We have probably all read BJ’s humorous little saying “Chiropractic is all mind, never matter. Medical science is all matter, never mind! Often truth is contained in humor. Combining the metaphysical and the physical is what makes chiropractic unique. Both Christian Science and medicine ignore the other component and by doing that demonstrate their shortcoming. Chiropractic by addressing both acknowledges the need for both but also demonstrates that it is neither. DD with his theosophical background seemed to lean toward the metaphysical. In fact history tells us that he desired to make chiropractic into a religion. Granted Shears desired to do the same thing with GPC as did Reggie with Spinology, but both had an entirely different reason. They wanted to preserve the legal practice of chiropractic. DD really was interested in making chiropractic a religious practice, because he believed it really was. I personally believe that was part of the conflict between father and son. Add to that all the desired honor and respect that Old Dad Chiro believed he deserved and that seemed to be going to the son, there is good indication that in his last years he was likely mentally unbalanced. BJ apparently tried to overcompensate emphasizing the physical, trying to demonstrate the physical aspect of the vertebral subluxation. X-ray, the NCM were such examples and caused many of his adherents , like Joy M. Loban, to see him as becoming to mechanistic going in the other direction. The ultimate demonstration of that was the idea that “chiropractic gets sick people well!” The worst part of that phrase was to leave up to the individual chiropractor to define “well.” Most chiropractors thought it meant getting rid of symptoms or disease, the medical idea of well. Fortunately he did not claim to cure any or all diseases but getting sick people well was already going too far. In his later life BJ tried to compensate by focusing on the metaphysical, the innate intelligence and what it could do, “empty the hospitals, close the insane asylums and fill the churches.” Their (BJ and DD’s) greatest problem was not finding the middle ground and staying there. As Reggie would say, you can only walk half way into the woods. After that, you are walking out.
