Substack Live Re-Air: Did An Energy Healing Practice Stop Cancer Cells From Growing? | Meredith Sprengel

This week we’re sharing something special that was previously only available on Substack: Jonathan’s conversation with Meredith Sprengel, Research and Program Director for the Subtle Energy Funders Collective and Fellowship Director for the Biofield Fellowship Research Program. Meredith studies what most people would call energy healing — someone holds their hands over you, or sends an intention, and the body drops into a deep state of rest. In that state, curious and sometimes miraculous things start to happen. Science can already measure the electrical field your heart and brain give off, and the faint light your cells emit. But what about a field that connects all of us? And what if it’s the missing piece in how the body heals itself? Meredith walks us through a preclinical study at MD Anderson Cancer Center where a specific energy healing practice stopped the growth of pancreatic cancer cells. She also describes her own research in the Netherlands, where people receiving healing showed an exponential rise in biophoton emissions — the faint light our cells give off when they’re metabolically active. A mitochondrial researcher who reviewed the data said it resembled what you see in someone who just went for a run. Meredith has interviewed many healers who describe scanning the body and feeling spots that are heavy, hot, or stuck — places where old emotional pain is believed to be held. What her research has found is that healing rarely looks like pain suddenly disappearing. More often, a person’s relationship to that pain changes, and connection to other people and a sense of meaning seem to play a role in that shift. So how does it actually work? Some healers say they’re channeling god, source, or consciousness. Others describe clearing blockages of stuck energy. And others say they’re not doing the healing at all — just giving the body space to do what it already knows how to do. Meredith and her co-host Ivy Ross explore all of this in their six-part podcast series, Phenomena: The Science and Stories of Energy Healing, sitting down with healers, people who’ve received healing, and the scientists studying what’s actually happening. Energy healing has been practiced for centuries. Science is finally starting to catch up! Watch the Stuart Fails to Save the Universe Official Podcast on HBO Max, the HBO Max YouTube channel, or listen wherever you get your podcasts. https://link.mgln.ai/StuartVisitdrinkag1.com/BREAKDOWN http://drinkag1.com/BREAKDOWN and get a FREE AG1 Flavor Sampler and a FREE bottle of Vitamin D3 + K2 in your Welcome Kit with your first AG1 subscription order. Get your annual IANDS Conference tickets athttps://conference.iands.org/https://conference.iands.org. Follow us on Substack for Exclusive Bonus Content: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bialikbreakdown.substack.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://bialikbreakdown.substack.com/%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠BialikBreakdown.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://www.bialikbreakdown.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube.com/mayimbialik⁠⁠⁠ https://www.youtube.com/mayimbialik%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:04Mayim Bialik?

  Hi, I'm Mayim Bialik.

• 0:05Jonathan Cohen?

  And I'm Jonathan Cohen.

• 0:06Mayim Bialik?

  And welcome to our Breakdown. Today, we've got a very special something for you. It was previously only available over on Substack. It's a conversation with Meredith Springle, Research and Program Director for the Subtle Energy Funders Collective, as well as the Fellowship Director for the Biofield Fellowship Research Program. Her work centers on evaluating how complementary modalities can be incorporated into conventional medicine for the treatment of chronic disease. The goal is strengthening resilience, supporting well-being, and fostering more of a whole-person healing. This conversation discusses energy healing, which has been practiced for centuries, but is now kind of finally, we're seeing the science catching up.

• 0:49Mayim Bialik?

  And Jonathan is the perfect person to talk about that.

• 0:52Jonathan Cohen?

  In this conversation, Meredith and I explore biofields, energy fields. We talk about the field that is emitted around our bodies and how science is starting to measure it. The research she's doing really is fascinating because it explores all the hippie ideas that spiritualists and healers have and how science is trying to translate them, understand them, and really help us get a better sense of how they can be used and how they impact our healing. One particular study that really stands out is the recent release of a cancer study from M.D. Anderson, where energy healing was used to change cancer cells

• 1:36Jonathan Cohen?

  in Petri dishes, showing the reduction of cancer.

• 1:40Mayim Bialik?

  Jonathan's also going to talk about his Reiki practice. And a lot of what Meredith says really resonates with what Jonathan has experienced to be true, as well as the people that Jonathan has worked with. Really, really incredible. Are we channeling God? Can we channel Source? Can we channel consciousness? How do we release stuck energy? It's a great conversation. Please make sure also to check out Meredith's new six-part podcast series with co-host Ivy Ross, which is called "Phenomena: The Science and Stories of Energy Healing", where they sit down with healers, people who've received healing, and scientists studying what is actually happening when we talk about energy work in particular. We really hope you enjoy this episode, and we hope to see you over on Substack.

• 2:23Mayim Bialik?

  Here is Jonathan talking with Meredith Springle.

• 2:28Jonathan Cohen?

  As someone myself, who has practiced Reiki for a long time, who has thought a lot about hands-on healing, the mind-body connection. When we hear words like subtle energy and biofield, a lot of people are like, they think they kind of know what it is. And then we quickly discover that we have no idea if we're all talking about the same thing.

• 2:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, I think we have ideas of what they are, but I don't think we know what they are. I mean, so let's start with subtle energies. I mean, subtle energy is the mechanism by which that healers describe that they're healing you. But they use a number of different terms. You could say subtle energy, God, consciousness, the universe. And it's kind of the idea that that is that energy that connects all of us and can help facilitate a healing response. So when I talk to a lot of healers, it's kind of, I do that a lot for my research. And healers say they heal by, they connect themselves to Source, and then they're a channel for Source energy or that subtle energy that then they use to then interact with participants' biofields to help reset the blueprint, right? The blueprint being of health and wellness and the core of who they are.

• 3:35Speaker 02

  And the idea is that over time, they use these blockages of energy or this information that gets stored in this concept of a biofield that perturbs your health or then creates health and disease. A lot of times, it originates with trauma, be it physical or mental health. This idea of a biofield, so we literally have a biofield. We are bioelectric beings. So we admit a bunch of different sources of bioelectricity, from the heart, from the brain. Those are biological fields, right? It means that extends outside of our skin, and we can measure it. And we've done some of that, some preliminary work here in the Netherlands to measure biological fields, like ultra weak photon emissions and electromagnetic fields from the heart. The biofield that is kind of defined within this realm,

• 4:18Speaker 02

  which is this frontier form of science, like this subtle energy and biofield healing, they're fields of energy and information, not necessarily electromagnetic. So the idea is there might be some additional fields that we don't understand, via physics or our current paradigm of science, that we might also be sharing between us, that might be creating that transpersonal healing effect you get from energy healing that may be core to the mechanism of how it works. So, or the idea that somehow there's a collective biofield that's being manifested from all of these bioelectric fields. So these are all concepts and ideas that are grounded in science, but kind of extends outwards to try to explain what's happening. But there's very preliminary research, although the Subtle Energy Funders Collective,

• 5:03Speaker 02

  for which I work, that is kind of what we're trying to do, is to foster new science to understand these concepts.

• 5:09Jonathan Cohen?

  First of all, I want to know about the types of healers that you're speaking to who are describing this. Because I, you know, I have heard it described in many different ways. And, you know, I was taught a very specific thing, too, that has a lot of overlap. Then, of course, there's the biofields themselves. And, you know, the notion of God and consciousness entered your description early on. And you're like, well, consciousness as a perception, consciousness as a field, like, those are two very different ideas of that word. And then, of course, God has its own stack of implications. The notion of the biofield as fields of energy and information emitted from the body,

• 5:52Jonathan Cohen?

  not necessarily electrical, but potentially partly electrical. How are these being studied? Because I think a lot of people who are curious about this, and we've spoken to this on the podcast, I've spoken about like, oh, well, your body is not just your body. You have an energy body around you. And if you're in meditation and you, you know, you look at your chakra system, and then you think, okay, you know, you do the classic grounding technique where energy is being pulled from the ground, up through my crown, and then comes cascading around me, you start to become aware of things outside of your skin. And then, well, how far does that go? And then you're suggesting, well, maybe we're all interconnected. And then, you know, the field is actually,

• 6:37Jonathan Cohen?

  there's just information being passed, and it's an infinite amount of connection between my skin and someone else's skin. So like, these are huge ideas. Let's try and like, pull them back. Because I think we're going at, you know, 100 miles an hour, which I love. But I want to also help people come along for the ride. So start with, do we have, you know, this notion of a field or an energy outside of our skin? How is it being measured? What do we know?

• 7:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, we can definitely measure fields outside of the skin. Right? So again, the heart creates an electromagnetic field. You can measure that using things like gradometers or squids. And these particularly will measure your heartbeat, but through the bioelectric signal that's coming from it. There's these things called ultra weak photon, this ultra weak photon emission, these bio photons that are believed to be a byproduct of the mitochondria. But we don't really understand them. And these bio photons are ultra weak light. So you can measure them outside the body with particular boxes. That's another way you can measure a biological field coming off the body. And then you can also, you can also measure the brain, right?

• 7:49Speaker 02

  You also have electricity coming out of the brain. Those are kind of the core ones that most people are measuring right now and can measure reliably and with a good signal. And these are all open source and open calibrated devices, meaning that science recognizes them as meaningful. There are a lot of devices out there that are closed box, meaning like, you don't know how they work, but they say they measure your aura, or they say they measure your chakras, or you put your finger in, and it gives you a blueprint of your aura. There's no science to back it. And there's no way to know if it works because the backend, meaning like, how it works, is shielded. So we know we have a biofield that extends outside our body. Physicists would say it only extends

• 8:33Speaker 02

  like, a few centimeters or a few inches outside your body. I think that this whole concept of measuring fields outside the body is new. And we haven't really even switched fully into thinking about us as bioelectrical beings within the scientific paradigm. So I don't think we know, we don't know what we don't know right now. So I think it's almost like when I, when we do experiments, when we look at biological fields, it's kind of meeting where we're, meeting science where it's at, which is kind of this, these very crude measurements that are, that are not always easy to measure, right? Because a lot of times, like, we live in a, we're in a very noisy electromagnetic environment. So, you know, there's a lot of places that this can go, that these, these measuring biofields. But, and then there's some other concepts,

• 9:17Speaker 02

  like these vector, potential, vector and scale or wave potentials that people say, don't ask me what, don't ask me more than that. But like, there are all these other concepts that have entered into the conversation about long-range, transpersonal, sort of electromagnetic impact. I couldn't give you any science that would say that there's this biofield that connects all of us and that, that I, that right now, you and I are somehow connected by some sort of biofield in terms of science, right? But, I mean...

• 9:46Jonathan Cohen?

  It's not measurable yet. You know, and I want to be careful because we want to have the explanation and the data to help us understand these things. But it does make us think of our mutual friend Neel Thees, where all the hippies previously said that the body is interconnected by this system. And then every Western doctor said, no, it's not. And then he discovers the interstition. And then all of a sudden, we have language and an explanation for this thing that others have felt. And that's, you know, we're trying to like, parse this out, right? We're trying to understand, what do these healers say is happening? What do the meditators say that the body, when they close their eyes, they're able to see beyond the five senses and say that there is this field around us?

• 10:31Jonathan Cohen?

  And then you have the physicists who say, well, actually, we can only currently measure it. That is also accurate, but maybe not the entire story.

• 10:39Mayim Bialik?

  MindBee Alex Breakdown is supported by Rabbit Air. I have to say, we absolutely love our Rabbit Air purifiers. I'm one of those people who didn't know that this could change my life until I got my Rabbit Air. We actually have three of them, so we can have allergen-free air wherever we're spending our time and recording. And with fall allergy season on the way, having a high-quality, effective air purifier on hand is absolutely key to tackling those fall allergens and keeping your space clean. Rabbit Air's advanced BioGS HEPA filtration goes beyond standard filters by trapping over 99.99% of ultrafine particles down to .01 microns. It efficiently captures microscopic allergens like pollen, mold, pet dander,

• 11:21Mayim Bialik?

  and more before they can settle in your home and make your life an allergy problem. The minus A2 and A3 models, both are certified asthma and allergy friendly by the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America, meaning they are proven to actually remove allergens rather than just recirculate the air. Visit rabbitair.com or call their 24/7 consultants today. That's R-A-B-B-I-T-A-I-R.com. MindBee Alex Breakdown is supported by Quince. You know those pieces in your closet that you reach for over and over again? That sweater that somehow works with everything? The jeans you know will always fit just right? The bag you carry everywhere? Those are the pieces that earn a permanent place in your wardrobe, and that's what Quince does so well. Quince makes elevated everyday essentials using premium materials like Mongolian

• 12:05Mayim Bialik?

  cashmere, organic cotton, premium stretch denim. The designs are timeless, thoughtfully crafted, and made to be worn again and again. And as the weather gets colder, Quince has everything you need to round out your wardrobe, from warm, responsibly sourced down jackets, and cozy cashmere scarves, and gloves, to beautiful 14-karat gold jewelry that adds the perfect finishing touch. I'm personally obsessed with Quince's 100% European linen wide-leg pants. I can wear them year-round because I live in Southern California. They feel like PJs, but it looks like I put a ton of effort in, whether I'm dressing for casual workdays, lazy weekends, or vacation vibes. I'm also obsessed with their sheets, so soft. Everything at Quince is priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands. They work with ethical factories and cut out the middle people, so you pay for quality, not brand markup. And it's not just apparel.

• 12:50Mayim Bialik?

  Quince brings that same approach to everything they make, from hotel-quality bedding to kitchen essentials and thoughtfully designed furniture. Find the fall pieces you'll reach for most at Quince. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK, too. And when Quince asks where you heard about them, let them know it was MindBee Alex Breakdown. It's the best way to support our show. MindBee Alex Breakdown is supported by iRestor. You know, I'll be honest, when I got my iRestor Illumina Face Mask, I was a little intimidated. I've heard a lot about LED light therapy, but it honestly seemed like a lot to be fitting into my routine. However, I have found it is incredibly comfortable.

• 13:34Mayim Bialik?

  I can wear it while I answer morning emails. My skin does look brighter, and I barely changed anything else about my routine. iRestor makes it easy to bring clinically-backed red light therapy into your routine at home. No appointments, no complicated steps. The Illumina Face Mask is lightweight, it's cordless, it's packed with over two times the LEDs of most popular devices. It also uses triple wavelength light therapy to target fine lines, breakouts, dullness, and the 10-minute treatments make it easy to fit into your routine just a few times a week. And then, there's the iRestor Elite, which uses 300 lasers and 200 LEDs to help regrow thicker, healthier hair. And now you can support your hair from the inside, too, with iRestor's Advanced Hair Growth Formula, a daily supplement that helps promote thicker, fuller-looking hair

• 14:18Mayim Bialik?

  while also supporting healthier-looking skin and stronger nails. Whether you're focused on fuller-looking hair or healthier-looking skin, iRestor makes it simple to upgrade your self-care from the comfort of your own home. iRestor is offering some huge discounts on their red light therapy devices. Right now, you can save on customer favorites like the iRestor Elite Helmet and the Illumina Face Mask. Just head to iRestor.com, use the code BREAKER, that's B-R-K-E-R, at iRestor.com. Please support our show, tell them we sent you. Give your hair and skin the upgrade they deserve, so you can feel confident and refreshed.

• 14:48Speaker 02

  There's a scientist in our community, Lorenzo Cohen, that loves to talk about germ theory, right? You know, that Hemmelweiss knew something was happening when the doctors would go from the morgue to delivering babies, and then, you know, highly contested until the microscope, right? Until we could see these things. So, see the bacteria. That was also, I love that analogy, because the invisible to the visible, right? And just like Neal's story, too, right? Like, a new microscope enabled him to see the interstitial.

• 15:19Jonathan Cohen?

  The idea of like, why we should care about this biofield is that there's probably a natural variance amongst each individual, but there are likely patterns in the qualities, textures, formation of this biofield when it comes to illness. And that actually, helping someone heal on the bioenergetic level is going to be in parallel with what's happening on the physical level, and that these things can work in tandem, or actually, it may be helpful to work on the biofield almost as a precursor to helping the body actually heal physically. Is that somewhat in the ballpark of accurate?

• 16:01Speaker 02

  So I think there's a great interest in using this as a detection of illness, right? Saying that maybe there's something that's manifested bioelectrically or bioelectromagnetically before it actually has long-term systemic effects in your body could be very useful. And I do think that that is in a wonderful use case, particularly when you're going to talk to someone who wants to move past kind of the current paradigm. And I think that's of great interest. And I think, I hope, one day with this ultra weak photon emission, because it's particularly tied to metabolism and metabolomics in the body. So that particularly might be a measure of health that you'll be able to take a shot of and then understand like, what is going on in the body. And there is some preliminary research that was done, actually, in the Netherlands to

• 16:46Speaker 02

  look at people with obesity, that have obesity, to see if they were going to be developing diabetes using this ultra weak photon emissions.

• 16:54Jonathan Cohen?

  The problem people have, if I'm putting on my hat for the skeptic or the materialist, is I've heard, if someone believes in God, then they're not going to take traditional medicine.

• 17:04Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 17:05Jonathan Cohen?

  Which is like, totally outside of my realm of just how I would understand it, right? It's like, well, if you think that you can just heal naturally, then you may circumvent or avoid other forms. And I think there's, you know, a new paradigm of understanding that these worlds live together in a way. So I'm wondering if you can speak to, like, what is the role of a healer or an energy practitioner in traditional healing, or is it taking the place of traditional healing?

• 17:37Speaker 02

  I mean, I would never tell anyone not to use traditional medicine, as in the allopathic system, the system we all use that our health insurance is based on. I mean, it works. I think that what we're seeing is, as we live longer and the traditional medical system prolongs disease longer, is that all these other lifestyle diseases are manifesting, right? The mental health crisis, the chronic pain crisis, and even the crisis of meaning, right? Is really one that also sometimes perpetuates a lot of these chronic illnesses. And also cancer, right? A lot of people live with cancer for years, but things like chemotherapy and radiation are quite taxing on the body.

• 18:16Speaker 02

  And so, a lot of times, that system's really good at curing, but not healing, right? So it's very targeted, it's specific to parts of your body, or, you know, where you take an SSRI, it very much is, apparently works on your brain. I mean, we don't really know. But these integrative health modalities do, is they put your body into a state to heal itself, right? Because all these practices are based on putting you into the relaxation response. And by putting yourself into the relaxation response, you're giving your body the chance to heal. I think it should be lifelong practices, right? As we all know, like, there's great research on meditation, also with neuroplasticity,

• 18:58Speaker 02

  and, you know, gene repair and all these things. But I also think, what I love about energy healing, and I'll say this all the time, is a lot of times, we get ourselves into a state where we can't take the step to do the meditation, to go to the acupuncturists, because it's needles, right? Or to start doing yoga or qigong. And I almost think it's the entryway, sometimes, into remembering that we have the capacity to heal ourselves. Because you don't have to do anything, right? All you have to do is show up. And I would say have somewhat of an open mind, and then allow this person to help you put your body back into a place to heal and to reconnect. What you find also is that just the phenomenology of it, or people talk about when they engage

• 19:41Speaker 02

  in these energy healing practices, and things like meditation, and also psychedelics, a lot of times, all your priors start to lessen. All your beliefs and all, they kind of sort of go away, and then that helps reconnect you to a larger universe or a larger sense of self. And in that process, a lot of, that can bring on this relaxation response. I'm trying to dumb this down into terms that everyone can understand, but I also just think that we've all had experiences like that, even with really good doctors and therapists and friends, right? But I think the idea is that energy healers are, been able to tap into something, and, you know, we can say, is it or is it not some sort of larger concept as an energy, a universal energy or a god?

• 20:26Speaker 02

  But they also might have just, there might be some sort of practice that they've engaged in that's enabled them to really harness all these contextual features, or, you know, these things like therapeutic alliance, that really puts someone into a place where they can feel healed and have these really deep, rich experiences. But I would say it's a lifelong practice, and I would also say that seeing an energy healer can also just be something that helps you reset. The Phenomena Podcast, this healer, her name's Lori Nealon, she's incredible. An old friend comes to see her, and he doesn't have anything particularly wrong with him, right? But he's just like, I need to see this healer, and I need you to heal me. You know, it wasn't at the surface, it was at the subconscious level, right?

• 21:09Speaker 02

  And all this stuff comes flooding after he saw her and was able to heal all these parts of themselves that he didn't even know that he needed to.

• 21:15Jonathan Cohen?

  You have a podcast, the Phenomena Podcast.

• 21:18Speaker 02

  Everyone should visit phenomenahealing.com, join our mailing list, because you'll get all this information, not only about the podcast, but also about all the research and science we're doing, and all the new and amazing things we're finding about, about energy healing.

• 21:31Jonathan Cohen?

  The term "healing"...

• 21:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 21:34Jonathan Cohen?

  Right, is a really complicated term because again, it's one of these words that means so much when you're describing the man who needed to go to this

• 21:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 21:43Jonathan Cohen?

  particular healer. We think about healing as like in the Marvel movies, like I've just been shot in the arm and all of a sudden I'm able to regrow the skin and heal the wound. But actually, what we're saying is that it's far more complex than that. When you say healer, like are these trained modalities? When a woman wakes up and just has a gift, that's different than someone who's studied and has a certificate in some way. And I think there's a huge variance in these types of practitioners, which makes people both curious and then also apprehensive. Because I really do think about it from both sides, right? I grew up in a very materialist family.

• 22:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 22:22Jonathan Cohen?

  I studied in a system with a teacher who had a long tradition. And then I learned that actually, the tradition that she worked in was actually a little bit different, that she had added her own unique gifts to the tradition. And so like each person who does this type of work is often bringing a unique skillset to it.

• 22:43Speaker 02

  There's three kind of major terms that I think people use when they talk about the healers we're talking about. So, energy healer, biofields healer, spiritual healer, right? Those are kind of the terms that you hear being said. And these are right, these are individuals that don't have to physically touch you, don't have to use any instruments, but through their intention and attention, heal you. Right? And that was through that whole mechanism of the use of subtle energy and the biofield to remove blockages, both within the body and within the biofield.

• 23:13Jonathan Cohen?

  And this makes sense to me because I've just spent a lot of time in this world, but I have my aim right here up on my shoulder.

• 23:20Speaker 02

  I see her, yeah.

• 23:21Jonathan Cohen?

  If you're only listening, there's a little bobblehead, actually that's me, but there's a same bobblehead beside me here that I have my like in my ear thing. What are you talking about? They're removing blockages from your field? So like, your field you may not see, but you may be carrying something. Could be emotional, could be psychological, could actually be a combination of emotional and psychological that has manifested physically, right? Like you could have a

• 23:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, completely.

• 23:49Jonathan Cohen?

  real, concrete, diagnosable wound, but that, or injury, but that injury may carry a psychological and emotional component that we can't really put our finger on where it is. Right?

• 24:03Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 24:04Jonathan Cohen?

  We don't know where in the body it's being stored. Some will say it's in the brain. That emotional, psychological baggage or injury that you're carrying may be present in your energy field or biofield.

• 24:16Speaker 02

  This is what healers say, right? I can't, I can't, I can't verify it, right? I'm talking about like more the anthropological or, you know, what they report. So they report that when they're going to heal you, that they, you know, a lot of them scan you, right? And there's different techniques. I mean, you did Reiki, right? There's a scanning technique. And they'll say they'll feel something. So just really like it's heat, or it's sticky, or it's vibrating. And they would say that is a blockage. And as you said, it's something psychological. It also could be a physical trauma that you haven't, that is, that has then resided psychologically in this field. And again, it resides in the field. And then if not dealt with, the belief is that it manifests physically. And then also, what's interesting is like, we kind of know some of this, right? Even in mainstream science,

• 24:58Speaker 02

  right? Adverse childhood events are highly correlated with chronic pain, osteoarthritis. There is a literature that trauma, if not dealt with, and especially dealt with at early parts of your childhood, does lead to disease.

• 25:13Jonathan Cohen?

  The stuff that you haven't dealt with, they're claiming like they can feel.

• 25:18Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 25:18Jonathan Cohen?

  They can visualize. Like there's a lack of harmony or visual coherency in the energy that is being admitted around this individual.

• 25:29Speaker 02

  Correct, yeah.

• 25:30Jonathan Cohen?

  So, which I think is amazing. Some other people were like, you know, this is anecdotal and how, but every modality operates into some degree of this. And you know, when I was learning, it was very much follow your hands, right? It's a felt sensation. Try not to use your brain much. Where are your hands? Like, so you know, when you say a scan, it would just be a quick like wash over the person and then the texture of your felt sense in your hands would change. It may be really heavy all of a sudden. It may be cold, all of a sudden. Okay. What are some of the types of healing? Like, is there, is there a list of the ones that you've spoken to? Often I have, you know, I've always practiced hands-on. You can scan around. You can, you can definitely feel without hands-on, but

• 26:15Jonathan Cohen?

  there's something about actual hands-on versus hands-off that is interesting for me. But there's so many different varieties of healers. Is there like a list of like, you know, like when we say a biofield healer versus an energy healer? Do you know if there are different types of practices?

• 26:34Speaker 02

  I think they're interchangeable. If you consider, if you considered an energy healer, a biofield healer. But I think that there's a distinction between the modalities. Yes, I have a list. Of course I have a list. And I mean, I add to it as I learn new things, right? And I've been doing a huge qualitative study where I'm trying to take it to interview as many healers from as many different modalities, to really understand what's the commonalities and what the differences are. And just understand that the lineage is better. Because if we're going to operationalize this in research, we should probably understand what people say they're doing. I actually think the biggest distinction is historically when the practice was developed. So you have these ones that are really based in religion, right? Or in indigenous traditions that had come from a different era of how we understood the world

• 27:17Speaker 02

  through, through religious practice or through association of gods. So, you know, like laying on of hands, the Sufi traditions, right? They, they come from Abrahamic backgrounds. And then you kind of have a break where like the language of modernity got in the way, right? You know, science. And so you have all these energy healers that come, or biofields healers. And you see things like Reiki is relatively new. It's right, it's I think in the early 1900s, although based on other practices, therapeutic touch, healing touch, which are nursing traditions that use the same model. I kind of think of them as like the spiritual and the neo-spiritual. It's kind of how I've defined them. I mean, this is Meredith, this is the Meredith Sprangle interpretation. But it's just as I talk more

• 27:58Speaker 02

  and more, right? Some of them are heavily anchored in, in a god, right? Or in some sort of interpretation of creative entity that has a huge impact on our lives and our destiny. And some of them are based on a universal energy or a connection to the greater, you know, universe. And so those are different orientations. But they still put their power in something greater than themselves, right? Some connective tissue that has, that is perpetuating the universe.

• 28:28Jonathan Cohen?

  All of them have that similarity.

• 28:29Speaker 02

  I talk, try to talk just to healers that are particularly what I would say advanced practitioners. So people who've been doing it for a long time and people who have over time kind of integrated themselves and their own techniques as they develop a relationship with spirit and the invisible world. A lot of things come to them that don't necessarily look in, are in a book. Yeah, but one of the things is that you find with some, some healers, and this, this is again, this is through living the lore of, of, you know, talking to all these healers, like not super advanced, or some healers that haven't fully honed in their practice, use their own energy. And, and they will say that that is what also caused disease in yourself over time. Because you have deplete, you're depleting yourself. There's this great healer, his name's Oliver Nino, and he said that that was the biggest

• 29:13Speaker 02

  change in his practice is when he started to use the sacred geometry to connect him to source. And then he could hold these big rooms, group healings. Their idea is that they get it from that, that source. They get it from the god, the universal energy. But when they use them, their own energy, at least this is what healers tell me. And just anecdotally, it seems that it creates illness in the healer or not the ability to practice on a regular basis or in a meaningful way over time. Yeah.

• 29:41Jonathan Cohen?

  Yeah. When I was taught, it was all about leave my baggage at the door and remove myself. I have no intellectual understanding of what this person needs. And to become a conduit for a universal energy, is what it was called. But you can exchange energy, consciousness, or god, for this other person's highest good. And, you know, I actually really struggle with the word healer, because it denotes that there's an active will or agenda of the person doing or facilitating, there's a doing instead of a actually, you are just a conduit for this other person to sort of reconnect and do what they need to do. And

• 30:24Jonathan Cohen?

  as you talked about, it all works by getting them into this relaxed state whereby the natural abilities of the body can begin to take form and to be expedited in some way, right? It's like, we can't actually go through a healing process if we're constantly on the move and we can never truly get into that relaxed state. So what's happening, you mentioned, is there just a therapeutic alliance whereby the person feels comfortable enough to drop the defenses and actually

• 30:56Jonathan Cohen?

  Go into that space. Is there really an increase in energy available to them?

• 31:00Speaker 02

  Most healers will be like, well, you're healing yourself. I'm just giving you the space to do the healing. Not to put my own judgment on it, that's what a good healer does, right? I mean, I think in any good healing, they want the person to learn the, to integrate, right? And to really, to truly integrate the lessons and, and, and practice kind of what they've learned from that experience. Is there energy really? So I don't know. I mean, I've done one, so this is one fun study that we did. It's not published yet, but we looked at the bio photon emissions. I have a really fun picture of like these healers sitting across the room with people and like all this equipment around them. We had three healers, six healies were the people receiving the healing. They weren't touched. The person just sent healing intention across the room.

• 31:41Speaker 02

  And the four people who had like these deep, rich experiences of, they'd say like, they're in an experiment room. I don't know how, but they like lost track of space and time, had deep like energy, like somatic experiences, this like very physiologically enriching, like feeling of where you feel like you feel like you're full of energy. Some people said like they, you know, when you, when the time was over, they just, there was, there was like a total loss of time. It's really interesting things in this experiment room. Those people who then like said, I felt like I had a healing, they had this really interesting increase in bio photon emissions. It even looked like exponential. I showed this to a mitochondrial researcher and he's like, it looks like someone went on a run.

• 32:22Jonathan Cohen?

  Really?

• 32:22Speaker 02

  Yeah. So this is so preliminary, but someone has to do more of this research. I mean, but that would indicate it, right? It's metabolic, right? Bio photons are metabolic. So that literally could be a representation of your body healing itself, right? So this is, this result gets me really excited.

• 32:37Jonathan Cohen?

  Recently, we spoke to someone on the podcast and Mayim and I were led through what felt like a couple minute meditation.

• 32:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 32:46Jonathan Cohen?

  And we both came back totally disoriented. Like we opened our eyes and you're like, well, we've been podcasting a lot. What's going on?

• 32:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 32:55Jonathan Cohen?

  It doesn't explain the sort of shift in our perception of time.

• 32:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 32:59Jonathan Cohen?

  So we spend so much time constructing the boundaries of our reality that as soon as we're able to let that drop for a minute, there's an entire other world to explore.

• 33:11Mayim Bialik?

  My Bialik's Breakdown is supported by Incogni. As someone whose name is a little bit everywhere online, I know how difficult it can be to keep track of what personal information is out there. Your name can show up in places you never expected and removing it manually can feel basically impossible. Thankfully, that's where Incogni comes in. Incogni acts as a personal privacy advocate. It finds the data brokers exposing your private info and handles the entire removal process for you across over 420 harmful broker sites. It's the first service of its kind independently verified by Deloitte. So you know, it's legit and Incogni automates the legal requests and repeatedly checks back to keep your info private as brokers attempt to relist it. You can even track your progress right from their iOS or Android app.

• 33:56Mayim Bialik?

  For complete control, Incogni's unlimited plan leads with custom removals. If your personal details pop up anywhere across the wider web, like old news portals, blogs, public forums, or obscure directories, you don't have to fight corporate legal departments yourself. Incogni's team of human privacy experts steps in to manually handle those corporate takedown requests for you. Plus they have a new feature, their exposure scanner, which surfaces all those exposed links directly into your dashboard, letting you simply select which custom removals you want executed. They can't harm you if they can't find you. Take back control of your personal data today. Go to incogni.com/mayim. Use the code mayim for 60% off an annual plan. That's I N C O G N I dot com slash mayim promo code mayim.

• 34:41Mayim Bialik?

  It's completely risk free with a 30 day money back guarantee. Check the link in today's episode description to get started.

• 34:47Jonathan Cohen?

  And in a similar way, when, when I was actively in practice, often we would work in groups where there would be multiple tables.

• 34:56Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 34:57Jonathan Cohen?

  Across from one another, there'd be 30 people in a room, multiple people working on each person on the table. All of a sudden, these people who are like not going into a session with any particular agenda would go into a relaxed state and then all of a sudden have a memory or life experience surface for them that was very emotional. And then all of a sudden they're reliving that experience. And then what you would almost always have is a ripple domino effect where the next person on the table would immediately, all of a sudden, the whole room is alive in this active emotional processing. Now, where did those come from, right? Like it wasn't planned.

• 35:39Jonathan Cohen?

  They didn't go in saying, I want to look at this particular part of my childhood. Like, so you can just imagine that as those filters drop, all this stuff that we've been carrying that has a weight to it is now all of a sudden being processed. And as it gets processed, potentially the body is now more invigorated in a way.

• 36:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 36:01Jonathan Cohen?

  Which is going to lead me to a question about what is healing? Because often someone says, I've had carpal tunnel for a really long time. I'm going to go to someone who's going to take it away from me. But that isn't often what happens. A lot of the time, what I've heard and what I've experienced, and I'm curious how, you know, the experiences you've researched, people get something that they weren't expecting when they go to some form of healing.

• 36:27Speaker 02

  Well, so what is healing? I mean, first healing is a continuous process. I just want to say we're never healed. It's a whole lifelong journey, right? Because we're, we're unpacking not only the this lifetime and if you, but even, even previous lifetimes, we've even seen that, right? Epigenetics, we carry trauma through our genetic line. So there's a lot to unpack in this life. So I always want to say to people like, I'm, I'm never healed. I'm constantly healing, right? So that's one. And two, what I think is interesting, two, especially with the, with the carpal tunnel example, is that a lot of times pain or anxiety, because I've had, I've done interviews with people who've done healings for, for a lot of mental health, it doesn't go away, but your relationship to it changes, right?

• 37:08Speaker 02

  So it's not like my carpal tunnel went away or the pain went away, but your relationship to it has changed. That's one thing. So a lot of times that you're saying it's not taken away from you. It's just how you relate to it. And a lot of times, like you said, that's because of the, the sort of reconnection that occurs because a lot of times when we have anxiety or, or pain, and those are the two conditions I know, that work the most with or know the most about, there's a hyper fixation that occurs. Again, if you're in that hyper fixated state, or you're very concentrated on your disease or your identification with it, we don't always have the space to see, right? Where it has manifested from and, and maybe that, but that's also something that happened. Like you said, and, and it's funny that you brought that up about the, the group healing

• 37:51Speaker 02

  as I literally just did a group healing last week with, with, yes, I was, so you want to laugh at our partner retreats at our Soul Energy Fund Collective, we do group healings. And that happened to me. I wasn't even aware about something that I needed to grieve, right? Because I wasn't given the space in my life to have that opportunity. And also it is fascinating, the magnification that being in a group is in, right? And the type of group. I mean, this is all just talking like anecdotally from my experience, but who's in your group? And even the physical location, right? The contextual features, right? We know this, right? Certain times, even in drug trials with psychedelics, depending on the, the room they're in, the psychedelic will work or not. So, um, so yeah, it's really interesting how this amplification occurs in group environments with healers.

• 38:37Speaker 02

  So, right, you're creating a container. I mean, they would say that we're all healing each other in that moment, right? They're, they're bringing the, they're bringing us in reconnection with, with God consciousness source. And then, yeah, but yeah, that literally happened to me last week. So, uh, yeah, I've been thinking about that a lot.

• 38:52Jonathan Cohen?

  I used to experience so many quote unquote coincidences where these people who would just sort of sign up, come together, once the intention, another word that it needs a little bit of explanation, was set for the group, would come together and then people from all walks of life, all different ages, would all of a sudden have these unbelievable parallels in the stuff that they would be carrying. And it was true that the more people came together to do this type of work, the more elevated and magnetized the impacts often are. So it does bring up the question of like, when we talk about healing as this.

• 39:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 39:32Jonathan Cohen?

  Continual process, maybe that is the natural state that we have fallen out of is the ability to dive in and to purge and sort of the more isolated, the less connected we've been as a society, the less connected we are to the types of, of work that this carries. I don't think that processing our emotions is only supposed to be done in a therapist's office, right? We've lost an element of our social dynamic that has allowed us to have this intense level of, of moving through these things that we're carrying.

• 40:03Speaker 02

  I mean, the industrial revolution, we became machines, right? I mean, it's kind of our source given, universe given, right? Is, is to, to be in community and, and to also to have these space to process who we are and our emotions. Yeah.

• 40:17Jonathan Cohen?

  The skeptic may be saying, it doesn't work.

• 40:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:20Jonathan Cohen?

  And I know work is obviously, you know, it's a very fixed idea of what this process actually is, right? It's a bit reductionist in a way.

• 40:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:30Jonathan Cohen?

  But can you tell us a little bit about the M.D. Anderson study? You know, because what we're trying to say is that it has an impact.

• 40:37Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:37Jonathan Cohen?

  End result is hard to say, to say work as, as the, you know, finished product. There's more and more evidence to show that there's significant impact. Can you describe a little bit about what you're seeing?

• 40:49Speaker 02

  So Lorenzo Cohen, who is a scientist, is a psychoneuroimmunologist at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, has been leading a bunch of preclinical research into energy healing for pancreatic cancer. And this is both in cell and animal models. What he has found is that the, this, this particular energy healing practice, it's called the Bangston method, and it's a cycling practice. It's a well-defined method that you can Google. He used three practitioners. So across practitioners, he found that the practitioners were able to put the cancer to some essence and then stop metastasis. And he found a number of different biological pathways for that. One of which he saw changes in the bioelectrical gradient of the cell.

• 41:34Speaker 02

  And a lot of times, one of our funders likes to say that, right? Cancer is a disease where, right? The, the cells have forgotten its neighbors. It's gone off in a malignant path. And so what you're seeing is this change in the electrical gradient that could be a key to reintegrating the cells. You're also seeing the, this swelling of the mitochondria and a number of different changes in both the, the tumor properties and the, the cells. But basically what to say is that you're finding a, a method that is very effective at treating cancer. Cancer treatment is difficult. It's hard. It has a lot of symptoms. What we found with the biofield healing therapy is that it only was targeting the cancer cells and that it also could potentially be something that could work across cancers.

• 42:19Jonathan Cohen?

  I mean, we spoke to Michael Levin at, at Tufts University. So, and he describes that same understanding of cancer, that it has forgotten its relationship with the larger body and has gone off on its own agenda. I actually think there's an enormous amount of spiritual wisdom in, in that, you know, who are we as a whole? And the more we are carrying things that we aren't able to process, the less we're able to sort of align as an entire entity, for lack of a better word. Like, when you were describing earlier in, in this conversation, you were like, chronic pain, mental health and meaning. The lack of meaning that we can encounter,

• 43:02Jonathan Cohen?

  especially when we're carrying a level of emotional baggage that we aren't able to work through and get closer to our actual selves. What do we really like? What lights us up? What, what are our objectives in this world? We lose track of who we are.

• 43:19Speaker 02

  Yes, and I think we've created a false sense of community and connection, right? A lot of times, meaning is brought by community.

• 43:25Jonathan Cohen?

  When people would do really deep energy work and they would have those cathartic experiences, they would feel younger, they would feel more connected to some sort of earlier version, often a childlike version of themselves that had a curiosity and a playfulness that they had, you know, not lost, but sort of packed, put away in favor of just getting things done.

• 43:50Speaker 02

  This healer I was talking about, she always says energy healing is pure joy, right? And that, that joy of living of life, of curiosity, of mystery. Whenever I hear that, I was like, oh yeah, that's, that's what it is. Right? Because we're talking about a healing journey and we're talking about really sad things like chronic pain and anxiety and depression. And joy is kind of the antidote to all those things that keep us stuck.

• 44:09Jonathan Cohen?

  Meredith, I'm, I'm so appreciative of you coming in and speaking to this topic and helping people understand it. My whole podcasting career, I've been a little bit in the closet about my background in this space because I think it's, it brings up so many questions and people have different experiences and expectations. And, and I do believe we need people experiencing it, sharing the potential and also scientists who are studying it and trying to understand the mechanism so we can really better understand what's happening. So I'm just really grateful for the work you're doing.

• 44:38Speaker 02

  Thank you. And I just think it's fascinating. No one's taken the time to really dive into this because this has been something that's been going on for millennia and, and has been effectively healing people for centuries. And whatever healing means, it's been able to help people on their journey of feeling better and living a more fulfilled life.

• 44:54Jonathan Cohen?

  There are more things happening than we really understand when it comes to getting better, whatever better means, or overcoming the challenges that we're facing, whether physically or mentally. And having a connection to something greater than ourselves, whether that be a personal connection or in a healing modality, is showing over and over again to have truly profound impacts on, on our wellbeing.

• 45:18Speaker 02

  Excited to see what we find, for sure. Yeah.