We are living the surpassing of all previous ages. This has been made obvious in so many venues it is no longer necessary to refer to them. What is necessary is to look at the new emerging disciplines and sciences. It is no longer a curiosity energy medicine and psychology and other healing modalities are rapidly moving to the forefront of a holistic paradigm. This most overused and over-rated word leads to many reactions, not all of them supportive.
Interestingly, it is still philosophy and science which help us to understand what constitutes the new science. We say "new," acknowledging over a century of foundational works in philosophy, physics, biology, chemistry, sociology, psychology and even the law. The criteria for knowledge in material sciences remains the same: material evidence that is valid and reliable. In the new paradigm there is a shift away from reflective, and traceable, proof, but a rigor regarding "self-evidence" that is required for the new paradigm. In a sense all evidence is "self-evidence." This is certainly true of mathematics, logic and the hard sciences. But the soft sciences, and here we mean many of the new modalties that have not subjected themselves to the rigors of material science, and who rely on an experiential and subjective validation, remain in a cloud. Matrix Energetics and Body Talk, both popular and seemingly effective modalities have not subjected their work for peer review, show no evidence of correlative studies or double blind studies. This is because they rely on "subjective" reports of clients to suggest they have experienced a shift in disease, disorder or dysfunction. R. Bartlett, head of Matrix Energetics, has done some energy photography in an attempt to show a shift in the energy fields around a client, but Body Talk has, to my knowledge, not attempted a scientific study. The world is a big place and there may be a few out there, but I haven't heard of any.
I think the problem is two fold: in the shift from an ego based perspectival science, everything has to be validated via material and mathematical proofs. In the new paradigm all one has to do is report a subjective shift and it is accepted as proof of the modality working. Yet no measure of any change of any condition, real or imagined, is done. Follow up in Body Talk would require extensive tests of body fluids, blood, organs, bones and the like to find a change with lasting effects. This requires pre-testing and post-testing at regulated intervals to measure the effect. This seems obvious, I am sure, but it is important to remember that interior experiences are a new horizon in science. The criteria for change or transformation may not be the same as in the hard sciences because the criteria for knowledge is not merely material, mathematical or ego-based. The new paradigm requires a collective subjective
experience which validates the interior experience. This requires an understanding of awareness, focus and intention, things that add new variables to the science of healing.
Some studies exist attempting to measure the influence of subjective states on outcomes, but it seems there needs to be a correlations to lasting effects and material changes in diseases, disorders and dysfunctions. This is what I call the "miracle effect" because so many claim to have experienced change, but the condition being treated wasn't life threatening. Acute and chronic conditions need to studied and validated. To date Reiki, Qi-Jong and Emotional Freedom Techniques have been tested with many positive outcomes with subjective experiences being merely one aspect of the study. Since we are now at a place where power of consciousness and intention can have a lasting effect on a physical condition needs to have more widespread. Perhaps it is time to declare a new field: The Science of Intention.
