There are several other prominent and influential Western leaders emerging in the field of energy medicine. The Rev. Rosalyn Bruyere (link is external), founder of the Healing Light Center Church in California, has influenced many of the healers in the United States including many of the nurses who have studied therapeutic touch as well as Barbara Brennan, Ph.D. who directs the Barbara Brennan School of Healing (link is external) in Florida.
Other Western leaders in holistic medicine include: Deepak Chopra, M.D. (link is external) an advocate of meditation and quantum healing; Dr. Jon-Kabat Zinn (link is external), founder of a stress-reduction clinic at the University of Massachusetts and an expert on mindfulness meditation; and, cardiologist Dean Ornish M.D., an expert on reversing heart disease through diet, yoga and meditation. He created the Preventive Medicine Research Institute (link is external) and is a Professor at the University of California in San Francisco. His testimony to the U.S. Senate in 2009 on integrative healthcare (link is external) can be found on the U.S. Senate website. All these authors have found that calmness and self-knowledge gained through meditation may have therapeutic biological effects.
In the 1980s, C. Norman Shealy, M.D. (link is external) grounded holistic and energy medicine into mainstream acceptability with his study and training of medical intuitives. His groundbreaking research with clairvoyant and author Caroline Myss, Ph.D. (link is external) created the accepted definition of the term “medical intuitive.” In the 1970s Dr. Shealy was one of the prime founders of the American Holistic Medical and Nurses Associations. Dr. Shealy created the first degree granting Energy Medicine Program within Greenwich University (now defunct). This program participated in a new academic paradigm for the study of biology and medicine based on energy-information. As described earlier, in 2002 Dr. Shealy founded the Holos University Graduate Seminary to provide graduate degrees in spiritual healing research.
In the 1990s, three mainstream doctors published books on the interaction of the human energy field and medicine. Christine Northrop, M.D., wrote about energy anatomy in her best-selling book, Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom. Judith Orloff, M.D., wrote about clairvoyance in the practice of psychiatry in her book, Second Sight. Psychiatrist and neuroscientist Mona Lisa Schultz, M.D. wrote Awakening Intuition, which explains how to use the mind-body network for insight and healing.
