Effects of the biometenergy of practitioners of meditation on chronic spine pain

INTERVENTION: K01.752.667.710 Study group: 26 individuals of both sexes (3 males and 23 females), 33–82 years, and with chronic back pain. Subjects received 12 sessions of a treatment of distant healing with biometenergy (subtle energy or vital) emitted with healing intention by a practitioner of pranic meditation, during 3 weeks of a total of 6 weeks of study. Participants were randomly assigned to two groups: group A (n=12), consisting of subjects who did not receive the treatment at weeks 1, 2 and 3, but received the biometenergtic treatment at weeks 4, 5 and 6, or to group B (n=14), whose subjects received biometenergetic treatment at weeks 1, 2 and 3, but did not receive at weeks 4, 5 and 6. The subjects were unaware of when they would receive BME treatment. Each individual received a total of 12 sessions of treatment at distance: one by week at the physician’s office, and three by week (from the healer’s home), in which the participants were separated from the emitter by kilometers. Each daily treatment lasted about 17.02 min ± 2.2 in the physician’s office, and about 20 minutes from the residence of the healer. For the treatment at distance the emitter used techniques of pranic meditation. He emitted biometenergy with intention of 'reduce the local pain' and to promote the flux of biometenergy throughout of the patient body. At physician’s office, subjects were positioned in sitting position with their back to the healer, which was 3.7 meters away from the patients with a screen between them. In the sessions with no treatment, the emitter kept himself in sitting position behind the screen quietly reading a book for about 15 minutes. To investigate whether the emission of biometenergy with intention would influence the skin temperature alongside the spinal column of patients, an infrared camera (Flir SC325, Flir Systems, Wilsonville, EUA) was used during on‐site interventions. The infrared camera was placed on a tripod at 2.1 meters of distance of the subjects and scanned in real ti CONDITION: Chronic spine pain ; M54.9 M00‐M99 PRIMARY OUTCOME: After 6‐week of study the primary endpoint was the significant reduction of spine pain in subjects treated with biometenergy, as verified by values of McGill Pain Questionnaire. There was also significant reduction in the intensity of spine pain immediately after each daily treatment, according to scores of the Faces Pain Scale (FPS) applied before and after BME‐treatment sessions ; It was expected that the treatment with biometenergy emitted with intention of healing was capable of reducing the chronic spine pain SECONDARY OUTCOME: It was supposed that the treatment would be capable of causing a increasing effect in the temperature of skin along the spine collumm There was a significant reduction of the skin temperature along the vertebral column in subjects treated with biometenergy. This result was obtained with based on average of the temperature values recorded by a infrared camera capable of capturing and recording infrared radiation emitted by human body INCLUSION CRITERIA: Volunteers, both genders, with back pain longer than 3 months, recent medical report, older than 18 years old, no previous participation of pranic meditation courses and no have any knowledge about the techniques of pranic meditation, and the written informed consent