William Horatio Bates

“ It is indeed so extraordinary that he has not been forcibly summoned to do this before now, by an impatient public, that it can only be accounted for by that ancient disability of the human mind to accept new things if strange—new lamps for old, real shillings sold for sixpence, or truth that is as simple as a lie. Yet, actually, of course, Truth is always simple, the only simple thing there is. ”

“ Better Eyesight, September 1919 A MONTHLY MAGAZINE DEVOTED TO THE PREVENTION AND CURE OF IMPERFECT SIGHT WITHOUT GLASSES
THE FLASHING CURE Do you read imperfectly? Can you observe then that when you look at the first word, or the first letter, of a sentence you do not see best where you are looking; that you see other words, or other letters, just as well as or better than the ones you are looking at? Do you observe also that the harder- you try to see the worse you see? ”

“ CHAPTER XIII - MEMORY AS AN AID TO VISION
WHEN the mind is able to remember perfectly any phenomenon of the senses, it is always perfectly relaxed. The sight is normal, if the eyes are open; and when they are closed and covered so as to exclude all the light, one sees a perfectly black field - that is nothing at all. If you can remember the ticking of a watch, or an odor or a taste perfectly, your mind is perfectly at rest, and you will see a perfect black when your eyes are closed and covered. ”

“ When one is perfect, all are perfect, and when one is imperfect, all are imperfect. If you imagine a letter perfectly, you will see the letter and other letters in its neighborhood will come out more distinctly, because it is impossible for you to relax and imagine you see a perfect letter and at the same time strain and actually see an imperfect one. If you imagine a perfect period on the bottom of a letter, you will see the letter perfectly, because you cannot take the mental picture of a perfect period and put it on an imperfect letter. ”

“ With one accord ophthalmologists tell us that the visual organ of man was never intended for the uses to which it is now put. Eons before there were any schools or printing presses, electric lights or moving pictures, its evolution was complete. In those days it served the needs of the human animal perfectly. Man was a hunter, a herdsman, a farmer, a fighter. He needed, we are told, mainly distant vision; and since the eye at rest is adjusted for distant vision, sight is supposed to have been ordinarily as passive as the perception of sound, requiring no muscular action whatever. ”

“ The improvement in my vision since I have been under treatment has been indisputable. After two weeks the intangible suffering caused by light left me, and it has never returned. I can go out in the brightest sunlight without glasses of any kind, and, although my eyes feel weak and I squint a little, there is no real distress. I can look out of a window onto a sunny street, and when I turn back again into the room there is no blindness. ”

“ When a person remembers or imagines an object of sight perfectly the sight is perfect; when he remembers it imperfectly the sight is imperfect. The idea that to do anything well requires effort, ruins the sight of many children and adults; for every thought of effort in the mind produces an error of refraction in the eye. The idea that large objects are easier to see than small ones results in the failure to see small objects. The fear that light will hurt the eyes actually produces sensitiveness to light. ”

“ They spoil both the memory and the sight. The memory cannot be forced any more than the vision can be forced. We remember without effort, just as we see without effort, and the harder we try to remember or see the less we are able to do so.
The sort of things we remember are the things that interest us, and the reason children have difficulty in learning their lessons is because they are bored by them. For the same reason, among others, their eyesight becomes impaired, boredom being a condition of mental strain in which it is impossible for the eye to function normally. ”

“ To see objects in the wrong location, as when the first letter of a word occupies the place of the last, requires an ingenuity of eccentric fixation and an education of the imagination which is unusual. ”

“ Since then I have repeatedly demonstrated that pain can be produced by such a simple thing as imagining a letter or object imperfectly, or trying to look at a point for an appreciable length of time. I never knew these experiments to fail when patients could be induced to make them; but they are so uncomfortable that few are willing to do so. A physician under treatment for imperfect sight boasted that he had never had a headache or pain in his eyes in his life. I told him that I could easily show him how to produce such a pain, and that it would do him good to have one. ”

“ Shifting and Swinging.—The eye with normal vision never regards a point for more than a fraction of a second, but shifts rapidly from one part of its field to another, thus producing a slight apparent movement, or swing, of all objects regarded. The eye with imperfect sight always tries to hold its points of fixation, just as it tries to see with maximum vision a larger area at once than nature intended it to see. ”

“ The act of seeing is passive. Things are seen, just as they are felt, or heard, or tasted, without effort or volition on the part of the subject. When sight is perfect the letters on the test card are waiting, perfectly black and perfectly distinct, to be recognized. They do not have to be sought; they are there. In imperfect sight they are sought and chased. The eye goes after them. An effort is made to see them.
The muscles of the body are supposed never to be at rest. The blood-vessels, with their muscular coats, are never at rest. Even in sleep thought does not cease. ”

“ His eyes were sympathetic as he smiled good-naturedly on them. When he spoke, his voice was like music to their ears and made them all feel comfortable and at peace with the world. "Children," he said, "the fairies have sent me to help you to be happy. I love each and every one of you and want to cure your eyes, so that you will be able to have perfect sight all the time. You will be able to see even in the dimmest light without glasses. All of you are working too hard. Make believe that you can see'fairies, that you can talk with them, dance with them, and be like them. ”

“ A teacher whose letter was quoted in an early issue of "Better Eyesight" testified that after gaining perfect eyesight she "knew better how to get at the minds of the pupils," was "more direct, more definite, less diffused, less vague," possessed, in fact, "central fixation of the mind." In another letter she said, "The better my eyesight becomes the greater is my ambition. On the days when my sight is best I have the greatest anxiety to do things." ”

“ As Diana Watts, in her remarkable book, The Renaissance of the Greek Ideal (Frederick A. Stokes Company, New York) , points out, the entire muscular system of modern civilized peoples works under such a condition of jar and strain that all muscular labor is accomplished with a maximum of effort. So far, indeed, have we drifted from our normal physical possibilities that the positions of the ancient statues seem impossible to us, and we have been forced to attribute many descriptions of the feats of heroes in the Iliad and Odyssey to poetic license. ”

“ A white cloud, the blue sky, some incident of my boyhood, or of a more recent period—anything so long as it is remembered perfectly— has this extraordinary effect. Often when I wake in the morning my eyeballs are hard, but by the aid of my memory I am always able to soften them. ”

“ Most human beings are, unfortunately, ugly enough without putting glasses upon them, and to disfigure any of the really beautiful faces that we have with such contrivances is surely as bad as putting an import tax upon art. As for putting glasses upon a child it is enough to make the angels weep.
Up to about a generation ago glasses were used only as an aid to defective sight, but they are now prescribed for large numbers of persons who can see as well or better without them. ”

“ Meantime the sight of our children is being destroyed daily in the schools, and our young men and women are entering life with a defect which, if uncorrected, must be a source of continual misery and expense to them, sometimes ending in blindness or economic ruin. Admitting for the sake of argument that I may be wrong in my conclusion that these things are unnecessary, it is time I was proven to be wrong. I should not be allowed to play on the forlorn hope of a suffering world. If I am right, as I know I am, a suffering world should no longer be deprived of the benefit of my discoveries. ”

“ I have repeatedly published that the only time the eve is at rest is when one has or imagines perfect sight. The nor-mal eye when it is at rest is all the time moving. Fatigue is relieved by a universal swing and the relief is instantaneous, demonstrating quite decidedly that fatigue is a mental symptom. ”

“ Imagination is closely allied to memory, although distinct from it. Imagination depends upon the memory, because a thing can be imagined only as well as it can be remembered. You cannot imagine a sunset unless you have seen one; and if you attempt to imagine a blue sun, which you have never seen, you will become myopic, as indicated by simultaneous retinoscopy. Neither imagination nor memory can be perfect unless the mind is perfectly relaxed. Therefore when the imagination and memory are perfect, the sight is perfect. Imagination, memory and sight are, in fact, coincident. ”

“ Nothing else is ever necessary. I seldom think of my eyes, but at times it is borne in upon me how much I do use and enjoy using them.
"My nerves are much better. I am more equable, have more poise, I am less shy. I never used to show that I was shy, or lacked confidence. I used to go ahead and what was required, if not without hesitation; but it was hard. Now I find it easy. Glasses, or poor sight rather, made me self-conscious. It certainly is a great defect, and one people are sensitive to without realizing it. I mean the poor sight and the necessity for wearing glasses. ”