The concept of the existence of a human energy field can be found in eastern cultures such as Indian Vedic scripts, Tibetan Buddhist, and Chinese medical systems, in varying forms, stemming back thousands of years.
Each has variants to both their proposed functioning architecture of this psycho-physical system, as well as its operative functions, but overall there is a consensus that indeed an energy system exists within and surrounding the human body.
This system broadly speaks to us of a system of energy flow from head to toe, with entry/exit points at both ends, and intermediate points of intake(charge) or discharge, principally along the spine as chakras(wheels of energy), but also flowing lines/channels/meridians which navigate the body and impact organs and processes of the physical, mental and emotional self.
This energetic self is accessed and explained in both Chinese medicine using techniques such as acupuncture, and by the Ayurvedic medical system of analysis and cure of the bodymind. Proponents of both these age old systems of healing utilise a form of holistic discernment and approach to their craft, and do not fit neatly into the western medical notions of materialism nor evidence based outcomes in a way that meets empirical western medical standards.
This does not make these approaches wrong or false, it simply means they cannot meet the prescriptive and mechanistic experimental results model that westerners use to judge success or truth in dealing with the human condition.
In the West there is evidence from archaeologists, sociologists, psychologists such as Carl Jung, and researchers of mythology such as Joseph Campbell, and Eirec Mirce, that all traditional cultures had a belief in the role of energy as part of their universe or cosmology.
Energy healing techniques of a intuitive and subjective nature survive in a number of forms today, but again do not meet the western standards of empirical evaluation and evidence based results in order to be taken seriously by western medical schools of thought.
This is not to say they have no basis for truth or results but they fail to be the focus of serious attention or consideration by the scientific or medical fraternity whilst the materialistic and mechanistic models of science and reality hold sway as the ONLY form of truth in our society.
In the Christian religious tradition we see the imagery and stories of halos around the heads and bodies of highly spiritually evolved figures in this tradition. In one story from the New Testament we are told of how Christ reacted when someone touched his garment, which he felt as a sort of energy drain from his person, and commented as such, enquiring who had done this act of touching.
The more recent accounts of levitation witnessed of the recent saint, Padre Pio, are harder to discount given their more recent occurrence, and multiple witness accounts. The acceptance of such supernatural phenomena would overturn our understanding of both the power of the human condition and our understanding of the laws of physics.
The inability to have such phenomena demonstrated under laboratory test conditions where trickery or other external factors could be ruled out, and the behaviour studied and analysed, have left this area unstudied by science. This means we are unlikely to be able to ascertain more about what anecdotally appears to be a rare but possible occurrence of some order of phenomena which touches on the relationship of the human consciousness, and its bodymind to the environment it is connected to.
The more recent attempts to seriously study the human energy field lie with Wilhelm Reich(Reichan Psychology), Alexander Lowen(Bioenergetics), John Pierrakos(Core Energetics), and Barbara Brennan, on the humanistic front, whilst various schools of Quantum Physics and Quantum Medicine are considering the role of energy fields in medicine and also their impact on the human condition.
Quantum physics states as certainty that all physical atoms absorb and release energy in its dynamic role of attempting to stabilise and balance itself in the soup of various forces that exist around it and in it at all times. Given all atoms release energy, then a physical body like that of a human must be releasing and absorbing energy in the same way as at the atomic level.
We know the human body functions in part to release and absorb energy as part of its being alive. We ingest food and liquids which are broken down through enzymes and acids of the gut, which break down compounds into component chemicals and minerals, releasing energy as it does so.
Movement of the body observes all classical physical laws and this includes energy conservation, and so energy is released through movement and the effects of gravity, resistance, force, inertia and acceleration in doing so.
The real issue becomes what happens to the released energy from the body? Do we simply feel it as heat and that is it? Or is it possible that a body releasing energy from these processes, as well as from mental and emotional processes, somehow creates a field effect and an energy system that obeys some subtle but detectable and measurable process?
The earlier mentioned traditional and eastern “sciences” as well as the more recent humanistic research of the bodymind healing movement, would say this is exactly what occurs. They all argue that indeed this process at the energetic layer of the human condition plays a vital and significant role in the health of the emotional, mental and physical aspects of the related bodymind system.
They all then approach how to diagnose, work and trigger rebalancing or flow or healing of this energy field, from different viewpoints, and using different techniques, none of which meets the western scientific or medical criteria of empirical or evidence based outcomes.
Dr Deepak Chopra explores the theme that our human body is merely pure energy, and our physical form should be viewed as the junction between the visible and invisible worlds of states of energy that are personally connected to us. In his recent book, “Re-inventing The Body, Resurrecting the Soul”, he argues that our emotional energy has an immediate and visible effect on our body, our brain and our genes, even to the point of affecting our DNA structures.
He argues that the hundreds of thousands of chemical reactions and changes that occur at the cellular level in each of us are releasing energy, and foster a more energetic and flexible moving “body” of impermanence which is always in flux and reacts to our perception of the world.
He argues that our body does react to and reflect our mind, which concurs with Wilhelm Reich’s century old view of our Characterology or BodyMind development, which is described elsewhere in this section of the website. In Chopras view we are an energetic process ever moving and changing, with disease merely one consequence of how our mind shapes our energetic self through energetic emotional reactions, such as anger, grief or stress.
Deepak Chopra challenges us to take personal ownership our of energetic selves through working in therapy or healing with our emotions( which equate to energy in motion). He states “Dealing with your own energy is the most effortless way to heal as you are starting at your source or foundation of self. When the distorted energy(emotional) pattern returns to normal, the problem disappears”.
He argues that if you want to change your body(eg lose weight permanently), you must challenge and change your conscious awareness first. Implicit in this statement is that we must also challenge and make conscious our unconscious awareness as he notes the link between our limbic emotional brain, its subconscious content of old beliefs, learnings and dispositions, which drive our consciousness, our bodily actions, reactions and even cellular processes. IBMP support this view and work exactly in this way with clients effectively to usher in the very BodyMind changes Deepak talks about here. We agree that awareness and energy must be coupled in healing processes to create change in the BodyMind.
Our history and our minds previous choices about ourself and life are literally written into our body structure, posture and relative state of health, according to this view. Reich’s theories of Characterology are the expression of what common archetypal outcomes arise from common key choices we are forced to make in childhood to adapt to our family systems and the incidents, traumas, energies and environments we get exposed to along the way of growing up.
Deepak underscores the notion that we are plastic, or simply that we can change as we are not fixed or pre-determined. Most people fall on the easy wrong path of life of choosing to believe we are a fixed outcome, and become a victim to such a view and its outcome in our body and mind.
Deepak argues we are able to change as primarily “ at the core of your being, you are a field of intention”. This does not equate to the New-Age and oversold premise that we can manifest anything we want. The path of intent lies within the discipline of the mastery of ourselves which in itself transcends that distraction of material rewards and ungrounded dreams that lock you in the small story of just life as “I or me”.
The true change occurs when we reconnect with the interconnectedness of all things, and our truth manifests as intention which reflects and mirrors this concern for all others being as important as ourselves. Our neurotic and narcissistic preoccupation with ourself falls away to reveal the compassion for all other things, a state of peace that brings wellness to body and mind.
This field of understanding the human condition is now starting to become the focus of more research as society begins to understand more about subtle aspects of our human condition and the nature of reality, resulting from advances in quantum physics, medicine, cellular biology, and the use of energy medicine to work with the physical body of our body mind.