Building The Tower of Babel

I first heard about the Dorn Method a few years ago from one of my friends in our esoteric study group. A few more years later, my mother-in-law needed treatment for her scoliosis and that provided us the opportunity to witness the Dorn Method in action.

The Dorn Method is a gentle method of spine therapy and bone alignment, akin to Filipino hilot (bone setting massage), but more systematic. Unlike chiropractic medicine which involves sudden jerking movements to re-align the bones and requires patients to lie very still, Dorn Method therapy uses gentle pressure while the patient makes small movements so that the therapist can coax misaligned vertebrae and joints back into place.

From the point of view of the Dorn Method, most chronic body pains are caused by misalignments in the spine and/or in any of the other joints in the arms, legs and pelvis. The Dorn Method of gently re-aligning the vertebrae and joints often produce remarkable results of recovery and disappearance of pain. The more severe or long-standing an ailment, the more therapy sessions are needed of course, but in general even just one session is enough to produce noticeable improvement.

The Dorn Method takes its name from Dieter Dorn, a German farmer who once suffered a back injury while working in his sawmill. Dorn approached an old farmer in the area who was known for his healing skills, much like how in the Philippine countryside the locals would approach the manghihilot (massage healer) for various physical ailments.

With some gentle massage movements, the old farmer treated Dorn's back and the pain immediately disappeared. When Dorn asked the old farmer if he could teach the technique, the farmer replied, "You already know it!" Dieter Dorn had no chance to investigate further because the old farmer died soon after healing Dorn, so Dorn had to learn the technique by himself.

Dorn first successfully treated his wife, and eventually friends, neighbors and relatives flocked to him to have their various back ailments treated. Dorn noticed that although he only treated the spine, other related illnesses such as knee pain, heart ailments, etc. also disappeared. He found the answer when he came upon a copy of an old Traditional Chinese Medicine manual and discovered that a lot of accupuncture meridians were located along the spine. By treating vertebrae misalignments, Dorn inadvertently restored the chi flow along these meridians, hence other seemingly unconnected illnesses also got treated.

It makes sense because most of the major chakras are located along the spine, so if the spine is restored to physical health (proper alignment of the vertebrae), there is a corresponding effect on the energy body and the chakras. In fact, patients are advised that for the next few days after a Dorn Method treatment, the person may experience detoxification signs (diarrhea, slight fever or rashes) or that hidden or unresolved psychological issues may suddenly surface. These are signs that indeed the corresponding chakras are being influenced. In fact, by looking at which of your vertebrae are misaligned, a Dorn Method therapist can indicate what physical illnesses you may have or what psychological issues may be influencing your health.

Dorn refined his system when he teamed up with Dr. Thomas Hansen, M.D.. Through Dr. Hansen, Dorn learned more about anatomy and physiology, and with this combined expertise they both experimented and added to the Dorn Method until a few years later, Dorn decided that it was already time to teach the method to the world.

Looking back at the reply of the old farmer, that Dieter Dorn already knew the method of treatment, it may sound cryptic especially since Dorn really did manage to develop the method seemingly on his own. However, in his book The Origins of Modern Pranic Healing and Arhatic Yoga, Master Choa Kok Sui mentions that over the past century or two, a lot of spiritual initiates have been incarnating in order to introduce different healing systems to humanity. Not all of these disciples remember what they incarnated for, but sometime in their lives they meet a person or go through an event (sometimes both) that starts them on the road to their spiritual mission. Based on the events of Dieter Dorn's life, I feel that he is one of those initiates. Dorn's back injury was the triggering event, while the old farmer (who most likely was an initiate himself, since he was a gifted healer and knew what to tell Dorn) was the person who set Dorn on his way.

In case you are wondering why an initiate would incarnate as a lowly farmer, we don't really know how the grand design always plays out. Perhaps it's necessary for initiates to be at a certain place, a certain time and a certain station in life, in order to form a link in a chain of events leading to a particular goal. As an example, Master Choa started his subtle energy studies with Mang Dabon, a local healer who lived in one of the slum areas of Cebu City. Yet Master Choa mentions that Mang Dabon was the most powerful healer still living at the time that he had ever met.

Going back to the Dorn Method, the most important aspect of the treatment is the cooperation of the patient. It's just like in pranic healing and any other energy healing system, the patient needs to be receptive in order to allow the healing to commence. Cooperation is not limited to the clinic, in following the therapist's instructions, but also in doing the self-help exercises at home. These self-help exercises are not limited to those with misaligned joints and vertebrae, but also as preventive exercise for those with healthy bodies. You will be surprised at how little it takes to misalign one of the vertebrae or joints, especially with our modern lifestyle.

For example, let's discuss unequal leg lengths, a common issue among majority of people. Rare is the case that one leg is by measurement longer than the other. For most people, the legs themselves are of equal measurement, just that one of them rides further out from the hip joint than the other (anywhere from a few millimeters to 3 centimeters), resulting in uneven lengths. Since the legs form the foundations upon which the pelvic bone is placed, and since the spine is seated on the pelvic bone, unequal leg lengths can eventually cause some vertebrae to misalign because of the difference in distribution of force. If you want an esoteric image, imagine the Kabbalistic Tree of Life. The two legs are like the left and the right pillars, while the spine is the middle pillar. Imbalance in any of the two pillars on the side will affect the middle pillar.

Given the above example, there are movements and positions that contribute to unequal leg lengths. Riding in a car on a bumpy road is one, sitting cross-legged (the way the ladies do it, one leg placed on top of the other) is another. The reason is that in a seated position, the muscles that secure the femur to the pelvic bone are relaxed, therefore it does not take so much force to nudge the femur away from its secure seating in the hip joint. When you sit cross legged and swing your leg over the other, you stretch the joint unnaturally beyond 90 degrees. Since the muscles in the area are relaxed while seated, the stretch itself can pull the joint slightly out of place. Not enough to be called an actual dislocation, but enough to cause unequal leg lengths.

Even minor misalignments (a few millimeters) are already enough to cause some sort of pain or discomfort somewhere in the body. So aside from changing certain postural habits, the self help exercises of the Dorn Method will help one to keep the joints and vertebrae as aligned as possible.

For the spiritual practitioner, a healthy spine is of great importance. As mentioned earlier, most of the major chakras are located along the spine. If you take a look at different esoteric spiritual traditions all over the world, it becomes apparent that the path towards spiritual evolution involves harmonizing and integrating the different chakras. Esoteric spiritual systems the world over are consistent in stating the existence of chakras in the human bodies. These chakras are called by other names such as energy vortices or psychic centers, but they all refer to the same thing.

One esoteric text I read compares the chakras with a group of carpenters building a house. One is in charge of the cement, one in charge of laying the bricks, one in charge of painting. They have independent jobs, but if they work harmoniously together, the house gets built on schedule and with no problems.

On the other hand, if say the brick layer is remiss in his job, the ready cement could get wasted if it dries up, while the painter is left with a lot of idle time since the areas he needs to paint are not yet finished. In the same way, disharmonies in the chakras produce various forms of illnesses.

The same esoteric text I was referring to earlier equates the Tower of Babel with the human body. By ensuring that all the chakras are integrated and work harmoniously, one is able to "reach the heavens" and be enlightened. In the Tower of Babel story, once "communication" broke down, the tower fell, the same way that the consciousness of most people in the world today do not reach the higher realms.

As stated earlier, the physical state of the spine reflects the energetic health of the etheric body and the chakras and vice versa. So misalignments in the spine and other bones may be taken as a sign that the "carpenters" are not working harmoniously together.

Our Dorn Method trainer mentioned that when he sees a fully aligned and healthy spine, he sees it as a majestic cobra rising to the head. That's an interesting comment, because the spine is indeed the pathway that the kundalini energy takes as it is more fully awakened and rises towards the head. In another article I discussed the importance of quantity and quality, and the same applies here. Master Choa says in his books that all people have the kundalini awakened. The difference between spiritual practitioners and the average masses is the degree of activation. I suppose then that the spine, which resembles an upright cobra in form, is the physical manifestation of that partially awakened kundalini that is inherent in everyone. Really interesting.

The Dorn Method reached the Philippines through the efforts of Thomas Zudrell, a German living in the Philippines. He went back to Germany in order to learn the Dorn Method (most of the training manuals were in German, so he studied there so that he could translate the manual into English here). Upon returning to the Philippines, Zudrell co-founded the Academy for Wholistic Healing Arts, Inc. (AWHAI) in 2003. We are fortunate because aside from Germany and Switzerland, the Philippines is next in terms of the number of Dorn Method therapists in the country.

One may ask then where energy healing, such as pranic healing, comes in when the Dorn Method can already produce such tremendous results. The answer is that since our goal is always holistic health, then any healing method has its place. As I mentioned in my article about internal power, when you work at something from both ends, the results are more powerful and quicker.

To a spiritual practitioner who has undergone the Dorn Method or better yet has learned how to do it, a valuable tool is added so that he can more successfully build his own "Tower of Babel." Additionally, he can now help others get on their way towards the higher realms as well.

So let's start building today!