Science and Spirituality

[Bio-energy fields, aura-measurements for diagnosis of psychosomatic disorders, and energy-healing by Reiki, Pranic, Siddha-science, etc are gaining popularity among the literate world since past few years. The concerned topics have also attracted the attention of the mass media as well as scientific journals on Alternate and Complementary Medicine. However, at the popular level, the approach is largely superficial. The surveys of the healers and also of those who practice these therapies regularly as part of fitness exercises do not show consistency on scientific basis and effects of these techniques. The reactions of scientifically trained minds are often extreme in this regard - one either regards theses 'therapies' as yet another kind of faith-healing (placebo), or, one wants to decipher the underlying phenomena in the modern laboratories like the energy of particles of matter. In this article we would introduce the multidimensional aspects and cite some related scientific works to illustrate the importance, need and feasibility of a new and integrated approach to investigate into and benefit from the gigantic source of energy - biophysical, vital and spiritual - hidden within us. --Editor]

The fundamental role of energy in various functions of a living body has been extensively studied by the ancient as well as modern researchers. The ancient scientists (the rishis) had grasped the existence and potential of all forms of energy in the physical and sublime domains as reflections of the Omnipresent Consciousness-Force. Being derived from understanding of non-living matter, the modern research in one form or the other deals with physical perception of energy and relies upon instrument-based observations and experimentation.

Way back in the late 19th Century Nicola Tesla observed the phenomenon of corona discharge from objects under high voltage fields. This phenomenon was studied with a very special kind of electrophotographic technique (known as Kirlian Photography) by Semyon and Valentia Kirlian of erstwhile USSR in the late 1930s and later. The technique attracted wide research interests from across the globe around 1970 onwards.

As per Kirlian's original hypothesis, the idea was to correlate the corona discharge patterns of different parts of the human body with the healthy or diseased state of the living system. The development of advanced mathematical and computational techniques enabled the analysis of complicated waveforms recorded in the photographs. However, it was found that while the records of corona discharge patterns of an inanimate object always showed same pattern as per the physico-chemical nature of that object, in case of living beings - especially humans, there was enormous variation, even in the records of the same person on the same day. In order to minimize the variability due to, say random disturbances caused by external environment, or fluctuations in the high-voltage field generated for corona discharge, more sophisticated instruments and imaging techniques were developed in the succeeding years which are in use since last one decade or so. The list includes computer-integrated CCD cameras, GDV cameras, thermal cameras, aura-imaging equipments having sensors of low and high intensity photonic emissions from biological systems, etc.