If Pleneurethics has a major preoccupation, it is with shape. The shape of things presages their use; and their role in the scheme of things if foretold by their profile. It is from the shape of things that the glint is seen in the designer’s eye, and the reason behind the plan is known. It is from the shape of things that Pleneurethics derives its concept of the origin of the cosmos and its theology.

        The shape of a face, the heft of a belly, and the spread of the galaxies are of significance in one way or another. Indeed, the shape of things, both animate and inanimate, reveals much. To examine and to interpret impartially what is seen can be deep.

        In Pleneurethics the observer seeks to determine the shape of the brain, the mentality of the bioductory system: for each has profound influence on the shape of the brain and its ability to function.

—Richard Bangs Collier

        In Volume II, written in 1965 and published in 1966, a tight outline of the basic categories and levels of Pleneurethics is provided. The premise is the realization that in any device, animate or inanimate, alteration of its structural array will modify its amplitude and spectrum of functional output. Even relatively minute structural distortions in the brain/bioductory system relationships may produce astonishingly complex and grave consequences in functional fidelity of both the mind and the body. The reverse is also true. Seemingly miraculous cures of biological malfunction in both mind and body may be effortlessly achieved through skillful physical restructuring of traumatically induced distortions in the brain/bioductory systems relationships.
        The Pleneurethical approach to restoration of neural sufficiency is fundamentally a structural approach, which is applied on intellectual
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and ethical levels as well as upon the physical level. The concept of structure is not mutually exclusive. In order to comprehend the idea of structure one needs to associate it with two companion ideas: function and content. These three categories—structure, function, and content—along with the three levels—physical, intellectual, and ethical—constitute some of the basic analytical tools of Pleneurethics.
        Ideally, the categories are separate and distinct, but, in actual practice, they become so inextricably interrelated that it is difficult to mention one without discussing the other two in the same sentence.

        Content: The idea of content is the easiest category to understand and the least complicated. It is the idea of content and its interrelationship with structure and function that was instrumental in inspiring healing approaches like medicine and surgery. Thus, content, thereby beneficially modifies the body’s function and structure. In surgery, it is the reverse. Surgery, instead of adding content to the body, removes content that has hopelessly deteriorated into fulminating inflammation, purulence and ulcers. The nutritional approach to healing is also based on the concept of content. By shifting the nutritional content of the body, its internal content environment is re-established thereby modifying its structure and function. Content is accumulated through retention, and it refers to internal essence. Content is that which is contained and that which is composed of elements restrained, compacted, or held in a prescribed field of movement or orbit. Content is that which is held together in any degree or manner. An easy accumulation of content depends upon the harmony of the ingredients. Only harmonious ingredients can be efficiently contained or permanently restrained. Inharmonious ingredients eventually destroy content relationship by virtue of the violent disagreement of their natures.
        Content availability controls the structural design, and, if the content of the structure is improper, the structure will be degeneratively influenced. Also, the function will be negatively affected. Improper, inadequate, or unsuitable content restricts organic structure and function. Proper and adequate content permits useful structure and function.

        Structure: From the category of content, attention is turned to that of structure. The structural approach to healing chronic illness has been overlooked by practitioners, scholars, and philosophers for centuries.
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        Generally speaking, structure is concerned with the design and arrangement that produce shape, form, or configuration. Structures are developed from constructions following an intelligent plan or from fortuitous circumstances according to the free play of natural forces. Structures are predicated upon meaningful interrelationships between organic parts and stress bearing members. These structures require bonding of constituent elements to preserve basic shape and functional capability.
        Structures generate stress by virtue of their discrete parts that are held in purposeful restraint by either a grand design or by a random collection of free forces. Structures remain intact as long as the collection of organs and their content are successfully controlled. Structures dissipate when restraint weakens and when the organic components collapse. Structures also weaken as content is corrupted.
        Gross structural configuration depends upon architectural design, but the structural members themselves must be fashioned from content. Content must be drawn from that which is externally available and utilized internally to form the implicit essence of the structure.
        Structural configuration forecasts function and content requirements. Content availability controls structural limits and functional capability. Structures fall if deteriorating content is not rejuvenated or replaced with new content. Very often, new content cannot be introduced into the structure to replace deteriorated content because of structural distortion that evoked the problem.
        Proper structure is a prime prerequisite to content acquisition, utilization, and retention. Proper structural relationship is fundamental to effective and efficient function.
        Pleneurethics employs a structural approach, oriented toward the basic structures on the many levels of the person. This is the essence of Pleneurethics.

        Function: The concept of function is more advanced than that of content. In one way it is not as basic as content; however, in another way it is more significant, especially in the living and functional human being. Content is basic to function; and function is basic to life and to living activity. Moreover, proper function is a fundamental prerequisite for content retention and utilization in a functioning organism. Violence to content will result if function is not timely, complete, and proper.
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        Function is founded on content and structure. It is a reflection of the interaction of these two categories. Function is movement. It involves manipulation of discrete elements of content within a framework of structure which itself must be composed of content. Structural abnormalities or deviations in content precipitate disorganized function. Functional abnormalities in themselves can also sponsor unnatural variations in content and, consequently, produce specific structural problems.
        Function is inextricably and unalterably related to structure. Function is based on structure. Structural rearrangement shifts the framework of function. It revised the limits of functional activities. Structure is cause; function is effect. If one varies the structural cause, there will be a swing in the range of function to a new position in the whole spectrum of activity.
        Function is action and performance. Natural functional activity is fulfilled when regular operation prevails. However, functional deviations are equal to abnormal action that in turn result from structural modification or alteration of normal content. Functions that are uncharacteristic are also synonymous with degenerative operation.
        Structural design, once formulated and constructed, controls function. Should structure fail, function will be stifled, content will be dissipated, and production will be lost. Structure and function depend upon the availability of material content. Hence, structure and content dictate function of any machine.
        Important as are both content and function, structure is the prime factor in successfully and permanently restoring health.

        Pleneurethical Levels: In Pleneurethics the causes of illness are stratified in three levels: physical, intellectual, and spiritual. Physical level structures of the body are constructed from material components. Intellectual level structures of the mentality are derived from intelligence and knowledge obtained from the senses. The spiritual level structures are construed from the universal ethic.
        In the beginning, especially to the youthful, the physical level seems the most solid, tangible, satisfactory, and desirable. It is durable, and it lasts. Initially, material appears to be at the real basis for substance. Its acquisition constitutes a test of worldly manhood. To the youthful, things intellectual seem almost covert and of little permanent consequence. Things intellectual appear to be easily shifted, unenduring,
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and of little real substance. To adolescence and to the perennially immature, the spiritual seems too trivial to even mention seriously.
        With the passage of time, the personal value placed on the level of things is reversed. Physical objects of the material world become all important. As evaluations reverse themselves, it becomes easy for some individuals to permit their values to again become distorted but in the opposite way. In the early days, it is just as easy to exaggerate the importance of the spiritual in relation to the physical and the intellectual.
        Some persons never mature sufficiently to move normally from the material to the spiritual. They become stuck in the middle ground of intense and even perhaps dishonest intellectualism. They never achieve the desired place and serenity which is only to be achieved by substantially reducing one’s reliance on physical and intellectual levels while expanding one’s awareness of the spiritual ethic.
        To comprehend the complexity of categories and levels, one needs to recall that the focus here is on chronic illness, not acute or congenital illness. Chronic illness cannot be cured by the methods employed to cure acute illness. Unfortunately, too many medical practitioners do not perceive the fundamental difference inherent between chronic and acute illnesses. The thesis of Pleneurethics is that chronic illnesses afflicting millions of people—many permanently and most hopelessly—is, at root, structural. Drugs do not correct chronic illnesses. At best the illnesses are made tolerable by reducing pain. The cure must be found in the structure. Collier has provided with his identification of categories and levels a way of the structured domain which must be understood before relief can be provided to those tormented individuals who are the victims of chronic illness.
        The cure is to restructure physically the bioductory system, thereby removing abnormal anatomical distortion in the brain system and normalizing brain system function. The cure is a physical approach—not a chemical, psychological, or spiritual approach. This concept is basic in Pleneurethics.
        One of the major postulates of Pleneurethics states that a brain, under chronic physical assault from traumatic derangement in the bioductory system, spins off both physical and chemical symptoms in the somatic body as well as psychological mental symptoms in the mind. The cure for these symptoms is to recognize that they are not of hysterical
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(mental) nemesis, but of physical etiology requiring a physical remedy. If the brain has been allowed to regress into an irreversibly damaged condition, Pleneurethics is no longer curative. It is at best only ameliorative.
        Collier invented the term “biomechanics” in relation to the process of correction for chronic illness. In part, biomechanics is a counterpoint to the word “biochemistry” which is not a viable part of the correction needed in chronic illness. Today, the more popular term for biomechanics is “biophysics.” Pleneurethics employs a biophysical approach to healing chronic illness and to providing the neurological basis for good health. It helps to control the biochemistry of the body, including the immune system, by normalizing brain structure and function.