The Vital Principle
“Life possesses an intelligence which pervades the universe and is expressed with accordance to the environment and the quality of the material in which it manifests itself.”
— D.D. Palmer
At the beginning of the last century, the founder of chiropractic, D.D. Palmer, outlined the foundation of chiropractic philosophy. To this day, chiropractic maintains a vitalistic perspective on health and healing. Vitalism recognizes that life is characterized by an organizing energy or principle. We can use a reductionist approach to break the whole into its parts, which can facilitate understanding. However, just as flipping through the pages of an anatomy book will not reveal the complexity of a moving, feeling, breathing animal, life and health is something more than the sum of parts. When D.D. writes of “an intelligence which pervades the universe” he is acknowledging the presence of an essential organizing energy. He deliberately describes this as intelligence, not simply energy or force. The historic and critical contribution he made to the development of healing arts was precisely this - the animating principle that pervades the universe is also what organizes function in people. Health and dis-ease represent a spectrum on which this energy is able to clearly express in a physical body. And the spine is the interface where this life principle can flow or be obstructed.
His insight includes the direct impact of the environment and the limitations of matter on the expression of life. Far from a materialist or reductionist perspective, his vision and his writing prefigure what we accept as common understanding today. Of course environmental factors influence health and disease. If there are toxic chemicals introduced into the water of the earth or the water of the body, if the air is unfit to breathe, if the quality of food is weakened by devastated soils, if we are constantly immersed in a narrative of fear, then of course this will affect the expression of health.
Finally, let us also acknowledge the idea that “life…manifests itself.” One of the most important distinctions that vitalistic chiropractic makes is that health flows from the inside-out. Adjustments are offered to help clear the spine of interference that reduces communication to and from the brain. The free and robust expression of information along the nervous system is the necessary condition for our ability to coordinate adaptive function (i.e. health) in ourselves. As D.D.’s son B.J. would later go on to say, “Nature needs no help, just no interference.”
Control + Shift : Connect
I am not a tech person. I prefer to read words on paper instead of a screen. The word “code” prompts me to think of an occult message or a set of ethical principles instead of computational language. As evolutionary as cyberspace is and is becoming, I still prefer the dirty, salty, temperate, and acoustic experience of the physical world. All of that being said, shortcuts when applied adeptly can be a useful way to cut through terrain. There is little doubt that we have entered the Dark Wood and are still finding our way through. Through is, after all, the only way out.
One of the meta-themes emerging from the Age of Crisis we see, feel, and hear around us is a paradigm shift from models of compliance to models of collaboration. The compliance model of governance from authority is a blunt instrument. Blunt instruments are seldom an effective or appropriate tool for challenges that require precision, coordination, and nuance. Consensus cannot be commanded, cohesion cannot be achieved by separating citizens into classes, communication cannot be clarified with censorship. A collaborative model encourages transparency and discourse, recognizes more than one solution, and can effectively coordinate across domains. Control is at the center of the compliance model, whereas connection is at the center of collaboration.
Whether or not it was Einstein who remarked “We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them,” there is a distinct ring of truth to the sentiment. This idea is an invitation to use a different set of keys. The shortcut Control + Shift allows us to change the keyboard in use when more than one is available. If we change the keys, perhaps we change the language. When we change the language, we open to a new perspective. The shift from control to connect might be the beam of light that breaks through the trees to lead us through.
Both Sides, Now
My father once told me that “there are two sides to every story, and then there’s the truth”. In his concise way, he was illuminating a critical piece of sense-making. The thing we refer to as “the truth” is something we can only see through a glass, darkly…it is something known only as well as we know ourselves.
In a similar way, our limited ability to make sense of truth is reflected in the parable of the blind men and the elephant. A band of blind men encounter an obstacle on the path. One man grabs a leg and declares it is a tree. Another is wrapped by the trunk and proclaims it is a snake. Yet another is flicked by its tail and decides it is a rope. Another feels an ear and calls it a fan. We are always at the mercy of the limitations of our perception. The only chance we have to address the complex issues that currently and will continue to face us is discourse. Discourse requires the willingness to communicate what we “see” and have that heard and reflected back to us by others who are also having their own experience even and especially when we do not agree on what we perceive reality to be.
These days our elephant is the incredible vehicle of the internet. Never before in the history of our species has so much information been so accessible for so many. This technology has facilitated our ability to find facts, proof, evidence, and opinions for any position. Yet the process of inquiry has always been about more than simply researching information that supports what you already believe. In its essence, science is a process of inquiry. Science derives from philosophy and the dialectic tradition of Socrates. Dialectic means investigating the truth of opinions; it is the art of debate. The root of this word is shared with dialogue, which means “to converse with”. My point is simply this - in order to do science, to investigate truth, to practice inquiry, there must be an open, transparent exchange of ideas. Without this criterion, without a conversation to propel meaning, refine arguments, and clarify positions, we are doomed to hug one leg of the elephant and convince ourselves it’s a tree.
There are always (and at least) two sides to every story, which reminds me of the courage and humility in Joni Mitchell’s Both Sides, Now:
Oh, but now old friends they're acting strange
And they shake their heads and they tell me that I've changed
Well something's lost, but something's gained
In living every dayI've looked at life from both sides now
From win and lose and still somehow
It's life's illusions I recall
I really don't know life at all
It is unlikely any of us will ever know all life has to offer. But we can engage with it in a way that is meaningful, draws us closer to the truth, and employs a best practice that was recorded long ago: charity does not behave unseemly, is not easily provoked, thinks no evil.