Healing Tones

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

As you have moved through this series of posts, you may have been surprised at how much more there is to Chiropractic in the way of its true rationale, its scope, and its potential than you have been aware of. Few know the history and the philosophy behind this healing art and science. The common perception and understanding is that Chiropractic is a musculoskeletal treatment for backaches, neckaches and headaches. I hope you will come away from this series more aware and better informed of the larger context in which this healthcare service lives as a wholistic, natural approach to resolving some of our health issues. Thank you for staying the course as I continue with my presentation and bring it to place of rest.

In this post I address my colleagues in excerpts from my booklet, Rediscovering the Soul of Chiropractic.*

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

DC: DOCTORS OF CAUSE

ONE COULD THINK of our DC degree as signifying we are “Doctors of Cause.” One could go deeper and ask “What is cause?” Was the cause of Harvey Lillard’s deafness the subluxation in his neck cutting off or diminishing the communication between his brain and his hearing mechanism, or was it the physical trauma to his neck that knocked the vertebrae out of alignment pinching the nerve to his ears? Obviously the physical trauma caused the subluxation in his neck which in turn caused Harvey to go deaf. So there are causes of causes, one could say. What is the underlying cause of dis-ease? This is what all healthcare disciplines are bent on finding and treating.

Let me tell you a story that speaks to this search for the cause of the cause of dis-ease and dysfunction in the body, as well as to the larger scope of our service as healers. In one of his many inspiring symposia, the late and legendary Dr. William Bahan, dynamic speaker that he was, told of a dramatic experience he had with one of his patients . . . which portrays the essence, as well as the practical art and effectiveness, of the “whole person healthcare” he taught in his seminars.

A young lady in her twenties, diagnosed as suffering from “lethargic encephalitis” (sleeping sickness) was brought to him by her family after going the entire medical route for several weeks without any results at all. They brought her to his clinic in an ambulance. As Dr. Bahan told it and as I recorded and transcribed it:

“By then there was only a trickle of life that was coming through this particular form, so something had to be done right away if this young lady was going to be around on earth any longer. So I began to sense out what was really going on. I began to put my radar out in relationship to this young lady, to find an area where I could begin to get a handle with respect to this interference to life’s expression. It very quickly came to the surface, and l just said to her, ‘You’re holding a very strong resentment against somebody, and if you don’t change your attitude you’re going to die!’ She started to cry.

It seems that two weeks before this particular condition appeared she had had a rather violent experience with her father regarding his drinking. He was an alcoholic, and she abhorred alcohol, and she abhorred her father when he was drinking. Well, he came into her house drunk on this particu­lar day and she, in her strong self-righteousness, told him to get out. He came at her to hit her and she picked up a milk bottle and conked him on the head, knocking him out. Two weeks later she was in the hospital, diagnosed with lethargic encephalitis (sleeping sickness).

Here was a concussion of forces emotionally. And what did this do to her body? Of course that deep feeling was still there, and I told her plainly, ‘Your father doesn’t need condemnation; he needs assistance, your assistance.The first thing to do is to change your attitude. You need to forgive your father. .. like that (snapping his fingers), right away!’ She said ‘I will.’ Well, before she left the office things started to clear, life began to flow. And when life began to flow, the resurrecting power of life began to lift that form. I could have adjusted her neck from now until doomsday . . . and there was a need in the neck; it was like rigor mortis had set in there . . . but when this other interference was removed, this ill attitude, life began to flow. Not only did it begin to flow, but do you know what hap­pened? As a result of her maintaining an attitude which was consistent with life’s nature, her father stopped drinking. He needed assistance; he needed encouragement, not her self­ righteous wrath. So, many things cleared.”

SCOPE OF PRACTICE

As this story clearly demonstrates, our scope of practice, beyond the spinal column, includes the heart and mind as well, as Dr. Milton T. Morter is currently demonstrating with his “B.E.S.T. adjustment” (Bio Energetic Synchronization Technique), which addresses the deeper, more subtle levels of cause in the subconscious mind . . . and, deeper yet, in the “healing field” itself, the subtle energy body surrounding the physical body.

The scope of our practice also includes the fields of nutrition and reha­bilitation. Right out of Stephenson’s Chiropractic Text Book, we have this as part of the definition of our profession: “Chiropractic is a science, philosophy and art of things natural . . .” The words “things natural” encompass a wide rage of factors, including everything in the natural world , which currently comprise the context and environment in which human beings exist. Life flows through all its forms in the natural world, including the human nervous system, and the human nervous system is not isolated from everything else. It’s all one thing and everything is connected in a highly organized and coordinated complexity of wholeness. The human mind and heart are at least two-thirds of that wholeness with regard to our outer capacities. Then there are the inner transcendent dimensions of consciousness and spirit. We are multidimensional beings who are impacted by events at many interconnected levels.

Just for an example, I noted that throughout the Iranian hostage crisis back in the 1970’s, there was a virtual epidemic of shoulder problems in our office, a symptom of being bound and deprived of one’s freedom. The phenomenon made itself evident to us when everyone’s symptoms seemed to magically disappear immediately following their release. Of course, we adjusted spines and applied appropriate therapies, but what a real blessing we were able to offer our people by sharing with them this perspective of the whole picture. They understood their bodies from the standpoint of the whole in which they played a part. I’ve taken note of similar manifestations during global crises.

During a crisis of war there is a nonspecific drain of energy in people everywhere as the international community struggles in disagreement. Lack of energy, labeled “Chronic Fatigue Syndrome” by the medical community, is naught but a classic symptom of adrenal exhaustion, brought on by a long-sustained engagement of the fight-or-flight reflex. We are a world divided and we cannot sustain this state for long. People are simply tired of the threat to their peace and security, and in that state of chronic stress the human immune system cannot function well and, at best, may simply shut down. In the worst-case scenario, it attacks itself and sets off an “Auto-Immune-Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS),” which simply means that it has gone MIA. We are obviously impacted by everything that goes on in the larger body of mankind in which we are all individual cells.

A CONSCIOUSNESS OF WHOLENESS

The way I see it, what Chiropractic was ordained to bring to the arena of healthcare is a consciousness of wholeness. Just as it is true that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, so is it true that the parts are not exempt from the experiences of the whole. What one part does affects the whole. We can, however, shield ourselves from being overtaken by these “disturbances in the Force,” to borrow a phrase from the movie STAR WARS. We can maintain a radiant stance of non-judgmental understanding and compassion, as distinguished from a reactive posture of judgment and condemnation relative to events occurring in the world. One can simply assume an attitude that says “These things do not move me. But by my radiant expression of love, I move them towards resolution.” This works by reason of the truth of oneness in the Whole. The natural forces of healing at work throughout the Universe respond immediately to the commands of love whenever and wherever they are released.

To heal means to make whole; to restore one to a consciousness of being part of the Whole. Where does such an awareness come from? It comes “from above, down and inside out.” It comes from life. The human vertebral column is but one small link in the chain of the flow of life. The chemical realm, for example, comprises a large part of both the internal and external terrain in which life works its magic in our bodies. The bones, muscles, glands and organs comprise another terrain, yet they are all connected.

In the chemical terrain, nutrition and hormonal response play key roles, while in the systems of organs, muscles and bones, nerve and blood supply, along with physical exercise are key factors to consider. One cannot provide a complete healing service without considering all factors present in the total terrain of healthcare.

Then there’s the invisible, vibrational terrain, where mental, emotional and spiritual factors impact health and wholeness. All of these levels of potential interference to Innate Intelligence’s transmission fall within the scope of whole health care as they fully embrace the founding principles and practice of Chiropractic.

Part of Chiropractic’s forte rightly lies in providing vision. “Where there’s no vision the people perish.” This implies where there is vision the people thrive. People are not thriving health-wise in America. We are forty-five down on the list of health levels of nations. Vision is obviously lacking. One of the ways we may provide vision is by instilling in people the insight to see “things natural” in their wholeness and to assist them in aligning with Life’s spirit, attitude and character, which operates intelligently and wisely within this wholistic context. The role of a doctor is one of teacher. Another way is assisting them in discovering and removing the interferences in their whole complex body-mind-emotion-spirit continuum to free up the “tiny rivulets of force” so that they might experience not only the health of Innate Intelligence but its spirit and character as well.

Historically, this is what people have looked to chiropractors for: a safer, more natural approach to their healthcare . . . as well as that certain “something” BJ Palmer talked and wrote about, and dynamically exemplified, that will help lift them up mentally and spiritually so they can find and walk a healthier path in life. This is what “wholistic healthcare” means and encompasses.

As a healer ordained by Life, I have enjoyed the assurance and potency of my calling to the greatest profession on earth. My privilege as a Doctor of Chiropractic has been to serve at this level of Cause. By the spirit I have expressed and the attitude I have conveyed through my service and my living, where I’ve come from has been plainly evident to those who have been drawn to my service. As a healer who makes the experience of wholeness available to the fragmented state of human suffering, my scope of service has been the whole person. The scope of my practice has been to remove the interference to life’s expression in the whole human being, to the end that people in my world may stop perishing. I am forever thankful for those who have played a role imparting this noble vision to me. It has been an honor and a privilege imparting it to others.

And now you know the whole story of Chiropractic’s origin, history and rationale as I have experienced it in my career as a Doctor of Cause. Thank you for listening and staying with me through this series. I welcome any thoughts you may have and wish to share. Until my next post . . .

Be Love and be loved.

Anthony Palombo, DC

Email: tpal70@gmail.com

* Rediscovering the Soul of Chiropractic can be purchased from Health Light Publishing in St. Augustine, Florida, http://healthlightbooks.com

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

“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.“

“UP FROM BELOW THE BOTTOM”

Dr. B.J. Palmer, Developer of Chiropractic

Have you ever wondered about the history of Chiropractic? How did it begin? Who started it all? The roots of chiropractic care can be traced back to as early as 2700 B.C. and 1500 B.C. in writings found in China and Greece. The writings mention spinal manipulation and moving the lower extremities in an attempt to alleviate low back pain.

Hippocrates, the Greek physician, who lived from 460 to 357 B.C., also published texts detailing the importance of a chiropractic-like philosophy and treatment. He is quoted in his writings as saying, “Get knowledge of the spine, for this is the requisite for many diseases”. In 1895, Daniel D. Palmer founded the Chiropractic profession in Davenport, Iowa. Palmer was well read in anatomy and medical journals and was known as a magnetic healer. He had this idea about chiropractic, where your health could be improved by allowing the spinal nerves to work as they were designed. (From “The History of Chiropractic”)

“THE SUBTLE SUBSTANCE OF THE SOUL”

CHIROPRACTIC’S DISCOVERY 130 years ago this month, and its journey to date, are a recognition and celebration of “the subtle substance of the soul,” as BJ Palmer describes the innate healing currents of Life coursing through the nervous system of our human anatomy in one of his books. Giving credit and paying homage to the Creator of the human temple of the Living God, he wrote in his philosophy text book, “The Power that made the body can heal the body.” (The picture above is my graduation picture from Chiropractic College in 1963)

This slogan is one of several framed and hung on the walls of the hallowed halls of Palmer College of Chiropractic (PCC) in Davenport, Iowa, reverently referred to as “The Fountainhead,” an apt title for the hallowed grounds from which sprang the second largest healthcare profession in the world, second only to medicine . . . and the largest drugless healing science and art in the world. PCC was the first of several more Chiropractic schools and colleges that sprang up both here in the US and abroad. There are some fifteen chiropractic colleges here in the States.

Chiropractic’s early philosophy was rooted in vitalism, naturalism, magnetism, spiritualism and other constructs that are not amenable to the scientific method, although Palmer tried to merge science and metaphysics.

A “RELIGIOUS PRACTICE” ?! . . . A “WORSHIPFUL OBLIGATION” ?!

During the period just prior to his death, D. D. Palmer was leaning toward making his discovery into a religion rather than a professional healing art—a suggestion that sent turbulent waves throughout the infant profession. However, whereas it aroused much criticism from “a few chiropractors,” it brought “greater applause” from his students and audiences than he had received with any of his other lectures. D.D. was keenly aware, even then, of how easily the vision of the spiritual, or “vibrational,” aspect of healing could get lost in the chiropractors’ preoccupation with bones and nerves, pain and relief therefrom, and that his healing art might become just another palliative therapy. The rationale within which he gave an adjustment was much larger than the patient’s medical condition or spinal subluxation, and his service was much greater to him than a hand-manipulation of the spine. It was a ritual, a religious practice, a worshipful obligation.

“. . .We deal with the magic power that transforms common food into living, loving, thinking clay; that robes the earth with beauty, and hues and scents the flowers with glory.” But it’s the first sentence of this famous quotation that is the clincher: “We chiropractors work with the subtle substance of the soul . . .” (B.J. Palmer, The Bigness of the Fellow Within, Ch. 11, “The Inner Power speaks.”).

[D.D. Palmer further declares the reason for wanting to make Chiropractic a religion.]

I hold it to be self-evident that all men and women who have acquired sufficient knowledge and skill to remove the nerve tension which prevents physical, mental and spiritual development, are engaged in a work of a higher order than that ordinarily required of, and performed by, the physician. They are practically the moral duties and obligations of reli­gion and any attempt to prevent such acts by law is an unmit­igated crime against humanity.

Chiropractic science, its art and philosophy, deal with human and spiritual phenomena. The conscientious reverent acknowledgment of the phenomena, in sentiment and act, connects the spiritual with the physical, and constitutes in its fullest and highest sense a religion….

By correcting these displacements of osseous tissue… I claim that I am rendering obedience, adoration and honor to the All-Wise Spiritual Intelligence, as well as a service to the segmented, individual portions thereof—a duty I owe to both God and mankind. In accordance with this aim and end, the Constitution of the United States and the statutes personal of California confer upon me and all persons of chiropractic faith the inalienable right to practice our religion without restraint or hindrance. (D. D. Palmer, The Chiropractor, “The Moral and Religious Duty of a Chiropractor,” 1914.)

Daniel Palmer was obviously onto something much larger and vastly more significant than the correction of pinched nerves, and I think he just wanted some time to let the fullness of what was emerging come forth. I believe he was protecting what was emerging and didn’t want the world to come in on his discovery until he had had time to finish for­mulating things in his own mind and prove them out in practice. He also foresaw the battle that surely lay ahead of him with the medical and legal systems, at a time when medical practice acts were being enacted by the states, and in a climate where “quacks” were being arrested, fined and thrown into prison. (Excerpted from REDISCOVERING THE SOUL OF CHIROPRACTIC by the author)

QUACKERY AND CHARLATANS

Speaking of medicine as the largest healthcare profession, another popular slogan hanging in the same hallowed halls of Palmer College was, and probably still is, “Iligitimati non corborundum,” liberally translated from the Latin as “Don’t let the bastards get you down.”

You see, Chiropractic was ignominiously dubbed quackery and its practitioners charlatans by the medical profession in those early years as it made its competitive debut into the heath care arena, and as chiropractors began opening up offices to practice this newfound healing art. Needless to say, its invasion into their fiercely guarded territory was not with warm welcome by the medical community. The public soon got wind of this drama and people began chanting “quack, quack, quack” as they walked by chiropractic clinics. I’m not making this stuff up folks. Many chiropractors were arrested, tried in courts of law for “practicing medicine without a license” and told to cease and desist. When they didn’t cease and desist, as many as thirty or more chiropractors in Louisiana were arrested and thrown into jail. Somehow I escaped notice as though my office had some protective shroud hanging over it. Hmmm.

But that didn’t stop patients from seeking out Chiropractic care as many of them went to the jail houses for their spinal adjustments. Right here in my own state of Louisiana chiropractors went to jail where they continued seeing their patients, giving spinal adjustments on portable tables they were allowed to set up in their jail cells. This drama went on until one strong soul among us stood up to the medical monopoly and shouted “ENOUGH OF THIS INJUSTICE!”

This famous chiropractor took his pivotal case all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court to finally settle the issue once and for all: that Chiropractic is not the practice of medicine. It came to be called “the England Case,” named after the late Dr. Jerry England who was the defendant representing a collective of about thirty or more doctors here in Louisiana. But that’s another classic and dramatic story altogether, which incidentally took place just as I was starting up my first practice here in Louisiana. The memorable date was 1963-64.

This all took place here in the South as Louisiana was the last state in the USA to license chiropractors, which finally came to fruition in 1974 with a lot of organized pressure exerted upon the legislators by the patients of chiropractors themselves. They had formed a coalition under the heading “Louisiana Chiropractic Patients Association,” headed up, not by a chiropractor, but by a layman and chiropractic patient, Dave Saunders. They had even erected billboards along the highways entering the state from all directions that blatantly announced “Welcome to Louisiana! The only state that has failed to license chiropractors.” They went so far as to stage a funeral procession with hearse and mourners, even a coffin with a poster that read “The Death of Chiropractic in Louisiana” which they and several chiropractors (yours truly included) carried into the House of Representatives in Baton Rouge, then in session, to make our point and in particular to attract the news media, which it surely did.

In the end, it was by the political influence of the Labor Union, headed up by Louisiana Senator Victor Bussie, then president of the AFL-CIO, that finally got a licensing bill passed in 1974 for the Chiropractic profession in Louisiana. That put an end to the abusive persecution of chiropractors, not only here in Louisiana but throughout the entire Nation. The “Fight to Climb” had finally brought chiropractic to the top of the healthcare mountain, if you’ll allow me this metaphor.

There’s a lot more to this drama, as state and national organized efforts by professional associations had formed and played crucial roles in shifting and abating the tides that threatened to wash the profession of Chiropractic out of the healthcare field and clear off of the planet itself. You younger folks reading this may be in disbelief. We elders, however, remember those days all too well. In a wonderful way, they served to bring us chiropractors in the state together in our fight for a common cause and against a common enemy.

As we settled back into our practices however, with medical insurance now covering chiropractic care, the fire in our bellies subsided as each one returned to his and her isolated practice, only to mingle with colleagues once a year at conventions where we earned required credits for license renewal, updated adjusting techniques and methodology of service . . . and especially to keep abreast of the best way to file claims for prompt insurance reimbursement. It was a good day for our patients as well with insurance companies now paying for their care.

The struggle to rise and survive the opposing forces of the monopolizing medical profession in those days, among many interesting stories, are immortalized in the iconic “Green Text Books” and in DD’s and BJ’s several published works, among which are such titles as THE FIGHT TO CLIMB, UP FROM BELOW THE BOTTOM, CONFLICTS CLARIFIED, THE CHIROPRACTOR 1910, THE BIGNESS OF THE FELLOW WITHIN and other publications.

I will continue sharing the story of Chiropractic’s origin and early years in my next instalment of this series, GET THE BIG IDEA.” Until then,

Be love. Be loved.

Anthony Palombo, D.C

130 YEARS AGO TODAY, on September 18, 1895, the healing art of Chiropractic was given birth through the magnetic healing hands of Dr. Daniel David Palmer. He corrected a “lump” (a subluxated vertebra) that had appeared in his deaf janitor’s neck as he was bent forward and some boxes fell on his head. As the story goes, Dr. Palmer pushed on the lump (subluxated vertebra) to restore the vertebra to its proper alignment in his neck, and Harvey Lillard’s hearing returned. Since he had performed this vertebral adjustment with his hands only, he came to call his spinal manipulation “Chiropractic,” which derived from the phrase, “done by hand.” “D.D. Palmer asked a patient and friend, Rev. Samuel Weed, to help him name his discovery. He suggested combining the Greek words cheiros and praktikos (meaning “done by hand”) to describe Palmer’s treatment method, creating the term “chiropractic.” (Wikipedia)

“DD’s son, “BJ” (Bartlett J. Palmer) — while his father wanted to keep his newfound healing technique private — took up his father’s discovery and developed chiropractic into a professional healing philosophy, science and art. BJ came to be known as the “Developer” of Chiropractic, in that he expanded the field, emphasizing research, education, and public outreach. He introduced X-rays and other scientific methods into the profession and was instrumental in developing the Palmer School of Chiropractic in Davenport, Iowa, as an internationally recognized institution. His efforts helped standardize chiropractic education and broaden public acceptance of chiropractic care. This succinctly sums up Chiropractic’s humble beginnings. For more details of its history go to www.cedarhealth.ca+2.

What BJ really focused on and gave voice to in his many books was and is the science and “Innate Philosophy” of the art of adjusting the subluxated vertebrae of the human spinal column to remove the interference to the flow of innate intelligence through the spine and nervous system and to the malfunctioning part of the physiology, bringing the healing currents of life from “above, down, inside and out.” This came to be called “Palmer’s Law of Life.” BJ was a very ambitious, if a bit arrogant, individual.

I will focus on the science and philosophy of the art of Chiropractic in this blog series. Chiropractic has a most colorful and dramatic history, which I write about in my booklet Rediscovering the Soul of Chiropractic. My article had made its debut in the year 2000 issue of TODAY’S CHIROPRACTIC.

I’m looking forward to sharing with you some of Chiropractic’s colorful and often turbulent history, along with my experience, often seemingly miraculous, as a chiropractor and “carrier of the torch,” of the philosophy of this wonderful healing methodology. Until my next post,

Be love. Be loved.

Anthony Palombo, D.C.

. 

ARTISTIC RENDITION OF ATLANTIS

“Those who forget history are condemned to repeat it” *

“Let’s end hunger and poverty! Let the abundance of this bountiful planet Earth be freely shared by all who dwell in the fullness thereof!“

THE US ECONOMY IS TOP HEAVY. “The top 1% of American earners now control more wealth than the nation’s entire middle class, federal data show. More than one-quarter of all household wealth, 26.5%, belongs to Americans who earn enough money to rank in the top percentile by income, according to Federal Reserve statistics through mid-2023. The top 1% holds $38.7 trillion in wealth. That’s more than the combined wealth of America’s middle class, a group many economists define as the middle 60% of households by income. Those households hold about 26% of all wealth.” (USA TODAY)

In order to eliminate elitism and level the playing field, the 1% “haves” that own 99% of the nation’s wealth will need to stop taking from the 99% “have-nots” and less-fortunate in order to enrich themselves. It’s almost as simple as that — almost because there’ s always free choice in how we live life. Let’s take a look back at the origins of this post-diluvian modern civilization and recall some of our past we have been destined to repeat . . . and have done so.

I will enlist the assistance of a rather voluminous book I’ve just started reading by historian Susan Wise Bauer, THE HISTORY OF THE ANCIENT WORLD ~ From the Earliest Accounts to the Fall of Rome. The book itself is a pleasure to read as it is written more like a story or a novel than a college text book. For an example of what I mean by story, here are the opening paragraphs of Chapter One:

Many thousands of years ago, the Sumerian King Alulim ruled over Eridu: a walled city, a safe space carved out of the unpredictable and harsh river valley that the Romans would later name Mesopotamia. Alulim’s rise to power marked the beginning of civilization, and his reign lasted for almost thirty-thousand years.

The Sumerians, who lived in a world where the supernatural and the material had not yet been assigned to different sides of the aisle, would not have choked over the last part of that sentence. On the other hand, they would have found Alulim’s placement “at the beginning of civilization” extremely hard to swallow. In their own minds, the Sumerians had always been civilized. Alulim’s kingship, recorded in the Sumerian king list (perhaps the oldest historical record in the world), “descended from heaven” and was already perfect when it arrived on earth.

But looking back, we see the coming of the first king in different perspective. It is a sea change in the condition of man, the beginning of a whole new relationship between people, their land, and their leaders . . . . ” After kingship had descended from heaven,” the king list tells us, “Alulim reigned 28,000 years as king; [his heir] Alalgar reigned 36,000 years.” The length of these reigns may suggest that both of these kings are actually demigods, drawn from mythology rather than history; or perhaps, simply that Alulim and his heir ruled for a very long time. According to Sumerians, eight kings ruled before the enormous catastrophe of Sumerian history occurred and “the Flood swept over” the land.

Historian John Bright suggests that the Deluge took place before 10,000 BC, “when hunters migrated across the Bering Strait.” Skipping forward to chapter five, “The Iron Age,” I came upon the topic of this post. I’ll try not to make this too boring, as it is important, I feel, that we as a collective body of humanity account for our past errant ways and remember how we came to our present state of economic and social imbalance with debt being the basis of our current economy. You are well off if you have borrowing power granted you by a credit card enterprise. Well before credit cards became so freely available, I learned early in my chiropractic practice that I could not use my accounts receivable as collateral for a bank loan. Banks may be able to count loans out as part of their assets, but I couldn’t. The stark reality is this civilization is bankrupt. The rich are getting richer and the poor poorer, as we say these days. . . and as it’s been since the Fathers fell asleep. When and where did this imbalance have its start? Here’s what I came upon.

THE “WICKED” IRON AGE

The roots of elitism and poverty can be traced back to the prehistoric Iron Age of the fourth millennium, around 3102 BC. Spiritual awareness had begun to diminish by a quarter of its previous strength, according to Indian cosmology, as early as the ages of Gold, Silver, and Copper (Satya Yuga, Treta Yuga, and Duapara Yuga, respectively). The Iron Age, being the fourth (Kali Yuga), is when materialism began to corrupt the moral fiber of those who traded in these natural resources. It was “the most wicked of all.”

A Yuga lasts for a duration of 12,000 celestial years, so we are still in the Iron Age of Kali Yuga. The decline of morals, then, was rather gradual after man’s exit from Eden. The Great Deluge pretty much wiped out the ancient world, taking any remnant of Paradise with it:

There is no way of knowing what was destroyed by the waters. But like many other peoples, the Sumerians had a tale of a lost paradise. In the very ancient Sumerian poem “Enki and Ninhusag,” this paradise is described as a place where “the lion does not kill, the wolf does not seize the lamb, the wild dog, devourer of kids, is unknown, he whose eyes hurt does not say: “my eyes hurt.” He whose head aches does not say, “My head aches.” But this dream city, filled with fruit trees and watered by fresh streams uncorrupted by salt, is lost to man.

The water that covered the land was salt water which made the soil basically baren.

AFTER THE WATER, the earth dries out. Man starts again, in a world redder in tooth and claw than it was. Something has been lost. In Genesis, Noah is told that it is now acceptable to kill and animal for its meat; in the Sumerian flood story, the gods lament the destruction of the world that was: “Would that famine had wasted the world Rather than the flood. Would that pestilence had wasted mankind Rather than the flood.”

Floods occurred regularly in the Indus River Valley and water began to be greatly feared. The many and varied flood stories make for interesting reading; they are all comparable to the story of Noah and the Great Flood told in Genesis in the Bible. [We saw the recent Guadalupe River flood in Central Texas in which 135 perished, mostly children.) The Creative Force of Water, always active at the beginning of creative cycles, appears in all of these stories and myths.

As the population of the ancient post-diluvian world grew, a need for governance became apparent. This gave rise in the very distant past to the origin of Kingship in ancient Persia, and later of Aristocracy in Sumer (3600 BC), and later yet of Empire in the Nile river valley (3200 BC).

The villages near the Indus, in the Northwest, grew into towns first. The earliest houses in the Indus river valley were built on the river plain, perhaps a mile away from the river, well above the line of the flood. Mud bricks would dissolve in river water, and crops would wash away. The first reality of life in the Indus valley — as in Egypt and Sumer — was that water brought both life and death.

This was the setting in those ancient days when civilizations began to rise out of the flood waters, literally, and as man began to long for the Garden of Paradise and set about trying to recreate the bountiful and safe world the flood waters had wiped out so thoroughly and so finally. They began to harvest wood from the forests and to bake their clay bricks in kilns which made them more resistant to dissolution by the waters — and floods became less severe and destructive.

Turquoise and lapis lazuli, brought from the plains of Mesopotamia, lie in the ruins of the richest houses. The townspeople had left their valley to trade above the Tigris and the Euphrates, with those same merchants who supplied semiprecious stones to the kings of Kish an Nippur and Ur.

But despite the growing prosperity and reach of the Indus towns, the epics of India tell not of advance, but of decline. The floods had washed away the previous age and begun a new one; the age of towns was the Kali Yuga, the Age of Iron. It began when Manu Vaivaswata [the first king of India] descended from the mountain, and it was an age of wealth and industry. It was also an age in which truthfulness, compassion, charity and devotion dwindled to a quarter of their previous strength. In the Iron age, the sacred writings warned, leaders would commandeer the goods that belonged to their people, pleading financial need. The strong would take property from the vulnerable, and seize hard-won wealth for themselves. Rich men would abandon their fields and herds and spend their days protecting their money, becoming slaves of their earthly possessions rather than free men who knew how to use the earth.

Given the relatively late date at which these dreadful warnings were put down, they probably reflect the worries of a more mature society — one which had a large, unproductive bureaucracy draining the national coffers. But the storytellers themselves put the beginnings of this declination all the way back to 3102, the year when villages along the Indus began to grow into towns.

Note on sources of Indian history: Historians of India work in a fraught political arena. The written sources which we have, including those which tell of the mythological Manu and the Ages of Gold, Copper, Silver, and Iron, are oral traditions which were set down, much later, in the language Sanskrit . . . the Sanskrit writings represent the thought of a small, elite group of Aryan immigrants. In terms of history, this would mean that the written accounts of Manu and the Age of Iron have practically no continuity with the earliest civilizations of India. Manu is clearly mythological; his relationship to India in the fourth millennium remains extremely uncertain.

Manu himself, kneeling down by the water that will soon wash away the previous age and bring on the decline of the Kali Yuga, finds himself speaking to a little fish forced to beg for protection from the larger and stronger who prey upon the weak. In India, the journey towards civilization had just begun; but as in Sumer itself, it was a journey which took its people that much farther from paradise.

Mythologically speaking, we are still in the Kali Yuga, the Age of Iron (3102 BC – present). The biblical saying “The sins of the Fathers are visited upon the children unto the third and fourth generations” is applicable here — only the children of the Fathers, as fathers themselves, have been repeating the same old sins of greed and coveting stealth — and poverty continues to be the lot of those who lack the motivation to improve their lot, as well as the desire to accrue wealth. Balance must be restored and the practice of usury and the monetizing of just about everything of value on this planet and in this mind-made world — including human labor — must cease. The Earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof; the world and they that dwell therein.” (Psalm 24)

We cannot recreate the Paradise we lost eons ago. However, we can turn around and see the Paradise at hand and all around us — and begin taking better care of it than we have been. We can return to the LORD God awaiting our repentance in humility and ownership of our Fore Fathers’ original sin of separation from Him and our rejection of His ordinances for life on Earth in lieu of our own self-centered designs and fancies.

Let us remember our past lest we repeat it to our ultimate extinction. The virtues of the Fathers are passed down as well to future generations. Therefore, “Blaze forth pure virtue. Depart false ambition’s restless schemes.” — as Lord Martin Cecil commands in his sacred poem “Thus It Is“ — Let the hoarding of material wealth on earth cease! Let greed, usury, and coveted stealth cease! Let man stop monetizing the gifts of Mother Nature’s resources and the fruits of human labor — including human labor itself, which is bought for a ludicrous minimum wage, barely enough to live on in these days, and not enough in too many lives to afford even a place to call home. The homeless stand out as an indictment against this civilization. Let the elite share their hoarded wealth and restore balance to our economy and our top-heavy social structure. Let’s end hunger and poverty! Let the abundance of this bountiful planet Earth be freely shared by all who dwell in the fullness thereof! Let love, peace, and generosity reign in the hearts of men and women everywhere! “Let love command! Let wonders form. Let Heaven’s beauty shine. Let every living breath sing praise to Light Divine.” Selah!

I invite you to join me in sending forth this edict. Until my next post,

Be love. Be loved.

Anthony ~ tpal70@gmail.com

*CREDITS: “Those who forget history are condemned to repeat it.” —George Santayana, American Philosopher.

“Let love command! Let wonders form. Let Heaven’s beauty shine. Let every living breath sing praise to Light Divine.” From: SONGS OF PRAISE AND THANKSGIVING, hymnal of Emissaries of Divine Light.

The Andromeda Galaxy

What Began With Light

by Don Hynes

Cloud breaks reveal the moon
as light spills across the water,
rousing the quiet land.
Old roots stir, ancient trees
and stone canyons
find their voices.
Island folk emerge
from shelter
as whale song fills
the saltwater evening.
What began with light
is renewed in radiance,
and from sea depth and cavern
rise the breath of earth’s joy.

~~~0~~~

HOW DOES IT ALL FLOW TOGETHER SO SMOOTHLY AND SO QUIETLY ?

I AWOKE ONE MORING last week to the image of a Galaxy in my mind spinning around ever so quietly and ever so massively, such that it gave me pause. I mused, “How does it do that? What makes the Universe go round so peacefully? By what principle or law are its movements governed?”

This wasn’t the first time I have been entertained by the same sort of image and the same curious query. Then I remembered that I had written about this same cosmic wonder in my book, ATTUNEMENT WITH SACRED SOUND. So, I reasoned, I’ll just share what I wrote in today’s post. After all, this grand cosmic theater is still featuring the same phenomenal drama, and I think you will not be put upon imaging it with me today.

The Working of the “Law of One“

The word “Uni-verse” means turns as One. In his monumental tome THE UNIVRSAL ONE, “illumined” genius Walter Russell (1871-1963), celebrated by biographer Glenn Clark as “the man who tapped the secrets of the Universe,” elucidates the explicate workings of “The Law of One.”

During the same era, contemporary spiritual explorer and enlightened teacher Lloyd Arthur Meeker (Uranda 1907-1954) called this principle “The One Law” because it governs all of life, from the tiniest atom to the spiraling galaxies of the cosmos.

MAGNETIC DESIGN AND CONTROL

In the atom, negative (-) electrons orbit around a positive (+) nucleus made up of positive (+) protons and neutral (o) neutrons.  Planets orbit around a central sun, and satellite moons around their planets.  Solar systems orbit in response to the positive galactic centers that gave them birth. This is what Isaac Newton called the “Law of Gravity,” only the apple didn’t “fall” to the earth; it was drawn to it by this magnetic principle of positive action and negative response. All of creation responds lovingly and gladly to the Creator, and the Creator abides at the core of every part of His creation.  This is the Law of Love. It is Love, then, that makes the Universe go round.

This law contains principles that govern coordinated movement throughout the explicate order of the cosmos.  Uranda saw these principles in a spiritual context as “positive” and “negative” forces or energies. His formulated principle states: Positive radiation — negative response — attraction — union — unified radiation. In this expression of the One Law, the following principle may be stated:

“A positive and a negative are attracted toward one another.  Two positives repel one another.  Two negatives have no affinity toward one another.

This is one perspective of this principle and the one that is commonly agreed upon. Walter Russell presents a scientific perspective and a radically different understanding based on the dynamic interface and interaction between positive and negative electrical currents. This is an electric Universe, as has been discovered exploring the sun itself. Long thought to be a massive ball of fire, the sun is now understood to be a six-layered furnace of nuclear fusion that fuses hydrogen atoms to create helium, releasing a tremendous amount of electromagnetic energy . . . which, through modern technology, can be converted to electricity via solar panels. As I say, we live in an electric Universe.

RUSSELL’S UNIVERSE

At the risk of alienating some of my Emissary friends who were “baptized” by the waters of Uranda’s inspired and insightful vision . . . and who hold fast to his teachings . . . I venture into scientific waters . . . stirred and disturbed by Walter Russell. Whereas Uranda was an inspired and illumined modern day prophet, he was no scientist. He was a profoundly insightful visionary and spiritual teacher; a great being incarnate in a guileless and passionate soul whose divinely ordained commission was to articulate the truth of life as it relates to the Divine Design of Man. Walter Russell’s bestowed commission was to rectify inaccurate scientific pronouncements in order to clarify human understanding of the laws and principles of science and the Universe. Russell’s formula of THE LAW OF ONE states:

Two positive charges are attracted toward one another. A positive charge and a negative charge repel one another. Two negative charges repel one another.

In the cosmos, all heavenly orbiting bodies have a positive radiant and magnetic core that draws the material of their bodies together, by design in the shape of a sphere.  This “masculine energy” is how they hold together.  Also by design, they are constantly being attracted toward and repelled from one another, the amount and intensity of their radiation determining their proximity and orbital paths.  Russell calls this the function of the feminine principle. Positive masculine charge is magnetic and integrates form. Feminine charge is radiant and expressive, disintegrating form by releasing the masculine positive energy holding form together. They work in absolute harmony as partners in creation.

For example, our sun is attracted toward and repelled from its greater Sun at the core of the Milky Way Galaxy. Further, due to their positive cores, suns are attracted toward one another.  What holds them apart and from colliding with one another is the intensity of their radiation, a negatively charged energy which repels negatively charged energy as well as positively charged energy.

The entire cosmos is thus held in a dynamic state of balance and harmony by the principle of resonance between lesser charged core energy (planets) and greater charged core energy (suns), the lesser charged cores seeking their full potential by drawing near to greater charged cores until they reach their full propensity of radiant energy; at which point they release their energy as light, often in explosive manner. One can easily see this creating principle as the basis for harmonious co-creative function in human relationships.

Our planet will in season become a star like the sun, as will all the planets orbiting our sun.  It’s the inevitable and natural working of the Law of One, as Walter Russell refers to the One Law in THE UNIVERSAL ONE in which he states “All things come from the ONE and return to the ONE.” All planets come from their sun and return to their sun. The implications in this procession of cycles are profound.

What moves this massive Universe of visible tangible matter in a coordinated control and design is an omnipotent, omnipresent and penetrating invisible electromagnetic power that holds inviolate unalterable Divine Law orchestrating and governing this vast and infinite Universe. As a curious young novice, I often asked “Where is the Universe? Where is it located? Where does it begin and where does it end? Is it just going in circles? If so, around what?” Oh, I wanted to know the secrets of this Universe into which I was born.

There’s an ancient proverb that says “When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.” Decades later I apparently was ready to hear and appreciate the answers to my quests as teachers, in the flesh and in books, began to appear, and I consumed their words and teachings ravenously for several years. The book that answered all my questions about the Universe came into my hands spontaneously through a friend during an Attunement With Sacred Sound workshop I was presenting at a retreat center he and his circle of friends managed and hosted. That book is Walter Russell’s signature work THE UNIVERSAL ONE, in which he shares generously his inspired knowledge of and insight into the secrets of the Universe. I learned the meaning of the Biblical passage, “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.” (Matt 7:7)

What makes the Universe go round? The Radiant Light shining through the Creative Principle at work: Positive Action – Negative Reaction – Attraction – Union – Unified Radiation. Glorious Light. The Light out of which the entire Universe is created . . . and hidden in the Light is the Image of God the Father and Creator in which we are made co-creators. The secrets of the Universe are hidden in the Light. Look up into a cloudless starlit sky and all you see are countless stars of light . . . the first creation of the Great Creator . . . and their light is a radiant shout for JOY! If you listen in the silence of your heart you can even hear them singing. The earth and all of Nature resounds in joyful celebration. How can we not join in the chorus and sing our parts?!

“What began with light
is renewed in radiance,
and from sea depth and cavern
rise the breath of earth’s joy.“

Thank you beloved poet. Until my next post,

Be Light. Be Delightful

Anthony

Email: tpal70@gmail.com

CREDITS: Poem by Don Hynes, author of Something Will Change Me – Poems of Soul and Spirit”

“When you understand yourselves you will be understood. And you will realize that you are Sons of the living Father. If you do not know yourselves, then you exist in poverty and you are that poverty.” —Jesus, from The Gospel of Thomas

APOTHEOSIS OF WASHINGTON

“The Apotheosis of Washington is the fresco painted by Greek-Italian artist Constantino Brumidi in 1865 and visible through the oculus of the dome in the rotunda of the United States Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. The fresco is suspended 180 feet above the rotunda floor and covers an area of 4,664 square feet.” Wikipedia

APOTHEOSIS simply refers to the state of being one’s fullest, highest and truest essence of Self, in form and expression, ultimately as Divine Being incarnate. It also refers to the process of becoming divine: deification. “I Am that I Am” . . . the unspeakable Name of God, as Moses himself realized during his transformational experience as a burning bush during which his own Inner Divine Self spoke to his outer inquiring mind that asked “Who shall I say has sent me?”

There’s much implied in this biblical story. Moses had ascended to a high place, Mount Sinai—symbolic of the high place in consciousness where one can receive answers to life’s often troubling and imprisoning questions—seeking an answer to his quandary over an inner calling to do something about freeing the Israelites and leading them out of bondage in Egypt, from which he had just been freed. He didn’t just “see” a bush burning but not being consumed. He was that burning bush himself!

Have you ever had a burning-bush experience? Surely you have. I have, and the fire of passionate desire to know the truth and to find out who and what I Am didn’t stop burning until someone came along and awakened me out of my forgetfulness. He simply said “You are not a Catholic! You are a Human Being made in the image and likeness of God. You are not merely human, you are being! Wake up and stop being who and what you are not! Be your Self!” What a rush of cold North wind he was! Literally. He was from up North come to the warm and lazy South to awaken sleeping souls to their true identity. “You are gods!”

Leaders of nations and Pharaohs were once deified in the eyes of their subjects . . . and, at a level higher than that of their human personage, they were more correct than they most likely realized.

(I published this post in October of 2023 and it moves me so profoundly that I want to bring it forward now and share it anew.)

“YOU ARE GODS“

In John’s Gospel (10:34), the Jews were ready to stone Jesus for his claim to divinity, to which Jesus responded: “Is it not written in your law, ‘I said, you are gods?’ [Psalm 82:6]. If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken, say ye to him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world ‘Thou blasphemest’ because I said, I am the Son of God?”

I realize this is a sensitive time to be referring to the Jews, even in biblical texts, so I will keep my comments limited to the issue of our divinity as “sons of the Most High,” as the psalmist proclaimed in song.

CATHOLICS DIDN’T STUDY THE BIBLE

Did I miss something during my seven years in seminary, or was I perhaps asleep when this Psalm and Jesus’s words in John’s Gospel were discussed in theology class . . .or preached from the pulpit ?

Actually, we didn’t even study the Bible in Catholic seminary, and, except for passages from Paul’s epistles and excerpts from the Four Gospels inserted into the liturgy and used in homilies, in my Catholic upbringing, the Bible was not really studied, or even read. These words were shoved to the back of the theology section and shrouded by a cloud of dogmatic and religious interpretation — and “priestly lore,” to borrow a phrase from the Gita. If we are truly divine, then what purpose does religion serve in our intimate relationship with our Creator . . . other than its own agenda and existence.

“YOU ARE GODS!!!” Shout it from the pulpit! Shout it from the housetop! “You are not sinners! You are not merely human! You are divine beings! You are the sons and daughters of the Most High! You are God, the Living Word, incarnate in flesh, blood, and bone!”

HOW SHALL WE GIVE GOD GLORY?

My dearest friend and colleague “angel of sound,” PenDell Pittman, offered a song of worship and praise several decades ago that lifted my heart in praise to the One with Whom we all share our very being and divine presence. The lyrics were written by another dear friend and angelic colleague, Hugh Malafry, inspiring author of “BLUE SHAMAN trilogy. With PenDell’s permission, I will close this post by sharing his beautiful and heartful offering upward. It celebrates the Incarnate Living Word in our Humanity. Enjoy and receive his gift of blessing.

“How Shall We Give Thee Glory?” Soundtrack Listen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_JuLJ4ZU1I 

How Shall We Give Thee Glory, Who art the Living God? Power – Who art the very Flame of Love? Kingdom – When the Universe of Stars is but a Cloak to Thee?

Thou art All Things, All Things Come from Thee, Return Again unto Thee, and Abide Always in Thee.

We are Thy Kingdom, Power, Thy Glory Shining, We are Thy Bone, Thy Blood, Thy Flesh Singing Praises unto Thee.

To Know Thee as Thou Art: Almighty God and Living Word Made Flesh.

We give God glory by providing Him a Body, drawn together by His Love for us, here in the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth. I invite you to join me and hundreds more in extending your arms and opening your hands for several minutes every morning to let your love, which is God’s love, flow through you and out to embrace and to bless the world He loves so much. We do this as God Beings incarnate. Until my next post,

Be love. Be loved.

Anthony

tpal70gmail.com