Laurance Johnston, Ph.D.

Sponsor: Institute of Spinal Cord Injury, Iceland

1) Human Energy Fields

2) Healing Touch

3) Inert-Gas Therapy

HUMAN ENERGY FIELDS

Under energy-medicine viewpoints, we are primarily beings of energy, which, in turn, determines our physical, biochemical, and physiological nature. Energy fields surrounding and permeating our physical body define much this energetic nature. As discussed by neurophysiologist Dr. Valerie Hunt, sophisticated, state-of-the-art technology can detect the lower-vibrational electromagnetic components of these fields (Hunt VV. Infinite Mind: Science of the Human Vibrations of Consciousness. Malibu (CA): Mailbu Publishing Co., 1996). Interestingly, what is detected correlates well to what is observed independently by sensitive intuitives.

Proponents believe the human energy field is composed of at least seven consecutive layers of increasing vibrational energy (Brennan BA. Hands of Light: A Guide to Healing Through the Human Energy Field. New York, (NY): Bantam Books, 1988). Intersecting the body and the energy field are seven tornado-like energy vortexes called charkas in Eastern traditions, which convert high vibrational energy into energy that the body can assimilate.

Our energy network includes a power column in front of the spinal cord, which receives energy from the chakras and transmits it through the body. The more familiar acupuncture points and meridians are further down our energetic pipeline, bringing downloaded energy to a more specific organ level.

Imbalances or blockages in the energy network predispose one to illness.  Basically, disease has its origins in the energy field, which then progressively manifest at the molecular, cellular, and body-system levels.

The energy field responds to stimulus even though one experiences no conscious awareness of the stimulus and before changes are noted in physiological parameters such as brain waves, blood pressure, etc. Based upon this presaging, technology can measure and assess energy disturbances in the field long before the onset of physical disease.

SCI greatly affects energy flow through the body because of the cord’s proximity to the power column. Furthermore, after injury, the energy received by the base and sacral chakras is substantially reduced.

The effects of the injury are stored in the energy field closest to the body, which contains the template or blueprint for the physical body, duplicating every body cell and organ, including the spinal cord. This energetic template is responsible for the growth, development, and repair of the physical body. If this template is distorted, its physical product, the body, will also be distorted in some sense.

Because the physical body interacts with its higher vibrational version, as an acute spinal cord injury evolves over time into a chronic injury, the distorted physical will be imprinted onto the higher-level, energetic template. This locks the injury more into place, and, as a result, it becomes much more difficult for healing to take place by exclusively focusing on the physical.

This represents a fundamental limitation in physicality-focused, conventional medicine. It is like trying to push a car in one direction when the steering wheel is cranked for another direction.  In contrast, energy workers attempt to minimize these energetic barriers to physiological healing in SCI by mending the field’s dysfunctional energy vectors. Because time tends to lock in an injury within the energy field, the sooner the therapy is performed the better. Finally, negative, injury-associated emotional memories are stored within cellular energy fields. The body will heal more quickly when this negative energy is removed.  It is claimed pain and spasticity are especially amenable to energy therapy.

HEALING-TOUCH THERAPY

Healing touch is defined as “an energy therapy in which practitioners consciously use their hands in an in a heart-centered and intentional way to support and facilitate physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual health.” It’s often used with other therapies to accelerate healing.

Techniques: Because the focus is the energy field surrounding the patient, actual physical touching is often not needed. The typical session is composed of several phases, including centering, diagnostic, and energy modulation.

Initially, the healer will try to become meditatively centered and go within. With such centering, the healer connects to his or her greater intuitive self, which speaks to us in whispers that rarely can be heard over life’s background cacophony. This centering allows the healer to become more consciously sensitive to the patient’s subtle energetic cues and to harmonize with the universal healing resonance.

After centering, the healer assesses the patient’s chakras and energy field (see discussion in previous section) with hand scanning over the body or using assistive devices in way somewhat comparable to a dowser. The healer searches out energetic imbalances, evaluating energy flow, sensing how the energies feel – hot, cold, tingling, congested, etc.

Finally, to help the patient regain energetic homeostasis, the healer rebalances, clears, or modulates the patient’s energy field using a variety of hand placements or movements, such as the ones described below:

Benefits: Research suggests that the formal Healing Touch Program provides benefits for a number of disorders, including:

SCI Pain: Funded by the US Veterans Administration, Dr. Diane Wardell (photo) and colleagues carried out a pilot study evaluating the use of Healing Touch to treat SCI-associated neuropathic pain. Seven male veterans with SCI, at least six-months post injury, were treated with healing touch and compared with five who received a non-healing-touch intervention. All subjects had more than one month of neuropathic pain at a level greater than 5 on a scale ranging from 0 (no pain) to 10 (worst possible).

Certified haling touch practitioners administered once-a-week sessions to each subject for six weeks. To avoid practitioner variability, each subject was treated by the same healer throughout the study. Based on the practitioner’s assessment of the subject’s energy fields, the sessions were individualized; i.e., different techniques were used on different individuals. At the end of the study, the primary caregiver (e.g., wife) for each subject was given the option to be trained in healing touch so treatment could be continued.

In addition to a variety of before-and-after quantitative measurements of pain and other factors, qualitative opinions were solicited from the subjects. Although the study was inherently limited due to the small number of subjects and sessions, the results suggested that healing touch “may be beneficial in the areas of coping, pain management, decreasing fatigue, decreasing confusion, increasing life satisfaction, and decreasing depression.” The investigators believed the results warranted further, more definitive studies.

Qualitative reactions from participants included:

INERT-GAS THERAPY

It is claimed that inert-gas therapy enhances regeneration potential. Although it has been on the periphery of the alternative-medicine community in various permutations for years, it only recently gained more visibility, including being incorporated into some physical-rehabilitation programs. Inert-gas therapy may provide the regenerative energy needed to mend an injured spinal cord (Johnston L. Alternative Medicine and Spinal Cord Injury: Beyond the Banks of the Mainstream. Demos Medical Publishing, 2005).

Alternative Science: The scientific and mind-body-spirit theory behind this regeneration-enhancing therapy is thought-provoking and based on concepts far beyond traditional Newtonian-based science (Cooke MB. Einstein Doesn’t Work Here Anymore: A Treatise on the New Science. Toronto, Canada: Marcus Books, 1983).  For example, it is based upon 1) the existence of a multidimensional, primary-energy source; 2) the idea that we are fundamentally beings of energy, which determines our physical and biochemical makeup; and 3) the assumption that our consciousness, including our thoughts, attitudes, emotions, and belief systems, interacts with our energetic nature to create our physical reality, including that associated with SCI.

Primary Energy: Inert-gas therapy is based on a concept that space is something, not nothing as most scientists believe. This something is called ether, which permeates all of our three and also higher dimensional space. Through inter-dimensional vortexes and gradients in this all-pervasive ether, a primary energy ultimately becomes the source of all of our more familiar forces, such as electromagnetism, gravity, and nuclear forces, and, as indicated by Einstein’s E = mc² equation, all mass that forms our physical reality. 

Although involving principles far beyond the scope of this discussion, it is postulated that higher-dimensional etheric energy is downloaded into more accessible and usable three-dimensional energy through “primary points.” 

Inert-Gas Elements: One source of these powerful primary points is the nucleus of inert-gas elements, i.e., helium, neon, argon, krypton, and xenon. Specifically, xenon is the most important one for creating the raw fuel energy for building regeneration potential in tissue, including potentially a traumatically injured spinal cord. When the energy generated by these primary points is accessed through the devices described below, the inert gases provide the raw fuel that our consciousness can then direct to create its physical manifestation.

In the periodic table, the inert gases are a unique elemental family. Helium is the lightest with a molecular weight of four, and xenon is the heaviest with a molecular weight of 131. All are present in the air we breath, ranging from the abundant argon and rare xenon at 7,600 and 0.036 parts per million, respectively. For illustration purposes, the average person will breathe in about 82 liters of argon and 0.39 milliliters (a thousandth of a liter) of xenon per day.

Compared to other elements, inert gases possess additional energy that keeps them in a higher vibrational, more gaseous state. Although higher molecular-weight elements tend to be liquids or solids, xenon and krypton, with molecular weights greater than iron, nickel, copper, and zinc, exist as gases. This requires them to be in a higher vibrational state, which requires additional energy.

Helium also has properties that run counter to what would be expected when compared to other elements. Specifically, helium is difficult to freeze no matter how low the temperature is taken. Even if virtually all the thermal energy is removed, helium somehow retains sufficient vibrational energy that inhibits it from entering a solid state.

It is postulated that primary points located in the nucleus of the inert-gas elements produce the energy that keeps the heavier inert-gas elements in a gaseous state and keeps helium from solidifying at very low temperatures.

To harness the energy produced by these inert-gas primary points, devices have been constructed in which the inert-gas mixture are electromagnetically stimulated. This stimulation pulls the primary point away from its nucleus, which under normal conditions would absorb the downloaded, primary-point energy. Because of this unshielding, the energy is now released into the surrounding space and, hence, available for healing purposes.

In one device, a magnetic field is applied to a non-magnetic metal chamber containing a pressurized inert-gas mixture (e.g., 25-times atmospheric pressure). In another less powerful, but more convenient device, the inert-gas mixture and a small magnet are enclosed within an airtight, Pyrex-glass capsule (about 1 ½ by ¼ inch) under relatively low pressure. These inert-gas pendants can be readily placed at the point of injury, for example worn around the neck or held close to some other body area.

Energy-Field Driven: Our higher vibrational template of our genetic DNA (see discussion above), possesses the informational patterns to create a complete and whole physical body, including regenerating damaged components such as an injured spinal cord. Basically, this regenerative potential can be manifested in the physical if 1) sufficient etheric energy can be built up in our energy fields and 2) pervasive negative belief systems (e.g., “you will never walk again”) that prevent template encoded vibrational information from being transferred into the physical are dismantled and replaced with beliefs of healing and renewed wholeness.

Inert-gas devices, especially those containing xenon, can help build up the etheric raw fuel needed for regeneration. In itself, however, this etheric fuel is neutral. Like the amorphous clay that is transformed into a work of art through the potter’s consciousness, it is the directed consciousness of wholeness that will create its physical manifestation. Hard-to-let-go negative believe patterns, which hang around in the energy fields, will strongly filter these potent, healing energies from reaching the physical.

Essentially, the supplemental etheric energy facilitates the transference of the appropriate patterns held within the higher vibrational template of our DNA into the physical structures. The intervening material is the energy body. The inert-gas devices are producing the specific raw material that the physical body will draw upon that is most advantageous to the healing process.

The energy fields are using the etheric energy as a means of communication that goes back and forth from non-physical vibrational levels into the physical and back to the nonphysical. If a sufficient excess of etheric energy is available and can be appropriately directed, there is a spillover that will generally move into the body’s weakest areas.

Visualization: To direct the non-specific, inert-gas energy to where it is needed, visualization is required, e.g., focusing on where the spinal dislocation has occurred, the nerves need to be mended, and the bone needs to be changed. A focus on the physical anatomy will be more helpful for those with a logical mind orientation. Those more intuitive should perceive this anatomy symbolically as a landscape to be healed, as energy to be flowed into a large-sized sculpture of the body. For most individuals, the translation from the etheric to physical level will take at least six months. In other words, if you meditate on seeing the body whole and healed, the additional etheric energy may be more readily transmitted about six months down the road into something physical.

Under human-energy-field theories, all attributes of consciousness, such as your thoughts, attitudes, emotions, and perceptions, are stored in your energy fields. It is important to conceptually understand this because your belief systems determine whether you can productively access and direct the inherently neutral, inert-gas primary energy for healing purposes, including spinal cord regeneration.

Inert-Gas Combination for SCI: Inert-gas devices emphasizing xenon are the best for building up regenerative energy in the spine (e.g., 46% xenon, 18% helium, 36% neon) Devices can be obtained from a variety of sources (e.g., www.pegasusproducts.com).

Inert-Gas Science:  Intriguing mainstream scientific studies are emerging documenting the neuroprotective potential of inert gases, especially xenon. Although the studies do not magnetically stimulate the gases (a key element of the inert-gas therapy discussed above), the Earth’s magnetic field undoubtedly provides some background stimulation of the inert gases all ready present to varying degrees within our atmosphere. However, in xenon’s case, there is not much of it in the atmospheric to stimulate (0.036 parts per million). In contrast, the studies referenced below use 75% concentration of xenon, which combined with the Earth’s ubiquitous magnetic field may exert a substantial influence.

Xenon has been used as an anesthetic for over 50 years, although its use has been limited due to the cost of isolating this rare gas. Unlike some other anesthetics, xenon has no neurological side effects.  Evidence indicates that xenon slows down neural transmission through blocking NMDA (N-methyl-d-aspartate) receptors on neurons, which regulate conduction-promoting flow of ions in and out of the cell.

Basically, neurons communicate with each other through various neurotransmitters, including the amino acid glutamate. Nerve impulses trigger the release of glutamate from pre-synaptic neurons (synapses are junctions through which neurons signal to each other). The released glutamate binds to NMDA receptors on nearby post-synaptic cells, promulgating the nerve impulse. Because glutamate promotes conduction, it is called an excitatory amino acid. Xenon is a NMDA antagonist that inhibits this conduction-promoting process. For example, scientists have shown that high xenon concentrations reduce NMDA-associated conduction by about 60%.

Although the neurotransmitter glutamate and it post-synaptic NMDA receptor are routine components of nervous-system physiology, over-activation can mediate damage after SCI and other injuries or insults to the nervous-system. Basically, injured neurons burst, releasing excitatory amino acids such as glutamate in toxic concentrations. Through interactions with NMDA receptors on neighboring cells, excessive glutamate initiates a neurotoxic biochemical cascade that will further damage nearby neurons and axons.

Apparently by preventing excess glutamate from interacting with its NMDA receptor, xenon exerts a neuroprotective effect. This idea has been supported in a series of studies carried out by Drs. Nicholas Franks, Mervyn Maze and colleagues (UK and other countries) using various models of neurological injury.

In one study, the investigators injected a damage-triggering excitatory amino acid into rats and measured the amount of injury it created in a portion of the brain called the hypothalamus. Xenon at 75% concentration greatly lessened injury.

In another recent study, the researchers studied the effects of xenon and helium, a more prevalent inert gas, on another model of traumatic brain injury. Specifically, cultured brain slices from mice pups were subjected to a focused mechanical trauma, and then cell injury monitored in the presence and absence of inert gases. The investigators concluded “the inert gases helium and xenon are surprisingly effective as neuroprotectants in an in vitro model of traumatic brain injury… For xenon (at 75% atm), total injury was reduced by a factor of two while secondary injury was reduced by more that a factor of four.”

Although we always need to be careful in over-extrapolating experimental results in animals to real-world clinical settings, the researchers believe their findings can eventually lead “to treatments for people suffering from nerve damaging illnesses, such as strokes, and brain and spinal cord injuries.”

“We hope xenon could be developed as a novel treatment. It is naturally occurring. And more importantly, its known lack of toxicity makes it an attractive candidate as a neuroprotectant in humans.”

“Ultimately, we hope xenon could become part of standard medical treatment, with paramedics being able to administer it … to stop ongoing nerve cell death.”