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Quantum Shiatsu

by Andrew May

First published in Shiatsu Society News, Spring 2000

In her article in issue 72, Patrizia Stefanini points out many of the similarities in world-view between Shiatsu and quantum physics. I agree wholeheartedly - this was one of the reasons why, after 20 years as a professional physicist, I was drawn to take up Shiatsu myself. And it's not just me - I've found from talking to other people with backgrounds in the physical sciences that they are generally more comfortable with a whole-system view of human energetics than with the reductionism of traditional medical "science" (which arguably isn't a science at all, but simply a huge collection of categories, labels and empirical "if-then" data). However, the correspondence between Shiatsu and quantum physics may go even deeper than Patrizia Stefanini suggests. A professor at Salford university has argued [1] that a living system may be a macroscopic quantum system, i.e. exhibiting coherent quantum effects on an organic scale and not just at the microscopic (atomic) level. The secret lies in the fact that the body is predominantly composed of water, which has a unique molecular structure making it particularly sensitive to the presence of electric fields. Water will readily vibrate at frequencies characteristic of other, more complex molecules. A fascinating experiment was reported last year [2], in which a digital recording was made of the energy spectrum of the heparin molecule (an anticoagulant), transmitted over the internet from one continent to another, and "played back" to a sample of pure distilled water. This water was then found to slow down the clotting of blood just as if it had been a solution of heparin. This proves (to me at least) that biology has more to do with vibrational energy states than with chemicals.

References
[1] "Is a living system a macroscopic quantum system?"  by C W Smith, Frontier Perspectives, vol. 7 p. 9 (1998)
[2] Article and follow-up letter in The Independent, 19 & 22 March 1999.

Copyright © 2000, 2001 Andrew May

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