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HOW
HEALING ENERGY WORKS
James
L. Oschman, Ph.d. and Nora H. Oschman
Visit their Web Site: www.bodywork-res.com
This article was
first published in the Summer, 1993, issue of Convergency - A magazine for
personal & holistic health. Volume Six, Issue Three, Pages 24-30. One
Sanborn Road, Concord, New Hampshire 03301
Practitioners of a
variety of healing methods tell us of special moments when they feel
particularly "in tune" with their clients and with everything around
them. Athletes often describe similar experiences of connectedness during peak
performances. What is the basis for these moments? If we knew, we might be able
to have these experiences more often.
This article
presents a scientific basis for the concept of "healing energy" that
is common to many of the complementary healing practices. We describe what may
be happening within the practitioner and the patient during times of profound
insight and sensitivity and connectedness.
Years of research
into this topic, by a person steeped in the Western scientific tradition, in
collaboration with a person with extensive experience and sensitivity, has led
to some unexpected conclusions. Here we present a brief summary. For those
interested in more details, we offer our books and articles, and an opportunity
to attend a course beginning this October, in Portland, Maine.
The energy field of
the human body has been widely studied. Many practitioners feel they have
departed from the mainstream when they attempt to influence the body's energy
field. In fact, we regard their explorations as advanced, leading edge research
into the medicine of the future. There are many scientists who now believe that
"energy medicine" will be the source of the next great advances in
health care. Methods of interacting with the body's energy fields will become a
part of accepted medical practice. These methods will emerge when the wisdom of
acupuncture and other ancient methods is integrated with modern scientific
concepts.
Scientists know
that phenomena are usually described intuitively before they are quantified or
objectified. Healing energy is a classic example of this, since "laying on
of hands," therapeutic touch, aura balancing, polarity, acupuncture, and
related energetic approaches are ancient methods that we are just beginning to
understand scientifically.
We now know that
every part and process in the body produces a specific set of energy fields that
travel through the tissues and that extend into the space around the body. When
a nerve conducts, a muscle contracts, a gland secretes, the skin is touched or
cut or compressed, or a cell changes its function, characteristic electric
currents are produced. While these currents are strongest at the site where the
activity is taking place, currents are also conducted a certain distance through
the surrounding tissues. The current flows are not random, but follow specific
pathways because certain tissue components are good conductors for electricity.
And when biocurrents flow, biomagnetic fields are created in the space around
the body.
Modern scientific
interest in biomagnetic fields came about because of a technological
breakthrough. The SQUID, or superconducting quantum interference device, is an
extremely sensitive magnetometer, capable of measuring the biomagnetic field
produced by a single heartbeat, muscle twitch, or pattern of neural activity in
the brain. These instruments are now being used at universities and medical
research centers around the world. The dynamic energy fields around the body are
being mapped with great precision. The goal is to use knowledge of biomagnetic
fields in diagnosis and treatment.
The fields studied
with the SQUID are the same fields that sensitive individuals have talked about
for centuries. With practice, one can see, feel, and manipulate these fields. As
with any method, some individuals have a natural aptitude and sensitivity in
this direction, while others can acquire it.
In the past,
biologists and physicians have regarded bioenergy fields as "innocuous
signatures of the body's condition" rather than as a phenomenon with
physiological significance. For example, the electrocardiogram and
electroencephalogram are classical diagnostic tools for studying heart and brain
function, respectively. An expert can see evidence of a damaged heart or of an
organic brain disease in recordings of the oscillating electrical or magnetic
fields produced by those organs.
Western biomedicine
has some acceptance of the idea that a field can be applied to the body to cure
a disorder. For example, the cardiac pacemaker introduces a field that restores
normal heart rhythms. And physicians use electrical and magnetic devices to
facilitate healing of bone fractures. However, the idea that natural biological
fields, such as those from another person, might have therapeutic qualities, is
usually not considered. The reason for this is that the biofields generated by
an individual are usually regarded to be too weak to have physiological
significance.
We now know that
the field of the heart is the strongest field in a hierarchy of fields produced
during the functioning of various organs. A SQUID magnetometer can detect the
biomagnetic field of the heart at a distance of 3 feet from the chest. The field
does not end there, but extends indefinitely into space. At greater distances,
the signal becomes more difficult to extract from the jumble of ambient magnetic
noises.
We also know that
the concept of “strong" vs. "weak" actually refers more to the
sensitivity of our measuring instruments than to physiology. Biologists have
found that living systems are unbelievably sensitive to fields that have, in the
past, been regarded as extremely weak. We now know, for example, that homing
pigeons have built-in compasses that respond to the magnetic field of the Earth.
Pigeons use this system for navigation on cloudy days, when they can't use their
primary method, solar navigation.
There are good
reasons, from both physics and physiology, that manipulation of energy fields
can influence the body's structure and function. In other words, it is not
necessary to actually touch a person to affect their body. In fact, energy field
manipulations may be the most direct and powerful way to influence the healing
process, and the least likely to produce harmful effects.
We say this because
bioenergy fields are a rich source of bioinformation, and signals from a healthy
human being contain the most biologically relevant information that could be
introduced into another person.
How can energy
fields accelerate the healing process? From what we have learned, one reason a
tissue heals slowly is because the channels of communication that normally
connect that tissue to the rest of the body are not functioning optimally. We
are not referring to nervous or endocrine communications, but about a more
evolutionarily ancient system that is present in very simple animals that do not
even have nerves or hormones.
The ancient system
we are now describing in modern biophysical terms is involved in the
communications that enable the body to defend and heal itself. These are the
same communications that lead to wholeness and unity of functioning. Athletes
experience the totality of this interconnectedness during peak performances.
Peak performance, like total health, is a whole-system phenomenon, and requires
the integrated participation of all of the organs, tissues, cells, and molecules
in the body.
For an injury or
other disorder to be repaired, tissues that are some distance away from it must
participate in the healing process. The practitioner who can open the channels
of communication, or inject essential messages that are not getting through, can
greatly facilitate the body's own natural repair system. This also explains why
healing bodywork also helps athletes improve their performances.
Breakthroughs in
cell biology now enable us to describe the scientific basis of this system.
The first of these
breakthroughs was the discovery that the molecules of which the body is formed
are semiconductors. Conductors, such as the wires that go to a light or a
toaster, carry useful energy. The wire to your telephone carries information.
Semiconductors can convey both energy and information, and can do other things
as well. Semiconductors are used to store information and to process signals--to
make choices or decisions. Semiconductors are used to make sensitive detectors
of energy fields. Semiconductors can transport large amounts of power.
Semiconductors are the essential components of our modern electronics industry,
and make possible the miracle of the computer we are using to write this
article.
In living systems,
semiconductors probably play the same roles we have assigned to them in our
technology. Living systems undoubtedly have developed additional tricks that
have not yet been discovered by the electronics industry.
In a recent article
about acupuncture, we have suggested that the main channels of the semiconductor
network in the body correspond to the acupuncture meridians. According to
acupuncture theory, the main meridians, called jing, run vertically, but there
are many horizontal meridians, called luo. The luo have fine tree-like branches
extending into every nook and cranny of the body. We have suggested that this
branching system is none other than the connective tissue network that joins and
binds together all of the parts of the body.
The acupuncture
points are sensitive nodes in the system, where local information is integrated
with long-distance communications and with information from the internal and
external environment. Dr. Chen Shang refers to acupuncture points as singular
points, defined as places where a very small change in one parameter will cause
a huge change in another.
A second
breakthrough is the discovery that the network we are speaking of extends across
the surfaces of cells, into the cell interiors, and even into the cell nucleus
and DNA. The matrix inside of cells is called the cytoskeleton. It has
similarities to the musculoskeletal system of the body as a whole, because it
contains contractile, tensional, and stiff components.
The collagen-rich
connective tissue matrix is therefore a good candidate for a semiconducting
electronic communication network extending throughout the body, even into the
smallest part. It is a structural and energetic and informational continuum. It
is not the nervous system, but the nervous system is a part of it. We call it
the connective tissue/cytoskeleton. A group at Johns Hopkins University School
of Medicine refers to it as a tissue tensegrity-matrix system (tensegrity is the
term coined by Buckminster Fuller to describe the web of tensional and
compressional elements found in natural structures).
We suggest that
this semiconductor network may be organized in a manner that is similar to a
network of computers working on a common problem. In terms of information
theory, such a system is called a distributed network. Individual
microprocessors, possibly corresponding to the acupuncture points; are called
nodes. The assembly of programs or algorithms that govern local and global
activities is called a distributed network protocol. This protocol provides for
alternative routing of information when a part of the system is temporarily
damaged. Topological change protocols sense and adjust for failures of links or
nodes, and restore normal routing when the damage is repaired.
Our challenge is to
determine precisely how the living version of this system is organized and
operates. Comparing the communication network in the body with a network of
computers can give us clues as to how the human body can perform many different
activities simultaneously, flawlessly, and effectively. Knowledge of how the
integrated circuitry of the body is assembled and functions will have many
biomedical and technological applications.
We think the
connective tissue/cytoskeleton system combines communication, sensation, signal
processing, and power handling components, integrated in a very sophisticated
manner that has been honed by millions of years of evolutionary selection.
Nature has used all of the possible electronic, photonic, optical, and quantum
mechanical tricks to produce a network that is simple, automatic, and virtually
flawless in operation. This is the system that the complementary practitioner
interacts with.
How does this
system form during the development of the organism, and why have modern
anatomists been unable to find it? We suggest the system forms by a well-known
biological principle known as self-assembly. When the appropriate molecular
components have been synthesized, electrical forces cause them to be attracted
to each other and join together in specific ways to produce highly intricate
functional units. Assembly of the solid state communication network in the body
may involve alignment of particular molecules along lines of force of electric
or magnetic fields that are present in the embryo. Since the network is composed
of ordinary molecules that have become organized in particular ways at a
microscopic level, it is not anatomically distinguishable from normal connective
tissue. This explains why Western science has not been able to describe the
acupuncture meridian system.
The concept of such
a communication network has developed from several generations of biophysical
research that is not widely appreciated in biomedical circles. One of us (J.L.O.)
was introduced to this field in 1972, when he met Albert Szent-Gyorgyi and some
of his colleagues in Woods Hole. After his discovery of Vitamin C, for which he
received the Nobel Prize, and his discovery of actomyosin, Szent-Gyorgyi
pioneered a field which he called "electronic biology." This field
came about because Szent-Gyorgyi felt that the subtlety and speed of biological
responses could not be entirely accounted for by the nervous system and by
ordinary biochemical reactions. He concluded that a part of the living state had
to involve electrons that are highly mobile and therefore able to conduct energy
and information from place to place within the organism.
For electrons to be
mobile, they have to have conductors,. In 1941 Szent-Gyorgyi made the
remarkable suggestion that the proteins forming the fabric of the body are the
conductors. This idea stimulated research around the world that continues today.
At first, it appeared that Szent-Gyorgyi was wrong, and that proteins are
actually insulators, unable to convey electrons from place to place. But this
work was done on proteins that had been isolated from the body, purified, and
dehydrated. In the living organism, proteins are surrounded with water. When wet
proteins were studied, it was found that they were conductors, or, to be more
precise, they were semiconductors. Their ability to conduct electrons falls
between that of conductors and insulators.
We now know that
virtually all of the proteins in the body are semiconductors, and that the
entire fabric of the body, including the smallest parts of cells, are
semiconductors. This means the flexible living substance of which we are made is
not only a structural material but is also an electronic communication network
with the ability to detect and conduct energy and information, to store
information, and to process signals. Wholeness, unity of structure and function,
are natural consequences of having such a system within us.
We now suggest that
the healing phenomena that are part of the daily practice of the complementary
practitioner can be understood on the basis of interactions with a whole-body
integrated communication system. Acupuncture and other energetic approaches seem
to be inconsistent with biomedicine simply because orthodox medicine has not, as
yet, recognized that living tissues are made of a bioelectronic communication
network capable of very sophisticated and rapid responses to internal and
external energy fields. This is a system that will respond in sensitive and
specific ways to sounds, light frequencies, magnetic fields, and touch.
The subtlety of
this concept is enhanced when one considers the crystalline nature of living
tissues, another aspect that is not widely appreciated by biomedical
researchers. The crystalline or quasicrystalline (crystal-like) nature of the
connective tissues in the body arises because of the way the component collagen
molecules organize themselves into very regular parallel arrays. The arrangement
provides great tensile strength, flexibility, and interconnectedness. Because
collagen crystals are piezoelectric (a Greek word meaning 'pressure
electricity') every compression or stretching of the body fabric will generate
electric fields that travel through the matrix. Hence touch, as in Rolfing or
massage, is a powerful way of introducing energy and information directly into
the body.
There is a large
area in physics that studies the study of highly ordered systems. This is solid
state physics, which explores the special properties that arise when atoms or
molecules are associated in a regular periodic arrangement as in crystals. These
properties are called cooperative or collective phenomena. They are
whole-systems properties that arise because each individual component of the
system is modified in its behavior as a consequence of being part of a
collective group. Piezoelectricity is one of many different sorts of collective
properties.
Another consequence
of this arrangement is that the protein fabric of the body will organize or
structure large numbers of water molecules. Films of water coating the protein
structure of the body make possible some of the remarkable collective properties
of living systems. Szent-Gyorgyi wrote and thought a great deal about the
special properties of water in living tissues.
We mention this
because some of the remarkable experiences of complimentary practitioners may be
readily explained by the fact that living tissue is a highly regular array of
semiconducting molecules with a precisely ordered water subsystem associated
with it. Of particular interest are the phenomena associated with the ancient
martial arts that developed in parallel with acupuncture and other healing
methods.
A recent study
conducted in Japan has led us to a deeper understanding of all of the phenomena
discussed here. Seto and colleagues have found that practitioners of traditional
health and martial arts exercises, including Qi Gong, Yoga, meditation, Zen,
etc., are able to emit very strong pulsating magnetic fields from the palms of
their hands. The fields are so strong that they can be detected with a simple
magnetometer consisting of two 80,000 turn coils of wire connected to a
sensitive amplifier. The fields are about 1,000 times stronger than normal human
biomagnetic fields such as the magnetocardiogram studied with the SQUID.
The frequency and
strength of the pulsations recorded by Seto and colleagues are most remarkable.
The pulses occur from 4 to 10 times per second. This is an important frequency
for several reasons. First, it is in the same range as human brain waves as
detected in the electroencephalogram. Secondly, it is similar in frequency to
biomagnetic pulses recorded from the hands of a therapeutic touch practitioner
by Dr. John Zimmerman, using a SQUID magnetometer. Thirdly, the pulsation
frequency varies from moment to moment. The Earth's atmosphere also has variable
electric and magnetic oscillations in the same frequency range.
From the
information available, we have concluded that the various ancient martial arts
and healing practices may involve entrainment of the brain waves by the slow
electrical and magnetic rhythms of the Earth's atmosphere. Once the brain waves
are entrained, the practitioners are able to emit strong biomagnetic fields from
their hands. These fields are synchronized with the oscillations of the Earth's
fields.
Remarkably, there
is a study that documents a major part of this story. In 1969, Robert Beck began
a decade of research on the brain wave activity of healers from a wide variety
of sub-cultures around the world: psychics, shamans, dowsers, faith healers,
seers, ESP readers, a Hawaiian kahuna, practitioners of wicca, Santeria,
radesthesia, and radionics. Beck recorded their electrical brain waves using an
electroencephalograph. All of the healers produced similar brain-wave patterns
when they were in their "altered state" and performing a
"healing." It did not matter what beliefs and customs these healings
were based on. Beck noted that "...the subjects were practicing opposing
disciplines, and came from totally disparate teachings, and held opposing
viewpoints, and would barely acknowledge the existence or authenticity of
practitioners outside their belief systems..." In all cases the healers
entered an altered state of consciousness and registered low frequency brain
waves for periods lasting from one to several seconds.
Why would these
individuals, unknown to each other and located thousands of miles apart, develop
the same brain wave frequencies during their "healings?" Beck
performed additional studies on some of the subjects and found that during the
"healing moments" their brain waves became phase and frequency
synchronized with the electric field of the Earth.
Taken together, the
research summarized here points to a model of "healing energy" that
can explain a wide range of phenomena that have previously seemed elusive to
normal science. We suggest that the crystalline semiconducting connective tissue
matrix of the body, and the water subsystem associated with it, are able to
conduct energy and information throughout the organism. The matrix is able to
sense the internal and external environment, process information and integrate
functions throughout the body. Of particular significance is information that
regulates tissue repair and replacement at sites of injury or other trauma. When
the communication system becomes disordered or unbalanced, the flow of essential
information is slowed, and healing is compromised. Energy from the outside, as
from another person, can open the communication channels and thereby facilitate
tissue repair and replacement.
We also suggest
that the biofields of another person are more effective than fields generated by
an electronic gizmo. No man-made device can duplicate the strength, frequency,
coherence, and variety of oscillations present in a normally functioning
organism.
Finally, the
research of Seto and colleagues, Zimmerman, Beck, and a number of other
scientists indicates that one of the most physiologically potent signals that
can be introduced into an organism is a signal that is synchronized with the
oscillations of the Earth's atmosphere. It is likely that ancient meditative,
Yogi, and other practices bring about an ordering of the tissue structure such
that the practitioners become capable of emitting strong, coherent signals. This
enables them to project the "healing energy" for some distance.
Coherence refers to
energy a high degree of order, as in a laser beam. There is a biophysical basis
for this coherence. Technically it can be described as a whole-body collective
oscillation driven by Frohlich oscillations of the electrons and atoms within
the billions of collagen molecules in the body, and motions of the water
molecules associated with them. If the Seto et. al. study is verified, it will
mean that the body of the adept Qi Gong master or the practitioner of a related
discipline may be able to function as an antenna, receiver, amplifier, and
transmitter of atmospheric oscillations.
The most profound
significance to this arises from the fact that the frequency of the oscillations
of the Earth's atmosphere vary from moment to moment according to the
relationship of our planet with other celestial bodies: the sun, moon, other
planets, and even more distant objects. Well understood and scientifically
documented connections, such as the solar and interstellar winds and
interplanetary magnetic matrix, form this fabric of relationships that spans the
vast reaches of space. We can now see how enormous cosmic energy fields may
influence the structure and properties of living organisms.
"Man did not
weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it. What he does to the fabric,
he does to himself."
The idea of
celestial influences on health is an ancient principle in acupuncture. Even
older references to this concept can be found in the Vedic sutras. Deepak
Chopra, M.D. has summarized these concepts: "Healing involves aligning our
bodies with the larger body for the effortless flow of information." In
modern times, a comparable idea was introduced by Ida P. Rolf, Ph.D., the
founder of Rolfing. She emphasized that healing involves aligning the small
field of the organism with the larger field of the Earth. While the main focus
of Dr. Rolf's work was the influence of the gravitational field on the body, she
also recognized the importance of exploring the relationship between gravity and
other forms of energy.
In conclusion, we
are beginning to experience the convergence of ancient wisdom and healing
practices with modern science. We are convinced that many of the mysteries of
the human body, in health and disease, will be solved by an open minded
scientific examination of the various complementary medical theories and
practices.
The times are right
for this. In spite of great progress in medicine, we still have serious medical
problems that defy treatment by orthodox techniques. Our present health care
crisis is caused, in part, by the incompleteness of our conventional medical
theories. For each gap in our knowledge of how the body works there is a
corresponding incurable clinical condition. Many problems that are difficult to
treat by conventional medicine respond beautifully to alternative or
complimentary approaches. Practitioners of these methods seem to have an
intuitive working knowledge of systems within the human body that have not yet
been incorporated into orthodox clinical theory. Our work aims at finding a
scientific basis for such systems.
Jim and Nora
Oschman are directors of Nature's Own Research Association in Dover, New
Hampshire. Jim teaches “Bodywork Physiology and Biophysics” at the Rolf
Institute and at the Guild for Structural Integration in Boulder, Colorado; at
the Broad Reach of Bodywork in Portland, Maine; and at the Bradley Institute in
New Bedford, Massachusetts. For a list of Jim and Nora's books and articles,
address: P.O. Box 5101, Dover, NH 03820; phone (603) 742-3789.
 Energy
Medicine: The Scientific Basis of Bioenergy Therapies
by James
L., Ph.D. Oschman, Candace,
Ph.D. Pert (Foreword)
There is growing interest world wide in the field
of mind-body medicine and the effect which the natural "energy forces"
within the body play in the maintenance of normal health and wellbeing. This in
turn has led to interest in how these energies or forces may be channelled to
assist in healing and restoration to health. This book, written by a well known
scientist with a degree in biophysics and a PhD in biology, brings together for
the first time evidence from a wide range of disciplines which is beginning to
provide an acceptable explanation for the energetic exchanges that take place in
all therapies.
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