41. (Eng.) Energy Medicine: Korotkov

In the near future we will increasingly come across ‘energie medicine’. This is healing focused on experience and knowledge of energies in and around our bodies. An already well-accepted form of energy medicine is, for example, acupuncture.

In the course of my life I have benefited from various alternative health treatments, such as naturopathy, homeopathy and kinesiology, all of which influence the human body. I was often happy to notice that, on a subtle level, my body was helped to overcome certain disorders. I might also achieve this result by applying methods from self-help books.

Another name for alternative medicine is complementary medicine. The above types of treatments can be used in a preventive/curing way or in a complementary way –  depending on the health problem the client is dealing with.
When a condition is not yet serious and only limits well-being, an alternative approach in itself may suffice to start feeling better and even recover. When a person already suffers from an illness and goes to the regular doctor, the combination of medical treatment and complementary works very well.

Alternative and complementary medicine methods are based on some form of working with energy. Hence the name energy medicine: these methods seek to bring more balance into the energy patterns. of the client of patient, For, when someone has to deal with health problems, there is always a disturbance in the energy pattern. (Think of the meridian system or the chakra system).

Russian scientist Konstantin Korotkov developed a special technique to subtly visualize a person’s energy balance on the computer screen. Korotkov built on Kirlian photography and from there developed a system to analyze human health, physically and mentally (https://tcche.org/speaker/konstantin-korotkov/).

In the 1950s, Semyon Kirlian and his wife Valentina had already managed to capture in photographs the radiation of living tissue, for instance, of hands or the leaves of plants. This was a previously unknown phenomenon for most people.

PIcture Wim

Decades later, Korotkov managed – thanks to new technical developments and the boost in computer capabilities – to capture and “translate” this aura in “real time”. He uses the fingers of the hands to make analyses. By accurately locating on which part of the fingers which radiation occurs, and using an ingenious calculation system, Korotkov is able to draw up energy analyses that are helpful for doctors and healers when making diagnoses.

The technique was called Electrophotonic Imaging, abbreviated as EPI, and is currently called Bio-Well analysis. It is a pioneering approach for direct imaging the human energy system. It requires a specially developed camera. The highly sophisticated software analyzes where there is a deficiency in the energy system. Korotkov himself explains and clarifies his method in this 2020 YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNfdyreg4Ps. Highly recommended!

In this film, he says radiation is a phenomenon at the quantum level: the human skin emits infinitely tiny light particles or ‘biophotons’, which are ‘waves’ at the same time. Fingers encompass the highest concentrations of blood vessels and nerves. Our sensitive fingers, he explains, receive direct information from the brain that knows the condition of organ systems and the like. So the fingers represent a quantum image of the complete body.

To develop his analyzing system, Korotkov made use of the knowledge of two German doctors who had designed their own analytic system based on the Chinese teachings on meridians.
Korotkov says he is sure that the outcomes of his system make sense, because in the course of 25 years, he has compared his own data with those collected in hospitals of Russia and major western countries. He found a correlation of 85 percent.

Konstantin Korotkov was a professor in computer science and biophysics at St. Petersburg University. For many years he was also president of the International Union of Medical and Applied Bioelectrography (IUMAB). He is the author of a large number of books and scientific articles, and is very active in promoting his findings and ideas in the field internationally.

His research work and interest also concerned the potentialities of mind and consciousness. See, for example, his book “The Energy of Life”, a new edition of which came out in 2021. A sentence in the epilogue, ‘Be aware of the power of your mind, do not be afraid to use it in everyday activity, accept your life as a precious gift, as a present from God, as a unique adventure, and project your positive thoughts and visions to the future.’

36. (Eng.) Breath Consciousness

Breathing is the first thing we do when we are born and the last thing that stops when we die. Breathing is essential to living, yet we hardly ever talk about it. It happens so naturally that we don’t actually perceive that we are doing it.

A human being can live without food for a long time, without water for a much shorter time, but can hardly survive more than a few minutes without oxygen. We keep ourselves busy with our meals and drinks every day, because we have to take care of that ourselves. However, we do not pay attention to whether or not we breathe enough, because inhaling and exhaling air is so automatic that we do not give it a second thought. Unless … we exercise intensively, have a lung disease or suffer the effects of living in a place where the air is polluted … but those are other subjects.

In any case, breathing is something extraordinary. This is how I experienced it when I began practising yoga on my own in my teens. Encouraged by the founder of yoga in the Netherlands, Dr. Rama Polderman, whose first book on the subject I read with great interest, I began to practice ásanas (= yoga poses).
He also gave instructions for various breathing exercises called pranayama [‘ayama’=extending and ‘prana’=vital energy]. Prana is what (yogic) breathing is all about, prana you breathe in and out. It is life energy: that universal or cosmic energy, which we also know by the Chinese term Chi.

Fragment of a stained-glass church window, designed by Marc Mulders in 2016, for the Sint-Janskerk in Gouda, the Netherlands. Photo Wim Ridder

In my early yoga years – I was about 16 or 17 years old – I learned to experience conscious breathing as beneficial. For the first time I was spiritually touched . This was possible partly because I had the time and space to do so. In all honesty, I will tell you that in later years, that skill of conscious breathing slipped away from me again.

But the sweet memory remained. Over the course of my life, I delved into multiple breathing systems. Fascinating books about the breath came out, books that all had something to offer. Sometimes I practiced according to the instructions in such a book. Yet I am still in search of those truly enlightening breath experiences.

I recently decided to tackle this, developing an approach in which I distinguish four phases of breath awareness. Firstly, becoming aware of when your breath is inadequate; secondly, consciously doing certain exercises in response to this awareness; thirdly, noticing the benefits of performing these exercises; fourthly, coming closer to your essence. As you become more aware of your breath, you return to the first phase.

I have illustrated this in a diagram: a circle with a horizontal and vertical axis. If you look closely, you’ll see that there is an interaction between your physical and psychological aspects. In the first and third phase you are focused on experiencing your body, in the second and fourth phase it is mainly your mind that plays a role.

1.         When does your breathing fail? Too many distractions, one after the other, or at the same time, make a person hold their breath. This leads to irregular breathing, tension in the muscles of your respiratory system, as well as tension in your diaphragm and abdomen.

2.         When you consciously focus – by whatever method – on regular, relaxed breathing, your mind calms down, you are less bothered by ‘mind-chatter’, and distractions have less of a hold on you.

3.         This has an effect on your whole body, which will respond to the exercises as a whole. A part of the nervous system takes over and will amplify the effects: you may be touched by an unexpected sense of well-being.

4.         At such moments you can better feel and experience who you really are. You may reach what is permanent in you, your essence. This experience encourages you to continue with the exercises in order to perceive your essence again and again.

There is much more to be said about the breath, but I’ll save that for another time.

For now, I would like to draw your attention to a recently (2020) published book titled ‘Breath’, by James Nestor. It is exciting to read, goes into exhaustive detail about numerous aspects of breathing, and provides a whole series of breathing exercises in the appendix.