Energy Field Healing: Science, Spirit and Soul
by Nancy Privett, MA, EFTCert-I, BBSH
A version of this article originally appeared in the 1996-1997 edition of the Directory of Holistic Practices and Providers, Long Island East End.
Whenever I teach people about the human energy field and its implications for health and consciousness, I begin with science, because everybody “believes in” science. Not everybody starts out “believing in” a field of energy which penetrates and surrounds the body. So I begin by asking people to think like Albert Einstein, because he theorized that all matter is really energy. This would mean that the chair you are sitting in is really energy showing up as very dense matter, and the air you are breathing is also energy, but less dense than the chair. The human body is also energy.
Physicists like Einstein now say that the universe is an interconnected web of energy, which can transmit information. This can be illustrated by an experiment that the psychologist William McDougall performed at Harvard in 1920, which studied rats to see how quickly they could learn to escape from a maze filled with water. Not only did McDougall find that successive generations of rats learned the task more quickly, but when the experiment was repeated in Scotland and Australia, the first generation of rats, bred from a strain separate from McDougall’s rats, started at the same level of expertise as McDougall’s last generation.
Then there is what has come to be called “the hundredth monkey phenomenon,” where a group of monkeys in the United States were taught certain behaviors, and after a period of time, one monkey in a control group on another continent began to exhibit the learned behavior of the US monkeys, without being taught the behavior. This leads right into the morphogenic resonance theory of Rupert Sheldrake, a British theoretical biologist, who theorizes that there are invisible organizing fields of energy connecting us, and if one member of a species learns a new behavior, the field of energy for that species is affected. If the behavior is repeated long enough, the entire species is affected in more and more noticeable ways. (There are some who say that the impact of Dr. Sheldrake’s theory should be compared to the impact of Darwin’s theory of evolution.)
Take a moment to digest this. Not only do these ideas have huge implications for responsibility for our behavior, but they also point to an idea that we have been hearing since the 1960’s, which is: “We are all connected.” The way to say this when you are speaking the language of spiritual law is: All Is One. Isn’t it interesting that science and spirituality seem to be saying the same thing?
The Eastern spiritual philosophies have been saying All Is One for centuries. From these philosophies also comes the belief that there exists an organized body of energy around and through the human body. This body of energy, also called an aura, is created by the spinning movements of wheels of energy called chakras. Translated for the modern Western mind, we can think of chakras as energy body intake-outake valves, which also include computer programs to interpret our reality.
Throughout the 1900’s there were many experiments to study, measure, and map the energy field of humans, plants and animals. What has been found are things such as:
1. an appropriate field can sustain health in uninjured cells and stimulate healing in damaged cells;
2. the energy field serves as a matrix or mold for material in it;
3. the energy field can reveal the future arrangement of material it holds.
Here is what this means. The human energy field reflects how we live our lives, what is healthy in our lives, what is damaged, what is being repaired, what is not, and what will manifest as disease in our bodies in the future! It reveals all our experiences up to the moment, and the perceptions we have developed from those experiences. Our energy field holds a pattern for the four levels of a human being: our body, which is the physical level; our feelings, which is the emotional level; our thoughts, which is the mental level; and our concept of Higher Order, which is the spiritual level. To describe a human being, we cannot separate these levels from one another, just as we cannot describe a cake by separately defining the ingredients that go into it. This concept of a four-level human is the basis of holistic philosophies.
If our energy field and its chakras are functioning properly, that is, with enough energy, with energy of appropriately different frequencies, with an organized structure, and a flow of energy through the field which allows for the exchange of information, we are healthy physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually. If any of these factors (which, by the way, are the prerequisites for a shift in consciousness), are deficient, we are immediately affected on one or more of our four levels, and subsequently affected on all levels. So if we have a means to positively affect our energy field, we have a means to positively affect our body, our feelings, our thoughts, and our spirituality, and any problems we have in any of those areas. In other words, we can positively affect our lives.
Our energy fields can be deficient in one or more of the above-mentioned areas. The main reason for this is that we distort our energy fields in order not to feel pain. Especially as children, any of our experiences that we perceived as painful made us unconsciously distort our energy field in order to numb or suppress the painful feeling. Our childhood experiences, along with the teachings of our family and society (and any other influential groups), caused us to from perceptions of “how the world works,” called belief systems. The painful experiences caused us to form negative belief systems and these translated into a distortion of the natural, healthy flow of our energy. When these distortions became habitual, we no longer remembered how to move our energy in the healthy, natural way.
We all have negative, limiting beliefs about life, and the challenge for us as conscious adults is to transform the beliefs into healthy ones. When a negative belief is transformed, the energy field moves back to a healthy state, and we benefit physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. This is called healing and growth of consciousness. The good news is that we can affect our energy field in order to support and encourage the transformation of negative beliefs in order to move forward on our evolutionary paths.
Energy-based therapies, such as Emotional Freedom Techniques and energy field therapies such as the work of Barbara Brennan and Donna Eden, work to correct any distorted energy patterns in our energy field. We can also positively affect our energy field with meditation, contemplative prayer, imagery, physical disciplines and nutrition. A knowledge of conscious creating also helps us to realign any distortions in the energy field.
Working to rebalance our energy field is the work of expanding consciousness as we become more self-aware and more self-accepting, more compassionate and more willing to be of service. At some point, we are working on a soul level. We get in touch with our soul’s longing, and are able to align our intention to have the vehicle of our physical body carry out that longing for ourselves and for the planet.
The energy of the new evolutionary cycle, sometimes called the Aquarian Age, has been pushing us in the direction of expanded consciousness for several decades now. There are glimmers that we can begin to remember that we are much more than our bodies and our egos. Take a risk and step into the world of energy. (Science will be taking you there soon anyway.) You may find exactly what you have been looking for.
For further reading on the human energy field and how to work with it, consult the following: Hands of Light and Light Emerging by Barbara Ann Brennan; Wheels of Light by Rosalyn Bruyere; Energy Medicine and Energy Medicine for Women by Donna Eden; The Creation of Health by Norman Shealy and Caroline Myss; Anatomy of the Spirit and Why People Don’t Heal by Caroline Myss; Vibrational Medicine by Richard Gerber; The Promise of Energy Psychology by David Feinstein, Donna Eden and Gary Craig; and The Field by Lynne McTaggart.