Science of bringing light to dark places
by Dr. Bernard Jensen

I call Iridology "the science of bringing light to dark places" for two reasons. The iris is a window, so to speak, showing what goes on inside the body. When we find darkness in any lesion or area of the iris, we find it corresponds to pathology somewhere in the body. When we have made the right life changes through nutrition, exercise, nonsuppressive treatments and replacing poor habits with good ones, white healing lines come into the dark places of the iris, telling us that healing is taking place in the tissues. From another outlook, we find that ignorance can be compared to darkness, while knowledge is wisdom and light. To come to a right way of life, to come to harmony from a place of chaos, is to come from darkness into light.

True healing involves bringing light to the dark places in an individual's life. The enlightened one walks in light and once started seeks the higher values in life. If primary health care professionals did more educating, they could do less medicating. We do not see healing lines coming into the dark areas of the iris as the result of drugs and medicines; the healing lines come only after basic changes are made in a person's way of life, changes that restore the integrity of the bloodstream and rejuvenate the tissues.

If a person is truly interested in walking the path of wholeness, he must go through changes in attitude and behavior. We find often that the marriage problem must be taken care of, the job tensions have to go, and we must put a peaceful, harmonious way of living in place of the old dis-ease producing way. We are going to give up the old and take on the new. It's replacement therapy.

When we find healing lines coming into the dark lesions of the iris, that is a sign that enlightenment has begun to bring a healthy way of life into expression.

We must define iridology as the science of analyzing reflex conditions in the iris corresponding to pathology in the body. The iris of the eye shows the changes that are going on in the body and reveals abnormal tissue conditions. Iridology's greatest value is that of allowing the detection of chemical and physiological changes in the body long before the appearance of the particular set of symptoms which would be classified and named as a disease.

Underlying all symptoms characteristic of known disease states are tissue changes in the body caused by chemical imbalance, toxic deposits, poor circulation, inherent weaknesses and so forth. To understand how dis-ease develops in the human body we must first understand what is going on in the organs, bloodstream, nervous system, circulatory system and glands to bring about the changes which culminate in disease. Iridology provides a wealth of information about the vital processes and tissues of the body.

Scientists have found that spiders can determine the size of insects caught in their webs by the vibrations they pick up through the strands. We find there is also a vibratory force in the body that develops through the cumulative vibrations of life processes, organ function, nerve impulses, heartbeat, blood pressure and other rhythms. This overall vibration carried to every cell of the body reaches into the fibers in the iris stroma, the delicate vascular arcades that reflect the condition of body tissue.

Heretofore, practitioners have failed to sufficiently appreciate the meaning behind the iris fiber or the tapestry of all iris fibers interwoven together. Every heartbeat is felt by every other cell and organ in the body. Nutrients derived by the blood from the food we eat connect every organ with every other organ. The bloodstream "senses" the presence of rheumatism in one part of the body. The sodium-potassium balance at nerve synapse junctions must be maintained or electromagnetic impulse transmission is hindered or stopped. The complex web of activities in the body constantly and profoundly influences the structure of the iris.

Dental research has shown that if the "bite" is improperly aligned and the teeth do not properly come together for chewing, the brain can be affected, deafness can result and glandular conditions can be triggered. Pressure along the sutures of the skull can be relieved and released by correcting conditions sometimes developed when babies are delivered with forceps. We are learning to see the light, however, slowly. We are learning to correct early mistakes and then get on the wellness wagon.

I am sure the day will come when we will look back to the present and admit we have been working and living in the "dark ages." But even considering the darkness of today, I feel that enlightenment will come when we realize everything we do builds up or tears down the tissues of the body. All therapies that help to build good tissue are commendable therapies. All environmental processes—pollution, malnutrition, overcrowding, industrial noise and so on that hinder tissue repair or actually damage tissue—-are destructive and should be eliminated or changed to make this planet safe for humans and other living creatures.

Looking outward through the eye, we can see what is life enhancing or destructive in the outer environment. Science's greatest problem today is cleaning up pollution in our environment; therefore, as the eye and the body mold to our environment, we are depending on science for the condition of our bodies. Much of our energies in the future, as far as science is concerned, will turn to cleaning up our pollution. Looking inward, we can see in the iris much the same thing with regard to our "inner environment." This is due to the iris-body connection, the iris-brain connection, the iris-vibratory force connection, the iris-electromagnetic current connection, the iris-nutrition connection and so on. We know what needs to be done. Now let us do it. The kids of today have a saying, "Come clean, man." I am sure that if you do this, the eye will respond.

To bring light into dark places is first to learn what needs doing, then to accomplish needed changes to bring about higher evolvement of tissue. Through the connections described in the previous paragraph, integrity is restored to actual tissue. We see the change in the eye after change has been made deep in the body.

To avoid any misconceptions, we need to realize that iris markings showing tissue conditions in any of the various organs or tissues of the body do not indicate pathology in the iris itself. The iris may be absolutely normal when the rest of the body is providing reflex signs from various organs. There are, of course, pathological problems of the eye itself, as well as congenital, inherited and acquired conditions. I have a little black spot on my iris, for example, that many people have interpreted as an iodine deposit. But I have to tell them, "No, a cactus spine penetrated my eye when I was sixteen." We have to distinguish between reflex conditions revealed by the iris and such things as conjunctivitis, glaucoma, scar tissue or pathologies of various other kinds.

Using the iris for evaluating the state of the interior of the body is utilizing the most complex structure to greet the outside world. The eye transmits light from the outside world to the brain, which organizes what we perceive as objects and colors. What we see through our eyes may delight us or horrify us. The brain transmits feelings, thoughts and beliefs, whether true or not, through the nervous system to every cell and organ of the body, and this may be done at either the conscious or subconscious level. We may suffer from what we see but we also learn from it.

By the same token, activities throughout the whole body, in every organ and tissue, are registered in the brain. The eyes, according to physiologists, are extensions of the brain; and the German authority, Walter Lang, has shown that ascending nerve pathways from the body pass through the thalamus and the hypothalamus before going on through the optic nerve tracts and into the irides. The thalamus and hypothalamus are the basic monitors of all vital activities going on in the body. From the nerve impulses they relay to the irides, physiological changes develop in the iris tissue, revealing conditions in all parts of the body.

The iris is truly a map of the whole human body. Generations of iridologists, since the discovery of this science, have developed iris charts showing the location of various organs, limbs, glands and tissues in corresponding areas of the iris. By examining the irides. the trained iridologist can determine the structural response of the tissue, the nerve conditions and toxic settlements. Color shades in lesions or localized areas of the iris, whether white, light gray, gray or black, tell us the degree of tissue pathology from the acute or irritated stage through the subacute, chronic or degenerative stages. The latter three classifications indicate levels of tissue hypoactivity. According to Josef Deck, the foremost European iridologist, iridology has proved to be comparable in accuracy to clinical diagnosis by the research of Sprev and Weizen.

The iridologist can see the relationships among the organs and tissues of the body as they affect one another. While we do not diagnose disease, we analyze the integrity of the tissue, the health level, inherent weaknesses, the response of the patient to treatment and to his environment, his constitution and recuperative power and chemical imbalances in his body. Above all, we are able to observe the appearance of "healing lines" in the iris when an effective program of therapy is bringing about improvement.

To be correctly understood and applied, iridology requires rigorous study, training and practice. No two eves are ever alike. Some eyes are more difficult to analyze than others. Only those who have used this science can begin to appreciate its insights into the complex workings of the human body and its simple yet profound approach to understanding the principles of health in a unique and wholistic way.