The article was previously printed in Bridges, Vol. XI, Nov 4, Winter 2000; contact ISSSEEM: issseem@compuserve.com; website is www.issseem.org; and FAX is 303-425-4685.
Explorations
at the Frontier of Energy Medicine
by Karl Maret, M.D.
My talk today is going to
address the new vista of energy medicine. Like the explorer Columbus who helped
chart the new world, I am going to share with you some glimpses of what I have
seen of the new frontier.
In conventional medicine we
have four pillars of intervention, namely genetic therapy, nuclear medicine,
drugs and chemotherapy, and surgery. Leo Gallant MD proposed that in alternative
and complementary medicine we also have four pillars which he called
detoxification and regeneration, environmental hygiene, dieta which is a Greek
word meaning diet and rhythmical living, and lastly relationship, between the
client and the doctor as well as the relationship of the client to himself or
herself. Although conventional
medicine tends to look at disease as an enemy and uses metaphors of "the
war against" say cancer or AIDS or whatever, in complementary medicine we
tend to look at diseases or imbalances as opportunities for learning and
spiritual growth. As we look for
the roots of the imbalances we maintain an essentially ecological perspective
and try to strengthen the various healing systems of the patient.
Niel's Bohr, one of the
fathers of quantum physics, once said: "What we observe is not nature
itself, but nature exposed to our methods of questioning."
So our current scientific world view is created out of the tools which we
have invented to look at things. In
conventional medicine we use genetic probes and DNA testing, clinical chemistry
and microbiology, X-rays and nuclear scans and now electromagnetic tools like
MRIs, magnetic resonance imaging. What
energy medicine modalities might be analogous to the above?
I propose the following categories and shall give examples from each of
these: Subtle field and state analysis, functional medicine testing,
electromagnetic regulatory assessment, and energetic imaging.
Let's begin with subtle
field and state analysis. Here the
work of Dr. Fritz Popp in Germany with biophotons over the last 25 years is very
provocative. This work actually goes back to Russia in the 1920s when Professor
Alexander Gurwitsch first described the light in the blue-green and ultraviolet
part of the spectrum being given off by onion shoots which had the capacity to
induce mitosis in other shoots. He called them mitogenic rays.
This work was further developed in Nowosibirsk, Russia in the 1960s and
1970s by Wlail Kasnatschejew and his team.
They had flasks containing cell cultures that were either damaged through
radiation or were otherwise sick placed adjacent to separate flasks containing
healthy cell cultures. The two sets
of flasks had either regular or quartz glass interposed between them.
With the quartz glass barrier, which permits the transmission of
ultraviolet light, the healthy cells became sick which did not take place when
normal glass was used. They
concluded that cells communicate information via UV light.
Fritz Popp was stimulated by
this research and tasked his young graduate physics student Bernard Ruth to
build their first high sensitivity emission photometer consisting of very
sensitive photomultiplier tubes. With this apparatus they were able to begin
mapping the light or biophotons given off by living systems.
The sensitivity of the apparatus was quite exquisite; about 10-17 watts
or about the emanation
of a firefly at about 10
kilometers. They were counting
biophotons at very low concentrations given off by these test substances.
When they added homeopathic remedies to cucumber seedlings, the biophoton
count went up initially and afterwards slowly decayed back to the starting
baseline.
They also examined various
foods. Vegetables contaminated with
heavy metals showed a decreased photon count compared to controls.
Photon counts from tomatoes stored at cold temperatures showed decreased
biophoton emissions and they decreased even further with longer storage times. The photons given off by eggs from captive chicken was lower
than from eggs obtained from free-range chicken.
They are working to determine the vital quality of foods with this
approach.
They also measured
biophotons given off from the hands of healers such as Rosalyn Bruyere.
They saw higher photon emissions when she focused her healing energy
emitted from her hand compared to light given off when she was resting.
Both values were significantly different from the normal background
photon counts in the chamber. All
these experiments and their whole theory of biophotons as regulatory processes
in the body is documented in a German book by Marco Bischof with the translated
title Biophotons: The Light in our Cells.
Dr. Popp suggests that our very DNA resonates light coherently like a
laser and regulates cellular communication through light mechanisms.
Now I'd like to show some
very provocative work by Dr. Chang Kanzheng in Russia.
He carried out experiments in genetic engineering using simply resonant
fields. I'd like to put this work
in proper context by first addressing the Western approach to genetic
engineering and the current flurry of activity surrounding the human genome
project. There are billions of
dollars spent on sequencing the DNA base pairs of all our chromosomes which is
called the human genome. But this is only the raw data all lined up in a row.
Then the challenge is to find the 3% of the genome that actually makes up
the 34,000 to 120,000 genes (depending on whose estimate you believe) that
comprise the human being. And,
perhaps even more importantly, which of the single genes or genes acting in
combination which actually make up the key proteins coded by the genes. But as
we learned from Bruce Lipton, the real question isn't just where the genes are
located on the different chromosomes. The big question is what turns them on and off.
With this background, let's
look at the innovative research of Dr. Kanzheng.
His arrangement consists of a biological transmitter where he puts a
living substance, like a duck for example.
Then a type of wave guide connects the transmitter to a spherical
resonator with a lot of dials that looks like something you might see on Star
Trek videos. Then another wave
guide leads from this resonator to a receiving chamber where the experimental
material is located, in this case chicken eggs.
In his arrangement shown
here, the duck's genetic information is resonantly imprinted into the incubating
chicken eggs and when the chicks hatched they had duck-like webbed feet which
were genetically part of their genome. He
has also imprinted corn with wheat to create a hybrid wheat-corn, all through
field effects with out any slicing-and dicing recombinant DNA techniques.
It makes one rethink the importance of resonant field phenomena and their
capacity to affect life. It also
frees us from the limitation of having to look at everything through the lens of
molecular biology.
There are two additional
qualitative techniques that I would like to introduce to you that give us some
information about subtle fields. One is called sensitive copper chloride crystallization.
This was developed by Dr. Ehrenfried Pfeiffer, an anthroposophical
physician who was also very active in biodynamic agricultural research.
In this test, copper chloride solution in a Petri dish is evaporated
under controlled temperature and humidity conditions.
By itself the crystallization
pattern is mostly random,
but once living matter in very small amounts is added to the solution, such as
vegetable juice or human blood, you get very consistent and qualitatively
analyzable patterns. In this
example, you can readily differentiate the patterns between healthy and unripe
wheat juice, or wheat planted in a drought year compared to a normal weather
year.
Another subtle energy state
analysis approach is the drop picture method to assess water quality.
This was developed by Theodor Schwenk and his coworkers at the German
Institute for Stroemungwissenschaften (Flowing water sciences). Here water to be tested is in a special glass dish with a
little glycerin added to the water and then a series of distilled water drops
are added every five seconds so that the small vortexes that form in the water
may be photographed using a Schlieren photographic technique.
The beautiful rosette, flower-like patterns of the vortices
can give a powerful
qualitative assessment of the vitality and health of the water.
Examples of chemically identical water from different levels within a
stream, especially if the water has been flowing through an area of pollution,
still shows up dramatically with this technique but does not reveal itself with
simple chemical analysis.
Now let us look briefly at
the second area, functional medical testing. Some approaches look at biochemical
individuality, the pathogenic terrain of a person and innovative dark field
microscopy techniques that determine the pleomorphic status of a patient's blood.
Other approaches look at amino acid analysis and fatty acid constitution
of someone's blood. There are new
microscopes that have a more powerful depth of field than traditional light
microscopes that can look into the 3-dimensional structure of the living cell
which gives us quite different information than we can get from stained, dead
tissues or fixed blood specimens that conventional pathologists are used to
seeing.
Since these approaches are
becoming more mainstream in the complementary and alternative medicine field, I
only want to give an example of one interesting technique that deals more with
energy medicine. Biological terrain analysis was developed as the result of
the work of a French hydrologist Professor Vincent. He studied mostly water and looked at the pH, rH or
oxidation-reduction potential and the conductivity. Clinically these three
factors are measured in the blood, urine and saliva of a patient.
From these measurements one determines the biological terrain in a client
which is predictive of their biochemical and energetic state and may be helpful
in assessing propensity for having allergies, a susceptibility to fungal or
bacterial infections, cancer and so on. It
also allows one to monitor the effect of remedies by studying how they impact a
person's inner biological terrain.
The third area deals with
electromagnetic regulatory assessment that I will address with several examples.
As a brief background, we know that we are all electromagnetic beings.
This goes back to the Chinese who first studied acupuncture meridians and
treated imbalances with needles that we now know are creating electrical ion
fluxes in the meridians. Dr. Raymond Burr of Yale University measured surface
potentials from the human body during the 1940s using a high impedance vacuum
tube voltmeter. He was able to measure the changes in body potentials and
correlate them with different disease states.
We must also be aware that the range of electromagnetic frequencies being
radiated into the environment has tremendously expanded in the 20th century.
We are now living in an electromagnetic smog and we are all exposed to
this even though some people are more sensitive than others and hence are more
affected by this.
One of the diagnostic
approaches using electromagnetism that has been developed in Germany is
computerized regulation thermography (CRT). Here we measure specific points on
the head and torso with a very sensitive temperature probe.
By measuring the points before and after a slight cold stress, created by
simply sitting unclothed for about 10 minutes, we can study how the autonomic
nervous system is effectively regulating the skin blood flow.
The pathways for the afferent and efferent nerves involved in this
thermoregulation response are well understood and the specific points are
related to various organs, teeth, lymphatic areas and so on.
The healthy thermogram shows a slight temperature decrease for each point
after the cold stress whereas the patient with health challenges shows a loss of
this regulation. In a study of
breast cancer patients using this FDA approved device, only 34 of 63 cases had
their cancer detected with manual palpation, 48 using mammograms but almost all
of them showed diagnostic mammary point abnormalities diagnostic of breast
cancer using the CRT device during the 20 minute office procedure (personal
communication from Dr. Dan Belien based on Professor Wagner's study in Stuttgart,
Germany).
Another diagnostic approach
studies the acupuncture meridians by measuring their end points from the fingers
and toes. Dr. Chevalier from
California Institute for Human Science in Encinitas, CA has been studying this
device developed by Dr. Hiroshi Motoyama from Japan.
The meridians are probed briefly with a voltage probe for less than a
millisecond and their energetic state can be plotted on a radial chart to give a
simple overview of the energetic state of the body's meridian system.
Another device that also
does an analysis of the 12 meridians was developed by the Russian cosmonaut
program and was deployed on the space station Mir between 1984 to 1995.
It is called Prognos and about 450 German doctors use this device now
with newly improved software and new hardware built by Siemens.
Again 24 meridian end points are measured bilaterally with each
acupuncture point measured 400 times over 400 milliseconds with a constant
current of 0.4 microamperes. The
meridian balance is then displayed graphically and the effect of any drug or
natural substance can be ascertained in a matter of 1-2 minutes.
The quantitative meridian energetic changes are immediately calculated
and displayed by the software.
Other devices such as the
Electroacupuncture according to Voll (EAV), various electrodermal test systems
having different names such as the Vega system developed by Helmut Schimmel, or
the dermatron etc. also probe various meridian points but often use a direct
current system and in some cases use only a few points over and over again.
I believe they require considerably more study to insure that the
measurement process does not influence or even polarize the meridians being
tested. Other approaches called
Bioresonance Feedback uses some electrodes to measure a body potential or field
and then the circuitry electrically inverts
this signal and feeds it
back to the body. In this way
specific pathological frequencies or resonances are said to be phase cancelled
thereby assisting in the body's in reestablishing its innate self-regulation
mechanisms. I believe these devices
require more rigorous testing and clinical trials to show their effectiveness in
different disease states.
The final category deals
with energetic imaging of the body and will be described through three unique
approaches. In St. Petersburg,
Russia, Dr. Konstantin Korotkov and his team has developed a Gas Discharge
Visualization technique that is essentially a high frequency Kirlian photography
approach but using a charge coupled device (CCD) connected to a computer.
The device can be calibrated and used to rapidly study the fingers of a
test subject as well as the discharge patterns of
various fluid such as blood
or water. The software can
calculate the spectral response of the discharge pattern, the image's fractality
and other research parameters so that a quantitative assessment of the picture
can be rapidly created. Using a segmental analysis of the discharge patterns from
five fingers that is supposed to correlate with various body organs and body
position that was suggested by Peter Mandel of Germany, they are also able to
reconstruct an image supposedly of the entire body's energetic field.
Pictures before different intervention,
as for example an
acupuncture treatment, certainly shows quite a difference in appearance using
this approach. An extensive
analysis of this technique, including many scientific studies, is contained in
Dr. Korotkov's book Aura and
Consciousness.
Another technique uses the
biofield instrument that was developed in Russia by Yuri Kravchenko.
This device measures an oscillating electrical field around the body with
a special probe that is responsive to frequencies from 0.5 to 15,000 Hz in the
picovolt range (10-12 volts). The hardware processes these signals with special
digital filtering techniques. By
measuring these fields at calibrated distances away from the body they are able
to create a 2- or 3-dimensional plot of this resonant electrical field which
they call the aurogram. Comparison
plots between a healthy aurogram and that of a sick person readily shows
deformities in pathological regions that is quite different from the
ovoid-shaped field of a healthy person.
The last technique of
energetic imaging was developed by Harry Oldfield in England and is called
Polycontrast Interference Photography (PIP). This is done with a digital camera
connected to a personal computer with special software that processes the
picture frames according to the light intensity. The light intensity is given a
number from 1 to 255 and each number is then given a color. The frame is then
re-constructed using the false color imaging system. The software algorithms are
supposedly able to make
visible in various colors areas in the body where pathological or energetic
imbalances exist. Dr. Spogliarich
demonstrated this technique at this conference. This is a interesting technique
that requires more study but may become useful in the future. This is all I'd
like to say about energetic imaging approaches.
It is my hope that we can
build a bridge between the conventional medical approaches and those that are
now being pioneered in complementary and alternative medicine and specifically
in energy medicine. Perhaps in the
not too distant future we'll see greater cooperation between our various
approaches which will benefit the patient and save money for our health care
system. That is a future worth
working toward in a cooperative way.
**************************
Karl Maret was the program Co-chair for the 2000 ISSSEEM conference. He is a trained electrical and biomedical engineer as well as a medical doctor. Karl is also a scholar and student of the ancient mystery traditions of Western spirituality including Rosicrucianism, Theosophy and Anthroposophy. He serves as President of the nonprofit Dove Health Alliance.