What Is Bio-Magnetic Therapy?
by Swami Nirmalananda Giri (Abbot George Burke)
Two hundred years ago the great healer, Dr. Franz Anton Mesmer, wrote: “All doubts have been removed from my mind that there exists in Nature a universally acting principle which, independently of ourselves, operates–and which we vaguely attribute to Art and Nature.”
A neatly packaged definition of Magnetism is impossible for two reasons: 1) limitation of study of the question, and 2) limitation of our knowledge of the forces circulating around us in the universe. This much I can tell you: it is a force, a power. And this force/power behaves like both electricity and magnetism, whatever they may really be. Many people have thought it is much more, some even attributing divinity to it, and others have considered it to be much less. Some think it does not exist at all except in the power of suggestion (whatever that is, as well). But most people just do not have any idea about it at all because they have never heard or thought of it.
Historical Views On Magnetism
The great German poet-philosopher, Goethe, said: “Magnetism is a universal active power, which everyone possesses, differing only according to his individuality. Its effects extend to everything and in all cases. The Magnetic power of man reaches out to all mankind, to animals and to plants.” The philosopher Schopenhauer was even more firm: “Whoever doubts the fact of healing Magnetism is not only unbelieving but ignorant.”
Many inscriptions and figures on ancient Egyptian tablets show definitely that the Egyptians were accustomed to using Magnetism for healing the sick. Among the ancients, Aesculapius was considered the founder of the healing art. And his name is sworn by in the Hippocratic Oath taken by all modern American physicians. Yet we are told by the ancient writings that Aesculapius healed mostly through the application of Magnetism to the suffering. Magnetism was daily practiced in the temples of Isis, Osiris and Serapis. In these temples the priests treated the sick and cured them, mostly with Magnetism imparted in various ways. Mummy cases and talismans, as well as wall paintings, show priests and priestesses treating the sick with varying positions of the hands. All such representations were a mystery only to those unacquainted with Magnetism and its techniques of application.
Celsus, nearly two thousand years ago, was a vigorous advocate of this form of Magnetic treatment, and incidentally proves that it was known and practiced long before his time. Therefore the Flemish philosopher, Von Helmont, wrote: “Magnetism is active everywhere, and has nothing new but the name: it is a paradox only to those who ridicule whatever they themselves are unable to explain.”
In February of 1826, a commission was appointed by the French Government to study the viability of Bio-Magnetic Therapy. For five years the members studied the application and effects of Magnetism and finally drew up their report in 1831. At the end of the document thirty conclusions were enumerated, the twenty-ninth being: “Considered as a cause of certain psychological phenomena, or as a therapeutic remedy, Magnetism ought to be allowed a place within the circle of medical sciences.”
A Personal View
My opinion is that what I am calling Magnetism in this book is electricity, magnetism and quite a lot more. Mesmer called it “Animal Magnetism.” By “animal” he meant soul (in Latin: anima) power, that fundamental life-force which animates all living bodies. Others called it “Vital Magnetism,” but really meant the same thing, because “vital” comes from the Latin word vita–life.
“And God… breathed upon his face the breath of life, and the man became a living soul” (Genesis 2:7). The word translated “soul” here is psychin (psyche), which means much more than spirit. It means the whole living complex of a human being, especially his mind. And since the ruling power of the mind over our bodies has been more than adequately demonstrated by modern psychology in its studies of psychosomatic disease, we can see that this particular term is perfect in expressing the origin of life in man. Modern physics has definitely established that the life which is in man is also in the entire universe. Here, too, the Genesis account has something to say: “And God said, Let there be light, and there was light” (Genesis 1:3), long before the suns lit up the universe (Genesis 1:14–18).
When Paramhansa Yogananda–known to millions through his Autobiography of a Yogi–visited the Bavarian stigmatist and miracle-worker, Theresa Neumann, in 1935, he asked her how it was possible for her to have lived for years without food or drink of any kind whatsoever. She replied: “I live by God’s light.” He commented: “I see you realize that energy flows to your body from the ether, sun, and air.” She smiled and said: “I am so happy to know you understand how I live.” Putting the biblical account and this modern incident together, we can see that “light” signifies the fundamental life-force in all things, and its various modifications in the varying forms of existence.
“An illuminating experiment was made by Lafontaine with a number of lizards. They were deprived of all food. Two of the lizards were treated by magnetic strokings, the fingers being held just above the skin as they travelled down the body. Those lizards that were not so treated died for want of nourishment, while those two which received the strokings along their bodies outlived the others, one by forty-two days and the other by seventy-five days, still without food” (Leslie O. Korth, Healing Magnetism, p. 19).
From my observation it seems evident that what I am calling Magnetism is a single entity, but it has many aspects and manifestations. It is indeed electrical and magnetic; but it is much more. You can put any name to it you like in your working with it, but do put it to work.
“Vital Force is that which underlies all physical action of the body. It is that which causes the circulation of the blood–the movements of the cells–in fact all the motions upon which depend the life of the physical body. Without this Vital Force, there could be no life–no motion–no action. Some call it nervous force, but it is the one thing, no matter by what name it may be called. It is this force that is sent forth from the nervous system by an effort of the will, when we wish a muscle to move….
“Man absorbs his supply of Vital Force from the food he eats; the water he drinks; and largely from the air he breathes.… This Vital Energy is stored up in the Brain, and great nerve centers of the body, from which it is drawn to supply the constantly arising wants of the system. It is distributed over the wires of the nervous system, to all parts of the body. In fact, every nerve is constantly charged with Vital Force, which is replenished when exhausted. Every nerve is a ‘live wire,’ through which the flow of Vital Force proceeds. And, more than this, every cell in the body, no matter where it is located, or what work it is doing, contains more or less Vital Energy, at all times.
“A strong, healthy person is one who is charged with a goodly supply of Vital Force, which travels to all parts of the body, refreshing, stimulating, and producing activity and energy. Not only does it do this, but it surrounds his body like an aura, and may be felt by those coming in contact. A person depleted of Vital Force will manifest ill-health, lack of vitality, etc., and will only regain his normal condition when he replenishes his store of Vitality.” So says William Walker Atkinson writing under the penname of Yogi Ramacharaka.
Magnetism flows throughout the universe, enlivening all things. This is why Mesmer also called it “vital fluid.” This force moves invisibly through all existing things. It can flow in basically two ways: harmoniously or inharmoniously; rhythmically or sporadically; freely or obstructed to some degree. When it becomes totally blocked or reduced to below a critical degree the result is death.
So we can say that harmonious, unobstructed flow of this Magnetism is health; inharmonious or obstructed flow of Magnetism is disease. And the cessation of Magnetic flow or its critical reduction results in death. Mesmer put it this way: “Man is in a condition of health when all parts of which he is composed are able to exercise the functions for which they were destined. If perfect order rules all of his functions, one calls this state the state of harmony. Sickness is the opposite state–that is, one wherein harmony is disturbed.… The remedy is that which reestablishes the order or harmony which has been disturbed.” And again: “Life in all creatures in the universe is one and the same: it consists of the movement of the most subtle substance. Death is repose, or the cessation of motion. The natural and inevitable course of life consists in passing through the state of fluidity to that of solidity.… Illness is therefore nothing more than a disturbance of the progression of the movement of life.”
More modern research has also come to the same conclusions. Sister Justa Smith, enzymologist and chairman of the chemistry department at Rosary Hill College in Buffalo, New York, has been deeply studying the effect of the healing forces emanating from the hands on enzymes. She has established that magnetic fields increase enzyme activity, while ultraviolet light damages it. Not only did Sister Justa find that the enzymes were greatly increased in activity when held in the hands of a magnetically strong person, she also discovered that if she damaged enzymes with ultraviolet light and then had that vial held in the same person’s hands for some time, the enzymes would be healed–restored to their normal activity. Further, she also experimented with exposing enzymes to high magnetic fields using regular magnets. She found that the activity of the enzymes in the vial treated by the healer was the same as the vials subjected to a magnetic field of thirteen thousand gauss.
You Are A Magnet
Man himself is a magnet. From the moment of his conception this universal Magnetism begins to flow through his physical entity until its cessation at his death. This reveals another principle: by its presence the spirit stimulates this flow we call life, and by its departure that flow ceases. In other words, the spirit causes this flow which in turn causes the life of the body. As God the Universal Spirit causes life in all matter, so the individual spirit causes the microcosm of the body to live and function in the greater universe.
Proof that everything is alive is that everything is magnetic. There is nothing in existence that does not have two poles–positive and negative. In testing a piece of string, one end will be found positive and the other negative. Cut it, and each piece will be found to have the two poles. Chop the string into dozens of pieces, and each fragment will test out as having two poles. Break a twig from a tree, and you will find the same thing. This page you are reading is the same, also.
Animals and insects also have powerful magnetism. Some time ago in Lima, Peru, there was a colony of termites which discharged electric currents of such intensity that the short-wave reception in their vicinity was disturbed.
Your body is a powerful magnet, your two hands being its major poles. Subtle Magnetism is flowing within them constantly. Your touching of this page is charging it with that Magnetism. Anything you touch becomes to some degree magnetized. A very sensitive person can detect this Magnetism, and we call that psychometry. There is nothing mysterious or supernatural about it at all. If you can project a very intense and grosser type of this Magnetism from your hands it is psychokinetic force. This is how psychics bend spoons, stop watches, etc.; and how Nelya Mikhailova, the Soviet psychokineticist made known through Psychic Discoveries Behind the Iron Curtain, could move objects–especially metal ones, which are the most sensitive to Magnetism–by moving her hands over them.
Your body is a magnet, as I have said, but that is oversimplifying things. It is really several magnets hooked together to act as one. The human body can be pictured as four magnets: three horseshoe magnets and one bar magnet. Your two feet are the poles of one horseshoe, your hands are the poles of another, and the right and left sides of your head are the third. The spine is connecting these three, running through the middle of the body as a bar magnet–its two ends being the two poles.
In this century a multitude of bioenergetic or vibrational healing machines of all types, some accepted by the medical profession and some not, have been invented and patented. But the perfect therapeutic apparatus, the truest healing machine, is your own body. “Therefore, of all the bodies, the one which can act most effectively upon man is his fellow-man,” concluded Mesmer. Through your two hands that machine can be operated to restore health to yourself and others. Why? Because health is a harmonious, unobstructed flow of the life-force, and your hands can stimulate that life-force to flow through the body in a free and balanced way so the body can heal itself. Each person’s body is the healer. You will never heal. Rather, the natural life-force whose flow you will increase or balance will do the healing. There is no other healer in the natural order of things. Even divine, supernatural healing is a restoration and regularization of that force. The same is true of medicine. Medicine only facilitates the body’s self-repairing capacity. No matter what a medical doctor, osteopath, chiropractor, naturopath or herbalist prescribes, they are all one in the final analysis: life-force regulators.
Dr. A.S. Raleigh’s analysis is thus: “We speak of heart disease, for instance, but as a matter of fact, we do not mean that the heart is diseased. Were anything to get wrong with the heart organically, the patient would not last very long. What we mean by heart disease is a weakened or disturbed condition of the cardiac nerve center, which causes the heart to get out of gear in the sense that the proper quantity of nervous stimuli is not communicated to the heart. The result is, the heart is not able to perform its functions; thus we say it is diseased; that is, it is out of harmony, so with all the other diseases that are to be included under the functional head.
“We should conceive of an organ or muscle as being a machine, a motor, in fact, or rather, a machine run by a motor. The nerve center controlling this organ or muscle is the motor that runs the machine. Now, the analogy is perfect between the nerve center and the motor in ordinary machines; if the motor receives a proper quantity of electricity it will run the machine in the proper manner…. If the current of nervous stimuli flowing over the sympathetic nervous system and reaching the nerve center governing those organs, be normal, if the equilibrium be maintained, perfect health in those functions will be the result; each nerve center will receive a sufficient quantity of Prana to enable it to compel the organ to perform its proper functions. But if the current be weak or too strong or spasmodic, a corresponding result will take place.…
“Any method which will restore the equilibrium in the circulation of the nerve force will cure any functional disease in the world. You may benefit the condition by applying nervous stimuli direct to the nerve center controlling the organ. Magnetic Healing has, therefore, been found of very much value in the treatment of functional diseases, because they give the nerve force for which that nerve center is starving. Giving this nerve force, they establish the equilibrium, they strengthen the organ or rather the nerve center, so that it makes the organ perform its proper functions.…
“There is no disease of a functional character to which flesh is heir, that cannot be cured by this method and cured with comparative ease. There is no functional disease that can be cured permanently in any other way. Even those medicines such as arsenic and actina that are given by physicians, are really given for the purpose of accomplishing this result, by causing a certain stimulus to be imparted to the nerve centers in an artificial manner which will thus draw to them the nervous force.
“Remember, therefore, that in our method of healing we are employing the same fundamental principle that all intelligent physicians employ. Our methods are, of course, a little more scientific, they are more fundamental than theirs, but it is not a new departure, it is not a new fad, it is simply the application of the old physiological method of removing the cause and allowing Nature to take care of itself.”
Once an osteopath was asked, while giving a treatment, what he was trying to accomplish, to which he replied, “I am releasing the life forces.”
Advantages of Bio-Magnetic Therapy
Bio-Magnetic Therapy is the most basic and direct way of effecting that life-force, which we call Magnetism. And it has great advantages:
1) It can increase the flow of life-force into the body for general good health. Sickness need not be the only motivation for Magnetic treatment.
To live, the body must not only have a free circulation of life-force, it must have an inflowing of it from the world around it. Normally, this life-power enters the body through the feet, hands, and head. But if the body weakens in its magnetism–just as a magnet can become weakened–the supply of life-force is cut down to a level below that voltage needed for correct operation, and the magnetically starved (or suffocating) body becomes ill. Bio-Magnetic Therapy immediately increases the influx of vital power in the body and remagnetizes it, thus revitalizing its natural magnetic power of drawing life-force into itself. This is why Mesmer could state with such confidence: “It will be established from the facts, according to the rules which I will set forth, that Animal Magnetism will cure, immediately, all diseases of the nerves, and, mediately, all other diseases.”
2) Bio-Magnetic Therapy can right away stimulate the supply and flow of life-force to a troubled area that has become vitality-starved through some obstruction. And in the increase of flow the obstruction is ultimately removed, just as a clogged water pipe can be cleared by flushing it out with an increased flow of water.
3) Some diseases are a result of a leaking out of the vital force from the body. Bio-Magnetic Therapy restores the normal channels of flow in the life-force and, in effect, seals the leaks.
4) Everything is divided into positive and negative, and the life-force is no exception. It, too, can become negative, disturbed, inert–even, we might say, diseased. Negative life-force accumulating in the body, especially through a blockage of this life-force’s flow, can cause ill-health in the same way continual breathing of stale or foul air can cause devitalization and even illness. If it becomes localized, an organ becomes impaired in in its operation or even damaged. What is poison? It is any substance which imparts an energy or operation to the body that destroys its natural harmony and is antithetical to its normal functioning. So also, subtle life-force can be poison to the body and its organs. Bio-Magnetic Therapy can remove this toxic magnetism in a very direct way.
5) Even if the flow of life-force is unobstructed, there will be problems if it is not flowing in the right channels–that is, if the polarity is confused, and the Magnetism is not flowing from the negative to the positive poles of the body as it should. Conflict in the Magnetic flow develops blockages, leaks, and deficiencies–in other words: disease. Bio-Magnetic Therapy corrects polarity as the first step in its application, whereas this vital aspect of of health is ignored in nearly all other systems of medicine and therapy.
Does this mean that Bio-Magnetic Therapy is a cure-all? Not at all! Bio-Magnetic Therapy does not cure; it simply aids the body to cure itself by supplying it with curative force. Nor should other modes of treatment be abandoned. Your body needs all the help it can get in this radioactive, polluted world of ours. But I do believe that Bio-Magnetic Therapy is an invaluable aid to health. Why?
- It operates right at the heart of the disease–the life-force.
2. It requires no diagnosis or prescribing of medicine or physical therapy.
3. the only knowledge you need is that found in the practical principles of application which are given in this book. And they are so simple that once you learn them well they are yours forever. Remember: this system is therapy, not medicine. Knowledge of disease and its medicinal treatment is irrelevant to the application of Bio-Magnetic Therapy. Medicinal treatment of disease is the domain of trained practitioners of whatever school of medicine, and should not be trespassed upon.
4. No tools are needed. Just your hands.
5. Everybody can do it.
Can you get more fundamental and universal than that? Bio-Magnetic Therapy stands on the broadest base of all: Life.
“Experience alone will scatter the clouds and shed light on this important truth: that NATURE AFFORDS A UNIVERSAL MEANS OF HEALING AND PRESERVING MEN”–Dr. Franz Anton Mesmer.
How is Bio-Magnetic Therapy applied? In the simplest way possible: by the application of the hands as poles of a magnet in order to increase and normalize the flow of life-force in your body and those of others.
Here is what a reader says of the instructions in the book:
I enjoyed both the concept and the content of this book. Coupled with simple, but helpful illustrations, and the fact that it is written in an easily understood and friendly first person tone, I found this to be one of the most enjoyable instructional books I’ve ever read. I came away with an understanding that normally only comes with face-to-face instruction. It was as if Swami Nirmalananda (Abbot George Burke) was sitting next to be, personally instructing me. I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in tapping into the healing power we already possess.
DJ Sommerville, LMT, CKTT
Albuquerque, NM
