Subtle Energy

This fascinating handbook combines autobiography with an experiential description of subtle energy in ways that shift the mechanistic medical paradigm in the direction of the vibrational nature of life and healing. Olga practised medicine in the Soviet Union before emigrating to Canada, and life brought her into contact with Dr Vadim Polyakov, a former professor of physics and aerodynamics who was fired from his position for teaching yoga as a philosophy. However, after two years he was taken on by the Ministry of Space to develop a lab to study subtle energy and its applications. Olga soon realises that what she had been taught in medical school was just a fraction of reality after coming into contact with the formative informational reality of subtle energy on many levels while developing her own intuitive perceptions and healing capacity. The book enables readers to do the same with practice and to understand the laws of nature at the subtle level, a field in which we live, move, and have our being - a sea of interactive energy.

The book explains ten principles of subtle energy, of which thought is a form of force capable of affecting matter, as parapsychology has demonstrated. One illustration concerns a health manifestation of a mother's worry about her child, showing how careful we need to be about the energy of our thoughts. (p. 70) Olga explains how to train our scanning senses to evaluate vibrational frequencies in people, nature and things; the size of the overall energy field signifies strength, health and vitality. The universe is likened to a giant nonlocal hologram locally expressing vibrational forms as both waves and particles. Our choices manifest specific scenarios from their holographic potential, and we are responsible for our focus, frequency and corresponding resonance – the highest and most powerful is the Divine, and we all function as receivers and transmitters.

There follows an extensive explanation of subtle anatomy and physiology, entirely absent from the western system, but present in many others. This includes the transportation of energy through the system, and the seven main energy centres with their corresponding encoded information. Information is also coded in dreams, visions, synchronicities, inner prompting and in the quality of colours and vibrations. The rest of the book gives readers practical guidance about how to develop our inherent capacities, starting from what Olga calls the 'point zero state of mind' (cf Robert Charman's 'psi mind' reviewed below). Our hands and eyes are key sensitive tools for detecting subtle vibrations, and our capacities can also operate nonlocally – on one occasion a patient perceived Olga's subtle form at the time she was conducting a scan at a distance. Thinking about subtle energy more generally and reflecting also on Erik Leskowitz's book reviewed above, this may be indicative of an evolutionary development or the rediscovery of indigenous capacities that enlarge and deepen our understanding – in this respect, Olga is an important pioneer.