What Is Chiropractic Anyway?

An underpinning of ego is the concept of 'cause', which is implicitly dualistic in nature. It implies 'this' causes 'that'. Ego likes to strut and beat its chest. Ego likes to remain separate and distinct. Ego supposes that it is responsible for every action and its subsequent effect. Observing these effects, beliefs are constructed around them, symbolising that I am what I do. Doing more of it fuels the ego. Ego defines the action as good. Conversely, if it's not done to ego's satisfaction, a void of bad is created, when in fact there is no good nor bad, only a myriad of deluded self definitions setup by ego, blocking the road to any kind of revelation in thought and consciousness.

Attending New Zealand's premiere chiropractic event, Lyceum, with over 200 chiropractors, is not so much the opportunity to learn a barrage of completely new information to inundate my patients with, as it is more of a waypoint to gauge how my thinking has evolved over the last twelve months and note where it sits with the rest of the profession, for my ideas do not - and should not - sit idle between such events. Secretly, we all hope our thinking has evolved a little each year.

It cannot be overstated that we are living in the Information Age. We do not sell what we do, we sell who we are. It is the information shared which is of value and the intrinsic sense of trust and loyalty people place in one another. There is always someone else who can do exactly what you do, and they can probably do it better. A sad fact I came to learn at the tender age of thirteen when I entered high school and trials for the cricket team consisted no longer of twenty boys, but fifty. Odds are: there's bound to be a better bowler. Face it, people. So what you do is really not what is going to set you apart.

There is no technique, was the opening line to my first debate with the legendary Dr. Reggie Gold as a naive first year student. Okay, credit where credit is due: I stole that from my aikido teacher of the time, whom, I believe, stole it from his teacher. C'est la vie. But never had the amalgamation of what I do and what I intend to achieve made so much sense. There is no technique. Remove the ego-afflicted action of the event and one is only left with - what he called - The Way [of attaining the objective]. An esoterical means of saying: Do not serve the technique, achieve the objective. All too often though we're lost in the mechanics of what it is we're doing exactly, looking down at our hands, applying countless rules and boundaries, instead of lifting our chins to see where we're actually going.

This is how it works. And as the subtitle of these newsletters disclaims: This is a biased guide, alright? Chiropractic affects change at the subconscious level . Phew. There, I said it. People get better in spite of technique. Sometimes people get worse in spite of technique. There was a technical segment at Lyceum 2006 presented by a chiropractor that I marveled at. Not because I was enamoured with the sight of yet another technique, but for me it exemplified The Way, irrespective of who says what. For what is an adjustment anyway but an innate-to-innate communication. This is the Information Age, remember? Who you are, and the information you exchange on a physical, verbal, emotional and energetic level will create influence. It just is. Don't fight it. Nup. Nah-uh. Hey! Don't fight it. The span over which this information exchange can take place intrigues me because essentially I could become a distance healer. You could send me a cellular text message and I will pray for you. Overheads would be ridiculously low.

Ten years before I even ventured near chiropractic, I had an epiphany of sorts in my conscious evolution as a young boy. It was founded on psychedelic recreational pharmaceuticals. Not ingested by myself, of course, but by the artist featured in this documentary I was watching. He would regale with a handful of bright, sugar-coated goodies and then lock himself in a room, painting tirelessly for hours on end. Like a spider spinning its web on LSD, the cameramen would capture every wayward stroke of the artist's brush. 24 hours later he emerged with this canvas; an image I can still recall in my mind's eye to this day, and still it defines The Way for me. It was of two beings floating effortlessly in a void of nothingness. It almost seemed like they were touching but it was hard to tell. Their bodies had form but no muscle tone. The presence of each body embraced the other yet remained completely separate. Their bodyminds were mirrored. They healed one another. Each was lifted. They were alive.