 First edition cover | |
| Author | Aldous Huxley |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Subject | Bates method |
| Publisher | Harper & Brothers |
Publication date | 1942 |
| Media type | |
| Pages | 142 |
| ISBN | 0-916870-48-0 |
| OCLC | 644231 |
The Art of Seeing: An Adventure in Re-education is a 1942 book by Aldous Huxley, which details his experience with and views on the discredited Bates method, which according to Huxley improved his eyesight.
In the preface to the book, Huxley describes how, at the age of sixteen, he had a violent attack of keratitis punctata which made him almost totally blind for eighteen months, and left him thereafter with severely impaired sight. Strong spectacles were of help, but reading, in particular, was a great strain. [1] In 1939 his ability to read became increasingly degraded, and he sought the help of Margaret Corbett, who taught the Bates method. He found this immensely helpful, and in 1942 wrote “At the present time, my vision, though very far from normal, is about twice as good as it used to be when I wore spectacles, and before I had learned the art of seeing”.
The book is not an autobiography, however. Although his own history fuelled his interest in vision, and there are references in passing throughout the book to his own case, it is written as a general study of vision as he came to understand it.[ citation needed ]
Huxley writes that his aim in writing the book was
… to correlate the methods of visual education with the findings of modern psychology and critical philosophy. My purpose in making this correlation is to demonstrate the essential reasonableness of a method, which turns out to be nothing more or less than the practical application to the problems of vision of certain theoretical principles, universally accepted as true. [1]
Unlike many other texts on the Bates method, Huxley's book contains no diagrams of the eye, and very little description of its physiology.
According to Huxley, the prevailing medical view is that
...the organs of vision are incapable of curing themselves … then the eyes must be totally different in kind from other parts of the body. Given favourable conditions, all other organs tend to free themselves from their defects. Not so the eyes. … it is a waste of time even to try to discover a treatment which will assist nature in its normal task of healing. …
He quotes Matthew Luckiesh, Director of General Electric’s Lighting Research Laboratory who wrote:
Suppose that crippled eyes could be transformed into crippled legs. What a heart-rending parade we would witness on a busy street! Nearly every other person would go limping by. Many would be on crutches and some on wheel chairs.
Huxley goes on to stress that when legs are imperfect, every effort is made to get the patient walking again, and without crutches if at all possible. "Why should it not be possible to do something analogous for defective eyes?"
The orthodox theory is, on the face of it, so implausible, so intrinsically unlikely to be true, that one can only be astonished that it should be so generally and so unquestioningly accepted. … At the present time it is rejected only by those who have personal reasons for knowing it to be untrue … It is therefore no longer possible for me to accept the currently orthodox theory, with its hopelessly pessimistic practical consequences.
He goes on to analyse the whole process of visual perception, using ideas and vocabulary taken from the philosopher C. D. Broad. He sums the analysis up as follows:
The most characteristic fact about the functioning of the total organism, or any part of the organism, is that it is not constant, but highly variable. … People with unimpaired eyes and good habits of using them possess, so to speak, a wide margin of visual safety. Even when their seeing organs are functioning badly, they still see well enough for most practical purposes. Consequently they are not so acutely conscious of variations in visual functioning as are those with bad seeing habits and impaired eyes. These last have little or no margin of safety; consequently any diminution in seeing power produces noticeable and often distressing results.
Huxley goes on to discuss the factors which bring about variation – general health or lack of it, tiredness, boredom, emotional states. But whereas these are in general transitory, glasses, if worn, are to a fixed prescription.
It will thus be seen that the wearing of spectacles confines the eyes to a state of rigid and unvarying structural immobility. In this respect artificial lenses resemble, not the crutches to which Dr. Luckiesh has compared them, but splints, iron braces and plaster casts.
The majority of the book is devoted to the specific techniques of the Bates method, all designed to bring about "relaxation". Huxley distinguishes "passive relaxation", a state of complete repose, from "dynamic relaxation", characterized as "that state of the body and mind which is associated with normal and natural functioning".
Mal-functioning and strain tend to appear whenever the conscious "I" interferes with instinctively acquired habits of proper use, either by trying too hard to do well, or by feeling unduly anxious about possible mistakes.. In the building up of any psycho-physical skill the conscious "I" must give orders, but not too many orders … As one practises the techniques of visual education, one discovers the extent to which this same conscious "I" can interfere with the processes of seeing even when no distressing emotions are present. And it interferes, we discover, in exactly the same way as it interferes with the process of playing tennis, for example, or singing – by being too anxious to achieve the desired end. But in seeing, as in all other psycho-physical skills, the anxious effort to do well defeats its own object; for this anxiety produces psychological and physiological strains, and strain is incompatible with the proper means for achieving our end, namely normal and natural functioning.
Right at the end of the book there is a mention of F. M. Alexander, whose Alexander technique for posture is perhaps analogous to that of Bates for eyes.
The established ophthalmological and optometric professions have not been convinced. For example, Stewart Duke-Elder wrote
Whatever be the value of the exercises, it is quite unintelligent of Huxley to have confused their advocacy with so many misstatements regarding known scientific facts. It has been shown that the hypothesis upon which these methods of treatment are based is wrong; but Huxley, while admitting he is ignorant of the matter and unqualified to speak, contends that this is of no importance because the method works in practice and gives good results: it comes into the category of "art" not of "science." The argument is perfectly allowable, for in other spheres than medicine empirical methods have often produced effective results the rationale of which may be mysterious. The most stupid feature about his book, however, is that he insists throughout on the physiological mechanism whereby these exercises are supposed to work. It would at least have been logical if he had continued to allow the reader to assume that he was speaking in ignorance of anything except results. . . .
There would appear to be no doubt that these exercises have done Aldous Huxley himself a great deal of good. Every ophthalmologist knows that they have made quite a number of people with a similar functional affliction happy. And every ophthalmologist equally knows that his consulting-room has long been haunted by people whom they have not helped at all.
He concluded by saying,
For the simple neurotic who has abundance of time to play with, Huxley's antics of palming, shifting, flashing, and the rest are probably as good treatment as any other system of Yogi or Coué-ism. To these the book may be of value. It is hardly possible that it will impress anyone endowed with common sense and a critical faculty. It may be dangerous in the hands of the impressionable who happen to suffer from glaucoma or detachment of the retina. . . [2] [3]
Martin Gardner described The Art of Seeing as "a book destined to rank beside Bishop Berkeley’s famous treatise on the medicinal properties of ‘tar-water’." [4]
New York optometrist Philip Pollack commented:
Huxley sounds in his book like Bates out of Oxford with a major in psychology and metaphysics. Bates wrote of relaxation but Huxley brings in transcendentalism. Tension and poor vision are caused by the refusal of the individual ego to surrender to Nature. [5]
Aldous Leonard Huxley was an English writer and philosopher. His bibliography spans nearly 50 books, including novels and non-fiction works, as well as essays, narratives, and poems.
The Doors of Perception is an autobiographical book written by Aldous Huxley. Published in 1954, it elaborates on his psychedelic experience under the influence of mescaline in May 1953. Huxley recalls the insights he experienced, ranging from the "purely aesthetic" to "sacramental vision", and reflects on their philosophical and psychological implications. In 1956, he published Heaven and Hell, another essay which elaborates these reflections further. The two works have since often been published together as one book; the title of both comes from William Blake's 1793 book The Marriage of Heaven and Hell.
Brave New World is a dystopian novel by English author Aldous Huxley, written in 1931 and published in 1932. Largely set in a futuristic World State, whose citizens are environmentally engineered into an intelligence-based social hierarchy, the novel anticipates huge scientific advancements in reproductive technology, sleep-learning, psychological manipulation and classical conditioning that are combined to make a dystopian society which is challenged by the story's protagonist. Huxley followed this book with a reassessment in essay form, Brave New World Revisited (1958), and with his final novel, Island (1962), the utopian counterpart. This novel is often compared to George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949).
Stereoscopy is a technique for creating or enhancing the illusion of depth in an image by means of stereopsis for binocular vision. The word stereoscopy derives from Greek στερεός (stereos) 'firm, solid', and σκοπέω (skopeō) 'to look, to see'. Any stereoscopic image is called a stereogram. Originally, stereogram referred to a pair of stereo images which could be viewed using a stereoscope.
The Bates method is an ineffective and potentially dangerous alternative therapy aimed at improving eyesight. Eye-care physician William Horatio Bates (1860–1931) held the erroneous belief that the extraocular muscles effected changes in focus and that "mental strain" caused abnormal action of these muscles; hence he believed that relieving such "strain" would cure defective vision. In 1952, optometry professor Elwin Marg wrote of Bates, "Most of his claims and almost all of his theories have been considered false by practically all visual scientists."
Scrying, also known by various names such as "seeing" or "peeping", is the practice of looking into a suitable medium in the hope of detecting significant messages or visions. The objective might be personal guidance, prophecy, revelation, or inspiration, but down the ages, scrying in various forms also has been a means of divination or fortune-telling. It remains popular in occult circles, discussed in many media, both modern and centuries old.
Island is a 1962 utopian manifesto and novel by English writer Aldous Huxley, the author's final work before his death in 1963. Although it has a plot, the plot largely serves to further conceptual explorations rather than setting up and resolving conventional narrative tension.
Human echolocation is the ability of humans to detect objects in their environment by sensing echoes from those objects, by actively creating sounds: for example, by tapping their canes, lightly stomping their foot, snapping their fingers, or making clicking noises with their mouths. People trained to orient by echolocation can interpret the sound waves reflected by nearby objects, accurately identifying their location and size.
Heaven and Hell is a philosophical essay by Aldous Huxley published in 1956. Huxley derived the title from William Blake's book The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. The essay discusses the relationship between bright, colorful objects, geometric designs, psychoactives, art, and profound experience. Heaven and Hell metaphorically refer to what Huxley conceives to be two contrary mystical experiences that potentially await when one opens the "doors of perception"—not only in a mystical experience, but in prosaic life.
Crome Yellow is the first novel by British author Aldous Huxley, published by Chatto & Windus in 1921, followed by a U.S. edition by George H. Doran Company in 1922. Though a social satire of its time, it is still appreciated and has been adapted to different media.
Stereopsis is the component of depth perception retrieved through binocular vision. Stereopsis is not the only contributor to depth perception, but it is a major one. Binocular vision happens because each eye receives a different image because they are in slightly different positions on one's head. These positional differences are referred to as "horizontal disparities" or, more generally, "binocular disparities". Disparities are processed in the visual cortex of the brain to yield depth perception. While binocular disparities are naturally present when viewing a real three-dimensional scene with two eyes, they can also be simulated by artificially presenting two different images separately to each eye using a method called stereoscopy. The perception of depth in such cases is also referred to as "stereoscopic depth".
Matthew Luckiesh DSc, DE, was a physicist and, as the Director of General Electric's Lighting Research Laboratory at its Nela Park National Lamps Works facility in East Cleveland, Ohio, he pursued research on light and vision. In his day, he was known as the "Father of the Science of Seeing."
Fixation disparity is a tendency of the eyes to drift in the direction of the heterophoria. While the heterophoria refers to a fusion-free vergence state, the fixation disparity refers to a small misalignment of the visual axes when both eyes are open in an observer with normal fusion and binocular vision. The misalignment may be vertical, horizontal or both. The misalignment is much smaller than that of strabismus. While strabismus prevents binocular vision, fixation disparity keeps binocular vision, however it may reduce a patient's level of stereopsis. A patient may or may not have fixation disparity and a patient may have a different fixation disparity at distance than near. Observers with a fixation disparity are more likely to report eye strain in demanding visual tasks; therefore, tests of fixation disparity belong to the diagnostic tools used by eye care professionals: remediation includes vision therapy, prism eye glasses, or visual ergonomics at the workplace.
The See Clearly Method was an eye-exercise program that was marketed as an alternative to the use of glasses, contact lenses, and eye surgery to improve vision. Sales were halted by legal action in 2006. The method is not supported by basic science, and no research studies were conducted prior to marketing. The program is based in part on the Bates method, an alternative therapy devised in the early 20th century, which lacks clinical evidence to support the claim that it can improve eyesight.
Margaret Darst Corbett was an American who promoted the discredited Bates method in an attempt to improve eyesight. She became famous after her prosecution and acquittal on a charge of practicing medicine without a license. Ophthalmologists dismissed Corbett's ideas as quackery.
Flash suppression is a phenomenon of visual perception in which an image presented to one eye is suppressed by a flash of another image presented to the other eye.
Mind at Large is a concept proposed by Aldous Huxley to help interpret psychedelic experience. He maintained that the human mind filters reality under normal circumstances and that psychedelic drugs remove the filter, exposing the user to a Mind at Large.
The neural correlates of consciousness (NCC) refer to the relationships between mental states and neural states and constitute the minimal set of neuronal events and mechanisms sufficient for a specific conscious percept. Neuroscientists use empirical approaches to discover neural correlates of subjective phenomena; that is, neural changes which necessarily and regularly correlate with a specific experience. The set should be minimal because, under the materialist assumption that the brain is sufficient to give rise to any given conscious experience, the question is which of its components are necessary to produce it.
Arts-based environmental education (AEE) brings art education and environmental education together in one undertaking. The approach has two essential characteristics. The first is that it refers to a specific kind of environmental education that starts off from an artistic approach. Different from other types of outdoor or environmental education which offer room for aesthetic experiences, AEE turns the tables in a fundamental way. Art is not an added quality, the icing on the cake; it is rather the point of departure in the effort to find ways in which people can connect to their environment. A second fundamental characteristic is that AEE is one of the first contemporary approaches of bringing together artistic practice and environmental education in which practitioners also made an attempt to formulate an epistemology.
The following bibliography of Aldous Huxley provides a chronological list of the published works of English writer Aldous Huxley (1894–1963). It includes his fiction and non-fiction, both published during his lifetime and posthumously.
