the guy saying these things.”

And while I don't think that is the reason I do believe that your body protects you and I don't think it's a coincidence that I have said for so long, “I can't read this any more, I can't look at this any more, I can't say these things any more.” And I also believe that which you gaze upon you become.

This isn't the first time Beck has claimed progressives or progressive idea were poisonous. He's claimed that progressivism “is the poison that's killing our Constitution,” and that progressives have had a 95 year plan to “put a poison into our church.”

We've seen for some time now Beck portray himself as a form of holy warrior, but his latest effort to link his physical illness to the material he's been reading and studying (poorly) is extraordinary.