A contemporary Sufi energy healer once said: "To heal is to become one with Deep Love of God.”.
Ancient Greek manuscripts from 400 BC, describe lying on one’s hands in Aesculapian temples. The philosopher and father of western medicine Hippocrates of Cos7 defined energy as "the force which flows from many people's hands.” Hippocrates was the founder of the Hippocratic School of Medicine and ultimately established medicine as a discipline distinct from other fields such as theurgy and philosophy; thus, establishing medicine as a profession.
Hippocratic medicine was humble and passive where therapeutic approach was based on "the healing power of nature". According to this doctrine, the body contains the power within itself to re-balance the four humors (four humors, the substances that make up the human body are: black bile, yellow bile, blood, and phlegm) and heal itself.
Ancient Christian scriptures describe “lying-on-hands healing” and more importantly the message that it is their altered belief which allows healing to take place.
In the 18th Century, Samuel Hahnemann, a German physician, discovered that “like cures like“, when he ingested bark substance (Cinchona) from South America, which was said to cure malaria-related intermittent fevers.8
While he himself had not contracted malaria, when taking a larger dose of the substance, he in turn induced malaria-like symptoms in himself, which led him to the idea: "That which can produce a set of symptoms in a healthy individual, can treat a sick individual who is manifesting a similar set of symptoms.”
This experience gave rise to the conception of a new philosophy called homeopathy.9 Often it is the information - a form of energy - related to the substance, not necessarily the substance itself, which aids in the healing process. Homeopathic remedies are diluted at different levels to stimulate physiologically, emotionally, or spiritually.
Looking at today’s diagnostic approaches, one could not imagine a hospital without ultrasound, X- Ray, and MRI capabilities, or even a private practice without an EKG, EEG, or ultrasound device. All these devices measure the energy of the body in different ways and from different perspectives for diagnostic purposes. This is standard use of care.
On the flip side, therapeutic approaches are still expected to primarily come from a chemical or surgical solution. While there is more and more interest emerging from the masses via patients who have been seeking help for their chronic health issues, physicians remain hesitant to incorporate forms of energy medicine into their practice.
Physicians who have had some sort of training in physics, such as orthopedics, anesthesiology, or even physical therapy know of the significance of the use of physics complementing chemical treatment approaches that include pharmaceuticals and nutraceuticals.
With the abundance of self-help books and information on the internet available today, as well as on podcasts, social media, TV and radio shows (which would have been unthinkable only 10 years ago), patients’ demands from their physicians for integrative personalized wellbeing solutions are significantly on the rise. Ideally this should be non-invasive and without side effects.