Reading a text without being aware of our philosophical background can lead to misunderstanding what the author is talking about. In order to explain this, and maybe get people to think about the way they think, I will give a few ideas about what might happen when we misread Still.
The world as an inert matter
If I consider that I, the subject, is here, and Nature is “over there”, or “outside”, I transform the material world into an inert matter on which I can work (and which I can exploit, but no time for ecology here). I create a gap between the inside and the outside, a bit like how we create frontiers between countries. I, the subject, can influence the world of objects. Objects that are independent of each other. I am separated from other people. If I reason according to this idea, I tend to have a very mechanical way of seeing things. (mechanical here is used in reference to mechanical philosophy)
When I read Still with this background, I can’t see what Still talks about. I only see his words without meaning. I read that obesity is caused by a lesion around T2 and I believe that I can apply a technique to the second thoracic vertebra every time I see an obese person and solve obesity. Of course, I don’t get results which leads me to say Still was a liar.
If I read about how he adjusts a rib, I think I can do the same thing and get the same results. I live in the world of effects and can’t understand the cause. I look at things as being independent objects, and I can’t see that Still’s techniques can’t be taken as independent gestures (without his reasoning).
Now, if I see my patient with lower back pain as a separated object and the only way I have to influence them is by applying a force onto their body. I believe pulling on their psoas will solve their problem because I know the anatomy. I know the names, I know where it’s inserted, and I know the action of the psoas. I will draw lines on my patients to show you how aligned they are. I will study the axis of mobility because that’s my way of seeing Nature. I believe that the ankle is responsible for hip pain because it is pulling on the muscles. I will little by little go further by implementing the idea of fascias and biotensegrity. There’s even a link between the cranium and the sacrum via the membranes, which can pull and prevent a sphenoid bone from moving. People need to sit straight in front of their computers. Everybody goes to the gym to do robotic movements because it makes us stronger. Obviously, if you feel a tension, pull on it by doing a stretching.
I see a field of cherry trees and I think this is nature, even though everything is perfectly aligned and straight. Everything seems logical, and perfectly organized for my own will. I look at plants, animals, and people as if they were objects.
No osteopathy will be found there, and down the road, I will tend to consider that osteopathy is just manual therapy, and physios, osteopaths, chiropractors, and massage therapists do the same job. Still was just a liar.
“I” stops at my skin, everything else is my environment.
It’s not all bad, this allows me to reduce the world to mathematics so I can understand pieces of it, and develop technology. But I cannot see that this is part of the reason why I cannot understand Still. So instead of wondering about how I do not have the right tools to read Still, I will “evolve” osteopathy so it can fit my world. Let’s change the words. No more lesion and position of the bones. I am now looking for a loss of mobility. I run some osteopathic tests where I test my patient like a robot: flexion, and extension…and I can apply a technique to correct the dysfunction. To know if something happened, I test again. Still was a liar anyway, so I can change the texts as much as I want and evolve osteopathy. What I can’t see though is that nothing has evolved as osteopathy hasn’t been met yet. But rejoice for this has given birth to cranial osteopathy, and now I have axes of mobility for every single bone of the skull, and sometimes even parts of those bones. More and more separation. I’m sure this will make human being more and more happy! I have techniques for the muscles, techniques for the fascia, techniques for the cranium, for the guts, for the ligaments, for the nervous system, for the CSF, etc. I can take a post-graduate in aquatic osteopathic techniques, and another one about structural techniques. I push and pull, I twist and shout. More techniques, more pulling, more exploiting nature, more patients as objects.
The world is made of inert matter and I am the king.
But there’s an issue. I feel things. Stupid emotions. And other people are alive. This is fucking up my model! How do I explain that? I know! I am a fecking genius! I will go even further into my idea of separation of course! New rule! Living stuffs have souls! Amazing now I can get those souls to do the work for me!
Love,
Jules
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