Mystery and Excellence on The Human Body - Healing By Vizualisation And Concentration

Frontal section of the pelvis showing both hip-joints

Healing
by
visualization and concentration

The trouble in my hips had been evident for a long while. It was  during a complete medical check-up just before I left the Royal  Navy in 1965 that the orthopaedic specialist first told me there  were signs of arthritis developing in my right hip, and to a somewhat  lesser extent in the left one. I asked him if there was anything I could  do about it and he said that certain exercises could help to delay the  deterioration of the condition, and that shortwave therapy could alleviate the symptoms for a time....

Then quite suddenly I was in trouble. Not only did the pain increase  and become continuous, but the muscles would go into spasm and, if I  wasn't quick, I would stagger ungracefully to the ground. I had to limit  my walking very severely and sleeping at night became exceedingly  difficult....

At the beginning of 1975, nineteen years after I had first learnt of  the trouble, there was once again a serious deterioration; walking more  than a hundred yards or so became very difficult indeed and I decided  to do something about it, something I should have done a long time ago  but hadn't, I suppose, because I didn't want to accept what was now  obvious.

There was a very good local orthopaedic surgeon whom we knew  and had visited as a family, and I decided to get his professional advice  on the X-rays and to have an examination to see how far the matter  had gone. The visit was very helpful. We studied the X-rays in detail  and I was able to differentiate clearly between the arthritic tissue and  the bone to which it was attached. He checked the limitation of movement and then told me more or less what I already knew but adding  that it might be advisable for me to spend a day in hospital so that he  could break down the lesions under an anaesthetic, which would  restore some of the movement I had lost. After that, he could fit a steel  ball, which was now a common operation and one which he was doing  frequently. But this wouldn't be necessary for another two years or so.

I was grateful for his clear explanation of what was going on in the  joint but I was strengthened in my conviction that if I was to stop the  rot, I would have to do something about it myself.

That must have been about April 75, and I immediately started to  learn the physiology of the hip joint. I knew enough about the pathology of the joint in its present state to realize what needed to be put right,  but I had yet to learn how the joint maintained itself when in normal  health. Gray's Anatomy gave me all that I needed, but it took me a long  time before I was able to picture the inside of the joint with the cartilage, the synovial membrane, and the ligaments in their correct positions, as well as the shape and structure of the head of the femur which  formed the ball of the joint, and the acetabulum which formed the  socket. I was not satisfied until I could visualize clearly the two parts  of the joint separately and then fitted one into the other. By this time, I  was able to wander mentally round inside the joint directing my attention to the various parts.

This took me three months and I was then ready to think about the  sort of programme I would need, first of all to stop further deterioration, and then to rebuild the joint into a more healthy condition....

Background Thinking

We know that the autonomic processes of the body are normally con trolled subconsciously and we do not believe that we have the conscious ability to affect them. But we also know that, without intending  to, we can produce very serious effects on the body's well-being by  repressions, sometimes going way back into childhood years, and other  mental influences which, working, so to speak, behind the scenes and  through the subconscious mind, eventually come out into the open as  serious psychological or physical defects.

And on the positive side there is evidence to show that a mind positively intent on overcoming some physical disability can bring about  recoveries that are little short of miraculous. There have been young  girls who, although stricken with polio, have been determined to  become ballet dancers, and have done just that. There have been those  with cancer who have decided that they are not going to succumb, and  the cancer has regressed. There are many such cases of the power of  the will overcoming physical disability. The mind is as capable of remedying defects as it is of bringing them about.

The hip-joint as depicted in the Gray anatomy

We must accept, therefore, that contact can be made with the autonomic mind to bring about remark able changes both good and bad, but how do we set about making this contact, with the express purpose of assisting the body to overcome injury and disease? It is now accepted by many people that a rigorous practice of certain yoga exercises can lead to remarkable control of many of the autonomic processes of the body; demonstrations before competent doctors have been recorded, of slowing the heart and breathing — allowing a man to be buried underground for a long period — control of bleeding, and the much witnessed spectacle of Hindus walking and dancing on red hot embers. There are, too, many other seemingly impossible physical accomplishments common among the Buddhists of Tibet, all demonstrating the possibility of  making conscious contact with the mind controlling these normally  unreachable activities of the body's functioning....  

The fundamental understanding, on which the practice of body  engineering has been based, comes from the personal discovery that  mind is one, and that the essence of all that we call matter is mind. By  personal discovery I mean just that — not something which one  acquires intellectually from someone else and believes because it  seems to be reasonable and logical, but rather, an interpretation of reality which comes through instinct and intuition, and doesn't need  proof....

To my simple statement the 'mind is one', you may very well reply,  'That is all very well, but what is mind?' And I simply have to dodge  that one. A universal basic essence cannot be described in words, and it

certainly would not be safe to try to do so. Any definition or explanation could be picked to pieces, because the words could only be allegorical, poetic analogy, or pregnant with inferred significance. The  only way to reply to a question like this is to say, 'To find out, you  must experience it', and to do this usually requires a long period of  serious meditation practice, leading to the elimination of thought and  its substitution by insight.

I know that this is not a very good answer, but it is the only possible  safe one. To define is always to limit. But pure mind has no limits, and  there is no other experience with which we can compare it.

The apparent separation into individual minds is, in reality, only the  separation of the vehicles through which mind is manifested, and not a  separation of mind itself. It is therefore evident to me that contact  already exists between what we think of as separate minds, as well as  between what we call conscious and autonomic mind, but we have lost  or have not yet discovered the means of realizing this contact. We are  like individual electric light bulbs on the same circuit but each apparently having no contact with the others.

It is not only the human race that is privileged to have mind as its  essence; it is the whole of creation, animate and inanimate. Such a situation puts the idea of communication between us and the rest of creation in a very exciting light. What we have to discover is the method  of bringing it about, how to circumvent the material sheath that appears  to shut in mind from mind. My own task was a restricted version of  this problem — how to make contact with the autonomic mind.

I believed that this could be done to a limited extent by verbally  giving orders and repeating them regularly for a period of ten minutes  or so. This method is employed by many who wish to wake up at a certain time in the morning and who do not like the strident call of an  alarm clock. And I know many people who solve problems in this way,  by thoroughly going over the facts before going to sleep at night and  giving a mental instruction for the answer to be worked out; at some  time during the next day, the answer flashes into their mind. I think this  also happens unconsciously to a person who is worrying about some thing and mentally reviews the problem before going to sleep, without  any intention of making use of the subconscious ability to work out an  answer like a computer during the night.

It is not, therefore, the control of mind over matter that I am Seeking

to bring about. That is already being handled as a matter of routine by  the autonomic mind in its control of the functions of the body. It is the  simpler, but equally elusive conscious contact with the autonomic mind  that I am looking for.

Although I realized that words of command could do the job, I felt  it would be much more effective to visualize clearly what I wanted to  happen. I found with practice, and thanks, perhaps, to the experience I  had had with various methods of meditation, that the visualization  gradually became easier and it felt much more positive than just using  words. However the words helped to direct the visualization and were  rather carefully selected. For instance, during the hip programme, I  wanted to get rid of certain restricting tissue around the joint and I  called the cells forming this tissue 'abnormal'. This word carried the  meaning that what was abnormal was an intruder, it was not included  in the original plan for the organ, should not have been there and was  harmful to the normal functioning of the joint. In addition, I found that,  as with meditation, it assisted concentration and kept the whole process  going in a sort of rhythm particularly if the breathing was tied in with  the word and the visualization.

Accurate visualization coupled with concentration really puts the  mind into the organ or part of the body that is to be treated, so that one  can 'see' it as one can a well known face or room. My awareness was  wholly centred on the hip joint and my mind could wander round the  various parts, with as little difficulty as wandering around my house. It  was in this way that I intended to make contact with the autonomic  mind. On thinking it over, it seemed to me that we have to visualize  whenever we take any action though we are not usually conscious of  doing so. For instance, in opening a door, we visualize stretching out  the hand and turning the handle. And only then do we act. It may be  that the door doesn't open in this way, but has a latch to be lifted or  perhaps a toggle to be pulled. However it has to be done, we have to  see the necessary action mentally before carrying it out. I was therefore  only carrying out the same procedure and I hoped that the autonomic  mind would take the hint.

I felt that visualizing the autonomic mind's working environment  would also employ another principle we use in our every day life. Two  people learning the same language together, or playing a game, or  undertaking any activity together, tend to be drawn mentally closer to

one another.... I think it would be generally true to say that two people  each getting closer to and more intimate with the same thing are  inevitably brought mentally closer to each other. I was therefore trying  to get intimate with the autonomic mind by being consciously attentive  to what it was concerned with.

Although I am giving a separate name to the part of the mind that  controls the involuntary processes of the body, namely the autonomic  mind, it is not separate in any way from the conscious mind. It is simply mind. that is not manifesting in consciousness; once again only an  apparent separation, an illusion of separateness brought about by the  different ways in which mind manifests. There is a part of the autonomic mind that controls the functioning of every cell, part, and organ  of the, body, though there are, of course, no divisions between these  parts. During my treatment, my attention is directed to the autonomic  mind concerned with the control and well-being of the hips, and, for  convenience, I refer to these mentally as 'hip mind'. The reader will  learn that I give orders for certain action to be taken by the red or white  corpuscles, or more generally, by the scavenging cells: it would be  impossible for my conscious mind to make contact with every corpuscle as it entered the organ being repaired, so the conscious mind must  influence the programming which is controlled by the autonomic mind.

The new programming, or, in most cases, the programme which is  being reinforced, is strongly visualized as already happening; the  action of the desired programme is repeated regularly, the repetitions  being coordinated with the breathing. This is not as difficult as it  sounds. In fact, it comes quite naturally....

With this short description of the background thinking with which I  had to work, I will take the reader straight into the problems I was facing with the arthritis in the hips. I shall have to go into the physiological and pathological situation in some detail, using some medical  terms, but only where absolutely necessary to give the build-up of the  visualization I wanted. The information I needed I obtained from  Gray's Anatomy (35th edition) and some other text books all in the  local reference library, and I cleared up some doubtful points with the  help of medical friends who were sympathetic to what I was trying to  do.

I must make it clear that I wanted the information for two specific  reasons; first to be able to devise a programme which could remedy the

defect; and equally important, to be able to visualize with a reasonable  degree of accuracy the situation as it was and as it should be. I can't  emphasize this too strongly because the whole success of the treatment  depends on being able to visualize fixedly with a concentrated mind  the programme one is desiring to induce the autonomic mind to take  up. It is really a very simple project but the picture and programme  must be right. The mistakes I made were all concerned with a faulty  performance which did not take into account the actual physiological  situation. Which is not easy to find out because many details of the  body's functioning are not yet fully known or officially accepted. The  reader will see that I had particular difficulty in discovering which  veins had valves and which had not: I found out by results, but it would  have been better if I had known the information beforehand. For any  treatment to be successful, a highly detailed diagnosis by a competent  doctor, and preferably a specialist, is essential. Otherwise, at best, the  treatment will be frustrating and fruitless; at worst, dangerous....

The Hips: Treatment

I realized from the start that treating the hips was going to be a long  business: the body would only do its healing in its own time and, for  the drastic reconstruction that was required this would be a slow  process. The gradual deterioration over twenty years had taken the joint  a long way towards needing a 'tin hip' operation. The cartilaginous linings of the joint were obviously in a mess, and the restriction of movement was becoming severe.

I had learnt from my reading and from the orthopaedic surgeon the  main places where disruption of the normal working of the hip takes  place. The most obvious of these and where pain usually starts is in the  cartilaginous linings. Here, either through wear and tear or other reasons, the cartilaginous cells deteriorate and become calcified or per haps disappear altogether, exposing the bone. The calcified tissue, in  effect, introduces bone-like spurs known as osteophytes, or irregularities in the smooth surface of the lining which give rise to the sharp  prickly pain that characterizes this kind of arthritis and makes movement so painful. There is also the possibility of the synovial membrane,  the sheath that encloses the joint and secretes the lubricating synovial  fluid, becoming hypertrophied, resulting in folds appearing, in which,  once again, calcified tissue can develop.

A third and later development is the restriction of movement in the  limb brought about by fibrous growths from the rim of the acetabulum  (the socket) forming lesions with the other part of the joint. These  lesions are characterized by a dull sort of pain which is felt on extending the joint to the limit in most directions, and eventually in all. The  pain is not so severe as that caused by the calcified tissue, partly  because it is not sharp and sudden but heavy and gradual, but mainly  because it depends on how much one tries to extend the limb against  this restriction.

As far as my case was concerned, I knew that I had symptoms indicating the first and last of these defects. I could feel them, and had been  shown the causes in the X-ray. But I had no idea whether I also had  trouble with the synovial membrane — I doubt whether the X-ray  would have shown this up. I had to be content with a plan to deal with  what I knew was wrong and, if I was successful, see what was left.

There were, therefore, two main problems to tackle. The first was to  get rid of the calcified tissue that had formed in the cartilage and possibly elsewhere in the joint. This cartilage exists over the contact points  between the head of the femur, that is, the top of the bone that forms  the ball of the hip joint, and the acetabulum, the socket in the hip. It  happens also that bits of the calcified cartilaginous tissue become  detached and then lodge anywhere in the joint. These spots of bone like tissue would have to be dealt with by the white blood corpuscles  that would be circulating with the blood within the joint. In particular,  the phagocytes, which have the remarkable ability of absorbing and  disposing of solid waste matter and can deal with such things as  decayed or dead bone. The leucocytes also have an equally versatile  scavenging function. To ensure that there were enough of these white  blood cells available to do the rather arduous job that I required, I considered it would be necessary, as a preliminary to the treatment proper,  to increase the supply of blood to the hips. This, I thought, would be  necessary for another purpose, and that was to enable the parts of the  lining from where the calcified tissue was being removed, to receive  the necessary nutrient to enable the cell population to be built up and  the lining reconstituted. For this, more red blood corpuscles would be  required as they carry the oxygen and other nutrient substances to the  various parts of the body.

As well as the treatment of the damaged parts of the joint, I thought

it would be necessary to increase the secretion of synovial fluid from  the synovial membrane. This membrane envelops the joint and completely covers the junction between the head of the femur and the rim  of the acetabulum. It performs also the useful function of providing the  lubrication that is necessary for the smooth working of the joint. I had  noticed at times that the joint felt sticky, as though the lubrication was  insufficient, and this would obviously exacerbate the deteriorating condition of the joint. The synovial fluid also provides nutrient for the cartilaginous linings.

So these were the first priority tasks. To encourage the scavenging  of all abnormal calcified tissue, and when this had been done, and only  then, to replace it with new cartilaginous tissue in order to rebuild the  lining. This would be done by programming an increase of the red  blood cells to provide the additional nutrient for the cartilaginous cells  and those forming the synovial membrane.

I was able to pinpoint many of the spots in the joint where calcified  tissue had formed, and I spent a little time locating these as accurately  as possible while I was walking, or sometimes making special movements to make them register. This became a feature during the treatment and, as the painful spots became fewer, I was able to concentrate  the scavenging work on those that remained. There was one particularly stubborn spot which I judged to be just under the rim of the acetabulum at its upper and slightly rearward part. It took me a long time to  have any effect on this annoying pain spot. I felt, at the time, that this  was probably a piece of the cartilaginous tissue that had become  detached and, possibly during movement in sleep, had found its way  between the rim of the acetabulum and the lowest part of the head of  the femur, where it would cause the maximum amount of pain; and this  was, in fact, just what it was doing.

The next task was to deal with the fibrous growths that were causing the lesions and restricting the movements of the joint, and I realized that this was going to be quite a problem. If left to themselves,  these growths will gradually reduce walking to a sort of shuffle and  eventually the joint will become more or less locked. One could usually avoid pain by keeping the movement of the legs within the restriction imposed by these 'villi'. By exercising my legs while standing on  my head every day, I had probably retained more movement than I otherwise would have done, but the restriction was gradually getting

noticeably worse. It was these lesions, I presumed the orthopaedic surgeon referred to when he suggested that he would manipulate the joint  under an anaesthetic.

I decided that my priorities would be as follows:

1. To increase the blood supply to the hips for the purposes given above.

2. To programme the white blood cells to remove the calcified tissue  from the lining of the acetabulum and of the head of the femur, and  wherever else it might have formed in the joint.

3. As a programme to be instituted later, I would tackle the lesions  restricting the movement of the joint. For this I would have to experiment as I didn't know how to set about it.

In deciding to embark on this new departure in self-treatment, I was  much encouraged by some remarks I read in a book by Lawrence E.  Lamb, MD, entitled Get Ready for Immortality. Dr. Lamb is the Chief  of Medical Sciences with the USAF School of Aerospace Medicine. In  talking about arthritis, he says 'It is common to say that these joints  become worn out. The theory of wear and tear, however, is in conflict  with the general concept that protoplasm is able to replace itself.' And  later he says 'If this is the case, learning to control the mechanism for  turning on the instructions for regeneration and replacement should  readily solve the problem of osteoarthritis and other degenerative problems of this nature in the body, making the wear and tear concept obsolete.'

'The same principle applies to loss of elastic tissue in the arteries. If  this substance can be replaced with new elastic tissue/the arteries can  literally be rejuvenated by simply recycling the cells on the master programme used in earlier years.'

I started out with a programme at the beginning of July 1975. At  that time I hadn't yet run into the prostate problem so that the whole  procedure took from twenty minutes to half an hour. I followed a regular routine and started as near as possible to 6 pm every day.

The treatment itself started with ten minutes of increasing the supply  of blood to the hips, but after a couple of months, this period was  reduced to five minutes. I mentally drew the blood into the hips through  the various arteries supplying them, and tried to feel a surge of blood  coming in. Later I realized that it is not necessary to 'see' the increased  blood flowing in particular arteries, but just to hold the picture of

increased blood flowing freely through an artery. This was done on  breathing in, at the same time saying mentally 'increase blood supply',  or 'draw in blood'. Sometimes I felt that one was more effective than  the other. On breathing out, the additional blood was sensed as bathing  the whole joint. The breathing was kept slow and even and this programme was maintained for ten minutes; nothing else was allowed to  come into my mind except this routine.

Programme 1

The next part was to programme the white blood cells to seek out,  identify, absorb and remove all abnormal calcified tissue. The word  'abnormal' was used in order that the idea should be communicated to  the autonomic mind that this tissue was something that should not have  been allowed to form. This whole instruction was held in the mind as I  wandered mentally round the joint, first the lining of the head of the  femur, then the much more extensive lining of the acetabulum. Where I  was able to pinpoint a spot of calcified tissue by the pain, I gave a special instruction to the phagocytes to get busy on absorbing and removing it. This way of making use of the pain to direct the scavenging cells  accurately to a spot where calcified tissue has to be removed is a very  important backer-up of the mind picture direction, and I used it when ever possible. Although I am sure that as much accuracy as possible is  helpful in the visualizing process, and although I had not seen a picture  of the lining with spots of calcified tissue showing, I had some idea of  what these small bone-like excrescences might look like. That was  quite good enough.

The way in which the phagocytes remove an unwanted bit of waste  matter is easy to picture. They put out what are known as pseudopods  which envelop the object and draw it into the centre of the cell. The  cell then moves off along the lymphatic system to a node where the  object is dealt with and removed. The leucocytes have the ability to  ingest unwanted tissue etc., but the heavy dismantling jobs are left to

the phagocytes and the macrophages.

This programme was followed by one to encourage the red blood  cells to offer nutrient to the cells of the cartilaginous linings. In my  view, this exchange, which takes place between the blood and tissue  cells, and which may be triggered off chemically or even electrically,  must primarily be a matter for the autonomic mind, and therefore,  always supposing that I am right in thinking that contact between the  conscious and autonomic mind is possible, the way in which the task is  performed can be influenced by the conscious mind.

I think this view could have very important developments which I  began to realize a couple of months later. If it is possible to increase the  nutrient supplied to a cell, then it should be possible, by exactly the  same means, to prevent nutrient being supplied to any cell that it was  desired to eliminate.

What I was trying to do in this programme for the red blood cells  was to put more emphasis on the preset programme already being con trolled by the autonomic mind. The same action was taken with the  cells of the synovial membrane throughout the joint, as additional  nutrient was required to increase the secretion of the synovial fluid.  During this part of the programme, the increase was both 'seen' and  'felt' mentally, coursing between the opposing linings of the head of  the femur and the acetabulum.

These programmes for the removal of the calcified tissue and the  'feeding' of the cartilaginous and synovial cells were as follows:

Programme 2

During the out breath, the mind had to visit all parts of the joint in  turn where calcified tissue was known to have formed, or could be felt.  It took two or three breaths, of course, to cover the whole joint.

Programme 3

These are rather more difficult mind pictures, but I found it possible  to settle on something that fitted in with the idea of 'feeding'. The  longer mental instruction during breathing out necessarily requires the  exhalation to be rather slower. The two should be timed so that when  exhalation is finished, the mental command ends. If this is found not to  be possible, then the wording should be changed to make it so.

The three programmes usually occupied me some thirty minutes,  though at the beginning of the treatment, time wasn't really the criterion but rather the degree of concentration brought to each programme. I  found that this varied from day to day and from programme to programme. Where the visualization was easier, concentration was better.  Sometimes I found that I had short catnaps, losing perhaps a minute or  so. These were just ignored, or if the time was more than this, I added  the equivalent of the loss on to the end of the programme. I found it  necessary quite often to change both the wording and the mind picture  of the programme because these didn't result in satisfactory concentration. They both had to be as simple as possible, too many words or too  much action in the picture seemed to impair concentration. When I had  had more experience of the programmes, I decided to stick to a regular  ten minute schedule whatever the concentration had been like.

At this time, I didn't try to do anything about the villi that were  restricting movements of the joint, partly because I hadn't yet decided  how to tackle them, but mainly because I felt that I had enough on my  plate dealing with the first priorities. I was glad to be able to start the  programme off in July because we were going away for a fortnight's  holiday to Spain in September when fitting in the programme would, I  knew, be difficult. But having got used to it at home, I did in fact find  it possible to fit in some time lying on my bed after swimming and  even while lying in the sun. Concentration was, of course, much more

difficult, but it was better than nothing and got me ready for a real big push when I returned home.

It was in October that I started the prostate programme and, as I  consider an hour in the chair was sufficient, I had to trim the hip programme to fit in. I had decided to start working on the villi and thought  I might try a simple programme of rejection. I knew that the body was  able normally to reject foreign bodies, and that this was a major problem in human transplants. I knew, too, that the rejection mechanism  could be inhibited by drugs, but was not at all clear how this worked. A  simple clear instruction to the autonomic mind to reject this fibrous tissue was as far as I could go and I hoped that this very competent part  of my mind would know what to do.

So the new hip programme worked out as follows:

Three deep breaths followed by a very short period of easy gentle breathing.

Five minutes increasing the blood supply to the joints.

Ten minutes calling in the white blood corpuscles.

Ten minutes calling in the red blood corpuscles.

I started in with a five minute programme on the villi to see whether  it was a possible one.

Programme 4

This was admittedly far from easy, but anyone with a better picture making mind than mine would not, I think, find it too difficult.

On my return from holiday, this programme continued smoothly  and was fitted in after the one required for the prostate, which I regard ed as more urgent. I found little change necessary for some time, but I  did have a new idea about getting rid of the villi. It occurred to me that  the reaction of the autonomic mind might be 'these fibrous cells are  home grown. They have been treated in the same way as all other tissues. They are one of us; they are not foreign bodies; this chap (the  conscious mind) is making a mistake.' I don't mean, of course, that the

reaction came to me in those words, but that I felt they might well  express the attitude of the autonomic mind to the instructions I was  giving, so that there would be no result. And, as a matter of fact, after a  couple of months of this programme, there was no result. Until I was  able to study the mechanism of rejection fully, I would have to think of  some plausible way of getting round this difficulty. Obviously, simply  using the idea of rejection wasn't going to get me anywhere. I would  have to be more specific.

I argued that, for nutrient to be passed from red blood cells to the  tissues, two conditions would have to be satisfied. The blood cells must  offer or make available the nutrient, and the tissue must be conditioned  to receive it. It doesn't matter what kind of affinity exists between the  two when the exchange takes place, whether it is purely chemical, partly chemical and partly electrical, or whether it is made up of some  physical property, both parties must be 'willing'. I would therefore try  to bypass the question of rejection by simply programming instructions  to the red blood cells not to offer nutrient to these abnormal fibrous tissues. This would be done by mentally using words such as 'withhold',  or 'deny', and holding the strong mind picture of nothing passing  between the red blood cells and the tissue. These instructions would, of  course, have to be taken up by the autonomic mind and incorporated  into its programme of maintenance and repair. This was the best I could  do until I had further information on the normal functioning of the  rejection system. I still felt that it should be possible to initiate a programme which could make use of this mechanism to remove any  unwanted cells from the body if one could convince the autonomic  mind that they were intruders and harmful. I decided, however, not to  do anything about such a programme yet.

By May 1976 the treatment was definitely proving successful. All  the prickly pain of the calcification had gone and it was no longer difficult to sleep in any position. The restrictions caused by the villi seemed  to be better but here I realized that I would have to work on both the  muscles and the ligaments before the full movement could be restored.  The ligaments had most certainly shrunk because of the restriction  imposed by the arthritis, and the muscles, too, had lost their full activity. The best way of restoring normal conditions, I thought, would be by  swimming. Unfortunately, when I went to the magnificent indoor pool  at Woking, I found that the temperature was kept at 87 ! I couldn't

believe it when the attendant told me this, but she tested it for me and  she was correct. Later in the year, the open air pool would be available,  but swimming was always difficult there because of the large crowds..

This programme is given below.

Programme 5

It was on June 10th on a visit to London that I first noticed trouble  brewing. I had quite considerable pain in the right hip which seemed to  me fairly definitely to be coming from the rim of the acetabulum. It  was a new feature and a different sort of pain to any I had felt before. I  wondered whether it could be caused by inflammation resulting from  (he accumulation of cell debris. This was a problem that I had had with  the prostate, and in that programme, it continued right up to the end. I  decided to introduce a ten minute programme of calling in the white  blood cells to take away the cell debris resulting from the starved  fibrous tissue cells. After a week of this, I returned to the original programme of withholding nutrient from the fibrous cells. The clearing up  programme was as follows:

Programme 6

The full programme at this time was therefore as follows:

5 minutes increasing blood supply to the hips.

5 minutes scavenging calcified tissue in the joint.

5 minutes scavenging starved cells of the villi.

5 minutes denying nutrient to the calcified tissue of the joint.

5 minutes denying nutrient to the fibrous cells of the villi.

But by July 5th I was in trouble again. The pain, which was mainly  in the right hip, was severe and I was quite certain that it was not coming from inside the joint. I could only conclude that the rim of the  acetabulum where most of the fibrous tissue cells could be, was once  again suffering from too much demolition and insufficient removal of  rubbish. I was obviously finding it very difficult to maintain a balance  between these two operations. But I was surprised that the programme  to restrain the red blood cells from supplying nutrient could have had  such a quick response, and further, that the white blood cells and  macrophages were unable to compete with whatever decomposition  was taking place. By July 9th, there had been little improvement and I  was considering abandoning the programme, but finally decided to  stick it out for a few more days. The pain was sufficient to prevent me  sleeping for two or three hours after going to bed, but I had been fairly  used to that and I felt it was important to see whether a scavenging programme could handle the difficulty. Four days later I stopped the programme of withholding nutrient and sat back to think again.

The next record I have is of an improvement on July 20th. The  inflammation had subsided and the pain had gone. However I didn't  think it wise to restart the starving out programme but decided to try  the same programme that had been successful with the calcified tissue,  that is, to instruct the white blood cells to remove these fibrous formations. The reason I hadn't done this before was because I felt that they  were too well established. They were exercising squatters' rights and I

might have difficulty in persuading the autonomic mind that they were,  in fact, trespassers. The programme I now adopted was:

Programme 7

With the word abnormal was associated the mental impression of  'intrusion'; the thought that these bodies were not an integral part of  the joint, not included in the original 'blueprint' to which the 'hip mind' had worked, and were harmful. If this programme could work, I  would avoid having to find the balance that had eluded me with the  other programme.

By July 30th, there had been no return of pain and the programme  seemed to be going smoothly. It was now reduced to ten minutes of  calling in the white blood cells to remove the fibrous tissue. On August  5th, I introduced a modification of this programme that I thought  would make it more effective. At each in-breath, I fixed the attention  on a small part of the rim of the acetabulum starting at the upper end,  and visualized the white blood cells getting to work on the villi in this  particular part. With the next in-breath, my attention moved clockwise  forty-five degrees round the rim of the acetabulum and called in the  white blood cells to this new area, and on the out-breath, put them to  work on ingesting and absorbing the fibrous cells. This procedure was  continued right round the acetabulum until my attention arrived at the  top again. I found it an interesting exercise and it gave me much more  scope for visualizing.

At the same time that I was concentrating on these fibrous lesions, I  started physically stretching the ligaments and muscles of the groin and  thigh. This I did by standing with my legs astride and stretching them  as far as I reasonably could get them. This exercise very quickly produced results and it was exciting to see so much long-lost movement  being recovered. I still continued with the exercises carried out standing on my head.

As far as I could tell, the completion of the treatment was now con

to continuing the removal of the villi, with possibly a final programme of calling in the red blood cells to complete the rebuilding of  the cartilaginous linings. These must now be maintained without risk of  further deterioration, and a good resolute programme for the suppliers  of nutrient should give the autonomic mind the right incentive to keep  the red blood cells up to scratch. On the physical side, I would continue  with the stretching exercise and I hoped to get a lot of swimming during a holiday in Elba in September.

That was in August, and much depended on the effect of a strenuous  swimming programme. I planned to do between one and two miles a  day whenever the weather allowed it. Unfortunately we arrived in Elba  to find bad weather, and this continued for three or four days. It was  too rough to swim and there was a lot of rain. This is most unusual for  Elba in September, but then 1976 had been a most unusual year all over  Europe. During the period of the holiday, I was faced with two new  problems, one of which I expected, but the other was a definite set back. The expected one was the result of building up the muscles by  swimming. I found that I got a hang-over from this that affected my  walking and gave me notice of muscles that I didn't know existed! But  by the time we left this had become less noticeable.

The other development was the reappearance of sharp pain right on  the rim of the acetabulum that was quite certainly caused by calcified  tissue, most probably a well established osteophyte. I had had previous  difficulty with this particular spot and, on more than one occasion, had  to give it special attention. But for some time now, I reckoned that I  had got rid of it and was puzzled to understand how it had suddenly  reappeared. I wondered whether it was possible that the removal of the  villi had uncovered a patch of calcified tissue which, because of the  restriction of movement caused by villi, had not previously been causing trouble. I had to be content with this explanation and reintroduce a  programme directed at the particular spot. It is always easier to direct  the white blood cells to a scene of action when one can feel exactly  where the scene is! I continued this programme after arriving back in  England and I realized that, as long as I was removing villi, there might  be other places where calcified tissue would enter the picture and these  would have to be tackled by sending white blood cells to deal with  them.

I was now on the home straight and really didn't expect any more

difficulty with the programmes. It remained to continue with the programme of removing the villi — because there was obviously a lot of  tissue to be removed — and to deal with the appearance of any calcified tissue. Some of this might, of course, have not been completely  removed by earlier programmes, and a cleaning-up programme would  have to be kept in hand to deal with these. In addition, I got going on  another cleaning-up programme to make sure that the cartilaginous linings had been fully rebuilt. This programme was:

Programme 8

There were no further difficulties and the only programme I kept  going was the feeding of the cartilaginous linings, in order to make  quite sure that they were strong and healthy. I didn't worry any more  about the villi and the restrictions. I reckoned that now the joint was  completely free of pain, the villi would gradually be removed by the  much greater action of the legs in walking and moving about generally.  I was content to leave this to the sort of adjustment that the body is  usually so good at.

By a lucky chance, a good friend of ours. Paddy from South Africa,  came to stay for a few days. The last time I had seen here, she had had  serious arthritis of the right hip,' and had recently had the operation to  replace the joint with a steel ball and socket. Paddy showed me the  principal exercise she had been given to do immediately after the operation until the whole complex of muscles, tendons, and ligaments had  returned to normal. It seemed to me that this was just the exercise I was  looking for and I started doing it daily right away.

A description of the exercise is as follows — it is done preferably  lying down. The muscles of the leg from the knee to the thigh and the  buttocks are contracted suddenly in a sort of jerk and then relaxed. The  contraction is most noticeable in the quadriceps, but all the muscles of  the thigh and round the joint take part. I did this one hundred times  each day and it made a tremendous difference to the whole leg. It was

like going for a walk lying down! I found soon after starting the exercise that I could stand on my right leg without the difficulty of balancing that I had had before. I still continue to do the exercise and shall do  so whenever the opportunity presents itself because I realize that, in a  man of my age (73), muscle tone takes longer to recover than in a  younger person.

Looking back at the situation of pain and restriction that I was in  before I started this treatment, I felt that the really rather small amount  of effort and all the various problems I had encountered had been well  worth it. As the patient, I can only say how relieved I am to have got  rid of such a crippling complain, and in such a simple manner.

With Hindsight

On the whole, the hip programme proved to be much more straight forward than that of the prostate, although there was a number of different operations that had to be carried out, and in the right order. It  would have been no good to rebuild the cartilaginous linings on top of  the established calcified tissue, so that the timing was important. But  apart from the one mistake I made (really not so much a mistake as a  programme I had to abandon because I realized that it was introducing  complications that were difficult to overcome) it had none of the backing and filling that occurred in the case of the prostate. It was necessarily a long programme, not like the prostate which should have been a  relatively short one but was lengthened by continually having to stop  and sometimes to step back.

I am sure I was right to start with a programme to increase the blood  supply to the hips. In fact, in all cases where healing and repair have to  be carried out, such a programme would be advisable — except when  the part concerned is inflamed. With the next step, the removal of the  calcified tissue, I was lucky. I am still not sure why the body considers  these obstructions as foreign and removes them, when this appears to  be against the general rule. However, I understand that the white blood  cells do remove previous kinds of waste from the body without anti bodies being produced to give them the incentive to do so. Where is the  dividing line between legitimate waste that can be removed and invading tissue like the villi, or the fatty tissue of the prostate that can't? I  suspect that it may be a simple matter of finding the right instruction,  which may have to be preceded by a programme of definite education.

I am sure that this is a point which further work in self-treatment will  make clear. And I hope it will be possible to develop a clear-cut technique for convincing the autonomic mind that certain tissue is foreign,  an intruder, and should be removed.

I hope, too, that it will be possible to develop standard programmes  that have been well tested, are simple, and can be taught to a patient  with the minimum of medical instruction. It would always be advisable, I think, to provide the patient with a picture of the situation he is  to deal with, but I believe this could be a good deal more diagrammatic  than I was insisting on for my own treatment. As I mentioned earlier, I  found that getting all the detail I could, assisted my poor visualizing  ability. Most people, I believe, would need only a diagrammatic sketch.

With hindsight, then, I would start with a programme to increase the  blood supply to the hips, starting with ten minutes and reducing this to  five after the first fortnight (Programme 1). I would also start straight  away with a programme to remove the calcified tissue from wherever it  might be in the joint (Programme 2), and here one must learn to pin point spots of pain so as to be able to direct the white blood cells accurately. This programme must necessarily continue for sometimes as this  is where the main deterioration of the joint has taken place. There may  also be corrugation of the bony surface itself that would have to be  dealt with first, by removing the bony spurs, and then by rebuilding the  bony structure to a smooth finish. I was fortunate in that the deterioration didn't appear to have reached this stage. The programme to  remove the calcified tissue should continue until all this kind of pain  has been eliminated, and the patient should not feel frustrated because  it takes a long time. It is a big job and must be done very thoroughly.

I am not now convinced that it is necessary to initiate a programme  to clear away the fibrous tissue forming lesions round the joint. As I  have already suggested, I believe that the increased freedom of movements of the hips will gradually eliminate these. But if they are severe,  it might be advisable to start the process of getting rid of them with the  programme. I finished up with, that is, one where I mentally went  round the rim of the acetabulum by regular steps, at each stage getting  the white blood cells to remove the fibrous tissue. The programme  would look like this:

Programme 9

After each breath in and out, move a further 45° round the rim. I did  two complete circuits which took about ten minutes.

Finally, I think there should be a finishing exercise, increasing to  ten minutes the programme for additional blood supply to the joint, in  order to encourage both red and white blood cells to give final touches  to the rebuilding of the joint. This is Programme 8.

From E.H. SHATTOCK, Mind Your Body, 

Turnstone Press Ltd, U.K. 1979

Anterior exposure of the right hip joint