After a little time devoted to this drill, it will generally be found that individual words and whole phrases of the small-type reading matter will come up almost suddenly into distinct visibility. Do not allow yourself to be tempted by these first successes into trying to read continuously. Your aim at this time is not to reach the immediate and obvious goal of reading the page before you; it is to acquire the means whereby this and similar goals may be reached in the future, without strain or fatigue, and with enhanced efficiency. Do not, I repeat, attempt to read, but go on effortlessly regarding the page, and especially the white spaces between the lines, at varying distances from the eyes. From time to time, when a word in the small type has come up into visibility, pick up a book with print of ordinary dimensions and read a paragraph or two. It is quite likely that you will find you can read it more easily and closer to the eyes than you could before starting your work on the smaller print.
Astigmatism and Squint
Defects of vision, due to astigmatism, can be markedly diminished or even eliminated by anyone who will diligently practise the art of seeing and thereby learn how to get his mind and eyes to function naturally and normally. Procedures specially valuable for the astigmatic have already been described in the paragraphs devoted to the domino drills. It is therefore unnecessary to go any further into the matter here.
Sufferers from any of the more serious kinds of squint will find it extremely difficult to re-educate themselves into normality, and should seek the assistance of an experienced teacher, who will show them how to achieve dynamic relaxation, how to strengthen the sight of the weaker eye, and (final and most difficult step) how to re-acquire the mental faculty of fusing the two sets of sensa delivered by the two eyes into a single representation of an external object.
For those who suffer from slight muscle imbalance—and even an almost imperceptible divergence of one or both eyes may be the source of extreme discomfort and often of serious disabilities—the following simple “double-image drill” will prove of considerable benefit.
Relax the eyes and mind by palming; then hold a pencil at arm’s length, the tip pointed towards your nose. Bring the pencil towards you, blinking as you do so. When the pencil is close to the face, change its position from horizontal to vertical, holding it upright immediately in front of, and about three inches away from, the tip of the nose. Focus on the pencil; but, to avoid staring, shift the attention rapidly from top to bottom. Do this half a dozen times; then look away, just above the top of the pencil, to some distant object at the other end of the room. When the eyes are focused on this distant object, the pencil at the near point will seem to become two pencils. To eyes in perfect alignment, these two pencils will look as though they were about three inches apart. But where there is muscular imbalance, the distance separating the two images will appear to be a good deal less. (And if the squint is pronounced, the phenomenon will not be observed at all.)
Should the two images be seen too close together, shut the eyes, “let go” and imagine yourself still looking at the distant object, but with the two images of the near-by pencil somewhat further apart than they were when you actually saw them. When we distinctly imagine a normal image, our eyes will tend automatically to put themselves into the condition, in which they would have to be, in order to supply our mind with the materials for seeing such an image. Consequently, when you re-open the eyes and look once more in reality at the distant object, the two pencils at the near point will seem, if your visualization has been clear and distinct, perceptibly further apart than they were.
Close the eyes again and repeat the visualizing process, this time imagining the pencils to be yet a little further apart than before; then re-open and verify. Go on doing this, until you have pushed the two images to something like their normal distance one from the other. When this has been achieved, start to swing the head very gently from side to side, blinking and breathing easily as you do so—and, of course, still looking at the distant object. The two images of the pencil will appear to move back and forth in the opposite direction to the head, but will still keep their positions relative to one another.
Provided that this drill be prepared for by palming and accompanied by easy blinking and breathing, it may be repeated at frequent intervals throughout the day. The immediate result will be, not fatigue, but relaxation and de-tensioning; and the long-range consequences will be the gradual correction of old established habits of muscular imbalance.
Diseases of the Eyes
The art of seeing is not primarily a therapy. It does not, that is to say, aim directly at the cure of pathological conditions of the sensing apparatus. Its purpose is to promote normal and natural functioning of the organs of vision—the sensing eyes and the selecting, perceiving and seeing mind. When normal and natural functioning has been restored, it generally happens that there is a marked improvement in the organic condition of the tissues involved in that functioning.
In this particular case, the tissues involved are those of the eyes and the nerves and muscles connected with them. When people have learnt the art of seeing and conscientiously follow its simple rules, their eyes, if these are diseased, tend to get better. Even when the disease has its origin in some other part of the body, normal and natural visual functioning will often bring a certain amelioration in the local condition of the eyes. It cannot, of course, eliminate the condition altogether, for the simple reason that the sickness of the eyes is only a symptom of another sickness having its seat elsewhere. It can, however, help the eyes while the cause of their disorder is being treated, and may do much to prevent the vision from suffering permanent impairment.
In cases where the pathological condition of the eyes is not a symptom of a disease in some other part of the body, the re-establishment of normal and natural functioning may lead indirectly to a complete cure. This, as I have said before, is only to be expected; for habitual mal-functioning results in chronic nervous muscular tension and reduction in the volume of circulation. But any part of the body in which circulation is inadequate is particularly susceptible to disease; furthermore, once disease has set in, the innate capacity of the organ to regulate and heal itself will be abnormally reduced. Any procedure which restores normal functioning to the psycho-physical organs of vision will tend to reduce nervous muscular tension, increase circulation and bring back the vis medicatrix naturæ to its normal potency. Experience shows that this is what in effect generally occurs when persons suffering from such conditions as glaucoma, cataract, iritis, detachment of the retina, learn how to use their eyes and minds properly instead of improperly. The art of seeing, I repeat, is not primarily a therapy; but, at one remove and indirectly, it results in the relief or cure of many serious diseases of the eyes.
CHAPTER XVII, Some Difficult Seeing-Situations
In the present chapter I propose to discuss the ways in which the fundamental rules of the art of seeing may be applied to certain common situations, which persons with defective vision are apt to find particularly trying.
Reading
When we read, we are assailed, if our vision is at all defective, by particularly strong temptations to use our eyes and mind in the wrong way. Our interest in what we read intensifies our all too human proclivity towards end-gaining. We are so greedy to see the greatest possible amount of print in the shortest possible time, that we utterly neglect the normal and natural means whereby such an end may be achieved. Improper functioning becomes habitual with us, and our vision is further impaired.
The first thing we have to do is to realize that end-gaining is self-stultifying, and that, where reading is concerned, we ourselves are end-gainers. The next is to inhibit, whenever we read, the manifestations of our impatience and our intellectual gluttony.
In the early stages of visual re-education, clear and effortless reading cannot be accomplished without plenty of rest and relaxation. In other words, relaxation is one of the principal means whereby we can achieve our end, which is to see as much print as possible, in the shortest possible time, with the least possible fatigue and the highest degree of intellectual efficiency. Consequently, when we inhibit the manifestations of our impatience and greed, this should be done, first of all, for the sake of giving our eyes and minds the relaxation which they so urgently need, but of which they are perpetually depriving themselves through their habits of improper use.
To provide the eyes and mind with adequate relaxation, one should, while reading, adopt the following simple procedures.
First: Close the eyes for a second or two at the end of every sentence, or every other sentence. “Let go” and visualize the last word you have read and the punctuation mark by which it is followed. When you open your eyes again, look first at
