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Concept
Energy medicine
Summary
Energy medicine is a branch of alternative medicine based on a pseudo-scientific belief that healers can channel "healing energy" into a patient and effect positive results. The field is defined by shared beliefs and practices relating to mysticism and esotericism in the wider alternative medicine sphere rather than any sort of unified terminology, leading to terms such as energy healing or vibrational medicine being used as synonymous or alternative names. In most cases there is no empirically measurable energy involved: the term refers instead to so-called subtle energy. Practitioners may classify the practice as hands-on, hands-off, and distant (or absent) where the patient and healer are in different locations. Many schools of energy healing exist using many names: for example, biofield energy healing, spiritual healing, contact healing, distant healing, therapeutic touch, Reiki or Qigong.
Reviews of the scientific literature on energy healing have concluded that there is no evidence supporting clinical efficacy. The theoretical basis of healing has been criticised as implausible; research and reviews supportive of energy medicine have been faulted for containing methodological flaws and selection bias, and positive therapeutic results have been determined to result from known psychological mechanisms. Some claims of those purveying "energy medicine" devices are known to be fraudulent and their marketing practices have drawn law-enforcement action in the US.
History records the repeated association or exploitation of scientific inventions by individuals claiming that newly discovered science could help people to heal. In the 19th century, electricity and magnetism were in the "borderlands" of science and electrical quackery became rife. These concepts continue to inspire writers in the New Age movement. In the early 20th century health claims for radio-active materials put lives at risk, and recently quantum mechanics and grand unification theory have provided similar opportunities for commercial exploitation.
Official source
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