Why do we find memories in our biofields?
I've been thinking through what a skeptical person would need to scientifically prove in order to conclude that Biofield Tuning (BT) is a real thing that has real benefits, rather than being some kind of pseudo-science that works only because suggestible clients and practitioners believe that it does.
It's a tough problem that may be unsolvable, but today I think I had a little breakthrough!
Let me start with a simplified description of Biofield Tuning:
All humans have upsetting memories, including conscious and subconscious kinds.
Sometimes some of these upsetting memories make us experience psychic pain. Prolonged psychic pain can sometimes lead to chronic physical pain.
Biofield Tuning is a way to lessen the pain generated by these upsetting memories. BT therapy is delivered by a trained practitioner who uses specific protocols of meditative intention and movements to manipulate tuning forks, in two steps:
Locate and identify the memory by examining the client's biofield.
Remove the dimension of the memory that makes it upsetting, without removing the memory itself.
Here's my current list of necessary proof points:
I've been focusing on item 5 recently, because it seems easier than 6 and 7. Today I may have had a mini breakthrough!
The foundation was clear to me:
Scientists agree that electrical fields exist. Specifically, when electrical current flows through a wire, a field is generated around that wire. This is the basis for many things such as electric motors.
Scientists agree that a "biofield" exists around each human body. In medicine, the existence of an electric field around the heart allows us to use an EKG to measure heartbeat – we can put sensing pads on the skin, instead of having to put them directly on the heart. Starting in 1992, NIH defined "biofield".
Scientists agree that memories are electrical charges stored in networks of neuron cells within specific parts of the brain.
Given this, why do Biofield Tuning practitioners locate these memories inside the biofield, instead of inside the brain? How did the memories get out into the biofield, when we have clear evidence that memories are actually inside our bodies?
To answer this, I decided to learn more about how electrical fields work. I knew from high school physics that when a battery is connected to a light bulb via wires, the electrons flow from the battery, through the wires, to the light bulb. The bulb "uses up the electrons" to generate light, after which the depleted electrons flow back to the battery.
It turns out that this is wrong.
Yesterday a video I had watched 2 years ago popped into my YouTube feed in the top row. I decided to re-watch it because I vaguely remembered that it was well done. The video explained that scientists and educators came up with the "electrons flowing through wires" metaphor to make things easier to understand.
The scientific truth is that the electrons are NOT flowing through the wire. They vibrate in place. Instead, the battery, the wires and the light bulb form fields. The energy is transmitted via the fields, while the electrons stay in place.
It was fun to re-watch it. I didn't think much about it, and went on to the next video.
This morning, another video from the same source was in the first row. I saw that I had only watched a little bit of it previously. So I decided to watch the whole thing. The second video went much deeper, in order to rebut the firestorm of criticism that was generated by the first video. (In case you are interested in this non-intuitive truth about how electricity works, here are the videos: the first explanation, and the rebuttal to everyone's disbelief.)
After the second video ended, my little breakthrough un-folded.
First, the diagrams of the field surrounding the battery were the same as the ones used by the person who figured out Biofield Tuning (Eileen Day McKusick):
Then my understanding expanded:
Fact: Electrons inside a wire are the place where the energy "exists", but this energy is "mirrored" (?) or "reflected" (?) in the field that surrounds the wire. Said differently, the "action" of electricity is actually happening in the field, not in the wire. The electrons stay in the wire, and cause a field of energy to be created.
Maybe the same thing is happening with our memories – they "exist" within neurons inside our bodies, but memories are "mirrored" (?) or "reflected" (?) outside our bodies in the biofield that surrounds us.
If this could be proved through measurement, we would have the explanation for why BT practitioners locate and manipulate the memories in the biofield, when the actual memories are stored inside the body's neurons.
Hmmm.