Reflexology: The 5 Elements and their 12 Meridians: A Unique Approach. Inge Dougans

of the brain.²⁰

      Further research conducted by Dr Bjorn Nordenstrom was revealed in the American magazine Discover. The headline read:

      ‘Electric Man. Dr Bjorn Nordenstrom claims to have found in the human body a heretofore unknown universe of electrical activity that’s the very foundation of the healing process and is as critical to well-being as the flow of blood. If he’s right, he has made the most profound biochemical discovery of the century.’

      Inside, a 13-page article detailed Nordenstrom’s discovery of electrical polarities in the bloodstream and how he is manipulating the natural electrical circuits he has found to disperse tumours.²¹

      Dr Randolph Stone, who died in 1981 in India at the age of 91, combined Eastern and Western understanding to develop Polarity Therapy. A qualified osteopath and chiropractor, he came to define techniques for balancing the energy flow in human beings through his knowledge of Eastern wisdom, his understanding of the inner structure of the universe and of the gunas, the three fundamental attributes of Ayurvedic medicine, described in Hindu literature. He developed, practised and taught Polarity Therapy in California and India with great success.²²

      The West has finally discovered what the East has acknowledged for thousands of years – that a kind of electrical energy forms the basis of all life. More people are beginning to accept that the physical world is part of a much larger whole – a whole that, unfortunately, most of us cannot physically perceive. We pick up only a tiny fraction of what is really going on around us, because our concepts of life are limited by our five physical senses.

      To quote Lyall Watson’s book Supernature II:

       ‘Earth and everything in it is under constant bombardment. We are battered by a ceaseless barrage of more than a hundred million impulses every second, a confusing avalanche of raw knowledge with which we cannot hope to deal.

       ‘The flood ranges from highly energetic cosmic rays, whose origin remains mysterious, but which at all latitudes have the intriguing property of coming rushing in largely from the West; through shortwave gamma and X-radiation, which passes with relative ease through our bodies; to ultraviolet and infra-red light waves that leave us with Vitamin D and radiant heat; and a wide band of radio frequencies that bring us sound broadcasting, television, radar and a scattering of information about distant galaxies in collision.

       ‘Most of this news is irrelevant. It contributes nothing to an organism battling for survival on a much more limited field. To prevent being overwhelmed by the flood, we have evolved barriers, which filter out the stuff we don’t need.

       ‘So, from all the pyrotechnics of electromagnetism our senses select just that narrow band of radiation that represents the visible spectrum – those wavelengths which lie between 375 and 775 billionths of a metre. We look on the world through a tiny slit, and this narrow window on reality is even further restricted by the censorship-taking place between the eye and the brain.’ ²³

      The human ear responds to sounds within a frequency range of approximately 30–16,000 cycles per second. Human vision responds to wavelengths from 380 to 760 mill microns. Of approximately 50 octaves of electromagnetic radiations, our eyes pick up less than 1.

      From the barrage of electromagnetic waves in the environment, living organisms select only those necessary for their survival. Although our brains are not geared to pick up TV waves, radio waves and ultrasonic frequencies, we do not doubt their existence, so it is clearly unwise to doubt the existence of electrical energy in the body merely because we cannot see it.

      All life on Earth is intricately interwoven with the natural rhythms and laws of the universe. Every organism regulates its metabolic activity in cycles attuned to the fluctuations of the earth, sun and moon. So cosmic forces directly and indirectly have an effect on us humans which is beyond our control. To quote Lyall Watson again:

       ‘Our internal clocks are clearly tied to the rhythms provided by the planet and its nearest neighbours in the solar system. We wake and sleep, sweat and shiver, urinate and breathe in time with cosmic cues that are often so subtle that medical science has had a hard time taking them seriously. But an avalanche of studies in the last (few) decades on insomnia, menstrual irregularity and stress in those suffering from cyclic disturbances such as jet lag has turned the tide. It is now more widely accepted that functional integrity, the basic processes of growth and control, and the efficient working of the central nervous system are all maintained to a very large extent by our electromagnetic environment.’ ²⁴

      This brief synopsis barely begins to encompass the vastness and multiplicity of phenomena occurring around us all the time, but it is intended to emphasize the importance of the interconnectedness of all things and how health is dependent on vital electrical forces. The optimum state for each individual is to live in harmony with nature and the surrounding environment. And it is the role of the reflexologist, working in accordance with holistic philosophy, to help people to work towards and achieve this state of balance.

       Yin/Yang Theory

      Yin and yang is the earliest scientific principle recorded in traditional Chinese medicine. It replaced superstition, as all changes were previously explained in terms of spirits and demons.²⁵ Yin and yang are the two forces that move the world, two manifestations of being, and two complementary and contrasting energies. For the Chinese, yin and yang do not exist separately – they correspond to the two sides of the same coin; being a single principle they cannot exist in isolation. Day and night are inseparable; one cannot exist without the other. Yin and yang are in a state of continuous movement. Energy is not stagnant – by definition it moves. Pathologies, therefore, are energy blockages caused by excess or deficiency.

      Yin and yang are two opposite but complementary and interdependent poles of the energy or Chi generated by Tao.²⁶ Ilza Veith, in the introduction to her translation of The Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Internal Medicine states: ‘… Yin and Yang were conceived as one entity and that both together were ever-present.’ Nature as a whole, including human beings, is composed of these two forces, in other words a yin or yang ‘value’ can be designated for all phenomena, including cosmic processes. These two opposing energy forces are relative to and interdependent on each other. A yin is only a yin in the presence of a yang and vice versa. Chee Soo illustrates this interdependent relationship between yin and yang with the following metaphor: ‘For a cup (yang) is only a cup when you have a void (yin) in the centre.’²⁷

       Fig. 1 Yin/yang symbol

      In reality, neither of these two forces are absolute – yin has a little piece of yang in it and yang has a little piece of yin in it (see above). Under certain conditions, yin can become yang and vice versa. This ability to transmute initiates all changes in nature, as a change in one element will affect all other elements, due to their interdependent relationship. Yang is illustrated in traditional Chinese medicine as the ‘sunny side of the mountain.’ It represents the male principle: active, positive, heat, fire, light, fat, dryness, the sun, it flows upwards and outwards and expands. The ‘dark side of the mountain’ illustrates yin.²⁸ It represents the female element: negative, passive, cold, thin, destructive, the moon, the Earth, night, water, dampness, darkness, death, it flows downward and contracts. In order to obtain balance or equilibrium, both of these opposing energy forces must be present: for example, in order to have birth there must be death, to have day there must be night, to have movement there must be stasis.²⁹

      Note: The fact that yang represents the positive and yin represents the negative does not imply that yang has a positive value and yin has a negative value. It is purely an indication that they are two opposing polarities. No deeper interpretation, meaning or value should be attached than this.

      It is said that heaven was created by the accumulation of yang and that Earth was created by the accumulation of yin.³⁰ Human beings are the result of the interaction between the yang of heaven and the