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!

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