Health Care Off the Beaten Path

"The doctor of the future will give no medicine but will interest his patients in the care of the human frame, in diet, and in the cause and prevention of disease."–Attributed to Inventor Thomas Alva Edison, 1870s

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Measuring results

Allopathic medicine is beginning to test, if not wholeheartedly accept, such benefits. Judith Moss ’61 recently used her expertise in polarity balancing, a type of energy healing, in a pilot study with the cancer center at the University of Rochester Medical Center. The study measured the effects of polarity balancing on the fatigue levels of a small group of women undergoing radiation therapy for breast cancer. The results are encouraging, Moss says. Compared to the control group, those who received Moss’s treatments experienced reduced fatigue and improved quality of life. The University of Rochester study will appear in the March issue of Journal of Integrative Oncology.

Moss practices in Sodus, New York, but studied polarity in California. Rooted in ancient Indian Ayurvedic practices, polarity focuses on the energy field that its practitioners believe surrounds our bodies and on electromagnetic patterns in our mental, emotional, and physical experiences. Moss describes polarity as both a philosophy and a therapy. She addresses clients’ energy blockages with bodywork, lifestyle or dietary modifications, exercise, and self-awareness.

Richard Morrison ’62 recommends another energy technique, Pranic healing. Faced with chronic illness, Morrison cancelled his health insurance and turned to unconventional methods to regain his strength and enhance his quality of life. He and his wife, Elly, recently tried Pranic healing again. Designed by Choa Kok Sui, the practice uses "Prana" (Sanskrit for "life-force") to bring the body’s energy processes into harmony and assist the body in healing itself. The no-touch method works on the premise that increasing the vital energy in one part of the body can speed recovery there.

The Morrisons added aromatherapy. "Pranic healing with scents is by far the safest, most effective healing modality we have tried," Morrison says. He has resumed playing tennis after fifty years. "It’s fun being healthy," he says.

Acupuncture also works with energy, focusing on twelve different channels in the body, Ed Stumpf explains. The ancient Chinese pictured each energy pathway as being under the guidance of a different politician. They believed that the group ruled with a revolving chairmanship: each took their turn being in charge every two hours. The current practice of acupuncture in the West builds on this idea, that the energy at certain points in the body affects particular functions. Practitioners usually stimulate the specific anatomical spots with very thin needles that penetrate the skin.

Stumpf runs a healing bed and breakfast in the small town of Kapaa, on Kauai, Hawaii. Stumpf’s experience with parasites affirmed the value of alternative health care: "The adventure of discovering my body’s reaction took me deeper into these methods."

Over time, acupuncture has become more accepted. Physicians first began to recognize its effect on pain relief. Some hospitals, such as New York City’s Beth Israel Medical Center, now offer acupuncture for nausea, for example. The clinical arm of the Cleveland Clinic’s Center for Integrative Medicine offers acupuncture along with Reiki and other therapies.

A Reiki master, Stumpf explains that this method involves transferring energy from the earth through one’s hands to another person, without the manipulation of massage or chiropractic. He practices Reiki daily. "It’s the easiest technique and yet has had the most profound effect on my practice and my life," he says. "Acupuncture and the body’s energy, ‘Qi’ (‘chee’), were only intellectual concepts until I could feel them in my hands."

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