Research Focus Areas
Background
We support researchers using rigorous scientific methods and open science practices to explore how subtle energy, biofield therapies, and consciousness-based healing can deepen our understanding of health and healing. The research we support explores how these largely untapped avenues can expand current models of wellbeing and whole person health and healing. By bringing together varied methods and viewpoints, we help illuminate the full complexity of human experience rather than narrowing it to a single interpretation. This transdisciplinary outlook supports thoughtful hypotheses, careful experimentation, and open dialogue across fields that may use different vocabularies yet share a commitment to inquiry.
Within this collaborative environment, we seek to inspire research capable of addressing challenges such as chronic pain, stress related illness, and the growing burden of mental health conditions, while advancing a science of healing that values both objective physiology and subjective lived experience.
Definitions
Energy Healing/Biofield Therapy
Nonphysically invasive and noninstrumental therapies in which a practitioner explicitly works locally or remotely with another living system’s (e.g., person, plant, animal, cell) biofield (interacting fields of energy, consciousness, and/or information that surrounds living systems) to facilitate a healing response.
Examples Include: Healing Touch, Reiki, Therapeutic Touch, Brennan Healing Science, External Qi Gong, light and/or sound healing, and other modalities such as spiritual healing, shamanic energy medicine, and the Bengston Method
Consciousness-Based Healing Modalities
Modalities and practices that are described as supporting healing through shifts in consciousness or the movement of energy, whether these shifts are perceived or not. These processes, involving changes in consciousness and the movement of energy, are often reported to occur at the same time, though in some accounts one is said to precede the other.
Examples Include: Energy/biofield healing, psychedelic assisted therapy, meditation, yoga, and Qigong amongst other approaches.
Research Focus Areas
Focus Area 1: Clinical Research to Establish Efficacy and Effectiveness
To evaluate the impact of subtle energy and biofield healing modalities on physical and mental health outcomes using mixed-methods approaches that capture their multidimensional effects and explore their efficacy and effectiveness.
Representative Conditions of Interest
Chronic pain and related disorders, trauma and PTSD, anxiety, depression, cancer symptoms and treatment
Research Priorities Include
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Evaluate subtle energy and biofield healing as treatments for chronic pain and related conditions.
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Assess effects on trauma recovery and nervous system regulation.
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Investigate benefits of subtle energy and biofield healing for mental health including anxiety, depression, and stress.
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Study applications in cancer care with emphasis on quality of life, symptom management, and disease progression.
Focus Area 2: Investigate Objective Measures of Energy and Biofield Healing Mechanisms
To investigate potential mechanisms by which subtle energy and biofield healing may influence living and nonliving systems using basic science, preclinical research, and mechanistic studies in humans.
Measurement Approaches of Interest
Biophoton measurement and coherency, interpersonal hyperscanning, electrophysiology, heart rate variability and autonomic measures, EEG and MEG, magnetometry, spectroscopy, genomic and transcriptomic assays, mitochondrial and metabolic assays, water and biological fluid analysis.
Research Priorities Includes:
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Investigate the physics of subtle energy and biofield-like behaviors including coherence and superradiance.
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Characterize putative mechanisms of subtle energy transmission and information transfer.
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Examine effects on mitochondrial function, gene expression, and cell signaling during and after healing.
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Identify neural and energetic correlates in practitioners and recipients including hyperscanning approaches.
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Develop and apply novel instruments and analytic methods for detection and measurement of biofields.
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Measure changes in biophoton emission associated with energy interactions.
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Assess effects on water and biological fluid properties including pH, conductivity, and microbial load.
Focus Area 3: Explore the Role of Energy in Consciousness-Based Healing Modalities
To investigate how energy-like experiences and non-ordinary states interact with and contribute to healing processes and outcomes across modalities. We welcome approaches ranging from experimental studies to first person methods, prioritizing those that integrate first person phenomenology, neural and physiological measures, and whole-person outcomes. Studies that compare or integrate energy healing with psychedelic-assisted therapy are of particular interest.
Modalities of Interest
Energy healing, meditation, yoga, breathwork, hypnosis, Qigong, shamanic practices, psychedelic-assisted therapy, etc.
Research Priorities Include
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Map experiential patterns of energy and non-ordinary states of consciousness within and across modalities.
- Study phenomenological reports of energy, release, and transformation, and their relationship to fundamental psychological shifts and healing outcomes.
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Develop and validate survey instruments and novel methods for measuring experiential energy and tracking individual longitudinal change in experience and healing.
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Compare the experience and role of energy across practices, substances, and therapeutic models, and examine why some modalities are effective for certain individuals compared to others.
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Examine how factors such as set, setting, intention, expectation, and therapeutic relationship influence energy and healing outcomes.
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Categorize first person experiential reports alongside physiological, neural, and biofield related measures, and investigate physiological and neural correlates of energy-like experiences.
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Develop frameworks for assessing whole-person outcomes across mind, body, and spirit.
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Consciousness & Subtle Energy Research Fellowship
