Mr. Leviton also reports that every cell of the body functions like an electric battery and is able to store electric charges. He reports that: “Other biomagnetic investigators take an even closer look to find out what is happening, right down to the level of the blood, the organs, and the individual cell, which they regard as ‘a small electric battery’.”3 This has convinced me that our entire body is just like a big battery which is assembled from millions of small batteries. All of these batteries together form the human electromagnetic field.
Furthermore, much of the research on the body’s electrical field relates to acupuncture. For example, Dr. Becker reports that the conductivity of the skin is much higher at acupuncture cavities, and that it is now possible to locate them precisely by measuring the skin’s conductivity. Many of these reports prove that the acupuncture which has been done in China for thousands of years is reasonable and scientific.
Some researchers use the theory of the body’s electricity to explain many of the ancient “miracles” which have been attributed to the practice of Qigong. A report by Albert L. Huebner states: “These demonstrations of body electricity in human beings may also offer a new explanation of an ancient healing practice. If weak external fields can produce powerful physiological effects, it may be that fields from human tissues in one person are capable of producing clinical improvements in another. In short, the method of healing known as the laying on of hands could be an especially subtle form of electrical stimulation.”1
Another frequently reported phenomenon is that when a Qigong practitioner has reached a high level of development, a halo would appear behind and/or around his head during meditation. This is commonly seen in paintings of Jesus Christ, the Buddha, and other Oriental gods. Frequently the light is pictured as surrounding the whole body. This phenomenon may again be explained by body electric theory. When a person has cultivated his Qi (electricity) to a high level, the Qi may be led to accumulate in the head. This Qi may then interact with the oxygen molecules in the air, and ionize them, causing them to glow.
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Although the link between the theory of the body electric and the Chinese theory of Qi is becoming more accepted and better proven, there are still many questions still to be answered. For example, how can the mind lead Qi (electricity)? How actually does the mind generate an EMF (electromotive force) to circulate the electricity in the body? How is the human electromagnetic field affected by the multitude of other electric fields which surround us, such as radio and television waves, or the fields generated by household electrical wiring or electrical appliances? How can we readjust our electromagnetic fields and survive in outer space or on other planets where the magnetic field is completely different from earth’s? You can see that the future of Qigong and bioelectric science is a challenging and exciting one. It is about time that we started to use the modern technologies to understand the inner energy world which has been ignored by Western society.
There are a number of questions which have puzzled Qigong practitioners and acupuncturists for many years. If Qi is the same thing as what is now being called bioelectricity, which Western medical science is just discovering, then certain deductions or hypotheses can be made that might offer convincing explanations for many of these puzzles. In this section I will try to link together these aspects of Eastern and Western sciences, based on my understanding. In this section, I would like to raise some questions and draw some hypotheses concerning, for example, how a human body may react to and be influenced by external electromagnetic fields such as that of the Earth. I hope this section will stimulate your thinking and help the more conservative Qigong practitioners to accept this new science and participate in future analysis and discussion.
The Electromagnetic Field in the Human Body
How Is the Human Electromagnetic Field Formed? Since we and all other living things are formed and live in the Earth’s magnetic field, our bodies also have a magnetic field of their own. The magnetic field of our body always corresponds with and is affected by the Earth’s field. Modern science has shown that magnetic fields and electrical fields cannot be separated (Faraday’s Law and Maxwell’s equations), and indeed are aspects of the same force. Where there is one, there is also the other. This type of field is commonly called an electromagnetic field.
Before we discuss how are we affected by the Earth’s magnetic field, you must first understand the difference between four terms that are often confused: 1. The north and south poles of a magnet; 2. The North and the South Magnetic Poles of the Earth; 3. The geographic North and the South Poles of the Earth; and 4. The actual north and south poles of the Earth-magnet.
A piece of bar magnet has two poles, the north and south poles. The lines of force outside of the magnet start from the north pole and end at the south pole while the lines inside the magnet go from the south pole to the north pole (Figure 4-1). This is defined as the north and the south poles of a magnet.
Now let us take a look at the basics of the Earth’s magnetism. If we place a bar magnet in the Earth’s magnetic field, the magnet will align itself with the Earth’s field. The “north” pole of this bar magnet is the ‘north-seeking pole,’ which points toward North of the Earth’s magnetic field, which is called the “North Pole” (Figure 4-2). Naturally, the pole which points to the South is defined as the “south pole.” Therefore, the poles on a magnet are defined according to the directions they point to within the Earth’s magnetic field.
Furthermore, we have defined the pole of the Earth toward which a magnet’s north pole points as the Earth’s “Magnetic North Pole” while the other end is the Earth’s “Magnetic South Pole.” Essentially, this means that, for ease of navigation and through convention, the Earth’s Magnetic North Pole is for all intents and purposes considered to lie in the same direction as the Earth’s Geographic North Pole. In fact, however, the geographic North and the South poles of the Earth do not actually coincide with the magnetic poles.
Figure 4-1. Magnetic field of a magnet
Figure 4-2. The Earth’s magnetic field
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Figure 4-3. Current loop inside Earth
Let us take a closer look. We know that permanent magnets are collections of current loops (Figure 4-3). If the axis of the assumed current loop is more or less along the direction of the Earth’s axis of rotation, the magnetic North Pole will approximately coincide with the geographic North Pole, as it actually does. In fact, the magnetic North Pole is in northern Canada. This means that a compass needle does not point exactly north except at certain places. The difference between geographic north and magnetic north is called magnetic declination. This quantity varies from about 25 degrees East to 20 degrees West for different places in the United States, and also varies slowly from year to year (Figure