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I founded iblindness.org in 2002 as I began reading books on the Bates Method and became interested in vision improvement. I believe that everyone who is motivated can identify the roots of their vision problems and apply behavioral changes to solve them.
I think sometimes when we believe, or want to believe, words can be a hindrance to belief. Cold, intellectual rationality is often not the way to know something is true. Sometimes it is not the words, but something sensed behind the words that is true and we find, when we demonstrate Bates Method principles to ourselves, we experience a sense of serenity which speaks more powerfully than words can. David is I am sure quite right about Dr. Bates being able to put his patients in a relaxed frame of mind to create the favourable conditions for their cure. Credit must also be given to Emily his assistant who also seemed to have the same powers. I am sorry if this sounds too mystical but ‘belief’ and ‘faith’ are not so far removed from each other.Jonathan Barnes said that the Bates Method requires “a good deal of application, even faith”. Another nice video by the way, the black bears remind me of the ones in Virginia where my sister lives.
I don’t own a computer, am busy, and very slow.
Then please make the most of the resources you do have. I wish you well.
A lot of this boils down to, I think, true, meaningful personal interaction and truly being able to ‘tune in’ to each other. Dr. Bates certainly could do that, and so could Ms. Lierman. I have the feeling that many extremely gifted ‘healers’ often are quite unaware of that crucial component – and when they try to put their ‘technique’ into words, that component is missing (must be, perhaps, because emotions and intuition and the like cannot be abstracted from the actual person).
Going through the Better Eyesight magazines, one can often feel Bates’ exasperation at something that he feels he can’t quite grasp in describing his own method (Ms. Lierman, on the other hand, often places strong emphasis on her ‘feel’ for a particular patient). If you have access to the magazines (I have Quackenbush’s edition), read or re-read “Quick Cures” in the April 1925 issue, where Bates tries to put that ‘human factor’ into words and often ends “I wish I knew”. This article also is a quick cure if you are sometimes exasperated (as I often am) by Bates’ all-too-self-assured ‘simply demonstrate this’ directions without really saying how to get there.
I suspect that is true, that not only teachers but healers of any kind have a hard time communicating what it is they are really doing. I guess the trick is to get people to look beyond he movements. Gregg Braden talks about this, where certain religious groups still understand that the point is not to go through the motions and words but to use them to generate a certain feeling.
The point about religious groups resonates with me, it reminds me of the 1977 Britannica article where it is suggested that it is not the primary concern of a student of religion to know the practices, doctrines, institutions, rituals etc. of any religion, but rather, to understand what these do to a person. The article I have in mind discusses the power of symbolism in religion.
The ability to be able to resonate with patients is something that Bates and Emily surely had, and yet it is this elusive quality that defies description. In fact, the more we try to describe and define it, the further do we get from it. Bates’ style is formal for the most part, Emily’s is quite informal, I feel sometimes that Bates writes in the magazines (which I have access to) as if he were writing for a well educated reader, while Emily writes in a natural manner, as if she were writing (or talking) to friends. One interesting observation in the Quick Cures article is that being an academic high-flyer is no guarantee of success with the Method; Bates said in the article that one of the quickest cures he ever had was with “a very ignorant man” with a wonderful imagination. The glimpses into Bates’s personality are fascinating, if Bates was too self assured sometimes, at least he was in possession on the truth and wanted to transmit it to the world because he knew it was worth sharing. And here we are communicating today thanks to that. Great post Roman, thank you.
Thank you, Darrel! Just to prevent any misunderstanding – Dr. Bates is probably the one person I am most grateful to for what they did (and through his successors still does) apart from very close friends I have known for decades. Its just that sometimes, when trying to get to the ‘core’ of what he says, occasional frustration arises … 🙂
(… and I could probably have used a better term than ‘self assured’ here …)
You’re right, people probably took Emily nearly as well as they did Bates, judging from her success.