What is bioenergy and is it possible to "correct the biofield"
Miscellaneous / / April 03, 2021
Qigong books, magnetic bracelets and bioresonance devices are all in a landfill.
What is bioenergy
There are several interpretations of this concept.
Bioenergy as a branch of biology
In biology, bioenergy studies Skulachev V.P., Bogachev A.V., Kasparinsky F.O. Membrane bioenergy. M. 2010 processes of transformation of external energy resources by living organisms into useful work. Simply put - how animals or plants use air, food, light and other sources of energy for growth, development, metabolism, and so on.
This section, for example, examinesBioenergetics. Nature Research cellular respiration, fermentation and photosynthesis, that is, metabolic and enzymatic processes, without which, in principle, the work of living organisms is impossible.
At the beginning of the 20th century, British biologist John Haldane determined Skulachev V.P., Bogachev A.V., Kasparinsky F.O. Membrane bioenergy. M. 2010 life as a way of existence of self-reproducing structures due to the influx of energy from the outside. However, this thought goes much further:
Leonardo da Vinci compared animal nutrition to burning a candle.Domestic scientists Vladimir Engelgardt and Vladimir Belitser discovered the phosphorylating respiration of cells, which made Skulachev V.P., Bogachev A.V., Kasparinsky F.O. Membrane bioenergy. M. 2010 a significant contribution to the development of bioenergy.
The appearance of the word “bioenergy” itself is associated with the publication of several works of the mid-1950s - early 1960s. Among them are articles by Nobel laureates James Watson, Peter MitchellMitchell P. Coupling of Phosphorylation to Electron and Hydrogen Transfer by a Chemi ‑ Osmotic type of Mechanism. Nature and Albert Szent-GyordiSzent ‑ Gyorgyi A. Bioenergetics. Science.
The name "bioenergy" suggested Skulachev V.P., Bogachev A.V., Kasparinsky F.O. Membrane bioenergy. M. 2010 Soviet scientist Vladimir Skulachev in 1968 at the international congress of biochemists in Italy. The term began to be used to designate a section biologystudying the energy supply of organisms. From that moment on, bioenergy began to develop as a full-fledged scientific discipline with its own journals, conferences and an international organization.
In addition to biologists, the term is used by power engineers. That's what they callRenewable Energy Sources and Climate Change Mitigation. Special Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change a process for generating energy from renewable biofuels, such as ethanol from vegetable sugar or diesel from various biomasses.
Bioenergy as a direction of alternative medicine and psychotherapeutic practice
The word "bioenergy" meansBioenergetics. Merriam ‑ Webster also the theory and practice of physical and psychological therapy based on working with a certain special energy.
Often in the literature, especially in foreign, you can find the term "energyRubik B., Muehsam D., Hammerschlag R., Jain S. Biofield Science and Healing: History, Terminology, and Concepts. Global advances in health and medicine medicine". It is wider and denotes any kind alternative medicine or pseudoscience, in which the emphasis is on healing and prevention using any kind of energy. In this case, therapy can be contact and non-contact.
For energy medicine canRubik B., Muehsam D., Hammerschlag R., Jain S. Biofield Science and Healing: History, Terminology, and Concepts. Global advances in health and medicine hiding a variety of practices:
- acupuncture and acupressure;
- laser, light, magnetic, bioresonance therapy;
- orgone therapy - treatment with "universal orgonic energy" allegedly transmitted from person to person;
- treatment with the touch of the palms, the energy of the pyramids;
- vibration, multidimensional medicine;
- qigong, reiki, diagnostics of karma, cosmoenergy, polarity therapy, spiritual healing;
- Tantra;
- yantras - Buddhist symbols and amulets that are used along with mantras during meditation;
- healing with animal energy and so on.
Many different ailments are offered to treat with the help of such practices: from stress to cancer.Pedersen C.G., Johannessen H., Hjelmborg J.V., Zachariae R. Effectiveness of energy healing on Quality of Life: a pragmatic intervention trial in colorectal cancer patients. Complementary therapies in medicine; these techniques have even penetratedStenger V. The Energy Fields Of Life. Skeptical Inquirer to veterinary medicine. Energy medicine advocates believeFeinstein D., Eden D. Six pillars of energy medicine: clinical strengths of a complementary paradigm. Alternative therapies in health and medicinethat diseases (physical or psychological) arise in the energy (aura) of a person and they can be combated by manipulating some kind of "vital force". For example, "get rid" of negativity or "remove blocks".
Key concepts in such practices are “bioenergy” and “biofield”. In some interpretations, they cannot be recorded with measuring instruments, and only individual people can feel or see them.
The followers of parascientific bioenergy try to revise or expandRubik B., Muehsam D., Hammerschlag R., Jain S. Biofield Science and Healing: History, Terminology, and Concepts. Global advances in health and medicine the dominant scientific picture of the world. In their concepts, they often combine the traditional beliefs of the East, concepts and terms of cell biology and biochemistry, classical and quantum physics.
In addition to supporters of alternative medicine and non-traditional psychotherapy, the term "bioenergy" was adopted and psychics, and from them he got into the press, on TV and in the media. This was actively opposed by Vladimir Skulachev - the one who at one time proposed a scientific interpretation of this biological concept.
What is the concept of biofield in bioenergy
Attempts to discover some kind of universal energy, "life force" governing all living things, have been going on for a long time. In the 18th century, the German physician Anton Mesmer decidedStenger V.J. Bioenergetic Fields. The Scientific Review of Alternative Medicinethat electromagnetic interaction is ideally suited for this role. According to his concept - mesmerism, in the human body there is a certain "animal magnetism", Which can be transmitted and thus treated for all diseases.
The term "morphogenetic (biological) field" was first introduced byJerman I., Krasovec R., Leskovar R.T. Deep significance of the field concept in contemporary biomedical sciences. Electromagnetic biology and medicine into circulation Russian and Soviet biologist, Professor Alexander Gurvich. He outlined his developments in the work Gurvich A.G. Biological field theory. M. 1944 1944 "Theory of the biological field". Gurvich was engagedJerman I., Krasovec R., Leskovar R.T. Deep significance of the field concept in contemporary biomedical sciences. Electromagnetic biology and medicine searching for superweak electromagnetic energy flows emanating from living organisms, and found that onion root cells emit ultraviolet light.
In the 1970s-1980s, the term "biofield" spreadKrysin L.P. On some changes in the Russian language at the end of the XX century. Studies in Slavic languages among Soviet psychics and parapsychologists, and then even became widespread.
In 1992, the Office of Alternative Medicine at the US National Institutes of Health gaveAlternative Medicine: Expanding Medical Horizons: a Report to the National Institutes of Health on Alternative Medical Systems and Practices in the United States. V. 10. United States Government Printing Office. 1995 biofield is defined as: "a massless field, not necessarily electromagnetic, which surrounds and permeates living bodies and affects them."
The current pseudo-scientific views on it are based on the idea that living organisms generateRubik B., Muehsam D., Hammerschlag R., Jain S. Biofield Science and Healing: History, Terminology, and Concepts. Global advances in health and medicine energy fields and respond to them. That is, in fact, we are talking about the very "energy life ”, supposedly existing inside and around a person and permeating all living things.
Supporters of its existence understandRubik B., Muehsam D., Hammerschlag R., Jain S. Biofield Science and Healing: History, Terminology, and Concepts. Global advances in health and medicine under the biofield there are electromagnetic activities, mainly the energies of interaction. They cite as examples:
- magnetic fields generated by the heart;
- limb regeneration in some animals, associated with electromagnetic pulses;
- resonance and Brownian motion of cells;
- the impact of solar flares on human health.
The followers of the biofield concept considerRubik B., Muehsam D., Hammerschlag R., Jain S. Biofield Science and Healing: History, Terminology, and Concepts. Global advances in health and medicinethat it participates in biological interactions and regulates them, and is also able to contain and transfer vital important information. They compare it with that contained in the structures of DNA and RNA, however, they consider it inexplicable from the point of view of reducibility (the possibility of interpreting complex phenomena in terms of simpler ones). In their interpretations, the biofield becomes a kind of bridge between mind and body.
The concept of vitality is also based onRubik B., Muehsam D., Hammerschlag R., Jain S. Biofield Science and Healing: History, Terminology, and Concepts. Global advances in health and medicinehomeopathy, chiropractic and osteopathy.
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Justifying the ability of the biofield to instantly transfer information, some proponents of bioenergy citeRubik B., Muehsam D., Hammerschlag R., Jain S. Biofield Science and Healing: History, Terminology, and Concepts. Global advances in health and medicine data from quantum mechanics. They believe that a change in the indeterminate state of one particle leads to the opposite state in another particle, regardless of how far they are from each other. However, such a bioenergetic approach to the laws of quantum mechanics is controversial.Stenger V. The Energy Fields Of Life. Skeptical Inquirer. The appeal of esotericists to views Albert Einstein surprises researchers.
Why is it impossible to "correct the biofield"
Bioenergy and biofield concepts are criticizedIn defense of science. №19. M. 2017 members of the RAS Commission for Combating Pseudoscience. They call parascientific bioenergy dubious and untested, and their experiences laughable. Academics put this area of knowledge on a par with astrology, palmistry and extrasensory perception.
NoAbbot N. C., Harkness E F., Stevinson C., et al. Spiritual healing as a therapy for chronic pain: a randomized, clinical trial. Pain noPittler M.H., Ernst E. Complementary therapies for neuropathic and neuralgic pain: systematic review. The Clinical journal of pain evidence that energy practice methods work. Their theoretical foundations are implausible, research does not matchPignotti M., Thyer B. Some comments on “Energy psychology: A review of the evidence”: Premature conclusions based on incomplete evidence? Psychotherapy scientific methodology and do not giveAgdal R., von B Hjelmborg J., Johannessen H. Energy healing for cancer: a critical review. Forschende Komplementarmedizin reliable results, and their positive effects are understandableMcCaslin D. L. A review of efficacy claims in energy psychology. Psychotherapy already known psychological mechanisms. For example, cognitive-behavioral therapy methods have been found in these concepts.
The failure of parascientific bioenergy has been repeatedly confirmed as randomizedPedersen C.G., Johannessen H., Hjelmborg J.V., Zachariae R. Effectiveness of energy healing on Quality of Life: a pragmatic intervention trial in colorectal cancer patients. Complementary therapies in medicine research, and with a random sample. The "action" of bioenergetic treatment arises from either a real improvement in the condition unrelated to therapy, or due to the effect placebo.
According to one of the bioenergetic theories - the therapy of polarities by Randolph Stone, health depends on the number of positive and negative particles in the human electromagnetic field. Changing its proportions supposedly can get rid of any ailments, even cancer. However, the American Cancer Society did not findRussell J., Rovere A., eds. Polarity Therapy. American Cancer Society Complete Guide to Complementary and Alternative Cancer Therapies. American Cancer Society. 2009 this scientific confirmation.
Often, for example in the case of bioresonance therapy, a false concept canErnst E. Bioresonance, a study of pseudo ‑ scientific language. Forschende Komplementarmedizin und klassische Naturheilkunde hide your true self under complex, but pseudoscientific terms that resemble the names of real medical practices. Together with the empty, but loud promises of individual "healers", this became the reason that some of the bioresonance devices are banned.Alan E.S. Bioresonance Therapy (BRT). UnBreak Your Health: The Complete Guide to Complementary & Alternative Therapies. Loving Healing Press. 2007 for sale in the USA.
In this sense, the story is indicative.Why are Canadians hanging their hopes on this machine? CBC bioenergy device EPFX (Electro Physiological Feedback Xrroid), which the creators sold for 20 thousand dollars. The device was approved as a tool for assessing stress reduction, but vendors touted it as a remedy for anything, even the most serious illness, up to cancer and AIDS. Several people who used it died due to the fact that they did not receive treatment on time. The device was banned from selling in the United States. Nevertheless, similar devices are still sold all over the world.
At the same time, "therapists", declaring the interdisciplinarity of their theories and practices, often get confused in concepts, not knowingStenger V.J. Bioenergetic Fields. The Scientific Review of Alternative Medicine, for example, the differences between quantum and electromagnetic fields.
Disruption of energy metabolism in the body can reallySwerdlow R.H. Bioenergetic medicine. British journal of pharmacology cause diseases, such as mitochondrial encephalomyopathy, which affects the brain, muscles, and nervous system. However, the main reason for this disease is not that the work of the biofield is disrupted, but in genetic mutationsDiMauro S. Mitochondrial encephalomyopathies - fifty years on: the Robert Wartenberg Lecture. Neurology mitochondrial RNA and DNA transmitted through the female line.
The causes of other diseases, such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's, caused by impaired energy metabolism in the body, are also associatedSwerdlow R.H. Bioenergetic medicine. British journal of pharmacology with genetic characteristics, and not with streams of "life force". To combat such ailments, mitochondrial treatment is used - reception vitamins and special preparations.
The concepts of biofield, aura and other types of mystical energy are popularStenger V.J. Bioenergetic Fields. The Scientific Review of Alternative Medicine in people who do not want to put up with a materialistic view of a person, as well as in those who are not helped by standard methods of treatment. This is used with pleasure by various charlatans (psychics, gurus, trainers), among whom, however, there are certainly those who believe in their abilities.
However, science does not find confirmation of these views. The cells of human flesh are composedStenger V. The Energy Fields Of Life. Skeptical Inquirer from the same subatomic particles as, for example, a stone in the desert. These particles interact by exchanging absolutely identical photons and gluons, and there is no esotericism in this. And the electromagnetic radiation of the human brain is no differentStenger V.J. Bioenergetic Fields. The Scientific Review of Alternative Medicine from "lifeless energy" and it can be simulated on a computer.
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