Miracles … rest not so much upon faces or voices or healing power coming suddenly near to us from afar off, but upon our perceptions being made finer, so that for the moment our eyes can see and our ears can hear what is there about us always.
WILLA CATHER
Fundamentally, subtle energy medicine involves the study and application of the body’s relationship to electric, magnetic, and electromagnetic fields, as well as light, sound, and other forms of energy. The body produces these energies and also responds to these energies that are in the outer environment. Regardless of the method used, the primary purpose is to change the frequency of the body’s energetic fields, channels, and centers, the three main aspects of the energetic anatomy.
In practice, subtle energy medicine is healthcare that detects and analyzes energy imbalances; it is medicine that treats the whole person. The philosophy that underlies subtle energy medicine is based on an ideal of a balanced life—not necessarily one that is perfectly balanced in every moment, but one that values the physical, emotional, mental, relational, financial, creative, and spiritual aspects of life. Generally speaking, people tend to turn to subtle energy medicine when they want complete care, when they want to look at all sides of a problem. Often, they arrive at the office of a subtle energy practitioner when their old methods of addressing a persistent physical-, emotional-, or mental-health challenge are simply not working. In that sense, I would say that individuals often choose to explore subtle energy medicine when they want to feel hopeful again about their health, their happiness, and their future.
These days, the term energy medicine is becoming widely known, which signifies the exciting evolution taking place in the vast field of healthcare. Although the term subtle energy medicine may sound rather mysterious to some (a rarified form of medicine that’s practiced by an exclusive group of secretly trained adepts), the truth is far more accessible and inclusive: subtle energy medicine includes all forms of medicine, even allopathic medicine. Whether they are MDs with a holistic focus or Reiki practitioners specializing in working with cancer patients, subtle energy practitioners are trained to look for the energetic imbalances that lead to disease and to rebalance our energies to restore our natural state of health.
Many terms are used to refer to healing methods that focus on the subtle energies of the body—or the subtle body as a whole—including energetic healing, biofield healing, bioenergetic healing, energy work, energy anatomy, vibrational medicine, spiritual healing, and of course, subtle energy healing. Each of these labels refers to subtle energy medicine, which is any practice that analyzes the subtle energies underlying a health condition in order to determine its true cause and to find effective solutions. Some of these practices, such as feng shui, qigong, and chakra healing, you may already be well acquainted with, while some, such as ThetaHealing, assemblage-point balancing, or acu-yoga, may be relatively new to you.
In any case, whether you are exploring the phenomenon of the subtle body for the first time or a practitioner with years of training, getting grounded in the basic science underlying subtle energy medicine will help to put this book’s many tools and techniques to use.
ENERGETIC DISTINCTIONS: FROM PHYSICAL TO SUBTLE
There are two kinds of energy: sensory energy, which is physical energy, and subtle energy, which involves thoughts, feelings, intuition, and other energetic information. Sensory or physical energy moves more slowly than the speed of light and has to obey natural law, or the rules proposed by classical scientists like Isaac Newton. When we’re talking about germs “causing” a cold, we’re talking about sensory energy. Subtle energy moves at speeds faster than the speed of light. This complex energy follows the rules of quantum physics and may also be thought of as spiritual energy.
Although our primary focus in this book is on the subtle energies, it’s important to emphasize the interconnection between the two types of energy. We sometimes need to do something physical to stimulate the subtle energies, but we also need to stimulate the subtle energies to find a physical balance. Chiropractic work is an example of a practice where physical adjustments affect both the physical body and the subtle body. This interconnection can also be seen in acupuncture, herbal medicine, and many other modalities.
In textbooks, energy is usually defined as the source of power that can be used to accomplish work or a goal or to create an effect. Another way to think of it is as vibration that “talks.” Why doesn’t your orange juice float out of the glass in the morning? The information in the force of gravity tells it to behave. Energy is really just information that carries a message. Subtle energy medicine helps you to crack open the bottle and get to that message, so that you can respond and “tell” it to work for you, not against you.
Most energy hasn’t traditionally been measurable, which is why it’s called subtle energy. However, the gap between measurable or verifiable and subtle, or putative, energy is swiftly closing. Every day, science adds to our proof and understanding of subtle energy; some of this research is noted in The Subtle Body, the source of the scientific information in this book, unless otherwise noted.
INTERCONNECTED VITAL ENERGIES
For the self-healer or subtle energy practitioner, the real question is, how does subtle energy work? The answer can be encapsulated in the word interconnectivity, the idea that everything is unified by fields.
The most basic vital energies include electricity, magnetism, and electromagnetic fields. Every cell and organ of our bodies pulses with electricity. This electricity generates magnetic fields, which surround all parts of us, including each of our cells and organs, as well as our entire bodies. Biofields or biomagnetic fields are terms used to refer to the energy fields of our bodies or of our body as a whole. These magnetic fields combine to create electromagnetic fields, which not only spread out from us, but also connect us to every other living being. Energy is spread between living beings through these fields.
It is known that biofields exist because they have been imaged with newer technology, including Kirlian photography, aura imaging, and gas-discharge visualization. This equipment shows dramatic differences in people’s biofields before and after subtle energy treatments. The energy fields of two people can overlap and interconnect, and energy can be transferred from one person to another through the fields that emanate from every part of our body. If you have ever felt like you “sensed someone’s vibe,” you actually did. Not only can we sense someone’s vibration, but the frequency or resonance of their thoughts—whether buoyant and happy or heavy and depressed—also can enter our field and directly impact us. Their energy can uplift us or bring us down, and vice versa. Even patterns of disease, which are vibrational and therefore mobile, can transfer from person to person through the subtle biomagnetic fields that comprise all living beings.
For example, one study employed a magnetometer to quantify biomagnetic fields coming from the hands of meditators and of yoga and qigong practitioners. These fields emanating from the practitioners’ hands were a thousand times stronger than the strongest human biomagnetic field. The strength of the hands’ fields was as strong as the low intensity and frequency fields (between 2 and 50 hertzian) used in medical research labs for speeding the healing of wounded biological tissues. Yet another study, involving what is called a superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID), demonstrated that large frequency-pulsing biomagnetic fields emanated from the hands of therapeutic-touch professionals during treatments.
As noted, these biofields extend far beyond the physical body, and quantum physics explains how one person’s field can interact with someone else’s thousands of miles away through what’s known as nonlocal reality. This nonlocal reality isn’t simply empty space. It is comprised of a universal field, or zero-point field, of energy that surrounds and links everything and everyone.
A theory called quantum entanglement shows how, through this universal field, we can effect change in people we know or have met. According to this theory, two or more objects or particles that have once connected can interrelate and affect each other even when they’re separated. The distance between the two people might be small, as demonstrated in a study conducted by the Institute of Heart Math in California, in which one individual’s cardiac signal was registered in another’s cardiac recording when the people were sitting quietly opposite one another. Yet other studies show that distance doesn’t make a difference. Intention, not prior involvement, is enough to create connection through the universal field.
Because the two types of energies, subtle and physical, are often the same at one level, just occupying different ends of a continuum, they are interchangeable. You can work physically to produce subtle changes. The opposite is also true. The transfer of energy goes both ways—from subtle to physical and physical to subtle.
For example, on the physical-to-subtle spectrum, a traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) practitioner will give someone with a skin rash a series of acupuncture treatments to support the free-flowing movement of chi (life-force energy) along the blocked energy channel that’s giving rise to the rash. What is physical (the rash) begins to transfer out of the body when the subtle energy starts to flow, and pretty soon the skin condition is gone.
On the subtle-to-physical level, someone dealing with extreme insomnia might choose to use the Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT), which involves tapping on key points of the body while verbalizing statements and affirmations. The ability to sleep is restored by this subtle energy practice that alters the energy causing the negative disruptions and disturbances in brain chemistry, restoring the flow of energy facilitating healthy sleep patterns.
All techniques in this book underscore the truth that subtle energy can transform to physical and vice versa.
SENSING SUBTLE ENERGY: MAKING WHAT IS REAL (BUT INVISIBLE) MORE REAL
When we seek to heal ourselves or another, the steering wheel for creating positive outcomes is intention. It is intention that will link you with a known or unknown person to provide healing, intention that will help you uncover your own wounded aspects, and intention that will determine the mix of subtle and physical energetic effects in your work.
The following exercises are intended to assist you in recognizing your own and others’ energetic fields and work with and in them. Although these are preparatory exercises, they can be used during a healing session for yourself or another.
Find a partner who is willing to take three to five minutes to help you feel and sense the flow of subtle energy through the hands.
Step 1: Palm-to-palm. Standing up and facing each other, both partners hold up your hands, palms forward, and bring them together, so the palms of your hands are touching. Send energy to each other through your right hands, and receive energy from each other with your left hands. Take approximately thirty seconds to send and receive energy and sense what you feel.
Step 2: One foot apart. Back up so you are about one foot apart. Hold your hands in the same position, toward each other’s palms, but do not touch. Taking another thirty seconds to send and receive energy, sense what you feel at this distance.
Step 3: Six feet apart. Back up so you are six feet apart. With your palms still turned directly toward one another, send and receive energy for thirty more seconds, sensing the flow and exchange of energy at this distance. (Note: At the one-foot and six-foot distances, you are experiencing quantum entanglement in action. Our fields expand, and the sending and receiving of energy isn’t contingent upon physically touching someone.)
Step 4: Switching the circuitry. Now start over, but this time send energy with your left hand and receive with your right. See if you get the same or different results. On average, 80 to 90 percent of people send with their right and receive with their left, and about 10 percent do it the other way.
Step 5: Talk about your experience. Did you feel or sense differences at the various distances? If so, what? How did you feel when sending energy? How did you feel when receiving energy? How did you feel when you reversed the flow? Was this reversal more challenging, easier, or comparable? Overall, what did this exercise teach you about energy?
This solo exercise is a simple yet potent way to feel the subtle energy within and around your own body. It is also a method for bringing the healing, balancing, and energizing qualities of color into your body.
Step 1: The energy in your hands. Rub the palms of your hands together for ten seconds, like you’re vigorously scrubbing them. Then hold your hands in a vertical position about one inch apart, palms facing each other, but not touching, and feel the energy you have created between your two hands.
Step 2: Flowing red energy. With this energy now flowing, imagine that you are bringing red energy through the back of your heart, into your chest, down your arms, and through your hands. Do you feel a marked difference between your hands?
Step 3: Flowing blue energy. Imagine blue energy streaming in through the back of your heart, streaming into your chest and arms, and through your hands. What sensations do you experience in your hands with this blue energy? Do you experience anything markedly different in your hands with blue versus red? Do you experience sensation anywhere else in your body? (Know that you can practice with any other color, in addition to red and blue.)
Step 4: Making an energy ball. Now return to a neutral zone, dissipating your colored energies. Pat your hands together as if you are gathering energy and make an energy ball (like a snowball of light). Mindfully create this energy ball, seeing how far you can spread your hands before you can no longer sense the energy.
Step 5: Noting your solo experience. What did you experience with each step of this exercise? You may find it helpful to jot down your thoughts in a journal. You can also experiment with doing this exercise at various times of the day and in different physical locations if you want to take the exploration to another level.
This simple solo exercise is a relaxing, soothing, and uplifting way to experience the interconnectivity between your heart and your auric field, the part of your biofield that extends out from around your whole physical body. In some systems, this auric field is said to be composed of seven layers; my own preference is to work with a twelve-layer auric field, in which each layer is associated with the chakra that shares its same numerical label. This exercise also offers a way to see your energy field with your eyes and can be used for any self-healing endeavor.
1.You want to be as relaxed as possible, so you might want to sit in a comfortable chair or lie on your bed. Find a private place with low or soft lights—a candle in the corner, light seeping under your door, or the moon or streetlights shining through your bedroom window will suffice. As your eyes become accustomed to the relative dark, hold out your hands and gaze at them. Your eyes should be glazed; you might want to actually peer just beyond your hands and keep your hands in your peripheral vision.
2.Now move your fingertips so both hands are touching, finger to finger. Breathe deeply, sensing the spiritual flame inside your heart. Consciously invite this flame to emanate from your heart, down your arms, through your hands, and into your fingertips.
3.After you can feel the exchange of this spirit flame between your fingertips, examine the outside rim of both hands. You might see a white, hazy, rather dim corona of light.
4.Now move your fingertips slightly apart and gaze at the electrical charge that continues to connect them. If you want, consciously send this energetic electricity between your fingertips and then move it over your skin, up and down your fingers, and over your hands. What happens? Can you perceive a shift in the hazy white you previously perceived?
5.You can play with this energy as long as you desire. When you are done, gently release your fingers from their position and draw the energy back into your heart. Breathe deeply and return to everyday consciousness.