Claude Swanson, PhD

www.SynchronizedUniverse.com
Copyright Claude Swanson, 2011

Updated November 26, 2010

There was a tradition in ancient Europe of a special energy which flowed through the landscape. It was said to flow along special paths called ley lines, which converged at megalithic sites such as Stonehenge and Avebury. It was believed to play a crucial role in the fertility of crops and the success of the harvest. A similar tradition existed in China, going back more than 4,000 years. The Chinese called this energy “chi” or “Qi,” and considered it to be the Life Force, essential for the health of people and crops. As in Europe, it was believed to flow along special paths in the ground called “dragon paths” which converged at temples and sacred sites. According to Chinese law it was illegal to bury a commoner on such a line. The science of controlling this energy was called feng shui.

This same energy was believed to flow in all living things. In Chinese medicine it had two polarities, yin and yang. When the quantities and flow of these were in balance, health resulted. When out of balance, illness and misfortune occurred. Traditional Chinese doctors were paid to keep the energies in balance in their patients, just as the feng shui masters were paid to maintain energy balance in the land. In this medical practice of balancing the flow of Qi is called “acupuncture.”

The tradition of this energy extended around the world in ancient times. In India it was called prana or vril, and was central to Vedic science and medicine. In Australia the Aborigines believed it came from the sun and flowed along special paths in the ground they called “Songlines.” In annual ceremonies they walked for hundreds of miles along these lines, in rituals to energize them so they would carry the “life force” to their crops and villages (Devereux 1999, 2003). There were similar traditions around the ley lines of the Druids in England and for the “dragon lines” of the Chinese.

The energy which flowed was called mana by the Polynesians, orendo by the Iroquois, waken or wakonda by the Sioux (Lakota), baraka in North Africa, and pneuma by the ancient Greeks (Devereux, 1999; Michell, 1969). Where belief in this energy existed, large megalithic sites and straight ley line features can often still be found today, using the technique of dowsing. These structures appear to have been built to control and channel the flow of this energy. In a similar way, traditional healers in those cultures practiced controlling and balancing this energy in their patients. And in the hidden traditions of adepts and mystics, the practice of breathing and conscious manipulation of this energy was developed to a high art.

Although this force has been known for thousands of years in some cultures, in the West until very recently science was largely ignorant of it. This has been changing. During President Nixon’s trip to China in 1972, a member of the party, New York Times correspondent James Reston, developed acute appendicitis and underwent an emergency appendectomy by Chinese doctors. They used acupuncture to relieve some of his post-operative pain, and Secretary of State Kissinger talked about it at a subsequent press conference (Reston, 1971). Later Reston traveled around China doing research on it and wrote articles about his experience. Chinese medicine suddenly became front page news in America. And with it, there was a rebirth of interest in this energy.

Prior to that, other Western scientists attempted to study this mysterious force but none met with acceptance. Beginning in the 1840’s, the great German chemist and industrialist Baron von Reichenbach conducted systematic, painstaking, studies over many decades. He used “sensitives,” people who could see this energy after spending several hours adapting to being in a dark room. In this way he amassed a huge database describing how it behaves, what creates it and how it interacts with electricity, heat and chemistry. He lived in the era of Faraday and Maxwell, when the laws of electricity were just being discovered. His force was different, and somewhat weak and elusive. In the end, science lost interest in it. It did not fit the developing paradigm of electromagnetism. Later, other Western scientists rediscovered this force. In Germany Viktor Schauberger accidentally discovered it in his experiments with water in the 1920’s, and later Dr. Wilhelm Reich happened upon it as he sought to understand the energies of life.

Despite all of this, today it is still considered to be a fantasy by many Western scientists. Yet new discoveries are proving, once and for all, that this energy is real. Korean scientists have identified and photographed the tiny channels called acupuncture meridians that are basic to Oriental medicine and carry this energy throughout the body. Russian and Eastern European physicists have demonstrated in the laboratory that this energy obeys certain laws unlike any other force. They have developed mathematical equations describing its behavior, and even applied it to new patents and inventions. Its behavior is revolutionary in that it alters every other force. Most interesting of all, it responds to human consciousness.

For me, the rediscovery of this force has been part of a long journey to understand the universe. I grew up in a small town in Virginia, and used to watch the stars on summer nights. There is a sense that they are so close, that you can almost touch them. For me there was a sense that the universe is connected, and I wanted to understand it at the deepest possible level.

My curiosity led me to MIT where I earned a degree in physics, and went on to Princeton for my PhD, also in physics. I worked in the Gravity Group there which used new technology to explore the deep structure of the cosmos. Although I studied with some brilliant minds and learned the physics that was available at the time, I was still troubled by what seemed to me a superficial theory of the universe. My intuition told me that something important was still missing.

Then one day I began hearing about remote viewing. It involves the ability to send one’s consciousness out into the universe, to bring back information. I learned of the amazing work of the Princeton PEAR Lab, where they showed that our “minds” can also affect distant objects. The connection does not weaken with distance, and it penetrates virtually every shield. This was the long range connection I had been seeking. It was evidence that the universe is connected at a deep level that has been overlooked in our present science.

As my research has progressed over the last twenty years, I learned of the profound discoveries that have been made in Russia by “hard” scientists, led by Nikolai Kozyrev. He initially was studying something quite different, the evolution of stars. This led to the discovery of a “force” which connects distant processes throughout the universe. It is intimately involved with the flow of time and the efficiency of life processes. He calls it “torsion,” but it appears to be exactly the same as “chi” and subtle energy. He and his colleagues developed equations and devices which harness this energy. It has components which move faster than light and penetrate matter. It appears to be the medium by which psychic phenomena and distant healing operate. It is the energy which makes up the aura. It is the missing ingredient behind many phenomena of consciousness and many “spiritual” phenomena which have been largely ignored by Western science. The Russians have made great progress in isolating this energy and determining how it behaves.

Much of my effort in recent years has been in learning about these discoveries and comparing them to those of other scientists who have gone before, working to build up a single unified model for this energy. From the scientist’s point of view, it can be explained when we remember that the so-called “vacuum of space” is filled with energy. The “old” physics considered the vacuum to be just a random jumble of energy, no structure, no pattern. This led to the “old” laws of physics, including quantum physics. But more recently, scientists are learning how to imprint the vacuum with patterns of energy. This is called “engineering the vacuum.”

When this is done, new forces appear which did not exist before. Subtle energy or “torsion” can be thought of as such a pattern of energy (a whole set of patterns) in the vacuum. It can cause very real effects. The laws of physics are different when this energy is present. It affects gravity, electricity, magnetism, and nuclear properties, not to mention the growth of cells and the process of healing. It is this energy which makes up the “aura” which plays such an important role in healing and higher consciousness. From these discoveries a new science is emerging which is leading to revolutionary new inventions. It has potential applications ranging from new forms of communication, to medical diagnosis, distant healing, metallurgy, mineral prospecting, propulsion, and energy.

We are learning that the mind can impress patterns on this energy, which is key to psychokinesis, PK, and the power of “mind over matter.” It carries thoughts, and is responsible for other mysterious phenomena such as ESP, distant healing, radionics and other aspects of alternative medicine which cannot be explained in the old Western materialistic paradigm. Therefore subtle energy is key to understanding energy medicine, life processes, and consciousness.

In my second book, Life Force: The Scientific Basis, I have gathered the “best evidence” available from many sources to understand how this energy behaves. I have reviewed the experiments of von Reichenbach in Germany, Wilhelm Reich in America, the essence of Traditional Chinese and Korean Medicine, acupuncture, the nature of the aura, the work of Tiller, Schauberger, Kozyrev and many others to show the common principles of this energy. From this, a set of unifying principles has been discovered which may form the basis for a new science. We are at the beginning of a far-reaching scientific revolution as this “new” force is recognized and Western physics expands to include it. It is part of the healing of an ancient rift between science and spirituality. It will be an exciting adventure.