The First Thing to Start with

The first and foremost thing you need to do is to read and understand the original Bates book, Perfect Sight without Glasses! This is so important, that I'd begin each and every my blog post with this urgent recommendation.

I can hear you thinking that you've already read it, and you may think you've understood it, but believe me you haven't. I'd bet you read another "Bates-like" book, and it was too much a while ago and most of things you have forgotten or confused with other wrong ideas.

The original book by Dr. Bates is a masterpiece. It's not a usual book that you give a cursory glance and move along. Although the text may look quite dry and old-fashioned at first glance, it is unbelievably carefully worded. There is no single word out of place, and each word is there for a reason. If some pieces seem unclear or unfeasible to you, or in reverse, you shrug shoulders why Dr. Bates writes about such obvious things, this is because you aren't yet experienced enough and haven't reached the state when you can understand it. Keep opening the book now and then, and you will be surprised to find the answers that you didn't previously realized were there. All missing pieces marvelously fit into place.

Like all things of genius, the Bates method is very simple, and the book by Dr. Bates sets forth the complete and pure essence of the method, without any redundancy. Some people call themselves "disciples" of Dr. Bates and write their own books, invent new techniques etc., but what they actually do is at best misinterpret and misplace the accents. I haven't seen not a single book that evolves and adds value to the Bates method, but I've seen a lot of unnecessary and wrong interpretations.

I like to quote one guy who is known to have his eyesight completely cured:

"My recovery has been too long and too slow. I think there are simple reasons for this. First and foremost, I initially had too little faith in the great Dr. Bates. My faith in some of his statements didn't come until I thoroughly had demonstrated the facts to myself, which in some cases took a very long time. Secondly, my mind was for a long time (and maybe still is) cluttered with ideas from Bates books written by people with defective sight and wrong ideas. One of these ideas, I think, is that the people that have the most success, are the people that go on and invent a lot of their own techniques. This I did for a long time. Actually I think I've made up enough of my own techniques to fill up close to a thousand pages in a book. My biggest dream some time ago, was to write all this down, and get my own book on the Bates method published. The techniques I mostly thought were revolutionary at the time I made them. Unfortunately, in the aftermath I've discovered that they're not. What I've discovered is that all of them were just complicated and inefficient ways of doing what the methods, as Bates explains them, do a lot better. That's why I wrote this: "If I hadn't taken all these precautions about posting (and if I weren't so lazy), I would have posted a lot more f.ex. on the use of the imagination, which I consider my strongest card. But I see that the way I use my imagination is changing so much, that I am too afraid to give people wrong ideas - which there is really WAY more than enough of on the other vision lists. I consider the only safe route to perfect vision is to follow the advice of those who have actually got there. Of course, I read other opinions too, but then I'm very careful to have the filters in my brain running." After this time, I've only realized this more and more, and I'm glad that I hesitated in writing up on some of my ideas, because I now know that they were not good ideas. So I doubt that you'll see a book published by me in a long, long time. Anyway, if I had to write down my own experience, I would have to use the same words as Dr. Bates did."

It is unbelievable how many months I have wasted doing totally wrong things while thinking I was practicing Bates. And when I finally got over my laziness and opened the original book, I was amazed to discover that I had never actually read THIS book! Don't repeat my mistake! Now I've made my habit to open the book now and then and it is always a tangible step forward.