Just watched  Dr Chad Rolhfsen’s video dealing with that question.  You can check it out here: http://www.blip.tv/file/4040085

While I appreciate what he had to say on the subject, part of me thinks we may be over-thinking this issue.  An adjustment is a procedure chiropractors use to remove interference to your body’s nervous system which is impeding the natural flow of subtle energy, Life-force, mental impulse, chi, call it what you will.   People usually wait until this condition has been there long enough that symptoms begin to co-arise with it.  So when they receive chiropractic care they often think of it as treatment for the symptom(s).  When they have no symptoms and receive a chiropractic adjustment then it is often referred to as “Wellness Care”.  It is important to keep in mind that there is absolutely no difference in how a chiropracTOR finds a subluxation (the interference to the life-force) or removes it with an adjustment in a person with or without symptoms.  There is no difference!  The only difference is the presence of symptoms.  A chiropractor cannot improve upon nature with an adjustment to a non-subluxated person, (s)he can only remove interference that is already there.  Therefore a wellness adjustment is simply an adjustment given to an asymptomatic person, one without symptoms.

We humans love to label things, but maybe in this case differentiating an adjustment as “wellness” has caused some confusion.

The video below shows the affects of different physical and MENTAL/EMOTIONAL conditions have on the crystalline structure of water.  This info is largely ignored by mainstream science; I believe because it doesn’t fit into their paradigm of the nature of reality, by which I mean the mechanistic/material view of the nature of reality.  Masaru Emoto’s work in this area beautifully illustrates the interplay of consciousness and the material world.  It helps one to realize how great the power our mind has over our health and well-being.

I used to think that the term “vibration” was just a sort of metaphor used in different fields of subtle energy work.  That was until I began experiencing them myself in both my patients and within my own body.  You can actually sense a feeling of vibration.  I believe this is the same sort of energy that is affecting the water crystals in the video below.  And that different emotional/spiritual states have different amounts of vibrational (subtle) energy.  Dr. David Hawkins has done quite a bit of work in this area which seems to correlate nicely with what is presented here.

My good friend N. Riley Heagerty, an expert on all things Spiritist, Theosophist, and/or Spiritualist has a great book called “The French Revelation”. It is edited from 3 long out of print books by Edward Randell. This from Mr. Heagerty’s blog.

The French Revelation. Emily S.French (1830-1912), was one of the greatest American independent voice mediums. She was investigated by the famous Buffalo attorney, Edward C.Randall (1860-1935), who intended to expose her as a fraud but was over time, and after completing many exacting experiments testing her powers, completely convinced that she was genuine. Mr.Randall became a champion for the cause of survival of death and communication with spirits. During the seances, which were held in complete darkness, the spirit voices would manifest apart from and totally independent of Mrs.French, who was not in trance. The voices would literally manifest from thin air, and carry on conversations with Mr.Randall or whoever else he invited to the seances. A stenographer was employed to take down word for word conversations and Mr.Randall asked many searching, important questions, which are all included in The French Revelation.

N. Riley Heagerty will be interviewed tonight, Thursday, May 27 2010 on the Signs of Life Radio program. You can listen live here, in time the interview will be archived so if you miss it check back to listen at a later time.
http://www.contacttalkradio.com/hosts/signsoflife.html

There is also a podcast of the same name that you can listen to later.

Note:  This is an old entry that I’m moving here do to some house cleaning.)

The wise man, then, when he must govern, knows how to do nothing.  Letting things alone, he rests in his original nature.  He who will govern will respect the governed no more than he respects himself.  If he loves his own person enough to let it rest in its original truth, he will govern others without hurting them.  Let him keep the deep drives in his own guts from going into action.  Let him keep still, not looking, not hearing.  Let him sit like a corpse, with the Dragon power alive all around him.  In complete silence, his voice will be like thunder.  His movements will be invisible, like those of a Spirit, but the powers of heaven will go with them.  Unconcerned, doing nothing.  He will see all things grow ripe around him.  Where will he find time to govern?

Chuang Tzu

I’ve seen a lot written about the Swine Flu in the chiropractic circles recently.  The common thread that runs through them is that all the hype is simply fear mongering designed to increase the power and income of the pharmaceutical industry, government and media.  And while I mostly agree with those opinions at the same time I can’t help but smile and think that the pot is definitely calling the kettle black.

You see the chiropractic profession has been guilty of exactly the same public manipulation for quite awhile now.  Spurred on by many practice management consultants that teach fear based and psychologically manipulative techniques to their clients.  I can’t help but cringe when I recall practicing a “method” acting technique as taught by a well known consultant.  He had us repeatedly practice giving our report of findings but using the word cancer instead of subluxation.  The idea was to be so intense as to cause the patient to cry.  Unfortunately that’s just the tip of the iceberg, there are many other techniques used to manipulate the patient into doing things they wouldn’t normally want to do.  Recently I’ve been seeing coaching groups use Robert Caldini’s observations on social conditioning to manipulate patients into 1 year/prepay contracts.  I have seen Greg Stanley recommend responsible use of these techniques, but regrettably he’s the only one I’ve come across.  In fact about a year ago I talked to a practice management coach who caught my eye because he advertised that he was different and didn’t use sales techniques.  Well he used all 6 Caldini techniques that I’m aware of on me in that one phone call.  Needless to say that was the last time we talked.

I want to be very clear on this point: pschologically manipulating patients to agree to your recommendations is UNETHICAL.  It doesn’t matter if you really, really, really feel that its for the patients own good.  Give them your exam results and let them decide.  You have to trust the patient to do whats best for them.  If you think that you know whats best for people then you have that in common with most of history’s tyrants.  You may believe that you can’t practice successfully without these manipulations.  But in the long run you’ll be better off without them.  In David Hawkins’, M.D., PH.D book “Power Vs. Force”  he uses Applied Kinesology muscle testing techniques to map human consiousness, he found that fear based consiousness was  detrimental to a person’s development and that it actually affected the collective unconciousness negatively.  So if your using these techniques you’re not only hurting your patient and yourself but degrading ever so slightly the whole of human development.  So much for D.D. Palmer’s ideal of “Uniting man the physical with man the spiritual”

I recently viewed a talk given by Dan Barber that got me thinking about the doctor/patient relationship, please view it below.  He told the story of a Spanish farmer and his award winning foie grae.   Foie Grae which is made from goose or duck liver has been in the news the last few years.  It was recently banned in Chicago (since overturned), and there’s been talk about its ban in other cities.  Many think the process that is commonly used to produce it cruel, as it involves force feeding the animals large amounts of grain.  This force feeding produces a large and fatty liver, considered a delicacy.  However this Spanish farmer doesn’t do any of this.  Instead he works with nature giving the geese anything they want, he has created a sort of goose paradise.  The geese range free through goose designated areas, where the electric fences are built to keep predators out, not to keep the geese in.  They have all kinds of wonderful foods to choose from, including olives and figs which grow in abundance.  They so love it that they will call to over flying wild brethren to come join them, who then stay for good.   The geese then naturally gorge themselves in the fall to prepare for winter, no force feeding required.  In return for this goosey paradise on earth they only have to give up their lives and their livers.

What does this have to do with the doctor/patient relationship? To my mind the relationship between the farmer and the geese was a win-win.  I know that some are thinking that the geese pay the ultimate price for it.  But I suspect that if we were able research it, we would find that these geese live a longer life than their wild brethren due to the lack of predators, plentiful food and significantly decreased stress.  Their livers then go to support this haven for future generations.  This in turn allows the farmer to continue to enjoy his life as caretaker to the geese (which he obviously does) and also to pass it on to his children as it was passed on to him.  Please watch the video below, as I am not doing this justice.

What is the lesson of this Taoist parable come to life?  Well I think a Taoist master would say that the farmer is living in balance with nature(or the Tao is you prefer), that by becoming a servant of the geese his needs are then also served.  I feel this is a very useful lesson in life including the practice of chiropractic.  So many times different agendas and motives come between a doctor and patient.    It is almost universally agreed upon within the chiropractic profession that patient education is a practice must.  The beliefs/perspective of the chiropractor can rise to the level of dogma.  We hold them as absolute truths, and believe that those who ignore them will suffer.  Therefore it becomes our duty to save the world, “one spine at a time”.  If this sounds familiar its because it shares the same consciousness level with all fundamentalism, whether in the form of religion or scientism.  Of course there is no shortage of practice management companies to fan this fire.  They fan these fires to increase enthusiasm and  to help increase the “us versus them” divide.  It also helps give rationale to their shock and awe practice management tactics, that milk every last visit from patients through fear based  manipulations both subtle and gross.  This inevitably this leads to an us versus the patient mentality.  Which is really an “us vs. nature” consciousness, or maybe unconsciousness is better.  This system requires more and more energy to maintain it, which takes the form of the constant hunt for new patients and better methods to control them.

You can  see where our Spanish goose servant’s arraignment with his flock exists at a much higher level.  Of course we don’t want our patient’s livers, but payment of a fair fee does represent a portion of their life and energy.  So how do we create this relationship with our community that seems to create more energy than is put into it?

The first thing is to determine what the patient wants.  I don’t think we want to get too complicated here, just keep it simple.  Primarily they want to feel better as quickly as possible and for as long as possible,  to be treated fairly, and they want the honest truth.  Secondarily they want convenience and a pleasant atmosphere and experience.  Some may even want to know in greater depth about chiropractic and how it works, these people will ask you about it.

Give the people what they want and trust them to know what they need.  Don’t assume the world needs you to save it.  Much harm has been committed under that banner.

This is the transcript from a public talk my good friend Dr. Kenton White gave recently.  He ran it by me on the phone and I just had to have it.  It seemed to  boil the concept of health down to its essential elements.  It also seemed very Taoist which always appeals to me.  Kenton is also a chiropractor.  Beyond that he is a healer and a serious seeker of truth, and I count myself very blessed to know him.  I hope you enjoy this as much as I did.

__________________________

Health Comes From the Inside Out

Dr. Kenton White

By a show of hands, how many people here would like to live to be over 100 years old and have a healthy, active body?

If you discover or you already know that your health comes from the inside out you may.  Sometimes the simplest statements contain more wisdom than you can possible imagine.

Let me share a story with you.  Not that long ago in the deep southern state of Georgia where they take the time to speak slowly so they can enjoy listening to the words, a man walked into a motor vehicle office to renew his driver’s license.  He arrived at the counter and spoke to the woman behind it.  “Hello, it’s my Birthday and I need to renew my license,” he drawled as he handed her his old license.  The woman behind the counter looked at it, smiled and said “Happy 100^th Birthday, to renew your license everyone must take a vision test”.  He read the letters and she reported the results, ” You have perfect vision!” she said.  Now standing next to him was another man also renewing his license.  He had overheard the exchange and was interested in the story, so he turned to the man and said, “you’re 100 years old!  You drive a car! And your vision is 20/20!  That’s amazing! What is your secret?

The 100-year old man thought for a moment and said” Every evening before I go to bed,  I drink a shot of Crown Royal, eat 3 Oreo cookies and a glass of milk, and I trust my body to take care of everything”

Now this man knew that health doesn’t come from the outside in.

It doesn’t come from Doctors or drugs.

It doesn’t come from surgery or supplements.

It doesn’t come from exercise.

It doesn’t come from shots of Crown Royal or Oreo cookies (not even the double stuffed ones).

Health comes from the inside out.

You see health is a state of being, not an act of doing.  We say, ” I am healthy, not I do healthy”.  And the rules for being are different than the rules for doing.  Doing requires action.  Being requires principles of character.  So I would like to share the principles of health from the inside out with you tonight.

The first principle of inside out health is that health is sacred.  And our centenarian conveys this with two simple words, “every evening”.  He demonstrates his commitment to a consistent sacred event.  It’s not some evenings or occasionally at night, it is every evening.  He shares the importance of a sacred ritual repeated for decades with consistency to the regular rhythm of the setting sun.

Next he flips us with the paradoxical principle of fun.  We lose ourselves for a moment in the surprise of his revealed secret, “A shot of Crown Royal and 3 Oreo cookies with milk”  Like a great master, he is indirect.  He opens a door that allows him to push aside the critical mind and plant the seed of 100 years of healthy living wisdom deep into the fertile consciousness of his listener.

That Seed is his truth.

His third principle of health from within is the principle of trust.  At the right time he waters his seeds of health with the certainty that his body can handle anything and everything.  He humbly lets the wisdom of his body reign sovereign in that realm.  He trusts his body as a respectful partner not a slave or servant.

Even in the midst of his fun he promotes one more principle, the principle of moderation.  He doesn’t drink until he’s drunk.  He doesn’t eat the whole box of cookies.  He eats only the right amount for him.  He does not over water his seeds, but trusts his body to the task of moderating his health from the inside out.

His ritual is fun and his health is sacred and he shares that with the man who is interested and the woman behind the counter and all of us here tonight.  Because deep inside each of you is a seed of trust for your body that can be watered, with our own personal sacred and fun ritual performed in moderation and we can remember that true health does come from the inside out.  May everyone live to be more than 100 years old in a healthy active body.

This post is an expansion a reply I gave to an article by Bill Esteb here:  http://www.patientmedia.com/blog/2010/02/spine_mechanic.html

The involvement of Spirit in health has occupied me quite a bit of late.  Two years ago I went from a mechanistic/structural based technique to a energy based intuitive one and began to see chiropractic and health from a different perspective. My patients were not only getting better faster and more often but a wider variety of maladies were affected.  Not only that but patients were reporting emotional changes in their lives.  They were have breakthroughs to long standing emotional traumas, long held fears and anxieties were waning.  Not to mention that these techniques were having the same affects on me.  The changes that I witnessed not only in my patients but in my life forced me to re-access my basic beliefs about the nature of reality. I took a long look at the basic assumptions that made up my reality.  Assumptions that we often don’t even realize were making.  Other experiences in my life began accelerate this process.   After a lot of reading (David Hawkins’ Power Vs. Force is a great place to start)  and discussion with teachers that showed up at just the right time I’ve come to the place where I now believe that its not so much what you do or say with patients, but who you are.   From a certain perspective it is not important what problem the patient comes in with, as it is simply about the interaction of fields of consciousness, your subtle energies.  That is not to say that symptoms and disease can’t be metaphors for deeper insight into our lives or that they may simply be a result of physical forces.  What I am saying is that it is the interaction of the consciousnesses of the doctor and patient in the ever present field of Spirit that is the crux.  Of course this is true for everyone not just chiropractors.  It is your level of consciousness, your subtle energetic field, or in chiropractic terms your expression of Innate Intelligence that affects for good or ill all of creation. To have a more profound affect on those around you, work on your inner-self, align yourself with the continual Source of Creation. Who you really are at your core being has more affect on the world than we can know.

I’ve become fascinated with the study of disease through a vitalistic/spiritual lens of late.  If you consider life as a process of spiritual evolution, does disease have a purposeful role or is it simply material degradation?  While it is certainly true that material decay of our bodies is unavoidable, I believe that much of what we suffer from is a result of our shadow selves or as August Goforth terms it in his wonderful book The Risen, our simulate selves.  It has become apparent to me that most experiences that we label as disease can be used as spring boards to higher levels of consciousness, as tools to help us transcend our shadows.  This is not to say that this perspective makes them any easier.  In fact it has been my experience that it might make them more challenging, at least from an emotional level.  However it does give them meaning and allows us lift ourselves up to a height where we can actually appreciate them.

The Gift of Diabetes is a documentary that illustrates this concept in a very well rounded way.  It doesn’t denegrate the role of allopathic medicine, but at the same time it beautifully illuminates how disease can be transcended by widening our perspective to include spirit, emotion and culture into a more holistic view of disease.  To a place where balance is restored.

This link will take you to Steve Beyer’s blog entry on the movie, which can be viewed at the bottom of the page.

http://www.singingtotheplants.com/2009/08/gift-of-diabetes/

“Now Besso” (an old friend) “has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That means nothing. People like us…know that the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.”

Albert Einstein

Here’s is a great article on death by Robert Lanza, MD.  It’s about a new theory in physics called biocentrism which posits that space-time arises from consciousness and not the other way around.  We usually think of life developing as a consequence of the universes existence, biocentrism turns this on its ear.  You can read the article here:  http://www.robertlanza.com/does-death-exist-new-theory-says-no/

And no not the band.  I just read got this article from Dr. Tedd Koren the inventor of Koren Specific Technique (KST), which is what I use in my practice.  It seems the head muckity muck at the World Health Organization has yet to receive her vaccination against the dreaded H1N1.  She also implies that she’s not the only one over there who hasn’t.  Makes you kind of wonder, doesn’t it?

You can read about it here:

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5irACiJBJQIdVCWQoIVvGqw-rMyvQ