The eyes have it

Windows to the soul has been the popular vernacular that has kept us enveloped in a sense of mysticism when we think about the human eye. This of course has nothing to do with Iridology, the study of the iris and the sclera which can help us to understand our individual vulnerabilities. Iridology helps to map out who we are both physically and mentally which gives a holistic therapist a blueprint to start from. Toni Miller ( iridologyonline.com) from Australia is a leader in this field and she is joined by her student/colleague from the USA Christine Carter with husband Bill.

Please enjoy this fascinating discussion about the history and future of this diagnostic modality.

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

Daniel

Good morning, everybody, and welcome to A Patient Story. Today we're going to talk about iridology or iridology, depending on your side of the world. And we have our lovely guest today, Tony Miller, who is an old friend of mine and a practitioner who I've known for many years. And over from the US, Christine Carter and her husband, Bill Balderson. So welcome, guys, and thank you for joining us from the US.

Daniel

This podcast, as everyone knows, is really about education and introducing some natural medicine modalities and just letting people know that there are many ways of dealing with health issues and we're not stuck in one route. And Iridology presents one amazing opportunity for people to take a deeper look at their health. And there is no better expert than Tony Miller in my view. Tony, what is Iridology?

Toni

Iridology is the, ology literally means study of an eye, iridology, the study of the eye basically. So when we look at the eye itself, I'll just give you some facts about eyes that people would be interested to hear. They are the most complex organs except for our brain. They utilize 65% of pathways used in our brain, and they contribute up to 85% of our total knowledge. So most people, there are people who learn auditorially, like through their ears. There are people that are kinesthetic. They learn by doing. But all of us use our eyes in whatever way we learn, unless we're blind. So the iris itself, which is the little donut colored section in the eye when you look at somebody, is the most complex external structure of the human anatomy. And yet it is the only internal organ of the body that is visible externally. So think about that. So I can close my eyes and you can't see them, but eventually I'm going to have to open my eyes to get around. And once I do that, you're actually able to look inside me. or you. So the muscles of the iris are the only ones in the body derived from neuroectoderm, which is the same tissue found in the brain and the spinal cord. And in fact, embryonic development of the eye starts at six weeks. So it's one of the first protrusions of the brain in the embryo. Here's an interesting statement that I learned many decades ago. The iris is estimated to contain over 28,000 individual nerve fibers. Medical science has so far found no function for these fibers that seem to end blindly in the stroma. And my teacher, Bernard Jensen, said, it is here possibly that iridology had a reason to be born. So we actually look at these fibers. We look at the pattern that they make, which is very unique. We look at the color in the eye and any extra things that may develop on the outside surface of the eye. And these give us information that relate to each individual person that we look at.

Daniel

How long has the study of the iris been around for with reference to looking at an individual's health status?

Toni

It goes as far back as ancient Egypt. There are cuneiform writings that indicate people even back then were looking at the fibres. But in classical iridology, so we've got two versions of iridology that we're going to be talking about today, the classical version and then we've got the integrated version. So the classical version was pioneered in the early 1900s. And probably the most famous of modern day icons, definitely, was Bernard Jensen. And I had the privilege to study with Bernard, who was the most wonderful teacher. He had no secrets. Everything he knew, he taught every student that he had. And he is undoubtedly the most famous speaking English iridologist on the planet. He was a true pioneer in the United States and he taught in 55 other countries during his 60 year career. So we're talking about someone with massive dedication. He was run out of different states. He was jailed for his beliefs. They tried to shut him down. I mean, his history is amazing. And he saw many thousands of patients and published more than 50 books on nutrition. and iridology.

Daniel

So it's a relatively new science then. And how was it? Obviously, in the early days, he was, by what you just said, he's considered to be a bit of a heretic. And I'm just wondering, you know, where it's got to now. I know that there's, I'm sure, a number of medical professionals that would just think it's a load of rubbish.

Toni

With good reason.

Daniel

With good reason. Okay, we'll talk about those reasons in a moment. But I'm just wondering, where you see the transition and whether it's still, whether it's gaining any acceptance within the medical regime.

Toni

Oh, honey, it's gaining acceptance. I have to tell you. Well, so, you know, to understand it, like another very famous icon and somebody who I really do respect was Dorothy Hall. She's Australia's icon. And she was a naturopath and herbalist. So her interest was really, these herbs can help bring back homeostasis. So she would look in someone's eyes and she would see an imbalance here or there and recommend herbal medicine to bring her. But the reason why Dorothy had such a big influence on me is that she changed the lens that I was using to look at iridology. So prior to meeting Dorothy, It's funny that I studied with an American 1st and then I met the Australian version. But they were contemporaries. And she was the first author to write about the iris indicating personality type. Now this is a really big shift in iridology. So it was that which really, for me, changed the way that I viewed the iris. Because suddenly it wasn't just about health, it was also about our nature, how we act and react as we interface with our world, what kind of response do I give when I hear or see or touch things? These are all available by an assessment of the basic iris structure.

Daniel

So what you're suggesting is that iridology or iridology is not just a reflection of your diet and lifestyle, but it's also a reflection of your interface with the world at large in terms of your psychological profile and how you deal with things. And I don't know, other other factors. Yeah.

Toni

Daniel, you'd be good at this.

Daniel

Okay.

Christine

The window of the soul.

Daniel

The window of the soul.

Toni

So for example, people who have a flower pattern in their eye are very, they're the softies of the world. they've got, they filter everything through their very sensitive heart. And they react really, well, they can really have an awful reaction to harsh words. You know, they're very kind and empathetic people. Whereas people who have none of these in their structure but have a lot of freckles in their eyes. They're very matter of fact, want to know the facts, want to know it like they could teach it, need to know.

Daniel

So what would medicine say those freckles are, just out of interest then?

Toni

They're called pigmentation or secondary pigments.

Daniel

Okay. So they would just call them a melanin pigment or something like that.

Toni

Described by colour, yes.

Daniel

Describe by colour.

Toni

They have different meanings because they're produced by different organs.

Daniel

Okay, so in medicine, they might look at, and I'm guessing here, you can sort me out, but I'm guessing that in medicine, they would look at a melanin pigment and go, it's just a pigment, it means nothing. But in neurology, it means, depending on where it's laid over what part of the organ on the chart, that it has a function. And which colour. Okay, all right. And with your equipment, can you see the depth of the pigment or where is it layered or is it always in the same sort of position?

Toni

No, there's different densities of colour.

Daniel

Right.

Toni

So we don't actually see, well you can see thickness of pigmentation sometimes, but that would normally be a pathology. So ophthalmology would view those as potential somethings. But we're looking at the density of the pigmentation, the color of the pigment, whether it's very, very dark or whether it's sheer.

Daniel

Yeah. And as people often develop pigments. with age. Is that a reflection to an iridologist as to what's happening to that organ over time?

Toni

Now, aren't you? Oh, this is really good, Daniel. I'm glad you're doing this interview. So this is one of my favorite, favorite topics because in classical iridology, all pigmentation was viewed as toxicity.

Daniel

That's right.

Toni

So if you've got a pigment in the area representing your liver, your liver is toxic. Now in integrated iridology, we take a completely different viewpoint. So pigmentation is actually multi-dimensional. It could mean exposure to a toxic substance, but it could also mean a familial pattern. So I use the expression people with eyes like this. are often related to someone who had, and if the pigmentation was on the liver reflex, they're often related to someone who had a liver issue. So we don't know what the issue was. We don't know whether it was physical, pathological, emotional, psychological. We don't actually know because that's where we come into it. We're like detectives. We have to ask the right questions to get the answer. And sometimes you'll have a client who has no connection personally to liver issues and no knowledge that somebody in the family may have had issues until they go home and ask. And then they'll often come back and say, oh, I found out that, you know, my grandfather had hepatitis or my grandfather was an alcoholic.

Daniel

One of the areas I've I have growing interest in is around the topic of intergenerational trauma. And if you're looking at someone who's a youngish sort of person and they've got some odd symptoms and no one knows where these crazy symptoms have come from, in some of the contemporary science, there's a link towards some intergenerational trauma and people don't quite understand how it's transitioned down the track to this person. Is there an opportunity within our radology to look at someone's eyes and say, look, there is a potential history here. We can see there's been some damage to certain fibers or maybe not damage, but fibers are reflecting in some way that would indicate that there's been some trauma in your family's past, whether it's physical or.

Toni

Physiological trauma or psychological trauma? 100%.

Daniel

Right.

Toni

So in integrated iridology, you are a unique representation of your parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents. So you've got your parents and their parents and their parents behind them. So if you imagine that big family tree and depending whether you're the first, second, third, fourth, whichever child you are, and which gender of those siblings you are, you're going to inherit things from specific parents or grandparents. And so, yes, we can actually see what we call epigenetic patterns. And that's why we say people with eyes like this are usually related to someone who had issues in XYZ. But the good thing about eye radology is whether or not you develop the best case or worst case scenario depends on the way you eat, drink, think, live and love. So in other words, the iris signs are not fatalistic. It is about what you do with what you get.

Daniel

Yeah, which is the study of epigenetics overall. Yeah. Okay. Christine, your vocal cords are probably getting a bit cold at the moment, so I'm going to bring you in. What was your interest in iridology? How did you come to it?

Christine

When I was around 19 years old, I had my first iridology reading. And I'm not even too sure how I was introduced to it, but I was curious. And it was a young gentleman who did my eyes. And at the time he was young. And he told me some things about myself that were very personable. And it just almost shocked me. And so that sparked my interest.

Daniel

So he shocked you because he knew something about you that you, it was your secret and he discovered it.

Christine

My secret and nobody else knew about it. Yes. And so from there, let me see, 19, kind of going forward a couple of years, when I was around 21, I ended up working at the Golden Door. I was a young girl, had become a makeup artist. And around that time I had studied more about iridology and came across Bernard Jensen and started reading about Bernard Jensen and his iridology. And it just so happened that he was right next door. His ranch is right next door to where I worked at the Golden Door. I never, I wanted to go down, and I might have, I don't know. knocked on his front door because I wanted to really meet him in person. But it never happened. I ended up pursuing, getting his books. I got one of his really thick books and I would just page through it and, read like different things in it. He later on also, or pretty close to that time, I got involved working in a health food store. So it was a little bit of a like 3 years in one health food store, five years in another health food store. And around that time, I started using his cleanses. And so it is seven day cleanses. It's a fast that you fast for seven days on herbs and things that go in and pull toxins out of your intestines. And then you do vitolotics every single day and pull those poisons and toxins out. And then also put really good, healthy things in your body, supplements. And I saw a big, big change in that, you know, in myself. And then fast forwarding when I was around later in my 40s, I got another reading done and a lady out in Texas. And again, she told me some things. And that time I actually had a, I forgot the name of it. Nevermind. Anyway, she prescribed rootin to me and within three days it cleared up. And it was like, okay, she's right on target on everything that I needed. So I ended up taking classes from her. And so I did basic iridology classes with her, American iridology, which was stemmed from Bernard Jensen.

Daniel

And do you intend to practice or is this for your own general information?

Christine

Well, I just finished my class with Tony and it was totally exciting. I was so excited when I was going and learning from her. It was like turning the page and what's going to be next sort of thing because I learned the basics, but she goes into way further than what I ever imagined would happen. And so when I would get through one section, I couldn't wait for the next section. So I kind of peeled through her classes pretty quickly. I wish I would have slowed down and digested a little bit better. But that's fine because now I'm going to go back and reread and relearn some things.

Daniel

At some point you decided to come out to Australia and visit Tony. Was that for education purposes or did you like a personal reading of your iris from Tony?

Christine

Well, so in my mind.

Daniel

Yes, that's a good place to start.

Christine

I really would love to meet Tony, you know, so I'm really excited about it. But I didn't want to say anything because we were looking for a place for our honeymoon. And we're like, oh, do we go to Italy? Do we go to Greece? I want to go to the blue zone, you know, like all these different things. And I thought, well, I'm certainly not going to say that to my husband because he's going to think it's a two-fold thing, you know, and see, Tony.

Daniel

I didn't want to say that.

Christine

Yes. And so I just was really quiet about it. And then my husband came up to me one day and he goes, what about Australia? And I went, what about Australia? So he says, we can go visit Tony. And I went, yes. And it will be a business runoff.

Daniel

That's right, tax deductible honeymoon. What's better?

Christine

So that's what happened.

Daniel

Yeah, okay. you're in a trap now because when you go out to dinner with friends, you're going to just be looking in their eyes going, I'm not sure about this. I already have.

Christine

I've worked 10 years in a health food store. So I'm in the aisle every single day on my feet. And I look at people's eyes all the time. Yeah, Recently, this one guy came up to me and he had one blue eye and one brown eye. And I said, that's really interesting. It goes, well, most people don't even notice. And I went, I said, so just out of curiosity, your left eye is blue and your right eye is brown. I believe that's what it was. I said, your mom, does she have blue eyes? And so it connected, the thing that Tony had taught us. And I thought, absolute blue eyes.

Daniel

Tony, that's interesting that because people are always curious about humans that have one blue eye and one brown eye. What's iridology got to say about that, Tony?

Toni

Yeah, it's an interesting thing, isn't it?

Daniel

Yeah.

Toni

So if I was to mate a black puppy and a white puppy, I'd get some black puppies and I'd get some white puppies and I'd get some spotty puppies. And that's genetics. And so when people have two different color eyes, or even if a person has say brown in the middle and blue on the outside of their eyes, we call that mixed in color. So we have three color groups in iridology. There's the blue or lymphatic eyes, that's blue and green and gray is all lymphatic. Then we have the browns and they can be very pale or very dark brown. And then we have the mixed color. And it's a proof that the person has a parent or grandparent with blue eyes and a parent or grandparent with brown eyes. Now there's, I quote this history in one of my classes, but there was a case, I think it was in Ireland, where a child was born with red hair and blue eyes from parents who both had brown eyes. And the husband wanted to divorce the wife, thinking that she'd had an affair. And then through, I don't know whether it was a nudge from an iridologist, so I won't say that. I don't think that was the case. But through her insistence that they go back through the records, they found that the great grandfather on her side was a redhead with blue eyes. So it had taken 3 generations to come out. Actually, he was the 4th. Four generations later, here he is. Now, one of the things that I teach my students about patterns in the eye, so in the iris pattern, you've seen some iris patterns, Daniel. So sometimes you'll see big openings. They look like flowers. Yes. Those markings are actually gifted to you from your ancestors in the belief that you will solve the familial patterns so that future generations don't have to deal with them.

Daniel

Right.

Toni

So, and you mentioned yourself, it could be a pathology, could be a psychological thing. It may be, you know, OCD or something like that. Every organ in your body is triggered by specific emotional triggers. And it's a matter of knowing what those triggers are. So sometimes if a person comes to me and they say, I've got this, and this problem, I don't even need to look at their eyes to know this person has an issue with either the pancreas, the liver, the lungs, whatever, because I'm hearing the expression of I'm going through this. So that's going to impact on specific organs and we know where to go. So when we talk about integrated iridology, it's the integration of the classical model with an overlay of epigenetic information, psychological information. The RAID system comes into it where they do personalities by iris patterns. That's Dorothy Hall as well. So there's multiple, multiple layers.

Daniel

So the shift from classical to more contemporary iridology is really bringing in what we're learning about science in terms of epigenetics, genetics and other medical advances and trying to understand both at the same time and incorporate them. Is that the essence of the shift?

Toni

I always love when there's a journal, where there's a topic in a journal, a medical journal, saying, oh, we found this. Often it's stuff that we've been talking about for 40 years. Now science has found it. So now it makes the headlines because science found it, but we already knew it. You know, Bernard Jensen, he was like, he didn't have it all right. We've had to correct some of his teachings. The classical model, for example, believed that the iris could be changed. They really did believe that you could use it for diagnosis because if you had a pathology, there would be a reflective change in the iris. They also believe that color in the iris represented toxicity and could be removed with specific detox programs. They also believed there were only two true colors. So if you had a blue eye with brown in the middle, you were definitely toxic, which is just a misnomer. And there was a very strong focus on single signs in the iris. So every sign had to be analyzed. Whereas today we don't see it that way. We actually believe that the iris pattern is very, very stable. And one argument that I would use for that is iris biometrics. What does that mean?

Daniel

What's an iris biometric?

Toni

So iris biometrics is where they take the minute details of the iris structure, which are believed to form randomly during the fetal development. And they're also believed to be different between persons and between the left eye and the right eye of the same person. But they're so unique that they can use them for personal identification and that this model is more reliable and faster than fingerprinting or even facial So it's used in banks and airports. And the most breathtaking development using this was an operation in 2011 in India, where the government started to enroll the iris patterns of all its 1.2 billion citizens in the ADAR scheme for entitlements distribution.

Daniel

Wow.

Toni

It's run by the Universal Identification Authority of India and this vastly ambitious program enrolls about 1 million people every day. So if you don't line up with your iris patent, you don't get your bank account, you can't go shopping, you can't get a job, you can't get married, you can't go interstate, you can't get a passport. Now that alone is evidence that supports the integrated iridology model that the iris is unique and is totally stable.

Daniel

So are there any changes at all over time? If someone's eating a really bad diet for 20 years and then the next 20 years is eating an amazingly clean, healthy diet, will you see any changes?

Toni

Yeah, there's a thing called phenotype, which is what you're born with. sorry, genotype, which is what you're born with, and phenotype, P-H-E-N-O type, which is what you do with what you get basically. So twins are born in the country, you know, where they've got grass-fed cattle and they've got biodynamic eggs from chickens that feed off the local ground cover. And they've got beautiful spring water and they've got really healthy dynamics in the community, lots of support. And one of the twins, identical, identical twins, one of the twins. twins goes to university in Sydney and money is tight and two minute noodles are cheap. So he spends five years getting his degree and comes home and he's a haggard look of his former self. Whereas his brother who stayed at home in the community, lots of support, working outdoors in the sun, getting vitamin D, you know, home cooked vegetables and dinners with love in them and so on, they're going to develop differently. So Looking at their iris structure, there may have been some weaknesses, say in the lung area. And the guy who stayed in the country, he's got fresh air and sunshine, doesn't smoke, and he's got no problems. But his brother took up happy hour with the local cannabis supplier and maybe, lived in a dank, dark, mould-ridden room, in a squat so that he could afford.

Daniel

You're describing my university life. Thank you.

Toni

Know it well, know it well. And so of course the health outcomes will be different because it is about what you eat, what you drink, what you think, how you live and who you love. separate myself from the love of my family, and being alone in a dorm, studying late night hours, smoking dope to- Yeah.

Daniel

So what's the change to the eyes?

Toni

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Doesn't necessarily change the eyes, but it manifests whatever was there in the first place as a predisposition in the negative way.

Daniel

So what does that, sorry, I don't know what that means. So if I'm looking at someone's eye.

Toni

Say for instance, now I'll just give you this example personally from me. I have a mark in my right iris in the lung area. And the first time anybody did my eyes, they said to me, you've got lung weakness. And I said, no, I don't. And they said, no, you've got asthma or you've got bronchitis or do you get breathless? And I said, no, I'm a champion runner. And I don't, I've never been sick. I've never ever had, I haven't even had a cold. You know, like I was a picture of health. Anyway, when I was pregnant with my first daughter, I got asthma. And I thought, I went back to this lady and I said to her, like, I've got asthma. She said, I told you so. Like that was the classical model. Now years later, when I was an iridologist and I learned Rayyad iridology from Denny Johnson, he talked about how this mark was indicative of the absence of I love you, the words I love you, from the eye parent. So the right eye is your father's eye, the left eye is your mother's eye. And if you've got a mark at 45 minutes in either of those eyes, It's the absence of the words I love you from that parent. Now, my father died when I was five and I was his princess. I mean, I had a very close relationship with my father who died, but what did he die from? Lung cancer. Lung cancer. So I had inherited from him this little flower pattern in my lung area. So that came from my father's side of the family. And I was very nervous about having a child. I was very anxious about how it would go. And obviously anxiety is one of the things that affects the lungs. And so I expressed that with.

Daniel

That's absolutely fascinating. And how do they, how do you think they determined that the right eye came from the father and the left eye came from the mother?

Toni

Years and years of asking questions and getting the same answers. Empirical. It has to count. It has to count. You can't just exclude.

Daniel

As a holistic practitioner, empirical data is really important. We've seen repetitive success with using it in patients. So that's important. I'm still not clear on the answer to my original question. Can the eyes change just in one line? Come on.

Toni

Less than 5% of children have what they call secondary pigments or freckles in their eyes, but more than 60% of adults over 60 have them. And you mentioned at the beginning how you get spots on your arms as you age. They call them age spots. Well, the eye is part of that body that's aging. So another aspect of iris change is that we, yes, we can develop anterior layer signs. And another one is that you can get a white ring around the outside of the eye called a corneal arcus. Mainstream calls that an arcus senilis. And that is an indication of a number of things. So some people call it a cholesterol ring, but it has far more meaning than that. It can also mean arthritis, it can mean diabetes mellitus, and it can also mean, well, if it develops in the people who are under the age of 40, it can be an indication of cancer.

Daniel

Okay, so is associated with inflammation, do you think?

Toni

Correct.

Daniel

Okay.

Toni

That's one of the things is associated. It's multifaceted. Like most signs in the eye are multifaceted.

Daniel

So you would look at something like, sorry, in medicine, the Arcus Stimulus, and you would look at other aspects of the eye and put a whole picture together rather than just looking at that one particular symptom.

Toni

Yeah, and there's even body signs. relative to, so I teach a section called physiography, which is study of the body, science, related to organ systems. So I've got a presentation just on that. It's called Iris Signs of Cardiovascular Risk. So you say you come to me, Daniel, and I see that you have got a hooded left eye, you've got a malar flush, you've got a crease in your ear. Straight up I'm thinking I need to check his cardiovascular system because they are signs on the outside body that you've triggered some form of cardiovascular issues. So if you also have those signs in your eye and you're only 35 years old, I need to talk to you about how to look after your cardiovascular system.

Daniel

Bill, have you had your eyes looked at?

Bill

Yes, Christine looked at my eyes several years ago. Well, maybe two years ago. But then Tony also, when we went there, she read my eyes as well as Christine's. And she nailed it. I mean, all the things that she saw in my eyes, even about personality. She recognized it and she was able to help me deal with some of the things that she saw in Christine's eyes.

Speaker 2

Yeah, right, okay.

Bill

Interpersonal relationship should be on a resume also.

Daniel

Yeah, So maybe we should bring in our ideology as a pre-marital assessment. Yeah, compatibility testing.

Toni

Just on that point, I've got five kids and my children used to bring home their friends and say, mom, tell him who they are. Or they'd bring up and they'd say, he's just met this girl. She's got an older sister and he's the eldest boy in the family. Will they get on together? Because birth order also is a big influence on what your personality is like.

Daniel

Billy, Christine, when you were exposed to oridology, How did it change your life? Did you change your diet or your lifestyle any other way?

Bill

Yeah, Christine saw that I was low acid and that I needed to supplement with HCL. And this was before we saw Tony and Tony saw the exact same thing because of some of her recommendations that she saw with her previous knowledge with our analogy. I have made some changes to my diet and for the better. Then when we went to see Tony, she brought up the same, well, the same things plus some more things that I should supplement with just because of my low acid in my digestion.

Daniel

Yeah.

Bill

So yeah, we've made some good changes because of our dodgy.

Daniel

Okay. I know that in the US, every state has its own application of health rules and laws and who can practice what and do different things. How is iridology looked at by the authorities in the US? Are you free to train and practice as you wish?

Christine

Yeah, there's no problem with iridology.

Bill

You just can't give someone like a involved diagnosis. You can't say this will cure that.

Christine

You don't do that with iridology anyways.

Bill

And most people here don't know about iridology that we come into contact every day.

Daniel

When you talk to people, friends and colleagues and people you bump into about iridology, what's their first reaction?

Christine

So I'm also a cornhodge therapist. And if somebody talks about their intestines I'll say, well, by the way, I'm a colon hutch therapist. This is sort of my area of expertise and I'll help them out, leaky gut or whatever they've got. But if I tell them I'm an iridologist, it's like putting a worm on the end of a hook. People want to know about their eyes, hands down.

Daniel

Yeah, it's so interesting, isn't it?

Christine

I should have chosen that first, not the cone-hearted therapy.

Daniel

We've all been grown up with the notion that the eyes are the window to the soul. And I think it sticks with a lot of people. So there's a mysticism about the eyes. I know there's a lot of good science around the eyes, but there's also mysticism, isn't there?

Toni

Yeah, everybody wants to know.

Daniel

Yes. What's the main criticism, anyone, you know, either Christine, Bill or Tony, what's the main criticism of iridology from the medical profession or even uninformed, non-trained people? What's the number one thing that people say to you?

Toni

I'll take that one if you like. Well, the premise of classical iridology is at odds with the fact that the iris does not undergo substantial changes in a person's life. So iris texture is a phenotypical feature that develops during gestation and remains unchanged after birth. So and listen carefully because I'm going to bruise a lot of people's thoughts saying this. There is no evidence for changes in the iris pattern. None. The stability of the iris structure is the foundation of the biometric technology which uses iris recognition for identification purposes. Now this is one of the things that I used to believe in. I used to believe the iris pattern would change because that's what I was taught and you don't tell your teacher that they don't know what they're talking about, you know, and I had the greatest respect for Bernard Jensen. So I had to do a lot of research and it takes humility. It takes It takes being open to hearing new theory when you've spent at that stage, I'd already spent maybe 15 years in iridology before I accepted that that was no longer the case. But the thing is that once you do learn that something like this is possible and you research it, I came across a study where they did a comparison between iris recognition and fingerprint recognition. Now, how reliable do you think fingerprint recognition is?

Daniel

Pretty reliable? I don't know. 89%? Yeah.

Toni

Well, there's a 3% margin of error with fingerprints.

Daniel

Right, okay.

Toni

And in this study, they found that margin of error was one in 1.2 million using the eye pattern. So for me, that was a drop the mic moment. And I just thought, I can't teach Iris Change anymore. And I've always had, I love truth. I cannot teach something I know to be wrong. And I also can't keep my mouth shut once I've found out something. And you probably knew already, Daniel, but you know what I'm saying.

Daniel

I think what makes you a good practitioner is that you drop the ego. And I certainly say that the ego is the main hurdle across all modalities of medicine, whether they're natural or conventional or whatever. People are just too scared to let go. So learning is important. Tony and maybe Christine, did any of you come across, well, you would have Tony, but did you come across sclerology and is that still a thing? It used to be taught years ago.

Christine

I like it because it's immediate. You can see what's going on at the time. And it's a good backup because if you are dealing with somebody with velvety brown eyes, you may not be able to see very clearly what's going on with them, but you go into the whites of their eyes and it shows what's going on at present.

Daniel

Yeah, so just for the listen, the sclera is the white around. The iris, the white of your eye.

Toni

Sclerology is part of my API certification course. And it is the perfect partner to iridology. So the iris shows you, well, it's a lot of information. I use the analogy of a car. It shows me what model car you're driving. how fuel economy is, what kind of driver you're likely to be, what kind of journey you're likely to have, and whether or not you'll reach your destination okay. It tells me what fuel to use as well. So we use that as an idea. But just as you can't actually change a car, how it looks and how the motor is and all that sort of thing, the sclera is it's very variable. If I poke my finger into your eye, it'll go red straight away.

Speaker 2

Yes.

Toni

But it clears just as quickly if for a superficial thing like that. But there are signs in the sclera that are constitutional. There's signs that are transient. So constitutional means that they're permanent. Transient means they come, they go. And depending on the shape, location, color, and the width or depth of the actual sign itself, they're all giving us extra information to tell us, as Christina just said, what's happening to you right now?

Daniel

So there's a significant amount of detail that happens in the eye, both through the iris and the sclera. And to me, that would suggest that you need A, some pretty amazing equipment and B, some standardization in how the equipment is set up and used with particular reference to the lighting, because that can, I think-.

Speaker 2

Dramatically change the way it looks.

Daniel

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I did a lot of work in oncology in my career, and I know that when you look at some people's cancer slides, you'll see that the way that they set up the gantry with the lighting can reflect on the shadows. and cause margins of error.

Toni

You're saying that?

Daniel

Yes, that's probably true. So what sort of equipment do you use? How do you teach to use the equipment? And you know.

Toni

I have a specialist camera.

Daniel

Yep.

Toni

And because the lighting is fixed in position, I know that I'm always getting the same angle of the light.

Daniel

Right. Yep.

Toni

And then I can set my parameters, which I record. when I'm taking iris photos. So with Bill, his eyes were much lighter than Christine's. So I used different settings for Bill than I did for Christine. So this allows us to do that. And it was developed by an iridologist for iridology. So you can get very inexpensive iridology cameras online that are made in China and they are cameras that were adapted for iridology, whereas their original use was for skin lesions and the skin is flat and the iris is convex. So those cameras will vary markedly in color. So the calibration is set so that it's ideal for a flat surface. The convection of the iris can actually play tricks on the light so that say a person with green eyes may look like one eye is green, one eye is blue. So yeah, it's very important that you compare apples with apples.

Daniel

So presumably in the training that there's some element of teaching people how to use equipment properly.

Toni

If they buy equipment. I mean, we also always encourage people to use the live eye. So I would never do an assessment on anybody without looking at their live eye first, because you've also got to gauge pupil dynamics, you know, pupil play is important in iridology as well.

Daniel

Christine, in your mind, are there any limitations to iridology?

Christine

Are there any limitations in iridology?

Daniel

Hmm.

Christine

I'm not even. Can you ask that question differently?

Daniel

Yeah. Is there any human condition that would go, I'm not sure if iridology is good enough to determine where this person's health is going.

Christine

Okay, so you can't, when you're looking at somebody's eyes, it shows you inherited weaknesses. It doesn't show you exactly what's going on with them. It will show you like, for instance, in the heart region will show you, okay, this person needs to take a look at their heart or is there anybody in the family that has heart weakness, that sort of thing? So there is a limitation in that respect. I don't know. I had a gal that came in and I really didn't know what I was looking at, but I noticed that she had a little dark spot in her appendix area with a white area around it. And it was so tiny, I didn't know whether or not that was something for me to pay attention to or not. Even no, because I didn't, my skill level wasn't there. I wasn't confident enough to tell her about it. And two weeks later, her appendix burst.

Toni

This is some of the empirical evidence that made iridology what it is today.

Daniel

In just one line or two lines, is there any limitation where you just think iridology is not appropriate? You can say, no, there isn't any. That's fine.

Toni

There are. You have to recognize the limitations. I'll give you a quick rundown. Iridology cannot reveal specific pathology. It cannot predict how long you will live.

Daniel

Yep.

Toni

The iris pattern and primary color is genetic because you can't change it. Iris features, once visible, are permanent. Iridology cannot reveal gender, age, pregnancy, or lithiasis.

Daniel

Okay. There you go. Too easy. So, you know, as we wrap up this conversation, to me it seems, and please feel free to correct me, but it seems to me that we all have born with genes and, you know, we express our genes called epigenetics, depending on how we live and how we think and how we love, eat, exercise, everything. And our ideology is a tool by which we can help understand what our epigenetics look like and help steer people on the right path or away from the wrong path. And is that a fair assessment of what the absolute strength of iridology might be?

Toni

Yeah. Can I just add a little something there?

Daniel

Yeah.

Toni

Without these icons from early 40s, 50s, 60s through to 80s of iridology, you know, we talked about Jensen and Hall just for a couple of them. Without them, there's no starting point. Now it's much, much easier to develop a prototype than it is to invent something brand new. So I absolutely honor all the people that went before me for all the good things that they did teach us. So Dorothy taught us things like she was a master with Bach remedies. She was fantastic as a herbalist. Jensen gave us the food things that we should know. Like he was the first one who said, your food should be rainbow colors, recognizing that most of your vitamins, minerals come from the different colors. So we learned a lot of really good stuff from them. But we had to let go of this idea of just looking at the single signs, every single one of them. The value I hold most is for constitutional iridology, which is the collection of signs. So using the IRIS constitution, we can reveal the basic dietary guidelines, the individual health family issues, the personality traits, life lessons, who you're attracted to in relationships, how you act and interact as you interface with your world, how you learn, so how should I speak to you so that you listen? and the main supplements to maintain optimum wellbeing and make you the best version of you possible. So that is the strength of integrated iridology in that it does all of that. And it does it in that much time. Look at the iris and we can see your constitution.

Daniel

Is there a gathering body of research, and when I say research, I mean published data, No, there's not.

Toni

And you know why? Because we don't have any backers. We are a non-invasive health screening tool. So who's going to back us? Who's going to give us the funding to do blinded studies? Like I'm doing a webinar for another association And I take a look at the 2014 government investigation into iridology and just pulling that to pieces because they screened us like we are coming from mainstream medicine. We're a totally different thing. You don't ask a dentist to assess whether a mechanic is good.

Daniel

Yeah, I was on a industry board back in those days when some of those reviews came through. So I saw the corruption involved in some of those studies and we had a foot in with government in those days. And man, it was a witch hunt. It was brutal. A brutal witch hunt, which was paid for by the taxpayer. And actually the first review came through and it was very supportive of all natural medicine. And then they said, no, I'm not good enough. And they limited what they could look at, spent more money and said, no, it's not the result we're looking for.

Toni

Yeah, and they ended up with 16 subjects out of naturopathy. I mean, seriously.

Daniel

It was dirty.

Toni

Nothing to see here. Nothing to see here.

Daniel

Anyway, I digress. So where can people follow up, learn more, read more? Where can they find if you want to be found?

Toni

Well, I've got a website called iridologyonline.com.

Daniel

Okay.

Toni

And you can buy my book. I've got two books, 2 textbooks. And they are the Integrated Iridology textbook. And the second book is called Mind Matters. the emotional aspects of integrated oradology. So they're both very big volume and dense information, like no blank spaces, lots and lots of information with beautiful high resolution images of the signs that you're looking for.

Daniel

Great. Okay. And you've got some reference to those books on your website, presumably?

Toni

Yes, If they go to the shop and look at books or if they or if you want to do courses, there's a really good course. There's one called Introduction to Integrated Oridology and it's $50. I mean, I'll give it free so that they can do it for free. Well, what link can I call it? I'll call it beta.

Daniel

You can just, you can, a patient story.

Toni

Oh, patient story. Okay. So I will make a special link, patient story and they can do the introduction for free and that will give them an insight into what's available and whether they want to do it or not.

Daniel

Okay, thank you. I want to thank you for your time. You've all been wonderful. It's been super duper interesting. Thank you so much. Wish you all well.

Toni

Thank you, Daniel.

Daniel

Take care. See you.

Speaker 2

Bye. Good day. Thank you.

Daniel

If you feel that this story could be a benefit to you or someone you know, please like it and share it. And as a reminder, in this podcast, The information provided relates to the specific health requirements of an individual and may not relate to your health requirements or that of another person. Please do not make any changes to your treatment without consulting your health professional. Thank you.