Energy Treatment

Each of the ancient medical traditions mentions a vital, subtle energy system in the body that is crucial to health. In Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), this subtle energy is called qi; in Japanese medicine, it is ki; in Tibetan medicine, it is loong, or "wind", and in Ayurveda, it is prana. This subtle energy is said to flow through a network of invisible channels in the body known as the meridian system in acupuncture or the nadi system in yoga.

For decades researchers around the world have been interested in developing devices that may measure and treat the flow of this subtle energy, and the electro-magnetic field believed to surround the body. A range of these devices is now available and in use by complementary medicine practitioners. This chapter explores the most common ones, while also looking at some other forms of energy medicine, including radiesthesia and radionics (divining techniques using pendulums or electrical devices), magnet therapy, gem therapy, and flower essences.

Energy medicine in its oldest form consisted of divining techniques, often using a pendulum, rod, twig, or other instrument (known as dowsing), for detecting imbalances in the body and also for other purposes such as for locating water and evaluating the therapeutic properties of plants. The ancient Egyptians, Babylonians, Greeks, Romans, and Chinese are all believed to have used forms of dowsing and the technique is thought to have been fashionable in 18th-century France. Dowsing was resurrected by French Jesuit priests in the 1920s, who taught it to their missionaries as a way of determining the therapeutic properties of plants in areas where no medicine was available.

The French priest Abbé (Father) Alex Bouly coined the term radiesthésie, from the Latin radius meaning a ray or beam, and the Greek aisthesis meaning a feeling or perception. This term has been translated as radiesthesia and is used to mean literally "perception of the radiation or vibration of a person or thing".

Abbé Bouly and two other Jesuit priests, Abbé Alexis Mermet and Abbé Jean Jurion, pioneered the medical use of dowsing. They surmised that if dowsing could be used successfully for divining water, it could also be used to determine the circulation of blood and the condition of the tissues in the body. At the turn of the 20th-century in another part of the world, American doctor Albert Abrams formulated the idea that disease was caused by an imbalance of electrons (tiny sub-atomic particles) in affected tissue rather than imbalance in the cells. He believed that these electrical particles radiated a charge that could be detected outside of the body and that different electronic reactions were linked with different diseases. He developed devices for measuring these changes and called his system radionics.

Although a recognised medical expert at Stanford University in California, Abrams was ridiculed for his ideas, as was Dr Ruth Drown, a chiropractor who took up his work and developed ways of diagnosing and treating at a distance using samples of hair or blood. However, in the UK, Abram's work found more acceptance after a medical committee tested his findings and replicated them and an American living in the UK, David Tansley, popularised his work in the 1960s. Dr Cyril W. Smith, a retired UK lecturer in engineering, has also done pioneering work on the body's electro-magnetic field, summarised in his fascinating book, Electromagnetic Man.

In Germany, a modern-day pioneer of energy medicine was Reinhold Voll, a doctor who studied acupuncture in the 1950s, and then, together with a group of colleagues, became interested in the electrical properties of acupuncture points.

Voll developed a simple electrical device to measure these points and used them to map the acupuncture meridians, verifying the known ones and adding some of his own along the way. He also converted some of the traditional Chinese medical terminology into Western physiological terms, which made his system, that he called EAV (ElectroAcupuncture according to Voll), more widely acceptable amongst medics.

Voll used the application of tiny micro-electric currents to abnormal points to bring their measurements back into the normal range and held that this procedure could help relieve illness and imbalance. He also claimed that incorporating homeopathic remedies, nutritional supplements, or medicines into the circuit could alter abnormal measures and could be effective in treating a range of conditions including inflammation and allergies. Voll's method was simplified by some other German doctors who developed Bioelectronic Functions Diagnosis and Therapy (BFD), which reduced the number of points being measured to around 60 and also limited the number of medications tested.

The BFD system is still in use today but has been overtaken in popularity by the VegaTest method developed by Dr Helmut Schimmel in the 1970s. His system was a further refinement because it involved measuring trays of ampoules of test substances rather than different points on the body. The VegaTest method, or VRT (vegetative reflex test), has been constantly updated and is now used in many countries including the UK, Germany, Australia, the US. Researchers in other countries, such as Dr Hiroshi Motoyama in Japan and others in Russia, Hungary, the US, and elsewhere, have also done pioneering work investigating different ways of measuring the body's subtle energy flows and electro-magnetic fields. With the advances in information technology, energy medicine devices for assessment and treatment are now increasingly available both in clinical settings and for home use. However, many practitioners remain sceptical about them because little evidence supports their claims for effectiveness.