new church life: september/october 2014
inherent in all the body’s parts and linked in some way to the undulatory
motion of life, flowing into living things. He extended Swedenborg’s principles
of cranial motion found in The Cerebrum (1738) and The Brain (1743) into
an integrated system of “cranial osteopathy” still at work today in healing on
many levels.
Osteopathy and Swedenborg is ostensibly a book for osteopaths: brisk sales
to DOs from the United States, Canada and Europe bear this out; and there is
a German translation in the works. But it is more.
In his history of osteopathy, Fuller takes us on a grand tour of unique
American culture, and religious and medical history, in an effort to find the
common thread of Swedenborg’s leading along the way. This he does with the
precision of an historian with a keen eye to detail and documentation. But
what he gives us is no linear summary of people and events. We find not a line,
but the real fabric of their complex interactions.
Along the way there are lots of details to be learned – of fascinating
lives, radical ideas, powerful movements and passing fads. But what I came
away with is an appreciation of this complex of cultural phenomena called
osteopathy, that proved a unique American product.
Osteopathy and Swedenborg is clear and concise. It is not a polemic, but
a methodical winnowing of a staggering volume of facts, connections and
reasoned speculations into a coherent fabric of cultural history that lives. The
Swedenborg Scientific Association is fortunate to have this book among its
many classic titles.
If the New Thought Movement, rooted as it was in Swedenborg’s
theosophy, were to inspire a radically new paradigm of medicine, then that
spiritual-natural paradigm would by default be osteopathy. In the apparent
randomness of providence, Still and Sutherland became its facilitators. And
because of the depth of the truth on which it is based, osteopathy continues to
progress as a new kind of medicine in the world.
The Rev. Reuben P. Bell, DO, Fryeburg, Maine, is President of the Swedenborg Scientific
Association. Contact: [email protected]
Osteopathy and Swedenborg: The Influence of Emanuel Swedenborg on the
Genesis and Development of Osteopathy, Specifically on Andrew Taylor Still and
William Garner Sutherland ISBN: 978-0-910557-82-5, hardback – 607 pages,
is published by the Swedenborg Scientific Association. It can be purchased at
the Bryn Athyn Church Bookstore in the Cathedral, the bookstore online at
http://www.newchurchbooks.com, Swedenborg Scientific Association website:
Swedenborg-Philosophy.org, or Amazon.com. For a complete list of books on
Amazon.com, search in the book section for “NCAP Swedenborg.”
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