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Biofield Healing

Hip

Senior Member
Messages
17,824
Quoting the "Biofield Healing Immersion" blurb:
Biofield Healing Immersion® taps into the scientific understanding that everything is energy and has a frequency. This means that your burn out, back pain, anxiety and depression, battles with food, weight, binge-eating, and business challenges are made of “disturbed” energy patterns… energy imbalances.

It has no scientific merit.
 
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Hip

Senior Member
Messages
17,824
Yes, not like all the Chemicals that the doctors pour into everyone that the Pharmaceutical Companies make millions out of, lol

I am not saying biofield therapy itself it without merit.

But I am always put off by blurb which sounds scientific, but essentially has little scientific meaning, like "everything is energy and has a frequency". It would more honest to say "we don't understand how this therapy works, but clients report benefits".



Just found this article about biofield therapies (like Reiki, therapeutic touch and healing touch), which says:
In a detailed review of 66 clinical studies looking at biofield therapies in different patient populations with a range of ailments, Jain and Mills examine the strength of the evidence for the efficacy of these complementary therapies. They show that overall, published work on biofield therapies is of average quality -- in scientific terms.

Bearing that in mind, they find strong evidence that biofield therapies reduce pain intensity in free-living populations, and moderate evidence that they are effective at lowering pain in hospitalized patients as well as in patients with cancer.

So a biofield therapy of some sort might be useful for ME/CFS patients suffering with pain.
 

Rufous McKinney

Senior Member
Messages
13,249
I wondered if anyone had tried this?

Not this specifically ( I read thru some of that write up...).

But I've used chinese traditional medicine for a long time. I work with an exceptional practisioner.

Decades ago, I injured my lower back physically-strained it severely. Used it wrong. 2 years pretty much I can't walk...without severe sciatica, etc. ( I could hike all day if I started in the morning and hiked on uneven terrain, but could not walk 2 blocks down a sidewalk, or thru the grocery store). It was looking like a life sentence.

This was cured in 2 weeks. I was completely skeptical...I seriously DOUBTed this guy can fix THIS MESS..

I was wrong, no placebo- I'm fixed. At that point, I see this person for all body issues and they cure everything for the next 8 years. Almost never got a virus during this time.

(the main maneuver the cured the lower back was acupressure energetic work on the feet)...the same maneuver Anthony Bourdain did in Malaysia. (and my guy is gone and I have never found anyone as miraculous as him in terms of the hands on healing).

Science is not doing me any good, in this case. Getting fixed- that did me some good.
 
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It is great that he was able to help you in that way. I have had a crook back for years if I do too much bending after a lot of horse accidents, and I am sure I have arthritis in it, as well as my neck. However, I was trimming branches on trees and sort of reaching up and on an angle, and that night it was so sore, and the next morning couldn't put my socks on with the pain of it. So decided to go to an Osteopath, Aquapuncturist, and oh the relief after he stuck those needles in. He tried it on the neck too but no relief there, but felt I had pulled something in my back as the most pain was low down, and too the side
 
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When you think about it, Chinese medicine, and their belief in Chi, or Qi, has been around thousands of years, and modern medicine not near as long, so who is the different one, lol. Just because we can't see something, does not mean it is not there.if you had seen what I saw many years ago, you would understand that anything is possible.
 

Murph

:)
Messages
1,799
if you had seen what I saw many years ago, you would understand that anything is possible.

Like Hip says, this probably helps in some way for some people, but the idea of energetic frequencies certainly doesn't sounds like a good explanation for why. I dispute the idea that everything has a frequency. Radio stations, yes. Other things, no.
 
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Like Hip says, this probably helps in some way for some people, but the idea of energetic frequencies certainly doesn't sounds like a good explanation for why. I dispute the idea that everything has a frequency. Radio stations, yes. Other things, no.

I guess you dispute that everything vibrates too, even rocks,?
 

Hip

Senior Member
Messages
17,824
I guess you dispute that everything vibrates too, even rocks,?

If you want to, you can find vibration occurring in many things, but that does not mean vibration is the reason something works. If I pick up a rock and use it to hammer a nail in, it's the momentum of the rock which drives in the nail, not vibration. If I clean a stain with bleach, it's the chemical action that makes this work, not any vibration.

In alternative treatments, it's not uncommon when people do not know the mechanism to claim some vibration effect is behind it. Homeopathy (which usually does not work anyway) is claimed to work via some "vibration" or "frequency". Biofield therapy is also claimed to work through vibration. I've also seen bogus "energy healing" machines which claim to work through vibration.

The imagery of vibration may be appealing, and you might think of it as a useful metaphor. But it's not science unless you explain what it is that is vibrating (ie, the state the medium the vibrations exist in), and how you measure those vibrations.

For example, in with radio waves, it is the electromagnetic field which is vibrating. With sound it is the air which is vibrating. With earthquakes it is the Earth's crust that is vibrating. All these vibrations exist in a specific medium, and are detectable and measurable.

But in alternative health, when they talk about vibrations, they usually do not mention what it is that is vibrating, nor how you can detect and measure those vibrations. Hence their statements are not science.

Although sometimes you might find some measurable vibrational correlates: for example, meditation is known to alter brain waves, which can be measured on an EEG machine. Meditation can alter alpha, theta and gamma waves in the brain.
 
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Ok, point taken. Now I ask you about Noxious Energies, and how does science explain them, and do you feel that they cause us harm,?
 

Hip

Senior Member
Messages
17,824
Ok, point taken. Now I ask you about Noxious Energies, and how does science explain them, and do you feel that they cause us harm,?

Can you explain what you mean by "noxious energies"? Do you mean for example a house or location where people start to feel depressed or under the weather when they enter?
 

wabi-sabi

Senior Member
Messages
1,458
Location
small town midwest
I have found things like meditation, reiki, or some yoga to give me the emotional strength to get through this disease (not sure how I'd survive without some sort of spiritual practice) but I'm not sure if they effect the disease itself. They help my emotional functionality and help me sleep better, when not much else does. That being said, they are certainly not any sort of cure for me and they don't make my disease go away.

"Alternative" therapies give me hope, strength, and quality of life, so I use them. But I'm betting on Dr. Davis et al. for a cure. Integrative medicine!
 

Rufous McKinney

Senior Member
Messages
13,249
But in alternative health, when they talk about vibrations, they usually do not mention what it is that is vibrating, nor how you can detect and measure those vibrations. Hence their statements are not science.

While looking for info on the vibrational condition of the Hemoglobin...(which exists, but was very complicated)...I found this below- about vibration machines...helping bodies. (which is not exactly what we are discussing..but somewhat related).

Here is: something sciency- about using Whole body vibration combined with balance exercise improved a bunch of things in elderly diabetics and they have better balance and hemoglobin. I only saw the abstract- I assume this is one of those vibrating machines you stand on..which some people have found help them tremendously (not referring to ME per se). In a more toxic body (like mine) that very same machine makes me really sick and I can;t handle more than a couple of minutes (people were doing 10-20).

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24334483

Whole-body vibration training improves balance, muscle strength and glycosylated hemoglobin in elderly patients with diabetic neuropathy.

In this case, a machine is vibrating...(I assume, sorry they don't describe the whole body vibration source)..and that vibration had positive effects on the subjects bodies....So that vibration had effects. THose effects were likely physical, probably heavily stimulating lymph, and slog in thats built up from lack of exercise etc. (this is not a blinded study...not sure how you blind an Exercise Study).

Acu needles can do the same thing. But its just a needle, superficially installed. Why would that have similar effects?

Like I get an acupuncture treatment and 100% of the time have PEM for the next 72 hours. So if the needles do nothing, why did that happen? Something happened- affecting my whole ME body.
 
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Like I get an acupuncture treatment and 100% of the time have PEM for the next 72 hours. So if the needles do nothing, why did that happen? Something happened- affecting my whole ME body.


Yes, it seems that everything is connected in some way, which I guess gets us back to the Biofield,but I feel that even that might not cover everything, but then again, that is not scientific,lol
 
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Here is: something sciency- about using Whole body vibration combined with balance exercise improved a bunch of things in elderly diabetics and they have better balance and hemoglobin. I only saw the abstract- I assume this is one of those vibrating machines you stand on..which some people have found help them tremendously (not referring to ME per se). In a more toxic body (like mine) that very same machine makes me really sick and I can;t handle more than a couple of minutes (people were doing 10-20


I have PHN from Shingles, and just the thought of one of those vibrating machines sends shivers down my spine
 
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Can you explain what you mean by "noxious energies"? Do you mean for example a house or location where people start to feel depressed or under the weather when they enter?[


Yes, but more so the ones that come from blackwater under ground streams, and things like that. It seems that there are negitive energies, which they say can cause problems, but the real bad ones, noxious Energies they say can cause really bad health troubles as well as deep depression.
 

Rufous McKinney

Senior Member
Messages
13,249
Yes, it seems that everything is connected in some way, which I guess gets us back to the Biofield,but I feel that even that might not cover everything, but then again, that is not scientific,lol

The scientific method does not necessarily solve every aspect of Life's Mysteries. Its a great method for answering many things- but not everything.

But sometimes, N= 1. You have an experience, you gain a benefit. Its valid for you.

Example chinese medicine. Its always a mix, a formula, its never one thing. Science wants to control for all other variables and only looks at the one thing. So chinese medicines' beneficial effects are interactive, and that can't be examined readily, using a Null Hypothesis experimental design.
 

Rufous McKinney

Senior Member
Messages
13,249
just the thought of one of those vibrating machines sends shivers down my spine

A friend bought one, and let people come over to use it. Cost $8000. People were in lines outside the apartment.

I get on it, do 3 minutes, and am DIRELY. Ok, just do one minute. Same result.

What I need to do is- push thru some of this to see if there is an other side...

So if I get PEM for 72 hours from the acupuncture (hence, I don't do it often)...if I went once a week I'd be in PEM for 4 days per week. So I cannot handle that.