Every so often, a rare case of recovery from a condition deemed incurable by conventional doctors is reported in the news. This particular case resoundingly demonstrates that vision isn’t localized in the eyeballs.
Eye doctors had no explanation for the sudden blindness of a Canadian woman, Linda Kirk, nor did they have any solutions to help her. Although she eventually accepted her fate living as a blind person, for fifteen years she never gave up hope that one day she might regain her eyesight. Thanks to an alternative health practitioner, Linda was able to do just that. Her news story was featured online at this link:
Case of the mystery blindness cracked; Chiropractor treatment restores sight
Linda’s case highlights the inherent problem with the traditional mechanical model of the eye and the theoretical vision process that’s tied to that model. I referred to this concept as the disembodied eye in a previous post. Eye doctors were looking in vain for a cause of blindness located within Linda’s eyes. Their education and training handcuffed them, as they couldn’t venture outside the “sphere” of their expertise.
Craig Holdrege, author and founder of the Nature Institute, commented on such a narrow, impersonal perspective in the medical sciences: “I remember being treated by an ophthalmologist and thinking after the visit: ‘He would have liked it much better if I could have sent him my eyeball all by itself. The rest of me, it seemed, was just getting in the way.’ Every illness, for all its generality, has an individual dimension. It occurs at a particular time of life under particular inner and outer conditions.”
It took a specialist* not trained in the eyes or vision to solve Linda’s puzzling case. His knowledge and experience of vital connections throughout the body allowed him to look beyond the eyeballs. He certainly had the ability to view Linda’s circumstance as an “individual dimension,” suspecting a unique physical strain that may have precipitated the sudden blindness.
Although Linda’s case wasn’t natural vision improvement as we discuss on this website, it nevertheless was a situation of restoring eyesight by natural means using a whole body approach. Whether natural improvement is gradual and ordinary, or rapid and extraordinary, it shows there’s much more to vision than meets the eye.
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*Ironically, the specialist wears eyeglasses, unaware that he could improve his own vision naturally.
Sources
Charlton, Jonathan. “Case of the mystery blindness cracked; Chiropractor treatment restores sight.” Saskatoon StarPhoenix, Updated: November 19, 2015. https://thestarphoenix.com/health/diet-fitness/case-of-the-mystery-blindness-cracked-chiropractor-treatment-restores-sight
Holdrege, Craig. “The Heart: A Pulsing and Perceptive Center.” Chap. 1 in The Dynamic Heart and Circulation, edited by Craig Holdrege. Fair Oaks, CA: AWSNA Publications, 2002.
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Doug is a retired civil engineer who improved his vision and wrote Restoring Your Eyesight: A Taoist Approach, a book about blending the Bates Method with the ancient principles of Taoism. He also contributes articles on vision improvement for New Dawn Magazine.
I’ve always avoided chiropractors because of the horror stories I’ve heard, but their views are interesting. If I understand right, they believe that a lot of diseases are caused by an impaired nerve supply to organs (including the eyes) due to spinal misalignments. I’ve long felt like myopia has partly to do with either nerves or brain cells that need to wake up, whether with better blood supply or certain types of mental activity that activate those brain areas better. There’s also the issue of people finding that relaxing their shoulders improves their vision a little bit, and that people with myopia all have tense shoulders to begin with. So a nerve issue causing her blindness doesn’t sound crazy to me at all.
That’s hilarious that her doctor started throwing antibiotics at her for no good reason.
David,
I had a similar aversion to the idea of chiropractic treatment. However, I decided to give it a try early in my NVI journey after reading recommendations by NVI instructors/authors who had personal testimonies of its effectiveness. After the chiropractor’s initial assessment, he recommended soft tissue therapy (a massage therapist at the same clinic) instead of his treatment method. That’s when I began to learn about myofascial release and eventually self-trigger point massage to help relieve muscle tension in the face, head and neck area. I had big-time neck and shoulder tension.
In your most recent post, Rupert Sheldrake’s excellent talk about the dogmas of science captures the problem well with mainstream views. The simplistic, dogmatic model of vision being a mechanical/materialist light-receiving process is completely inadequate for understanding regular myopia, let alone cases such as this woman’s sudden blindness and eventual rapid recovery.
It’s amazing how many people willingly gulp down pills prescribed by a doctor who’s merely guessing at a cause, having total faith in some magic bullet powers.
Very interesting Doug. This story really should send shockwaves through orthodox ophthalmology but things seem to have changed little or not at all since Bates’s day in this respect. I imagine that most ophthalmologists, optometrists and the like who hear about this story will probably just think “weird”, scratch their heads in bewilderment and then just go back to their job and carry on as if nothing had happened. So sad.
Yes, Darrel, sad indeed. Your comments echo those of Imre Lakatos, a mathematical and scientific philosopher. He was speaking about theoretical scientists, but the same attitude filters down to those educated in applied science and medical science: “Scientists have thick skins. They do not abandon a theory because facts contradict it. They normally either invent some rescue hypothesis to explain what they then call a mere anomaly and if they cannot explain the anomaly, they ignore it, and direct their attention to other problems.” He also added, “Blind commitment to a theory is not an intellectual virtue: it is an intellectual crime.”
Doug, this is an outstanding article. Thank you for posting. Many view natural vision improvement as alternative medicine, such as energy healing. The fact is, it is not an alternative method, it is the method that would have been traditional had Ophthalmologists been interested in seeking answers in the early 20th century rather than “blindly” accepting unproven theories. Somehow, NVI needs to become the mainstream. We educate on dental hygiene so that people keep their teeth, the same is needed regarding vision care. Again, thank you for this article and others that you have posted.
Thanks for your comments, Ronald. Much appreciated. Kudos to David for hosting this website and for his posts and Nancy’s posts. We’re all doing our bit to help de-marginalize NVI from the fringes. It’ll require a massive shift in public consciousness and attitudes before it one day moves towards inclusion within the mainstream educational system of training specialists. In the meantime, the majority of people will crave the orthodox services of the colossal optical industry, unaware of the healthier option.
Hi Doug
I really appreciate your comments
I have suffered recently from glare and sensitivity to light. Wonder if you could recommend any approach to improve it. Thanks
Hi Rub,
I appreciate your comments as well.
I still deal with sensitivity to bright sunshine and the effect it has on hampering my visual acuity when I go back indoors. However, the sensitivity has abated gradually over the years such that my indoor acuity recovers much more quickly now.
This is simply a general approach that I take, not a specific approach per se. I spend a lot of time outdoors, regardless of the weather, to obtain as much natural sunlight as possible. Only under periods of extreme brightness do I wear sunglasses to help minimize the strain and squinting. During the summer when the sun is strongest in intensity, I mainly wear a cap or hat with a brim to shade my eyes.
I will occasionally alternate periods of brightness and darkness as suggested in the NVI literature. That involves palming your eyes for a brief period of time, then looking towards a bright light and swaying with your eyelids closed for a similar period of time. This procedure is alternated for several minutes.