Home > Encyclopedia of Alternative Medicine > Energy Medicine

Definition

Energy medicine is based upon the belief that changes in the "life force" of the body, including the electric, magnetic, and electromagnetic fields, affect human health and can promote healing.

Origins

The notion of a life force or energy is shared by people around the world. Since ancient times, traditional cultures have believed that a special energy vitalizes all life. This energy is known as chi, prana, pneuma, orgone, mana, ether, odyle, élan vital, bio-cosmic energy, and many other names.

Early Ayurvedic references to a life force, or prana, go back to the eighth century B.C. In the West, as early as the sixth century B.C., Pythagoras conceived of a life energy, or pneuma, visible in a luminous body. A century later, Hippocrates, the father of modern medicine, recognized the body's natural capacity for healing, or Vis medicatrix naturae. He instructed physicians to find the...