Vibration and Understanding Life’s Deeper Mysteries

By Michael Dorausch, D.C.

Founded on Tone. The first words in D.D. Palmer’s 1910 chiropractic text. Since times before and times after, many have written about vibration. Physicians, scientists, mystics, and chiropractors. Here are four individuals who covered the topic of Tone and Vibration throughout their lives.

Irving Dardik, Itzhak Bentov, Robert O. Becker, and D.D. Palmer are figures whose works intersect in their exploration of rhythm, vibration, metaphysics, balance, and the roles of the nervous system, brain, and spinal cord in human health and consciousness. While they come from different backgrounds – spanning medicine, engineering, biophysics, and chiropractic – they share a common thread in their innovative, often unconventional approaches to understanding the body as a dynamic, interconnected system influenced by rhythmic and vibratory processes.

Rhythm and Vibration

Each thinker emphasized the importance of rhythmic or vibratory phenomena as fundamental to life and health:

D.D. Palmer: The founder of chiropractic, Palmer posited that health depends on the unimpeded flow of “innate intelligence” through the nervous system, particularly via the spinal cord. He believed spinal misalignments (subluxations) disrupted this rhythmic flow, affecting overall vitality.

Irving Dardik: A physician and researcher, Dardik developed the “SuperWave” theory, proposing that health emerges from rhythmic cycles of exertion and recovery, mirroring natural wave patterns. He viewed the body as a system governed by oscillating rhythms, akin to heartbeats or circadian cycles, which, when disrupted, lead to disease.

Itzhak Bentov: An engineer and mystic, Bentov explored vibration in both physical and metaphysical contexts. In Stalking the Wild Pendulum, he described how meditative states synchronize bodily rhythms (e.g., heart and breath) with brain waves, resonating at approximately 7 Hz – a frequency he linked to the Earth’s magnetic pulsations and alpha brain rhythms.

Robert O. Becker: In The Body Electric, Becker, an orthopedic surgeon and bioelectricity pioneer, investigated how electrical currents and electromagnetic fields – vibratory in nature – influence regeneration and healing. He saw the body’s bioelectric rhythms as critical to maintaining balance and repairing tissues.

Metaphysical Perspectives

All four incorporated metaphysical or holistic ideas, challenging purely mechanistic views of the body:

• Dardik: His SuperWave theory extended beyond physiology into a metaphysical framework, suggesting that life’s rhythms connect humans to universal patterns, implying a deeper order to existence.
• Bentov: He explicitly bridged science and metaphysics, proposing that consciousness is a vibratory field permeating the universe, with the nervous system acting as a transducer to access higher states of awareness.
• Becker: While grounded in empirical research, Becker speculated on the broader implications of bioelectricity, hinting at a life force or organizing principle akin to metaphysical concepts, especially in how fields might link mind and body.
• Palmer: His concept of “innate intelligence” – a vital force flowing through the nervous system – rooted chiropractic in a metaphysical belief that health reflects harmony with a universal life energy.

Balance as a Core Principle

Balance, whether physical, energetic, or systemic, was central to their ideas:

• Dardik: He argued that health requires a balance of rhythmic stress and rest, with disease arising from imbalance in these cycles.
• Bentov: He described how meditation achieves a balanced resonance between heart, breath, and brain, aligning the body with cosmic rhythms for optimal function and expanded consciousness.
• Becker: His work on regeneration showed that bioelectric balance (e.g., proper voltage gradients) is essential for healing, with imbalances disrupting cellular communication.
• Palmer: He aimed to restore resonant balance by correcting spinal subluxations, ensuring the nervous system could regulate the body effectively.

The Nervous System, Brain, and Spinal Cord

Each saw the nervous system – particularly the brain and spinal cord – as a key mediator of health and consciousness:

• Dardik: While less focused on neurology per se, he linked rhythmic cycles to nervous system regulation, suggesting that stressors processed through the brain and autonomic nervous system drive health outcomes.
• Bentov: He proposed that micromotions and standing waves in the body, amplified through the spinal cord and brain ventricles during meditation, stimulate the nervous system, enhancing consciousness and polarizing the cortex for sensory experiences like kundalini awakening.
• Becker: He demonstrated that bioelectric signals, conducted via the nervous system and perineural cells, govern regeneration and influence brain function, suggesting a deeper electrical role in neural processes.
• Palmer: His system rested on the spinal cord as the conduit for nerve impulses, with the brain as the gateway of “innate intelligence,” making spinal alignment critical to nervous system integrity.

These individuals converged on the idea that the human body operates as a vibratory, rhythmic system, with the nervous system (brain and spinal cord) serving as a critical interface between physical processes and a larger, often metaphysical reality. They viewed health and consciousness as dependent on maintaining balance within this system – whether through aligning spinal structure (Palmer), harmonizing bioelectric fields (Becker), synchronizing physiological rhythms (Bentov), or cycling exertion and recovery (Dardik). Their work suggests a paradigm where rhythm and vibration are not just metaphors but tangible mechanisms linking mind, body, and cosmos.

Their approaches, while distinct, reflect a shared intuition: that the body’s subtle energies and rhythms hold the key to understanding life’s deeper mysteries, from healing to expanded awareness. This overlap makes them intellectual kin, each illuminating a facet of a holistic, dynamic view of human potential.