Volume 4, No. 2, May 2004
TEACHING HEALING: A serious challenge  

You teach best that which you most need to learn.
                                                                        Anonymous

Our world can be perceived and experienced as matter or as energy. Einstein suggested this early in the 20th Century in his famous equation, E = mc2 and modern physics has amply confirmed this theory. Matter and energy are two sides of the same coin. Newtonian medicine focuses on the matter side of the equation and has been slow to absorb that the body can also be addressed as energies. Healers and many other CAM therapies address the energy side of this equation.

Healers interact with bioenergies in two broad ways.

1. By sensing the bioenergies in and around the body, healers can perceive what is happening in the body. Most people can sense these energies with their hands. Some see them as auras of color around the body. Others may pick up information from the body as different sensory impressions, such as smell or taste. Some intuitives find that their minds translate this information as words when it filters through to their conscious awareness.

By interpreting their perceptions of the bioenergy fields, healers can identify a person's state of being on several levels: physical, emotional, mental, relational and spiritual. Assessing bioenergy states, they may note excesses, depletions, blocks or energies that indicate states of dis-ease or disease.

Healers report that the bioenergy fields not only reflect the state of the person, but are also templates for what is occurring in the body.

2. Healers can use their own consciousness and bioenergies to adjust abnormalities in careseekers' bioenergy fields. The biofield templates will then alter what is happening in the body, bringing about improvements in health.

Explanations for Bioenergies

Complex combinations of energies recognized by conventional science may contribute to the bioenergies perceived by healers. J. Bigu points out that a very complex set of known energies and fields may emanate from the body to produce the visual aura reported by sensitives. These energies may include: electrical, magnetic, radio frequency and microwave, infra-red, ultraviolet, X-ray, gamma ray, beta ray, neutrino, chemical, mechano-acoustical scattering, diffraction and refraction auras. The perceived aura may represent a sensory or psi perception of these fields individually or in combination(s), perhaps in the form of interference patterns.

Various energies that are well recognized in conventional science could account for some of the observed bioenergy phenomena. Schwartz et al. (1995) note that direct current (DC) skin electrical potentials can normally be measured on the hands. It's possible that the amount of sweat on the skin could modulate these DC potentials, and this could also alter the amount and quality of the heat radiated from the skin. Blood flow in the skin and muscles of the hands conduct cardiac electrical and sound patterns as well as generating heat, which is radiated as infrared pulses. The muscles in the limbs produce electromyographic (EMG) pulses. Movements of the limbs generate electrostatic fields. All of these energies combine to form a complex, dynamic energy pattern around the hands and other parts of the body.

Chien et al. (1991) also identified emanations of heat energy, which they measured as infrared signals in therapeutic touch healings.

Conversely, the hands contain nerve endings which can detect pressure, temperature, and the stretch of tendons and ligaments. These receptors could, theoretically, also respond to other energies. Electrostatic fields might produce subtle stretches or pressures which these receptors might be able to register. Minute breezes could also be detected through temperature, pressure, and/or stretch receptors. Perceptions of electrical or magnetic signals have not been empirically established as yet.

My own explanation for bioenergies draws on all of the above, synthesized through systems theory.

1. In much of the research and theorizing to date, we have approached bioenergy medicine in a reductionistic way because most scientists have been trained to address research in this manner. We have picked one piece or another of the total gestalt that comprises a careseeking person and have done our best to analyze this piece in a focused, systematic way.

We are gradually acquiring data on electromagnetic radiations measured in various ways: e. g. by laboratory instruments, bioenergy therapists' descriptions of their sensory perceptions and healers' intuitive perceptions of the functioning of the human organism in health and illness.  

2. The human organism is an enormously complex system in which many factors combine to bring about any single state of body, emotions, mind and spirit. None of the individual components can provide a full or adequate description for the human organism, nor can a simple combination of factors or layers of explanations begin to explain the functioning of the human organism.

3. A caregiver is composed of similarly complex combinations of factors.

4. The interaction of a caregiver with a careseeker is exponentially more complex than either alone.

5. Each of us is similar to a subatomic particle in the atom of a molecule of a cell of the tissues and organs that make up a whole organism - which is the cosmos. We have the illusion of being separate from the vast All, and we do have free choice which gives us a measure of illusion of being independent, but our independence is still within the frameworks that contain us. There are therefore uncountable intangible factors that influence every aspect of our being.

Considering all of these factors, it is actually a great wonder that we have been able to extract some measures of orderliness in healing research out of this cosmic soup of influences that can shape each subject in an experiment at any moment. The infinite variability of the combinations of factors that can alter the condition of each subject in an experiment is mind-boggling.

            Full editorial in International Journal of Healing and Caring - On line,
            May, 2004, Volume 4, No. 2
            

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Copyright © Daniel J. Benor, M.D. 2004 Reprinted with permission of the author P.O. Box 76 Bellmawr, NJ 08099 www.WholisticHealingResearch.com   DB@WholisticHealingResearch.com