Introduction

If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency and vibration.

~ Nikola Tesla

Energy medicine is the diagnostic and therapeutic use of energy whether produced by or detected by a medical device or by the human body. Energy medicine recognizes that the human body utilizes various forms of energy for communications involved in physiological regulations. Energy medicine involves energy of particular frequencies and intensities and wave shapes that stimulate the repair of one or more tissues. Examples of energy include heat, light, sound, gravity, pressure, vibration, electricity, magnetism, chemical energy, and electromagnetism.¹

It may come as a surprise to many to learn that energy medicine has been part of human history for thousands of years. Ever since man crawled and later walked the earth, energy was an essential part of primitive societies as well as advanced sophisticated cultures, including the Egyptians, the Chinese and the Greeks.

Going back to 15,000 B.C., Shamans living within their native tribes performed healing rituals using their bodies in movement, their voices, and plant or animal materials along with the elements of the earth such as fire, wind, and the moon. Their goal was to eliminate bad spirits which negatively impacted the physiological body of the sufferer. This art of healing is still taught and used today around the globe.

Ayurvedic medicine (also called Ayurveda) birthed in India, is one of the oldest medical systems and still today remains one of the country’s traditional health care systems. Its concepts about health and disease promote the use of herbal compounds, special diets, cleansing of the bowels, soft tissue massage using hot oil, and other unique health practices. India’s government and other institutes throughout the world support clinical and laboratory research on Ayurvedic medicine, within the context of the Eastern belief system.² The Ayurvedic perspective toward the physiology differs from modern Western thought; Humans are spiritual beings living in the temple of the physical body prompting the care of health to focus on spiritual healing to affect the physical body. Another idea unique to the Eastern philosophy and yogic doctrine is the idea of chakras. Chakras are seven wheel-like vortices of energy over nerve plexes and endocrine centers of the body, as well as the third eye and the crown of the head, with small vortices at each joint. They are functional rather than anatomical structures that are connected to the meridians and acupuncture points. Numerous researchers have shown elevated electronic recordings from these locations, particularly with persons in higher states of consciousness or with extrasensory abilities.³ One cannot help but notice the popularity of this healing approach by finding Ayurvedic schools and practitioners not only in Asia but all over the Western world today.

Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) was first recorded around 2,700 B.C. and originated in ancient China. It is still used primarily in China and also all around North America and Europe. While you may think TCM is accepted and widely used throughout Asia, the reality is different; China’s healthcare system offers two sorts of healthcare systems and hospitals to their people: Western Medicine and TCM clinics and both approaches are financially covered for the people. TCM encompasses the use of herbs and is mostly known for acupuncture. Acupuncture needles are placed on acupuncture points along meridians to balance the energy in the body, helping to improve the flow of energy and fluids. Most fascinating is the skill a TCM practitioner has to learn over time to be able to read the patient’s face, tongue, complexion, posture, and the various levels of the pulse felt along the radial artery. The ancient beliefs on which TCM is based include the following:

• The human body is a miniature version of the larger, surrounding universe;
• Harmony between two opposing yet complementary forces, called yin and yang, supports health, and disease results from an imbalance between these forces;
• Five elements – fire, earth, wood, metal, and water – symbolically represent all phenomena, including the stages of human life, and explain the functioning of the body and how it changes during disease;
• Qi, a vital energy that flows through the body, performs multiple functions in maintaining health.^4,5

Historic records lead us back to 1,600 B.C. discussing the brilliance of the ancient Egyptian priests or physicians who knew how to set bones, how to treat a fever and how to recognize symptoms of curable and fatal diseases. The Egyptians held the belief that illness was often caused by an angry god or an evil spirit. For this reason, the Egyptian doctor was also part shaman, who performed rituals and recited prayers on the sick. But, the Egyptian physician was not limited to faith healing as part of his or her practice. Egyptian medicine became a far-reaching discipline, encompassing a great many fields. Doctors in Egypt, like today, were specialists in their particular fields. These fields included pharmacology, dentistry, gynecology, crude surgical procedures, general healing, autopsy, and embalming.⁶ The goddess Ma-at wore as her symbol a feather, which was used to access the vibrational qualities of justice, truth, balance, and order. The energy is accessed by using intention, and by the use of symbols, usually hieroglyphs.

Energy Healing in the Sufi way predates religion. The elect divine messengers and prophets who were gifted with the precious gift of pure self-surrender to the Absolute, were also gifted with the healing energy which gushed forth from the energy of pure love and unconditional compassion (mercy to all creation). A contemporary energy healer in Sufi way once said: "To heal is to become one with Deep Love of God.”

Ancient Greek manuscripts from 400 B.C describe laying on hands in Aesculapian temples. The philosopher and father of Western Medicine Hippocrates of Cos⁷ defined energy as “the force which flows from many people's hands.” Hippocrates was the founder of the Hippocratic School of Medicine and ultimately established medicine as a discipline distinct from other fields such as theurgy and philosophy, thus establishing medicine as a profession. Hippocratic medicine was humble and passive. The therapeutic approach was based on “the healing power of nature.” According to this doctrine, the body contains within itself the power to re-balance the four humors and heal itself.

Ancient Christian scriptures describe “laying-on-hands healing.” Even more important is the message that it is their altered belief allowing healing to take place.

In the 18th Century Samuel Hahnemann, a German physician, discovered that “like cures like,” when he ingested bark substance (Cinchona) from South America which was said to cure malaria-related intermittent fevers.⁸ While he himself had not contracted malaria, when taking a larger dose of the substance, he in turn induced malaria like symptoms in himself, which led him to the idea “that which can produce a set of symptoms in a healthy individual, can treat a sick individual who is manifesting a similar set of symptoms.” This experience birthed the idea of a new philosophy called homeopathy.⁹ Often it is the information, a form of energy, related to the substance, not necessarily the substance itself that aids in the healing process. Homeopathic remedies are diluted at different levels to stimulate physiologically, emotionally, or spiritually.

Looking at today’s diagnostic approaches, one couldn’t imagine a hospital without ultrasound, X-Ray, and MRI capabilities, or even a private practice without an EKG, EEG, or ultrasound device. All these devices measure the energy of the body in different ways and from different perspectives for diagnostic purposes. This is standard use of care.

On the flip side, therapeutic approaches are still expected to primarily come from a chemical or surgical solution. While there is more and more interest pushing up from the masses via patients who have been seeking help for their chronic health issues, physicians remain hesitant to incorporate forms of energy medicine into their practice. Physicians who have had some sort of training in physics, such as orthopedics, anesthesiology, or even physical therapy know of the significance of the use of physics complementing chemical treatment approaches including pharmaceuticals and nutraceuticals.

With the abundance of self-help books, and information on the internet available today as well as TV and radio shows (which would have been unthinkable only 10-years ago), patients’ demands from their physicians are significantly on the rise for complementary solutions which ideally should be non-invasive and with little side effects. This includes:

• Acupuncture
• Massage
• Osteopathy
• Reiki
• Meditation
• Exercise
• Homeopathy
• Energy technologies including:
  • Laser, ultrasound and micro-current – primarily used for pain relief;
  • Biofeedback – for learning how to better cope with stress;
  • Electromagnetic stimulation for wound healing, soft tissue injuries, and pain.

Considered a “new” field in modern medicine, Energy Healing is separated into two categories by NCCAM, the U.S. National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine:¹⁰

1. Energies that can be measured scientifically by our present standards, like electromagnetic therapy, or therapy using sound waves
2. Energies that are not yet subject to our measurement – the subtle fields that are utilized in energy healing, acupuncture, chi gong, Ayurveda, homeopathy, therapeutic touch, prayer or distance healing, and similar modalities.

Patients are frustrated and disappointed with the standard care solutions for their chronic symptoms. More times than less, a vast population of chronically ill patients not only sees no improvement, but experiences further decline in their health. So, patients start to research, ask their doctors intelligent questions and listen to answers and solutions with high expectations. They seek help outside their insurance’s network, often traveling far to seek a physician who goes beyond the standard offering of care, giving more personal attention to the patient and offering treatment solutions including the realm of energy medicine.

Humans are electromagnetic beings, and we need to capture them as such with diagnostic and therapeutic approaches. This branch of biophysics is barely known or understood and therefore not pursued by physicians. While biophysics has been known and was officially recorded in 1892¹¹ as “the branch in science concerned with the application of physical principles and methods to biological problems,” medical schools do not teach their students on the established fact that every function within the human body breaks down to an act of physics, even chemical processes. Knowing this fact would help physicians to move quickly and confidently embrace methods using forms of energy and complementing standard patient care with energy medicine.

In the peer-reviewed literature we find evidence that certain electromagnetic fields have an impact on the physiological process including melatonin secretion, nerve regeneration, cell growth, collagen production, DNA synthesis, cartilage and ligament growth, lymphocyte activation, and more.¹² What’s consistent in these findings is that the frequencies need to be specific and not generic. Exposing the patient to a large range of frequencies limits therapeutic results along with the lasting effects of the therapy. The electromagnetic stimulation needs to be personalized to the patient just like we personalize pharmaceuticals or nutraceuticals.

Research shows that specific frequencies correlate with organs and organ systems while significantly impacting cells, tissue, and organs:

• 8 Hz and the heart;
• 1,217.7 Hz with the kidneys;
• 0.18 Hz with the liver;
• 406.37 Hz with the lungs;
• 26.90 Hz with the colon;
• 114.03 Hz with the stomach;
• 60.40 Hz with the spleen/pancreas.¹³

These frequencies are available in different octaves just like on a tempered piano; the note C can be played on higher and lower octaves. Frequency is the term to explain repetition over a certain amount of time and it is expressed in Hertz (Hz). These frequencies are based on the mathematical structure as already documented by Pythagoras 500 B.C., and upon which the basis of geometry is founded; this structure can be found in all elements of nature.

Again, the critical importance is the fine tuning of the therapeutic intervention to the patient’s needs. It’s just like when we use a remote control to get to channel 4 by pressing the number 4 on the remote or by pressing the button on our key to open our own car in a parking lot filled with 100s of cars. Only the correct signal will be received by the sensor and open the door of our own car. Our cell behavior is quite similar. Our cells’ communication is based on electromagnetic signaling and if we want to tap into the cellular communication pathways, we need to use the right electromagnetic fields. But how to know what is right or most suitable/therapeutic and if we knew which signal was right, where would we place the stimulation on the body?

One answer could be to adapt a novel approach developed by French neurologist Nogier in the 1970s using a method similar to a polygraph (lie detector), but much simpler, to get to the “truth” of the individual by overriding what we think we know and allowing the practitioner to tap into the response of the autonomic nervous system. A device provides stimulation by applying focused individual frequencies to the patient via an applicator and the practitioner palpates at the radial artery to record frequencies whenever the pulse’s quality (not quantity) changes due to the focused field stimulation. This method allows fine tuning to the patient and selecting the frequencies most significant to the patient. Then the practitioner applies the selected frequencies and scans the body with a hand-held applicator to isolate areas on the body that may be inflamed, infected, diseased, or otherwise disturbed. Once these areas are found, special applicators are placed on the selected areas to stimulate cellular repair and regeneration including soft tissue, ligaments, tendons, joints, and bone.

This method, also referred to as emotional biofeedback (receiving feedback from the patient’s autonomic nervous system via the palpation on the radial pulse to the incoming focused field stimulation) is an absolutely brilliant way to get to the information proving to be most therapeutic to the individual in need of treatment. This biofeedback loop allows the practitioner to go beyond the limited “known” medical history searching for the causal fact or root of the patient’s health difficulties and disorders. Our emotions, including unresolved emotional trauma or shocks reside as cellular memory and until confronted with such memory in a non-threatening way at a time when the patient is ready to revisit his or her dormant laying cellular memory, are often found to be the a primal cause for their physiological disorder.

Wilhelm Reich, a believer in the unity of mind and body, noted that memory of traumatic episodes is stored in body cells. Physical therapists have discovered that deep joint and skeletal massage does in fact release memories of emotional episodes.³ While massage is stimulation from the outside-in, focused electromagnetic stimulation causes movement from the inside-out by effecting movement in and around cells.¹²

Candice Pert, Ph.D., was a pioneer in the field of mind-body medicine. She received her doctorate in pharmacology from John Hopkins University and later on worked as a neuroscientist at John Hopkins University School of Medicine in the 1970s, and she was involved in the discovery of the opioid receptor which won the Albert Lasker Award. Candice continued her career at the National Institute of Mental Health, where she went on to do pioneering work on receptors and the peptides that correspond to them. She came to the conclusion that virtually all illness, if not psychosomatic in foundation, has a definite psychosomatic component. The “molecules of emotion,” she argued, “run every system in our body,” creating a “bodymind’s intelligence” that is “wise enough to seek wellness.”¹⁴ She disclosed that until recently she viewed the brain in Newtonian terms with the neurochemicals and their receptors operating like locks and keys. Now she views the brain and its functions as a vibratory energy field with its locks and keys only ways of perturbing the field. The brain is no longer the end of the line – it is a receiver and amplifier of collective reality.³

A forerunner to the female brilliance of Candice Pert was Valerie Hunt. They lived their lives and careers at a time when women were not easily found in the elite leagues of science. Both women were highly educated, well trained, were actively doing research, taught within their branches of medicine at reputable universities in the U.S., and they authored research papers and books. An interesting fact is that both of their journeys brought them to an “island” of new perspective followed by the creation of new thought in the field of medicine in the 20th century. These accomplished women passionately pursued the field of mind-body medicine, with Valerie Hunt spearheading beyond mind-body to the science of the human vibrations of consciousness.³ Valerie was born in 1916 in Indiana and passed in February of 2014 at the age of 97! She referred to herself as a scientist at work and a mystic intuitive at heart. She is best known for her pioneering research in the field of bioenergy, her visionary approach coupled with a rigorous adherence to the highest scientific standards which won her international acclaim in the fields of physiology medicine and bioengineering. As a professor at UCLA, California, she ran the first laboratory measuring and recording the energy of the vibrational patterns of the bioenergetic field surrounding the human body.

Even thought is energy. Thought is an organized field of energy composed of complex patterns of vibrations which consolidate information. Thoughts are events in the mind field that are available not only to the consciousness of the creator, but also to other minds.³ Here is where a new thought leader comes in with his philosophy confirming Valerie’s perspective: Bruce Lipton, Ph.D. a cell biologist who revolutionizes the DNA theory and helps give hope to physicians and patients alike with his ground-breaking concept that it is not the DNA that controls our biology. DNA is controlled by extra-cellular signals, including energetic messages such as thought and belief. Messages can be signaled by sophisticated instruments which gently and in a focused way tap into the communication pathways of our cells and help stimulate repair and regeneration on a cellular level.¹⁵

PubMed, the National Library of Medicine, offers more than 30,000 peer-reviewed clinical studies on biofeedback and about 40,000 peer-reviewed clinical studies on electromagnetic/electric/magnetic field stimulation. This is a vast amount of documented research completed over the last 30-years. In the beginning of the 20th century, the East Coast was filled with electrotherapists, especially in New York City, possibly due to the fact that Nikola Tesla lived there. Tesla is most known for the invention of alternating current (AC) current still used today around the globe. He was an absolute genius, years ahead of his time. Tesla was extremely sensitive to the environment in his laboratory. It was filled with electromagnetic waves and he actually lived to the ripe old age of 86-years when men born in 1856 had a life expectancy of less than 50-years.¹⁶

In 1898 Tesla published an article in The Electrical Engineer¹⁷ discussing the therapeutic use of one of his inventions:

The physician will now be able to obtain an instrument suitable to fulfill many requirements.  He will be able to use it in electro-therapeutic treatment in most of the ways enumerated.  He will have the facility of providing himself with coils such as he may desire to have for any particular purpose, which will give him any current or any pressure he may wish to obtain.  Such coils will consist of but a few turns of wire, and the expense of preparing them will be quite insignificant. The instrument will also enable him to generate Rontgen rays of much greater power than obtainable with ordinary apparatus. A tube must still be furnished by the manufacturers which will not deteriorate and which will allow to concentrate larger amounts of energy upon the electrodes.  When this is done, nothing will stand in the way of an extensive and efficient application of this beautiful discovery which must ultimately prove itself of the highest value, not only at the hands of the surgeon, but also of the electro-therapist and, what is most important, of the bacteriologist.

On the other coast of the U.S., another brilliant pioneer birthed the idea to investigate the possibilities of electrical treatment of diseases. The place was San Diego and his name was Royal Raymond Rife. He was fascinated by bacteriology, microscopes and electronics. He noticed individual differences in the chemical constituents of disease organisms and saw the indication of electrical characteristics, and observed electrical polarities in the organisms.¹⁸ Over the next 30-years he proved the efficacy of using focused specific resonant frequencies destroying disease organisms and eliminating chronic disease including cancer.

As history continued, on October 13, 2009 Goodwin et al at NASA (The National Aeronautics and Space Administration) filed Patent No: US 7,601,114 B2 for an electromagnetic apparatus using a wire coil to enhance tissue repair in mammals. On August 15, 2005 NASA released an article entitled Pulsed Electromagnetic Fields – A Countermeasure for Bone Loss and Muscle Atrophy¹⁹ confirming the need of stimulating their astronauts with non-invasive pulsating electromagnetic fields during the time they live in space and are disconnected from earth’s energy/gravity to help prevent bone loss and muscle atrophy.

Case histories

RL, a 5-Year-Old Male Diagnosed with Thrombosis on the Heart Valve

Patient has pacemaker after open-heart surgery at age 2 performed at Children’s Hospital in Boston (Corrected L-transposition, closure of VSD). In March of 2002, patient was diagnosed with a thrombus measuring 10mm x 0.9mm located on heart valve. He had been on an average of 2 mg Coumadin for 2-months, but had not yet reached a therapeutic level, which was set between 2-3 (INR). His blood results came back as 1.75, 1.8, 3.8 and 4.2.

Head cardiologist David Fulton, M.D. an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School, was considering surgically removing the thrombus due to the non-responsiveness of the patient to Coumadin. To potentially avoid surgery, the therapeutic approach of biofeedback and focused field stimulation was added to the treatment of the anti-coagulant.

The frequencies emitted from the technology were tested at Children’s Hospital at Westchester Medical Center, NY, for possible interference with pacemaker. There were no fluctuations of the pacemaker or in the heart as seen on the echocardiogram as well as pacemaker testing device from Medtronic. Three therapeutic sessions were administered within 4-days; scanning and applying patient specific frequencies. The patient’s reaction areas were noted in patient data sheet and were stimulated with the patient-specific frequencies. Another INR blood test was taken several days later and for the first time in 3-months, RL reached a therapeutic level of 2.7.

Two additional biofeedback and focused field stimulation therapies were administered over the following 5-days. After only 5 treatments over 2-weeks, the patient was examined with an echocardiogram at Westchester Medical Center, NY, which showed a reduction of the thrombus to 0.9mm x 0.6mm. Patient continued the sessions weekly. Three weeks later another echocardiogram showed that the thrombosis had further reduced to 0.6mm x 0.5mm.

Patient received sessions every 2-weeks with individual frequencies and pre-set programs. Just 3-months later, patient’s thrombosis was barely visible on the echocardiogram and patient was taken off the Coumadin medication. Patient successfully avoided having to go through open-heart surgery by adding biofeedback & focused field stimulation therapy to the existing treatment protocol. According to pediatric cardiologist Aaron Levine, M.D. Children’s Hospital at Westchester Medical Center, who stated in his letter dated October 2003 to the patient’s pediatrician: “The thrombus as described in previous letters by Dr. Woolf is not clearly seen at this examination.”

The patient remains in good health, without any medication and quarterly maintenance treatment. He is now 17-years-old (July 2014) and recent examination at the University Clinic in Freiburg, Germany, revealed a healthy heart without any signs of a thrombus.

Myasthenia Gravis

JP, a 59-year-old female has had 17 treatments with a technology combining biofeedback and focused field stimulation as of March 26, 2010. She was diagnosed with myasthenia gravis after initial testing for multiple sclerosis in her 40's. Her symptoms included:

• Muscle weakness over whole body increasing with use
• Drooping eyelid on right side
• Sagging face on right side
• Lack of facial expression on right side
• Weakness of the hand muscle
• Urgency incontinence
• Extreme tiredness in daytime
• Sleep disturbance at night
• Equilibrium/Balance problems
• Arrhythmia

Treatment was started on January 18, 2010. By her fifth session, she started resting better. By March, she reported sleeping 6-hours at night undisturbed. The muscle tone of her face greatly improved (Fig. 2). Within a total of 17 treatments over 4-months, the patient no longer experienced any of the symptoms as part of her diagnosis. JP reported her cardiologist adjusted the arrhythmia medication since her cardiac diagnosis of arrhythmia showed significant improvement. The patient is followed up with maintenance treatment once per quarter.

Lymphedema

Suzanne Somers, a well-known health pioneer and best-selling author, has published several books over the past years revealing groundbreaking medical approaches that are used in daily practice by progressive physicians around the U.S. She has written of her use of biofeedback combined with focused field stimulation in Breakthrough, Knockout, and Bombshell and revealed how this modality helped her with lymphedema by alleviating the swelling and pain from her left axilla and left breast using this therapeutic approach. Interesting was the fact, that her main reaction area was not in the area of the swelling, but in the right lower quadrant where the focused field stimulation primarily took place. She confirmed the location of a scar. This is a perfect example to showcase the correlation between stagnation of fluid or energy in a remote area being the root cause to the accumulation of fluid or energy in a different part of the body; In this case the correlation was between the scar on the right lower abdomen and the left axilla/breast. Suzanne has been using this modality on a daily basis, especially after her recent stem cell breast surgery.²⁰

Conclusions

The question must not be: Does energy medicine work? Of course it works. It has worked since the existence of humanity. Magnetism is a physical phenomenon that exercises its influence on the entire universe, including living beings. As James Oschman, Ph.D. stated so well at the A4M Conference in Orlando several years ago: “When we ignore energy we miss 99% of reality. In fact, what can you comprehend about anything without energetics?”²¹

The biological manifestations of electromagnetism range from the potential of action produced by cellular depolarization in response to ionic flow through its membrane to organic representations that are in fact used for diagnostic purposes such as cardiac, cerebral, or muscular electrical activity. There is ever more scientific evidence that questions the physiological model currently accepted, which exclusively considers biochemical process and nervous conduction as responsible for cell and organic interactions. It is necessary to consider electromagnetic phenomena as cell behavior elements that precede the other processes.²²

While energy medicine plays a potent role in patient care, when looking at the bigger picture, there are many other perspectives and solutions from different cultures and ancient wisdom to bring into a personalized medicine approach to help our patients recreate their belief system and change their life patterns. Our own use and teaching of the most important puzzle pieces that come into play of an integrative or complementary approach to helping chronically ill patients in a personalized setting are shown in Figure 3.

Besides relief of symptoms, have you have ever given thought to what it really is that our patients are searching when seeking our help and involvement to improve their health? Deep down there is a desire, an unfulfilled part in their lives that drives their body into a state of chaos and dysfunction. When zooming out (not only zooming into their physiological distress), one could find their inner yearning to:

• Find hope
• Forgive
• Feel safe
• Be free
• Live life without fear
• Be respected
• Be and feel beautiful
• Love and be loved
• Connect with the seed of their powerful self they have come to live

When we are born as naked innocent beings, we live in the moment and allow a special life force to work through us so we may live our purposeful life. But something happens somewhere along our lives (from my perspective before a child turns 5), when a shocking or traumatizing situation as little as it may be, disconnects us from the trust and belief in ourselves and gets us on a different path; a path that is not ours. Many years later our bodies follow the emotional and spiritual disconnect by expressing symptoms and disease.

Not only our patients, but all of us are searching for these aspects within us. It is a journey we all should respect and embrace allowing ourselves to live our powerful selves impacting the world around us.

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. Recognition of the mystery of the universe is the source of all true science. He to whom emotions are a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe is as good as dead; his eyes are closed.

~ Albert Einstein