New commentaries will appear periodically when Dr. Colbin has something to say about current food or health news.

Electromagnetic Fields
February 19, 1999

It’s easy to dismiss these findings and assume that the power companies, like the tobacco companies, just don’t want to come clean. But there is an important detail, as much with the power-line cancer clusters as with tobacco as with saccharin: not everyone exposed to these gets cancer. Not everyone exposed to the flu gets the flu.

There has been a flurry of news about a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association that supposedly debunks Therapeutic Touch, a system of healing that consists of having the practitioner move his/her hands 5 to 10 inches above the body and "smooth out" the patient's energy field, or aura. The news is because the study was conducted by a 9-year old girl (now 11), Emily Rosa. How the staid JAMA got to publish a study by a 9-year old is worthy of investigation by itself, but there are other authors to the study. One is the girl's mother, Linda Rosa, a nurse who is an avowed opponent of Therapeutic Touch, and another is Larry Sarner, her stepfather and the chairman of an anti-TT organization. The chairman of Quackwatch Inc, Dr Stephen Barrett, also helped with the writing. ‘Nuf said. Hardly an unbiased study.

The point of the study was to determine whether TT practitioners could "feel" the presence of the girl's hand. She set up an elaborate system by which the practitioners would extend their hands through a screen, and she would hold her hand over one of theirs, chosen by a toss of the coin, and they were supposed to say which one. As the results were worse than chance, the conclusion was that the practitioners couldn't "feel" the girl's energy, and so the whole system is determined to be bogus.

However, as Time Magazine (April 18, 1998) points out, TT has demonstrable results, which is why numerous hospitals are using it to help soothe and relax their patients. I myself, who am not a recognized "healer", have applied TT to friends and family; once I taught it to relatives for my brother-in-law who was hooked up to life support in the hospital, and every time one of us did it, his blood pressure went down, as per the machines.

What is wrong with this study? The basic assumptions, to begin with. The assumptions are that 1) the "feeling" sought by the experimenter is the same "feeling" that TT practitioners utilize in their practice; 2) that feeling can be produced on command; 3) that the "energy field" is steady, and doesn't change thickness; 4) that the mind has nothing to do with TT. Lets look at each one of these.

1) The "feeling" sought by the experimenter requires a left-brain interpretation: "it is my right hand that feels differently from my left hand." This distinction is almost impossible to make if both hands are in the same environment and temperature, and is irrelevant to the practice of TT, because this practice relies on a generalized, diffuse sense of movement or energy, and often the practitioner doesn't "feel" what is going on or know how to describe it, even though there are demonstrable results. When I worked on my brother-in-law, I certainly can't say that I "felt" an energy field, but my hands seemed to know where to move to, and his body responded.

2) Scientific studies like this one labor under the assumption that the observer does not affect the observed. This outdated notion has long ago been laid to rest by quantum physics, where it is well known that the observer does indeed profoundly influence the observed. This is true in real life as well, if we pay a little attention. Example: a teacher will teach differently, even if ever to subtly, when being observed by a principal. If I had been under testing conditions, I am not sure that I would have had any effect on my brother-in-law's blood pressure, because of the worry and self-consciousness that would have come into play. The TT practitioners were tested in a form they are not used to being in, and the "feeling" that was required from them was completely different from the feeling they use during their work.

3) The energy field, or aura, can be seen by some people who are psychically attuned. It can supposedly be photographed with "Kirlian" photography. If you've ever gone to one of those new-age expos, there generally are one or more people who will photograph you and your aura. Colors of the aura change, as does its extension. It may extend really far: good actors or singers, especially when working without a microphone so they really need to project their voice, can extend their aura to envelop the entire audience, and those are the times when you completely forget who you are and get absorbed in the show. Our personal energy field has also been called "personal space" -- and we are very proprietary about who we let in. We will expand or contract it as needed. Example: in a full bus or subway, people can stand side by side, even touch, and not be bothered. But in an empty bus or subway, we get really nervous if someone stands or sits right next to us, instead of at a reasonable distance. It is not far-fetched to assume that the experimenter, who had a viewpoint, unconsciously shrank her aura so that what she expected came to pass. Can the existence of the "energy field" be proven by the scientific method? Probably not. Science is the study of physical and measurable matter. Whatever it cannot measure it considers non-existent. The energy field is felt. Feelings can't be "proven," nor measured, nor objectively explained -- except by their results.

4) The scientific assumption that the purported "energy field" is probably something that just sits there, with no changes, like an arm or a leg, misunderstands the dynamic and emotional nature of this concept. Intentionality, the focusing of the attention, the psychological willingness of the practitioner to be open to receive subtle information from the client, all affect the process. Quantum theory again proves that the observer's mind makes a difference on what is observed; in fact, the observer's intentions will often change the experiment. Even in scientific studies, bias is acknowledged. In this particular study, not only was there bias, but there was outright hostility to the TT concept. That hostility is as much a part of the results as the numbers.

Therefore, the proper conclusion of this study is as follows: when a hostile experimenter, surrounded and encouraged by other hostile experimenters, studies TT by trying to have practitioners "feel" which one of their hands is under the experimenter's hand, predictable results are that, as per the experimenter's expectations, the results will be worse than chance. The fact that they are so, rather than pure chance, indicates a negative variable in the study, which can be assumed to be the experimenter's hostile bias.