Restoring Your Eyesight: A Taoist Approach

by Doug Marsh

A holistic guide to improving one’s vision both physically and spiritually

• Explains how blurred vision is a reflection of other imbalances in the body, mind, and spirit

• Offers natural methods for improvement of poor eyesight and stress-related difficulties, including dyslexia and ADHD

• Combines the core values of the Bates method of natural vision improvement and Taoism

Fewer than three percent of children in North America are born with visual defects, yet as they become adults nearly two thirds will become reliant on prescription lenses to see clearly. Virtually nonexistent in pre-industrialized cultures, this epidemic of blurred vision can be traced to mental, physical, and spiritual imbalances in modern society. The traditional “quick fixes” of eyeglasses and contact lenses only serve to cover the true cause of blurred vision while increasing eye-strain, and often progressively worsen eyesight as the eyes become trained to work within the confines of the corrective lenses. The advent of refractive surgery carries even more serious risks.

In Restoring Your Eyesight , Doug Marsh offers a natural alternative that shows readers how to improve their eyesight by taking conscious control of their vision health. He combines proven methods pioneered a century ago by eye doctor William Bates with the ancient Chinese wisdom of Taoism. Marsh describes how vision goes deeper than the eyes and optic nerves, extending well into the layers of the mind, emotions, and spirit. Eyesight difficulties are often connected to behavioral and stress-related syndromes, such as dyslexia, ADHD, stuttering, TMJ, and anxiety disorders. He draws upon the core values of the Bates method and Taoism--rhythm, softness, return, balance, and wholeness--to provide guidelines for a holistic healing of outer and inner vision.

Genres: Health, Nonfiction

240 pages, Paperback

First published December 8, 2006

Reviews

[Clay Mabbitt · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was a huge disappointment. First of all the references to Taoism are tacked on as an afterthought. There are a few quotes sprinkled throughout, but Marsh doesn't do much to draw parallels between Taoist philosophy and the Bates method and NVI he references throughout the book. The opportunity is definitely there to draw some parallels, but he just doesn't.

The "Restoring Your Eyesight" is also misleading in the title. This book is really a love letter to Bates and a rant against corrective lenses. Anyone who wants to read a book with this title is going to be willing to go along with him on both of those major ideas. (It's a little like reading a Rush Limbaugh book. If you're reading it, you probably already agree with him.)

So I was on the hook and primed to learn how to apply these techniques to restore my vision. Unfortunately the book gives only the most cursory description of the Bates method.

Without specific, applicable ideas on improving eyesight or really delving into the connections between Taoist thought and NVI, I can't see why this book needed to be written.

[Tara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interesting deep dive into a decades old method of improving vision through the lens of a Taoist, a scientist, and a practitioner of the method. At times the author appeared to stray off topic as he explained or told a story but each time he nicely tied the story or explanation into the chapter subject. He takes time to explain how the Bates Method worked in the author's experience as well as sharing stories of other success stories and some not such success in a way that taught this reader about the method and ways to practice it. Should a reader choose to they can easily become fluent in the topic from reading this book.

[Oleh Myroshnichenko · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book touches upon many subjects and “wonderfully” doesn’t delve deeply enough in any. I could do better reading on the topic actually written on the cover.

[Sandeep Panesar · Rating 2 out of 5]

Mostly philosophical gibberish rather than guidance.