Treatments such as Non-Contact Therapeutic Touch are based on the hypothesis that the hands can send and receive energy and information. From a dynamical energy systems perspective, the hands can be viewed as rich generators of complex patterns of biophysical energy and information, including electrostatic movement effects, electromagnetic potentials (muscular, cardiac, skin potentials, etc.), and temperature (e.g. infrared). Two experiments (n = 20 and n = 41) were conducted to determine whether blindfolded subjects could detect the presence of an experimenter's hand placed a few inches above one of their hands. A 2 x 2 within subject counterbalanced design (left and right subject's hands by left and right experimenter's hands) was employed. The average correct detections was 66% (chance = 50%, p < .00001). Subject's average estimate of their performance was 54%. Poor and low performance subjects correctly estimated their actual performance, whereas medium and high performance subjects seriously underestimated their performance. However, even for subjects who performed at or below chance, their ratings of confidence per trial were significantly higher for correct versus incorrect trials, suggesting that they had implicit perception of hand-energy. Subjects who spontaneously reported some awareness of temperature (but not tingling or pressure) reported higher overall estimates of performance. Implications for future research on interpersonal hand-energy registration are considered.
In this, the third and final installment of the "perspectives" series on CranioSacral Therapy and its interrelationship with energy medicine, I present my concepts of its potential applications and contributions for the betterment of the human condition. It is my hope that as the human condition is positively affected, so the planet will have a better chance for a high quality survival. In the first and second installments I have discussed the history and development of CranioSacral Therapy, its progeny, its integrations with other therapeutic approaches and the wide range of applications for recipients of this modality as well as its effects upon the CranioSacral Therapy practitioner. What is presented in this last article is a summary of the potential uses and dividends of CranioSacral Therapy as I see them. I am not predicting what will happen, I am predicting what could happen and hoping that it will.
If human behavior and performance are affected by minute changes in the earth's geomagnetic field, as suggested by a growing body of evidence, then one might also expect to see such influences reflected in skilled physical performance, such as sports. To explore this possibility, scores from a mixed-gender, candlepin competitive bowling league were correlated with daily planetary geomagnetic flux. Results indicated that geomagnetic fluctuations the day before bowling accounted for a significant percentage (40%) of the variance in men's bowling scores. The same relationship was not independently significant for women's scores, but the correlation was opposite to men's scores.
The principles of successful training in biofeedback-aided psychophysiologic self-regulation training are laid out and illustrated with two medical cases, one of cancer and the other of hypertension. Properly taught, biofeedback training is visualization training, in contradistinction to operant conditioning or traditional therapies, and its beneficial effects include self-mastery, better self-image, and resolution not only of body problems, but mental and emotional difficulties as well.
This controlled case study was performed to investigate whether within and between subject physiological changes might occur during a healing experience that would differentiate healing from baseline and control conditions. Simultaneous measurements of EEG absolute power and coherence, heart rate, skin conductance, and hand temperature were performed on two subjects during five periods: two baselines, healing, a meditation or relaxation control condition, and photic stimulation. Each subject demonstrated significant physiological changes during healing that allowed differentiation of healing from their control and baseline conditions. Both EEG and somatic physiological measures indicated that the healer became more aroused during healing and the client more relaxed. The healer had a drop in frontal to occipital interhemispheric coherence during healing as well as increased heart rate and skin conductance. The client had a drop in frontal beta power and a drop in skin conductance during healing. The client also exhibited a strong trend toward increased parietal interhemispheric alpha band coherence during healing. No meaningful increase in covariance of EEG or other physiological measures occurred between the subjects during healing. A statistical method for the analysis of many EEG variables across several experimental conditions for individuals and between two subjects was modeled.
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