There are many stories told about Tom Bowen, and they have varying degrees of truth and fancy to them. Mr. Bowen was not a very talkative person, especially about himself and his life, and some of what he did share was altered in the translation. It was popularly reported as fact, for example, that he was born in 1904, had served in the military [as a medic, thus the interest in healing arts], returned to university afterwards in study of chemistry, and was working as a chemical engineer at the time of his entry into manipulative practice. All untrue.

Ironically, his true story is plenty interesting enough. Born in 1916, with an eighth grade education, Tom Bowen was working at a series of skilled and semiskilled jobs, finally employed as a general hand at the Geelong Cement Works. Here, there are reports of an (apocryphal) incident that convinced him he had "healing hands" and needed to consider pursuing another career. There is some strong likelihood that Tom's interest in sports, coaching young players and helping with their injuries, was pivotal in his development of manual techniques.

Although such words as “magical” and “miraculous” are often applied to Tom Bowen's methods, and his personal results, he worked very hard for his miracles. He read voraciously in any books he could find to improve his technique, and to help with difficult patients' cases. His favorite sources were osteopathic texts. He may also have “appropriated” things his students learned in their chiropractic, osteopathic, and massage training and experience.

One area where Mr. Bowen didn't seem to need much help was in diagnosis. While most osteopaths have extensive theory and testing to determine which areas need work, Tom Bowen knew in an instant. He would advise his students to look at the set of the patient's jaw, as that told the whole story. To some degree or other they were able to, but never to the quick and comprehensive degree that Tom could.

Even with this highly developed visual sense, Tom always emphasized fine-tuning one's palpation skills. He was very interested in the nervous system, claiming to be able to feel nerve vibrations. At one point early in his career, Tom had volunteered for a year or so at a hospital clinic, massaging polio patients. Perhaps this was part of the proving ground to developing his techniques. By observing and working with people whose nervous systems were systematically failing, he could get a better sense of how they were meant to function in the first place.

Once Mr. Bowen went into serious practice, his reputation grew quickly. In 1975, the government of Victoria was investigating alternative practitioners in order to standardize licensing. Officials were stunned to find that this untrained manipulative therapist was treating some 13,000 patients per year (averaging 60 - 100 patients per day at his peak). After an extensive interview (that reads more like an interrogation), he was invited, as were other unlicensed practitioners, to take a grandfathering test to be qualified as an osteopath.

Tom failed the test. Some say it was purely politics and professional jealousy. But what's perhaps more interesting than the fact of his failing is the way he failed. He did exceptionally well on the practical testing, but not on the orals. When required to parrot textbook answers to hypothetical cases he balked, virtually refusing to answer. "Bring them in, and I'll show you what I'll do," was his basic response. He knew from his practice that there was no one solution to a problem, but that it depended on many other interweaving factors — depended on the individuality of the patient rather than his named symptoms or disease. This points to Tom's position with the naturalistic, homeopathic, "Eastern" philosophical end of the medical spectrum¹

¹ There are rumors that he studied for a period of time with a Chinese doctor in a neighboring town.