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In foundational research for CAM, more interest has occurred in measuring regions of the human emission spectrum that are unrelated to thermal excitations of biomolecules, as in the case of visible light. Some researchers speculate that the extremely low-level visible light emission from organisms, called biophotons, may be coherent (as in a laser) and may communicate key electromagnetic bioinformation(Chwirot et al, 1987; Popp, 1992, 1998). Some of this research and its possible applications will be described. That such biophoton emission may mediate certain biofield therapies is also possible. Additionally, the induced light emission that is measured as the Kirlian effect from high-voltage electrophotography will also be discussed.

Although we may be able to measure various frequencies of electromagnetic radiation from the human body, these measurements in themselves do not reveal whether the energy is (a) important to life, (b) waste energy, or (c) noise in the system. One way of assessing the components of the biofield that may be central to the living state and especially to healing is to study the therapeutic modalities that apparently employ the practitioner’s biofield: the biofield therapies, such as therapeutic touch, Reiki, Johrei, external qi therapy, and polarity therapy. In most of these modalities, practitioners begin their patient treatment by sensing imbalances in patient biofields and then work to improve their energy regulation by transmitting energy to them, all through the use of their hands. A small but growing body of scientific evidence has been uncovered that biofield therapies show positive physical changes on living systems. In fact, some of the scientific evidence for the biofield and its importance in health and healing comes indirectly from these studies that assess the effects of these biofield therapies on humans and other living systems. More direct evidence of the biofield has been gathered by measuring changes in the practitioner’s or the patient’s biofield before and after biofield therapy or before and after other energy medicine interventions.

We will summarize some of the key findings on biofield therapy that show effects on target systems in the laboratory. These are, in the more literal sense of the term, bioassays, which may help elucidate the key life-stimulating components of the human biofield and the action of these components at the cellular and biochemical levels.

In summary, various strategies for measuring the human biofield include measurements of biophoton emission, as well as induced light emission; measurements on practitioners performing biofield therapy and on patients receiving biofield therapy; and bioassays for biofield therapy, as mentioned previously. Additionally, measurements of the electric or magnetic fields (or both) directly from the human body, especially from the acupuncture points, have also been developed.

Besides the veritable energies of the biofield discussed thus far, the human biofield may also consist of other putative energies as well, more subtle than the energy fields presently known in physics. In relation to this possibility is a less common form of therapy known as distant healing, in which the practitioner and patient are in different locations, ranging from many feet to many miles away. Invoking electromagnetic fields as causal in distant healing is impossible because electromagnetic energies diminish rapidly over distance, varying as the inverse of the square of the distance. Nonetheless, many biofield practitioners, including Reiki and external qi therapists, often learn and practice both local and distant healing. Distant healing, which is often combined with spiritual healing and prayer, may involve no energy transfer whatsoever if it occurs by the principle of quantum nonlocality, or it may involve a putative energy not yet identified in science. However, in this chapter, we will address only specific aspects of the human biofield that are tangible and can be measured. We will also focus only on local biofield therapy.

includes the full range of nonionizing energies, as well as visible and ultraviolet light, which are ionizing radiation. This spectral range is enormous. In some of these spectral regions, such as the infrared, as mentioned previously, the human body emits relatively high- intensity radiation, whereas in other regions, such as the visible spectrum, the body emits extremely low-intensity light radiation on the order of a few hundred photons per second per square centimeter surface area. Figure 20-2 shows the power spectrum of human emission. http://www.faim.org/measurement-of-the-human-biofield-and-other-energetic-instruments