Neurological
Bias and Kinesiology
History
Kinesiology has a come a long way since the serendipitous
observation of rhomboid dysfunction and a lymphatic reflex
that corrected the integrity of that muscle group. Dr.
Goodheart who was the observer and the pioneer, developed
with other Chiropractic clinicians the root foundation out
of which came most of the current branches of kinesiology.
Two distinct branches developed:
[a] a clinical physical medicine model
and
[b] a psycho-therapeutic model.
These two then further developed side branches into the
many procedures that are used today.
Clinical
Kinesiology and hand modes
Clinical kinesiology [CK], originally researched by Dr.
Alan Beardall DC came out of and was developed
parallel to Applied Kinesiology. This new work introduced
the use of hand
modes. These
holographic postural hand positions were found to talk
directly to the homunculus of the sensory cortex. In some
strange and as yet unidentified way the neocortex was able
to read the symbol language embedded in the mudra. Human
observation, clinical acumen, verbal questioning gave
associative meaning to the mudras. Muscle change gave both
the observer and the client, feedback as to neuronal
tolerance or disturbance. Change was seen to be mediated
through the neurological system and perhaps the acupuncture
system to cause a local, segmented or global aberrant
flurry of neuronal noise, which then altered the reflex arc
at the local muscle level. The surprising observation being
made that a weak muscle could change to strength, a strong
one to apparent weakness.
By using mudras, and interpreting
their language one could be directed to specific areas in
the physical, emotional or chemical systems. The body was
seen by Alan Beardall DC the founder and developer of CK,
to communicate in a non verbal way back to the
practitioner, guiding them to the most practical, efficient
and precise level of therapeutic correction. He coined the
phrase that the body was a biocomputer;
and in much of his
pioneering work, he utilized the terminology of the
computer world.
The expansion
of the original model
As kinesiology gained acceptance, and was market driven to
be used as a tool for those who were not trained as primary
care physicians, the use of the 'muscle test' gained
ground. This spread was through the pioneering efforts of
the likes of John Thie DC who bravely took Applied
Kinesiology into the lay world and modified it as
Touch
for Health. John Diamond, Paul Dennison and
in England, Brian Butler all contributed with variations on
the theme.
Soon the verbal
challenge became the norm, and
'specific
corrections' were introduced as a modality
to make changes. The AK module of the TL - therapy
localization - and the observation that a human could also
respond with muscle change when challenged with a verbal
rather than with physical or chemical challenge developed
the models that are now more familiar to the lay public.
The question-response, challenge-response and
correction-response modalities became the focus. The
clinical emphasis was removed and the empirical model
adopted.
The power of
thought
With the use of both 'straight' kinesiology and with the
addition of hand modes came the danger of infallibility,
and the power of knowledge. Hand modes do allow for
unparalleled accuracy when the body is truly responsive,
and clear of the unseen dynamics that make even mudras
inaccurate. The power of knowledge is operator prejudice.
This is the force of thought, and the force of intent. An
instinctual human life force that operates when we are sure
of our knowledge. This is an example of one of the
many Life
Forces that
exist. When we employ ideas and take others into our arena,
the hidden agenda is that we use the model at hand to
elicit information. Like the eagle that clutches onto
salmon, and is drowned as it doesn't know how to let go of
a too heavy a catch. The eagle has no further vertical
consciousness save survival mediated action. Clutching onto
our own models we too, can see what we want to find, and
what we have sought. However, if not careful, we may also
drown in a sea of misunderstanding.
Reductionism
models
The reductionist model that there is a Life Force that
penetrates everything is emphasized both in quantum terms,
and religious ideology. However, from the One are the many.
There other forces that manifest because of the Creator,
and could be termed secondary Life forces; and are of far
less majesty, but all have similar action upon us. Thus we
may start to wonder what life forces are present when we
engage a person in conversation. Which force, emanating
from which level, is actually engaging the muscle dynamic.
Is it yours or theirs? Is there collusion? The premise of
how we place this model together is based on an inner
understanding, and a consequent intellectual model to
explain in part the unknowable.
Ontology
In any ontological process, one must know the criteria of
function, cause and effect, and state of being. Hand modes
allow for this dynamic but they have their failings. TL's
which locate a yang display on the yin or surface aspect of
the body are quite reliable but again merely display
aberrance. Verbal challenge addresses many level of
consciousness, and aspects of the self, and thus the muscle
test may at best be flawed; for unless we know who we are
talking to, then we know not from where the response has
been made. Using mind maps - reflexes points - that have
been mapped out from user experience and observation allows
us to fall into the model the "map IS the territory".
Knowing the resources and aspects of the Self can at least
give us a marker as to the dynamic and the servant /
resource that is being accessed or which is running the
show.
New paradigms
Introducing a new paradigm based upon known neurological
principles allows us to use muscle testing at the
verbal-response level much more accurately. For this to
occur, we must introduce certain criteria based upon known
principles.
Who's in
charge of Muscle testing?
A yang or firm muscle testing reflex mechanism challenges
primarily the instinctual mechanism, and as all levels
employ this dynamic, we engage the part of us that takes
power, and thus must actively seek the co operation of the
neocortex for response. A change of muscle integrity,
however does not tell us who replies.
In many models of
religious and mystical understanding the inner being is
acknowledged as hierarchical. Stripped of all clothes, but
giving this aspect of Self an identity, we could draw an
immediate allegorical model that could replace at many
functional levels our variable knowledge of neurological
function - which is merely the form of us.
The body is multi dimensional. It contains not only a:
[1] structure-function
based physiology,
but also a...
[2] psyche-soma
based function. We
now are seeing a much deeper relationship which we could
term...
[3] content-form.
This requires some explanation for it informs that the
content, that which is contained, defines how we behave.
This concept further advances the new age paradigm
body-mind-spirit but develops more accurately a suggestion
that the finer aspects of spirit ought to be left to our
Creator, and merely argue that we function at levels of
content that may or may not be filled with a finer quality
of force.
Structure-function
Our neurological system is hierarchical, not unlike the
Chinese model of the meridian or Mai
system, although
the latter appears circular. Our neurology illustrates
evolutionary characteristics, borrowed, adapted and
developed from lower forms of life. Within our human selves
we echo the material, vegetative and animal kingdoms.
Material
self
[ The local computer ]
We possess basic switches - seen in the simple use of K27
as a display for 0 or 1 as binary code. When challenged
this acupuncture point will elicit a muscle response to
indicate a state or switch on display. No change indicates
void challenge. K27 is the last visible or surface point of
the kidney meridian, before deep channels feed the Qi into
the brain. In clinical kinesiology [ CK] Alan Beardall saw
this as an indicator of a local reflex arc at the muscle
spindle level, which was switched. It can be easily
verified through tasting the lateral flexors of the head,
when the head is positioned in side bending rotation
through the sternocleidomastoid muscles.
We can view this
switch through differing models, for this display is used
in countless ways, and with varying understandings; but all
are based on the idea of a switching mechanism. We can see
it a very basic cellular level and make an analogy in the
light of this paper. The response physiology is contained
at the reflex arc level. It has no higher neurological
input or response for it has automatically made its mind up
locally. It is a primitive cellular response to danger, and
is binary:
0
- On...lights are
on, moving, going forwards, everything's
OK...
1
- Off...lights off,
stop, go backwards, danger...
It is a left-over response from the first one-celled
organisms like the amoeba. A process of polarization to
avoid a hostile environment. It was basically the ability
to change direction and reverse, to get out of the way.
From that simple feat, evolutionary processes kept that
simple trick and coded it into the base DNA so that every
other species now contains that successful instruction
set.
Our muscles switch when we make local and hidden
decisions based on either local trauma, the threat of
trauma, or survival mediated response. Our higher
neurological mechanism can also input down and place
commands into the local reflex arc and thus alter the
display. Fortunately K27's link to the brain gives us
feedback to this strategy.
We need to see local responses
to be primitive, survival based, brain stem mediated
process. It places our basement - using the analogy as if
our body was a 4 storied house - with the lights out. It
means what we store in the basement; our records - held in
both our genes as DNA, and enclosed in this our memes or
inherited cultural instructions and memories. Thus the
ability to enter into a meaningful dialogue with our
forebears and to access our resources from within is
interfered with. The capacity to find the force to activate
our code - the genie as described in the story of
Alla'din
- is then missing.
Indeed the capacity to recall the information is lost.
Local reflex arc - On / off - monad moving into binary -
switching - Can be challenged through K27 and the TL on
aberrant segments - coded memory (DNA) - ancestral code
-reticular activating system - brain stem - environment -
material - soil - blueprint - archetype - Prana or material
Life force
Servant or resource of this level - Gardener,
janitor, librarian, keeper of records.
Vegetal or
sensory self
[ The spinal computer ]
This system is based on the spinal cord and the ability for
it to access the digestive and other service systems. This
is through the paravertebral plexi of the autonomic system.
Its main relay station is in the midbrain. It's job is to
keep us in balance, mediating through internal and external
environmental needs, protecting the organism for survival.
It is an extension of the multi cellular organism that
developed the capacity to 'listen' to each components
needs. This vegetative autonomic nervous system has two
divisions; the parasympathetic and sympathetic plexi and
nerves. Their job is to both do the house work and help
repair and prepare the musculature or our capacity for
action, for the 3 F's. Feeding, fighting and fu.....This
system can be viewed as primarily vegetal as its main
purpose is to receive input from the internal service
systems and also from the skin, and make local decisions or
to confer by passing it up through the cord. The skin too,
is an organ. Both share a common origin in their
embryologic derivation; the skin develops from the surface
ectoderm and the ANS from neural ectoderm, developing from
the neural crest - it too being a large neurological organ.
[Hence the ability for the skin to read things placed upon
it.] Modern research has noted that many of the larger
plexi, and in particular the solar plexus appears to act
autonomously from higher neurological control, making
decisions on behalf of the whole organism. Thus the dynamic
of stored data held in these plexi can then subvert the
higher centres through what is known as the facilitated
segment. The accumulative force of data pushes the excitary
threshold of the SNS and sends aberrant signals into other
area of the peripheral nervous system and up into the
midbrain and other neural routes.
The chakras, a term
borrowing from Eastern philosophies, are part of this
system. The sympathetic nervous system envelopes the organs
or tissues associated with these areas. The accumulated
energetics created through the movement of axonal traffic
creates the 'field' . Thus each area is associated with a
plexus. The brow chakra is possibly the field created by
the accumulated affect of all the lobes, particularly the
frontals that integrate and allow us to 'see' or reflect.
The crown being the neuronal noise created by an integrated
corpus collosum.
Each of these fields have a receptive and
motor component. Thus each area receives and processes
data. We store these energies initially and process them by
letting them go. These area become stagnant with these
energies when we are unable to process sensory data. We
hold onto it, and this data then feedbacks up the system to
the brain. This then can alter our muscle response when
testing, as the force of data is not supportive but
detrimental to decision and clarity. This is mostly hidden
from view as it is part of our 'autonomic' system.
If we
use the metaphor of the body being a house. This system is
on the first floor. The job is performed by a resource or
servant) that look after our service industries within the
overall economies of a house hold full of servants. Thus
our servant pays attention to needs; nutrition, wastes,
menses, temperature, and other sensory signals from both
internal and external environments. Much of the time this
servant usurps the headman or managing director - our human
brain - by dictating surreptitiously a local agenda. We see
this in behaviors that are dictated by vegetal means -
drinking, eating, drugs and anything that increase sensory
input as a source of 'nourishment' can over throw the best
laid plans.
Spinal reflex
arc - on /
off - binary moving into tertiary response, sensory,
'field' dictated or dependant, autonomous, - Can be
challenged through the hyoid, feelings or sensations within
the body - chakras - vegetative - midbrain - Tao - chi or
Qi as a vegetative or animating Life force.
Servant or
resource of this level - Chef, cook, housekeeper - the part
that allows us to be maintained at a nourished and clean
level.
Animal or
instinctual self
[ The endocrine computer ]
Alan Beardall saw this as the ANS whereas we see it more
connected to the limbic and mammalian brain and which
includes the peripheral motor and sensory system. This part
of the neurology is normally supported by the systems below
it. It includes all the specialized organs that give us our
senses: eyes, ears, nose, mouth and touch (skin).
Its
modus operandi, similar to the systems that have
developed proceeding this, is for the whole organism to
survive. This is our power centre, and where we manifest
our thoughts, stratagems and instincts, all of which are
served by information arising from the other lower centres.
It is where we lay down pathways, and route data down paths
that become rutted and habitual. The mammalian brain is
where we adapt, become wily, and act our lives through. It
is the same neuromusculoskeletal system seen as the main
player in our lives in Osteopathic medicine, and which is
served by the service industries below it - the organs of
digestion, respiration, excretion etc. This brain is not
fully human but because it is older and rests under our
human brain could be termed animal-human.
This part of us
dictates behaviors through instinct and habit. If strong
enough it changes our neocortical demands. Thus instincts
become a 'human' manifestation rather than a sub server
piece of data that tells us that some lower part of us
wants a piece of the action, or that this is how we did it
last time. It easily influences muscle testing giving us
errant information, letting go, and giving us an
affirmative change or holding on steadily with holding
change. It can become on guard and stay strong giving us
apparent affirmatives when verbally challenging, or give up
and create change when confronted. It is the animal that
becomes wounded and hurt. These wounds are housed in both
soma and the matrix of the brain, and are also held in the
records down in the basement of ourselves within the DNA
and thus building blocks of our house - the cells. These
hidden forces can dictate our lives unless we know how to
listen to the call
from our fore
fathers. These blueprints held in our cells cause aberrant
prostoglandin production and dissident control; creating
allergic reactions which are put down as food or external
irritants. If we were to see grains and pollens
differently, as seeds within our soil or material matrix,
not unlike a grain of sand in an oyster, then by
understanding the ancestral 'seed' that lies within us, we
can change allergies
at a much deeper
level.
At this level of the house, this servant runs the
second floor, located in our thoracic or upper
jiao
or container. These
servants act for us, does all the hard work of life. They
carry, open, dig, cook, do. They become playful, swim,
joke, manipulate, take power, become our body guard, defend
our territory, slam doors and violate. They are the brute
strength, the power behind the arm, the force of the mind,
the will and the power of knowledge. They easily influence
our consciousness; for as we empower ourselves, this
quality is the animal-brain at work.
Limbic or mammalian reflex arc - On / off - tertiary ( on -
off - 'ish ) response moving into a larger 4th dimension.
Can be challenged through the TMJ, jaw, posture or gait -
cerebellum and central nuclei - learned and habitual
responses - all action based on survival - the use of force
or power - healing - application of and the manipulation of
human models and constructs. Wounded states.
Servant or
resource at this level - Bodyguard, worker.
Human self
[
The Primary computer ]
Our neocortex which wraps around the more primitive
mammalian cortex, allows us humans to reason and to think.
All our higher cognitive processes operate from the cortex
enwrapping the various lobes of the brain. This part of the
brain evaluates, compares and integrates data. Each lobe
has specific functions relating to our functional
intelligence. As we hold memory as force in the brain, we
can bypass areas, shut them down and re-route data
assemblage, missing essential information, Even at this
level we can alter muscle testing as this part of us,
through any of the passions that humans develop - pride,
greed, ambition, knowledge or spiritual knowledge, can
subvert clarity. These passions magnify our material state
with pride, alter our feelings through greed, empower the
animal via ambition, trick the human with knowledge and
darken the inner with spiritual knowledge.
Neocortical reflex - On / off, reversed, defiant,
submissive, 'ish and no change at all. Higher cognitive
strategies, based on all information from all sources,
including those subsystems below. Homolateral brain
function, interference of reasoning through habitual,
autonomic and shut down defence strategies. Can be
challenged through the placement of eyes, tongue positions,
internal dialogues at challenges statements, beliefs,
ideas, memories etc. Choice making. These are material
sensory-animal response engendered mechanism that fire off
response through their force. A force generates
change.
Servants of this level - Managing Director.
Integrated
self
[ The Master computer ]
This is an integrated state where we are able to use all
neurological functions in a hierarchal order. That is the
human - the ordinary us - is able to bring all data
together from the basement, from the feelings, from the
instincts. It is able to fully integrate into both brains
through the corpus collosum., and route it through all
circuits including the temporal lobes. In
cranial fluid
dynamics - a
form of cranial osteopathy using modes - we have correlated
a distinct pattern. The temporal lobes house the important
amygdala nuclei within their structure. These allow for
'normal' ingestive appetites, cognitive vision,
heterosexual relationships. The temporal cortex houses the
primary auditory cortex, and specific areas for attention,
high frequency tones, auditory perception with some
connections being polysensory and are associated with
auditory, somatosensory and visual cortical association
pathways. Empirical observation, specific hand modes and
cranial palpatory experience has lead us to see a
correlation between inner consciousness and the temporal
lobes. It would appear that subclinical impairment of the
lobes, where they are pulled in by a self induced
compression presages a lack of connection and awareness of
the 'bigger' self or our inner territories. If this is not
seen or corrected then consciousness is relegated down to
the primary computer or ordinary self - the managing
director - and the data is not fully integrated for the
inner self does not contribute to the overall strategy.
Integrated reflex arc - On / off - clean system - all
resources / servants working in concert, all available data
received and accessible, option made to open to Higher
authority for other options - new neural pathways
made.
Servants at this level - Owner
Using this model we could introduce the idea that for truth
to occur and to be offered we need to know who is talking.
We could then challenge, during the process of accessing
data through verbal response, which servant is doing the
talking. Our society has moved from the old world
downstairs - upstairs into more egalitarian model of self
autonomy. With that move we have lost sight of our own
roots and the status or station that we once occupied. So
too, we lost connection with our internal world. In all
societies the landowners, unless present and of noble in
spirit, soon loose the respect, and homogenous support of
their servants. These lower orders dependant on their
instructions being sifted down to them through the
hierarchy of the patriarchal systems, soon took every
opportunity to usurp their master.
So too our subsystems,
for the content of us, whether archetypical, or real can
usurp our true human autonomy and begin to run the show. By
dealing with the verbal response mechanism solely as
human-mediated underlies a misunderstanding of what we
truly contain.
LOS Basement Record keeper K27 Material Ancestral patterns
Clean the code
SOS Ground Service Hyoid / chakras Vegetal
Emotional Inner feelings
EOS 2nd floor Action Jaw / nose
Animal Instinctual action Impeccable action
POS 3rd floor
Manager Tongue Human Cognitive Knowing the choices
MOS Top
floor Owner - Self Knowing Thy Will be done
Workshops
in our ontological kinesiology series
include:
Allergy: From
Symptom to Source
In A Rhythm: Qi
and Consciousness
Cranial Fluid Dynamics