In a few decades scientists have gone from a conviction that there is no such thing as energy fields in and around the human body to an absolute certainty that they exist.
James Oschman, Ph.D., Energy Medicine
McKusick (2014) states “Over the last two decades a new paradigm has been emerging—that we are more fundamentally energetic and informational beings with sophisticated, high-speed communication channels in our living connective tissue matrix capable of rapidly affecting tissues, cellular processes, and even nuclear DNA expression” (p. viii). Today’s cutting-edge physicists are showing that “we exist in an ocean of potentiality and latent energy present in the quantum vacuum …a sea of almost infinite energy in which matter and mass manifest and disappear continuously” (McKusick, 2014, p ix). While today’s scientists, with the aid of advanced technology, are now able to demonstrate that human beings are energy beings and are so much more than the sum of their individual parts, this concept of the human energy field is not new. Its roots are embedded in human history.
Dale (2013) notes, “Albert Einstein, amongst other great scientists, shattered the Newtonian universe by asserting that human beings are not isolated aislands unto themselves. We are composed of energy and energy fields, which interconnect us to all things” (p. 9). In addition, traditional healers worldwide have known for centuries that the body is a complex energy system with energy flowing through or over its surface (Rakel, 2017). Until recently, allopathic medical healers have largely ignored the traditional healing paradigm that asserts human beings are energy beings. However, this is changing dramatically, and an exciting and promising new branch of academic inquiry and clinical research is opening in the area of energy healing (Oschman, 2015; Shealy, 2011).
- Scientists and energy therapists around the world have made discoveries that will forever alter the healthcare providers’ perspective of human energetics.
- The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is conducting research in areas such as energy healing and prayer, and major U.S. academic institutions are conducting large clinical trials in these traditional healing areas.
- Conflicting approaches to healing that explore the concepts of life force and healing energy (such as allopathic and traditional healing) are now supporting each other.
With a growing body of scientific evidence now supporting the efficacy of energy healing systems, the paradigms of allopathic health care are shifting. A growing number of researchers, physicians, nurses, and other health practitioners are embracing a new view of healing that includes energy healing. The healthcare community is combining traditional methods of energy healing with allopathic medicine. According to Shealy and many scientists, energy medicine is the medicine of the future (Shealy, 2011)
