A clinical vignette can illustrate the power of the energy field metaphor:
Anthony was a 26 year-old man who worked as a stock boy on the night shift at a local warehouse because his schizotypal personality style prevented him from flourishing in any setting that required frequent contact with other people. He described his constant sense of carrying his father's strict criti-cisms in his own mind, as though they were actual objects inside his head.
He also was extremely sensitive to his father's physical presence and felt frightened and guilt-ridden simply when in his vicinity. Anthony was main-tained on low doses of antipsychotic medicines because he often found it difficult to disengage from these troublesome thoughts and was often unable to distinguish whether they were internal or external.
He was taught an imagery process that allowed him to create a zone of light and clarity and safety around him, surrounded by a semipermeable protective membrane that would only let in influences which he decided were useful to him. He was encouraged to practice this visualization in each of his main life settings, to develop the sense that he was concretely in control of his own emotional boundaries. He reported becoming less sensitive to these previously upsetting external influences. Although he did not signifi-cantly increase his ability to socialize, he was less troubled by his father's introjected thoughts and feeling, and he began to feel more in control of his own inner experiences and less vulnerable to the impact of other people.
In other words, Anthony was able to use the metaphor of the h u m a n energy aura in a way that was protective and empowering for him. He was able to sharpen his psychotically permeable boundaries, and to place outside of his field certain intrusive and critical ideas.
So clinically, anecdotally and experientially, the field metaphor seems useful. However, the validity of the research data to back up these claims may be questioned. Close inspection of the accompanying bibliography will show that the key studies which have been completed to date on energy medicine have generally not been published in preeminent medical journals.
However, this may be as much a political issue as a question of methodolog-ical rigor and scientific validity. Organized science appears to resist para-digm-threatening data as forcefully today as it did in Mesmer's era. Certain exceptions817 prove the rule.
The publication of each of these two articles became a "cause celebre"
for the journal, involving (expecially in the former case) the adoption of far more stringent review criteria than was normally used for non-controversial reports. They also allowed a skeptical and hostile witness to observe the replication of the original study. For a description of the difficulties in obtain-ing institutional support and government fundobtain-ing for work in these contro-versial areas, the postscript of Robert Becker's book Cross Currents is illumi-nating. Perhaps the recent formation by the NIH of an Office of Alternative Medicine, and the launching of such new medical journals as the Journal of Alternative Therapies, will reverse this tendency. Of necessity I've cited some fairly obscure journals, but I've also included details of how to obtain reprints, so readers can judge for themselves the quality of the work refer-enced here.
Conclusion
In summary, it seems quite possible that mind and body may interact through the mediation of electromagnetic fields. Today's clinical hypnosis may involve verbally induced shifts in the energy field, while Mesmeric variants may involve shifts directed specifically at the energy field itself, without verbal mediation. And when the energy field shifts, the body follows suit. Thus, we must be careful not to repeat the mistake of the Franklin Commission in 1784 that created a political climate hostile to any further scientific study of animal magnetism. There appears to be enough wheat of solid experimental and clinical data among the chaff of wild unproven claims to justify an unbiased exploration of the scientific underpinnings of these unusual phenomena. This continued scientific exploration of previously ignored territory may soon radically expand our understanding of human consciousness and its relation to health and disease, and thus bring about a crucial paradigm shift. And hypnosis will prove to be a key tool for accessing these transpersonal domains.
References:
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