For thousands of years, the Chinese, with chi; the Japanese, with ki; Indian yogis, with prana; and the Hawaiians, with mana, have worked with the life-force energy and built various elaborate systems for healing, the martial arts, and consciousness-raising activities. Throughout the world, there have been countless other cultures that have become aware of, acknowledged, and utilized these energies as well. It seems ironic that we now live in a society in which scientists have come up with a fascinating new way to describe the centuries-old wisdom of life force: it is most often referred to as nonsense or as a placebo. In these "modern" times, we live in a strange culture that has steadfastly refused to acknowledge the existence of this most fundamental energy, the animating current of life. The hardened scientific stance has been that that which cannot be measured with existing instrumentation either does not exist or is not worth considering. Since scientists act as modern-day priests to tell the common people what is and is not "real," they simply denounce the existence of this tremendously valuable resource. For the millions of people who place their trust in such authorities, the result is that the various types of healing modalities such as Quantum-Touch, Polarity Therapy, Reiki, qigong, acupressure, and acupuncture, which use life-force energies, are all relegated to the fringes of society. I have found that many physicists enjoy tearing down energy healers by explaining that the word "energy," when used by a physicist, has a very precise meaning. From their perspective, energy causes work to be done on the physical plane, meaning that something tangible and measurable has occurred. There are many who will rightly say that our own experiences and empirical evidence have overwhelmingly shown us that the life force is real. I would never argue with this perspective; however, to accelerate a paradigm shift, we can do far better than that. I believe that there can be great value working within the double-blind model. Deepak Chopra wrote, "To promote the healing response, you must get past all the grosser levels of the body — cells, tissues, organs and systems — and arrive at a junction point between mind and matter, the point where consciousness actually starts to have an effect." I believe we are now at that point. I envision a world where the life force is considered real. What if people knew life force was real? I imagine life force science being studied at every major university and medical research center around the globe. Having new tools to measure or evaluate the impact of life force would be like putting on a new pair of glasses with which to view the world: • How does the use of the various kinds of bodywork and energy therapy affect life force? • How does the use of organic and fresh live foods affect our life force? • How does the use of pesticides or other forms of toxic waste affect the life force of the plants or the animals or people who ingest them? • How does the suppression of symptoms with drugs, or the use of antibiotics, affect life force? • How does the repression or suppression of emotions affect the health of the individual? • How do creativity, hope, gratitude, and love affect people’s life force? When life force is considered real, concepts that the holistically minded take for granted would start to make sense to everyone. I can imagine a world where energy healers work in every hospital, emergency room, ambulance, retirement home, and institution. I imagine a world where every elementary school child learns to do healing. When children act up or get hurt, there are other children ready to give them some energy. By the time these children finish high school, they will all be extraordinary healers. What may seem self-evident and obvious to those people who have studied the healing arts has, for political, religious, social, and economic reasons, remained quite a mystery to the culture at large. I can only imagine how wonderful it would be to live in a world where life force was not only acknowledged but also widely embraced and cherished. Paradigms are notorious for dying hard. In time, with enough research and, of course, publicity, the old Newtonian model of health will give way to a new appreciation and acknowledgement of life force, for when life force is considered real, people will know that healing is real. It is something everyone is capable of doing. Healing is the easiest of skills to learn, and perhaps the most important. Love has more impact than anyone has yet imagined. Richard Gordon is one of the pioneers of energy healing. Through his classic guide to energy work, Your Healing Hands: The Polarity Experience, a bestseller that has been translated into nine languages, he familiarized people with the principles of hands-on healing. Contact Quantum-Touch at P.O. Box 852, Santa Cruz, CA, 95061-0852, <http://www.quantumtouch.com/>, <mail@quantumtouch.com>, or (888) 424-0041. |
I am certain that someday life-force energy will be considered as real as electricity, magnetism, or gravity, and that it can easily stand up to the scrutiny of clinical double-blind experimentation. When the life force is accepted as real, it will forever change the world’s fundamental understanding of physics, chemistry, biology, psychology, and medicine. Our very conception of who we are and our relationship to each other will be altered forever.