Memorial
Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, 1275 York Ave. — Box 290, New York,
NY 10021
Pacific College of Oriental Medicine, 915 Broadway, New York, NY 10010.
Quantum physics revolutionized physics and sent a ripple effect through many other scientific and medical disciplines. Non-linear and non-local effects and the interchangeability of matter and energy opened up new ways to understand our own bodies and move beyond the reductionist molecular paradigm.
Self-healing, mind medicine, and biofield healing cannot be explained using conventional western scientific paradigms. This is probably because the primary level at which these healing modalities work is non-molecular. Molecular biology has provided much detailed knowledge of the molecular events of life, but has made comparatively little progress in explaining processes that create predictable patterns of events, such as development and the intricacy and beauty of a butterfly’s wing. These and other unexplained phenomena have generated the theory that there are informational and energetic communication systems in the body. These have probably been retained throughout evolution from primitive organisms that lack sophisticated nervous and endocrine systems.
The movement of subatomic particles, the currents and electromagnetic fields that they engender, and the overall collective field of the body constitutes the biofield. The emerging field of bioelectromagnetics has proposed that endogenous and exogenous electromagnetic activity can regulate biological function. The fields generated by the body and those that the body responds too in a 'healthy'manner are extremely low intensity and frequency, and have often been discredited because their effectiveness against much stronger background fields did not seem feasible. However there is growing evidence that the body specifically responds to subtle energies.
It would appear that the molecular constituents of our bodies not only participate in a biochemical dance, but they also engender the electromagnetic properties. The regular repeated structure of all groups of biological molecules promotes semi conduction. DNA has been shown to conduct electricity in a sequence specific manner and emit photons. Perhaps we all have a unique biofield that reflects the uniqueness of our individual genomes. The electromagnetic activity of the molecules in turn regulates their biochemical activity. Such regulation of the biochemical level by the energetic level is the basis of circadian rhythms that regulate our daily cycle in response to light.
As we have learned from light and electrons, particles and waves are one of the same. It seems that this paradigm of complementarity, so fundamental to eastern thought, is once again evoked in our search to understand the mysteries of the body.