Energy Medicine. C. Norman Shealy
and clocks for centuries.
Subtle Energy: Life force, chi, ki, orgone energy, prana, spirit, or spiritual energy constitute the vast majority of tools used in alternative medicine—homeopathy, microwave resonance therapy, color therapy, crystal healing, shiatsu, spiritual healing, etc.
Energy and Modern Medicine
What we call modern medicine or conventional medicine has only developed primarily over the last sixty to seventy years. Prior to that, we had some surgical procedures, very few drugs, a few herbs, and a lot of dangerous or outmoded approaches such as bloodletting and leeches. Admittedly, maggots have recently been reintroduced to be used in cleaning up certain kinds of wounds, but to a large extent modern medicine has been essentially based upon chemistry with a little bit of simple physics thrown in, such as surgery and some manipulative approaches. Although everything in medicine involves energy of some kind, for the purposes of this book and the general field of Energy Medicine, none of the conventional medical approaches of drugs, surgeries, etc., will be considered.
With that said, it may surprise some readers to know that the federal government acknowledges a number of disciplines that employ energy medicine. Interestingly, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has formally listed ten major Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) approaches:
1. Nutrition and Life Style: diet, exercise, sleep, and stress management
2. Mind/Body Medicine: including hypnosis and a wide variety of mind-focused approaches, such as meditation
3. Alternative systems of medical thought: Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), kampo, Tibetan medicine, and acupuncture
4. Yoga, ayurvedic medical systems, Native American, and Yoruba-based medicine
5. Alternative Systems of Medical Thought: homeopathy and flower essences
6. Bioenergetic Medicine: evaluating the intrinsic body energy to measure and treat disorders
7. Pharmacologic/Biologically Based: herbal medicine
8. Pharmacologic/Biologically Based: nutrition, dietary supplements, and vitamins
9. Manipulative Therapies: chiropractic, osteopathic
10. Manipulative Therapies: massage
To a greater or lesser extent, virtually all of these ten certainly would be considered ancillary, complementary, and outside conventional medicine. However, they fall under the broadest rubric of Energy Medicine itself.
Galvanic Skin Response
The term Energy Medicine was coined in the 1980s by Dr. Elmer Green with the establishment of the International Society for the Study of Subtle Energy and Energy Medicine (ISSSEE). Energy Medicine developed from the controversial use of galvanic skin response (GSR), the foundation for the lie detector test, which measures the electrical resistance of the skin. As early as 1951, Dr. J.E.H. Niboyet noted that acupuncture points in general have a slightly lower skin resistance compared to other points on the surface of the body.
Interestingly, of course, stress lowers the resistance of the skin quite significantly. For instance, some years ago one of my patients, Bev, who was suffering from chronic knee pain, had her pain totally controlled with the use of TENS, or transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation, a concept of electrical stimulation of the skin to control pain that I introduced in 1966. It is now used around the world, and rarely is there any skin irritation or reaction to the electrical current. However, when Bev’s son set the local school on fire, her stress level became so high that she could not tolerate the TENS. It actually burned her skin. As soon as she recovered from her stress, the TENS worked beautifully again. On two later occasions, when her son was in legal trouble, she had the same response. To a greater or lesser extent, this relates to the ancient Rice Test, in which dry rice was placed into the mouth of a subject thought to be guilty. If the rice came out dry, that individual was considered guilty because he or she stopped salivating. All of this is part of the sympathetic nervous system’s reaction to stress, which changes many physiological parameters but, of special interest here, the electrical resistance of the skin.
The electrical resistance of skin in a relaxed state can be measured as approximately 5,000 ohms. During stress, skin resistance goes down, allowing electricity to flow through skin more easily. Stress also leads to increased sweating as well as a more rapid pulse, increase in blood pressure, and increased muscle activity in the intestines. In extreme cases, stress leads to panic, diarrhea, and even involuntary urination. The vast majority of reactions to stress (physical, chemical, emotional, and electromagnetic “excesses”) are the result of this increased sympathetic activity. Adrenalin, cortisol, blood sugar, and insulin are the primary chemical energetic responses to hyperactivity of the sympathetic system.
Actually, GSR is the foundation for a huge variety of devices that measure electrical resistance of the skin and are said by some individuals to be capable of diagnosing and treating almost all illnesses.
In 1952, Dr. Walter Schmidt found that resistance of acupuncture points increases when the associated organ was malfunctioning. In 1953, Dr. Reinhold Voll, a German physician, was the first to consolidate this information and develop a systematic approach for evaluating the body through skin resistance measurement. This led to something called EAV, or Electroacupuncture. According to Voll, in the last couple of decades, many variations of this technology have been introduced, including the Tenant Biomodulator, SCIO, Asyra, and others.
My own observations of the Voll approach led me to believe that it is exquisitely capricious. I have watched people who are using this technique and seen the pressure and angle of the probe applied to an acupuncture point markedly change the electrical resistance recorded. Despite that, electrodermal screening has become one of the most widely proposed, used, and promoted tools. As far as I can tell, there is only one scientific study on any of the EAV devices that are promoted at outrageous prices, such as $12,000 or more. Those who promote this particular technology believe that the equipment is totally without limits and not only tell you the status of each of the organs of the body but the presence of environmental irritants and viral and bacterial infections, allergies, yeast infections, heavy metal, chemical toxicity, digestive disorders, vitamin/mineral deficiencies, psychological and spiritual abnormalities, etc. I can find no scientific evidence whatsoever that any of these have been unequivocally proven, except the Asyra (see Chapter 9).
The Human Aura
Physicians who are open to psychically derived information consider the concept of subtle energies around living beings known as the “human aura.” Highly intuitive individuals are able to perceive the aura around the physical body, and it often manifests as shell-like layers or bodies. The first layer is termed the “etheric.” The Etheric Body is said to be in immediate contact with the physical body to sustain it and connect it with the higher bodies. Tradition holds that through this particular layer of energy around the body the soul and mind ultimately make contact with the physical body. The term “etheric” derives from the writings of Theosophy founder Madame Helene Blavatsky and was significantly formalized by fellow theosophists C.W. Leadbeater and Annie Besant. I personally have always “seen” energy around people. It looks like heat waves coming off the body. It is bright white in individuals who appear to be highly spiritually evolved. It looks like a tornado in psychotics with flashes of black, yellow, and red.
Hindu mysticism describes seven major sheaths and subtle bodies around the physical body, much like energetic envelopes. Leadbeater and Besant explained this system in terms of higher and lower astral bodies and higher and lower mental bodies. The second layer outside the body is the Astral or Emotional Body; the third is the Mental Body; the fourth is the Causal Body (abstract mind); and finally the Spiritual Body. Subtle energy manifests in all these bodies from the physical on out.
The American psychic Edgar Cayce considered the aura to be the energy surrounding a living being, essentially the electromagnetic radiation from the individual’s physical