Aldous Huxley how to correct vision. Book Title: How to Fix Your Eyesight Huxley How to Fix Your Eyesight

Aldous Huxley

How to correct vision

Aldous Huxley

Igor Sirenko

FROM THE TRANSLATOR

Before you, the reader, is a very unusual book. It was written by a man who was practically blind in his youth, and when it seemed that there was no hope, not only for improvement, but even for slowing down the deterioration, he was lucky: he got acquainted with the original technique of Dr. Bates, which saved him.

We are talking about the famous writer Aldous Huxley, the author of the dystopian novel Brave New World. He was born in 1894 in England, his father Leonard Huxley was the editor of Cornhill magazine, his brother Julian was a famous biologist and philosopher, and his grandfather Thomas Henry Huxley (in Russian transcription - Huxley) was a famous biologist. Another of his prominent ancestor is the English critic and essayist Matthew Arnold.

Family traditions, of course, influenced the fate of the young Huxley. Despite a serious eye condition that left him almost completely blind for 16 years, he successfully completed college at Eton and received a bachelor's degree with first class honors in English from one of Oxford's most honored institutions, Balliol College.

In 1916, the first book of his poems was published, followed by two more. In 1920, a collection of short stories, Limbo, was published. A year later, the novel "Yellow Chrome" is published, and Huxley achieves recognition. Its productivity is amazing. He publishes poetry, novels, short stories, travel essays, historical biographies, critical essays on literature, painting, and music.

Most of the 20s of the XX century. Huxley lived in Italy, but moved to Toulon in the 1930s, where he wrote Brave New World. In 1937, he moved to California, believing that the local climate would be more beneficial for his sore eyes. Many of Aldous Huxley's novels have been translated into Russian: The Yellow Krom (1921), Shutov's Round Dance (1923), Brave New World (1932), Monkey and Essence (1948), etc. However, some of Huxley's works are still little known in Russia, and one of them is "The Art of Seeing" ("How to correct vision") (1943). In this book, Huxley talks about ways to deal with various visual defects. He experienced all this on himself - and as a result, it can be said without great exaggeration, he received his sight.

This is not a miracle or a mystic. Each person has a huge reserve of strength and energy in order to maintain and restore their health, you just need to be able to mobilize this internal reserve. Improving the technique of Dr. Bates, Huxley shows how lost vision can be restored without outside help. Along the way, it makes the reader think about the properties of human nature in general.

Huxley's recommendations are clear and simple, and although this book of his was first published 60 years ago, its practical value has not diminished and it continues to be republished in many countries of the world. I hope that getting to know her and following her recommendations will bring improvement, relief, and, ultimately, a complete restoration of vision to those in need. I can testify that this book has helped me personally, who has been suffering from myopia for 20 years. For the first time I watched TV without glasses. At first there was a rather unpleasant feeling (about five minutes), but then I began to see much better, the picture became clear. The same thing happened when I then went outside without my glasses. At first there was the same discomfort, but after 5-7 minutes the vision improved markedly. A visit to the ophthalmologist a few years later showed that there was an improvement in vision by several units.

Of course, only surgery can save someone. But even then the Huxley technique will not be superfluous. There are cases when only she, after surgical operations, helped to relieve tension, which is necessary for recovery.

Therefore, do not rush to put on contact lenses or glasses, try your own strength first. Perhaps this will be of more use to you.

Igor Sirenko

FOREWORD

At the age of sixteen I had an acute attack of Keratitis punctata, and after eighteen months, during which I was in a state close to blindness (I had to learn Braille, and obediently follow the guide when walking), my one eye was able to make out only a two hundred foot letter in Snellen's chart, and then from a distance of only ten feet, while the other barely distinguished day from night.

The misery of my condition was due mainly to clouding of the cornea; but there were also hypermetropia, and astigmatism ...

For the first few years, doctors recommended that I use a strong magnifying glass to read. Then came glasses. With their help, it was possible to make out a seventy-foot line (again, from a distance of only ten feet!) And read fairly tolerably - provided that the pupils were dilated with atropine to such an extent that a kind of clear "windows" formed on the cornea around the clouded center. Of course, the price of this was exorbitant tension, and at times I felt literally gutted.

All this continued until 1939, when I suddenly discovered that even with the most powerful glasses, reading was becoming more and more difficult and tiring.

There was no doubt that my already flawed ability to see was rapidly declining. And just as I was anxiously wondering what kind of life awaits me if reading becomes unavailable, someone started talking about visual relearning. It looked harmless enough, inspired hope, and I, who had nothing to lose, decided to try.

After a couple of months I was already reading without glasses and, what is even more amazing, without tension and fatigue. Moreover, there were obvious signs that the clouding of the cornea, which had accompanied me for more than twenty-five years, was beginning to clear up. Now my vision, although far from normal, is almost twice as sharp as it was when I wore glasses and still did not know anything about vision correction techniques; the cornea is so cleansed that the eye, which hardly distinguishes between light and darkness, can recognize a ten-foot line from a distance of one foot.

It was this that prompted me to sit down to the book; By writing it, I wish to repay a debt of gratitude to the pioneer of visual reeducation, the late Dr. W. G. Bates, and his successor, Mrs. Margaret D. Corbett, to whose teaching talent I owe my vision.

There are other works on visual relearning; among these I will first of all mention the following: "Perfect Vision Without Spectacles" by Dr. Bates (New York, 1920), "How to Improve Your Eyes" by Mrs. Corbett (Los Angeles, 1938) and "Improving Vision by Natural Methods" by K. S. Price (London, 1934). Each of them is valuable in its own way; but in none (at least of those I have read) I have not met an attempt to correlate the methods of visual retraining with the latest achievements in psychology and philosophy. It is this gap that I intend to fill; my task is to demonstrate that these methods are nothing but the practical application of certain theoretical principles which are supposed to be true.

Aldous Huxley

Igor Sirenko

FOREWORD

At the age of sixteen I had an acute attack of Keratitis punctata, and after eighteen months, during which I was in a state close to blindness (I had to learn Braille, and obediently follow the guide when walking), my one eye was able to make out only a two hundred foot letter in Snellen's chart, and then from a distance of only ten feet, while the other barely distinguished day from night.

The misery of my condition was due mainly to clouding of the cornea; but there were also hypermetropia, and astigmatism ...

For the first few years, doctors recommended that I use a strong magnifying glass to read. Then came glasses. With their help, it was possible to make out a seventy-foot line (again, from a distance of only ten feet!) And read fairly tolerably - provided that the pupils were dilated with atropine to such an extent that a kind of clear "windows" formed on the cornea around the clouded center. Of course, the price of this was exorbitant tension, and at times I felt literally gutted.

All this continued until 1939, when I suddenly discovered that even with the most powerful glasses, reading was becoming more and more difficult and tiring.

There was no doubt that my already flawed ability to see was rapidly declining. And just as I was anxiously wondering what kind of life awaits me if reading becomes unavailable, someone started talking about visual relearning. It looked harmless enough, inspired hope, and I, who had nothing to lose, decided to try.

After a couple of months I was already reading without glasses and, what is even more amazing, without tension and fatigue. Moreover, there were obvious signs that the clouding of the cornea, which had accompanied me for more than twenty-five years, was beginning to clear up. Now my vision, although far from normal, is almost twice as sharp as it was when I wore glasses and still did not know anything about vision correction techniques; the cornea is so cleansed that the eye, which hardly distinguishes between light and darkness, can recognize a ten-foot line from a distance of one foot.

It was this that prompted me to sit down to the book; By writing it, I wish to repay a debt of gratitude to the pioneer of visual reeducation, the late Dr. W. G. Bates, and his successor, Mrs. Margaret D. Corbett, to whose teaching talent I owe my vision.

There are other works on visual relearning; among these I will first of all mention the following: "Perfect Vision Without Spectacles" by Dr. Bates (New York, 1920), "How to Improve Your Eyes" by Mrs. Corbett (Los Angeles, 1938) and "Improving Vision by Natural Methods" by K. S. Price (London, 1934). Each of them is valuable in its own way; but in none (at least of those I have read) I have not met an attempt to correlate the methods of visual retraining with the latest achievements in psychology and philosophy. It is this gap that I intend to fill; my task is to demonstrate that these methods are nothing but the practical application of certain theoretical principles which are supposed to be true.

It may be asked: why did traditional ophthalmologists not put into practice these generally accepted principles? The answer is simple. From the moment ophthalmology became a science, doctors paid attention only to the physiological side of the complex visual process. They were busy with the eyes and forgot about the mind using the eyes to look and see. I have been treated by men of the highest rank in their profession; but not one of them even mentioned that there might be a mental side to vision, or that there are wrong ways to use the eyes and the mind, just as there are right ones. After checking my sore eyes - I must admit, with skill and virtuosity, they prescribed artificial lenses for me and let me go. Whether I used my mind and my spectacled eyes well or badly was of no importance to them. For Dr. Bates, on the contrary, such questions and answers were by no means indifferent, and through many years of experimentation and clinical practice he developed his own method of visual relearning. The fact that this technique is correct is proved by its effectiveness.

My example is by no means unique; Thousands of other such sufferers have benefited by following the simple rules for improving vision, which we owe to Dr. Bates and his followers. Making these rules and methods widely known is the ultimate goal of this book.

PART ONE

MEDICINE AND IMPAIRED VISION

Medicus curat, natura sanat - the doctor heals, nature heals... This old aphorism perfectly defines the possibilities of medicine and its task: to provide the suffering organism with such conditions that its own self-regulating and restoring forces will be revealed. If there were no vis medicatrix naturae, natural healing forces, medicine would be helpless, and any, even a small disorder, would immediately kill or lead to a chronic disease.

When conditions are favourable, the afflicted organism seeks to rid itself of the ailment by means of its inherent powers of self-healing. If deliverance does not occur, this means that either the case is hopeless or the conditions are unfavorable, that is, in other words, the treatment applied by medicine does not achieve the goal that adequate treatment is designed to achieve.

Conventional Treatment for Impaired Vision

In the light of these basic principles, let's analyze how modern medicine treats visual impairment. In the vast majority, the only treatment is the selection of artificial lenses designed to correct the specific refractive error, which is considered to be responsible for the violation. Medicus curate; and most often the patient is rewarded with an immediate improvement in vision. And what, by the way, about nature and its healing action? Do glasses eliminate the cause of impaired vision? Do the organs of vision get the opportunity to restore normal functioning? There is only one answer to these questions: NO. Artificial lenses neutralize the symptoms, but do not eliminate the causes of the disorders. Moreover, eyes equipped with these devices tend to progressively weaken and require more and more powerful lenses to neutralize the symptoms found. In a word, medicus curat, natura non sanat. And here one has to choose one of two things: either the disorders of the visual organs are incurable in principle and can only be mitigated by mechanical means, or the modern method of treatment itself is incorrect.

Format: HTML

Quality: Electronic book

Description

Anyone who suffers from various visual impairment, but wants to get rid of them and save the children, this book will be a valuable help and guide to action.

In it, the famous English writer Aldous Huxley (1894-1963) vividly and fascinatingly narrates how he struggled with impending blindness, following the methods of the American ophthalmologist W. G. Bates.

Aldous Leonard Huxley

(Eng. Aldous Huxley; July 26, 1894, Godalming, Surrey, UK - November 22, 1963, Los Angeles, California, USA) - English writer. Author of the famous dystopian novel Brave New World.

On both paternal and maternal lines, Huxley belonged to the British cultural elite, which produced a number of outstanding scientists, writers, and artists. His father is the writer Leonard Huxley, his paternal grandfather is the biologist Thomas Henry Huxley; Maternally, Huxley is the great-grandson of the historian and educator Thomas Arnold and great-nephew of the writer Matthew Arnold. Huxley's brother Julian and half-brother Andrew were renowned biologists.

Huxley's mother died when Aldous was 13 years old. Three years later, he developed an eye infection and subsequently his eyesight deteriorated significantly. In this regard, he was exempted from military service during the First World War. Own experience of vision correction he later described in a pamphlet " How to correct vision"("The Art of Seeing", 1943).

In his novels, we are talking about the loss of humanity by society in the process of technological progress (the dystopia “Brave New World!”, There is also the book “Return to the Brave New World Revisited” (1958 Brave New World Revisited) written 20 years after the first (in which Huxley describes the opposite of the first book and develops the idea that in fact everything will be much worse and scarier than in the first.) He also touched on pacifist topics.

In 1937, Huxley moved to Los Angeles, California with his guru Gerald Gerd, hoping that the Californian climate would benefit him. deteriorating vision. It is here that his main creative period begins, for which a more detailed consideration of the human essence was a new feature. Huxley met in 1938 with Jiddu Krishnamurti. Under the influence of the latter, he turns to various teachings of wisdom and engages in mysticism.

The accumulated knowledge is seen in his subsequent works: "The Perennial Philosophy" ("The Perennial Philosophy"), most clearly in After Many Years ("After Many a Summer ...") and also in the work "Time must have a stop".

In 1953 he agrees to participate in an experiment conducted by Humphrey Osmond. The purpose of this experiment was to study the effect of mescaline on human consciousness.

Subsequently, in correspondence with Osmond, the word "psychedelic" was used for the first time to describe the influence of mescaline.

The essays "The Doors of Perception" and "Heaven and Hell" describe the observations and the course of the experiment, which the author repeated about ten times until his death. The Doors of Perception became a cult text for many of the radical intellectuals of the 60s and gave its name to the famous group The Doors.

The effect of the action of psychotropic substances affects not only his work. So in his latest novel, Island, he described a positive utopia that was diametrically opposed to his dystopia, Brave New World.

Huxley died in 1963 in Los Angeles from throat cancer. Before his death, he asked for an intramuscular injection of LSD - 100 micrograms. Despite the doctors' warnings, his wife complied with his request. She admitted this in an interview she gave in 1986 to the British television company BBC as part of the documentary project LSD: The Beyond Within. Shortly before his death, all his manuscripts were burned in a fire in his own house.

The book contains a table with which you can do vision correction exercises.

The book is intended for a wide range of readers of all ages.

FROM THE TRANSLATOR
FOREWORD

Conventional Treatment for Impaired Vision
Healing or alleviating symptoms?

Causes of visual impairment: boredom
Causes of visual dysfunctions: diseases and emotional disorders

APPENDIX No. 2.

APPENDIX No. 3.

FROM THE TRANSLATOR

Before you, the reader, is a very unusual book. It was written by a man who was practically blind in his youth, and when it seemed that there was no hope, not only for improvement, but even for slowing down the deterioration, he was lucky: he met original method of Dr. Bates who saved him.

We are talking about the famous writer Aldous Huxley, the author of the dystopian novel Brave New World. He was born in 1894 in England, his father Leonard Huxley was the editor of Cornhill magazine, his brother Julian was a famous biologist and philosopher, and his grandfather Thomas Henry Huxley (in Russian transcription - Huxley) was a famous biologist. Another of his prominent ancestor is the English critic and essayist Matthew Arnold.

Family traditions, of course, influenced the fate of the young Huxley. Despite a serious eye disease that left him almost completely blind for 16 years, he successfully completed college at Eton and received a bachelor's degree with first class honors in English from one of Oxford's most honored institutions - Balliol College.

In 1916, the first book of his poems was published, followed by two more. In 1920, a collection of short stories, Limbo, was published. A year later, the novel "Yellow Chrome" is published, and Huxley achieves recognition. Its productivity is amazing. He publishes poetry, novels, short stories, travel essays, historical biographies, critical essays on literature, painting, and music.

Most of the 20s of the XX century. Huxley lived in Italy, but moved to Toulon in the 1930s, where he wrote Brave New World. In 1937, he moved to California, believing that the local climate would be more beneficial for his sore eyes. Many of Aldous Huxley's novels have been translated into Russian: The Yellow Krom (1921), Shutov's Round Dance (1923), Brave New World (1932), Monkey and Essence (1948), etc. However, some of Huxley's works are still little known in Russia, and one of them is "The Art of Seeing" ("How to correct vision") (1943). In this book, Huxley talks about ways to deal with various visual defects. He experienced all this on himself - and as a result, it can be said without great exaggeration, he received his sight.

This is not a miracle or a mystic. Each person has a huge reserve of strength and energy in order to maintain and restore their health, you just need to be able to mobilize this internal reserve. Improving the technique of Dr. Bates, Huxley shows how lost vision can be restored without outside help. Along the way, it makes the reader think about the properties of human nature in general.

Huxley's recommendations are clear and simple, and although this book of his was first published 60 years ago, its practical value has not diminished and it continues to be republished in many countries of the world. I hope that getting to know her and following her recommendations will bring improvement, relief to those in need, and ultimately a complete restoration of vision. I can testify that this book has helped me personally, who has been suffering from myopia for 20 years. For the first time I watched TV without glasses. At first there was a rather unpleasant feeling (about five minutes), but then I began to see much better, the picture became clear. The same thing happened when I then went outside without my glasses. At first there was the same discomfort, but after 5-7 minutes the vision improved markedly. Visit to ophthalmologist a few years later showed what happened improvement of vision by several units.

Of course, only surgery can save someone. But even then the Huxley technique will not be superfluous. There are cases when only she, after surgical operations, helped to relieve tension, which is necessary for recovery.

Therefore, do not rush to put on contact lenses or glasses, try your own strength first. Perhaps this will be of more use to you.

FOREWORD

At the age of sixteen, I had an acute attack of Keratitis punctata*, and after eighteen months, during which I was in a state close to blindness (I had to learn Braille **, and obediently follow the guide on walks), one eye was able to see only a two-hundred-foot letter on Snellen's chart, and then only ten feet away, the other barely distinguishing day from night.

The misery of my condition was due mainly to clouding of the cornea; but there were also hypermetropia****, and astigmatism*****...

For the first few years, doctors recommended that I use a strong magnifying glass to read. Then came glasses. With their help, it was possible to make out a seventy-foot line (again, from a distance of only ten feet!) And read fairly tolerably - provided that the pupils were dilated with atropine to such an extent that a kind of clear "windows" formed on the cornea around the clouded center. Of course, the price of this was exorbitant tension, and at times I felt literally gutted.

All this continued until 1939, when I suddenly discovered that even with the most powerful glasses, reading was becoming more and more difficult and tiring.

* Keratitis punctata (lat.) - punctate keratitis, inflammation of the cornea of ​​​​the eye, accompanied by its clouding and decreased vision.

** Braille - French scientist Louis Braille, who developed a raised dotted font for writing and reading by the blind.

*** Snellen table - a table with letters and signs of various sizes, designed to test visual acuity; named after the Danish ophthalmologist Herman Snellen. In most Western European countries and the United States, the table is designed for examination from a distance of 20 feet (6 m), and the lines are indicated by the distance (in feet or meters) from which they are clearly visible with one hundred percent vision. Thus, the 200-foot letter of Snellen's table is the letter that normal eyes see from a distance of 200 feet (about 60 m).

**** Hypermetropia is a form of farsightedness in which a person cannot clearly see either distant or nearby objects.

***** Astigmatism is an optical defect of the eyes, which, as a rule, is caused by an uneven curvature of the cornea or an irregular shape of the lens, due to which different refractions are combined in one eye.

There was no doubt: my already flawed ability to see is rapidly falling. And just as I was anxiously wondering what kind of life awaits me if reading becomes unavailable, someone started talking about visual relearning. It looked harmless enough, inspired hope, and I, who had nothing to lose, decided to try.

After a couple of months I was already reading without glasses and, what is even more amazing, without tension and fatigue. Moreover, there were obvious signs that the clouding of the cornea, which had accompanied me for more than twenty-five years, was beginning to clear up. Now my vision, although far from normal, is almost twice as sharp as it was when I wore glasses and still did not know anything about vision correction techniques; the cornea is so cleansed that the eye, which hardly distinguishes between light and darkness, can recognize a ten-foot line from a distance of one foot.

It was this that prompted me to sit down to the book; By writing it, I wish to repay a debt of gratitude to the pioneer of visual reeducation, the late Dr. W. G. Bates, and his successor, Mrs. Margaret D. Corbett, to whose teaching talent I owe my vision.

There are other works on visual relearning; among these I will first of all mention the following: "Perfect Vision Without Spectacles" by Dr. Bates (New York, 1920), "How to Improve Your Eyes" by Mrs. Corbett (Los Angeles, 1938) and "Improving Vision by Natural Methods" by K. S. Price (London, 1934). Each of them is valuable in its own way; but in none (at least of those I have read) I have not met an attempt to correlate the methods of visual retraining with the latest achievements in psychology and philosophy. It is this gap that I intend to fill; my task is to demonstrate that these methods are nothing but the practical application of certain theoretical principles which are supposed to be true.

They may ask: and why traditional ophthalmologists have not put into practice these generally accepted principles? The answer is simple. From the moment ophthalmology became a science, doctors paid attention only to the physiological side of the complex visual process. They were busy with the eyes and forgot about the mind using the eyes to look and see. I have been treated by men of the highest rank in their profession; but not one of them even mentioned that there may be a mental side to vision, or that there are wrong ways of using the eyes and the mind, just as there are right ones.

After checking my sore eyes - I must admit, with skill and virtuosity, they prescribed artificial lenses for me and let go. Whether I used my mind and my spectacled eyes well or badly was of no importance to them. For Dr. Bates, on the contrary, such questions and answers were by no means indifferent, and through many years of experimentation and clinical practice he developed his own method of visual relearning. The fact that this technique is correct is proved by its effectiveness.

My example is by no means unique; Thousands of other such sufferers have benefited by following the simple rules for improving vision, which we owe to Dr. Bates and his followers. Making these rules and methods widely known is the ultimate goal of this book.

Application No. 1. Perfect vision without glasses September 13, 1941

After I finished writing this book, one of my correspondents sent me a copy of an article that appeared unsigned (probably as an editorial) in the British Medical Journal.

Dr. J. Parness's letter published in this issue urges us to pay attention to a recent radio talk by Dr. Julian Huxley. It was about the practice of correcting visual disturbances without the use of glasses... Before condemning this practice, it is good to consider the data in support of it. There are many methods based on hypotheses, varying in their ingenuity.

The system expounded by W. G. Bates has, over competing systems, only the advantage that its principles are publicly stated. Bates believes that the state of refraction is dynamic and constantly changing. Changes in refraction are carried out by the external neuromuscular tissues of the eyes, while the lens itself does not play any role in accommodation. Impaired vision belongs to the field of mental phenomena; a disease of the centers of the brain first upsets the macula lutea, and then the entire retina. Treatment aims to promote "mental relaxation" because when the mind is at rest, vision returns to normal. In his 30 years of work on refraction, Bates found a small number of people who managed to maintain "perfect vision" for more than a few minutes at a time, and he often observed "refractive changes of six times or more per second." Since none of the ophthalmologists is physically able to notice six or more refractive changes in a second (this can be called "blitz retinoscopy"), no one can refute Bates' basic dogma.

And ophthalmologists still remain true to the theory, based on physiological data, that accommodation is carried out by changing the curvature of the lens. Bates illustrates the influence of the mind on refraction by the stress effect. Since tension includes mental restlessness, changes in refraction occur in all states that cause such anxiety.

Thus, "a 25-year-old patient did not have any refractive error when he looked at a clean wall without trying to see anything on it (that is, in a state of complete relaxation and lack of tension); but when he said that he was 26 years, or someone else convinced him of the same, he became myopic (as shown by Bates' blitz retinoscopy. The same thing happened when he claimed or tried to imagine that he was 24. But if he called the true data, vision returned to norm". Bates also cites the case of the little liar. The retinoscope detected a change in the direction of myopia when asked: "Did you eat ice cream?" - she answered: "No." If the girl was telling the truth, the retinoscope did not show any refractive error. This gives the impression, so to speak, of a physical manifestation of the inner voice of conscience.

A set of dubious data is also presented, allegedly proving that patients with a removed lens can read small print with distance glasses. And the fact that the daily experience of ophthalmologists contradicts this may have some significance, but obviously not as significant as the isolated examples recorded by Bates, and which, by the way, have a completely different explanation, as everyone knows. familiar with related work.

Indeed, there is a lot of different and contradictory literature concerning the actual mechanism of the change in the shape of the lens during accommodation; the facts themselves are not disputed by anyone - except for Bates, who cites - what he calls experimental - data that the removal of the lens in fish does not affect accommodation. The experiment with fish is abundantly illustrated by photographs, but nowhere is it even mentioned that accommodation in fish is physiologically and anatomically different from accommodation in mammals.

There are facts about experiments on mammals, mainly rabbits and cats; and here surprising information appears: as if if you cut a nerve or muscle, and then reconnect and tie, then the impulse will be transmitted in this state, although physiologists would not be in a hurry to report the results without waiting at least a few days or even weeks. These experiments shed light on the anatomy of mammals.

It turns out that the generally accepted statement that cats are naturally endowed with an excellent oblique muscle is not true. It should be noted that this is only a side observation; the main thing is that pharmacologists are mistaken in believing that atropine acts only on smooth muscles, since Bates found that this drug paralyzes the external muscles that provide accommodation. From the experiment illustrated in the drawing, it is clear that the dead fish still have a living mind - its brain is pierced to cause paralysis - or, according to Bates, relaxation.

The treatment based on these revolutionary observations is aimed at psychic relaxation, and the dead fish seems to be its symbol.

The Batesian system, however, has many adherents. True, in 1931 the Prussian Ministry of Public Health issued a statement in which it spoke of this system as charlatanism, but in Nazi Germany, multi-volume works on such topics elevated it to a cult; there seems to be no shortage of Batesian practitioners or patients.

First things first, this article contains two main lines of argument.

First, Bates' method of visual learning cannot be correct, as it is used by the Germans.

Second, Bates' method of visual learning cannot be correct because certain experiments designed to test the hypothesis that Bates sought to explain the success of his method were not carried out properly.

The first argument is a copy of the one that tried to discredit the stethoscope a century ago - because of the prejudice against the French alone. Those familiar with the work of John Ally-otson will remember the description of this most ridiculous episode in the history of medicine. It took more than twenty years before the discovery of Laennec became widely used by English doctors.

In exactly the same way, only longer, hypnosis was banned by official British medicine. And all because of the prejudice against hypnotists. Half a century had passed since Braid formulated his classical hypothesis, and Esdaile performed a number of serious operations with hypnotic anesthesia, but the British Medical Association still continued to believe that there was nothing in hypnotism but fraud and charlatanism.

The history of medicine has blindly followed the path of repeating its mistakes, and it seems that visual retraining will have to share the fate of hypnotism and the stethoscope.

I can add that the argument from the position of rejection of Nazism is hardly justified in this matter. The method of restoring visual abilities was developed by an American physician and is now widely taught in the United States and England. For many years there were "schools of sight" in Germany. Some of these schools were no doubt bad and deserved the condemnation of the Prussian Ministry of Health, but others, as can be seen from an article written in 1934 by a military surgeon for the Deutsche Medical Wohenschrift, were simply wonderful.

In this article, Dr. Drenkhan mentions that in many cases of anomalous refractions, the results of shooting among recruits were better for those who did not wear glasses, but took a course in the restoration of vision at the school of vision. For those who have noticed even the slightest deterioration in vision, Dr. Drenkhan's advice is: do not immediately go to an eye specialist, who will usually prescribe glasses for you, but consult your family doctor, and after he takes steps to correct your general physical and mental condition, enter the school of sight and learn how to properly use the eyes and the mind.

This is the first line of the argument. The second, equally inconsistent, is based not on prejudice, but on confusion of thought and bad logic. Paradoxically, the author of the article is completely unable to distinguish between two completely different things: primary data confirming the existence of a certain phenomenon, and secondary data confirming the hypothesis that explains this phenomenon. The phenomenon that Bates sought to explain with his unconventional theory of accommodation was that marked improvement in vision that invariably followed the performance of certain restorative exercises. The existence of such a pattern can be witnessed by thousands of people who, like me, have benefited from the implementation of the proposed procedures.

If the author of an anonymous article really wanted to get to the bottom of the problem, he could contact trusted teachers and ask permission to observe their work. Instead, he tries to discredit the very idea of ​​visual relearning by denying the value of the experiments Bates conducted to support his hypothesis.

Needless to say, the idea of ​​visual retraining will pass unscathed through all attacks. Even if the secondary data is proven wrong, if the hypothesis itself is proven wrong, it will have absolutely nothing to do with the facts that the hypothesis was intended to explain. The existence of an incorrect explanation of a fact does not deny the existence of the fact itself, since the objective laws of nature make themselves felt in it, until now unknown, and in the history of mankind, the ability to use has always preceded the ability to correctly explain.

For example, people were engaged in metallurgy long before, on the basis of the accumulated data, hypotheses were formulated that satisfactorily explain the processes of melting, hardening, etc. metal would be impossible. As far as medicine is concerned, it should probably not exist at all. Our knowledge about man and the human body is incomplete, limited, superficial, much is unknown, the hypotheses put forward are refuted or contradict each other, theory does not keep up with practice. Nevertheless, the effective experience of medicine exists, despite the obvious fact that in the future many modern provisions will be recognized as obsolete, new ones will appear that today's doctors do not even dare to guess.

Dr. Bates' Theory of Accommodation may be as naive as the 18th century explanations of why lime juice was effective against scurvy. However, scurvy is cured with lime juice, and Bates' visual retraining method improves vision.

Application No. 2

At myopic often very bad posture. In some cases, it can be directly caused by poor vision, which contributes to a stoop and crooked neck. And vice versa: myopia, albeit partially, may be the result of poor posture. F. M. Alexander describes a case when a short-sighted boy, after he was taught to keep his head and back straight, normal vision was restored.

In adults, correction of posture alone is not yet a sufficient condition for the restoration of normal vision. But the improvement of vision can be accelerated if one learns to replace the wrong habits of using the body (in general) with the right ones; but the simultaneous mastery of the visual faculties is obligatory.

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Anyone who suffers from various visual impairment, but wants to get rid of them and save the children, this book will be a valuable help and guide to action.

In it, the famous English writer Aldous Huxley (1894-1963) vividly and fascinatingly narrates how he struggled with impending blindness, following the methods of the American ophthalmologist W. G. Bates.

Aldous Leonard Huxley

(Eng. Aldous Huxley; July 26, 1894, Godalming, Surrey, UK - November 22, 1963, Los Angeles, California, USA) - English writer. Author of the famous dystopian novel Brave New World.

On both paternal and maternal lines, Huxley belonged to the British cultural elite, which produced a number of outstanding scientists, writers, and artists. His father is the writer Leonard Huxley, his paternal grandfather is the biologist Thomas Henry Huxley; Maternally, Huxley is the great-grandson of the historian and educator Thomas Arnold and great-nephew of the writer Matthew Arnold. Huxley's brother Julian and half-brother Andrew were renowned biologists.

Huxley's mother died when Aldous was 13 years old. Three years later, he developed an eye infection and subsequently his eyesight deteriorated significantly. In this regard, he was exempted from military service during the First World War. Own experience of vision correction he later described in a pamphlet " How to correct vision"("The Art of Seeing", 1943).

In his novels, we are talking about the loss of humanity by society in the process of technological progress (the dystopia “Brave New World!”, There is also the book “Return to the Brave New World Revisited” (1958 Brave New World Revisited) written 20 years after the first (in which Huxley describes the opposite of the first book and develops the idea that in fact everything will be much worse and scarier than in the first.) He also touched on pacifist topics.

In 1937, Huxley moved to Los Angeles, California with his guru Gerald Gerd, hoping that the Californian climate would benefit him. deteriorating vision. It is here that his main creative period begins, for which a more detailed consideration of the human essence was a new feature. Huxley met in 1938 with Jiddu Krishnamurti. Under the influence of the latter, he turns to various teachings of wisdom and engages in mysticism.

The accumulated knowledge is seen in his subsequent works: "The Perennial Philosophy" ("The Perennial Philosophy"), most clearly in After Many Years ("After Many a Summer ...") and also in the work "Time must have a stop".

In 1953 he agrees to participate in an experiment conducted by Humphrey Osmond. The purpose of this experiment was to study the effect of mescaline on human consciousness.

Subsequently, in correspondence with Osmond, the word "psychedelic" was used for the first time to describe the influence of mescaline.

The essays "The Doors of Perception" and "Heaven and Hell" describe the observations and the course of the experiment, which the author repeated about ten times until his death. The Doors of Perception became a cult text for many of the radical intellectuals of the 60s and gave its name to the famous group The Doors.

The effect of the action of psychotropic substances affects not only his work. So in his latest novel, Island, he described a positive utopia that was diametrically opposed to his dystopia, Brave New World.

Huxley died in 1963 in Los Angeles from throat cancer. Before his death, he asked for an intramuscular injection of LSD - 100 micrograms. Despite the doctors' warnings, his wife complied with his request. She admitted this in an interview she gave in 1986 to the British television company BBC as part of the documentary project LSD: The Beyond Within. Shortly before his death, all his manuscripts were burned in a fire in his own house.

The book contains a table with which you can do vision correction exercises.

The book is intended for a wide range of readers of all ages.

FROM THE TRANSLATOR
FOREWORD

Conventional Treatment for Impaired Vision
Healing or alleviating symptoms?

Causes of visual impairment: boredom
Causes of visual dysfunctions: diseases and emotional disorders

APPENDIX No. 2.

APPENDIX No. 3.

FROM THE TRANSLATOR

Before you, the reader, is a very unusual book. It was written by a man who was practically blind in his youth, and when it seemed that there was no hope, not only for improvement, but even for slowing down the deterioration, he was lucky: he met original method of Dr. Bates who saved him.

We are talking about the famous writer Aldous Huxley, the author of the dystopian novel Brave New World. He was born in 1894 in England, his father Leonard Huxley was the editor of Cornhill magazine, his brother Julian was a famous biologist and philosopher, and his grandfather Thomas Henry Huxley (in Russian transcription - Huxley) was a famous biologist. Another of his prominent ancestor is the English critic and essayist Matthew Arnold.

Family traditions, of course, influenced the fate of the young Huxley. Despite a serious eye disease that left him almost completely blind for 16 years, he successfully completed college at Eton and received a bachelor's degree with first class honors in English from one of Oxford's most honored institutions - Balliol College.

In 1916, the first book of his poems was published, followed by two more. In 1920, a collection of short stories, Limbo, was published. A year later, the novel "Yellow Chrome" is published, and Huxley achieves recognition. Its productivity is amazing. He publishes poetry, novels, short stories, travel essays, historical biographies, critical essays on literature, painting, and music.

Most of the 20s of the XX century. Huxley lived in Italy, but moved to Toulon in the 1930s, where he wrote Brave New World. In 1937, he moved to California, believing that the local climate would be more beneficial for his sore eyes. Many of Aldous Huxley's novels have been translated into Russian: The Yellow Krom (1921), Shutov's Round Dance (1923), Brave New World (1932), Monkey and Essence (1948), etc. However, some of Huxley's works are still little known in Russia, and one of them is "The Art of Seeing" ("How to correct vision") (1943). In this book, Huxley talks about ways to deal with various visual defects. He experienced all this on himself - and as a result, it can be said without great exaggeration, he received his sight.

This is not a miracle or a mystic. Each person has a huge reserve of strength and energy in order to maintain and restore their health, you just need to be able to mobilize this internal reserve. Improving the technique of Dr. Bates, Huxley shows how lost vision can be restored without outside help. Along the way, it makes the reader think about the properties of human nature in general.

Huxley's recommendations are clear and simple, and although this book of his was first published 60 years ago, its practical value has not diminished and it continues to be republished in many countries of the world. I hope that getting to know her and following her recommendations will bring improvement, relief to those in need, and ultimately a complete restoration of vision. I can testify that this book has helped me personally, who has been suffering from myopia for 20 years. For the first time I watched TV without glasses. At first there was a rather unpleasant feeling (about five minutes), but then I began to see much better, the picture became clear. The same thing happened when I then went outside without my glasses. At first there was the same discomfort, but after 5-7 minutes the vision improved markedly. Visit to ophthalmologist a few years later showed what happened improvement of vision by several units.

Of course, only surgery can save someone. But even then the Huxley technique will not be superfluous. There are cases when only she, after surgical operations, helped to relieve tension, which is necessary for recovery.

Therefore, do not rush to put on contact lenses or glasses, try your own strength first. Perhaps this will be of more use to you.

FOREWORD

At the age of sixteen, I had an acute attack of Keratitis punctata*, and after eighteen months, during which I was in a state close to blindness (I had to learn Braille **, and obediently follow the guide on walks), one eye was able to see only a two-hundred-foot letter on Snellen's chart, and then only ten feet away, the other barely distinguishing day from night.

The misery of my condition was due mainly to clouding of the cornea; but there were also hypermetropia****, and astigmatism*****...

For the first few years, doctors recommended that I use a strong magnifying glass to read. Then came glasses. With their help, it was possible to make out a seventy-foot line (again, from a distance of only ten feet!) And read fairly tolerably - provided that the pupils were dilated with atropine to such an extent that a kind of clear "windows" formed on the cornea around the clouded center. Of course, the price of this was exorbitant tension, and at times I felt literally gutted.

All this continued until 1939, when I suddenly discovered that even with the most powerful glasses, reading was becoming more and more difficult and tiring.

* Keratitis punctata (lat.) - punctate keratitis, inflammation of the cornea of ​​​​the eye, accompanied by its clouding and decreased vision.

** Braille - French scientist Louis Braille, who developed a raised dotted font for writing and reading by the blind.

*** Snellen table - a table with letters and signs of various sizes, designed to test visual acuity; named after the Danish ophthalmologist Herman Snellen. In most Western European countries and the United States, the table is designed for examination from a distance of 20 feet (6 m), and the lines are indicated by the distance (in feet or meters) from which they are clearly visible with one hundred percent vision. Thus, the 200-foot letter of Snellen's table is the letter that normal eyes see from a distance of 200 feet (about 60 m).

**** Hypermetropia is a form of farsightedness in which a person cannot clearly see either distant or nearby objects.

***** Astigmatism is an optical defect of the eyes, which, as a rule, is caused by an uneven curvature of the cornea or an irregular shape of the lens, due to which different refractions are combined in one eye.

There was no doubt: my already flawed ability to see is rapidly falling. And just as I was anxiously wondering what kind of life awaits me if reading becomes unavailable, someone started talking about visual relearning. It looked harmless enough, inspired hope, and I, who had nothing to lose, decided to try.

After a couple of months I was already reading without glasses and, what is even more amazing, without tension and fatigue. Moreover, there were obvious signs that the clouding of the cornea, which had accompanied me for more than twenty-five years, was beginning to clear up. Now my vision, although far from normal, is almost twice as sharp as it was when I wore glasses and still did not know anything about vision correction techniques; the cornea is so cleansed that the eye, which hardly distinguishes between light and darkness, can recognize a ten-foot line from a distance of one foot.

It was this that prompted me to sit down to the book; By writing it, I wish to repay a debt of gratitude to the pioneer of visual reeducation, the late Dr. W. G. Bates, and his successor, Mrs. Margaret D. Corbett, to whose teaching talent I owe my vision.

There are other works on visual relearning; among these I will first of all mention the following: "Perfect Vision Without Spectacles" by Dr. Bates (New York, 1920), "How to Improve Your Eyes" by Mrs. Corbett (Los Angeles, 1938) and "Improving Vision by Natural Methods" by K. S. Price (London, 1934). Each of them is valuable in its own way; but in none (at least of those I have read) I have not met an attempt to correlate the methods of visual retraining with the latest achievements in psychology and philosophy. It is this gap that I intend to fill; my task is to demonstrate that these methods are nothing but the practical application of certain theoretical principles which are supposed to be true.

They may ask: and why traditional ophthalmologists have not put into practice these generally accepted principles? The answer is simple. From the moment ophthalmology became a science, doctors paid attention only to the physiological side of the complex visual process. They were busy with the eyes and forgot about the mind using the eyes to look and see. I have been treated by men of the highest rank in their profession; but not one of them even mentioned that there may be a mental side to vision, or that there are wrong ways of using the eyes and the mind, just as there are right ones.

After checking my sore eyes - I must admit, with skill and virtuosity, they prescribed artificial lenses for me and let go. Whether I used my mind and my spectacled eyes well or badly was of no importance to them. For Dr. Bates, on the contrary, such questions and answers were by no means indifferent, and through many years of experimentation and clinical practice he developed his own method of visual relearning. The fact that this technique is correct is proved by its effectiveness.

My example is by no means unique; Thousands of other such sufferers have benefited by following the simple rules for improving vision, which we owe to Dr. Bates and his followers. Making these rules and methods widely known is the ultimate goal of this book.

Application No. 1. Perfect vision without glasses September 13, 1941

After I finished writing this book, one of my correspondents sent me a copy of an article that appeared unsigned (probably as an editorial) in the British Medical Journal.

Dr. J. Parness's letter published in this issue urges us to pay attention to a recent radio talk by Dr. Julian Huxley. It was about the practice of correcting visual disturbances without the use of glasses... Before condemning this practice, it is good to consider the data in support of it. There are many methods based on hypotheses, varying in their ingenuity.

The system expounded by W. G. Bates has, over competing systems, only the advantage that its principles are publicly stated. Bates believes that the state of refraction is dynamic and constantly changing. Changes in refraction are carried out by the external neuromuscular tissues of the eyes, while the lens itself does not play any role in accommodation. Impaired vision belongs to the field of mental phenomena; a disease of the centers of the brain first upsets the macula lutea, and then the entire retina. Treatment aims to promote "mental relaxation" because when the mind is at rest, vision returns to normal. In his 30 years of work on refraction, Bates found a small number of people who managed to maintain "perfect vision" for more than a few minutes at a time, and he often observed "refractive changes of six times or more per second." Since none of the ophthalmologists is physically able to notice six or more refractive changes in a second (this can be called "blitz retinoscopy"), no one can refute Bates' basic dogma.

And ophthalmologists still remain true to the theory, based on physiological data, that accommodation is carried out by changing the curvature of the lens. Bates illustrates the influence of the mind on refraction by the stress effect. Since tension includes mental restlessness, changes in refraction occur in all states that cause such anxiety.

Thus, "a 25-year-old patient did not have any refractive error when he looked at a clean wall without trying to see anything on it (that is, in a state of complete relaxation and lack of tension); but when he said that he was 26 years, or someone else convinced him of the same, he became myopic (as shown by Bates' blitz retinoscopy. The same thing happened when he claimed or tried to imagine that he was 24. But if he called the true data, vision returned to norm". Bates also cites the case of the little liar. The retinoscope detected a change in the direction of myopia when asked: "Did you eat ice cream?" - she answered: "No." If the girl was telling the truth, the retinoscope did not show any refractive error. This gives the impression, so to speak, of a physical manifestation of the inner voice of conscience.

A set of dubious data is also presented, allegedly proving that patients with a removed lens can read small print with distance glasses. And the fact that the daily experience of ophthalmologists contradicts this may have some significance, but obviously not as significant as the isolated examples recorded by Bates, and which, by the way, have a completely different explanation, as everyone knows. familiar with related work.

Indeed, there is a lot of different and contradictory literature concerning the actual mechanism of the change in the shape of the lens during accommodation; the facts themselves are not disputed by anyone - except for Bates, who cites - what he calls experimental - data that the removal of the lens in fish does not affect accommodation. The experiment with fish is abundantly illustrated by photographs, but nowhere is it even mentioned that accommodation in fish is physiologically and anatomically different from accommodation in mammals.

There are facts about experiments on mammals, mainly rabbits and cats; and here surprising information appears: as if if you cut a nerve or muscle, and then reconnect and tie, then the impulse will be transmitted in this state, although physiologists would not be in a hurry to report the results without waiting at least a few days or even weeks. These experiments shed light on the anatomy of mammals.

It turns out that the generally accepted statement that cats are naturally endowed with an excellent oblique muscle is not true. It should be noted that this is only a side observation; the main thing is that pharmacologists are mistaken in believing that atropine acts only on smooth muscles, since Bates found that this drug paralyzes the external muscles that provide accommodation. From the experiment illustrated in the drawing, it is clear that the dead fish still have a living mind - its brain is pierced to cause paralysis - or, according to Bates, relaxation.

The treatment based on these revolutionary observations is aimed at psychic relaxation, and the dead fish seems to be its symbol.

The Batesian system, however, has many adherents. True, in 1931 the Prussian Ministry of Public Health issued a statement in which it spoke of this system as charlatanism, but in Nazi Germany, multi-volume works on such topics elevated it to a cult; there seems to be no shortage of Batesian practitioners or patients.

First things first, this article contains two main lines of argument.

First, Bates' method of visual learning cannot be correct, as it is used by the Germans.

Second, Bates' method of visual learning cannot be correct because certain experiments designed to test the hypothesis that Bates sought to explain the success of his method were not carried out properly.

The first argument is a copy of the one that tried to discredit the stethoscope a century ago - because of the prejudice against the French alone. Those familiar with the work of John Ally-otson will remember the description of this most ridiculous episode in the history of medicine. It took more than twenty years before the discovery of Laennec became widely used by English doctors.

In exactly the same way, only longer, hypnosis was banned by official British medicine. And all because of the prejudice against hypnotists. Half a century had passed since Braid formulated his classical hypothesis, and Esdaile performed a number of serious operations with hypnotic anesthesia, but the British Medical Association still continued to believe that there was nothing in hypnotism but fraud and charlatanism.

The history of medicine has blindly followed the path of repeating its mistakes, and it seems that visual retraining will have to share the fate of hypnotism and the stethoscope.

I can add that the argument from the position of rejection of Nazism is hardly justified in this matter. The method of restoring visual abilities was developed by an American physician and is now widely taught in the United States and England. For many years there were "schools of sight" in Germany. Some of these schools were no doubt bad and deserved the condemnation of the Prussian Ministry of Health, but others, as can be seen from an article written in 1934 by a military surgeon for the Deutsche Medical Wohenschrift, were simply wonderful.

In this article, Dr. Drenkhan mentions that in many cases of anomalous refractions, the results of shooting among recruits were better for those who did not wear glasses, but took a course in the restoration of vision at the school of vision. For those who have noticed even the slightest deterioration in vision, Dr. Drenkhan's advice is: do not immediately go to an eye specialist, who will usually prescribe glasses for you, but consult your family doctor, and after he takes steps to correct your general physical and mental condition, enter the school of sight and learn how to properly use the eyes and the mind.

This is the first line of the argument. The second, equally inconsistent, is based not on prejudice, but on confusion of thought and bad logic. Paradoxically, the author of the article is completely unable to distinguish between two completely different things: primary data confirming the existence of a certain phenomenon, and secondary data confirming the hypothesis that explains this phenomenon. The phenomenon that Bates sought to explain with his unconventional theory of accommodation was that marked improvement in vision that invariably followed the performance of certain restorative exercises. The existence of such a pattern can be witnessed by thousands of people who, like me, have benefited from the implementation of the proposed procedures.

If the author of an anonymous article really wanted to get to the bottom of the problem, he could contact trusted teachers and ask permission to observe their work. Instead, he tries to discredit the very idea of ​​visual relearning by denying the value of the experiments Bates conducted to support his hypothesis.

Needless to say, the idea of ​​visual retraining will pass unscathed through all attacks. Even if the secondary data is proven wrong, if the hypothesis itself is proven wrong, it will have absolutely nothing to do with the facts that the hypothesis was intended to explain. The existence of an incorrect explanation of a fact does not deny the existence of the fact itself, since the objective laws of nature make themselves felt in it, until now unknown, and in the history of mankind, the ability to use has always preceded the ability to correctly explain.

For example, people were engaged in metallurgy long before, on the basis of the accumulated data, hypotheses were formulated that satisfactorily explain the processes of melting, hardening, etc. metal would be impossible. As far as medicine is concerned, it should probably not exist at all. Our knowledge about man and the human body is incomplete, limited, superficial, much is unknown, the hypotheses put forward are refuted or contradict each other, theory does not keep up with practice. Nevertheless, the effective experience of medicine exists, despite the obvious fact that in the future many modern provisions will be recognized as obsolete, new ones will appear that today's doctors do not even dare to guess.

Dr. Bates' Theory of Accommodation may be as naive as the 18th century explanations of why lime juice was effective against scurvy. However, scurvy is cured with lime juice, and Bates' visual retraining method improves vision.

Application No. 2

At myopic often very bad posture. In some cases, it can be directly caused by poor vision, which contributes to a stoop and crooked neck. And vice versa: myopia, albeit partially, may be the result of poor posture. F. M. Alexander describes a case when a short-sighted boy, after he was taught to keep his head and back straight, normal vision was restored.

In adults, correction of posture alone is not yet a sufficient condition for the restoration of normal vision. But the improvement of vision can be accelerated if one learns to replace the wrong habits of using the body (in general) with the right ones; but the simultaneous mastery of the visual faculties is obligatory.

Buy or download the book

All files on the site, before they are laid out, checked for viruses. Therefore, we give a 100% guarantee of the cleanliness of the files.

" target="_blank" > Download Book ◄

And after eighteen months, during which I was in a state close to blindness (I had to master Braille, and on walks obediently follow the guide), my one eye was able to discern only a two-hundred-foot letter in the Snellen table, and then from a distance of only ten feet, the other barely distinguishing day from night.

The misery of my condition was due mainly to clouding of the cornea; but there were also hypermetropia, and astigmatism ...

For the first few years, doctors recommended that I use a strong magnifying glass to read. Then came glasses. With their help, it was possible to make out a seventy-foot line (again, from a distance of only ten feet!) And read fairly tolerably - provided that the pupils were dilated with atropine to such an extent that a kind of clear "windows" formed on the cornea around the clouded center. Of course, the price of this was exorbitant tension, and at times I felt literally gutted.

All this continued until 1939, when I suddenly discovered that even with the most powerful glasses, reading was becoming more and more difficult and tiring.

There was no doubt that my already flawed ability to see was rapidly declining. And just as I was anxiously wondering what kind of life awaits me if reading becomes unavailable, someone started talking about visual relearning. It looked harmless enough, inspired hope, and I, who had nothing to lose, decided to try.

After a couple of months I was already reading without glasses and, what is even more amazing, without tension and fatigue. Moreover, there were obvious signs that the clouding of the cornea, which had accompanied me for more than twenty-five years, was beginning to clear up. Now my vision, although far from normal, is almost twice as sharp as it was when I wore glasses and still did not know anything about vision correction techniques; the cornea is so cleansed that the eye, which hardly distinguishes between light and darkness, can recognize a ten-foot line from a distance of one foot.

It was this that prompted me to sit down to the book; By writing it, I wish to repay a debt of gratitude to the pioneer of visual reeducation, the late Dr. W. G. Bates, and his successor, Mrs. Margaret D. Corbett, to whose teaching talent I owe my vision.

There are other works on visual relearning; among these I will first of all mention the following: "Perfect Vision Without Spectacles" by Dr. Bates (New York, 1920), "How to Improve Your Eyes" by Mrs. Corbett (Los Angeles, 1938) and "Improving Vision by Natural Methods" by K. S. Price (London, 1934). Each of them is valuable in its own way; but in none (at least of those I have read) I have not met an attempt to correlate the methods of visual retraining with the latest achievements in psychology and philosophy. It is this gap that I intend to fill; my task is to demonstrate that these methods are nothing but the practical application of certain theoretical principles which are supposed to be true.

It may be asked: why did traditional ophthalmologists not put into practice these generally accepted principles? The answer is simple. From the moment ophthalmology became a science, doctors paid attention only to the physiological side of the complex visual process. They were busy with the eyes and forgot about the mind using the eyes to look and see. I have been treated by men of the highest rank in their profession; but not one of them even mentioned that there might be a mental side to vision, or that there are wrong ways to use the eyes and the mind, just as there are right ones. After checking my sore eyes - I must admit, with skill and virtuosity, they prescribed artificial lenses for me and let me go. Whether I used my mind and my spectacled eyes well or badly was of no importance to them. For Dr. Bates, on the contrary, such questions and answers were by no means indifferent, and through many years of experimentation and clinical practice he developed his own method of visual relearning. The fact that this technique is correct is proved by its effectiveness.

My example is by no means unique; Thousands of other such sufferers have benefited by following the simple rules for improving vision, which we owe to Dr. Bates and his followers. Making these rules and methods widely known is the ultimate goal of this book.

PART ONE

MEDICINE AND IMPAIRED VISION

Medicus curat, natura sanat - the doctor heals, nature heals... This old aphorism perfectly defines the possibilities of medicine and its task: to provide the suffering organism with such conditions that its own self-regulating and restoring forces will be revealed. If there were no vis medicatrix naturae, natural healing forces, medicine would be helpless, and any, even a small disorder, would immediately kill or lead to a chronic disease.

When conditions are favourable, the afflicted organism seeks to rid itself of the ailment by means of its inherent powers of self-healing. If deliverance does not occur, this means that either the case is hopeless or the conditions are unfavorable, that is, in other words, the treatment applied by medicine does not achieve the goal that adequate treatment is designed to achieve.

Conventional Treatment for Impaired Vision

In the light of these basic principles, let's analyze how modern medicine treats visual impairment. In the vast majority, the only treatment is the selection of artificial lenses designed to correct the specific refractive error, which is considered to be responsible for the violation. Medicus curate; and most often the patient is rewarded with an immediate improvement in vision. And what, by the way, about nature and its healing action? Do glasses eliminate the cause of impaired vision? Do the organs of vision get the opportunity to restore normal functioning? There is only one answer to these questions: NO. Artificial lenses neutralize the symptoms, but do not eliminate the causes of the disorders. Moreover, eyes equipped with these devices tend to progressively weaken and require more and more powerful lenses to neutralize the symptoms found. In a word, medicus curat, natura non sanat. And here one has to choose one of two things: either the disorders of the visual organs are incurable in principle and can only be mitigated by mechanical means, or the modern method of treatment itself is incorrect.

Traditional ophthalmology opts for the first, absolutely pessimistic position, and insists that mechanical neutralization of symptoms is the only way to cure. (I'm not talking about special cases where immediate surgery is required, I'm talking about those widespread disorders that are currently treated with artificial lenses).

Healing or alleviating symptoms?