Healing Ourselves

Shamini Jain is a scholar practitioner specialising in biofields and energy healing. This book is an effort to combine data-driven studies and evidence-based medicine to assess the current paradigm in Western medicine that “others” the body and fails to see a more holistic aspect to human life and health. The current paradigm does treat successfully but also often struggles to heal. Here, the concept of energetic biofields is key to her attempt to find a scientific but not scientistic explanation whilst at the same time showing how the core concepts are not new and also found in ancient perspectives such as yoga, tai chi, qigong and meditation. During the course of her exploration Jain interweaves her personal story and religious-cultural ancestry as a Jain and develops her approach based on data and history.

This book is structured into three main sections. Part 1 sets the scene by articulating the challenges faced by contemporary Western medicine in explaining spontaneous remission, the placebo effect and energy healing. The author highlights that biofield science is not new, it is ancient. Nor is it a replacement for Western medicine. The data and investigations into these unexplained effects suggest that the current paradigm is not sufficient and must be transformed without throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

Written during the recent pandemic we are reminded that nature knows how to heal. We are a part of nature and this healing is open to us too. First, we must disabuse ourselves of one of the current failings in our medicine - and more broadly, our science - and stop seeing the body as other. We must move beyond pathogenic thinking and the related scientistic paradigm. The seeds were set in the birth of psychoneuroimmunology in the latter half of the 20^th Century. Experiments clearly demonstrated a link between the immune system and the brain. A consequence of this was the derivation of a more holistic view of human health, leveraging system thinking. The hypothesis is that the networks of homeostatic mechanisms may be biofields, fields of energy guiding our health. Naturally, this can be extended further to a planetary level. We are now ready to look at the evidence.

Part 2 focusses on an investigation of the data. The author left university at the height of the decade of the brain - just as Chalmer’s “hard problem” was framed - and so we gain an insight into her personal story as she discovered biofield therapy in action through Reiki. This triggers the recognition of the role of consciousness and naturally leads to the investigation of ancient perspectives (meditation practices, tai chi, qigong, yoga) that embed consciousness centrally in the universe, thus providing support for biofield theory. Nevertheless, the author comments on “scientific gatekeeping” that still inhibits more open discussions challenging the current paradigm.

There is strong evidence in placebo studies on depression, which “suggests that our minds might help to reduce our depression far more than the antidepressants we are taking.” Clearly, this cannot be accepted, for commercial reasons alone. The materialistic explanations for the placebo effect are investigated and challenged, leaving room to ask if energy and energy healing could be real? Further, how have the ancient traditions structured their efforts towards healing, both from a practical as well as theoretical perspective? Some answers are suggested in the well documented benefits of these traditions. Yoga for example offers a holistic approach to behavioural self-assessment and modifications, physical practices, cultivating awareness and mastering life energy. Other traditions offer similar approaches and speak to similar benefits. There must be something here, then. The theoretical value in concepts such as “subtle bodies” at various levels are highlighted as analogies to biofields.

The practice of healing is assessed and commonalities are sought, and found, in Grounding and Entering, Connecting and Obtaining Permission and finally Setting Intention, Attention and Will. An experiment devised to compare biofield healing with mock healing showed that biofield healing was uniquely affecting the experimental group - psychologically, cognitively and surprisingly also hormonally. The mock group showed some benefits, the control group effectively nothing. What was different? The experimental group used trained practitioners with freedom to operate at will, the mock group used sceptical scientists touching and tuning out. Meta-analysis of other studies suggest that this is not a singular finding. The mind is at play in healing. Briefly, latest research in healing at the cellular level in the treatment of cancer is presented.

Part 2 concludes that the best explanation for the mechanism of biofield healing lies in the hypothesis that biofield effects are nonlinear and nonlocal and more like information or energy - dismissing these effects as placebo effects or low-level electromagnetic fields is not satisfactory. The nonlinear and nonlocal aspects - e.g. healing at a distance - align well with concepts around entanglement, consciousness and back to some of the perspectives found in the ancient traditions referenced before. Methodologically, the author asks for more inclusive thinking, a willingness to adopt better explanations, even if they do not exhibit sufficient parsimony within the current paradigm. We don’t dismiss quantum entanglement because we can’t see it! Perhaps there is place here for Occam’s beard (McGilchrist).

Part 3 is a collection of “Healing Keys”, an integration of the best of evidence-based practices as well as bioenergetic and spiritual practices. She applies her own structure here. The first step is to ground, a recognition of the embodiment of the human and holistic integration with the Earth. There is some reference to scientific aspects - our bones are piezoelectric, our cells communicate with biophotons (cf. Narby) - as well as reference to the spiritual traditions, noting e.g. the root, foundational chakra muladhara. Jain repeatedly works with the images of the chakras to highlight aspects of embodiment in particular (citta).

The role emotions have in both positive and negative health outcomes is the next topic. The scientific evidence and spiritual practices pertaining to emotion are reviewed. Again, the chakra imagery is used; the petals of the sacral chakra, swadhistana, are referenced as forms of emotional disturbance that the practice of yoga seeks to mitigate. The practice proposed seeks to tune in to the body, to notice the emotional states, and merely note them. Fostering positive emotions through creativity, engaging in favourite hobbies and simply spreading happiness are some suggestions.

Creativity is a source of vitality and so being creative is encouraged - in whatever form, starting small and growing into a daily activity - inspiration “must find you working” as Picasso said. This book becomes a workbook with templates. The practices conclude with a suggestion to embed these activities in ritual and reasons why this is valuable followed by view on surrender and sacrifice as a means to let go of egoic forces and engage in more holistic biofields.

This book is well written interweaving of data-driven, evidence-based research, something of the author’s journey, and practical advice on implementing what the research and thousands of years of tradition suggest. It is balanced, and the writing is clear. Throughout, the author gives the impression of a scientific mind, approaching the topic with a certain curiosity but without falling prey to either the present scientistic paradigm or the traditions in her ancestry. I would recommend this book to those who are interested in seeing how research into biofields and energetic healing is developing within the establishment and slowly but surely showing how inclusive thinking can benefit humanity by healing biofields in humans and in the broader biofield of Gaia.