Healing Tones

DANIEL D. PALMER

THE PRINCIPLES OF CAUSATION

DANIEL DAVID PALMER, in whose heart Chiropractic was conceived, and through his healing hands born, was first and foremost a healer, a “magnetic healer.” His thoughts and inspirations arose out of spirit, which began formulating principles of causation in his educated mind long before he discovered the subluxation in Harvey Lillard’s spine that occasioned his deafness . . . and that led to the discovery of Chiropractic.  The principles are basically what led him to the realization that the cause of disease, and therefore of health, were one and the same, and were not necessarily physical in nature but were beginning to appear to him to be mental and spiritual or vibrational in essence.  

In the one and only book he wrote, edited and published, SCIENCE, ART AND PHILOSOPHY OF CHIROPRACTIC (1910), which was quickly bought up and destroyed by those who had declared him insane and expelled him from his own school, only to be republished in 1966, Daniel Palmer presents his belief in how he saw the human being as having a triune personality with body, mind and soul, through which spirit operated.

MAN IS A DUAL ENTITY

But it was in his second book, THE CHIROPRACTOR (1914), which was published posthumously by his wife a year after his death, that Daniel makes his case for Chiropractic as a vibrational, or “spiritual,” healing art. Defining the human being, he wrote:

“Man is a dual entity, composed of intelligence and matter, spirit and material, the immortal and mortal, the everlasting and the transient. The manifestation of such an existence is intelligent action…. The universe is composed of spirit and matter. All living material is animated by spirit.”

While he knew that spirit operating in and manifesting through his own outer triune personality, and moving out through his hands, was able to bring about healing in his patients, his thoughts began to formulate the question that if Innate could heal others through the magnetic force that came through his hands, why could not the same innate healing power be drawn forth from within the patient, in whom it was just as indwelling and manifesting as in him? This line of reasoning led him to the only possible explanation: there must be some kind of interference between the Innate Intelligence of the patient and his body-mind, in whom spirit was operating.

He saw this interference as being “caused” by three possible factors: (1) poisons, which caused organic dis-eases; (2) trauma, which caused struc­tural dis-eases; and (3) auto-suggestion, which caused functional dis­eases. These he saw as the three main causes of dis-ease, a view not much different from what is widely accepted today in this New Age. In the approach of “holistic medicine,” the impact of such realities and factors as spirit, attitude, emotional climate, mental thought and cellular vibratory frequency—the very things that were thrown out of the teachings of the first school of Chiropractic, along with its Founding Father—are viewed with hopeful respect as promising guides to a deeper understanding of the root cause of dis-ease and of health.

I don’t think that D.D.Palmer was so much “insane” as his mind was perhaps inflated and overwhelmed by the immense implications of his discovery and he was not given the space or time he needed to pursue them. Neither do I believe that the light he brought to the field of healthcare was comprehended by the darkness of his time, which has historically been the case when the things of spirit have dawned in human consciousness through individuals. I don’t think that even DD’s own outer mind comprehended the light that was shin­ing through it from what must have been a very powerful and compas­sionate being incarnate in his human form for the specific purpose of introducing a spiritual force into the consciousness of mankind. Little did his critics know that this under­standing would initiate a major shift upward in the healthcare and lives of human beings.

AN IDEA WHOSE TIME HAD COME

D.D. could rightly be hailed as one of the forefathers of “vibrational medicine” for the twentieth century in this country. Interest in this range of healing is active today, nearly a hundred years after its inception and birth through this fish peddler from What Cheer, Iowa . . . as well as through several others. Actually it began to surface as early as the 1930’s, both here and abroad simultaneously. I have used a variation of “vibrational healing” in my office for three decades: the extension of radiant hands to draw forth healing energies into specific areas of need in the body, and to thereby attune tis­sue cells, organs and glands, as well as the triune outer person, to the vibrational frequency of the Tone of Love, the ultimate healing force in all of Creation. It’s called “Attunement,” and it’s similar to what I under­stand “magnetic healing” was, only the hands do not rest on the body. Interestingly enough, it came to me through Chiropractic by way of great “keepers of the flame” in our profession: Dr. George Shears, from Huntington, Indiana, and his nephew, Dr. William Bahan, from Derry, New Hampshire. It came to them, however, through someone outside the Chiropractic profession, although those who were initially drawn to its rebirth were chiropractors, and several chiropractors were part of its development.

Lloyd A. Meeker, who wrote under the name Uranda, founded and developed Attunement in the early 1930s. He saw it as a way of extend­ing a radiant current of love, using his consciousness and his hands as focusing mechanisms for the healing power of spirit. He saw Attunement as a facilitator for bringing a person into an awareness of his/her divine identity.

At the same time Uranda was discovering Attunement in this country, in Japan Mokichi Okada (Meishusama) received a divine revelation and began sharing Johrei, the healing release of the divine light of salvation through the hands to reconnect one’s soul with heaven. This was just fifteen years before we bombed Hiroshima, as though Divine Providence was preparing the Japanese people ahead of time for this tragic holocaust. Johrei was officially recognized by the Japanese government as an effective form of healing for atomic radiation burn.

There are several other forms of vibrational healing today, such as Reiki, a lost ancient Tibetan Buddhist practice, rediscovered by Dr. Mikao Usui in the late 1800s; and, more recently, Dr. Randolph Stone’s subtle energy technique of Polarity Therapy; Dr. George DeLa Warr’s Radionics; and Dr.John Upledger’s CranioSacral Therapy. Healing Touch Therapy, originated by Janet Mentgen, R.N., B.S.N., in the 1980s in Denver, Colorado, is another contemporary energy-healing technique that has found its way into the operating rooms of hospitals as a steadying influence to both the patient and the doctor during surgical procedures. Well before all of these contemporary models, Acupuncture, a key component of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), dates back over 2,500 years. It works with the body’s peripheral nervous system by inserting “dry needles” in the skin at key points along the body’s meridians to free up the flow of life energy throughout the body and restore balance. Imbalance is believed to block the flow of qi, a vital energy that regulates spiritual, emotional, mental and physical balance along meridians. All of these methodologies share a common rationale: the restoration of the flow of innate intelligent energy, life, in the body to bring about relief of pain and healing.

D.D. had no way of knowing how great an idea was being conceived and born through him. Research in “Vibrational Medicine” has shown that disease occurs when cellular frequency becomes out of sync with the body’s baseline frequency, implying that if the cells of the body vibrated in sync with the body’s baseline frequency, disease would cease to infect the body. It would be impervious to disease. Here truly is the “one cause, one cure” we’ve been researching. Raise the vibratory frequency of human flesh. How to accomplish this feat will doubtless become the focus of future “scientific research.” It’s already being done in Tibetan Buddhism. Achieving the “Light Body” has been a practice in Tibet for centuries.

FOUNDED ON TONE

In D.D.’s first book, these words appear on the title page: “Founded on Tone.” In the pages that follow he proclaims, almost charismatically, that life is tone in human beings and that tone is health. In his second book, Daniel confides how initially he leaned toward the theory that nerves conveyed the vibrational “Tone of Life,” and that spinal aberrations stretched and otherwise stressed the nerve fibers, thereby distorting the frequency of that vibrational Tone. He wrote:

An impulse travels over a nerve by waves known as vibration, similar as a pulse-wave, only more rapid . . . . Nerves, like material substance, are composed of particles, atoms or molecules, which vibrate, oscillate. When nerves are in a normal condition, known as tone—normal tension, normal elasticity and normal renitency [tonicity]—impulses are transmitted by vibrations in a normal manner with the usual force . . . . Motor and sensory impulses are transmitted over the nervous system by molecular vibration. (THE CHIRORACTOR 1914)

Dr. Ralph Stephenson speaks of the “Impressions of Vibrations” picked up by the “sensitive tentacles of the afferent nerve” in Article 245 of his CHIROPRACTIC TEXT BOOK. BJ himself wrote, “What we [chiropractors] call health is the normal expression of the vibration of life impulse flowing through matter. It is an impulse, a vibration, and it is intelligent.” The distortion of this tone likewise affected the function of the organs and tissue cells adversely. It was only later that this theory was replaced by the current one of a vertebral subluxation produced by a “concussion of force,” from within or from without, impinging on nerve roots, thereby impeding the quality of the flow of life into the body. I am more inclined to embrace his original theory as being closer to the truth as he perceived it innately, than to the current, more popular one developed through education.

Both DD and BJ approached the issues of their day—birthing and developing this science and art—from the perspective of Innate Philosophy. DD did it instinctively and with little deviation from the original Innate Principle of a vibrational cause, although he certainly took pride in his accomplishment of being the first one ever to move the vertebrae of the human spinal column by using the spinous and transverse processes (boney extensions) as levers. BJ did it as well, but only to the degree his educated mind didn’t interfere, as it was inclined to do, and did finally fully interfere when it began focusing on the vertebral subluxation as the cause of all disease.

Those who stood firmly with them—who got “The Big Idea”—succeeded in their efforts in building a solid profession that was capable of addressing all manner of dis-ease, even with their focus in the subluxation, because behind that sharp focus moved a great spirit. This spirit moved both in BJ and in all those whom he gathered around him in those formative years to help share the load of training chiropractors and of adjusting all the spines the world over, which was BJ’s goal. His had indeed a “vision of things far.”

Those early pioneers infused the soul of Chiropractic with spirit, which kept it alive. When they brought people into alignment with the spirit of Chiropractic philosophy . . . and “told the story”. . . focusing their attention on the subluxation, people drew near to be touched by the powerful healing force of life moving through them. There was magic in the field because there was an irresistible force and a powerful current moving in their hearts.

Those who didn’t catch the vision, who got caught up in the subluxation as merely a musculoskeletal dis-ease, led a sector of the profession in that direction to become what it is today. People call on a chiropractor today for backaches, whiplash injuries, “cricks in the neck,” and headaches. I used to cringe when someone would ask me, “pop my neck, doc” or “crack my back.” My identity was with the Healer, the Doctor, which means “Teacher.” And I had my patient lectures and classes, as many did “back in the day.” I will continue in this series with my next and final post, “THE FAITH FACTOR . . . A STORY.” Until then,

Be love. Be loved.

Anthony Palombo, D.C.

Email: tpal70@gmail.com