The Power Of Energy Healing

Visit an integrative medical center or clinic in the area and you may find one of the practitioners simply working around the patient’s physical body or lightly resting their hands on the patient’s body for 20 to 40 minutes. Within that span of time, deep relaxation and healing of major physical, emotional, mental and/or spiritual problems may occur.

How is this possible? This article explores the revolutionary field of energy medicine, its implications, and the new paradigm enabling a scientific explanation for a seemingly unexplainable phenomenon.

Many of the well-known energy-healing modalities include qi-gong, Reiki, Jin-shin, Jorhei, Therapeutic Touch, Healing Touch, Pranic Healing, Reconnective Healing, and Theta Healing. There are other energy-healing modalities with a brand name as well as natural-born healers who have intuitively created their own techniques.

One of the universal aspects of all energy work is the channeling of a universal life force which comes through the practitioner and into the patient to restore balance and healing to the entire system. The underlying theory is that the body has a natural capacity to heal itself and that a person can heal more quickly and naturally when the universal life force is channeled to assist.

How this occurs has yet to be fully explained by the scientific community but its occurrence has been documented by many miraculous healings as well as many people purporting an increase in energy, well-being and the relief of symptoms.

Many practitioners believe they are channels for different types of healing energies or “frequencies” that pass through them and their hands into the energy field of the patient. This supposed energy field has yet to be fully embraced by Western Science but has long been the basis for ancient forms of healing such as acupuncture and Ayurvedic medicine.

When advanced healers are asked how they work, the common answer is that they are not the ones doing the work. They are simply stepping aside and allowing the universal life force to flow through them. The source of this life force may be labeled God, love, the universe or the field depending on one’s background and inclinations.

Other Eastern traditions suggest that we live in a sea of energy or chi and that the reason our physical, emotional and mental bodies become dis-eased is because of blockages in these bodies and not due to a lack of available energy. When these blockages are released, the abundant source of energy all around us can then flow freely through the various bodies we inhabit.

Science is beginning to look very closely at the phenomenon of energy healing as there is an increased call for evidence-based medicine among the complementary health modalities. The best well-performed research in this field focuses on the use of these healing energies on cell cultures.

Cell cultures are cells taken from the human body and kept alive for various experiments in a laboratory dish. The advantage of this type of experiment in the initial stages of research is the ability to factor out the placebo effect or the effect based on the belief of the recipient.

In a study directed by Gloria Gronowicz, a professor of orthopedic surgery at the University of Connecticut, application of Therapeutic Touch (an energy-healing modality involving sending energy from practitioners’ hands to a Petri dish of bone cells for 20 minutes a week for three weeks) showed a statistically significant decrease in DNA synthesis and mineralization in a cancerous bone cell line compared to normal bone cells. The next step to this line of research is for other labs to replicate the finding and to take it to the clinical level with human participants. Comprehensive research like this will build the scientific basis for energy medicine in the future.

But does energy medicine work? How can someone with her hands placed four inches from a cell culture dish influence the metabolic and physiological effects of cancerous cells? The current hypothesis is that all living and non-living objects have an underlying energy field within and surrounding them. This living field can influence and be influenced through thought and intention. The healer intends that the energy comes into their body through their hands and transfers to the target, in this case the cells in the dish. That is it. The energy in conjunction with the innate healing wisdom of nature does the work of altering the cells’ physiology as evidenced by changes in DNA expression and function. The healer simply acts as the channel and the director of the energy using their thought and intention.

Many energy healers do not even need to be physically present with the patient in order to do their healing work. The patient may be many miles away, and in fact, the distance does not matter. The healing energy can still influence the patient in a positive manner. This work is called distance healing or healing at a distance. These energy fields do not seem to follow physical laws as described by Isaac Newton but more the modern quantum mechanical laws where space and time are not absolute but malleable.

A classic example depicted in the new documentary The Living Matrix: the New Science of Healing (2008) describes how the famous astronaut Edgar Mitchell used a well-known energy healer by the name of Adam to heal him of a diseased kidney during the course of the month. Adam never physically met Edgar during the course of the treatments, but facilitated the healings from his home in Vancouver, British Colombia, while Edgar Mitchell resided in Florida.

Understanding the body and mind as an integrated energy system is also useful in self-healing. The heart sends out the largest electromagnetic signal in the body and many researchers in this field hypothesize that it is the heart that regulates our energy body first and then the brain. When a person is in a positive state of peace, joy and gratitude, these coherent emotional states put the rest of the energy body into a state of healing and wholeness. Further research into this phenomenon, particularly that done by the Institute of HeartMath, has shown that during healing sessions both the heart and brain rhythm of the healer synchronize with that of the patient. It is hypothesized that the moment this synchronization occurs, the healing also occurs. Many people notice that when they feel an “attunement” or resonance with their health care provider, they feel healing is possible.

The world of energy medicine is just beginning to become more widely accepted in our society. With this acceptance comes a whole new vista for treating the health of the individual, the community and the planet. Our thoughts and emotions are energy directors which can be transferred across space and time with no boundaries.

People seeking more complementary and integrated forms of therapy may want to explore energy medicine in conjunction with their regular medical care. Energy work may provide the missing link in helping to achieve balance and harmony in one’s relationship to their body, mind and spirit as well as harmony with others and the environment.

Written By: Dr. Sharon Norling, MBA and Gene Ang, PhD