Substack Live Re-Air: Did An Energy Healing Practice Stop Cancer Cells From Growing? | Meredith Sprengel

Summary

Mayim Bialik's Breakdown – Substack Live Re-Air: Did An Energy Healing Practice Stop Cancer Cells From Growing? | Meredith Sprengel
Air Date: August 7, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this special episode, Mayim Bialik and co-host Jonathan Cohen welcome Meredith Sprengel, a leading researcher in subtle energy medicine and program director at the Subtle Energy Funders Collective. The conversation bridges neuroscience, spirituality, and cutting-edge research to explore topics such as energy healing, the nature of consciousness, the concept of the biofield, and recent scientific findings—most notably, studies suggesting that energy healing can inhibit cancer cell growth. Sprengel shares both the scientific and experiential aspects of energy work, reflecting on the need to integrate these healing modalities into mainstream medicine for a more holistic approach to health and well-being.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

Introduction to Energy Healing and the Biofield

• Definitions and Concepts:

  • "Subtle energy is the mechanism by which healers describe that they're healing you, but they use a number of different terms. You could say subtle energy, God, consciousness, the universe... It's the energy that connects all of us and can help facilitate a healing response."
    — Meredith Sprengel [03:52]
  • The biofield refers to energy and information fields emitted by the body, not limited to measurable electromagnetic fields like those from the heart or brain.
  • While Western science is just beginning to measure these fields reliably (e.g., with ultra weak photon emission and electromagnetic sensors), spiritual and indigenous traditions have described them for centuries.

• Distinguishing Measurement and Mystery:

  • Current scientific tools can measure certain fields just centimeters beyond the skin, but healers and spiritual traditions claim broader, interconnected fields not yet captured by mainstream science.
  • "There's a lot of devices out there... they say they measure your aura or chakras, but there's no science to back it."
    — Meredith Sprengel [08:04]

Mechanisms of Healing: Theory, Science, and Tradition

• Healing Traditions:

  • "You have these ones that are really based in religion... and then you have energy and biofield healers that use language of modernity, like Reiki, healing touch, etc."
    — Meredith Sprengel [27:13]
  • The core distinction often lies in how practitioners conceptualize the source of healing—God, universal energy, or consciousness.
  • Advanced healers position themselves as conduits for this energy, as opposed to using their own energy (which, some report, can otherwise lead to depletion or illness in the healer).

• Role of the Practitioner vs. Self-Healing:

  • "Most healers will be like, well, you're healing yourself. I'm just giving you the space to do the healing."
    — Meredith Sprengel [31:39]
  • The process is often about getting recipients into a deep state of relaxation so natural self-repair mechanisms can operate, aided by the healer's presence and intention.

• Types and Lineages of Healing:

  • Practitioners are categorized as energy healers, biofield healers, or spiritual healers. Techniques range from hands-on (like Reiki or therapeutic touch) to purely intention-based (no physical contact).
  • There is significant variability based on tradition, lineage, and personal adaptation by each healer.

Evidence and Research: Bridging Science and Spirituality

• Measuring the Biofield:

  • Scientific initiatives are underway to reliably quantify biomagnetic, bioelectric, and even subtle light (biophoton) emissions from humans as indicators of health or disease.
  • Early studies have shown that patterns in the biofield may correlate with health states and even predict onset of illness, especially metabolic or chronic diseases.

• MD Anderson Cancer Study (Highlight):

  • Meredith Sprengel detailed a pioneering study by Dr. Lorenzo Cohen at MD Anderson Cancer Center, using the Bankston Method (a structured energy healing technique) on pancreatic cancer cells and animal models:
    • "He found that the practitioners were able to put the cancer just in essence and then stop metastasis... He saw changes in the bioelectrical gradient of the cell."
      — Meredith Sprengel [42:51]
    • This included only targeting cancer cells with no harm to healthy cells and alterations in tumor biology—providing early evidence for biofield interventions as a potential complement to cancer therapy.

• Preliminary Healing Experiments:

  • Sprengel mentioned small studies showing increases in biophoton emission in recipients of energy healing:
    • "People who said, 'I felt like I had a healing' had this really interesting increase in biophoton emissions... like someone went on a run!"
      — Meredith Sprengel [33:01]

Personal and Psychological Impact

• The Lifelong Process of Healing:

  • Healing is framed not as a finite event but a continuous journey:
    • "First, healing is a continuous process. I just want to say we are never healed. It's a whole lifelong journey."
      — Meredith Sprengel [38:29]
  • Healers (and participants) report that often the most profound effects are not the elimination of symptoms, but a shift in one's relationship to pain, anxiety, trauma, or chronic illness.

• Emotional Release and Group Healing:

  • Group healings can trigger "ripple effects" where participants collectively process deep-seated emotions and memories, enhancing both individual and collective healing.
  • "They're bringing us in reconnection with God, consciousness, source... we are all healing each other."
    — Meredith Sprengel [40:39]

• Therapeutic Alliance and Context:

  • The setting, context, and the intention set by the group or practitioner are all important amplifiers of the healing effect—echoing findings in psychedelic research and other integrative therapies.

Skepticism and Science's Role

• Integrating Healing with Conventional Medicine:

  • The conversation stresses the importance of viewing energy healing and conventional medicine as complementary:
    • "I would never tell anyone not to use traditional medicine as in the allopathic system, the system we all use. ...The system's really good at curing but not healing."
      — Meredith Sprengel [18:15]
  • Energy healing is posited as a valuable addition to chronic care, mental health, pain management, and preventive self-care.

• Cautions and Open Questions:

  • There is an acknowledgment of the skepticism in the scientific and medical community, as well as the gaps in measurement and mechanistic understanding.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "We literally have a biofield. We are bioelectric beings."
  — Meredith Sprengel [03:52]

• "Most healers will be like, well, you're healing yourself. I'm just giving you the space to do the healing, not to put my own judgment on it. That's what a good healer does."
  — Meredith Sprengel [31:39]

• "Cancer is a disease where the cells have forgotten its neighbors. It's gone off in a malignant path."
  — Meredith Sprengel paraphrasing a funder [42:51]

• "Whenever I hear that, I was like, oh, yeah, that's what it is, right? Because we're talking about a healing journey and we're talking about really sad things like chronic pain and anxiety and depression. And joy is kind of the antidote to all those things that keep us stuck."
  — Meredith Sprengel [45:51]

• "There are more things happening than we really understand when it comes to getting better, whatever better means, or overcoming the challenges that we're facing, whether physically or mentally..."
  — Jonathan Cohen [46:55]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 03:26 — Jonathan and Meredith begin defining "subtle energy," "biofield," and their scientific vs. experiential foundations.
• 06:10–10:45 — Delving into measuring the biofield; limitations and current state of science.
• 15:27 — Analogy to the discovery of germs and interstitium; the invisible becoming visible.
• 16:40 — How energy medicine may serve as early detection or a healing precursor, and why chronic diseases need a new approach.
• 23:22 — Different traditions, lineages, and roles of energy/spiritual/biofield healers.
• 27:13 — Historical vs. modern energy modalities and the spectrum from religious to universal paradigms.
• 31:39 — The practitioner as facilitator, not "doer" of healing.
• 33:00 — Early research: increases in biophoton emissions during healing sessions.
• 38:29 — Healing as an ongoing journey; the shift in relationship to pain and trauma.
• 40:39–42:05 — Group dynamics, community healing, and emotional processing.
• 42:31 — MD Anderson cancer cell study and implications for biofield interventions.
• 45:21 — Connection, meaning, and the joy in healing.

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Additional Resources

• Meredith Sprengel’s new podcast: Phenomena: The Science and Stories of Energy Healing (with Ivy Ross) – dives deeper into real-life healing stories and research.
• Follow ongoing research and updates at phenomenahealing.com.

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Tone and Language:
The episode is curious, open-minded, rigorous yet deeply respectful of both spiritual traditions and scientific inquiry—bridging worlds with humility and a sense of wonder.

Transcript

[Meredith Sprengel]

Foreign.

[Mayim Bialik]

Hi, I'm Mayim Bialik.

[Jonathan Cohen]

And I'm Jonathan Cohen.

[Mayim Bialik]

And welcome to our Breakdown. Today we've got a very special something for you. It was previously only available over on Substack. It's a conversation with Meredith Sprengel, research and program director for the Subtle Energy Funders Collective, as well as the fellowship director for the Biofield Fellowship Research Program. Her work centers on evaluating how complementary modalities can be incorporated into conventional medicine for the treatment of chronic disease. The goal is strengthening resilience, supporting well being and fostering more of a whole person healing. This conversation discusses energy healing which has been practiced for centuries but is now kind of finally we're seeing the science catching up and Jonathan is the perfect person to talk about that.

[Jonathan Cohen]

In this conversation, Meredith and I explore biofields and energy fields. We talk about the field that is emitted around our bodies and how science is starting to measure it. The research she's doing really is fascinating because it explores all the hippie ideas that spiritualists and healers have and how science is trying to translate them, understand them, and really help us get a better sense of how they can be used and how they impact our healing. One particular study that really stands out is the recent release of a cancer study from MD Anderson where energy healing was used to change cancer cells in petri dishes showing the reduction of cancer.

[Mayim Bialik]

Jonathan's also going to talk about his Reiki practice and a lot of what Meredith says really resonates with what Jonathan has experienced to be true as well as the people that Jonathan has worked with. Really, really incredible. Our Are we channeling God? Can we channel source? Can we channel consciousness? How do we release stuck energy? It's a great conversation. Please make sure also to check out Meredith's new six part podcast series with co host Ivy Ross which is called Phenomena the Science and Stories of Energy Healing where they sit down with healers, people who've received healing and scientists studying what is actually happening when we talk about energy work in particular. We really hope you enjoy this episode and we hope to see you. Over on Substack, here is Jo Jonathan

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[Jonathan Cohen]

Break it down as someone, myself who has practiced Reiki for a long time, who has thought a lot about hands on healing, the mind body connection when we hear words like subtle energy and biofield, a lot of people are like, they think they kind of know what it is. And then we quickly discover that we have no idea if we're all talking about the same thing.

[Meredith Sprengel]

Yeah, I mean, I think we have ideas of what they are, but I don't think we know what they are. I mean. So let's start with subtle energies. I mean, subtle energy is the mechanism by which that healers describe that they're healing you, but they use a number of different terms. You could say subtle energy, God, consciousness, the universe. And it's kind of the idea that that is that energy that connects all of us and can help facilitate a healing response. So when I talk to a lot of healers, it's kind of, kind of I do that a lot for my research. And healers say they heal by they connect themselves to source and then they're a channel for source energy or that subtle energy that then they use to then interact with participants biofield to help reset the blueprint. Right? The blueprint being of health and wellness and the core of who they are. And the idea is that over time there's these blockages of energy or this information that gets stored in this concept of a biofield that perturbs your health or then creates health and disease. A lot of times it originates with trauma, be it physical or mental health. This idea of a biofield. So we literally have a biofield. We are bioelectric beings. So we admit a bunch of different sources of bioelectricity from the heart, from the brain. Those are biological fields, right? It means that it extends outside of our skin and we can measure it. And we've done some of that, some preliminary work here in the Netherlands to measure biological Fields like ultra weak photon emissions and electromagnetic fields from the heart. The biofield that is kind of defined within this realm, which is this frontier form of science, like this subtle energy and biofield healing. They're fields of energy and information, not necessarily electromagnetic. So the idea is there might be some additional fields that we don't understand via physics or our current paradigm of science that we might also be sharing between us that might be creating that transpersonal healing effect you get from energy healing that may be core to the, to the mechanism of how it works. So. Or the idea that this somehow there's a collective biofield that's being manifested from all of these bioelectric fields. So these are all concepts and ideas that are grounded in science, but kind of extends outwards to try to explain what's happening. But there's very preliminary research, although the cellular G Funders collective for which I work, that is kind of what we're trying to do is to foster new science to understand these concepts.

[Jonathan Cohen]

First of all, I want to know about the types of healers that you're, you're speaking to who are describing this. Because I, you know, I, I have heard it described in many different ways. And you know, I was taught a very specific thing too, that over has a lot of overlap. Then of course there's the biofields themselves. And you know, the notion of God in consciousness entered your description early on and you're like, well, consciousness as a perception, consciousness as a field, like those are two very different ideas of that word. And then of course, God has its own stack of implications. The notion of the biofield as fields of energy and information admitted from the body, not necessarily electrical, but potentially partly electrical. How are these being studied? Because I think a lot of people who are curious about this and, and we've spoken to this, to this on the podcast I've spoken about like, oh, well, your body is not just your body. You have an energy body around you.

[Meredith Sprengel]

Yeah.

[Jonathan Cohen]

And if you're in meditation and, and you, you know, you look at your chakra system and then you think, okay, you know, you do the classic grounding technique where energy is being pulled from the ground up through my crown, the. And then comes cascading around me. You start to become aware of things outside of your skin. And then, well, how far does that go? And then you're suggesting, well, maybe we're all interconnected. And then the, you know, the field is actually there's just information being passed and, and it's an infinite amount of connection between my skin and someone else's skin. So like, these are huge ideas. Let's try and like pull them back because I think we're going at, you know, a hundred miles an hour, which I love, but I want to also help people come along for the ride. So start with. Yeah, do we have, you know, this notion of a field or an energy outside of our skin? How is it being measured? What, what do we know?

[Meredith Sprengel]

Yeah, we can definitely measure fields outside of the skin. Right. So again, the, the heart creates an electromagnetic field. You can measure that using things like gradiometers or squids. And these particularly will measure the, the, your heartbeat, but through the, the, the bioelectric signal that's coming from it. There's these things called ultra weak photon, this, ultra weak photon emission, these biophotons that are believed to be a byproduct of the mitochondria, but we don't really understand them. And these biophotons are ultra weak light. So you can measure them outside the body with particular boxes. That's another way you can measure a biological field coming off the body. And then you can also, you can also measure the brain, right? You also have electricity coming out of the brain. Those are kind of the core ones that most people are measuring right now and can measure reliably and with a good signal. These are all open source and open calibrated devices, meaning that science recognizes them as meaningful. There are a lot of devices out there that are closed box, meaning like you don't know how they work, but they say they measure your aura or they say they measure your chakras, or they, you put your finger in and it gives you a blueprint of your aura. There's no science to back it and there's no way to know if it works because the back end, meaning like how it works is, is shielded. So we know we have a biofield, this, this, that, that extends outside our body. Physicists would say it only extends like a few centimeters or a few inches outside your body. I think that this whole concept of measuring fields outside the body is new and we, we haven't really even switched fully into thinking about us as bioelectrical beings within the scientific paradigm. So I don't think we know, we don't know what we don't know right now. So I think it's almost like when I, when we do experiments, when we look at biological fields, it's kind of meeting where we're meeting science where it's at, which is kind of this, this, these very crude measurements that are, that are not always easy to measure. Right. Because a lot of times, like we live in a, we're in a very noisy electromagnetic environment. So, you know, there's a lot of places that this can go, these measuring biofields. But, and then there's some other concepts like these vector potential, vector and scalar wave potentials that people say, don't ask me what, don't ask me more than that. But like there are all these other concepts that have entered into the conversation about long range, transpersonal, sort of electromagnetic impact. I couldn't give you any science that would say that there's this biofield that connects all of us and that, that I, that right now you and I are somehow connected by some sort of biofield in terms of science. Right.

[Jonathan Cohen]

But I mean, it's not measurable yet, you know, and I want to be careful because we want to have the explanation and the data to help us understand these things. But it does make us think of our mutual friend Neil Thies, where all the hippies previously said that the body is interconnected by this system. And then every western doctor said, no, it's not. And then he discovers the interstitium. And then all of a sudden we have language and, and, and an explanation for this thing that others have felt. And that's, you know, we're trying to like parse this out, right? We're trying to understand what are these healers say is happening. What do the meditators say? That the body, when they close their eyes, they're able to see beyond the five senses and say that there is this field around us. And then you have the physicists who say, well, actually we can only currently measure it. That is also accurate, but maybe not the entire story. Mayim Bialik's breakdown is supported by Stuart Fails to Save the Universe.

[Mayim Bialik]

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[Jonathan Cohen]

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[Mayim Bialik]

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[Jonathan Cohen]

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[Jonathan Cohen]

That's drinkag1.com breakdown There's a scientist in

[Meredith Sprengel]

our community, Lorenzo Cohen, that loves to talk about germ theory. Right. You know that they're, that Emma Weiss knew something was happening when the doctors would go from the morgue to delivering babies and then you know, highly contested until the microscope. Right. Until we could see these things. So see the, the bacteria and, and this. That was also. I love that, I love that analogy because the invisible to the visible.

[Mayim Bialik]

Right.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Totally.

[Meredith Sprengel]

Just like Neil's story too. Right. Like a new microscope enabled him to see the interstitial. Yeah.

[Jonathan Cohen]

The idea of like why we should care about this biofield is that there's probably a natural variance amongst each individual, but there are likely patterns in the qualities, textures, formation of this biofield when it comes to illness. And that actually helping someone heal on the bioenergetic level is going to be in parallel with what's happening on the physical level. And that these things can work in tandem or actually it may be helpful to work on the biofield almost as a precursor to helping the body actually heal physically. Is that somewhat in the ballpark of. Of accurate?

[Meredith Sprengel]

So I think there's a great interest in using this as a detection of illness. Right. Saying that maybe there's something that's manifested bioelectrically or bioelectromagnetically before it actually has long term systemic effects in your body. Could be very useful. And I do think that that is in a wonderful use case, particularly when you're going to talk to someone who wants to move past kind of the current paradigm. And I think that's of great interest and I think I hope one day with this ultra weak photon emission because it's, it's particularly tied to metabolism and metabolomics in the body. So that in particularly might be a measure of health that you'll be able to take a shot of and then understand like what is going on in the body. And there is some preliminary research that was done actually in the Netherlands to look at people with obesity that are, that have obesity to see if they were going to be developing diabetes using this ultra weak photon emissions.

[Jonathan Cohen]

The problem people have, if I'm putting on my hat for the skeptic or the materialist, is I've heard if someone believes in God, then they're not going to take traditional medicine.

[Meredith Sprengel]

Oh yeah.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Which is like totally outside of my realm of, of, of just how I would understand it. Right. It's like, well, if you think that you can just heal naturally, then you may, you may circumvent or avoid other forms. And I think there's, you know, a new paradigm of understanding that these worlds live together in a way. So I'm wondering if you can speak to.

[Meredith Sprengel]

Yeah.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Like, what is the role of a healer or, or an energy practitioner in traditional healing or is it take the place of traditional healing?

[Meredith Sprengel]

I mean, I would never tell anyone not to, to use traditional medicine as in the allopathic system, the system we all use that our health insurance is based on. I mean, it works. I think that what we're seeing is as we live longer and the traditional medical system prolongs disease longer, is that all these other lifestyle diseases are manifesting, right. The mental health crisis, the chronic pain crisis and even the cris. Right. Is, is, is really one that also sometimes perpetuates a lot of these chronic illnesses and also cancer. Right. A lot of people live with cancer for years, but things like chemotherapy and radiation are quite taxing on the body. And so a lot of times, right. The, the, that system's really good at, at curing but not healing. Right. So it's, it's very targeted. It's specific to parts of your body or you know, or you take an ssri. It very much is apparently works on your brain. I mean, we don't really know what these integrative health modalities do is they put your body into a state to heal itself. Right. Because I, because all, all these practices are based on putting you into the relaxation response and by putting yourself into the relaxation response, you're giving your body the chance to heal. I think it should be lifelong practices. Right. As we all know, like there's great research on meditation also with neuroplasticity and you know, gene repair and all these things. But I also think what I love about energy healing, and I'll say this all the time, is a lot of times we get ourselves into a state where we can't take the step to do the meditation, to go to the acupuncturist because it's needles, right. Or to start doing yoga or qigong. And I almost think it's the entryway sometimes into remembering that we have the capacity to heal ourselves. Because you don't have to do anything, right? All you have to do is show up, I would say, have somewhat of an open mind and then allow this person to help you put your body back into a place to heal and to reconnect. What you find also, is that just the phenomenology of it or people talk about when they engage in these energy healing practices and things like meditation and also psychedelics, a lot of times all your priors start to lessen, all your. All your beliefs and all they kind of sort of go away. And then that helps reconnect you to the larger universe or a larger sense of self. And in that process, a lot of that can bring on this relaxation response. I'm trying to dumb this down into terms that it can. Everyone can understand, but I also just think that we've all had experiences like that, even with really good doctors and therapists and friends, right? But I think the idea is that energy healers are been able to tap into something and. And, you know, we can say, is it or is it not some sort of larger concept as an energy, a universal energy, or a God? But they also might have just. There might be some sort of practice that they've engaged in that's enabled them to really harness all these contextual features or, you know, these things like therapeutic alliance that really put someone into a place where they can feel healed and have these really deep, rich experiences. But I would say it's a lifelong practice. And I would also say that seeing an energy healer can also just be something that helps you reset the phenomena. Podcast this healer, her name's Lori Nealon, she's incredible. An old friend comes to see her, and he doesn't have anything particularly wrong with him, right? But he's just like, I need to see this healer and I need to. I need you to heal me. You know, it wasn't at the surface. It was at the subconscious level, right? All this stuff comes flooding after he saw her and was able to heal all these parts of themselves that he didn't even know that he needed to.

[Jonathan Cohen]

You have a podcast, the phenomenal Podcast,

[Meredith Sprengel]

everyone should visit phenomenahealing.com join our mailing list because you'll get all this information not only about the podcast, but also about all the research and science we're doing and. And all the new and amazing things we're fighting about. About energy healing.

[Jonathan Cohen]

The term healing.

[Meredith Sprengel]

Yeah, right.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Is. Is a really complicated term because, again, it's a one of these words that means so much when you're describing the man who needed to go to this.

[Meredith Sprengel]

Yeah.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Particular healer. We think about healing as like in the Marvel movies. Like, I've just been shot in the arm, and all of a sudden I'm able to regrow this skin and heal the wound. But actually, what we're saying is that it's far more complex than that. When you say healer, like, are these trained modalities, when a woman wakes up and just has a gift, that's different than someone who's studied and has a certificate in some way. And. And I think there's a huge variance in these types of. Of practitioners, which makes people both curious and then also apprehensive, because I really do think about it from both sides. Right. I grew up in a very materialist family.

[Meredith Sprengel]

Yeah.

[Jonathan Cohen]

I studied in a system with a teacher who had a long tradition. And then I learned that actually the tradition that she worked in was actually a little bit different, that she had added her own unique gifts to the tradition. And so, like, each person who does this type of work is often bringing a unique skill set to it.

[Meredith Sprengel]

There's three kind of major terms that I think people use when they talk about the healers we're talking about. So energy healer, biofield healer, spiritual healer. Right. Those are kind of the terms that you hear being said. And these are. Right. These are individuals that don't have to physically touch you don't have to use any instruments, but through their intention and attention, heal you. Right. And that was through that whole mechanism of. Of the use of subtle energy and the biofield to remove blockages both within and the body and within the biofield.

[Jonathan Cohen]

And this makes sense to me because I've just spent a lot of time in this world, but I have Mayim right here up on my shoulder.

[Meredith Sprengel]

I see her. Yeah.

[Jonathan Cohen]

If you're only listening, there's a little bobblehead. Actually, that's me, but there's a same bobblehead beside me here that I have mime, like in my ear thing. What are you talking about? The removing blockages from your field. So, like. Yeah, your field you may not see, but you may Be carrying something. Could be emotional, could be psychological.

[Meredith Sprengel]

Correct.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Could actually be a combination of emotional and psychological that has manifested physically. Right. Like you could have a completely real concrete, diagnosable wound. But that injury or injury. But that injury may carry a psychological and emotional component that we can't really put our finger on where it is. Right. We don't know where in the body it's being stored. Some will say it's in the brain. That emotional, psychological baggage or injury that you're carrying may be present in your energy field or biofield.

[Meredith Sprengel]

This is what healers say, right. I. I can't, I can't. I can't verify it. Right. I'm. I'm talking about like more the anthropological or, you know, what they report. So they report that when they're going to heal you, that they, you know, a lot of them scan you. Right. And there's different techniques. I mean, you did Reiki, right? There's a scanning technique and they'll say they'll feel something, so just really cool. They're like, it's heat or it's sticky or it's vibrating. And they would say that is a blockage. And as you said, it's something psychological. It also could be a physical trauma that you haven't. That is, that is then resided psychologically in this field. And again, it resides in the field. And then if not dealt with, the belief is that it manifests physically. And then also what's interesting is like, we kind of know some of this, right. Even in, in mainstream science. Right. Adverse childhood events are highly correlated with chronic pain, knee osteoarthritis. There is a literature that trauma, if not dealt with and especially dealt with at early parts of your childhood, does lead to disease.

[Jonathan Cohen]

The stuff that you haven't dealt with, they're claiming, like they can feel.

[Meredith Sprengel]

Yes.

[Jonathan Cohen]

They can visualize. Like there's a lack of harmony or visual coherency in the energy that is being admitted around this individual.

[Meredith Sprengel]

Correct. Yeah.

[Jonathan Cohen]

So which I think is amazing. Some other people were like, you know, this is anecdotal and how. But every modality operates in to some degree of this. And you know, when I was learning, it was very much follow your hands, right. It's a felt sensation. Try not to use your brain much. Where are your hands? Like, so, you know, when you say a scan, it would just be a quick, like wash over the person and then the texture of you felt sense in your hands would change. It may be really heavy all of a sudden. It may be cold all of a sudden. Okay, what are some of the types of healing? Like? Is, are there, is there a list of the ones that you've spoken to often? I have, I, you know, I've always practiced hands on. You can scan around, you can, you can definitely feel without hands on. But there's something about actual hands on versus hands off that is interesting for me. But there's so many different varieties of healers. Is there like a list of like, you know, like when we say a biofield healer versus an energy healer, do you know if there are different types of practices?

[Meredith Sprengel]

I think they're interchangeable if you consider, if you consider it an energy healer, a biofield healer. But I think that there's a distinct distinction between the modality. So yes, I have a list. Of course I have a list. And I mean I add to it as I learn new things, right. And I've, I've been doing a huge qualitative study where I'm trying to take it to interview as many healers from as many different modalities to really understand what's the commonalities and what the differences are and, and just understand a bit the lineages better. Because if we're going to operationalize this in research, we should probably understand what people say they're doing. I actually think the biggest distinction is, is historically when the practice was developed. So you have these ones that are really based in religion, right. Or in indigenous traditions that had come from a different era of how we understood the world through. Through religious practice or through association of gods. So you know, like laying on of hands the Sufi traditions, right. They, they come from Abrahamic backgrounds. And then you kind of have a break where like the language of modernity got in the way, right. You know, science. And so you have all these energy healers that come or biofield healers and you see things like Reiki is relatively new. It's. Right. It's I think in the early 1900s, although based on other practices, therapeutic touch, healing touch, which are nursing traditions that use the same model. I kind of think of them as like the spiritual and the neo spiritual is kind of how I've defined them. I mean this is Meredith, this is the Meredith Sprengel interpretation. But it's just as I talk more and more, right. Some of them are heavily anchored in, in a God, right, or in some sort of interpretation of creative entity that, that has a huge impact on our lives and, and our destiny. And some of them are based on a universal energy or a connection to the greater, you know, universe. And so those are different orientations, but they still put their power in something greater than themselves. Right. Some connective tissue that has that. That is perpetuating the. The universe.

[Jonathan Cohen]

All of them have that similarity.

[Meredith Sprengel]

I talk, try to talk just to healers that are particularly what I would say, advanced practitioners. People have been doing it for a long time. And people who have over time kind of integrated themselves and their own techniques as they develop a relationship with spirit and the invisible world. A lot of things come to them that don't necessarily look, are in a book. Yeah. But one of the things that you find with some, some healers and this, this is again, this is through living the lore of, of, you know, talking. All these healers, like not super advanced or some healers that haven't fully honed in their practice use their own energy. And they will say that that is what also cause disease in yourself over time because you have deplete. You're depleting yourself. There's this great healer, his name's Oliver Nino, and he said that that was the biggest change in his practice is when he started to use the sacred geometry to connect him to source. And then he could hold these big rooms, group healings. Their idea is that they get it from that. That source. They get it from the God, the universal energy. But when they use them their own energy, at least this is what healers tell me. And just anecdotally, it seems that it creates illness in the healer or not. The ability to practice on a regular basis or in a meaningful way over time.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Yeah, yeah. When I was taught, it was all about leave my baggage at the door and remove myself. I have no intellectual understanding of what this person needs and to become a conduit for a universal energy is what it was called. But you can exchange energy, consciousness, God for this other person's highest good. And, you know, I actually really struggle with the word healer because it denotes that there is an active will or agenda of the person doing or facilitating. There's a doing instead of a. Actually, you are just a conduit for this other person to sort of reconnect and do what they need to do. And as you talked about, it all works by getting them into this relaxed state whereby the natural abilities of the body can begin to take form and to be expedited in some way. Right. It's like we can't actually go through a healing process if we're constantly on the move and we can never truly get into that relaxed state. So what's happening you mentioned? Is there just a therapeutic alliance whereby the person feels comfortable enough to drop the defenses and actually go into that space, is there really an increase in energy available to them?

[Meredith Sprengel]

Most healers will be like, well, you're healing yourself. I'm just giving you the space to do the healing, not to put my own judgment on it. That's what a good healer does. Right. I mean, I think in any good healing, they want the person to learn the. To integrate. Right. And to really. To truly integrate the lessons and practice. Kind of what they've learned from that experience is their energy really great. So I don't know. I mean, I've done one. So this is one fun study that we did. It's not published yet, but we looked at the biopoton visions. I have a really fun picture of, like, these healers sitting across the room with people and, like, all this equipment around them. We had three healers. Six healeys were the people receiving the healing. They weren't touched. The person just sent healing intention across the room. And the four people who had, like, these deep, rich experiences of. They'd say, like, they're in an experiment room. I don't know how, but they, like, lost track of space and time. Had deep, like, energy, like, somatic experiences. This, like, very physiologically enriching, like, feeling of where you feel. Like you feel like you're full of energy. Some people said, like, they. You know, when you. When the time was over, they just. There was. There was like, a total loss of time. It's really interesting things in this experiment room. Those people who then, like, said, I felt like I had a healing. They had this really interesting increase in biophoton emissions. It even looked like exponential. I showed this to a mitochondrial researcher, and he's like, it looks like someone went on a run.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Really?

[Meredith Sprengel]

Yeah. So this is so preliminary, but someone has to do more of this research. I mean, but that would indicate it, right? It's metabolic, Right? Biophotons are metabolic. So that literally could be a representation of your body healing itself. Right. So this is. This result gets me really excited.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Recently, we spoke to someone on the podcast, and Mayim and I were led through what felt like a couple minute meditation.

[Meredith Sprengel]

Yeah.

[Jonathan Cohen]

And we both came back totally disoriented. Like, we opened our eyes. You're like, well, we've been podcasting a lot. What's going on?

[Meredith Sprengel]

Yeah.

[Jonathan Cohen]

It doesn't explain the sort of shift in our perception of time. So we spend so much time constructing the boundaries of our reality that as soon as we're able to let that drop for a minute. There's an entire other world to explore. Mayim Bialix Breakdown is supported by IANDS

[Mayim Bialik]

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[Jonathan Cohen]

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[Mayim Bialik]

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[Jonathan Cohen]

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[Meredith Sprengel]

What do you do?

[Jonathan Cohen]

You just throw it in the washing machine?

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[Meredith Sprengel]

Woohoo.

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[Jonathan Cohen]

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[Jonathan Cohen]

And in a similar way, when I was actively in practice, often we would work in groups where there would be multiple tables across from one another, there'd be 30 people in a room, multiple people working on each person on the table. All of a sudden these people who are like not going into a session with any particular agenda would go into a relaxed state and then all of a sudden have a memory or life experience surface for them that was very emotional. And then all of a sudden they're reliving that experience. And then what you would almost always have is a ripple, domino effect where the next person on the table would immediately, all of a sudden the whole room is alive in this active emotional processing. Now, where did those come from? Right? Like, it wasn't planned. They didn't go in saying, I want to look at this particular part of my childhood. Like, so you can just imagine that as those filters drop, all this stuff that we've been carrying that has a weight to it is now all of a sudden being processed. And as it gets processed, potentially the body is now more invigorated in a way. Which is going to lead me to a question about what is healing? Because often someone says, I've had carpal tunnel for a really long time. I'm going to go to someone who's going to take it away from me. But that isn't often what happens. A lot of the time, what I've heard and what I've experienced and I'm curious how, you know, the experiences you've researched. People get something that they weren't expecting when they go to some form of healing.

[Meredith Sprengel]

Well, so what is healing? I mean, first healing is a continuous process. I just want to say we are never healed. It's a whole lifelong journey. Right? Because we're we're unpacking not only the. This life time and if you. But even, even previous lifetimes we've been seeing that. Right. Epigenetics, we carry trauma through our genetic line. So there's a lot to unpack in this life. So I always want to say to people like, I'm. I'm never healed. I'm constantly healing. Right. Um, so that's one and two. What I think is interesting too, especially with the, with the carpal tunnel example, is that a lot of times pain or anxiety, because I've had. I've done interviews with people who've done healings for, For a lot of mental health, doesn't go away, but your relationship to it changes. Right? So it's not like my carpal tunnel went away or the pain went away, but your relationship to it has changed. That's one thing. So a lot of times, like you're saying, it's not taken away from you, it's just how you relate to it. And a lot of times, like you said, that's because of the sort of reconnection that occurs. Because a lot of times when we have anxiety or pain, and those are the two conditions I know that work the most with or know the most about, there's a hyper fixation that occurs again if you're in that hyper fixated state or you're very concentrated on your disease or your identification with it. We don't always have the space to see right. Where it has manifested from. And, and maybe that. That's also something that can happen, like you said. And, and it's funny that you brought that up about the, the group healing as. I literally just did a group healing last week with. With. Yes, I was. So you want to laugh at our partner retreats, at our Soul Energy Fund perspective, we do group healings. And that happened to me. I wasn't even aware about something that I needed to grieve. Right. Because I wasn't given the space. Space in my life to have that opportunity. And also it is fascinating the magnification that being in a group is in. Right. And the type of group. I mean, this is all just talking like anecdotally from my experience, but who's in your group? And even the physical location. Right. The contextual features. Right. We know this, right? Certain times, even in drug trials with psychedelics, depending on the room they're in, the psychedelic will work or not. So. So yeah, it's really interesting how this amplification occurs in group environments with healers.

[Jonathan Cohen]

So.

[Meredith Sprengel]

Right. You're Creating a container. I mean, they would say that we're all healing each other in that moment. Right. They're, they're bringing the. They're bringing us in reconnection with, with God, consciousness, source. And then. Yeah, but yeah, that literally happened to me last week. So, yeah, I've been thinking about that a lot.

[Jonathan Cohen]

I used to experience so many quote, unquote coincidences where these people who would just sort of sign up, come together once the intention, another word that needs a little bit of explanation was set for. The group would come together and then people from all walks of life, all different ages, would all of a sudden have these unbelievable parallels in the stuff that they would be carrying. And it was true that the more people came together to do this type of work, the more elevated and magnetized the impacts often are. So it does bring up the question of, like, when we talk about healing as this continual process, maybe that is the natural state that we have fallen out of is the ability to dive in and to purge and sort of the more isolated, the less connected we've been as a society, the less connected we are to the types of work that this carries. I don't think that processing our emotions is only supposed to be done in a therapist's office. Right. We've lost an element of our social dynamic that has allowed us to have this intense level of, of moving through these things that we're carrying.

[Meredith Sprengel]

I mean, the Industrial revolution, we became machines. Right. I mean, it's kind of our source given, universe given, right. Is. Is to. To be in community and, and to also to have these space to process who we are and our emotions. Yeah.

[Jonathan Cohen]

The skeptic may be saying, but doesn't work. And I know work is obviously, you know, it's a very fixed idea of what this process actually is. Right. It's a bit reductionist in a way.

[Meredith Sprengel]

Yeah.

[Jonathan Cohen]

But can you tell us a little bit about the MD Anderson study? You know, because what we're trying to say is that it has an impact. End result is hard to say, to say work as, as the, you know, finished product. There's more and more evidence to show that there's significant impact. Can you describe a little bit about what you're seeing?

[Meredith Sprengel]

So Lorenzo Cohen, who is a science, is a secondary immunologist at MD Anderson Cancer center, has been leading a bunch of preclinical research into energy healing for pancreatic cancer. And this is both in cell and animal models. What he has found is that this particular energy healing practice, it's called the Bankston Method, and it's a cycling practice. It's a well defined method that you can Google. He used three practitioners. So across practitioners, he found that the practitioners were able to put the cancer just in essence and then stop metastasis. And he found a number of different biological pathways for that, one of which he saw changes in the bioelectrical gradient of the cell. And a lot of times, one of our funders likes to say that, right, cancer is a disease where the cells have forgotten its neighbors. It's gone off in a malignant path. And so what you're seeing is this change in the electrogradient that could be a key to reintegrating the cells. And you're also seeing the swelling of the mitochondria and a number of different changes in both the tumor properties and the cells. But basically, what to say is that you're finding a method that is very effective at treating cancer. Cancer treatment is difficult. It's hard. It has a lot of symptoms. What we found with the biofield healing therapy is that it only was targeting the cancer cells, and then it also could potentially be something that could work across cancers.

[Jonathan Cohen]

I mean, we spoke to Michael Levin at Tufts University, so, and he describes that same understanding of cancer that it has forgotten its relationship with the larger body and has gone off on its own agenda. I actually think there's an enormous amount of spiritual wisdom in. In that, you know, who are we as a whole? And the more we are carrying things that we aren't able to process, the less we're able to sort of align as an entire entity, for lack of a better word. Like when you were describing earlier in this conversation, you were like, chronic pain, mental health, and meaning, the lack of meaning that we can encounter, especially when we're carrying a level of emotional baggage that we aren't able to work through and get closer to our actual selves. What do we really like? What lights us up? What is. What are our objectives in this world? We lose track of who we are.

[Meredith Sprengel]

Yes. And I think we've created a false sense of community and connection. Right. A lot of times, meaning is brought by community.

[Jonathan Cohen]

When people would do really deep energy work and they would have those cathartic experiences, they would feel younger, they would feel more connected to some sort of earlier version, often a childlike version of themselves that had a curiosity and a playfulness that they had, you know, not lost, but sort of packed, put away in favor of just getting things done.

[Meredith Sprengel]

This healer was talking about, she always says, energy healing is pure joy. Right. And that that joy of living, of life, of curiosity, of mystery. Whenever I hear that, I was like, oh, yeah, that's, that's what it is. Right? Because we're talking about a healing journey and we're talking about really sad things like chronic pain and anxiety and depression. And joy is kind of the antidote to all those things that keep us stock.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Meredith, I'm, I'm so appreciative of you coming and speaking to this topic and helping people understand it. My whole podcasting career, I've been a little bit in the closet about my background in this space because I think it's, it brings up so many questions and people have different experiences and expectations. And I, I do believe we need people experiencing it, sharing the potential, and also scientists who are studying it and trying to understand the mechanism so we can really better understand what's happening. So I'm just really grateful for the work you're doing.

[Meredith Sprengel]

Thank you. And I just think it's fascinating no one's taken the time to really dive into this because this has been something that's been going on for millennia and has been effectively healing people for centuries. And whatever healing means, it's been able to help people on their journey of feeling better and living a more fulfilled life.

[Jonathan Cohen]

There are more things happening than we really understand when it comes to getting better. Whatever better means or overcoming the challenges that we're facing, whether physically or mentally, and having a connection to something greater than ourselves, whether that be a personal connection or in a healing modality, is showing over and over again to have truly profound impacts on, on our well being.

[Meredith Sprengel]

Excited to see what we find for sure.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Yeah, it's Maya Bialix breakdown. She's gonna break it down for you. She's got a neuroscience PhD or two. One fiction and now she's gonna break. Mind. Bialik's breakdown is supported by Elastique where science meets style in wearable wellness.

[Mayim Bialik]

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[Meredith Sprengel]

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[Meredith Sprengel]

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