Gary E. Schwartz - The Energy Healing Experiments: Science Reveals Our Natural Power to Heal

The Energy Healing Experiments is a thought-provoking, innovative, and much needed scientific review of an often overlooked, poorly understood, and perplexing area of energy medicine. It might also be entitled Scientific Journeys into the Twilight Zone! There are few traditional health care or medical practitioners who have not been challenged by a phenomenon that they witnessed but could not explain in terms of their allopathic or Western medical education. Often these observations are dismissed, marginalized, described as placebo effects, or rejected because they dont fit into our own unintended and poorly recognized biases.

This realization began for me as a young child when I witnessed my grandmother and other select senior family members and friends employing herbs, laying on of the hands, and spiritual interventions. These practices were all part of my Hispanic heritage and undoubtedly were transmitted from generation to generation. I certainly was clueless at the time. However, years later in retrospective analysis these experiences gave me valuable insight into what today we would term complementary medicine. My grandmother might be compelled to comment about the arrogance of Western medicine in calling these practices alternative or complementary, since they were clearly mainstream for her, her ancestors, and most of the world even today!

In addition, as a young man and Army Special Forces Medic traveling the world in war and peace, I also lived among diverse cultures and witnessed their healing practices. I observed a variety of healers practicing their crafts, sometimes with success and sometimes without, just as happens with Western medicine.

In Southeast Asia I lived with the indigenous tribes called Montagnards. Physically strong and healthy but of small stature, they are a hunter-gatherer/farmer society. I witnessed the practices of tribal medicine by mind, body, and spirit healers. I watched herbal remedies dispensed, procedures performed with primitive handmade instruments, and energy exchanged physically and spiritually during various rituals designed to treat disease or foster health and wellness.

Many years later as a physician working with Native American tribes in the Southwest, I again witnessed similar healers and practices, in cultures that had been Americanized, but whose people passionately tried to retain their native culture and heritage. These practices around the world appeared effective, although I could not explain them in terms of my Western allopathic education as a medic, registered nurse, physicians assistant, scientist, or physician.

Seeing patients being operated on with acupuncture or hypnosis instead of any anesthesia makes one wonder how this is possible. Neither the Yin and Yang nor Chinese energy meridians are in our traditional medical vocabularies. As physicians, most of us can nevertheless attest to the value of the patient/doctor relationship and the way the sense of touch plays a big part in that. Most of us recognize that, although not presently quantifiable, there is healing value in that touch, and ensuing relationship. Patients who go to surgery with a positive mind, body, and spirit generally have better outcomes.

Years ago, Norman Cousins attempted to capture the value of many unrecognized therapies, including laughter, in healing and improved immunity in his seminal book, Anatomy of an Illness As Perceived by the Patient. In The Energy Healing Experiments , Dr. Schwartz takes us on a journey where allopathic medicine does not generally travel. Take the trip with him; it is well worth it.

Open your mind, set your biases and preconceived notions aside. We do not have all the answers and there is clearly more that we do not know and need to learn. Where the science supports these integrative concepts of energy medicine, lets use them. Where there is not enough science, let the studies begin and continue.

During my tenure as the 17th Surgeon General of the United States, I had the privilege to be a part of the team that strongly advocated for the formation of The National Center for Alternative and Complementary Medicine at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). This Centers challenge is to study all forms of complementary and alternative medicine, including energy medicine, so as to develop an evidence base for utilizing or rejecting various modalities. In my new position at Canyon Ranch I have the unique opportunity to continue with the Surgeon Generals initiatives of health and wellness while working in one of the finest integrative health environments in the world. Practitioners and the public alike should approach energy medicine with an open mind. Allow the science to guide you to logical conclusions. The Power of Possibility is before us!

Richard Carmona, MD, MPH, FACS

17th Surgeon General of the United States

Vice Chairman, Canyon RanchCEO,Canyon

Ranch Health

Distinguished Professor of Public Health,

The Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of

Public Health at the University of Arizona

May the story captivate us, the science awaken
us, and the truth transform us.

JAMES LEVIN, MD