Comments on: The Radical Cure of Errors of Refraction https://www.iblindness.org/5376/radical-cure-of-errors-of-refraction/ Improve Your Eyesight and Ditch Your Glasses Thu, 20 Feb 2020 21:07:58 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 By: David https://www.iblindness.org/5376/radical-cure-of-errors-of-refraction/#comment-31371 Thu, 20 Feb 2020 21:07:58 +0000 https://www.iblindness.org/?p=5376#comment-31371 In reply to Darrel.

Some years back when I initially read Bates’s book I tried to make notes about these kinds of experiments and make sense of what possibilities could be true as far as the ways the eyes adjust and what it means. I was left feeling unsure about some things. I see he expands on them further in this article but I haven’t read it closely. I’m more interested in the power of the mind to affect change, which already happens constantly, but scientific types oddly insist on looking at things as mechanisms out of human control. It’s a very helpless way of viewing the world, I think, and it leads to people getting lost in complex nonsense.

]]> By: Darrel https://www.iblindness.org/5376/radical-cure-of-errors-of-refraction/#comment-31369 Sat, 15 Feb 2020 18:57:21 +0000 https://www.iblindness.org/?p=5376#comment-31369 There is so much in this paper of Bates that could not be dealt with in a short post so may I comment of just one or two of its aspects. Bates’s animal experiments might not be to everyone’s taste today, particularly those who keep pets. In his defence I would say that his motives were compassionate and in the service of humanity. Back a century ago when these experiments were done they were apparently good enough to convince medical orthodoxy to publish Bates’s paper on the subject. These experiments have been questioned over the years, even by Bates Method followers such an Jonathan Barnes who in his book referred to Bates’s “not so convincing experiments” on animals or words to that effect. I understand that modern equipment, obviously unavailable to Bates, has made possible the examination of the eyes in great detail and has conclusively proven that the lens does indeed increase during the act of accommodation, something which Bates would have denied. But does this matter? I think not. Modern ophthalmology has very little interest in the mental side of seeing, and to mention Barnes again, he says they treat the eyes as if they are totally independent of the brain (and hence the mind). Which of course is not true. Possibly this could be the reason why Bates did these experiments, ophthalmologists had (and have) such a mechanical approach to vision that Bates maybe thought such an approach was required to speak their language, as it were. Also that is how he was trained himself. It should be noted that there have been cases where people who have had their lenses removed could see to read which does not fit accepted theories. These cases are explained away or ignored (for example called ‘insignificant’ by Philip Pollack in his anti-Bates article). So I think that Bates must have been at least partly right about this. What I personally like best about the article is the short descriptions of Bates Method Fundamentals (like central fixation, relief of strain and more) and with or without the animal research this paper can read like an abridged version of Bates’s book which this paper appeared to be a forerunner.

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