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These eight volumes now appearing in a second edition represent the foundation for Pleneurethics—an original contribution to modern thought. It is not a product of a school of philosophy. It is the solitary fruit of a single mind with a single focus developed over many years. Richard Collier gave the volumes the subtitle of A New Concept of Healing. He explained the origin of the subtitle as follows:

            “I arrived in Hong Kong on my way to Bangkok with my book manuscript in hand looking for a printer. I met with success at the first place I tried—The South China Morning Post. The manager in charge of the job printing asked several questions:

            ‘Did I want light editing?’

            ‘Did I want a dust cover?’

            ‘If so, what kind of cover did I want?’

            And, at my departure, he threw a final question at me: ‘What title did I want?’ After a full five seconds of deliberation, I replied hesitantly, ‘A New Concept of Healing.’ Hence, the title for the first volume.

            “The second volume used the newly coined word Pleneurethics with the title of the first volume now the subtitle. Already apparent was the fact that my work was not to be limited to healing—healing, however, was to be the central motivation. As the subsequently volumes unfolded, I became aware of the obvious. My writing was creating a new field of thought larger than healing.

            “Now, many years later, if I were to be asked for a title, I would boldly respond—A New Beginning for Humanity.”

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There is no question but that Collier’s focus expanded as his thoughts deepened and as the number of volumes increased. His writings became more metaphysical. He struggled intellectually to find an operable unity for the whole of his work. In fact beyond the eight basic volumes, Collier wrote a unifying book with the title Pleneurethics: A Philosophical System Uniting Body, Brain, Mind. This book was published in 1990, almost thirty years after he began his long, lonely journey to create Pleneurethics. In this title he was very careful in the selection of his words. The word Pleneurethics was already a compressed word with a clear, connotative meaning. The words system and uniting were chosen thoughtfully. System was selected as a noun with a clearly acceptable denotative meaning. Uniting was selected as an action verb meaning to join together to become a whole. What was the whole system which was to be united? The composition of the whole was made up of body, brain, and mind. Here the sequence of the three nouns was an imperative for Collier. The brain was the essential link between the body and the mind.

Richard Collier is not an academic philosopher familiar with the long history of the philosophical struggles on what is now known as the mind/body problem. He is rather a practical thinker seeking practical solutions to real, daily problems. His sustained thinking has produced original concepts, many of which are guaranteed to make the establishment uneasy.

Seven of his concepts are cited below as examples of his originality. They are: (1) the focus he placed on chronic illness as separated from acute illness and which called for a different method of treatment because chronic illness is structural in original and therefore does not yield to the standard treatment by psychotherapy, to spirituality, or prescriptive medicine; (2) the importance of structure, of physics rather than chemistry in the treatment of chronic illness; (3) the discovery of the bioductory system, which conducts and protects the brain and the central nervous system, including the spinal cord—a discovery which is largely ignored in the current practice of medicine, however, it is vital to the cure of chronic illness problems; (4) the centrality of ethics to good health; (5) the acceptance by the individual of self-responsibility for one’s health and ethical character; (6) the brain as perceived in Pleneurethics as
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a living machine functioning as a biological entity, and (7) structural distortion (stress) in any part of the person which impacts on the brain leads to the brain’s functional impairment and establishes the basis for illness and disease, either acute or chronic or both. The inability to relax adequately due to persistent stress and tension predisposes the individual to illness and disease. Collier perceived the brain as a link between the body and the mind. It is, among other things, the communications center for the entire body/mind complex. Norman Cousins observed, “The brain is the only organ of the body that is totally essential for individual identity.”

Collier’s decision to base Pleneurethics on the structure of the total individual rather than upon the chemical content of the body was to be of major significance. His writings popularized the seldom used term “structure.”He also coined the words “biomechanics” and “biophysics.”He elevated the college of physics to a new, stellar position in healing practices. Because Pleneurethics is aimed at the “total individual,”it became the first true multidisciplinary teaching format. As a result, it led the way for the holistic movement in healing which is now so popular.

Recently I called Richard Collier’s attention to a new book by the Italian philosopher Sergio Moravia who is with the University of Florence. The title of the book is The Enigma of the Mind. The book is a thorough compendium of the philosophical thinking and reasoning of what is now referred to as the mind/body problem (MBP). In metaphysics the problem has been a concern since Aristotle, but more so since Descartes and still more so in modern philosophy. Moravia concentrates on the work relating to MBP since Herbert Feigl’s first article on the subject in 1934. The two questions confronting modern philosophers are: What is the fundamental nature of mind and body? and How are mind and body related? The complexity seems to be found in the differences between the physical world and the mental world. The former world is inanimate, purposeless, yet determined or fixed in the order of events within it. The latter world involves consciousness, planning, willing, and desiring. While the worlds are different, experience indicates that they are interrelated and interconnected. When something happens in the physical world, it affects the mental world by changing one’s wishes and thoughts.*

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Collier did not respond to the thorough and esoteric debate which swirled about the two metaphysical questions which are central to Moravia’s book. Collier is a solitary thinker, not an academically trained philosopher, not a member of any school of philosophical thought other than his own, and not a reader of philosophical journals and books. His sole focus has been in understanding what causes chronic illnesses and what can be done to correct the illnesses in order to salvage the lives of the people inflicted. His solution is also solitary. His answers are original. However, not content with utility alone, Collier developed a comprehensive, unified metaphysical perspective which, after eight volumes, he has come to identify as “A New Beginning to Humanity.”

* The mind/body problem has been a major concern for the metaphysicians from Aristotle’s time to the present.  The French philosopher René Descartes sharpened the debate with two critical questions: “What is the fundamental nature of the mind and body?” “How are mind and body related?”

Collier, in his Pleneurethics, placed the brain between the mind and the body.  He envisioned the brain not only as a magnificent control center but also as a collector of stresses from the mind/body complex.  The stresses affect both the mind and the body in the form of illnesses.  This problem, especially since the identification of “artificial intelligence: by Marvin Minsky in 1956, have become one of the major problems confronting philosophy and, in its operational mode, the health of the individual.  For those readers interested in a more thorough investigation of the current dimensions of the mind/body problem, the following books are recommended:

1.  The Oxford Companion to the Mind, Richard L. Gregory, Editor.

2. Churchland, Patricia Smith, Neurophilosophy: Toward a Unified Science of Mind/Brain (1995)

3. Moravia, Sergio. The Enigma of the Mind (1995)

4. Churchland, Paul M. The Engine of Reason, The Seat of the Soul (1995)