Ditch the Dogma About Myopia

Eye doctors know best. That’s what we’re taught. If there were a natural treatment for myopia, or other conditions, eye doctors would know about it and be offering it to everyone.

Would they? What happens when there’s a new discovery that upsets the current thinking that the experts were trained in?

What Happened to a Sociologist

Here’s the way that new discoveries are often taken:

The first thing they try to do is get rid of it. This is often the case where new information emerges that contradicts established theories. It’s a strange phenomenon in science, because we like to think of scientists as rational and reasonable people. But the fact is that when you get very committed to a particular idea I think you start to connect your own personality to it, and any attack on that idea becomes an existential attack on you yourself. Again and again, what we see is the new facts being dismissed because they don’t fit the existing theory, when in fact what we should be doing is modifying the existing theory to explain the newly discovered facts. This is a problem in the whole history of science.

Graham Hancock, somewhere in a Joe Rogan podcast – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDejwCGdUV8

Graham Hancock is a British sociologist and author of many books including Fingerprints of the Gods, which I have not read myself but which is a bestseller in the categories of Aztec, Mayan, and Ancient Egyptian History on Amazon. He investigates anomalies that other historians would rather ignore because they don’t fit the narrative. (Leave me a comment below if you’ve read it!)

TED removed Graham Hancock’s TED talk from their distribution channels, on the advice of their “science board.”

Of course, it doesn’t mean that all of his conclusions are right. What it does mean is he’s nearly the only person with his level of knowledge about the subject who is willing to look at information that conflicts with the accepted narrative of history and consider whether a huge part of the narrative could be wrong.

Bates described the same problem in 1920 when his professional peers dismissed his discoveries about improving vision:

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.

https://www.iblindness.org/ebooks/perfect-sight-without-glasses/ch32/

Faced with criticism from his peers, Bates presented his findings to Dr. Roosa (I found him on Wikipedia!), the faculty president at the New York Post-Graduate Medical School where Bates worked as instructor of ophthalmology for several years.

This method did not appeal to him, however. He repeated that it was impossible to cure myopia, and to prove that it was impossible he expelled me from the Post Graduate, even the privilege of resignation being denied to me.

https://www.iblindness.org/ebooks/perfect-sight-without-glasses/ch32/

The scientific institutions control who is allowed to hold positions of authority or influence. If you suggest ideas – or show evidence – that step on the wrong toes, you’re out. The truth does not win out, not internally. You have to work outside the system if you really want to explore.

Hey, this is nothing new. Dogma has taken hold of people throughout history. One institution loses favor, only to give way to another one. But this time we have it right! Yeah, right.

Another Rebellious Scientist: Rupert Sheldrake

They did the same with Rupert Sheldrake, a biochemist who gave a powerful talk on the ten dogmas of science that also he goes over in his book, Science Set Free.

Among the dogmas of science he describes are the ideas that nature is mechanical and without purpose, all matter is unconscious, and all medicine that works is mechanical in nature.

I have a problem with these ideas. That isn’t how I view the world or live in it on a daily basis.

Accepted Science and Your Vision

The worldview of the scientific community tells you that your allowable choices for myopia are glasses or laser surgery. They love glasses, in the spirit of the idea that the human body is merely a machine that can be extended. Laser surgery, similarly, treats the eyes as a machine that can be altered, not living tissue. They ignore the side effects.

Should you feel extra rebellious, you’ll explore eye exercises, with the idea that maybe there’s a muscle in your eye that needs exercising to become stronger or better conditioned. Or you’ll try every eye supplement you can find. They won’t work. Those kinds of solutions are stuck firmly in the same mechanistic worldview as glasses but with less knowledge about the mechanics supposedly involved. A little explanation from your eye doctor will clear that right up and reign you back in.

That’s why the first thing I try to introduce people to is another way of looking at things.

What other way could there be?

Well, you are taught that your quality of vision is the inevitable result of a series of chain reactions involving chemicals, genes, or the structure of your eyes. All mechanics. Maybe you can influence things to change in some ways, but it’s all very complex, and for the most part your vision will stay the same, and you better get used to it. Or if it does change, there’s not much you can do about it anyway. That’s the view you’re taught.

Here’s how I see it: You are more powerful than you give yourself credit for. You have a greater ability to make decisions about your quality of vision than you think is possible. Rupert mentions that science can’t deal with the fact that we are conscious.

When you embrace the fact that you are not a robot but a conscious being with an immense amount of power, you no longer have to abdicate responsibility for your vision to the idea that “it just happened this way.” You have control over it. Your thoughts and emotions have real effects. Your drive and intentions matter.

A Cartoonist Tells You How to Succeed at (Almost) Anything

A few days ago, Scott Adams, the maker of the popular Dilbert comic strip and author of How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big, one of my favorite books I read last year, credited the value of affirmations in a few major life accomplishments that anyone would have thought were almost impossible:

1. Be a best-selling author
2. Be a famous syndicated cartoonist
3. Regain the ability to speak clearly when he had an “incurable” voice problem

Also, he’s a 61 year old who has a beautiful long-term girlfriend half his age. He admits that all of this is extremely unlikely and that he appears to be the luckiest person in the world. He believes he is tapped into the controls of reality in a way that very few people are.

One thing he did not do was apply his methods to improving his vision. He’s a guy who, despite being such a success in various avenues, has a mechanistic view of life (“Humans are nothing but moist robots”) that doesn’t put importance in emotional energy or credit oneself the power of self-healing (he fixed the aforementioned voice problem with a surgery and exercises, not with any kind of mental change).

Still, I like his systematic approach to life, involving affirmations, building skills, and optimistically keeping an eye out for opportunities.

He thinks what his approach does is dramatically increases your odds for success, but in my view it’s about how his approach gets you to focus emotionally.

One More: Gregg Braden

Like Graham Hancock, Gregg Braden has studied ancient cultures and hidden pieces of human history. His interest is more in lost knowledge of human potential, so of course he’s right up my alley.

One thing he focuses on is the power of emotions and intention in creating a force that alters reality. This is the kind of thing that I believe Scott Adams and other extraordinarily successful people do without necessarily realizing what they are doing. They do it instinctively.

See my video on Gregg Braden where I talk about emotional energy’s powerful role in improving your vision.

It doesn’t matter that scientific institutions are slow to change. You have the internet now. Those institutions are no longer the gatekeepers. They act like they are, but you don’t have to believe it. They are being left behind as people are accomplishing things like improving vision without their help.