"Kinesiology-Muscle Testing" Art, Science Fact and Fiction
 by Dr. Gordie
Kinesiology, or muscle testing, is very much in vogue these days and there are many sources of information about it available. Health professionals and laypeople alike are using it for a variety of purposes, testing everything from appropriate foods and supplements, to how your body should be aligned; from calibrating consciousness on a scale of evolution, to discovering past life history and problems. In this article I would like to talk about some of the potentials and shortcomings of muscle testing.
Muscle testing originated in the 1940s as a means of grading physical disability. In 1964 Dr. George Goodheart, D.C. discovered that muscle testing could be used to evaluate the basic structural balance of the entire musculoskeletal system. Over the years, Dr. Goodheart found connections and correlations between specific muscles and the bodies’ glands, organs, acupuncture meridians, cranial bones (skull and cerebrospinal fluid balance), nerve supply, blood supply and lymphatic drainage.
In 1976 he founded the International College of Applied Kinesiology (ICAK), along with several other physicians who had become involved in the application and research of this exciting new field. They called the new discipline Applied Kinesiology (AK). Unfortunately the name, which means “the applied study of motion,” is truly lacking in comprehensiveness – although it would be difficult to find a term adequate enough to cover applied study of motion, physiology, biochemistry, diet, lifestyle, emotions, etc.
The beauty of this simple tool is its ability to immediately evaluate the appropriateness and effectiveness of any particular therapy. But how far can it go? What are its limitations? In mainstream medicine, it is important to consider validity and reliability of testing. For a test to be valid it must actually test what it claims to. To be reliable, it must consistently result in the same findings in situations that have the same actual value. It must give you "actual" values correctly and repeatedly without error.
Is muscle testing reliable? Is it valid? In some studies it has not been found to be reliable. Why not? What does this really mean?
Let’s say we put a patient in a room and have 10 doctors evaluate him or her. These doctors must do their evaluations independently without comparing each other’s results. Do the results correlate? How many out of ten must agree for the results to be considered significant? Reliable? If the test being conducted is a blood count, results are going to be highly consistent because the methodology most frequently used is an automated computer program. On the other hand, if the doctors are muscle testing, reliability depends on who is doing the testing.
Muscle testing is a science, but it is also an art, a definite skill that is developed with proper training and practice. You must not only be able to test a muscle with correct technique, but with knowledge and understanding. For example, you cannot test the liver's ability to complete its Phase I detoxification if you don't know of its existence, its compounds and how to perform the relative test properly. The "art" of muscle testing requires that the practitioner not only use consistent and even pressure, but also to have adequate knowledge of anatomy, and the ability to be completely mentally and emotionally detached from any outcome. Preconceived ideas or expectations show up in kinesiology. If you expect to find something you will. I have seen many a person selling some product or device use muscle testing to "prove" a client’s need for it. Although sincere, they may not be aware their results are questionable, resulting from the desire to make a sale rather than an investigation of the truth. Experienced kinesiologists always test with the attitude of "I wonder what I will find?” When doctors from the ICAK are tested for consistency of findings, their correlations are repeatedly significant!
What does this have to do with our bleeping health? If I am going to be evaluated and make important health decisions based on any tests, I want to be sure those tests are valid and reliable. I want to know that the person testing me knows "WHAT THE BLEEP THEY ARE DOING"! This includes muscle testing.
I encourage all who have not had the opportunity of experiencing muscle testing to do so. Seek out a reputable professional (look for ICAK board certified where possible) and ask them to explain what they are doing while they test you. The Touch for Health movement, founded by the late Dr. John Thie, D.C., teaches an excellent version of muscle testing for laypeople. This author is currently working on a DVD / website to make the learning and application of muscle testing as simple and available to as many people as possible. Whether you’re a layman or professional health practitioner, you can contact the ICAK (www.ICAKUSA.com) for more information. You may find it very enlightening!
Dr. Gordie
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The Return of the Alchemists
Part One: Origins
by Raoul Tollmann
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Alchemy - the ancient art and science with the primary purpose of transforming the ordinary human into an enlightened being or immortal. Methods applied are the production of laboratory-made potions as well as inner techniques of energy work. Research into laboratory alchemy has produced metallic transmutations of base metals into noble metals, as well as the production of medicines.
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What the bleep happened at the leading edge of science before we had quantum mechanics?
Sir Isaac Newton’s private answer might surprise you: He was investigating alchemy. Night after night in his lab he distilled the toxins that, when properly transformed, were supposed to lead to eternal youth, perfect health and wealth.
Robert Boyle
Robert Boyle was engaged in the same quest of alchemy as the redeemer of the human condition. A religious quest? Perhaps. A delusion? No. We have positive evidence1 that Robert Boyle succeeded in manufacturing the incalescent mercury, a substance that can be made today as it has been made since time immemorial; the laboratory-made running metal coagulates into pure gold when poured into a heated crucible, as my own duplication of the experiments has shown.
Recent academic discoveries2 show that these founders of our modern sciences were mystics, searching for the Philosopher’s Stone as the central theme of their lives. Did they succeed? No, they died of mercury poisoning.
So what is this alchemy quest about, that some of the brightest minds of all time died pursuing it and others, not-so fortunate either, have lost fortunes investigating it? In this series of articles we shall investigate and uncover the code and hidden meaning of alchemy, the mother of all modern sciences.
Western alchemical traditions
In the West, we can trace alchemy back to ancient Egypt where it was one of the temple sciences. The highest-ranking physicians of Egypt were priests, and people normally came to the temples for healing. There, they were treated with a combination of medicine, religious indoctrination and magic. Medicine meant extracts of herbs or animal organs and alchemical potions that were derived from gemstones, minerals and metals. In the Temple of Dendera, there was a long corridor lined with statues that had healing incantations inscribed on them. Water, poured over the statues, became empowered by the spells. Patients bathed in these magical waters, received their alchemical potions and spent the night in small, totally dark crypts in order to induce a therapeutic dream. The patient was expected to be able to converse directly with the gods to determine his cure. It must have been quite an experience!
Based upon the extended practice of directly conversing with the gods of the Egyptian pantheon, the priest-healers derived their cosmology, their sciences and their healing arts, which have partially survived in what are known today as the Hermetic Books, ascribed to the Egyptian god Thoth, better known by the Greek name Hermes.3 Modern physicians usually credit the Greek Hippocrates with being the father of Western medicine. Hippocrates separated the healing art from the other sciences of the temple in the fifth century B.C. One of the consequences of this separation is the present widespread scientific materialism in our Western culture.4
Hermetic axioms and formulae actually coexisted with the set of Hippocratic doctrines until the Middle Ages, culminating in the spectacularly successful work and subsequent demise of Paracelsus. Since that time, they have been relegated to obscurity. Contemporary allopathic Western medicine, however, does not even come close to performing the miraculous cures of chronic diseases that the Egyptian priest-healers and the medieval alchemists were known for, and which are well documented.5
Eastern traditions
In the East, alchemy has fared somewhat better. The Rasa-Jala-Nidhi,6 a sourcebook of Indian or Vedic alchemy, tells us that the science of alchemy is divine, and the translators of the text add that its origins are unknown and go back to hoary antiquity.
In Ayurveda today, alchemical preparations are considered to be the capstone of this traditional system both for healing and for promoting longevity. The current official Indian Ayurvedic pharmacopoeia contains a list of alchemical preparations and their manufacture.
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