If the Body Produces Fields, What Might We Still Be Missing?
The human body produces measurable electrical and magnetic activity, and living cells even emit ultraweak light. What might these known fields tell us about the larger ways living systems communicate—and what might we still be missing?
Science asks: Can we measure it? Can we repeat it? Can we test competing explanations?
In the last few weeks, we have looked at the human biofield and at something even more concrete: bioelectricity.
We know the body uses electrical signaling. We know the heart and brain generate measurable electrical activity. We know living tissues produce magnetic fields associated with that electrical activity. We know cells maintain voltage across their membranes, and that electrical gradients help guide growth, repair, and organization.
So here is the next question I think is worth asking:
If the body already produces measurable fields, what else might we still be learning about the way a living system communicates?
That question does not require us to leap to conclusions. It simply asks us to notice that the human body is not an isolated collection of parts. It is a dynamic, communicating system.
WHAT WE CAN ALREADY MEASURE
Some biological fields are familiar enough that we barely think of them as “fields” anymore.
An ECG records electrical activity associated with the heart. An EEG records electrical activity produced by the brain. More specialized instruments can measure magnetic fields generated by cardiac and neural activity through magnetocardiography and magnetoencephalography.
They are not hypothetical.
The open question is how far that principle extends.
Are the fields we currently measure simply by-products of electrical activity? Do some of them also carry information? Could there be forms of biological communication that become visible only when we look at the whole system rather than isolated molecules?
Those are research questions—not settled answers.
THE BODY IS NOT ONLY CHEMISTRY
Modern medicine became extraordinarily powerful by understanding chemistry.
Hormones bind to receptors. Neurotransmitters cross synapses. Enzymes speed reactions. Genes are transcribed. Proteins are built.
But biological regulation does not happen through chemistry alone.
Mechanical forces matter. Electrical gradients matter. Timing matters. Spatial pattern matters. The geometry of tissues matters. The relationships between cells matter.
That framework is still debated, and not every proposed aspect of “biofield science” is established. But I find the underlying question valuable:
How much do we miss when we study a living system one molecule at a time?
FIELDS CAN ORGANIZE BEHAVIOR
This is where the idea becomes especially interesting.
In biology, fields are not always passive.
Endogenous electric fields can influence cell migration. Voltage patterns across tissues can help regulate development and regeneration. Neural electromagnetic activity is associated with synchronization and rhythmic activity.
In other words, a field can sometimes be part of the environment in which cells decide what to do.
That does not mean every field around the body is a healing field.
It means that “field-based regulation” is not inherently outside biology.
That is a meaningful distinction.
WHY WHOLE-SYSTEM QUESTIONS MATTER
A living body is full of feedback loops.
The nervous system affects the immune system. Hormones affect the brain. The brain affects heart rate. Breathing affects autonomic regulation. Emotional states can change muscle tension, breathing patterns, heart rate, and stress hormones.
None of those systems operates in isolation.
We are used to thinking about communication through nerves, blood, and chemical messengers. But research into bioelectricity and biological fields asks whether information can also be distributed spatially across tissues and systems.
That possibility is one reason the biofield concept continues to attract attention. Researchers have proposed it as a way to investigate how living organisms generate and respond to electromagnetic, biophotonic, and other spatially distributed phenomena.
Again, proposal is not proof.
But a useful scientific framework often begins by helping us ask better questions.
WHAT ABOUT BIOPHOTONS?
Living systems also emit extremely faint photons.
Ultraweak photon emission is measurable in humans and is linked to metabolic and oxidative processes.
That does not mean the light described in spiritual traditions has been scientifically identified.
Still, I find it fascinating that a living body is literally emitting light, even if the amount is far too small for our eyes to see.
It is a reminder that life is physically more active and dynamic than it appears from the outside.
When people throughout history described humans as luminous, radiant, or surrounded by energy, they were speaking from spiritual, philosophical, or experiential traditions.
Modern biophysics uses a very different language.
I do not think we need to force those descriptions to mean the same thing.
But I also do not think we need to forbid ourselves from wondering whether different traditions sometimes notice different layers of the same reality.
WHAT WE SHOULD NOT CLAIM
Curiosity becomes much more useful when we stay clear about what the evidence does and does not show.
The existence of measurable electrical, magnetic, or photonic activity does not prove Reiki. It does not prove chakras. It does not prove the aura. It does not prove that every intuitive sensation is an electromagnetic event.
Those are separate questions.
But the measurable activity does tell us that the body is electrically and electromagnetically active, that cells respond to electrical information, and that some biological processes are organized through spatial patterns that cannot be reduced to one chemical reaction.
That is already remarkable.
WHAT IF OUR INSTRUMENTS ARE PART OF THE LIMIT?
Science can only measure what we have methods and instruments to detect.
That is not a criticism of science. It is simply how measurement works.
Before a phenomenon can be measured, someone has to imagine that it might exist, develop a method for observing it, and determine whether the observation is reliable.
Many things that are ordinary science today were once invisible.
That does not mean every invisible thing is real.
It means invisibility is not, by itself, a final argument.
This is where I think spirituality and science can sit together comfortably.
Science asks: Can we measure it? Can we repeat it? Can we test competing explanations?
Spirituality may ask: What do we experience? What has meaning? What feels true in the deepest parts of human life, even before we can explain it?
Those are not identical questions.
They also do not have to be enemies.
THE QUESTION I WANT TO KEEP OPEN
If the body produces electrical signals, magnetic fields, ultraweak photons, chemical gradients, mechanical forces, and complex patterns of information exchange, what does it actually mean to be a living system?
And how much of that system do we currently understand?
I do not think the most interesting answer is “science has proven energy healing.” It has not.
I also do not think the most interesting answer is “if science has not explained it yet, it cannot exist.” That closes the conversation too early.
The more interesting place is in between.
We know enough to understand that the body is dynamic, electrical, responsive, and profoundly interconnected.
We know enough to see that biological organization is more complex than a list of body parts.
And we know enough to recognize how much remains unanswered.
That is exactly where curiosity belongs.
SOURCES FOR CURIOUS READERS
Bioelectricity and Healing: How Cells Use Electrical Signals to Repair and Organize
Healing is not only chemical. When tissue is injured, the body creates measurable electrical currents and fields that help guide cells involved in repair. Explore how bioelectricity influences wound healing, cell migration, regeneration, and the remarkable organization of living tissue.
When we talk about healing, we usually think in biochemical terms.
Inflammation. Collagen. Blood flow. Growth factors. Immune cells. Hormones. Genes.
All of those matter.
But healing also has an electrical dimension.
When tissue is injured, the electrical balance across that tissue changes. The normal movement of charged particles is disrupted, and the wound itself begins generating measurable electrical currents and fields.
That means an injury does more than create a chemical signal.
It also creates an electrical one.
And cells can respond to it.
WHAT HAPPENS ELECTRICALLY WHEN TISSUE IS INJURED?
Healthy epithelial tissues such as skin maintain electrical differences across their layers because ions are actively transported through channels and pumps.
When that barrier is broken, the voltage difference is disrupted. Ions leak across the damaged area, creating what researchers call an injury current and an endogenous electric field around the wound.
These fields are not theoretical. They have been measured in living tissues.
A classic review of endogenous electric fields in wound healing describes wound-generated fields in vertebrate tissues and notes that many epithelial cells, including human keratinocytes, can detect fields of physiological strength and migrate directionally in response. [Nuccitelli, 2003]
In other words, the wound creates an electrical signal—and nearby cells can read it.
CELLS CAN FOLLOW ELECTRICAL CUES
Cell migration is one of the most important parts of repair.
After injury, cells must move into the damaged area, close gaps, rebuild tissue, restore barriers, and coordinate with neighboring cells.
Researchers use the terms electrotaxis or galvanotaxis to describe directional cell movement in response to an electric field.
A 2018 review on electrically stimulated cell migration explains that physiological electric fields can activate signaling pathways involved in directional migration and can provide a dominant cue that helps guide cells toward a wound. [Zhao et al., 2018]
A 2022 review focused on wound healing describes how epithelial cells detect minute endogenous fields and can migrate collectively toward the wound center as a coordinated sheet. [Tai et al., 2022]
That is a striking idea.
Electrical information is not simply powering the cell.
It can help tell the cell where to go.
HEALING REQUIRES ORGANIZATION, NOT JUST REPAIR
A wound does not heal merely because cells multiply.
They must know how to organize.
Skin cells need to restore a barrier.
Blood vessels need to reconnect.
Nerves may need to regrow.
Connective tissue must be rebuilt.
Immune activity must eventually settle.
Cells need to stop migrating when the job is complete.
Healing is coordinated behavior.
And bioelectric signals appear to be one part of that coordination.
A systematic review examining bioelectricity in wound healing and regeneration concluded that naturally occurring voltage gradients are involved in growth, repair, and regenerative processes across animals, humans, and plants. The authors also emphasized that major questions remain about exactly how those signals encode and transmit information. [Mathews et al., 2017]
That combination is important.
The phenomenon is real.
Our understanding of it is still incomplete.
WHEN ELECTRICAL SIGNALS ARE ALTERED, HEALING CAN CHANGE
One of the strongest reasons researchers take endogenous electric fields seriously is that changing them can affect healing.
Experimental work reviewed in the wound-healing literature shows that reducing or disrupting endogenous electric fields can slow or impair aspects of tissue repair, while enhancing or externally applying appropriately directed fields can sometimes promote wound closure and regeneration.
[Nuccitelli, 2003; Messerli & Graham, 2011]
A review of the electrical response to injury describes wound-generated fields as a long-lasting, regulated biological response and notes that enhancing or inhibiting this electrical activity can increase or decrease healing, respectively. [Zhao et al., 2014]
This does not mean electricity is the only thing controlling repair.
Far from it.
Wound healing is chemical, mechanical, immune, vascular, genetic, and electrical.
The interesting part is that the electrical piece is not optional background noise.
It is part of the conversation.
WHAT ARE CELLS ACTUALLY SENSING?
This is still an active area of research.
Cells do not have tiny compass needles pointing toward a wound.
Instead, weak electric fields appear to influence ion channels, membrane proteins, receptors, intracellular signaling pathways, the cytoskeleton, and the machinery that controls cell polarity and movement.
Researchers have identified several pathways that may participate in electrical sensing, including PI3K/PTEN signaling, calcium-related mechanisms, membrane transporters, and cytoskeletal regulation.
But there is no single universal “electric-field receptor” that explains everything.
That is another reminder that biology is rarely simple.
A cell is constantly integrating many signals at once.
Chemical gradients.
Mechanical pressure.
Neighboring cells.
Nutrients.
Immune messages.
Electrical state.
Healing emerges from all of these layers interacting.
THE BODY CREATES ITS OWN ELECTRICAL ENVIRONMENT
This is where the subject becomes especially interesting to me.
We often talk about electricity as though it is something external that we apply to the body.
A pacemaker.
A defibrillator.
Electrical stimulation.
A medical device.
But the body already produces its own electrical environment.
Every intact tissue contains ion gradients.
Every cell has a membrane voltage.
Injuries create local electrical disturbances.
Groups of cells can respond collectively to those changes.
The body is not waiting for electricity to arrive from outside.
It is already using electrical information from within.
That does not make the process mysterious.
But it does make the body far more dynamic than a purely structural picture suggests.
REPAIR, REGENERATION, AND THE QUESTION OF PATTERN
Repair and regeneration are not exactly the same thing.
Repair may close a wound and restore function while leaving scar tissue.
Regeneration goes further. It recreates missing structures in an organized way.
Some animals can regenerate limbs, spinal cord tissue, tails, or other complex structures far more successfully than humans can.
Researchers studying bioelectricity are interested in whether electrical patterns help cells maintain information about anatomy—what shape should exist, where boundaries belong, and what tissue should form.
A 2017 review of bioelectricity and regeneration describes endogenous voltage patterns as information-bearing signals associated with growth, development, wound healing, and regeneration. [Mathews et al., 2017]
Research on injury-generated fields in highly regenerative nervous systems has also found that tissue damage creates strong ionic currents and electric fields that can influence migration, proliferation, and differentiation—behaviors essential to regeneration. [Cao et al., 2016]
This is not the same as saying electricity contains a complete blueprint of the body.
But researchers are asking whether bioelectric patterns participate in maintaining and restoring biological form.
That is a remarkable question.
CAN WE USE ELECTRICAL SIGNALS THERAPEUTICALLY?
Medicine has been experimenting with electrical stimulation for wound care for decades.
Research reviews have examined external electrical stimulation for chronic and difficult-to-heal wounds, including effects on cell migration, blood flow, tissue formation, and wound closure.
A 2022 review describes electrical stimulation as an emerging therapy inspired directly by the wound’s endogenous electric field, while also emphasizing that there are still major questions about optimal stimulation patterns, mechanisms, and translation into routine care. [Ashrafi et al., 2022]
More recent research continues to explore wearable devices, electroactive dressings, conductive materials, and small electrical stimulation systems intended to support tissue repair.
So this is not a fringe question.
Researchers are actively trying to understand how to work with the body’s electrical repair systems.
WHERE DOES THIS LEAVE ENERGY HEALING?
It would be tempting to make a leap here.
The body uses electrical signals during healing.
Reiki practitioners talk about energy.
Therefore Reiki must be manipulating bioelectric wound fields.
That conclusion would go beyond the evidence.
We do not know that Reiki, intuitive energy healing, chakras, meridians, or subtle-energy practices operate through these specific mechanisms.
But the science of bioelectricity does give us a more expansive picture of the body.
Healing is not only chemical.
Cells respond to voltage.
Tissues generate fields.
Electrical gradients can carry directional information.
Electrical state can influence repair.
That does not prove every energetic model.
But it does make one thing clear:
Living systems are energetic systems in a very literal biological sense.
And once we understand that, the conversation becomes much more interesting.
SCIENCE MAY MEASURE ONE LAYER OF A LARGER EXPERIENCE
Spiritual traditions have spoken for centuries about flow, blockage, balance, life force, and the restoration of harmony.
Modern biology speaks about ion gradients, membrane voltage, electrical fields, cell polarity, signaling networks, and collective tissue behavior.
Those are not interchangeable languages.
But I do not think we need to force them apart either.
Science can tell us that cells follow electrical cues toward a wound.
It can measure injury currents.
It can observe voltage gradients.
It can manipulate them experimentally.
Spiritual practice may be asking a different question:
What is the experience of wholeness, balance, flow, and connection within a living person?
Perhaps those are entirely different layers.
Perhaps someday we will understand more overlap between them.
For now, both perspectives remind us that healing is not a single event.
It is coordination.
It is communication.
It is organization.
And sometimes, part of that communication is electrical.
WHAT WE KNOW — AND WHAT WE ARE STILL LEARNING
We know that wounds generate endogenous electrical currents and fields.
We know that many cells involved in repair can respond directionally to those fields.
We know that electrical cues can influence migration, proliferation, polarity, and other behaviors important to healing.
We know that disrupting those signals can alter repair.
We know that researchers are investigating ways to use electrical stimulation and electroactive materials therapeutically.
What we do not yet fully understand is how all of this electrical information is integrated with biochemical, mechanical, genetic, immune, and perhaps other forms of signaling across the whole organism.
That is where the mystery remains.
And I think mystery is where curiosity belongs.
SOURCES FOR CURIOUS READERS
Nuccitelli R. A Role for Endogenous Electric Fields in Wound Healing. Current Topics in Developmental Biology. 2003.
McCaig CD, Song B, Rajnicek AM. Electrical Dimensions in Cell Science. Journal of Cell Science. 2009.
Zhao M, et al. Electrically Stimulated Cell Migration and Its Contribution to Wound Healing. Burns & Trauma. 2018.
Tai G, et al. Bioelectric Signaling: Role of Bioelectricity in Directional Cell Migration in Wound Healing. Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology. 2022.
Mathews J, et al. Nature's Electric Potential: A Systematic Review of the Role of Bioelectricity in Wound Healing and Regenerative Processes in Animals, Humans, and Plants. Frontiers in Physiology. 2017.
Zhao M, et al. The Electrical Response to Injury: Molecular Mechanisms and Wound Healing. Advances in Wound Care. 2014.
Cao L, et al. Endogenous Bioelectric Fields: A Putative Regulator of Wound Repair and Regeneration in the Central Nervous System. Neural Regeneration Research. 2016.
Ashrafi M, et al. Status and Challenges of Electrical Stimulation Use in Chronic Wound Healing. Current Opinion in Biotechnology. 2022.
The Nervous System as an Energy System: Regulation, Safety, and Healing
Your nervous system communicates through electrical and chemical signals and constantly adjusts to the world around you. Explore why regulation and felt safety matter so much in healing work.
The nervous system is one of the clearest examples of energy and information moving through the body.
Neurons communicate through electrochemical signals. Nerves carry information between brain, spinal cord, organs, muscles, and sensory systems. Your autonomic nervous system continually adjusts heart rate, breathing, digestion, blood-vessel tone, and many other functions.
Your nervous system is always listening
It is monitoring both the outside world and your internal state. A sound, memory, facial expression, physical sensation, conflict, pain, or sense of connection can shift your state before you have consciously decided anything.
A major review of the stress response and the extended autonomic system describes the deep integration of autonomic, hormonal, immune, and brain systems in maintaining homeostasis and responding to stress.
Why safety matters
“Safety” does not mean pretending everything is okay. It means the body has enough signals of support that it does not have to devote every resource to defense.
This is one reason a quiet environment, grounded practitioner, predictable touch, permission, boundaries, and choice can matter during healing work.
Energy work can begin with regulation
I do not see nervous-system work and energy work as competitors. They can support one another.
Grounding, slow breathing, gentle attention to the body, and quiet Reiki can create conditions in which a person has a chance to soften. That does not prove a particular energetic mechanism. It simply recognizes something very practical: a regulated system has more room for awareness.
The body is electrical—but energy language is broader
The nervous system’s electrical activity is measurable science. When someone says, “My energy feels calmer,” they may be describing a larger subjective experience that includes nervous-system state, emotion, attention, meaning, and perhaps something they understand spiritually.
We do not have to force all of those layers into one explanation.
Sometimes healing starts not with doing more, but with helping the body realize it no longer has to fight the entire world at once.
Sources for curious readers
Your Body Is Electrical: The Science We Already Accept About Human Energy
Your heart, brain, nerves, muscles—and even ordinary cells—depend on electrical activity. Explore the science of bioelectricity, how cells use voltage as information, and why the body's electrical nature opens fascinating questions about healing and human energy.
When people hear the phrase “human energy,” the conversation can become surprisingly divided.
Some people immediately think of Reiki, chakras, qi, prana, intuition, or the aura.
Others think of those ideas as spiritual language rather than science.
But there is one part of this conversation that is not controversial at all:
The human body is electrical.
Not metaphorically. Not poetically. Literally.
Every cell in your body depends on differences in electrical charge. Your heart beats because specialized cells generate and conduct electrical signals. Your brain and nerves communicate through electrochemical impulses. Muscles contract because electrical changes across cell membranes trigger molecular events inside the cell.
And increasingly, researchers are looking beyond nerves and muscles to ask a broader question:
What role does bioelectricity play in the way cells grow, organize, communicate, repair, and maintain the structure of the body?
That question takes us into a fascinating part of modern biology—one that feels surprisingly close to conversations energy healers have been having for a very long time.
WHAT DOES “BIOELECTRICITY” ACTUALLY MEAN?
Bioelectricity refers to electrical phenomena generated by living cells.
At the most basic level, cells maintain different concentrations of charged particles—ions such as sodium, potassium, calcium, and chloride—inside and outside their membranes.
That separation of charge creates a voltage across the cell membrane, called the membrane potential.
Ion channels and pumps continually regulate these electrical differences.
Neurons are famous for using rapid changes in membrane voltage to transmit signals, but they are not the only cells with electrical properties.
A 2025 review by GuangJun Zhang and Michael Levin describes bioelectricity as an ancient and fundamental property of living cells, not something limited to nerves and muscles. The authors review evidence that bioelectric signaling participates in cell migration, proliferation, differentiation, development, regeneration, and disease. [Zhang & Levin, 2025]
That matters because our familiar picture of the body's electrical system is usually much narrower.
Most of us learned that the brain is electrical.
We learned that the heart is electrical.
We may never have been taught that electrical signaling also helps coordinate what ordinary, non-neural cells do.
THE ELECTRICITY WE ALREADY USE IN MEDICINE
Modern medicine already depends on the electrical nature of the body.
An electrocardiogram, or ECG/EKG, records electrical activity associated with the heartbeat.
An electroencephalogram, or EEG, records electrical activity generated by networks of neurons in the brain.
Pacemakers work by delivering carefully timed electrical impulses to help regulate heart rhythm.
Defibrillators use electrical energy in an attempt to restore an effective rhythm during certain life-threatening cardiac arrhythmias.
We accept these technologies because the electrical activity involved can be measured, mapped, and manipulated.
But there is something important hidden in plain sight here:
Biology and electricity are not separate topics.
Electricity is part of biology.
EVERY CELL HAS A VOLTAGE
One of the most interesting developments in bioelectric research is the recognition that membrane voltage is not simply a background condition that keeps cells alive.
It can also function as information.
In a widely cited review, Michael Levin describes how patterns of membrane voltage can influence cell proliferation, differentiation, migration, shape, and programmed cell death. Cells also communicate electrically with neighboring cells through structures such as gap junctions, creating networks of bioelectrical information. [Levin, 2014]
This does not mean cells are tiny batteries in the ordinary household sense.
But the analogy can be helpful.
Like a battery, a cell uses separation of charge to create an electrical potential. Unlike a simple battery, however, a living cell constantly changes that electrical state in response to its environment and to signals from other cells.
Researchers are increasingly interested in the possibility that these voltage patterns help cells answer questions such as:
Where am I?
What kind of cell should I become?
Should I divide?
Should I migrate?
What structure belongs here?
What should happen after injury?
Those are remarkable questions for an electrical signal to help answer.
BIOELECTRICITY AND HEALING
Wound healing is one of the clearest places where endogenous electrical activity becomes visible.
When tissue is injured, normal electrical gradients across the tissue are disrupted. This creates injury-associated currents and electric fields.
Research has shown that these endogenous electric fields can influence the direction cells migrate—a process sometimes called electrotaxis or galvanotaxis.
A systematic review of bioelectricity in wound healing and regeneration concluded that naturally occurring voltage gradients are involved in growth, repair, and regenerative processes across multiple forms of life, including humans. [Mathews et al., 2017]
Earlier work has also shown that physiological-strength electric fields can affect cell migration, orientation, and nerve growth. [Levin, 2014]
This is not speculative energy medicine.
This is biology.
And it opens an interesting door.
If the body uses endogenous electrical information during healing and organization, how much more is there to understand about the relationship between electrical state and health?
BIOELECTRICITY IS NOT THE SAME THING AS REIKI
This distinction is worth making clearly.
The scientific study of bioelectricity does not prove that Reiki energy is identical to membrane voltage, injury currents, electromagnetic fields, or any other known biological phenomenon.
Those are different claims.
But bioelectricity does challenge the idea that talking about “energy” in relation to the body is automatically unscientific.
The body is not simply matter sitting still.
It is a dynamic system of chemical reactions, electrical potentials, ion flows, mechanical forces, electromagnetic activity, and information exchange.
Science can measure some of those processes extremely well.
Others are still being investigated.
And spiritual traditions may be using a different language entirely.
The interesting question is not whether one vocabulary has to defeat the other.
The interesting question is where they might overlap—and where they might be describing genuinely different things.
THE BODY AS AN INFORMATION SYSTEM
This is the part of bioelectricity I find especially compelling.
We often think of electricity as power.
Turn on a light. Run a motor. Charge a phone.
But in living systems, electrical states can also carry information.
A review on bioelectrical cell biology describes ion- and redox-based electrical processes as part of the communication systems that help organize growth and behavior in both prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells. [Cervera et al., 2020]
Another recent review argues that bioelectricity can operate at multiple levels—from the individual cell to tissues and whole organisms—and may help groups of cells coordinate behavior collectively. [Zhang & Levin, 2025]
That starts to sound less like electricity as a simple fuel and more like electricity as part of a language.
A language of voltage.
A language of pattern.
A language through which living cells participate in the organization of the whole.
That does not make the body mystical.
But it does make the body extraordinary.
WHAT SCIENCE KNOWS — AND WHAT IT IS STILL LEARNING
Science already knows that:
Every living cell maintains an electrical potential across its membrane.
The heart, nervous system, and muscles depend on electrical signaling.
Electrical states influence many cellular behaviors.
Endogenous electric fields participate in wound healing and cell migration.
Bioelectric patterns are being studied in development, regeneration, cancer, and regenerative medicine. [Levin et al., 2019]
What science does not yet know is equally interesting.
How much information is carried by large-scale bioelectric patterns?
How do electrical, biochemical, mechanical, and genetic signaling systems interact as a whole?
Can bioelectric states someday be deliberately altered to promote complex tissue repair or regeneration?
And from the perspective of energy healing:
Are any of the sensations, shifts, or patterns people experience during energy work related to known bioelectrical processes?
Or is energy healing engaging with something science has not yet learned how to characterize?
We do not know.
And again, not knowing is not a problem.
It is an invitation to keep looking.
SCIENCE AND SPIRITUALITY DO NOT NEED THE SAME VOCABULARY
Traditional healing systems spoke about qi, prana, meridians, chakras, life force, and energetic balance long before modern electrophysiology existed.
Modern biology speaks about ion gradients, membrane potentials, gap junctions, endogenous electric fields, electromagnetic signals, and bioelectric networks.
Those terms are not interchangeable.
But I think there is value in placing them beside one another without forcing either side into a conclusion it has not earned.
Ancient practitioners did not have voltage-sensitive dyes, electrodes, microscopes, or molecular genetics.
Modern laboratories may be able to measure processes that earlier cultures could only experience indirectly—or the two traditions may be describing different layers of human experience.
Either possibility is interesting.
The body is electrical.
That much is established.
What that fact may eventually teach us about healing, consciousness, organization, and the deeper nature of living systems is still unfolding.
And I think that is a wonderful place to remain curious.
SOURCES FOR CURIOUS READERS
The Human Biofield: What Science Is Beginning to Ask About Living Systems
The human body is electrical, produces measurable electromagnetic activity, and even emits extremely faint light. Could these discoveries tell us something about the “energy” spiritual traditions have described for centuries? Explore the emerging science of the human biofield—and the mystery that still remains.
Most of us were taught to think about the human body in terms of anatomy and chemistry.
Bones. Muscles. Organs. Hormones. Neurotransmitters. Blood. DNA.
All of those are real and important.
But living systems also generate and respond to electrical, magnetic, and even extremely faint light-based activity. That does not automatically prove the existence of an aura, chakras, Reiki energy, or any particular spiritual model. But it does raise a fascinating question:
Is there more happening in and around a living body than our traditional biochemical model describes?
Researchers have been asking versions of that question for decades.
One term that has emerged from that conversation is biofield.
WHERE DID THE WORD “BIOFIELD” COME FROM?
The word sounds very modern, but the idea behind it is much older.
Cultures around the world have long described life in terms of an organizing or animating force—qi, prana, ki, vital force, life force, breath, spirit.
The scientific term biofield entered the modern research conversation in the early 1990s. A historical review published in Global Advances in Health and Medicine describes the biofield concept as an attempt to create a framework for studying biological regulation and some of the phenomena historically associated with energy medicine. [Rubik et al., 2015]
That does not mean science declared an invisible healing field to be proven.
It means researchers needed language for asking questions that did not fit neatly inside a purely chemical description of the body.
That distinction matters.
Science often begins by creating a way to describe something before it fully understands it.
WHAT DO RESEARCHERS MEAN BY “BIOFIELD”?
There is not one universally settled definition.
One group of researchers proposed biofield physiology as an umbrella term for electromagnetic, biophotonic, and other spatially distributed fields that living organisms generate and respond to as part of cellular, tissue, and whole-body regulation. [Hammerschlag et al., 2015]
That is much broader than saying, “Scientists discovered the aura.”
They did not.
Instead, the biofield concept asks whether biological organization may involve communication and regulation occurring across multiple levels—and whether field-like processes deserve more investigation.
That question interests me because it sits right at the place where science and ancient healing traditions begin to look at one another.
Not necessarily agreeing.
But perhaps noticing some of the same mystery from very different directions.
WE ALREADY KNOW THE BODY IS ELECTRICALLY ACTIVE
There is nothing controversial about saying that the human body has measurable electrical activity.
Your heart depends on coordinated electrical signaling.
Your nervous system depends on electrical impulses.
Living cells maintain electrical differences across their membranes.
Those electrical processes also produce associated magnetic fields.
Modern medicine routinely measures some of this activity through technologies such as ECG and EEG.
So a living person is not merely a collection of chemicals.
We are electrochemical organisms.
The more interesting question begins when we ask whether those known electrical and electromagnetic processes account for everything practitioners and spiritual traditions describe as energy—or whether they represent only one measurable part of something larger.
At this point, science does not have a definitive answer.
LIVING CELLS ALSO EMIT LIGHT
Here is one of the more fascinating pieces of established biology.
Living systems emit extremely small amounts of light.
Researchers usually call this ultraweak photon emission, or UPE. A 2019 review of human UPE describes it as a measurable, visually undetectable phenomenon influenced by internal and external factors, including oxidative processes and physiological state. [Calcerrada & Garcia-Ruiz, 2019]
A 2024 review describes UPE as photons produced at extremely low intensities, largely as by-products of cellular metabolism, and notes that improved technology is making these emissions easier to detect and study. [Mould et al., 2024]
Human skin has also been directly imaged for ultraweak photon emission, with changes observed under oxidative stress such as ultraviolet exposure. [Ou-Yang et al., 2019]
Does that mean science has discovered the spiritual light people have described for centuries?
No.
But I still think it is remarkable.
Human beings used the language of light, radiance, energy, and life force long before we had equipment capable of detecting photons emitted by living tissue.
Maybe those ideas are unrelated.
Maybe some ancient descriptions were symbolic.
Maybe people were describing subjective spiritual experiences rather than physical light.
Or perhaps some traditional observations will eventually intersect with biology in ways we have not yet imagined.
We do not have to decide prematurely.
THIS IS WHERE CURIOSITY MATTERS
There is a tendency to approach questions like this from one of two extremes.
One side may say:
“If science cannot currently measure the energy used in Reiki, then it cannot exist.”
The other may say:
“Science has discovered electromagnetic fields and biophotons, therefore Reiki and chakras are scientifically proven.”
I do not find either position especially satisfying.
The first closes the door before the investigation is complete.
The second claims an answer that the research has not actually given us.
There is a much more interesting space between those two positions.
We can acknowledge what is already measurable.
We can respect what is still unknown.
And we can remain open to the possibility that our scientific model of life is still developing.
Because of course it is.
SCIENCE HAS CHANGED ITS MODEL OF THE BODY BEFORE
For much of medical history, people could observe biological effects without understanding their mechanisms.
Microorganisms existed before microscopes made them visible.
Genes affected inheritance long before DNA was understood.
The nervous system changed with experience long before modern neuroscience developed the language we now use for neuroplasticity.
None of that means every unexplained spiritual idea will eventually become established science.
It simply means:
“We cannot currently explain it” and “it cannot be real” are not the same statement.
That difference leaves room for investigation.
And for wonder.
IS THE BIOFIELD THE SAME AS THE AURA?
This is one of the questions people naturally ask.
The most accurate answer is:
We do not know that they are the same thing.
The aura is generally a spiritual or energetic concept describing a field or layers of energy surrounding a person.
The biofield is a research framework intended to investigate field-based aspects of living systems.
There are obvious conceptual similarities.
But using one word does not scientifically validate everything associated with the other.
Personally, I do not need them to be proven identical in order to find the comparison meaningful.
Spiritual traditions developed their language through observation, intuition, embodied experience, and spiritual practice.
Science develops its language through measurement, experimentation, and repeatability.
Those methods are different.
Sometimes they may eventually describe overlapping parts of the same reality.
Sometimes they may not.
WHY THIS MATTERS FOR ENERGY HEALING
When I practice Reiki or other forms of energy work, I am working from a model that says we are more than just our physical structure.
That does not require me to reject biology.
Quite the opposite.
The deeper I look into biology, neuroscience, consciousness, the nervous system, electrical signaling, and emerging biofield research, the more extraordinary the human body becomes.
Energy work does not have to compete with medicine.
Spiritual experience does not have to compete with science.
They can ask different questions.
Medicine may ask:
What disease process is occurring, and how do we treat it?
Biofield research may ask:
How do living systems organize and regulate themselves through forms of information and energy?
Energy healing may ask:
What happens when we intentionally support balance within the whole person?
Spirituality may ask:
Is there an aspect of life that extends beyond what we currently know how to measure?
I think all four questions are worth asking.
WHAT WE KNOW, WHAT WE WONDER
We know that living bodies are electrically active.
We know that biological electromagnetic activity exists.
We know that living cells emit ultraweak photons. [Calcerrada & Garcia-Ruiz, 2019]
We know that researchers have proposed the biofield as a framework for investigating aspects of biological organization that may not fit neatly within a purely biochemical model. [Rubik et al., 2015]
We do not yet know whether these measurable phenomena explain Reiki, chakras, auras, qi, prana, intuitive healing, or the many other experiences people have described throughout human history.
And that is okay.
Mystery is not failure.
Sometimes mystery is simply the place where the next question begins.
For me, that is one of the most exciting places where science and spirituality meet.
SOURCES FOR CURIOUS READERS
Rubik B, Muehsam D, Hammerschlag R, Jain S. Biofield Science and Healing: History, Terminology, and Concepts. Global Advances in Health and Medicine. 2015.
Hammerschlag R, Levin M, McCraty R, et al. Biofield Physiology: A Framework for an Emerging Discipline. Global Advances in Health and Medicine. 2015.
Calcerrada M, Garcia-Ruiz C. Human Ultraweak Photon Emission: Key Analytical Aspects, Results and Future Trends—A Review. Critical Reviews in Analytical Chemistry. 2019.
Mould RR, et al. Ultra Weak Photon Emission—A Brief Review. Frontiers in Physiology. 2024.