Phenomena Podcast: The Science & Stories of Energy Healing
Published by Merraki Media LLC
Religion & Spirituality
Spirituality
Science
Life Sciences
Researchers at Harvard, MD Anderson Cancer Center, and Columbia are bringing practices like reiki, qigong, and other biofield therapies into the lab like never before, testing and quantifying what has often been considered unmeasurable and unproven. And the results could be showing us the way to the next frontier in healing. Phenomena: The Science and Stories of Energy Healing is a documentary-style podcast hosted by business leader and artist Ivy Ross. Join Ivy as she explores astonishing new science alongside moving human stories of healing from chronic pain, PTSD, and even cancer through ancient practices modern medicine has often dismissed. Produced and mixed by Sounds True
What is “energy” in energy healing? Every healer in this series uses the word. Every patient reaches for it. Ancient healing traditions built entire systems around it. And modern researchers are striving to study it. But what is energy — biologically, physically, measurably — and how does it move through the body to influence health and healing? In this episode, three renowned scientists offer remarkable visions that, taken together, start to answer this question. Martin Picard, PhD, of Columbia University has spent his career studying mitochondria, the body's cellular power sources, and has found them far more connected to our inner experiences, our consciousness, than biomedicine ever assumed, and likely far more central to how we heal. Richard Hammerschlag, PhD, co-authored the paper that helped define the modern science of the biofield: the organizing fields of energy and information that operate within the body and extend outward from it. Like the nested Qi fields of older traditions, these are dynamic interrelating layers — energy running all the way in and likely all the way out. Neil Theise, MD, of NYU helped identify the interstitium, a remarkable recent major discovery of a fluid-filled network running throughout the body. Consistent with the intuitions of ancient healing systems, it may help explain how signals fundamental to health and healing actually travel, a new communication network in the body previously overlooked by modern medicine. Together, these three voices present a compelling, eye-opening, and deeply human vision of the body and mind not as a machine, but as a dynamic energetic ecosystem. And to close out the season, we also welcome Jonathan Cohen, Co-Creator and Executive Producer of Mayim Bialik’s Breakdown, who joins Ivy and Meredith to help land these big ideas of energy, healing, and life. Original music composed by Dan Baboulene. Additional music by Starluxe. Martin Picard: The Science & Experience of Energy Richard Hammerschlag: Biofield Physiology: A Framework for an emerging discipline Structure and Distribution of an Unrecognized Interstitium in Human Tissues Neil Theise, Notes on Complexity: A Scientific Theory of Connection, Consciousness, and Being Mayim Bialik's Breakdown Podcast: Overcome the Illusion of Separation, with Neil Theise Be sure to visit us at https://www.phenomenahealing.com to find out the latest in biofield science.
What happens in the space between a healer and the person they're healing? Is it technique? Trust? Belief? Or something science is only beginning to measure? We begin with Laurie Nealon, an energy healer in Massachusetts, and Alan Brown, from Brisbane — lifelong friends who hadn't seen each other in years when Alan's family came to visit. Over dinner, Laurie saw something in Alan she recognized immediately. What followed was a 20-minute kitchen table healing session that Alan describes as the most paradigm-shifting experience of his life: fire through the top of his head, a thousand volts releasing through his heart, and the sudden sense of something he hadn't felt before. Connection. Love. The coping mechanisms he'd relied on for years fell away. His practice transformed. Their story opens a question that takes us to two of the most rigorous researchers in the field. At Dartmouth, neuroscientist Tor Wager argues that the relationship, the belief, and the felt sense of being truly seen are not noise in the data — they are the data. At Harvard, Vitaly Napadow built a study to prove it: simultaneous brain imaging of clinician and patient in separate MRI machines, connected by live video, at the exact moment of treatment. His team found that the pairs whose brains showed the strongest synchrony achieved the greatest pain relief. The connection itself was part of what was healing them. Science has found the instrument. It just hasn't found everything that plays through it. Music composed by Dan Baboulene. Learn more and find resources at phenomenahealing.com. Resources: Laurie Nealon Energy Healer Napadow Lab Find a Healer Brain-to-brain mechanisms underlying pain empathy Dynamic brain-to-brain concordance and behavioral mirroring as a mechanism Be sure to visit us at https://www.phenomenahealing.com to find out the latest in biofield science.
Ron served in Vietnam and witnessed many harrowing scenes in his Air Force career, both at home and abroad. Later in life, he found himself in need of a bilateral lung transplant. And while the surgery itself was a success, Ron fell victim to a surprisingly common post-op issue: ICU delirium. Most cases resolve fairly quickly, but for Ron and his memories of war and death, his delirium transformed into a monstrous form of PTSD—reality-shaking nightmares, every night, that lasted for years. Ron was ready to give up when he was introduced to an energy healer named Maggie. What happened next is an inspirational story of healing and well-earned peace. PTSD affects an estimated 13 million Americans and is notoriously hard to treat. Even among those who seek help, dropout rates can be as high as 54%. In an effort to treat this mental health crisis—as well as the incredibly common issue of chronic pain—the US military has participated in research that might at first seem surprising. In addition to meeting Ron and Maggie, we'll also hear from Dr. Wayne Jonas, a retired Army physician and former NIH director, who has led numerous studies with the military into alternative treatments like acupuncture and healing touch. Treatments that might seem on the surface to be too "woo woo" for something like the military. But there's a pragmatism at work here. The military is only interested in one thing—does it work? And as we'll see in the research, that answer is a resounding yes. For the links in this episode visit the website here: For links and resources related to this episode visit us here Music composed by Dan Baboulene. Be sure to visit us at https://www.phenomenahealing.com to find out the latest in biofield science.
For thousands of years, healers across cultures have described a life force that flows through the body — invisible, intelligent, and fundamental to health. In Chinese medicine, it's called Qi. And for centuries, western science has had no idea what to do with it. Now, that might be changing. At Harvard, researchers are finding physical evidence for something practitioners have mapped for millennia: pathways in the body that carry Qi called meridians. When scientists injected fluorescent dye at a specific acupuncture point on the wrist, it traveled up the arm through no known vessel — vein, artery, or lymphatic — and emerged exactly where ancient tradition said it would. The meridians, it turns out, may not be a metaphor. But understanding what Qi is might matter less than understanding what you can do with it. Anne Hering has practiced Qigong every day for decades — not as a treatment for a specific condition, but as what traditional Chinese medicine calls yang sheng: the art of nourishing life. The chronic pain she was told she'd carry forever is gone. And she'll tell you the most important thing she learned wasn't a technique. It was that the body already knows how to heal — if you give it the right conditions. Two Harvard scientists and a Qigong teacher in the Netherlands arrived at almost exactly the same definition of Qi — from completely different directions. What they converged on might change how you think about your own health. Music composed by Dan Baboulene. Be sure to visit us at https://www.phenomenahealing.com to find out the latest in biofield science.
Original Airing: 5/12/2026 Produced by Sounds True Studios. Music composed by Dan Baboulene. Be sure to visit us at https://www.phenomenahealing.com to find out the latest in biofield science.
Phenomena: The Science & Stories of Energy Healing is a documentary-style podcast series, hosted by artist and business innovator Ivy Ross, that investigates this and other quietly urgent questions at the intersection of modern medicine and ancient healing. Join Ivy as she shares the latest research findings and the incredible, inspirational stories of energy healers and those who have found relief with them from conditions ranging from chronic pain, PTSD, even cancer. Together, we’ll explore answers to questions like what is energy healing? How does it work? And how do we separate hard facts from hopeful fictions? Because if the answers are what the research suggests, the next frontier of medicine may turn out to be something we've known in our bodies all along. Be sure to visit us at https://www.phenomenahealing.com to find out the latest in biofield science.
