The terms energy medicine, energetic healing, bio field healing, bio energetic healing, chakra healing, aura healing, energy work, meridian-based healing, energy anatomy, vibrational medicine, subtle energy healing and dozens of other similar labels simply refer to practices relating to a certain vibrational or frequency-based level of energy.
Most of us have experienced the benefits of x-rays, MRI, electro-cardiograms and other testing devices. These practices all employ energy and make energetic changes in the body. Surgery can be seen as an energetic manoeuvre in that tearing tissue disturbs the body’s vibrational field. Adding a device like a pacemaker provides new information, aiding heart function and assuring that it vibrates correctly instead of skipping beats.
Prescription drugs work energetically altering vibration through chemical information that instructs cellular behaviour. Biological fields are not just bi-products of physiological processes; they are part of the mechanism by which the body communicates with itself.
A few decades ago these energy fields were considered non-existent by academic medicine. Research on this topic is now underway, in medical and academic research centres around the world. We are now documenting the presence of such fields and researchers are starting to understand how energy fields are generated and how they are altered by disease and disorder.
Electromagnetic medicine is beginning to revive but with far more sophisticated science to support it.
For example, research from scientists like Axon Burr, Bergsmann, Woolley Hart, Sullivan and Brewitt published over the last decade has shown that diseased states can be detected by measuring changes in the electrical conductance of tissue, making possible early diagnosis and treatments.
In 1985, Sullivan and colleagues reported that patients with lung cancer (confirmed by chest x-rays) had 30% lower electrical conductances at lung points. Other research summarized by Brewitt (1996, 1999) showed the cellular basis for these effects. Specifically, viral and bacterial infections, as well as cancer, affect the ionic and water content and pH of the extracellular fluids, and thereby affect the cell membrane potentials and tissue conductances.*
Energy fields can be detected a distance from the body and scientists are now able to explain how these fields are generated and why they become distorted when pathology is present. Why living systems are so sensitive to these fields and how fields can be used for healing is also now the subject of scientific investigation.
In just a few decades scientist have gone from the conviction that there is no such thing as energy fields in and around the human body, to an absolute certainty that they exist. To date, medical interest has focused on the magnetic fields around the body that are now referred to as biomagnetic fields.
Interest in biomagnetism has spread widely in the biomedical research community. At a fundamental level we still do not know exactly what electricity and magnetism really are.
The electron is a basic unit and has properties such as charge, mass and gravity. A deeper explanation as to how these properties arise is missing at this time.
In the past we could define an individual as that which lies within the skin, but it is a fact of physics that energy fields have no such boundaries. The biomagnetic field of the heart extends indefinitely into space even though its strength diminishes with distance.
If you are interesting in the science of energy healing, look out for the third blog in this series which looks at light, sound and vibration along with the healing role of tuning forks.
*References
Bergamann O, Woolley-Hart A 1973 Differences in electrical skin conductivity between acupuncture points and adjacent skin areas. American Journal of Acupuncture 1:27-32.
Brewitt B 1996 Quantitative analysis of electrical skin conductance in diagnosis: historical and current views of bioelectric medicine. Journal of Naturopathic Medicine 6(1): 66-75
Sullivan S G, Eggleston WW, Martinoff JT, Kroenig RJ 1985 Evoked electrical conductivity on the lung acupuncture points in healthy individuals and confirmed lung cancer patients. American Journal of Acupuncture 13(3) 261-266
