The Essence of Healing
We all experience healing in many forms throughout our lives. Our physical bodies heal with healthy food, vitamins, minerals and herbs. Our minds heal with positive thoughts and affirmations. Our spirits heal with prayer and intention. We heal on these levels because we exist as mind, body and spirit.
Many methods of healing seem disconnected as if they had nothing to do with one another. Nutrients seem to have nothing to do with intention or meditation. Affirmations seem to have no connection with healing energy.
With all of these methods working in seemingly different ways to heal, could they ever be explained by a common theory? Is there a fundamental process connecting all systems of healing?
In order to find such a common underlying process we must look deep into the essence of life. We must look deep into our bodies and the molecules that form them. When we do we find a fundamental process that is common to all life. We find that life has the special ability to evolve to higher levels of organization.
This ability is special because life exists in a universe that becomes more disorganized over time. Life’s special ability has to do with having a constant supply of something that keeps it from degenerating into disorganization. That something is called information.
The relatively new science of information theory may continue our understanding of the universe where quantum mechanics left off. Quantum mechanics shows that all things in the universe are connected. Information theory describes the universe as a large information processing unit.
Not only are we connected but we also exchange information with living and non-living things. A growing number of elite scientists now believe that all matter and energy consist of information. Information is at the essence of all things.
The new science of epigenetics has discovered other complex information systems residing outside of DNA. These systems affect how DNA is expressed. They connect with our bodies and minds producing a kind of an information feedback system to DNA. This means that both actions and thoughts can affect the expression of your genes.
You are an informational system. In order to keep on living you must somehow gather and integrate information into your being. The same goes for healing. Healing is an extension of the same underlying process of living.
We can view ourselves as existing on several informational levels. For example, the molecules of your body contain information in how they are put together. Exposing these molecules to information sources such as nutrients constitutes an exchange of information.
Likewise healing prayer may also restore order by sending information non-locally to the body. There are a large number of studies examining healing prayer as well as the effects of intention on others and machines.
What are the prospects of understanding healing in terms of information? For one, all healing systems can be described as essentially doing the same thing, which is sending healing information to the body. Alternative and mainstream systems become part of the same underlying information-transferring process.
Understanding healing in terms of exchanges of information may open up new fields of study such as informational medicine or informational healing. New systems of healing could emerge that combine techniques that may have previously seemed unrelated.
In the future alternative and mainstream practitioners may be able to communicate and work together with a common understanding of healing. If science is already beginning to understand matter and energy in terms of information perhaps the healing arts will soon follow.
Dr. Bruce Forciea
