Happy New Year!

I decided to put a little personal note to my readers and wish to everyone who stopped by a wonderful New Year 2009. I wish you all the best, especially success with your vision improvement project.

Dr. R. S. Agarwal

I previously mentioned that Bates teachers are usually just fans of the method who more often than not do not quite understand the concept of the Bates method themselves and talk about “exercises” and what not. But there is one exception. There was a doctor who not only fully understood the principles of Dr. Bates but also integrated them into his practice. Like Bates himself and unlike Bates teachers he happened to be a Doctor of Ophthalmology. He also happened to be a follower of a famous yogi Sri Aurobindo. The name of this remarkable man was Dr. R. S. Agarwal.

Dr. Agarwal founded The School of Perfect Eyesight as part of Pondicherry Ashram in India and he had a phenomenal rate of success. He cured many seemingly hopeless cases that traditional doctors gave up on. Oh yes, and he did not charge for the treatment.

I did some research on Dr. Agarwal on internet and was surprised to find out that there was no information about him. You’ll find a few of his book for sale and that’s about it. Not even an entrance in Wikipedia.

I read Yoga of Perfect Sight and I think this book comes pretty close to Bates. It is actually a collection of essays on vision, kind of like the book of Dr. Bates is a collection of essays from Better Eyesight Magazine, that are put together in a book. Even the style is somewhat similar: lots of case histories and cases of remarkable cure. As a bonus there are also letters of Sri Aurobindo (nothing really to do with vision improvement, but a curious read anyway). This book is very different from "traditional" Bates teachers.

Vision and Swimming

Can you swim? If so, do you remember the process how exactly did you learn to swim? Has it ever occurred to you that the ability to swim is mental? Think about it. What is the difference between a person who would sink if thrown in a deep waters and the one who would float? The difference is mental control. People who can swim realized that they can float on water without sinking. It is the same with vision. If we could realize that we can see perfectly or we can relax our extraocular muscles we would have good vision. Notice that the ability to swim does not go away even after years of inactivity, so it’s enough to realize it once that you can have good vision and then you will have it.

This swimming metaphor might not be the best but it is the closest one that describes what I have in mind since most people know how to swim. It is sudden realization that you can control your body in a certain situation. In a way that was a science of yoga is all about.

Vision is Mental

Vision is not only the physical ability to perceive external objects, something like registering a picture on a camera, vision is also the process of interpreting these sensory impressions by the brain. The process of interpretation is cultural in a way how we interpret the image on retina.

There are cases of split personality when people picked up different pair of glasses or took them off altogether depending on which personality “rules” at the moment. Evidently there can be two personalities and one might be nearsighted while another might have perfect vision.

It is a vast field for study. Bates realized that mental interpretation is important but his accent was on mental relaxation and mental control of the muscles. Indeed, if we knew how to control these extraocular muscles we would be able to relax them and thus would acquire good vision.

Mission accomplished

Hello!

A personal message to the readers of my blog. I had a personal mission to write 10 articles on the Bates method and publish them in EzineArticles directory. Well, I am happy to report that

Mission accomplished.

And, as an additional bonus my account is upgraded to the Platinum status. That means more quality articles are coming in the future from your truly.

Time for champagne. Cheers!

Vision Changes All the Time

One of the main concepts of the Bates theory is that he discovered that vision changes all the time. Nobody has perfect eyesight all the time. There are periods when our vision gets better and other periods when it gets worse. This applies to everyone with no exception. Periods of improved vision are usually experienced when a person is happy, relaxed and in familiar environment. If the person is tired, fatigues, stressed, in unfamiliar environment his eyesight is often worse than usual.

The difference is usually not extreme for people with normal vision but it may be drastic for people with bad eyesight. Probably all of us noticed a tremendous improvement during days of bright sunshine.

This, according to Dr. Bates, proves that vision is not static but dynamic. Muscles contract and relax all the time. If it is possible to relax the muscles surrounding the eyeball for a second, it should be possible to relax them for longer periods of time as well, until the eyesight becomes perfect…

Bates was a Yogi

That was an idea that suddenly struck me one day. If his main principle is relaxation of the mind and variability of refraction, why that is exactly what is yoga philosophy is all about: control your mind by calming it first. According to some yogi tales you can do amazing things if you just learn to control your mind. Unfortunately most of us has not the slightest idea what controlling the mind is all about, we are so conditioned to have this inner monologue going on that we have not idea that other states of mind are even possible.

What was really amazing to me was that Bates started out as typical American doctor with standard medical education. He became interested in finding out why things were the way they were. He stumbled upon one of the most powerful concept of yoga philosophy. He arrived to it independently. I think it’s very impressive. Bear in mind it was long before Eastern philosophy, Hindu teachers, Zen, Buddhism and similar stuff got into the West, certainly long before it became mainstream.

Why Doesn’t Bates Method Work?

Strange title? What I mean is that not everyone who has tried Bates method succeeded in restoring their eyesight back to normal. In this post I’d like to explore some possible reasons.

If you have read the Bates book you were probably surprised at the high success rate that this doctor had. And they were all achieved by the masterful suggestion to a patient. No doubt Dr. Bates had a powerful though probably not an overwhelming personality. And he knew exactly what suggestion a particular patient would be most responsive to. In a way, that is the ideal doctor: he realizes that the patient cures himself and his role is just to help them, to nudge them in the right direction.

The problem with modern people is simply an information overload. We hear so much stuff and try to learn so many different things at once. Most of these things are useless and have mo particular value but sometimes we have to sift though junk in order to find gold.

Another reason is that there are too many scams. I can’t even tell you how many rip-off of Bates method are out there on internet with their fake testimonials and etc. People become skeptical.

And another reason connected to the first one is the wrong mental attitude. We “try” so many things. Well, people who try lots of thing usually end up mastering nothing.

When Bates were doing his work the only alternative to correct vision were glasses. Even contact lenses were not around. Now we have laser correction that is so appealing (instant fix, never mind the terrible risk factor associated with it), all this new-age stuff (chanting mantra, affirmation like “my vision is getting better and better”, visualizing yourself seeing everything clearly), pinhole glasses (they don’t work by the way), contacts that you wear while you sleep (it reshapes the cornea of your eyeball but it only lasts a day), convex (“plus”) glasses method (some people reported success with this method), pranic healing. These are just from the top of my head, there are probably more techniques out there.

None of them is perfect.

Bates method was a true revelation to his patients. His book might be a revelation to a few other people though like I said due to information overload I don’t think so. But some success stories are due to Bates method.

Unfortunately due to official medicine rejection of this method it’s hard to track a progress of real people who reported success. I personally know one person to whom, I am happy to say, I introduced Bates method and he removed his restriction on his driver’s license. Granted, his prescription was low, but I still consider it a great success. He never realized that it could be done.

A Curious Site (R.I.P)

A while ago when I was searching for any kind of information to improve myopia I came across a site that became recently defunct (no longer exists). It advertized the new method of curing the eye defects, especially myopia and astigmatism. The improvement would be quite noticeable. The effect is supposed to be cumulative. The author who called his outfit King Kelly Publishing never came to actually putting his book for sale but in his Frequently Asked Questions he put this curious information:

I believe that Bates was right in his conclusions, but his Method to achieve good eyesight is not, as far as my experience goes, the most effective. The system I developed appears to be much more powerful. It consists mainly of a pattern that you run and after running the pattern for a little bit of time, you look around and notice that your vision has improved. This happens each and every time and the improvements add up quickly. Without effort, the pattern causes the eyes to see better.

So quick sun-up: we have this mysterious “pattern”. His method also involves some object “that can be found in any house” but it is not really necessary and you don’t have to have it. His method involves no effort: that is good and in accordance with Bates. It takes only two minutes to perform, you notice the improvement immediately and the effect is cumulative. The more you do it, the quicker is the improvement. If you already have good vision, according to his claims you can develop super vision (how about seeing the moons of Jupiter?)

I was thinking that it might have been near-far swing: you need a pen or pencil but you can just use your finger. It is the only method I am aware of that produces some noticeable improvement immediately but unfortunately the effect is not cumulative. So it must not be it.

Well, it would be great to find out what it is but I suppose he took his secret to his grave, I mean disappeared from the face of the internet. As far as everything goes it might have been a scam but he was fairly modest and said things like “it seems to work for everyone”, etc, he never said that his method guaranteed a perfect vision. His so-called pattern takes two minutes to perform. His ambition was to put doctors and glasses salesmen out of business. A worthy endeavour, no doubt, but a little overambitious. It takes more than one person to shatter this kind of bureaucracy.

On the other hand… he has disappeared. And now his site has disappeared too. Hmm…

Donald S. Rehm The Myopia Myth

Here is a totally different method claiming to prevent and reverse mild myopia. It’s none other than the (in)famous “plus” glasses method. Why “infamous”? Well, first of all, these people think that they got the answer. According to them we are back to Leibniz theory of nearsightedness, according to which visual defects like myopia are caused by the changing in the shape of the lens.

I wonder how they explain the reason for hyperopia? The lens can become too round during accommodation but what makes it flatter than it is? Explain that!

Back to the review. I read Rehm’s book. The idea is that you should wear plus glasses (with convex lenses) for close work in order to prevent lens accommodation. But here’s right from the horse’s mouth:

He actually admitted that his vision went slightly worse even when he wore “plus” glasses working at some tense job. While he was on vacation his vision improved. He thought it was due to his glasses but we can see that he was just relaxed and that was the real reason.

He flatly denies that Bates method has any foundation behind it though he does admit that lots of people were helped. He can’t come up with better explanation than they hypnotized themselves into that or something like that.

He came up with some apparatus that he called myopter. Same thing: it supposed to eliminate near-point accommodation and help with fusion.

I wonder if the proponents of this theory see that you basically just exchange “minus” glasses for “plus”? Somehow, I don’t think so.

In my opinion he just missed the whole point. He would be far better off developing good visual habits than coming up with a weird mechanical contraption. But when he admitted that his vision became worse that for me personally, has clinched his case. So I do not recommend his book. It’s far better to apply the Bates method straight from the master himself.


If you want to try the convex lenses method to improve myopia, check out books The Secret of Perfect Vision and How I Cured My Myopia by David de Angelis. He claims that he discovered some kind of ocular gymnastic and his system helps to reverse myopia. I personally have not read any of his books, his site does not give any information what his system is all about so I can’t say anything about it or really recommend it. If you tried it, your feedback is surely welcome! Total absence of any reviews about his system looks suspicious.