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THE JOURNAL OF ALTERNATIVE AND COMPLEMENTARY MEDICINE
Volume 10, Number 1, 2004, pp. 41–47
© Mary Ann Liebert, Inc.
Toward an Electromagnetic Paradigm for Biology and Medicine
ABRAHAM R. LIBOFF, Ph.D.
ABSTRACT
Work by Lund, Burr, Becker, and others leads to the inescapable conclusion that organisms tend to express
quasisystemic electric changes when perturbed, and, conversely, will tend toward wellness either through en-
dogenous repair currents or the application of equivalent external currents. We show that an all-inclusive elec-
tromagnetic field representation for living systems is fully consistent with this extensive body of work. This
electrogenomic field may provide the basis for a new paradigm in biology and medicine that is radically dif-
ferent from the present emphasis on molecular biology and biochemistry. An electromagnetic field description
also enables a more rational transformation from the genome than the present endpoint, universally stated in
terms of the so-called visible characteristics. Furthermore, once the organism is described as an electromag-
netic entity, this strongly suggests the reason for the efficacy of the various electromagnetic therapies, namely
as the most direct means of restoring the body’s impacted electromagnetic field to its normal state.
41
IS MOLECULAR BIOLOGY
THE FINAL WORD?
T
he present paradigm in medicine, reflecting the ground-
breaking research of Pasteur, Koch, and Fleming has
held sway for more than 100 years. Some 50 years ago, Wat-
son and Crick extended the emphasis on biochemistry to in-
clude DNA/RNA. The functioning of the body, its problems,
and repairs, are now completely formulated in terms of bio-
molecules and their interactions. Today the medical com-
munity takes for granted that the best way to describe the
living state is in terms of molecular biology, and that ques-
tions of illness and wellness must be ultimately answered in
this context.
How does electromagnetic therapy fit into this picture?
Is it merely one more convenient physical tool useful some-
times in leveraging physiologic adjustments? Or does it fit
the phrase often associated with Feynman: is it a new way
of looking at the biologic world? Is electromagnetic therapy
indicative of a strikingly different paradigmatic shift?
The medical community is so fixed in its ways that it does
not quite know what to do with electromagnetic therapy.
This is despite the small but increasing acceptance of elec-
tromagnetic techniques by clinicians in recent years. An out-
standing example was the use of pulsed magnetic fields
(Bassett et al., 1974) followed by ion cyclotron resonance
magnetic field combinations (Diebert et al., 1994) to treat
bony nonunions. Another has been the use of rapid trans-
cranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS; Barker et al., 1985) to
treat depression. One problem for the clinician is that there
is no rationale to fall back on to provide guidance in choos-
ing among the variety of electromagnetic devices. With
pharmaceuticals, for example, the physician can at least
make an educated guess. But there is no underlying theory
connecting electromagnetics to physiology. To add to the
problem, we find clinicians lacking even a rudimentary un-
derstanding of electricity and magnetism.
In an attempt to find a reasonable way of classifying the
variety of neuroelectromagnetic therapies presently being
studied, we (Jenrow and Liboff, 2003; Liboff and Jenrow,
2002) concluded that based on the level of current densities
produced, such therapies readily fall into three categories:
disruptive, gross, and subtle. The self-descriptive term dis-
ruptive is illustrated by electroshock therapy or its newer
magnetic equivalent, rTMS. Gross therapies are those that
apply electromagnetic signals to mimic or recreate in-house
physiologic signals that have gone awry, pacemakers being
the prime example. The third category, subtle, is reserved
Department of Physics, Oakland University, Rochester, MI, and Center for Molecular Biology and Biotechnology Florida Atlantic
University Boca Raton, FL.
for signal strengths that are seemingly too small to be cou-
pled to any known physiologic events, much less capable of
disrupting anything in the nervous system. Physicists tell us
that there are lower bounds to the effectiveness of electric
or magnetic applications, bounds that are well characterized
because of their profound understanding of the electrical sig-
nals generated by random thermal vibrations in molecules,
including the molecules that are found in living systems.
Nonetheless, reality in science is based on what you observe,
not on what you are supposed to observe. Just as Galileo
was alleged to have muttered that the earth moves around
the sun despite the opinion of the Court of the Inquisition,
many subtle electromagnetic effects are based in reality.
How then to explain the basic nature of these and other
bioelectromagnetic interactions? In my opinion, much of the
research directed at this question falls short of the mark. The
existing medical paradigm is so pervasive that it seems nat-
ural to regard such EM interactions as convenient adjuncts
to the “normal” biochemical mechanisms by means of
which, as doctors are taught, all living things function. If a
certain voltage with a certain waveshape can enhance sero-
tonin levels or increase activation rates in calcium-binding
proteins or increase the expression of heat shock protein,
this becomes an end in itself. Rare indeed is the physiolo-
gist who inquires as to why this happens. The applied EM
signal results, in this view, in changes that physicians can
comprehend, changes that can readily be tied to the accepted
medical paradigm. It matters little how these signals do the
trick. Electromagnetism merely serves to transform the ther-
apy into the familiar language of biochemistry. The medical
community, the pharmaceutical industry, the funding agen-
cies, and the health care providers have all been weaned on
this language, and, because they are uncomfortable with
electromagnetism, they are content to see the results phrased
in terms of hormones, cytokines, and membrane receptors.
I believe there is a second way of interpreting such re-
sults, one that leads to a totally different paradigm, one that
is based on a language as rich and varied as the familiar bio-
chemistry and molecular biology. Simply stated, it is possi-
ble to view the living system as an electromagnetic entity,
with the response of the system to a given electric or mag-
netic signal as an outcome expected on the basis of physi-
cal law. The familiar hormonal and enzymatic effects still
occur, but in this new approach these are merely associated
changes in the system. Viewed in this light, I think that in
the future biochemical responses are likely to be regarded
as less fundamental than the corresponding changes in the
electromagnetic state of the system.
LIFE AS AN EXPRESSION OF THE
ELECTROMAGNETIC FORCE
Is there any evidence that such a description exists? To
begin with, our understanding of nature tells us that there
are likely no more than four types of forces in the universe,
one of which is the gravitational and another the electro-
magnetic. I prefer to think of living things as direct and nec-
essary consequences of the existence of electromagnetic
force. Just as our planetary system and the structure of galax-
ies are necessary consequences of the gravitational force,
the electromagnetic force is the underlying reason for life.
Just as atoms are higher order collections of electrons and
hadrons, and molecules are collections of atoms, and poly-
mers are collections of molecules, so too, life is an interac-
tive assembly of polymers. One merely has to consider the
sequence of increasingly complex systems, each necessi-
tated by the existence of the electromagnetic force, a se-
quence that directly leads to life: electrons, hadrons, atoms,
molecules, polymers, living things.
HINTS OF ELECTROMAGNETIC
ORGANIZATION IN BIOSYSTEMS
There are, however, more salient clues. Two separate
types of widespread experimental evidence hint at some sort
of electromagnetic organization in living things. First, there
are studies indicating many remarkable intrinsic electrical
features associated with biostructures, features that are, in
some cases, directly tied to biological functions such as de-
velopment, growth, and repair. The second type of clue is
generated by the surprising fact that living things are sensi-
tive to external electromagnetic fields, often at intensities so
weak as to raise questions of credibility.
ENDOGENOUS CURRENTS
The idea that the presence of endogenous electric and mag-
netic signals might be indicative of hitherto undiscovered lev-
els of organization in living systems is not exactly a new con-
cept. Since the time of Carlo Matteucci, a professor of physics
in the early nineteenth century, it has been known that when
the integrity of living tissue is perturbed, as in amputation or
other injury, electric currents are generated in the vicinity of
the problem area. These currents are referred to as currents of
injury (Loeb and Beutner, 1912). After a provocative exper-
iment on such currents in plants by Siniukhin (1957), Becker
made a brilliant conceptual leap (Becker, 1974). After ob-
serving during salamander regeneration that after some time
the injury current reverses polarity, he concluded that this re-
versal signals the dominance of healing over injury. This in
turn implies the existence within living things of a complex
electrically based process that first, signals that there is a
problem, and second, provides another signal to repair things.
During the 1920s and 1930s, Lund (1947) showed that
plants exhibit a remarkably well-defined endogenous electric
dipole field. Pohl (1981) later reinforced this discovery by ob-
serving a similar dipole electric field in living cells in culture,
lending credence to the concept that the organization of or-
ganisms may be electrically mediated. Clinical observations
LIBOFF
42
and speculations concerning the potential relation between
sickness and endogenous electricity were made by Burr at
Yale University. He reported finding links between various
pathologies and the electric surface potentials of the impacted
organs (Burr, 1972). These correlations were generalized
(Burr and Northrup, 1935) into a sort of electric template for
wellness (the L-field) based on the surface distribution of volt-
age. However, in general it can be said that, except for a few
isolated individual researchers, primarily Becker and Selden
(1985) and Athenstaedt (1969), the scientific community has
all but ignored the work of Lund and Burr.
A separate series of experiments on hard tissue by Fukada
and Yasuda (1957) established that bone has a well-charac-
terized piezoelectric property, the unique characteristic that
transforms mechanical stress to an electric potential differ-
ence. Later, Fukada and Yasuda (1964) showed that this
piezoelectric property resulted from the interspersed colla-
gen component in bone, and it was subsequently suggested
(Shamos and Lavine, 1967) that this decidedly physical
property was fundamental to a large class of biologic struc-
tures. Subsequent detailed measurements on the piezoelec-
tric effect in intact long human bone (McElhaney, 1967)
were interpreted by Marino and Becker (1970) as showing
that daily forces such as walking and mechanical support,
when transmitted to undifferentiated cells, determined
whether these cells became osteoclasts or osteoblasts, bone
cells that act to either destroy or grow bone, respectively.
Long before anyone suspected that bone contained func-
tional electrical properties, it was known that bone contin-
ually remodels itself to provide optimal mechanical support
for its load bearing (Wolff’s law). Thus, Marino and Becker
(1970), using the electrical properties of bone, succeeded in
explaining an orthopedic principle that dated from the lat-
ter half of the nineteenth century. Their electromechanical
control system is best illustrated in the osteopenia suffered
by astronauts following lengthy periods of weightlessness.
Another on-board electric regulatory mechanism has also
been identified for developing organisms. Building on
Lund’s original work (1947), Athenstaedt (1969) found a
clear tie-in between electric polarization in the skeleton and
human development. This finding was reinforced by
Friedenberg et al. (1973). In studies on developing bone,
they reported that a well-characterized electric potential is
specifically associated with the growth plate in long bone.
These and other observations clearly indicate that elec-
tricity, either endogenously available or occurring as the re-
sult of internal transduction processes, is used to physiologic
advantage in living systems, in guiding growth, repair, and
regeneration.
THE RESPONSE TO APPLIED
ELECTROMAGNETIC FIELDS
Nearly coincident with these reports of endogenous elec-
trical characteristics in biologic systems, others discovered
that organisms exhibit the obverse: they also respond bio-
logically to applied electromagnetic fields. One persistent
idea followed the original concept by Lund (1947) that small
currents may aid or mimic or oppose naturally occurring en-
dogenous signals arising either as “currents of injury” or in
connection with growth and development. If the growth in
living systems is engineered
in situ
by endogenous currents,
why not apply external signals to do the same? Thus cur-
rents were used (Becker, 1972; Smith, 1967) to assist in forc-
ing limb regeneration in rats. Another approach similar to
but not quite the same as in the current of injury concept
was due to Nordenstrom (1983) who hypothesized the ex-
istence of intrinsic electric pathways in the body, the most
prominent being the low-resistance vascular network. Based
on his Biologically Closed Electric Circuits (BCES) hy-
pothesis, Nordenstrom suggested that endogenous currents
appear as a consequence of pathological disorders, and thus
it should be possible to treat such disorders with properly
applied electrical signals. Nordenstrom’s concepts were ex-
tended (Chou, 1997; Xin et al., 1997) to electrotherapeutic
techniques to treat (with some success) a variety of malig-
nant tumors.
A great deal of work originally centered on the likelihood
that biologic systems have probably evolved to use the
earth’s magnetic field to their own advantage. As one ex-
cellent example in a wide literature base (e.g., Presman,
1970) on this subject, Brown (1962) determined that pla-
naria and other organisms are sensitive to changes in the geo-
magnetic field.
Furthermore, if growth and remodeling in bone are the
result of electricity, why not use electricity to enhance bone
growth and repair? The original discovery by Yasuda (1953)
that small direct current (DC) electric currents applied to
living bone results in callus formation, even in the absence
of a fracture, led to studies on the potential use of such cur-
rents in treating bony nonunions (Lavine et al., 1972). Bas-
sett et al. (1974) demonstrated that these currents were
equally effective when they were induced by pulsed mag-
netic fields generated by coils situated close to the defect.
Similar levels of efficacy resulted when ion cyclotron reso-
nance (ICR) combinations of alternating current (AC) and
DC magnetic field (Diebert et al., 1994) were used.
Presently, Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved
devices using both techniques are prescribed to speed re-
calcitrant nonunions and spinal fusion.
Another group of electromagnetic techniques has been
developed for neurotherapies. There are presently (Jenrow
and Liboff, 2003) approximately 10–12 different electro-
magnetic devices for treating neurologic and behavioral
problems, with a wide range of applied currents, frequen-
cies, and waveshapes.
In the 1980s, two things tended to spur greater interest in
the response of biologic systems to magnetic fields. First,
there was the possibility that 50/60 Hz electrical transmis-
sion and distribution presented a hazard, particularly with
respect to the induction of childhood leukemia (Wertheimer
ELECTROMAGNETIC PARADIGM
43
and Leeper, 1979). Second, the fact that pulsed magnetic
fields were found to play a role in repairing bone led to
studying the effects of such fields in a wide variety of other
systems. For example, Cossarizza et al. (1989) observed that
lymphocytes from aged humans, when exposed to pulsed
magnetic fields, tend to recover much of the immune loss
that ordinarily occurs with aging. Using both pulsed mag-
netic fields (Goodman et al., 1983) and sinusoidal magnetic
fields (Goodman and Blank, 2002) Goodman and cowork-
ers have repeatedly reported electromagnetic-induced ge-
nomic changes, particularly the expression of heat shock
stress proteins.
An important chapter in studying the biologic response
to applied EM fields was opened by Suzanne Bawin, work-
ing in Ross Adey’s laboratory (Bawin and Adey, 1976). For
the first time a response was obtained that appeared to carry
a more physically meaningful message, in that maximum bi-
ologic responses were observed at certain frequencies. This
was suggestive of resonances observed in many nonliving
systems. This response was subsequently identified (Liboff
and McLeod, 1988) as resulting from the Lorentz force, an
interaction specifically requiring the movement of charged
particles (e.g., ions) in a magnetic field. This can give rise
(Liboff, 1985) to the ICR response. Since that time, this type
of resonance has been observed not only in bone, but also
in rat behavior, diatom motility, calcium uptake in cell cul-
ture, neurite outgrowth, in plant growth, and in other or-
ganisms (Liboff, 2003).
AN ELECTROMAGNETIC FIELD
FOR THE ORGANISM
Thus, the past 50 years have revealed both that there is a
remarkable endogenous electric character to organisms, and,
also, that there are equally remarkable effects in biologic
systems when they are exposed to electromagnetic fields.
Nevertheless, as imaginative and innovative as the various
experiments, starting with Lund, may have been, they have
failed to come to grips with the larger question: What is the
nature and meaning of the electric character that seems to
permeate living things?
The author wrote in 1994 (Liboff, 1994):
. . . does the ability of weak ELF signals to perturb
living systems indicate that these signals are interact-
ing with an intrinsic electromagnetic characteristic of
these systems? . . . do living systems contain a hidden
electromagnetic variable?
One way to explain the experimental results is to invoke
a special electromagnetic field for all organisms, a field that
is not epiphenomenal but serves a specific biologic function.
It happens that it is possible to connect living things in
an unequivocal manner to electromagnetism. This connec-
tion is based on physical law. It is not a matter of arbitrary
choice but rather a matter of definition. Electromagnetic
fields are always precisely defined in terms of what are re-
ferred to as source densities. An electromagnetic field only
exists when the system contains source distributions of
charge density and current density. Every living thing car-
ries these two sources, which ensures that every living thing,
by definition, also carries an associated electromagnetic field
(Liboff, 1994). But there is more. Unlike nonliving entities,
charge and current sources in living things are distinctive.
They are arranged in ways through natural selection that al-
low the organism to survive. With death, these distributions
of charge and current, or equivalently, the associated elec-
tromagnetic field for the system, are no longer viable. In
brief, we are suggesting that the life process itself is an ex-
pression of the electromagnetic field.
One interesting consequence of this is that it is possible,
in principle, to formulate a specific electromagnetic field
that in essence represents a specific organism. Rather than
concentrate on the electrical characteristics of any one com-
ponent of the body, we associate the entire organism with
the field. Elsewhere (Liboff, 1994, 1996), it has been shown
how such a field can be mathematically described in terms
of a vector
P
that is a function of space and both ontogenic
and phylogenetic times. This field grows with us as we de-
velop and age, and is itself the product of evolution, relat-
ing each of us to our species and all that came before. The
field reflects the changes in the developing embryo, and in
the way we develop towards maturity after birth. It reflects
the traumatic changes associated with wounds. Also, fol-
lowing Athenstaedt (1969) and Becker (1974), not only do
these field changes reflect the changes in source density, but
the changed field acts as the template for restoring the sys-
tem to its normal state. Most relevant to electromagnetic
therapy, the conclusion that living things are expressions of
the electromagnetic field explains electromagnetic medicine
in a new way: we can change the intrinsic electromagnetic
field when external electromagnetic fields are applied. Once
we admit to the possibility that the gestalt of the body’s
physiologic state—homeostasis, metabolic turnover, respi-
ration, enzymatic rates—-is no more than an intertwined sys-
tem that can be represented by a single electromagnetic field
vector, then we are also admitting to the fact that this in-
trinsic field and therefore its corresponding physiologic state
will be changed by imposing a new applied field. Needless
to point out, the change can either be beneficial in the form
of a therapeutic signal to repair that which has gone awry,
or it can be harmful, as an unwanted deviation from the nor-
mal resting state. Therefore, the formulation of this field also
subsumes the problem of electromagnetic pollution, and
likely, the question of electrosensitivity as well. There
should be no question among those making use of electric
or magnetic therapies that humans can react negatively to
the imposition of electromagnetic fields that act to distort
the body’s normal electromagnetic field.
LIBOFF
44
REPLACING THE VISIBLE
CHARACTERISTICS
It must be emphasized that this field is not merely as-
sociated with the living system, but may itself be the ul-
timate biologic representation of the system. For cen-
turies, well before Darwin, biologists have delineated
each organism by means of its characteristics, more prop-
erly referred to as its visible characteristics—-its shape
and size, the location of the eyes, the color of flowers,
the shape of beaks, the number of fins, the inner compo-
nents of the body, and all the other myriad aspects that
constitute a precise means of distinguishing an organism
from other species and from other members of the same
species. The discovery of DNA/RNA was used to explain
these characteristics in the sense that there is (almost) a
one-to-one correspondence between a specific character-
istic and an element or elements in the genome. In math-
ematical terms, this relation between the genome and the
visible characteristics can be referred to as a transforma-
tion—-in the simplest definition, a transformation allows
one to express the same thing in two ways when viewed
in two different coordinate systems. In principle, for each
visible characteristic that one can think of, there is a cor-
responding element of the genome that carries specific
information relevant to this characteristic. However, this
way of describing every living thing in terms of its visi-
ble characteristics is a flawed concept. Nowhere else in
science do we allow descriptions of what we are mea-
suring to be so unabashedly subjective. Equally impor-
tant, how does one get a mathematical handle on long
laundry lists of disparate things like skin, eyes, and size?
Physics, probably because it was forced to deal with en-
tities that could not be seen, developed mathematical
techniques (some would say borrowed mathematical tech-
niques), and the results have been spectacular, because
once there is a good mathematical handle at your dis-
posal, then one can use this to hunt for the special rela-
tions that may exist for the system. Some have stated this
problem by arguing that biology will only be understood
when we develop or discover the missing “Newton’s laws
of biology,” the mathematically distinct rules from which
everything that can be known about biologic systems can
be discerned.
Thus, when we postulate the existence of an electromag-
netic field that is distinctly representative for each and every
organism, we are also arguing first, that this representation
may be more mathematically accessible than the present sys-
tem using visible characteristics, and second, that a more
fertile basis will result from the transformation that relates
the genome to this field, as opposed to the existing, rather
sterile transformation relating genome to characteristics. Be-
cause we are relating the characteristic electromagnetic field
of an individual to the individual’s genome, we will call this
field the electrogenomic field.
SUGGESTED POSTULATES
In reviewing the work exploring the relation between elec-
tromagnetism and biology, we find that this work strongly
suggests an overarching explanation that is purely field-
driven. On the one hand, when the system is away from equi-
librium, either while still developing or as the result of injury,
the system expresses electric current in a functional way, as
part of the growth or repair mechanism. What is especially
provocative is that this expression is in terms of quasi-sys-
temic currents, emanating from large areas of the system, con-
necting enormous numbers of cells, and quite clearly repre-
senting a process that is more than the sum of its parts.
On the other hand, when one applies external voltages or
otherwise applies currents to large areas of tissue, also cov-
ering a multitude of cells, specific physiologic responses oc-
cur. These two aspects, the intrinsic functional currents and
the response to equivalent external currents, taken together,
are quite remarkable, especially considering that in both
cases the component cells are acting in concert.
The only explanation for all of this is that the living sys-
tem enjoys a characteristic electric field that is somehow in-
trinsically interwoven into the fabric of the system, a field
that will generate various local currents in growth, in stasis,
and in repair modes. Although the field we have suggested
is electric and quasistatic, it is reasonable to extend the no-
tion to the most general case (i.e., a field that is time vary-
ing and electromagnetic).
We therefore present the following two postulates:
1. Every living organism is completely described by an
electromagnetic field vector
P
o
that is specifically de-
termined by a transformation from the genome.
2. All pathologies, abnormalities and traumas are mani-
fested by deviations from the normal field
P
o
, and, within
limits, these deviations are compensated for by the ho-
meostatic tendency of the system to return to
P
o
.
DISCUSSION
The concept that some sort of lawful generalization gov-
erns living things is certainly not a new idea (Goodwin,
1989; Waddington, 1972). Many such attempts however, re-
main deeply rooted in biology, searching for rules implicit
in the way that biologic systems function, for example, their
self-replicating properties (Turing, 1952). Even the mor-
phogenetic field proposed by Sheldrake (1988) is completely
biologic in flavor, stressing the visible characteristics of the
organism. Remarkably, none of these approaches to the
biofield are necessarily connected to the electromagnetic
field. This, despite the strides of those such as Lund (1947),
Burr (1972), Becker (1974), and Athenstaedt (1969) who
collectively demonstrated how deeply electricity is involved
in the organization and functioning of living things.
ELECTROMAGNETIC PARADIGM
45
More recently, the heightened interest in energy medicine
has to some extent focused on the possibility that the biofield
may have an electromagnetic basis (Rubik, 2002). This ar-
gument is based on the fact that the effects observed in both
energy medicine and bioelectromagnetism are unusually
subtle, an interesting observation, but by no means proof
that there is a connecting link. Although there is no evidence
to date that shows this connection, the postulates that we
propose provide a good working premise with which to fur-
ther explore energy medicine.
There are a number of additional interesting implications
embodied in these postulates. Electromagnetic fields enjoy
the common property that the field is never limited to the
boundary of the system of sources (in living things, the skin).
There is ample proof that electromagnetic fields are gener-
ated in humans and that these extend beyond the skin. The
military uses night-vision devices for remote viewing per-
sonnel. Medical diagnostic procedures make use of infrared
thermography for subcutaneous examination. Weak mi-
crowave signals are radiated by living things. However these
cases, involving infrared and microwave detection, simply
reflect the fact that any heated object will radiate. But ani-
mals also emit another type of electromagnetic signal. Su-
perconducting quantum interference detection (SQUID)
techniques routinely detect magnetic signals from the brain,
the heart, and other endogenous current sources. Each of
these signals is magnetically coherent, reflecting the fact that
the currents in each source are in phase, with changes oc-
curring simultaneously.
Because of this we find the potential for biocommunica-
tion, more specifically intersystem electromagnetic bio-
communication. The electromagnetic characteristics of liv-
ing things may therefore allow for direct communication
between individuals other than by means of the relatively
recent evolutionary development of speech. The primary
factor required for this would be signal intensity, not in the
form of broadband thermal radiation, but more frequency
specific. The oscillator serving as the basis for the underly-
ing time-varying electromagnetic field must be coherent in
order for information to be transmitted. Remarkably, there
are compartments in our brains that reflect just this—spe-
cific frequencies. Among such sources are those producing
g
-oscillations (Singer, 1993) reflecting millions, perhaps bil-
lions, of neuronal elements all oscillating in phase.
In recent years, some (Behe, 1998) have questioned the
viability of Darwinian evolution, claiming that certain bio-
logic structures are so complex (e.g., the eye) that they could
not have been formed over the several billion years every-
one agrees transpired since life began. However, this argu-
ment, often termed irreducible complexity, is deeply rooted
in the molecular biology paradigm. Behe’s argument be-
comes far less of an issue if organizational imperatives ex-
ist other than those found in traditional biology. In particu-
lar, the presence of the electrogenomic field mitigates this
argument. Biologic structures that are biochemically com-
plex need not be electromagnetically complex. On the con-
trary, there is a far greater simplicity in using an electro-
magnetic field to describe living things compared to the
widely disparate distribution of enzymes and other bio-
chemical factors that are normally used. This reduction of
biologic complexity is a direct consequence of the mathe-
matical abstract that we call field, in much the same way as
Faraday and Maxwell used the field concept to simplify elec-
tricity and magnetism.
One of the most persistent opinions of those advocating
alternative medicine is that the ailing body should be treated
holistically. One finds this in approaches that, among many
others, attempts to balance
yang
and
yin
, involve meditation
or the practice of yoga, and especially in Western culture,
promote the idea that certain regimens, like daily exercise
or eating yoghurt, are good for you. With the electrogenomic
field, one finds for the first time a potential basis for holis-
tic biology and medicine that is entirely framed in terms of
existing physical law.
Finally, we note the direct manner in which electromag-
netic therapy can be folded into the postulates above. Instead
of providing a tool that affects the variables that are part of
the existing medical paradigm, electromagnetic therapy is re-
vealed as the most direct means of restoring the fundamen-
tal electromagnetic parameters of the body. It is also clear
that electromagnetic therapies are not to be used haphazardly
but require some thought in their implementation.
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Address reprint requests to:
Abraham R. Liboff, Ph.D.
Department of Physics
Oakland University
272 Hannah Hall
Rochester, MI 48309
E-mail:
liboff@oakland.edu
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