Biofield Energy: How Did the Concept Originate?

Biofield itself is a specific term that was agreed upon in the early 1990s by a committee of alternative medicine practitioners including chiropractors, reiki healers, and massage therapists, among others. The committee was formed by the Office of Alternative Medicine as a part of the United States National Institute of Health. The goal was to define a concept that could encompass a particular energy sensed or treated by all these groups of people.

As the studies of biofields deepen, scientists have found evidence to suggest that the term could be used to describe an entire discipline of physiology called biofield physiology. It’s focus would be on ways that the body’s different electrical and magnetic energies given by the body as measured by electrocardiogram (ECGs) and others may in fact be a wider ranging communication system for the body.

A recent study has examined the impact of encounters with sacred objects on the human biofield. The researchers posit that this field is the result of a dynamic flow of different energies and information that regulate biological functions and homeostasis. Despite the limited sample size and the absence of a control group, the study observed changes in the biofield and chakra energy, as well as in specific bodily systems, including the immune, digestive, and cardiovascular systems.

This was accomplished by measuring the weak photon emissions that are generated by the pulsed electromagnetic current at the fingertips, where the meridians end. The reason why they chose to study sacred objects is because since ancient times they have been endowed with healing energies due to their special properties.

There has been a lot of research attempting to nail down the nature of the biofield energy that surrounds us and how this energy can be used. One such discovery was by Alexander Gurwitsch, who found that during the cell division of onion root cells, they gave off a weak form of ultraviolet radiation. He also found another field of energy during regenerative processes or the development of embryonic cells.

Later scientists have found that this field continued to be present even after the embryonic cells were removed. These are being incorporated into an attempt to use biofield energy as a way to develop a more holistic view of our body’s system in regards to energy.

Some scientists have hypothesized that the magnetic fields given off by our heart are more significant than originally thought. McCraty et. al. suggests that the waves given off by the heart may be sensed by other organisms. They also look to find if the heart may have influence over other physiological systems and even our thought patterns.

Essentially, they suggest that the heart may be the center of a body-wide energy system controlled through electromagnetic energy and our emotions may have an effect on these.

A similar use of biofields is the idea of biofield tuning. Practitioners believe that our bodies give off certain frequencies of energy and these can be different depending on our emotional state. These emotional frequencies can have different effects on a tuning fork.

A woman named Eileen Day McKusick was particularly sensitive to the different qualities of this sound and was thus able to identify which areas of the biofield emitted them. She was able to thus build a healing method around this by controlling these energies.

The use of touch in healing has been well explored. However, it is often common for energy healers, especially reiki healers to conduct their therapy without physical touch, instead hold their hands a few centimeters above the body. The argument is that you don’t need to make physical contact to influence energies. This would suggest there is an energy field or aura surrounding our bodies.

The use of both touch and non-touch therapies have been used for thousands of years across different cultures. Although there has not been much in terms of conclusive evidence for the effectiveness of this method of healing, some studies have found that with small sample sizes, there have been significant effects found. Other studies suggest that many of the positive outcomes may be the result of poor experimental design.

In general, many energy healing and alternative medicine types have been relabeled as biofield therapy. The practices of many of these vary, but meta-studies have shown that they do show moderate efficacy in certain areas, especially pain reduction. They have also been known to reduce the behavioral symptoms of dementia and reduce anxiety in hospital patients. Just because these therapy types show some effectiveness does not confirm the existence of a biofield as hypothesized by these healers.

Some studies have shown that just the act of giving care may be causing their effect. The researchers had “sham healers”, basically people with no knowledge of biofield therapy, conduct energy healing and they had similar results to the actual trained healer. There have been many studies that have shown the profound power of placebo. However, one could counter this argument by claiming that the placebo effect confirms the idea of a biofield as suggested by McCraty et. al.

Still, whether or not there exists an actual biofield or even a vital energy may be less important than their value as an analogy for something else that we may not understand yet. There exists the possibility that biofield therapists are tapping into something we have not discovered yet. Even if the biofield hypothesis proves false, by continuing to study it, we may gain greater understanding of other systems or models.

Updated: June 19, 2024. – This article was originally published on February 7, 2021.