In this episode, the team explores the relationship between spirituality and science, discussing the biblical and scientific underpinnings of energy medicine. Dr. Oshman illuminates the audience on the significance of grounding, piezoelectricity, and the vital electrical currents that run through our bodies. As they break down complex concepts, listeners are invited to reimagine the healing potential of our connections with the earth and each other.
Get ready to be awed by the handiwork of God. Tune in to Real Science Radio.
SPEAKER 03 :
Turn up the Real Science Radio. Keeping it real.
SPEAKER 04 :
Greetings to the brightest audience in the country. This is Real Science Radio. I’m Fred Williams.
SPEAKER 02 :
And I’m Doug McBurney, science geek, Bible student, and amateur comedian. Fred, it is great to be with you talking about real science on Friday.
SPEAKER 04 :
So a few months ago, one of our producers who was inspired by our show with Gerald Pollack on Structured Water He watched a video on energy medicine and suggested that we interview Dr. James Oshman to let our audience know about it. That’s right, Fred.
SPEAKER 02 :
James Oshman, Ph.D., has both academic credentials and a background in alternative therapies. His degrees are in biophysics and biology from the University of Pittsburgh. He’s worked in major research labs around the world, including Cambridge, Case Western, University of Copenhagen, Northwestern, where he was on faculty, and the Marine Biological Laboratory, where he was a staff scientist. Many of his scientific papers have been published in the world’s leading journals. He’s written two books, Energy Medicine, The Scientific Basis, and Energy Medicine and Therapeutics and Human Performance. providing a theoretical basis for exploring the physiology and biophysics of energy medicines. Dr. Oshman, welcome to Real Science Radio.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, thank you. It’s a delight to be with you folks and with your audience.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, thank you, Dr. Oshman. And can you tell us about energy medicine and what led you into this field?
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, my sore back got me into this field.
SPEAKER 02 :
Your sore back.
SPEAKER 05 :
And one of my students at Northwestern recommended rolfing. And I had never heard of it. And I tried it out, and it fixed my back. And I became very interested in what they were doing.
SPEAKER 04 :
So they suggested what? Ralphing?
SPEAKER 05 :
Ralphing.
SPEAKER 02 :
Oh, yeah. Now, Jim, I’m familiar with Ralphing, but our audience may not be. Most people get a massage on their muscles. Ralphing is deep tissue, like massaging the deep fascia and the connective tendons. And I’ve heard it described as a… as a massage from hell because it can be quite painful, I’ve heard. Is that true?
SPEAKER 05 :
It’s better to describe it as producing sensations.
SPEAKER 02 :
Okay, if you’re trying to get somebody to sign up, that would be the way you would want to describe that. So you had some rolfing done and it did help and it led you into further research?
SPEAKER 05 :
That was my beginning. I met Ida Rolf, who founded the Rolfing Procedure. And I gave lectures at the Rolf Institute in Boulder, Colorado. And it turned out everybody was interested in the stuff I had put together for the Rolfers. So I got invited to all kinds of places to talk about energy medicine, to conferences and workshops. And literally all over the country, And all over the world. I’ve been to something like 23 countries. So there’s huge interest. I’ve been to every major city in the U.S. talking about energy. So it’s a good subject. It’s good for people to know about energy. It can help you live longer and happier.
SPEAKER 04 :
Okay, so with this energy medicine, is there one particular or most effective energy-based therapy that you recommend or that you’ve gotten involved with, or is there just a whole plethora of them?
SPEAKER 05 :
They’re all different, and they all do different things, and I suggest trying them out. Find out who your vocal energy practitioner is. Go see them. See what they do. Talk to them about their work. You’ll find somebody. who really is just right for you.
SPEAKER 02 :
Okay, so tell me what energy medicine does. Is this as simple as going outside and just absorbing sunlight? Is that energy medicine, or is there more to it than just sunlight?
SPEAKER 05 :
Plenty more than sunlight, as I will describe when we get to earthing.
SPEAKER 02 :
Earthing.
SPEAKER 05 :
Earthing is just as important as sunlight.
SPEAKER 02 :
Okay. Well, so you may know, Dr. Ashman, we are young earth creationists, and one of our favorite topics is the overwhelming evidence that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and His Son, Jesus Christ, created everything just a few thousand years ago. And you mentioned earthing, and so I just want to let our audience know that that the Bible clearly indicates that there is a physical connection between our bodies and the earth. Beginning in Genesis 2-7, where the Bible says, And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul. Dr. Oshman, we’re made out of the same thing as the earth. And you say there’s a connection that’s beneficial.
SPEAKER 05 :
That’s right. I would like to read about your favorite subject. If you can direct me to some of the work that’s been done in relation to the creationist concepts, I would like that.
SPEAKER 02 :
Absolutely. Oh, yes. Well, I will definitely. I recommend Genesis. That’s a good one. But there’s there’s a lot of good extra biblical information as well. And by the way, so for people who are familiar with the Bible, we’re familiar with the story of Adam and Eve and the fall of man. Right. Everything was created good. And then man sinned and sin and death entered into the world. And people may not remember from Genesis that when man sinned against God, God cursed the ground. In Genesis 3.17, God said to Adam, Cursed is the ground for thy sake. In sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life. So there’s a connection, a biblical connection between man and the earth when God cursed the the man he didn’t curse the man he cursed the earth and the man came from the earth so obviously the curse passed on and by the way dr ashman a curse isn’t a magical spell from god a curse is just god describing the conditions to the man as they now existed but the connection between the man and the earth obviously was a very good connection. And even though now there’s a curse involved, that doesn’t mean that the earth is not good and that we don’t need the earth and that we can’t benefit from the earth. The earth is obviously critical and essential to our survival, our well-being, our longevity and everything. How can we better connect to the earth as far as your research has led you in energy medicine?
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, the first thing you can do that’s easy and free and Wonderful is take your shoes and socks off and go walking in the grass. Oh, yeah. We can’t do that here in New Hampshire right now because we snow on the ground. But that’s one way you can do it if you have grass. There are one of the ways that is very effective is well known to women who do gardening. They get their hands in the soil. That makes you feel good to touch the earth. And the other is a variety of devices that will bring the energy of the earth into your home or into your office, into your bed, so that you can sleep better. And that’s very important. Sleep is very important. And there’s lots of insomnia in the world. and it’s straightened out by sleeping grounded.
SPEAKER 02 :
Oh, really? So my wife and I have both slept worse and worse as we get older and older, Dr. Oshman, and we just thought that it’s just like, okay, you’re just getting old and you’re not going to be able to sleep very well, or maybe it’s hormones. You’re saying that maybe just sleeping grounded might help? How do I do that?
SPEAKER 05 :
Earthing.com. There are various devices you can get that will bring… You can either plug it into the grounding outlet in your electrical system in your home or you can stick a rod in the earth and bring the wire up through your bedroom window and attach it to a sheet or other device on your bed that will bring the… the energy of the earth right to you.
SPEAKER 04 :
So I’d like to ask, that sounds really interesting because, yeah, I’m like Doug and his wife. I’m the same. My wife and I, as we’ve gotten older, we’ve noticed how we just don’t sleep as well. I mean, sometimes we do, but a lot of times we don’t. We complain about it. What’s the scientific background for this? Because I know you’ve been in this field for a long time and you’re a scientist. Could you share with our audience maybe a little bit of that science so that we can understand how this could be an effective therapy? I know maybe it has something to do with electromagnetism, things like that.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, basically, people don’t sleep as well as they used to because they have aches and pains. And grounding brings electrons into your body that take care of your aches and pains. They neutralize the free radicals. that cause problems, chronic and serious issues, acute problems and chronic problems that can develop into disease. So putting a sleep system on your bed takes about five minutes, and you can forget it, and you’ll sleep much better.
SPEAKER 02 :
And who figured all this out?
SPEAKER 05 :
This is the work of Clint Ober. Actually, in the slides, I described some of the early work done in Europe. But the modern work was started by Clint Ober, also some scientists from Poland. And now there’s a whole group of scientists. People get really inspired by it. And we have a whole team of about two dozen scientists involved. working and what the work involved in one one of the big questions is how does connecting to the earth solve so many different it’s over 200 different health issues why is that and the inflammation connection is one of them and we’re working on some of the others take us through the history take take us back to the beginning and tell us where this all came from dr ashman Well, the European work in the 18th century, one of the scientists said that there is some vital something that comes from the earth. He didn’t know what it was, but he was right. And if you look at the slides, you will see, first of all, work on the human body using thermography. Where there is inflammation, there’s heat. And the heat shows up in the thermograms. And there’s an example I give of a woman who who was grounded in 30 minutes. We didn’t need her cane anymore. And she went, after a few treatments, or a few half-hour sessions of earthing, she decided to go dancing, which she hadn’t done for many years. So there’s the work on people. Animals love earthing. And there’s also work on planets done by professor gary schwartz at the university of arizona who studied sunflower and you’ll see some pictures of sunflowers grounded sunflowers that is in pots would have a wire connected to the earth grow much better and the ones that are connected don’t do very well at all and you can see the pictures of the sunflowers
SPEAKER 02 :
Yes, and these are cut sunflowers, but one is connected to the earth via a wire and the other is not. And that’s pretty, pretty amazing. But just to go back to your slide on inflammation. So it’s now very well understood that inflammation is the source of. a vast array of disease and discomfort and threats to longevity. It’s well known that inflammation is the culprit. And this picture, this thermography picture is, I mean, it’s frankly amazing. If this is real, that’s astonishing that inflammation levels could vary that much within a half hour, no matter what you do. And this was just grounding the patient to the earth.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, what antioxidants do is they deliver electrons to a site of inflammation, but much quicker to use a wire that connects to the earth. much faster, much more effective. And what I’ve worked on is a conductive system in the body that conducts the electrons from your feet, for example, if you’re walking barefoot on the earth, or from a patch. There are patches you can put on a place that hurts. We discovered that chronic pulmonary problems, including COVID, are helped dramatically by putting electrode patches on the chest, connect them to the earth. It’s fantastic. An Iraqi scientist had a hospital full of patients, and he tested it on a bunch of patients, and it really worked, including patients who had very low blood oxygen. And the earthing connection improved their respiration incredibly well.
SPEAKER 02 :
Wow. And so this conductive system that you’re talking about, it’s in our body. So our body is made up of collagen and proteins and keratinocytes and all these tissues. And you’re saying these tissues have conductive properties that we can tap into and benefit from?
SPEAKER 04 :
So before you answer that, Dr. Oshman, Doug, you’re getting into the interesting fact of the week that I wanted to
SPEAKER 02 :
Oh, and Dr. Oshman, you may not be aware, but every week we introduce the interesting fact of the week. And our audience is on the edge of their seat right now that we’ve brought up the interesting fact of the week, because this is no doubt the highlight. of every show. And so Dr. Oshman, I may have to ask you for help, but Fred, what is the interesting fact of the week this week?
SPEAKER 04 :
All right. Well, it has to do with the piezoelectric effect. Remember that with the hydroplate theory?
SPEAKER 02 :
I remember piezoelectric effect. Yes. It has to do with granite generating electrical currents by fluctuations, right?
SPEAKER 04 :
You’re right. So here’s the interesting fact of the week. Which part of the human body has piezoelectric properties, meaning it can generate an electric charge under mechanical stress.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, the skeleton is the major source of piezoelectric effects, but all the tissues… Let’s see if Doug can get it, because see, Jim, I have this buzzer here that I like to hit when he gets it wrong.
SPEAKER 04 :
So Doug, go ahead.
SPEAKER 02 :
Oh, what part of the body, what part of my body is capable of generating electrical current under stress? So it’s not my tongue, but it’s not my lower back, is it?
SPEAKER 04 :
So Dr. Oshman was already giving you the correct answer.
SPEAKER 02 :
Dr. Oshman, can you help? Tell me, help me out here.
SPEAKER 05 :
The place that’s been studied the most is bone. Bone. Bone.
SPEAKER 02 :
So, you know, Dr. Ashman, that’s how you know an answer is right. When as soon as someone says it, you’re like, of course, that’s obvious. Bone. Okay. Wow. That’s amazing. That’s actually been studied.
SPEAKER 04 :
Bone and connective tissue. Yep.
SPEAKER 05 :
And one of the things that we know about bone is that when it’s under stress, it generates electricity. And the electricity activates the cells that either… produce more bone or produce, take bone away so the body can remodel. The skeleton is constantly remodeling itself according to the amount of stress that’s placed on it. So if you keep using the same bone over and over again, or the same anything over and over again, the body responds adapts to that use by strengthening the part that you’re using. And the piezoelectric effect is the mechanism by which the cells know what to do. They know that the body is constantly monitoring the use of the tissues and adapting them to the way they’re being used. It’s really interesting.
SPEAKER 02 :
Amazing. So that’s one of the things we talk about a lot on our show is that the body is anyway, any biological system is an information based system. It’s based on the exchange of information even between cells and organelles. And this idea that a piezoelectrical effect influencing the behavior of… Now, are you talking about the behavior of the extracellular matrix? Are you talking about the behavior of cells themselves? Or are you talking about the delivery of… Various cytokines and growth factors and metalloproteinases and all that stuff.
SPEAKER 05 :
I’m talking about the bone cells, the osteoblasts and the osteocytes. And the blasts lay down new bone. Wow. And the osteocytes remove excess bone. So those are the cells that are listening to the way you use your body. But everything is listening.
SPEAKER 02 :
Amazing.
SPEAKER 05 :
I mean, if you’re a muscle builder, the more you exercise your muscles, the bigger they get. That’s part of the body’s adaptation. And not only do the bones get stronger, but the muscles get bigger too. The circulation gets improved. Everything changes when you exercise a particular part of the body. And it’s not permanent. When you go back to couch potato, everything goes back to the way it was before.
SPEAKER 04 :
So regular workouts is recommended. So, Dr. Oshman, you know, with my background as an electrical engineer, you mentioned this piezoelectric effect. So, you know, it got me to thinking while I was researching for your show, there’s a lot of people don’t realize we’ve got electricity in our bodies, right? And with electricity, whenever you’ve got a current, you’re going to have magnetism. So there’s electromagnetic effect there. Don’t you write about things like biofields and these subtle energies? Is there anything that you’d like to elaborate on that and how it influences health and healing? I mean, you’ve already kind of touched on it, but I just find it, from my perspective, you know, the whole… magnetism of your body and the energy. It’s interesting, the current that goes through it.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yes, the body actually uses all forms of energy. And when there, as you said, when there is current flow, there are magnetic fields set up in the surrounding space. It’s a law of physics. So one of the mysterious things is that people hold their hands near a part of your body that hurts and the pain goes away and and looked out superficially that would seem to be peculiar but it’s not because the magnetic fields coming from the therapist’s hands are perfect for stimulating the cells in the patient to function more effectively so there’s a bunch of therapies which don’t involve touch. Touch is very effective, too, because when you touch the body, the change in the geometry generates these electric currents, which affect the cells, and cells are listening.
SPEAKER 04 :
So this makes a lot of sense to me. It seems like this energy medicine, though, it seems like it’s dismissed generally by the mainstream science. I mean, you know, why is that? And I guess I’d ask, is there a way that we could make this gain, you know, greater acceptance? Because isn’t it kind of considered a pseudoscience? Yet it sounds, you know, very compelling. Well, there’s a lot of it.
SPEAKER 05 :
And one of the things… that I recommended at an enormous hospital, teaching hospital down south, talking to the dean. They said, we need to teach the doctors physics so they know a bit about electricity and magnetism. And he thought that was a good idea, but he didn’t do it. And there’s a bias in medicine. What medicine is, modern medicine mainly, is learning how to write prescriptions. The idea of using your hands for healing, using energy, using frequencies, is not enjoyed, shall we say, by the pharmaceutical industry.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah. Well, so modern medicine, Western medicine and the pharmaceutical industry has brought us some wonderful advancements that have helped with suffering and to lengthen people’s lives. But like everything in human endeavor, it’s fallen. And we tend to get over our skis as human beings with every endeavor we take. we pursue and the the key to success is to recognize when you’re over your skis and start looking for other options and it seems to me that pharmaceuticals and western medicine have taken us to a point where perhaps we’re reaching a point of diminishing returns and and we’re losing sight of some things that are were probably common knowledge to our ancestors and it sounds like these these are some of the things you’ve tapped into exactly i was thinking about acupuncture i always thought that was kind of goofy but is acupuncture somehow tied into all this right it’s very effective people are afraid of needles we don’t want to be kneeled
SPEAKER 05 :
But somehow they manage to have an acupuncture treatment and they fall asleep. I fall asleep during an acupuncture treatment. It’s very relaxing. So it doesn’t hurt. There might be a little sensation when the needle goes in sometimes. But for whatever is ailing you, acupuncture can be extremely effective.
SPEAKER 02 :
Right, and of course, many Western physicians that I’ve interacted with over the years, they say, well, these rolfing, acupuncture, other what you might call earth medicines, energy medicines, these are all really just the result of the placebo effect. How would you answer that, that this is just a placebo effect?
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, I’ll take it. If it makes me feel better, that doesn’t matter. But it is more than the placebo effect. Acupuncture stimulates electric fields to go through the meridian system. And that’s part of the way the body talks to itself. And what happens is when you have an injury, a simple injury or a little bit of inflammation occurs. It can block the flow of information, the flow of energy, and you end up with aches and pains, which can be resolved by a number of different energy medicine technologies. I like them all. I’ve tried them all. They’re all good.
SPEAKER 02 :
Can you quickly give us a quick list, a description of the various energy medicines you’re familiar with?
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, it turns out that no matter what kind of therapy you use, after a while, the therapist begins to sense energies. And so chiropractic involves energy. In osteopathy, we talk about energy. Acupuncture, zero balancing, which is a very interesting method. Body talk is fantastic. Body talk is a method where the practitioner listens to your body, just listens to find out what is going on. And once you connect with what is going on, it changes. So Pilates, massage, I can send you a big list. I have a big, I have a nice list.
SPEAKER 02 :
all of the therapies that you’re describing, so they involve incorporating the sensory perception of the practitioner upon the patient. And we’ve talked on our show a lot about biology as an information system.
SPEAKER 01 :
Stop the tape, stop the tape. Hey, this is Dominic Enyart. We are out of time for today. If you want to hear the rest of this program, go to rsr.org. That’s Real Science Radio, rsr.org.
SPEAKER 03 :
Scholars can’t explain it all away. Get ready to be awed by the handiwork of God.
SPEAKER 1 :
Tune in to Real Science Radio. Turn up the Real Science Radio. Keeping it real.
In this episode, the team explores the relationship between spirituality and science, discussing the biblical and scientific underpinnings of energy medicine. Dr. Oshman illuminates the audience on the significance of grounding, piezoelectricity, and the vital electrical currents that run through our bodies. As they break down complex concepts, listeners are invited to reimagine the healing potential of our connections with the earth and each other.
