Healing Tones

“There’s no telling how far reaching something you may think, say or do today will affect the lives of millions tomorrow. It’s better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.” B.J. Palmer*

THE STORY OF “THE BIG IDEA”

ONE OF THE MORE SEMINAL SLOGANS penned by BJ Palmer was and still is “Get the BIG IDEA; all else will follow.” In more common parlance, remove the interference upstream to the flow of life’s innate intelligence and all else will follow downstream. Healing of illness and injury in the body will take place naturally and easily. It’s the old water hose metaphor: if you put a kink in the water hose nourishing your garden, the plants will suffer and die from a lack of water.

INTRODUCE A FORCE

BJ Palmer wrote in one of his books a swat in the seat of the pants with a shovel would do more to release the innate healing power of the body than a handful of pills. I’m taken back to an incident that occurred back in the days of my clinical service in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. A patient had come in for an acute back pain that was caused by a subluxation in his lumbar spine. He also had a subluxation in his upper cervical spine. Following the principle of the “Big Idea,” I first corrected the subluxation in his cervical spine and left him to rest on his side, which was usual procedure. I had given him a rather impactful “recoil adjustment” introducing a powerful force, both physical and vibrational, into his spine and nervous system. As I approached to door to exit the treatment room, we both heard a “pop” in his lower spine. I only heard it, whereas, much to his surprise, he both heard and felt it. The release of the flow of life’s healing currents upstream in the neck brought an increase of energy into the muscles of the lower back sufficient to draw the subluxated vertebra into alignment. Lesson well taught and well leaned.

This was the guiding light for many in the profession who “told the story” of the larger and deeper rationale of the spinal adjustment . . . I for one. It was a new idea and many sick and suffering flocked to the offices of chiropractors in search of a drugless, less invasive and less costly cure for their ills. A saying emerged among the more “straight” chiropractors — a term D.D. Palmer himself coined to identify those who didn’t “mix” their service with adjuncts and modalities — “Chiropractic first, medicine second, surgery last.”

With such faith, confidence and belief in our healing art, many seeming miracles of cure began to be experienced by people and talked about, reminiscent of the words of the Master Physician: “Thy faith hath made thee whole . . . go and tell no one.” But, of course, people so helped by their chiropractors went out and told all their friends and relatives. People began flocking to the doors of chiropractors. It wasn’t uncommon for some chiropractors seeing as many as a hundred patients in a single day. Something above the mere physical level was driving the masses to be touched by the healing hands of a chiropractor.

Many of my more scientifically oriented colleagues will no doubt object to my rendition of the story of Chiropractic in this mystical light. But I can back up my words with a story that would blow their objection clear out of the water. I may get around to telling it in this series . . . or maybe not, as it took place from a level higher than that of the spinal adjustment; a level once described by Dr. Jim Parker, a leader in the field of patient management and practice building, as “a subluxation above the atlas.”

Dr. Parker was referring to the assassin of President John F. Kennedy, Lee Harvey Oswald, in Dallas that took place during his November, 1963 seminar, as having “a subluxation above the atlas” to carry out such a dastardly deed. I just happened to have been in attendance at this memorable seminar. Dr. Jim, as we endearingly addressed him, spoke these words at the opening of our afternoon session, just minutes after this tragedy had occurred. That was a dark day in America.

Just 40 some years ago, down in the basin of the mouth of the Mississippi River at Port Sulphur, Louisiana, I adjusted the misaligned atlas in the cervical spine of a patient and restored his heart’s normal rhythm. He came into my office a few days late for a follow up visit and asked if what I had done to his neck could have stopped the sudden pounding beat of his heart which he had been worried about for years. At times It even woke him up during the night. When I assured him it was very possible and even likely, he broke down with tears of gratitude. The power that made the body can heal the body. My career was full of such wonders. I feel so blessed even today as I look back to those exciting years of helping so many through Chiropractic.

Infants are not too small to be adjusted. I was called by a patient to come to his home and give his infant child an adjustment. This father had gotten the “Big Idea.” The baby was delivered with forceps and cried day and night and would not nurse or take a bottle. So I deductively suspected a misaligned cervical vertebra. I palpated the infant’s cervical spine and found the interference. (I’m of the old school where hands were our only exam tools. We were drilled in spinal palpation in Chiropractic college). A simple light pressure applied to the infant’s cervical spine to realign its axis (the second vertebra from the top of the spinal column) and the baby stopped crying and started feeding. That father had gotten the “Big Idea” because I “told the story” in my practice. In my eyes, I was not a therapist relieving pain and the symptoms of dis-ease. I was a “Doctor of Cause,” as we used to define our D.C. degree.

Today chiropractic is all about backaches, neck aches, headaches and sports injuries, which is also the public’s perception of chiropractic. Jokes are even made at its expense. This is also its scope of practice as defined by most licensing bills . . . and therefore payable by insurance companies. “The story” has sadly been left behind if not forgotten altogether. The diagnosis on an insurance form had to be a musculoskeletal condition. The treatment of diseases and functional disorders in the human body were and shall ever remain the domain of Medicine.

I do not “curse” medicine for its limited, and most essential, scope of practice as I extol the wonders of Chiropractic in this article. I am personally forever and deeply thankful for medical science and art. I’m not aware of a “philosophy” guiding its science and art, other than the Hippocratic Oath which includes the words “First do no harm.” Other than the monopoly Medicine has created in partnership with the insurance industry, and the toxic drugs they prescribe, largely to trigger a response from the body’s immune system and allay the painful symptoms of disease, I have nothing but respect for medical doctors, especially emergency room physicians, nurses, and surgeons.

In chiropractic college we used to feel sorry for medical doctors who only had a prescription pad between them and their patients. Truth is I most likely would not be here writing this post today without the bypass surgery a wonderful and gifted surgeon performed on my heart over twenty years ago. Nor would I be able to take walks without knee pain had knee replacement not been developed, just to mention two of several blessings I have received at the hands of gifted and dedicated medical doctors and surgeons. Profound respect is all I harbor in my heart for doctors and practitioners of all the healing arts and healthcare services.

VETERINARY CHIROPRACTIC

Spinal adjustments are not limited to the human spinal column. Animals have spines too. A colleague tells an interesting story about a chiropractor adjusting the spine of a cow who had laid down while giving birth, which would have killed both cow and calf. He used a hammer and a 2×4. The cow stood up and gave birth to a healthy calf. I had a patient who brought her pet poodle in for adjustments to help with its kidney ailment. Veterinary chiropractic has become a mode of professional practice.

This would be a fitting time and place to bring forward Dr. Daniel David Palmer’s characterization of the cause of a subluxation as being both “quantitative and qualitative.” A quantitative cause would be a physical trauma, such as an “external concussion of force” to the spine brought on, for example, by a whiplash during a rear end auto collision, or a fall.  A qualitative cause would be an “internal concussion of force” brought on by an emotional or mental trauma, or chronic stress. Perhaps I should leave that part of my story to the next post, “VIBRATIONAL HEALING.  Until then,

Be love. Be loved . . . and visit your chiropractor for that chronic ailment.

Anthony Palombo, D.C.

Email: tpal70@gmail.com

*CREDITS: “Better to light a candle than to curse the darkness” has been an oft quoted “proverb” attributed to Robert M Ellis, founder of the Middle Way Society, and author of a number of books on Middle Way Philosophy, including the introductory ‘Migglism’ and the new Middle Way Philosophy series published by Equinox. A former teacher, he now runs a retreat centre in Wales, Tirylan House, and is in the process of creating a forest garden there. He wrote:

“There’s lots of darkness about  – ignorance, dogmatism, hatred, prejudice – and it’s very tempting to merely curse it. If, like me, you’re of a critical disposition and can easily see problems and false assumptions in almost any position, it’s especially easy just to sit there in the dark criticizing on all sides and working up anger and hatred in the process. Yet lighting a candle takes a moment of awareness and creativity. It demands that we consider the sphere in which we can act rather than remaining fixated only on the wider sphere of concern. If we have criticisms, it requires that we also think about the positive alternatives we have to offer.“