With Gandalf’s Aura and a Vision to End Blindness Naturally, Dr. Glen Swartwout is Casting a Spell on Eye Care

When he was in second grade, he struggled in school. His grades hovered at C-level, and learning felt like a constant uphill battle. That all changed after his father, a pioneering functional optometrist, introduced him to behavioral vision therapy. The results were life-changing. His grades soared to straight A’s, setting the stage for him to graduate from Dartmouth years later.

But when he was finishing his degree, he knew he didn’t want to follow the crowd into medical school. While his peers envisioned careers in surgery or pharmaceuticals, he dreamed of a different path. He wanted to help people heal naturally. Integrative medicine wasn’t a recognized specialty back in 1978, and he quickly discovered that naturopathic medicine wasn’t an option in his home state of New York.

That’s when he turned back to vision. His father’s work had already shown him the transformative power of optometry — not just in improving eyesight but in restoring lives. He was one of the first eye doctors to collaborate with medical rehabilitation specialists, using vision therapy to help stroke and head trauma patients regain visual function.

While working as a vision therapist at his father’s practice, he saw firsthand how…