What Are Correct Visual Habits?

The Bates method is about relaxation, mental and physical. It is all about how to use your eyes the way nature intended them for us to use. Seeing is like hearing or smelling. You do not try to taste something, right? And also unless you are going deaf, you are not trying to hear something that is said to you. At least you should not. By the way it seems that widespread deafness and loss of hearing that we see around nowadays has exactly the same causes as the bad eyesight. People lose the ability to use their sense organs effortlessly, the way they were designed to be used.

Saying that the Bates method does not involve any exercises. No doubt you know the type I mean. Look all the way up, then down, right and left. While they probably won’t do any harm, you won’t get any benefits from them either. It seems like a different groups of muscles are involved in accommodation.

In any case, if there were any mechanistic approach that worked for sure, we don’t know about it yet. No method has 100% success rate.

Bates method is mental. His idea is you have to relax mind first and that will automatically relax your tight muscles. It’s all in the mind. Yet he also came up with very definite techniques how to achieve mental relaxation. Will they work for everyone? No such luck. But they are beneficial and will cause no harm.

Meir Schneider

No list of Bates teachers would be complete (not that mine is) without mentioning the name of Meir Schneider. He was born with cataracts and other serious vision problems, had operation on one eye that left him almost blind. He became desperate and started looking for measures to restore his eyesight. He found about Bates method and started practicing with utmost diligence. In about 2 year he was able to read fine print. After a while he could drive without glasses. His vision is not perfect due to scars but around 20/80 which is still fairly decent.

On a site about him there are two great pictures:

Meir Schneider was issued a blindness certificate in 1970 in Tel Aviv which is marked “Valid Permanently”. Right next to it is his current California driver’s license which has “No Restriction”. He admits though that he has been palming for hours right before he went to pass his visual test. How about that for proof that Bates method can work?

After that he founded School for Self-Healing in San Francisco, read numerous lectures and seminars, wrote a few books. His approach helps to implement Bates method as he offers a guided relaxation scripts along with actual techniques. That makes it easier for some people.

Mirzakarim Norbekov

A very interesting character. Norbekov is a Russian who specializes in alternative medicine and “mind-stuff”. He believes that a patient cures himself. He wrote a book in Russian that can be translated like One Fool’s Experience or the Way to Vision. It’s a curious read, lots of motivationl talk. He is a big believer in visualization, affirmations and other so-called new age techniques. He is also adamant that an empty form like a physical exercise is useless without a mental focus. Which is all true and good. But here’s the rub:

He likes eye exercises of roll up and down type, left and right. While there might be something to them, usually the response is negative: they are useless as far as vision improvement goes.

Norbekov also came up with his own version of palming and sunning but he never credits Bates. Not even once. I would be cautious in accepting his word. Everyone even superficially acquainted with Bates method knows that he is the one who came up with palming and sunning and invented the terms. No doubt techniques existed before but Bates introduced them to the general public. I don’t think it’s wise for Norbekov to take credit for that.

One more thing. His approach “mental attitude is the primary factor” implies that you can bully your eyes into good vision. I am sorry to say that it’s not so. If it were that easy we would all have excellent eyesight. He is a charismatic person and he probably helped lots of people who conversed with him personally. His method of improving eyesight is very similar to Bates’. While Bates’ focus was on complete relaxation, Norbekov’s is on positive mental attitude.

His book is worth reading though, there are some good ideas there. He does go over the top sometimes with this positive attitude but he also tells amusing stories.

Leo Angart

In my opinion, Leo Angart is one of the best modern Bates teachers. I read his book and I was pleasantly surprised at the quality of information presented. He explains the usual techniques for Bates method but he also introduced something completely different. I’m sure it’ll be new to most readers.

It is pranic healing. The idea is that our bodies are comprised of energy and every part of the body that suffers from some kind of disease or anomaly has some kind of energy misbalance, most commonly the lack of prana or energy in that particular organ.

The idea of pranic healing was introduced by Choa Kok Sui. He wrote several books on the subject and he gives a good intro into pranic healing.

So the thing to do is to perform special exercises with your hands in order to fill your eyes with energy. I know, we are getting here into advanced mind stuff but Leo Angart reports that one of his pupils was able to improve her myopia by 3 diopters in 3 days only by doing these exercises. They are easy to perform but they do require mental focus or concentration. You also have to visualize certain coloured flows of energy.

What's more, Leo himself credits his restored vision to these energy "exercises" (let's call them that for the lack of better word). While he likes Bates and his method he considers that pranic healing is one of the primary factors in restoring good eyesight.

Leo wrote a book Improve Your Eyesight Naturally that you can check out on Amazon.

He is not big on motivational staff, which is a good thing, too much of that already. His book is packed with techniques that you can start applying right away. There are also funny cartoons on every page. In a way, he is the man to go to for Bates method simplified concept.

Janet Goodrich

While we are on the subject of Bates teachers I’d like to introduce to you one more Bates teacher: Janet Goodrich. her book is called Natural Vision Improvement. It is much shorter and her style is lighter and easier to read than Quackenbush’s but her work suffers from the same two flaws mentioned above: she likes sketching (again, nothing wrong with it but remember that it is not Bates) and too much psychological mish-mash. However, her book is full of cartoons, tips and techniques, especially for vision defects other than myopia.

On the side: Myopia, in my opinion, is the most difficult anomaly of refraction to get rid of, if you can do that… well, you are the one.

There is no ground breaking information there. But overall, it is a good book and I recommend it.

Thomas Quackenbush

Thomas Quackenbush is another famous Bates teacher. He wrote a book with somewhat presumptuous title “Relearning to See”. If you haven’t read it yet it’s available on Amazon.

Well, while the book is solid and well-written and presents Bates method fairly well I have some problems with it. First, the book is far too long and wordy. He quotes Bates and then repeats the same stuff over and over in his own words. Too much fluff.

Second, I hate the way he changed Bates term central fixation into centralization. I don’t like it. He also changed shifting into sketching: the idea is that instead of the pendulum-like swings that your eyes do automatically he suggests that you follow the outlines of the object with you glance. You can do it by imagining your nose as a feather or pen. I heard it worked for some people but be aware that it is not shifting: you might actually lock your eyes by trying to sketch! Third, he tends to go into psychological nonsense like “you are myopic because you are afraid to look at the word”. While I agree that there is a mental aspect to vision (more about it in later posts) I don’t buy this simplified explanation.

Anyway, since the Bates book is much shorter I don’t see the point in getting Quackenbush’s book unless you like the stuff really chewed up for you.

The verdict: not recommended. I ended up donating it to the library.

Margaret D. Corbett

The first book I read on Bates method was a double book which included “Perfect Sight Without Glasses” by W. H. Bates and “Help Yourself to Better Sight” by Margaret Darst Corbett. While the style of writing is totally different they both deserve a read.

The Bates book is all about theory and concepts behind the vision. The book by M. Corbett is more focused on practical approaches to help you develop correct visual habits. Margaret Corbett became interested in the Bates method when her husband lost his eyesight, found out about Bates and decided to practice his principles. That started her off to helping people. She ran “School of Eye Education” in Los Angeles teaching the Bates method. Of course the grand medical establishment could not allow it: how come? You got real results? Close them down. They filed a complaint against her for practicing without a license. She won because she had many witnesses who testified on her behalf and also for the fact that she did not represent herself as a doctor but rather as an instructor in good eye habits.

Among her pupils was the famous Aldous Huxley who wrote “The Art of Seeing”, another book that gives lots of tips on developing good visual habits and also touches on mental side of vision.

Bates Teachers

Let me say a brief word about so-called Bates teachers.

First of all, the disclaimer is in order. I am NOT a Bates teacher. I am not a vision improvement teacher. This just happens to be a topic of extreme interest to me. Yet, I see so many attempts on internet to scam unsuspecting customers to part with their money—it just gets to me. My advice is not to buy any of the vision improvement programs, especially the ones that “guarantee the results”. Nothing in this life is guaranteed.

Saying that I can promise that if you are unfamiliar with the Bates method you will learn more from this blog for free than from these overhyped and overpriced products. I might even design an email course but only if the need arises. I will not try to sell you any vision improvement products. I might recommend some books and provide links to Amazon.com but that’s all.

Saying that, the only book you need to find about the Bates method is the book by Dr. Bates himself. In lots of cases it can be checked out from your local library and thus won’t cost you a penny. Yes, there are some good authors like Margaret D. Corbett, mostly direct disciples of Dr. Bates, whose books are worth reading but all the modern stuff is just a half-digested rehash of Bates and other half-baked ideas. What Bates offers is a very clear system. The modern books just don’t cut through. They will tell you the usual BS like if you are myopic it is because you do not want to see the world around you. Total baloney. Stay away from those.

Some people do learn better under the guidance of the competent teacher but it’s up to you to find one if you decide to go this way. I personally think you do not need any teacher, what you need is the right knowledge and how to apply it.