Rodger Douglas
Doctor of Medical Heilkunst
Meditation
Meditation isn’t about tuning out so that you can achieve some perfect state of stillness or bliss. If you take the time to trace a chronic illness back to its original cause, you’ll find that in almost every instance there is a mental or emotional cause.
When you meditate your brain shifts from a hyperactive beta state into calmer alpha, theta, and delta rhythms. In these calmer mental states you can better understand yourself.
I’ve looked into and practiced several types of meditation and in the end settled on two approaches that I found are the best for people with chronic illnesses. Louise Hay takes a very soft, feminine, and intuitive approach, while Joe Dispenza a masculine and scientific approach.
Louise Hay
Mind-Body Healing
Louise Hay taught that our thoughts are powerful forces that shape our reality and our health. When I first read her book You Can Heal Your Life, I thought it was too simplistic, but years later, as a doctor of heilkunst, I found it to be one of the most valuable healing tools I have. Here is why!
Her Personal Transformation
She was born in 1926 in Los Angeles and had a difficult childhood. She was raised in poverty and suffering from abuse, hardship, and struggle. Then, in her 40s she was diagnosed with cervical cancer.
“Like anyone who has just been told they have cancer, I went into total panic. And yet I knew that mental healing worked. Being aware that cancer comes from a pattern of deep resentment that is held for a long time … I knew I had a lot of mental work to do. I realized that if I had the operation to get rid of the cancer and did not clear the mental pattern that created it, then the doctors would just keep cutting Louise until there was no more Louise to cut …
I also knew if I could clear the mental pattern that created the condition called cancer, I would not need the doctor. So I bargained for time. The doctor grudgingly gave me three months …
I immediately began to work with my own teacher to clear old patterns of resentment. Up to that time, I had not acknowledged that I harbored deep resentment. We are often so blind to our own patterns. A lot of forgiveness work was in order … in six months I was able to get the medical profession to agree with what I already knew: I no longer had any form of cancer.
“These days, no matter how dire a person's predicament seems to be, l KNOW that if he or she is WILLING to do the mental work of releasing and forgiving, almost anything can be healed.” — Louise L. Hay, Heal Your Body A-Z, page V
Louise Hay passed away in 2017 at the age of 90, leaving behind a profound legacy of healing and transformation. Her message was simple yet deeply transformative: we have the power within us to change our lives by changing our thoughts.
The Power of Affirmations
Hay noticed that many of us carry limiting beliefs that create blockages in our lives and health. In her view, affirmations could be used to reprogram the subconscious mind to replace these limiting beliefs with messages of self love and worthiness.
Her approach was simple yet powerful: "Change your thoughts, change your life." By repeating affirmations such as "I am worthy of love" or "I am in perfect health," people could gradually shift their mindset and bring about real changes in their lives.
You Can Heal Your Life
In 1984, Louise Hay published You Can Heal Your Life. In it, she outlined her belief that physical diseases often stem from emotional or mental causes, offering readers practical tools to overcome these challenges through self-awareness and self-love. The book included a comprehensive list of ailments and their possible emotional causes, along with corresponding affirmations for healing.
What Louise Believed
We are responsible for every experience in our lives: good or bad
“Each one of us creates our experiences by the thoughts we think and the words we speak and the beliefs we hold … What we think about ourselves and the world becomes true for us.”
Into the void with
Joe Dispenza
I first heard about Dr. Joe Dispenza in a YouTube interview. What struck me wasn’t the science but his story. In 1986, he was hit by a car while cycling and suffered multiple fractures to his spine. Several surgeons told him he’d need rods implanted to stabilize his back, and that without them, he’d likely never walk again.
He refused the surgery. Instead, he moved into a friend’s home and began meditating each day. Twice daily, for up to two hours at a time, he trained his mind to focus, not on the pain or prognosis, but on something deeper. Over several months, he recovered. Not partially, but fully.
Into the Void
One of the key ideas in Dispenza’s philosophy is the concept of entering the “blackness” in meditation - a space beyond space and time. He teaches that by withdrawing attention from the body, the environment, and the ticking of the clock, we reach what he calls “pure consciousness.”
In this state, if you are no longer aware of your identity, your body, or your surroundings, then according to his theory, your illness can’t exist either. Why? Because illness depends on form, on history, on who and where you think you are. If you dissolve the ego and enter the field of infinite possibility, then you can, in that space, begin to create a new reality.
This isn’t metaphor. He believes it’s neurological and energetic. Change your brainwaves, regulate your nervous system, open your heart, and you change your chemistry.
Guided Meditations
Joe’s guided meditations are more than simple visualizations. They are structured journeys designed to move you from a beta brainwave state (thinking, analyzing) into slower, more receptive states like alpha and theta. In these deeper states, the body is relaxed and the mind is open to change.
I love doing Doctor Joe's mediations and have found them immensely useful for myself and my patients. If you'd like to try one or two of them, here is a link to his site. On average they cost about 25USD each and take from 30 to 60 minutes. This is a simple link to his site. There is no affiliate program, there are no cookies, or any commercial gains on my part. Joe Dispenza Guided Meditations.
Brain Waves
Each type of brain wave corresponds to a different level of consciousness, Dispenza believes we can change our brain and body when we shift into deeper states of consciousness.
Beta (13–30 Hz): The Thinking Mind
This is your normal waking state: alert, logical, and focused. It’s useful for work, learning, and decision-making. But when you're stuck in high Beta (like during stress or anxiety), your brain becomes overactive, and the body stays locked in fight-or-flight mode.
Alpha (8–12 Hz): The Relaxed Mind
Alpha waves appear when you're calm, daydreaming, or gently focused, like during a walk in nature or while journaling. Alpha is the gateway between conscious thought and the subconscious. In this state, the body relaxes and the mind opens.
Theta (4–7 Hz): The Intuitive Mind
Theta is associated with deep meditation, light sleep, and the twilight state between waking and dreaming. In theta, the subconscious is active, making this an ideal state for reprogramming beliefs and accessing intuition.
Delta (0.5–3 Hz): The Healing Mind
Delta waves dominate during deep, dreamless sleep. This is the body’s most restorative state where tissue repair, hormone balancing, and immune recovery happen. Some experienced meditators can access delta while still conscious.
Gamma (30–100+ Hz): The Expanded Mind
Gamma is the fastest brainwave and is often linked to heightened awareness, bursts of insight, and feelings of bliss or unity. Advanced meditators and monks have shown high gamma activity during peak spiritual states.
Unlocking Natural Vision:
the Bates Method
The Bates Method is a natural approach to vision improvement rooted in the belief that most vision problems stem from the imagination. If your imagination can cause vision problems, then it can be used to fix them.
I made the mistake of reading books about the Bates Method, rather than reading Perfect Sight Without Glasses (1919), By Dr. Willian Horatio Bates himself. Most authors emphasize his methods of relaxing the eyes, retraining visual habits, and ultimately improving eyesight naturally.
“In the course of time I discovered that myopia, hypermetropia, and astigmatism … were not, as we have so long believed, associated with the use of the eyes… but with a strain to see distant objects… and that the lower degrees of refractive error were curable, while higher degrees could be improved.” ~ Perfect Sight Without Glasses
In 2002 or 2003 I got my second pair of glasses. Concerned about my deteriorating vision, I bought a book on the Bates Method. I read the book from cover to cover and enthusiastically started doing the vision exercises but soon got bored of them, and gave up after a month or two. I knew there was great value in these exercises so I promised myself I’d return to them.
My second attempt came 20 years later. Looking back, I realize that the reason I’d failed wasn’t because the exercises were boring or I was lazy. I’d bought a generic book on the method by an author whose name I’ve long since forgotten. The book was well written with lots of illustrations, but the author didn’t explain the core principles and philosophy, and so I was doing the exercises mechanically without an understanding
After reading belief
Bates rejected the prevailing notion that poor vision was a fixed condition that could only be corrected with glasses or surgery. Instead, he observed that vision fluctuates throughout the day based on factors such as stress, posture, and emotional state. He theorized that refractive errors (like nearsightedness and farsightedness) result not from structural defects but from improper habits of seeing—specifically, undue strain in the eye muscles.
“I examined tens of thousands of eyes… of human beings and animal… the results of which convinced both myself and others that the lens is not a factor in accommodation … instead, it is a change in the length of the organ, this alteration being brought about by the action of the muscles on the outside of the globe. Equally convincing was the demonstration that errors of refraction, including presbyopia, are due, not to an organic change in the shape of the eye-ball, or in the constitution of the lens, but to a functional and therefore curable derangement in the action of the extrinsic muscles.”
Palming
Realizing that vision problems were caused by muscle strain, he looked for ways to relax these muscles, and found that the easiest and most effective way to do this was simply closing the eyes.
“All the methods used in the cure of errors of refraction are simply different ways of obtaining relaxation, and most patients, though by no means all, find it easiest to relax with their eyes shut. This usually lessens the strain to see, and in such cases is followed by a temporary or more lasting improvement in vision.
However, even thought the eyes are closed, a small amount of light still manages to pass through the eyelids, so he suggested placing the palms over the eyes to block out all light.
“Most patients are benefited merely by closing the eyes; and by alternately resting them for a few minutes or longer… But since some light comes through the closed eyelids, a still greater degree of relaxation can be obtained… by covering the closed eyes with the palms of the hands… which I have called palming.”
A session of palming may take a minute or it could take up to an hour. If you have fibromyalgia or chronic fatigue, you might find that holding your hands up to your face for an extended period of time to be too demanding. I suggest using a good quality sleep mask. It will make a huge difference.
Remembering Black
Dr. Bates noticed that even in complete darkness some people still saw illusions of light. Generally, the more light they imaged they saw, the worse their condition was.
Take a minute to do this exercise: put down your device, close your eyes, and then lightly cover your eyes with the palms of your hands so that no light can filter through. What do you see? Pitch blackness, a field of gray, or sparkling whites?
“But even with the eyes closed and covered in such a way as to exclude all the light… instead of seeing a field of black… as one ought normally to do when the optic nerve is not subject to the stimulation of light, the patient will see illusions of lights and colors ranging all the way from an imperfect black to kaleidoscopic appearances so vivid that they seem to be actually seen with the eyes.”
“The worse the condition of the eyesight, as a rule, the more numerous, vivid and persistent these appearances are. Yet some persons with very imperfect sight are able to palm almost perfectly from the beginning, and are, therefore, very quickly cured.”
“Any disturbance of mind or body, such as fatigue, hunger, anger, worry, or depression, also makes it difficult for patients to see black when they palm, persons who can see it perfectly under ordinary conditions being often unable to do so without assistance when they are ill or in pain.
“It is impossible to see a perfect black unless the eyesight is perfect, because only when the eyesight is perfect is the mind at rest.”
“The majority of patients may be greatly helped by the memory of a black object. They are directed to look at such an object at the distance at which the color can be seen best, close the eyes and remember the color, and repeat until the memory appears to be equal to the sight. Then they are instructed, while still holding the memory of the black, to cover the closed eyes with the palms of the hands in the manner just described. If the memory of the black is perfect, the whole background will be black. If it is not, or if it does not become so in the course of a few seconds, the eyes are
opened and the black object regarded again.
I believe that this observation is an act of genius equal in status to that of Archimedes, in circa 250 BCE, realizing the principle of buoyancy while bathing, and shouting "Eureka!" or to Isaac Newton, in the 1660s, seeing an apple fall from a tree, and conceptualized the law of gravitation.
