The iris is the coloured part of our eye. Iris was also the goddess of the rainbow in Greek mythology and she was the messenger of the gods in the Iliad.

The eyes have long been seen as the window of the soul and can also be seen as the mirror of the body.

Manifestations in and about the eyes can be used to gain great insight into a person’s health.

Under magnification, the iris reveals itself to be a landscape of extraordinary detail. The individual iris fibres constitute  a communication system capable of handling an incredible amount of information.

Many doctors have used analysis of the iris along with other diagnostic techniques to facilitate a complete understanding of a patients’ health care needs. Through iridology it is possible to observe normal and abnormal reflex signs. It compares an individual’s strengths to their weaknesses; a weak organ in a strong body produces different characteristics, yet it is still a weakness for that person.

I have had the privelage of training and working along side Janet Brennan in New York at various intervals over the past 20 years. Janet, worked with Bernard Jensen, the founder of Iridology and so there is a direct lineage of knowledge from the source.  I have gained up to date knowledge of nutrition and understanding of how vitality of body and mind are affected.  As we learn to see the bodies weaknesses, we then work on strengthening those elements to bring the body back to homeostasis – balance and well being.

In the early 1800’s a 10  year  old  boy named Ignatz von Peczely from Hungary, caught an owl in his bac k garden.  The little boy struggled with the frightened bird and to free  himself  from its claws, accidently broke the owl’s leg. As they were staring at each other, von Peczely observed a black line rising in the owl’s eye. He bandaged his leg and nursed him back to health, and then released him. But the bird hung around the garden for a few years and von Peczely noticed the appearance of white and crooked lines where the black stripe first appeared. The black stripe eventually became a tiny black spot, surrounded by white lines and shading.

When he grew up Ignatz became a physician. He never forgot the incident with the owl.  In the hospital he had the opportunity to observe irises of patients after accidents and preceding and following surgery. A study of the changes in the eyes coinciding with injuries, surgery or illnesses convinced Von Peczely that there was reflex relationship between the various markings in the iris and the rest of the body. He was certain that the iris mirrored tissue changes of the various organs and created the first chart of the iris based on his findings.

At  the same point in history  a Rev Niels Liljequist, a Swedish clergyman, was discovering that a relationship existed between various drug settlements  and specific discolourations in the iris of the eye. Extremely ill when he was young, Liljequist  had  taken massive quantities of quinine. This lead to his correlation of the yellow-green  discolouration in his eye to the use of quinine.

Iridology has progressed immensely since the 1800’s. Many scientists and doctors have researched it and revised and enlarged the iris chart. Dr Bernard Jensen, renowned Iridologist and Nutritionist, pioneered the science of Iridology in the U.S. and developed one of the most comprehensive charts.

What exactly is Iridology? By way of definition it is the science and practice revealing inflammation, where located and in what stage it is manifesting. The iris reveals bodily conditions, inherent weakness, levels of health, and the transition that takes place in a persons  body according to the way he or she lives.

The adjunctive analysis allows the doctor to relate markings and signs in the iris to reflex manifestations of the various organs of the body. The eye has been proclaimed through the ages as “the mirror of the soul,”  and  now we acknowledge  it as the window to the body- enabling us to visualise normal and abnormal states within the body and its organs.

How does the iris represent all this? Contained within the iris are thousands of nerve filaments. They receive messages from virtually every nerve in the human body via connections with the optic nerves, optic thalami, and spinal cord. Also microscopic muscle fibres and tiny blood vessels are within the eye. In cooperation the nerve filaments, muscle fibres and blood vessels duplicate tissue changes simultaneously with reflexly associated organs of the body. Thus, by examining the markings, discolourations, textures and other iris manifestations, the practitioner is able to analyze  the  health level of all body constituents. Relevant to bodily changes the iris changes likewise. The eye is Natures window to the body’s interior by transmission of messages between the eye and the rest of the body. She has afforded us a means of observing tissue changes, pathology or impending pathology, hereditary strengths and weaknesses, infection, inflammation in all its stages, drug settlements, local lesions, tissue destruction, nutritional deficiencies, and (bio) chemical imbalance through the iris.

An Iridologist can warn a person of impending ill health. It is potentially an integral part of preventative medicine. The iris will alert us to the early signs of  approaching “dis-ease.” Indications of dangerous tissue alterations are transmitted to the eye, and if one is adept at interpreting these signals, a patient can often avoid more serious symptoms