Technological Innovation and Fidelity in Copying in Areas Where Scientific Theory is Murky: The Case of Tom Bowen, Ossie Rentsch and Graham Pennington
Miles Kimball receiving his certificate for the highest level of training in the Bowen Technique. To his left: Elaine and Ossie Rentsch.
I hate being pigeonholed. It tickles me that in addition to a PhD in Economics, I have a Master’s degree in Linguistics (see “Miles's Linguistics Master's Thesis: The Later Wittgenstein, Roman Jakobson and Charles Saunders Peirce”), I am a Certified Professional Co-Active Coach (see “On Human Potential”) and I am a fully trained practicioner of a particular type of bodywork: Bowenwork (see “Tom Bowen's Gift to Humanity: A Powerful Australian Technology”).
One of the interesting aspects of learning Bowenwork was the quasi-religious aspect. Tom Bowen, who invented the type of bodywork named after him, is treated by the biggest Bowenwork teaching organization (from which I received my training) as if he were a prophet who received divine revelation. Elaine and Ossie Rentsch—whom you can see in the picture above when I completed my advanced Bowenwork training—then claim Ossie as an immediate disciple of Tom Bowen who then has been continuing on the one true form of Bowenwork. But there are other variant interpretation of Bowenwork that Elaine and Ossie consider heresies (though Ossie is much more laid back than Elaine). One prominent alternative interpretation is that of Graham Pennington, who has a 2012 book (which has become quite scarce).
Some of the disputes about lines of authoritative descent that I became aware of from Elaine and Ossie and from Graham’s book make sense only if one thinks of Bowenwork in a quasi-religious way. From a scientific point of view, what matters is what works, whether or not a procedure is the same as what Tom Bowen would have done.
I am an enthusiast for Bowenwork. In particular, I like the fact that I can do most of the procedures on myself pretty easily; I do that for myself about once a month. And like most organizations that (unlike universities) have to teach well in order to survive and grow, I thought that Ossie and Elaine’s organization did a great job teaching Bowenwork to me. But unlike Ossie and Elaine, I think it is OK to tinker with the Bowen procedures and see what happens—even if that tinkering departs from what Tom Bowen originally did.
I find it intriguing how the religious impulse—complete with arguments about orthodoxy and heresy—crops up in other contexts that aren’t obviously religious.