The Jordan Method, Chiropractic Part I/IV
Thursday March 28, 2024 by Christopher Jordan

Dr. Jordan is licensed by the Florida Board of Chiropractic Medicine, he practices chiropractic here in DeLand, Florida and has since 1981. Some patients have stated that he is not a chiropractor, as he doesn’t practice like other chiropractors. This was not said derogatorily, but rather to distinguish him from other chiropractors. What then is the distinction? The difference between Dr. Jordan and most other chiropractors is the fundamental problem with chiropractic itself.

Chiropractic has become defined by the singular modality that was once the primary form of treatment by the majority of chiropractors. It was designed around the fundamental principle that defined the primary purpose of our profession. The principle, purpose and resulting treatment method, which arose at the turn of the twentieth century, held sway for decades. Chiropractic was not a form of spinal orthopedics as it might be considered today. The idea was that “healing energy” flowed through the nervous system. If there was any interference to this flow, areas of the body, including organs, innervated by the nervous system would suffer. The result of this suffering would be dysfunction and disease. Since the nervous system had many pathways exiting through the spine, any misalignment of the spine could interfere with this nervous energy and result in the above.

Misalignments were originally palpated (detected by touch) and later demonstrated on x-ray, as radiology was being developed around the same time as chiropractic. The issue here is what actually are we as chiropractors feeling or observing on film? As one learns the art of palpation, the sense of touch becomes quite profound. The practitioners’ ability to discern what lies beneath is exceptional. Just as a sommelier may detect notes in a glass of wine that the average consumer may not, those that practice any form of body-work after a period of time can distinguish the subtleties of the palpable tissues of the body.

The common story in chiropractic lore, is that the founder of our profession palpated a bump in the upper back of a janitor who professed to a level of deafness. After delivering a force to this bump, the janitor indicated that he could hear horse carriages in the street below, this being Davenport, Iowa @1898. Thus the impetus of the profession. The founder of the profession previously practiced “Magnetic Healing,” believing in the divine nature of healing. Looking for a plausible physiological path to bring credibility to the principle of the flow of healing energy, the nervous system became this pathway.

Doctors of Osteopathy had been practicing a form of spinal manipulation for ten years previous to the events related above. Chiropractic borrowed heavily from these techniques, refining them to specific vertebral levels over the years to follow. Our purpose was to remove impediments to nervous energy flow, thus restoring healing energy to tissues and organs and promoting health. We did this by manipulating the spine, because what we were feeling were vertebral misalignments, which we called subluxations, and we were adjusting them back into place. Or were we?