Ординатура / Офтальмология / Английские материалы / Relearning To See_Quackenbush_2000

VISION DREAMS

Many students have vision dreams. Vision dreams are dreams which are related to the process of improving sight. Dreaming is primarily a right-brain activity.

One of my students said she was in a dream without her glasses on. The dream was blurred. When she practiced correct vision habits in the dream, the dream cleared up! Some vision students begin remembering their dreams for the first time. Others begin dreaming in color for the first time, where before their dreams were seen in black and white or gray.

Vision dreams are an indication the right brain is being reactivated. This is a positive sign.

RIGHT-BRAIN/EMOTIONAL

CONNECTION

Emotional connections to vision were discussed in previous chapters. Emotional issues surfacing while improving vision can be another positive sign. Emotions are primarily right-brain characteristics.

There is some form of stress present when vision becomes blurred. Most often, there is some emotion connected with that stress.

Some students have memories of tragic experiences resurface while improving their sight. Some vision students have sought professional counseling to help resolve issues related to the blurring of their sight.

Improving sight can be used as a tool for self-healing on many levels, including the emotional level. The alternative is to allow the strain associated with blurred vision to continue. Sometimes it takes courage and ^.termination to improve our vision and ba'ih.

Chapter Nineteen: Brains and Vision

VISION A N D MEMORY

There is a high correlation between vision improvement and memory improvement. How many details do you remember of a room in which you were spaced-out and staring most of the time? Probably not many. How many details do you remember of a room where you were very interested in seeing the objects there? Probably many more.

Bates taught memory activities to his students. He understood the connections among movement, interest, memory, imagination, and normal vision. A simple way to improve memory skills is to sketch an object with your nose-pencil, and then continue to sketch the same object in your mind with the eyelids closed. Alternate back and forth a few times. This is very beneficial to sight

By the way, most students with blurred vision are more relaxed when their eyelids are closed.

TOM'S PERSONAL LOG: A college class I

attended was taught by a man and a woman. The woman had a wonderful, lively energy, standing and moving most of the time while she was teaching. After all thirty students in the room said their names one after another, this teacher correctly named every person in the room! Her less lively partner (her former husband) sat behind the desk, staring with his head down much of the time. He did not repeat the woman's amazing feat of memory. She did not wear glasses; he wore thick, cokebottle glasses.

RIGHT-BRAIN SUBJECTIVITY AND BELIEFS

Vision, being primarily a right-brain function, is primarily a subjective and subconscious process. Therefore, the student's attitudes and

beliefs about his vision improvement process are very important.

It is so ingrained in our society that vision cannot improve, when most people start to experience blurred vision, they do not even ask the question, "Is there a way I can improve my eyesight?" It is simply assumed that vision cannot get better—otherwise, why would so many people (in our society) be wearing corrective lenses? Many people conclude glasses must be worn for the rest of their lives.

Students need to be very strong and determined to follow their own choices about their vision. This is an essential ingredient for success, especially for people Uving in left-brain oriented societies. How well you see is highly dependent upon your beliefs about your vision.

A T T I T U D E S A N D L A N G U A G E

One of the problems of nearsightedness is that myopes often begin to think of themselves as a nearsighted person. Students with nearsightedness often say, "I am nearsighted." I reply, "The prescription given to you by your eye doctor indicates you have a correction for nearsightedness."

What a student says is, generally, what she thinks—and vision is primary a mental activity. When the student thinks and says, "I currently have nearsightedness," she opens up the possibility of not having nearsightedness.

Another problem with nearsightedness is the myope now seldom bothers to have interest in objects in the distance when not wearing corrective lenses. "Why should I bother noticing distant objects without my glasses on? They are not clear." This "mental set" needs to change to improve sight. The student is re-learning visual interest!

Similar issues apply to farsightedness, astigmatism, and crossed eye.

" I T M A K E S S E N S E "

The key to normal sight is correct vision habits. The ideas and facts presented in this chapter simply help us to better understand why the correct vision habits and principles Bates discovered are correct.

Nature teaches us how to see clearly in the first few years of our life. Bates taught his students not to interfere with this natural process. The Bates method is only & formal educational program that provides the student with the opportunity to return to natural vision habits—and clear sight.

Those who take the time to explore what the Bates method of natural vision truly involves often remark how much sense it makes. Bates' own students stated this frequently, and my students have stated this for over seventeen years: "It makes sense."

N O T E S

1Dr. Darling's entire testimonial can be found in Chapter 29," 'This Method Has Been Proved.'" It is one of the finest testimonials of natural vision improvement I have encountered.

2Aldous Huxley, The Art of Seeing (New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1942), pp. 49,51.

3George Vithoulkas, The Science of Homeopathy (New York: Grove Press, 1980), p. 23.

4Ibid., p. 25.

5Cherie Carter-Scott, Negaholics: How to Overcome Negativity and Turn Your Life Around

(New York: Ballantine Books, 1989), p. 67.

6 Paul E. Dennison and Gail E. Hargrove, Per- sonalized Whole Brain Integration (Ventura,

California: Edu-Kinesthetics, Inc., 1985). Pl3-

7 George Vithoulkas, A New M o d e l for Health and Disease (Berkeley, California: Health and Habitat, and North Atlantic Books, 1991), p. 27. 6 Cherie Carter-Scott, The N e w Species (New York. Coleman Graphic, Inc., 1980), p. 62.

'Ibid., p. 9.

10 Ibid, pp. 9-10.

11T. Ribot, The Psychology of Attention (Chicago:

The Open Court Publishing Company, 1890),

Empirical School

Rational School

Logical analysis is the source of knowledge

Studies disease entities

Established hypothesis of causation

Classifies common symptoms into disease entities

Objective sources of data

Individual is material or mechanistic, chemical

Treatment by contraries sought removal of symptoms

Health is absence of disease

Atomistic or reductionists methodology

T H E E M P I R I C A L A N D R A T I O N A L

S C H O O L S O F H E A L T H A N D H E A L I N G

Jerry Green's article summarizes the scientific assumptions of medicine and holistic practice.1 The table in this article provides a succinct summary of the two complementary approaches to health and healing.

Breaking an arm, you may have an allopathic doctor take x-rays and set the broken bone. You may also have a homeopathic practitioner administer the energetic remedy Symphytum to accelerate the natural internal mechanisms already at work healing the fracture.

Few would argue the great advances Western civilization has made in some fields of medicine. Our ability to save the lives of accident victims and repair injured limbs and organs with great medical skills and drugs is marvelous.

But, these are acute care issues.

Robert S. Mendelsohn, M.D., states in Con- fessions of a Medical Heretic:

I beUeve that Modern Medicine has gone too far, by using in everyday situations extreme treatments designed for critical conditions 2

T H E SHIFT TO RATIONAL MEDICINE

With the invention of the printing press, and the education of the masses in the skills of reading, writing, and math, industrialized societies evolved. Scientists began emphasizing the 3-Rs, logic, and cause and effect. Objective, rational data was decreed as the only valid source of knowledge.

Bates performed his research and presented his concepts on natural vision at a time when this society was spiraling (and continues to spiral) deeper into an overly left-brain, rationalist, myopic tunnel vision of health and healing.

Chiropractic has been attacked by the orthodox for decades,3 as have osteopathy, naturopathy, the Bates method, and many other natural approaches to health and healing

" W H Y HAVEN'T I HEAR D OF THE

BATES METHO D BEFORE?"

The Bates method and Natural Vision teachers have been attacked, threatened, and ridiculed by the orthodox for over seventyfive years.

In the Preface to Eye Education by Bates

Method, Natural Vision teacher Margaret Corbett, who studied with Bates, wrote:

The development of civilization is a series of conflicts, some consisting of wars but most of them arising from a clash of ideas. Each step forward has been opposed by those who cling to the outworn thoughts and antiquated methods, and progress has been slowed. Fortunately, the retarding of the tempo of progress has not been wholly detrimental. For a new idea to be accepted, it must first be tested in the searing fires of criticism, ridicule and invective. To survive these ordeals the new idea must be correct, as the fallacious and unsound ones are destroyed by the attacks made upon them.

So it has been with the Bates system of eye education. Though it was developed through long and sound research, it was nevertheless novel... and when it was presented to the public, it immediately met with the opposition of those who believed that if glasses were good enough for their forefathers they are good enough for us. Some of this antagonism was sincere and came from those who were still unconvinced that Dr. Bates' discoveries would benefit mankind. Some of the attacks undoubtedly were inspired by less admirable reasons.

Regardless of the motives activating those opposing us, they were energetic in their assaults and soon we were being set upon from all sides. The hostilities grew in intensity and finally culminated in criminal prosecution. To the casual observer it appeared to be charged against me, but actually not only was I on trial, but also the entire system of eye education developed by Dr. Bates. Facing the criminal charge was a bitter ordeal, but since our cause was just and our system of eye education meritorious, we prevailed. The jury found me not guilty of practicing medicine or optometry.4

In 1943, George A. Posner wrote about Corbett's trial in SIR! magazine:

... They took her to court, all right, but try as they might, they could not obtain a conviction. And why? Because the charge was merely a sham. A cover-up of the good doctors' attempt to restrain Mrs. Corbett from... teaching a certain method of eye education of proven success, because they had decreed it was verboten!!

Why were the doctors up in arms about this so-called "pernicious activity"? Because of complaints of persons injured or defrauded by the defendant? Not at all!

Three hundred witness clamored for the privilege of testifying. They thronged into the courtroom, told of the healing of practically every eye disorder known to ophthalmological practice ... without the use of medicine or the wearing ofglasses!They ranged in age from four to 84; they sat for days in the anteroom of the court waiting for a chance to "have their say."...

[Aldous Huxley's testimony received special attention, as he demonstrated he could read without glasses though he had been totally blind in one eye and only had 20% sight in the other eye before taking lessons from Corbett. In two months he

>cr Twenty: The Two Sides of Health and Healing

was reading without glasses.l

Not one iota of adverse testimony was uncovered or proven. Although the doctors had used every endeavor, even to the sending of two female spies to take Mrs. Corbett's purported "treatments" for the sake of gathering evidence, they weren't able to procure a single instance whereby "medical practice" could be proven. Nor could anyone be found who considered himself injured or defrauded. In fact, the female spies were found in the side-room during the trial, practicing some of Mrs. Corbett's eye techniques!

The court had no alternative but to dismiss the case against Mrs. Margaret Darst Corbett. And the publicity of it served her well. A number of the jurors and many of the spectators signed up for Mrs. Corbett's course.

The Los Angeles trial revealed that there had been similar prosecutions of adherents of this new teaching throughout the country over a period of years—

For over 30 years organized medicine has fought with every possible means to keep the news of this revolutionary discovery from the world!5

Natural vision teacher Janet Goodrich, Ph.D., in discussing possible reasons why many people have not heard of the Bates method, writes in her book Natural Vision

Improvement:

... the professional, technically trained eye practitioners ... were taught that the Bates method was ineffective, to be derided and distained—

Margaret Corbett admonished the hundreds of teachers she trained in the 1940s and 1950s never to advertise, lecture or publish articles... More understanding is generated by the knowledge that she was

arrested (and acquitted) twice for practicing optometry without a license....

In 1974, my colleague in San Francisco, Mrs. Anna Kaye, who'd been quietly transmitting Bates method principles for several decades, was visited by two undercover agents. She was told she was breaking the law on sixteen counts

You may now realize why substantiated object proof is scarce.6

Many people are not aware of the facts, or, if they are, they choose not to support them. Some orthodox are afraid of being ostracized (like Bates was ostracized) by their colleagues if they were to support Bates' work. I have talked with several such individuals, and many such references are made in the literature.7

From Better Eyesight magazine, July 1920:

A small number of physicians, including a few eye specialists who have improved, or seen members of their families improve, eye troubles, without glasses, operations, or medication, have been convinced that the old theories about the eye ... are wrong; but very few have had courage to endorse the new education method publicly.

While completing the final parts of this book, I received a series of letters from an optometry student after he called me requesting my brochure. In his first letter, he invited me to "defend" my business practices and the Bates method of eyesight improvement or else he would assume his "allegations" that the Bates method is invalid, etc., are correct. In his second letter he suggested that my work and the Bates method were "medical schemes." In his attempts to support his position, he quoted from optometrist Gruman's book, New Ways to Better Sight—a book sup-

porting, teaching, and praising the Bates method!

Margaret Y. Ferguson, D.C., wrote in the

December 1945 Journal of the California

Chiropractic Association:

[Bates'] revolutionary principles have never been found to be in error, but for purely commercial reasons they are not generally accepted. In the last few years, all of Dr. Bates' experiments were twice repeated and confirmed.8

As Bates stated accurately in Perfect Sight

Without Glasses (repeated):

The fact is that, except in rare cases, man is not a reasoning being. He is dominated by authority, and when the facts are not in accord with the view imposed by authority, so much the worse for the facts. They may, and indeed must, win in the long run; but in the meantime the world gropes needlessly in darkness and endures much suffering that might have been avoided.

This is not just true of Bates' discoveries. It has been true of many, if not most, progressive discoveries since the beginning of civilization.

The recent emergence of more and more eye doctors supporting—and even teaching— the Bates method lends powerful validation to the truth of this educational method.

Due to suppression and ignorance9 of the Bates method, it is likely its benefits, including "the prevention of an incalculable amount of human misery" (Bates), may not be known by the majority of people for many years to come.

Cha

WHAT'S GOING O N ?

Mendelsohn, using a religion analog to ortho­ dox medicine, warns in Confessions of a Med­ ical Heretic:

...Modern Medicine has started to become more than defensive. It must rely on force to maintain itself and grow... and has grown more oppressive and violent— What was once the option of a free people is becoming an enforced obligation.10

Kenneth R. Pelletier, in his book Holistic

Medicine: From Stress to Optimum Health, writes:

Rather than emphasizing prevention and self-care, the United States has placed its faith in hospitals, biomedical technology, and medical expertise while ignoring destructive life-style habits until too late....

Overall, the data illustrate quite clearly that most health hazards for most age groups are both predictable and related to life-style.11

S Y M P T O M S — M E S S A G E S

OF IMBALANCE

When a person becomes unbalanced, there are usually uncomfortable symptoms associ­ ated with that imbalance.

If a person overworks, fatigue may set in. The body requires rest to re-establish a bal­ ance. If a person digests harmful food, the stomach may ache. Physical symptoms can also be caused by emotional, mental, and/or spiritual stress.

The question is, "What do I do with my symptoms?"

OUR LEGALLY D R U G G E D S O C I E T Y

In 1965, Henry G. Bieler, M.D., wrote in Food is Your Best Medicine:

UT 7и eniу 7he Two Side* of Health and Hruhtv,

I came to the conclusion that L person- all}, must gi\c up the use of drugs and henceforth rely solely on food as my med­ icine. It wasn't long until (after repeated verified results) I discarded drugs in treat­ ing my patients....

Today we are not only in the Atomic Age, but also the Antibiotic Age. Un­ happily, too, this is the Dark Age of Medicine

Far too many of these new "miracle" drugs are introduced with fanfare and then revealed as lethal in character, to be silently discarded for newer and more powerful drugs.12

One of the consequences of the rational­ ist approach to health problems has been the mass production, marketing, and use of pow­ erful and oftentimes dangerous drugs. Some of the so-called "side effects" of drugs are worse than the symptoms the drug is sup­ posed to ehminate. Could it be that the "side effects" are actually the primary effects, low­ ering the overall health of the individual in the long term?

The norm in this society is to demand "quick fixes" when health symptoms appear. "Fix me quick, Doc, I am a busy person with a tight schedule." Americans often choose to eliminate uncomfortable symptoms as fast as possible—regardless, and often ignorant, of both shortand long-term consequences.

A recent survey showed that more than 70% of the parents in one large California city demand antibiotics from doctors to elim­ inate their child's illness symptoms quickly. If a doctor refuses to give the child an antibi­ otic, the parent simply finds another doctor who will. The parent wants to return the child to school quickly so the parent can return to work as soon as possible. As of 1994, over

Obviously, many people have better acuity soon after these surgeries—but what about the long-term consequences?

Most importantly from the holistic perspective: even if temporarily freed from "corrective" lenses, the underlying cause of blurred vision—mental strain—remains. A n d what happens to the acuity if the patient relaxes and the chronically tight eye muscles release their tension around the eyeballs? (This is discussed more later.)

I do not accept registrations from individuals who have had RK , PRK , or similar types of refractive corneal surgeries.

THE CONSEQUENCES—

FROM THE PHYSICAL TO

THE EMOTIONAL PLANE

Vithoulkas in The Science of Homeopathy and A New Model for Health and Disease

presents a remarkable perspective on the mental-emotional-physical interrelationships of progressive illnesses, and healing.

Generally, physical symptoms (the outer plane) are relatively less important than emotional or mental symptoms. A person can live a happy, productive life without a leg. Emo - tional symptoms (the middle plane) are more important than physical symptoms. Anxiety can be handled. Mental symptoms (the inner plane) are the most important in regards to overall health. Destructive delirium is a very serious mental problem.

An individual's history of chronic health problems often shows a trend from the physical, through the emotional, toward the mental symptoms.

A person may have skin eruptions (physical) when young. Many teenagers use drugs and/or surgeries to "correct" acne. Later, a liver dysfunction may develop. With enough

drugs, the liver symptoms may diminish or disappear, after which irrational mood swings (emotional level) may develop.

If powerful drugs are used to "fight" emotional disturbances, the "disease" can then shift into the mental realm. One drug used to control panic disorder causes some people to develop both short-term and long-term memory loss.

Some psychotics have had a prior history of physical and emotional disturbances before becoming psychotic. During psychosis, many of their physical and emotional symptoms can disappear.

Th e shifting from one state of illness to another makes it difficult to identify any one drug or surgery as the cause of the worsening state of health. The energetic state of the illness keeps shifting. A new, different "totality of symptoms" often emerges.

As a result, different disease states seem to be unrelated. A drug used to "control" high blood pressure is not connected to the later appearance of Crohn's disease. The drugs and surgeries used to combat Crohn's disease are not connected to the appearance of cancer.

In the attempt to "defeat" the cancer, chemotherapy, radiation treatments, and powerful drugs are used to "fight the enemy." Even when these solutions eradicate the cancerous cells, how do they affect the person? Is the underlying cause of the cancer eliminated?

Many patients are blindly shuffled from one specialist to another, until, finally, they are told, "There is nothing more Western - medicine can do for you." This is true.

It appears that the overall disease state of our nation is shifting from the physical level into the emotional level.

Mortimer Zuckerman, editor-in-chief of

U.S. News & World Report, writes: