This famous author of Brave New World and other acclaimed titles learned the Bates method from Margaret Corbett, a Bates teacher in California. Through it and the Alexander Technique, he overcame near-blindness that had crippled his ability to read and write. He tried by every known medical and scientific means to save his vision, and this book tells how he achieved what many thought impossible. Also included is his philosophy on the whole matter and various recommended exercises.
The book is in "Good" or "Fair" condition, according to the standard condition rating guidelines. This means that there will probably be noticeable wear to the cover and possibly markings on some pages, but the binding is intact and no pages are missing. Dustjackets are usually not included. If you have concerns about the condition, I'd be happy to reserve a copy for you that fits your requirements.
List of Chapters
1. Medicine and Defective Vision
2. A method of Visual Re-Education
3. Sensing + Selecting + Perceiving = Seeing
4. Variability of Bodily and Mental Functioning
5. Causes of Visual Mal-functioning: Disease and Emotional Disturbances
6. Relaxation
7. Blinking and Breathing
8. The Eye, the Organ of Light
9. Central Fixation
10. Methods of Teaching the Eyes and Mind to Move
11. Flashing
12. Shifting
13. The Mental Side of Seeing
14. Memory and Imagination
15. Myopia
16. Long Sight, Astigmatism, Squint
17. Some Difficult Seeing-Situations
18. Lighting Conditions
Excerpts
from the Preface:
A number of other books on visual education have been published ... but in none (of those, at least, that I have read) has an attempt been made to do what I have tried to do in the present volume: namely, to correlate the methods of visual education with the findings of modern psychology and critical philosophy.
from chapter "A Method of Visual Re-education":
This guess may be correct, or it may be incorrect. I do not greatly care. For my concern is not with the anatomical mechanism of accommodation, but with the art of seeing - and the art of seeing does not stand or fall with any particular physiological hypothesis. Believing that Bates's theory of accommodation was untrue, the orthodox have concluded taht his technique of visual education must be unsound. Once again this is an unwarranted conclusion, due to a failure to understand the nature of an art, or psycho-physical skill.
from chapter "Bodily and Mental Functioning":
The flash of improved vision is an empirical fact which can be demonstrated by anyone who chooses to fulfil the conditions on which it depends. The fact that, during a flash, one may see with extreme clarity objects that, at ordinary times, are blurred or quite invisible, shows that temporary alleviation of mental and muscular strain results in improved functioning and the temporary disappearance of refractive error.
from chapter "Relaxation":
In his book, Perfect Sight Without Glasses, Dr. Bates advises the candidate for relaxation to "imagine black," while palming. The purpose of this is to come, through imagination, to an actual seeing of black. The technique he describes works satisfactorily in some cases, but in others (and they probably constitute a majority of all sufferers from defective vision) the attempt to imagine black frequently leads to conscious effort and strain. | |
