The Science of Energy Medicine: How to Work With Subtle Energy for Better Health (I)
Extraordinary advances in the fields of medicine and neuroscience have developed life-saving techniques, improved the quality of life and lengthened the average lifespan. Yet our hospitals are packed to the rafters. We’ve lost our way.
In the Western world the prevailing biomedical model focuses on pathology, biochemistry and the physiology of disease. Unlike with energy medicine and healing, psychological, environmental and social influences are for the most part ignored.
We’re defined as “healthy” when we are free from disease, pain or defect, but what about the state of our mind and heart? Technically, we may be free from disease, yet we feel unhappy, tired and depressed. Medicine is the science and art of healing, but a medical model that excludes mind, heart and spirit becomes less of an art and more a form of engineering.
Back to Front: Why Modern Medicine Has it Backward
Modern medicine works back to front. Working outside in, its focus is on effect, rather than cause, and on symptom (form) rather than root cause (energy). Subtle energy medicine works inside out, and is aligned with the universal law of cause and effect: energy precedes form. If you want to change form (your body), then first change the vibrational frequencies of the energy (your mind, your emotions, your environment).
Medicine will only become a truly healing art when biology, mind, spirit and the environment that sustains us are viewed as one interlocking system. Addressing only what a physician can see, describe or detect from a laboratory test or scan is like looking at a tree – but only the parts that are visible above ground.
Highly trained consultants become specialists in just one branch of the patient’s “tree”. Outside of energetic medicine, doctors seldom ask: “What’s happening beyond the physical plane and conscious mind of my patient? What is the root cause of the cellular chaos showing up as disease?”
Don’t Shoot the Messenger: Why Symptoms Are a Gift in Disguise
Symptoms are a knock at the door. When we listen, we discover that pain is nothing more than a trusted courier delivering an urgent message that reads: “Wake up! There is an easier road available to you than the worn-out old track you are walking.”
From an energy medicine perspective, illness is the most efficient way for our bodymind to draw our attention to a systemic imbalance. And healing accelerates once we identify the root cause – those hidden, unconscious, mental and emotional patterns – and then treat the bodymind using energy, which is the only code it can read.
A brief exploration of the ancient field of subtle energy medicine is essential for a deeper understanding of Life Alignment’s transformational power to not only heal our bodies, but also to open up the spiritual path that will guide us toward our awakening.
There is no single definition of energy medicine (which has existed in various forms for thousands of years; but in simple terms, this branch of vibrational medicine is based on the body’s relationship to and production of electromagnetic fields and other forms of vibrating energy such as light (photons), mechanical (sound), and thermal (temperature).
Living as we do in a multi-dimensional universe, human beings are similarly multi-dimensional energy systems. Disturbance on any level causes ripples. Homeostasis or stability at the physical level requires balance at the subtle levels. Without this any prolonged imbalance will, eventually, materialize as disease in one form or another.
Thus the primary purpose of subtle energy medicine is to change the vibrational frequencies of the body’s energetic fields, channels and centres, and thereby bring the whole system back into balance.
The Mechanics of Energy Medicine: Consciousness ➞ Field ➞ Form
As consciousness (awareness) governs the field (thoughts, feelings, environment), so the field governs form (molecules, cells). Awareness (consciousness) that for example “I have lost my house keysˮ affects the mind (field) that generates anxious thoughts that in turn affect the nervous system with a resulting tension in the body (form). This sequence of cause and effect that underlies energetic medicine and energy healing calls for a brief exploration of consciousness, energy and matter.
Understanding the Role of Consciousness in Healing and Health
“The source of Consciousness is Consciousness. Consciousness is all there is.”
These words from the Indian sage, Ramesh Balsekar, not only inform energy medicine but are a foundation stone of many religions and spiritual paths. It is the one Truth. When we strip away the body (matter) and the mind (energy), what do we have left? Consciousness. Awareness. Spirit. Presence.
Since all forms of vibrational energetic medicine hold Consciousness as the source of all that manifests – either as energy, or matter – here is the first hurdle. Consciousness cannot be seen, handled or tested in a laboratory. The general view from allopathic medicine is that subtle energy medicine is not only woolly and unscientific, but it attributes relationships between action and outcome that cannot be justified either by reason, observation, or clinical proof.
Yet those of us who work in, or receive any kind of healing energy generally experience positive results for which there is no apparent rational explanation. How can we see presence in a test tube? Where is the machine that can measure or calibrate compassion? Which chemical, when swallowed, transforms rejection into acceptance?
The field of energy medicine is constantly faced with the fact that the mind cannot be plucked and placed under a microscope. The most potent “drug” that heals is love, but none of these qualities of our humanness meets scientific standards of proof.
Fortunately, the imbalance between the scientific-medical and spiritual-energy models continues to be addressed by an ever-increasing number of distinguished cellular biologists, physicists, neuroscientists and physicians who agree that only when alternative subtle energy healing methods are subjected to rigorous scientific investigation, will energy medicine reach a level of acceptance where it can sit alongside its mainstream cousin.
One such physicist is Stanford University professor Dr. William Tiller whose research is focused on the building of “a reliable bridge of understanding for humans that seamlessly joins the foundations of orthodox science on one end, extends through the domain of the psyche, emotion and mind, and is firmly planted in the bedrock of spirit at the other end.”
Meanwhile, skepticism around energetic medicine persists primarily for two reasons: one is how we talk about the concept of energy (including subtle energy); the other is the appearance of a seemingly “miraculous” cure in the absence of physical manipulation, drugs, or surgical intervention. But first, what is this vital force called energy?
What Is Energy?
Broadly speaking, science describes energy as information that vibrates. Found in the IV Century BCE writings of Aristotle, the word energy is derived from the Greek energeia, meaning “being at work.” This vital force is the impetus behind all movement and activity, and we often use the word as a measure for how we are feeling, “I’m full of energy today!” or “I don’t have the energy to do this.”
Every thing is made of energy expressed as patterns, which is a cornerstone of energy medicine and healing. Some patterns we can see and experience through our five senses: a building (sight), birdsong (sound), chocolate (taste), perfume (smell), or silk (touch). Other patterns are too subtle for our senses to pick up.
We cannot physically see a thought, taste a feeling, smell intuition, or touch an atmosphere, yet these subtle energies have an enormous influence on the state of our health. When we look with the heart’s inner eye, we see the teacher holding a mirror that reflects the lesson we are ready to learn.
Conversion—Transforming Energy
Energy carries information that tells an atom what to do, whether to join forces with other atoms to form the molecules of an apple, your thumb, or a raincloud. The miraculous power of energy is that it cannot be created or destroyed, only transferred or converted into different forms – a facet that vibrational energy medicine incorporates.
The chemical energy in petrol can be converted into both thermal energy to heat the engine, and mechanical energy to move the car. Gravity, stored as potential energy in a precious vase you place on a high shelf, will convert to kinetic energy as the vase falls onto the floor. Electrical energy can be converted to heat for the oven, mechanical for the vacuum cleaner, or sound waves from the radio.
Given that atoms vibrate and everything is made up of atoms, vibration is the fundamental characteristic of energy. So how has it come about that conventional Western medicine and subtle energy medicine view healing so differently? The answer lies in the world “subtle”.
There are two kinds of energy fields hat occupy different planes: physical and subtle. Turning once again to one of the leading theorists in the subtle energetic spectrum, Dr. William Tiller defines these two co-existing fields as follows.
Physical Energy Fields
We can see physical or veritable energy. “It is electrical in nature, has positive mass, travels slower than the velocity of electromagnetic light, it gives rise to gravity and its wavelengths and frequencies can be measured.” Opposite from energy medicine, conventional medicine uses many different forms of measurable energy fields in the diagnosis and treatment of disease, such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), positron emission tomography (PET), laser eye surgery, cardiac pacemakers, radiation therapy, and UV light for skin and seasonal affective disorder (SAD).
Subtle Energy Fields
Putative or subtle energy cannot be measured. “It is magnetic in nature, has negative mass and travels faster than the speed of electromagnetic light.” Whilst we cannot see subtle energy that we also frequently refer to as prana, qi, spirit, or mana, the human energy field, or aura, is composed of it. There are four primary fields out of thousands more, which flow into and out of the human body, making us truly a part of the indivisible whole, or cosmos.
These energy fields are connected to the physical body through super highways (meridians) and centres (chakras) that convert incoming high-speed energy currents to appropriate levels and then distribute this life-sustaining energy to our cells. Therapists who use energy medicine to work with this vital energy for energy healing can sense it with their hands, or bodies, and a few can see it in the form of colour.
In line with the core principles of energy medicine, Life Alignment employs this subtle energy and works from the fundamental premise that all physical objects (bodies) and psychological processes (thoughts, emotions, beliefs and attitudes) are expressions of energy and infused with this subtle form.
When the flow of vital energy, or life force, is blocked for too long in any field, the bodymind becomes dis-eased. This is where vibrational medicine and energy healing play an important role.
Uniting the Fields with Energy Medicine—Janice’s Story of a Miraculous Tumor Healing
Sitting across from her consultant, Janice struggled to take in his words: “The tumour on your left lung is the size of my fist,” he told her. At 56, the likelihood of her surviving for more than two years was slim.
Refusing both surgery and chemotherapy, Janice agreed to a course of radiation therapy; she also chose to re-engage with Life Alignment (a form of energetic medicine), which she had first encountered some years earlier. For six punishing weeks her lung was radiated daily, until both her chest and back were scarlet in colour, as if scorched by fire.
During treatment and convalescence, Janice continued receiving Life Alignment balances. As a psychotherapist, she felt attuned to this medical model due to its focus on the emotional processing of patterns in our life story that can cause cellular chaos.
Mainstream medicine had dealt with her symptom (form); but the subtle energy medicine that underpins the Life Alignment technique focused on her mental and emotional bodies (energy), and incorporated her spiritual body (consciousness).
Each balance took Janice into deeper levels of her core issue: namely feeling valued only when giving, and also into a well of grief that lay beneath her fear of asking or receiving.
In Chinese Medicine, which is a form of energetic medicine, the lung is associated with grief, sadness and detachment. As master of the life force, or qi, lungs are in charge of the airflow coming in and going out. Janice gives out, but resists taking in. When her daughter had wanted to accompany her to the hospital, Janice had refused. She worried that it was too much for this busy young mother. Her daughter, as a result, had felt rejected.
As a result of here energy medicine sessions, when Janice recognized that her refusal to accept kindness and help caused others to feel unwanted and hurt, she became more mindful about accepting care. The bond with her daughter deepened, and as her heart opened, Janice moved into a peaceful acceptance of the fact that it will be her soul that chooses whether to stay or leave.
Three months after the initial diagnosis, a CT scan showed Janice’s tumour had begun to shrink. A six-month scan revealed nothing but a faint, milky white scar on her lung. And as her physical body continues to recover from the onslaught of the disease and orthodox treatment, which vibrational energetic medicine also helps ease, Janice now lives in peace in body and spirit, and with greater ease in her relationships.
When the physical body is in pain we need to attend to it lovingly before we can go more deeply into our spiritual journey. For change in the body to be swift and deep, energy medicine treatment must be focused in the subtle realms of thought, belief, attitude and feeling. Living as we do in a material world of objects that appear solid (such as our body), we assist the energy healing process when we remember how energy manifests as form, or matter.
Read the second part of the article
yogaesoteric
July 18, 2018