Looking into your eyes for a view of your health
If one is a perfect score and ten is terrible, my eyes are a three. As in, very good indeed. Not in terms of eyesight – my vision is somewhere between bat and mole – but in terms of overall health being reflected by the state of my irises and the whites of my eyes. This is a practice where eyes are not just a windows to the soul, but also to the lymph, cardio, digestive and nervous systems. It is all there in front of me, on what looks like a pie chart, except it is an eye chart, rather like reflexologym with each part of the body represented somewhere in the iris.
“You’re in very good health overall,” says the iridologist, peering at my eyeballs on his computer screen, enlarged so that they resemble planets. “Apart from the yellowy orange bits above your pupils, which suggest your upper transverse colon could do with a flush out.” Have you heard of iridology? There are only 13 registered iridologists in Ireland, compared with over 400 members of the Irish Society of Homepaths. Iridology remains niche. According to the Irish Insititute of Iridology, “The entire body is represented reflexologically on the iris. To the trained iridologist, the colour, texture and the various markings suggest areas of underactivity, overactivity, toxicity, etc. which have been inherited or have been brought on by diet, lifestyle, stress, etc.” Intrigued, after hearing a friend talking about its diagnostic benefits, I book a session with a UK iridologist, Phil Hall. For 90 minutes, he peers at my eyes on his laptop screen, and tells me about my physical and emotional health, as though my eyeballs are crystal balls.
