Hypothesis Of The Biofield Control System (BCS)
published in the Townsend Letter

Savely L. Savva, MS

In the 1970s, when I worked as mechanical engineer in Leningrad, USSR, and had written my PhD dissertation in the field of physical chemistry, I was introduced to what was called “psychic healing.” I saw a movie about Pilipino “psychic surgeons” that was privately brought and shown at the Academic Institute of Neurophysiology. I didn’t think about how it might have been faked — I thought “What if this is true?” —after all, science progresses through paradoxical observations.

Thus, when in 1985 in Dallas, Texas, I had an opportunity to join a group of 50 Americans traveling to Mazatlan, Mexico, to be treated by a Pilipino psychic healer, Romy Bugarin, I jumped on the wagon. I certainly did not know the medical problems of the group members, but the variety included people with different kinds of cancer and one man with a deformed nasal septum (the partition) whom I met later and whose problem Romy fixed by “finger surgery.”

Romy didn’t ask patients about their problems or complaints. At the first encounter people were laid on a bench while two assistants held a white bed sheet behind them. Romy looked at the individual from a 6 to 8 feet distance for less than a minute. This was the diagnostic procedure. Then, during the healing sessions — each member of the group was treated twice a day in duration of five days — he worked on a particular part of the body. Usually, he indented the body with his fingers and the indentation immediately became filled with a pink liquid. With the other hand he pulled from the indentation three types of objects: cream-colored solid strings with irregular edges two-three inches long; jelly-like blood clots; and films rolled up into strings. He didn’t demonstrate them to patients, especially when he worked on their backs, but put them on a plate held by an assistant. I had a feeling that these things came not from the bodies but somehow materialized in his hands.

My personal experience and the outcome of the treatment were remarkable though I don’t know what else he saved me from.

Working on my bladder, Romy said that there is a white mass there coming from the right kidney but that it was not dangerous. For twenty five years before that I had periodical renal colic every two years. Horrible pain. Every time I ended in a hospital. X-ray didn’t show any stones in kidneys or ureters and in a few days after morphine injection I could forget about this. In 1987 in Monterey, California, a local urologist finally performed a cystoscopy and found a golf ball-size cancerous tumor that apparently periodically interfered with the ureter outlet. Histological analysis showed a class two cancer that was removed, but has emerged again, and since that time has been removed three times showing unchanged histology.

For at least 15 years before 1985 I had a lower back pain that chained me to the bed for 2 to 3 weeks twice a year. I didn’t have any back pain in Mazatlan and I didn’t tell Romy about the problem. Romy worked on four points on my back for a total of less than three minutes and during the following 21 years, i.e., till today, I have had no shade of my former back pain.

In 1983 I had a mild heart attack. My father, an otherwise healthy and strong man, died from a heart attack at the age of 64. In 1985 I barely could carry a rather light suitcase and a local Dallas cardiologist insisted on a bypass surgery. Romy worked on my heart for 3-5 minutes without ”pulling out” any substance. Upon retuning back home, in Dallas, I didn’t feel any improvement. I considered going for the open heart surgery but in about two-three months all symptoms were gone. Sufficient to say that I didn’t see any cardiologist during the next six years, i.e., till 1991. Later I went through angioplasty and had four bypasses installed, etc. My guess is that I wouldn’t have needed these if I had access to Romy again.

Now, the most interesting question is “What kind of physical interaction is at work that changes the program of death, as in my case, in duration of 2-3 months?” It is clearly not electric (chemical), electromagnetic (this will be shown later), gravitational or nuclear — the only interactions known to today’s physics.

The latter is the subject of the book that I had been editing for one and a half years: “LIFE and MIND – In Search of the Physical Basis” and that is printed by TRAFFORD Publishing. The book is a collection of 12 articles by scientists from four countries structured in three parts:

1 - The concept of the biofield control system of the organism,

2 - Paradoxical scientific observations that indicate inadequacy of contemporary physics to explain life and mind and suggest ways for further studies, and

3 - Alternative physical models of the Universe that may incorporate life suggested by five physicists. The articles are written by scientists and for scientists in appropriate areas of science — biology, biochemistry, biophysics and physics — but the concept of the biofield control system is comprehensible to any thoughtful individual. The following are parts of my introductory article elucidating this subject.

From my Introductory Article

Developmental biologists, starting with H. Driesch and A. Gurvitsch at the beginning of the 20^th century, suggested the existence of a non-chemical level of organization that controls embryogenesis — the “biofield.” In the middle of the century, developmental biologists called it “epiphenomenon of genome” recognizing the insufficiency of the strictly genetic approach. In the 1960s, the Romanian biochemist Eugene Macovschi postulated the existence of cellular “biostructure” — an entity that controls processes in living cells and changes chemical properties of constituent molecules. In 2000, at the announcement of deciphering the human genome, Craig Venter, then CEO of Selera Genomics, said exactly the same — to understand the way the genome operates, it should be considered a “different” (presumably, non-chemical) level of organization.

Yet, in 2006, the absolute majority of studies in biochemistry, molecular biology, biophysics, etc., are about chemical signals associated with developmental, normal physiological and aging processes, and diseases — their structure and presumed mechanisms of action. The control system that arranges these signals is almost never mentioned, although it is clear that any gene, a part of a DNA chemical molecule, doesn’t have the ‘mind’ or a ‘plan,’ and the feedback mechanism needed for controlling anything.

How is the control system of the organism structured? What is its physical carrier and how is the genetic information re-encoded on it? The contemporary, still Newtonian physics doesn’t have any answers to these questions. This monograph is intended to clarify the formulation of the problem and to suggest some approaches to solving it.

History and Basic Postulates

Alexander Gurwitsch wrote¹:

“…the place of the embryonic formative process is a field (in the usage of physicists) the boundaries of which, in general, do not coincide with those of the embryo but surpass them. Embryogenesis, in other words, comes to pass inside the fields. … Thus what is given to us as a living system would consist of the visible embryo (or egg, respectively) and a field.”

Perhaps, the term biofield may be somewhat misleading for the field-like, non-electromagnetic control system of the organism and a better term would be ‘Biofield Control System’ or BCS. The following postulated definition of the BCS that is broader than the biofield concept engendered in embryology comes from viewing the organism as a self-controlled cybernetic system. Contemporary physics is unable to explain life and life-related phenomena and many physicists have stated this unequivocally. Robert Rosen, who in turn refers to Einstein and Schrödinger, writes:²

“…biology remains today, as it has always been, a repository of conceptual enigmas for contemporary physics…”

The following postulates emphasize the difference between the field-like control system of the organism and its yet-unknown physical carrier(s). It also suggests ways for further experimental and theoretical studies into both cybernetic and physical aspects of the life phenomenon.

Postulated Definition

The Biofield Control System (BCS) is the operative control system of the organism. In BCS the genetic information is re-encoded on other than biochemical physical carrier. It evolves in ontogenesis into a hierarchy of subordinate BCSs of the whole organism, organs, tissues and cells. At all levels it holds four fundamental programs of life: development, maintenance, reproduction and death. The mind is an essential part of the BCS at the whole organism level serving behavioral aspects of all fundamental programs in addition to the physiological aspect (see the graph below).

The Mind

As postulated above, the mind is an essential part of the biofield control system responsible for behavioral aspects of fundamental programs of life. The word mind is used rather than consciousness in order to distinguish the general ‘decision-making’ mechanism from awareness associated with the latter in higher biological species. The mind includes fundamental drives or ‘basic instincts’ serving conservation of the individual, the population and the species, such as attraction to the food and opposite sex, avoidance of threats and sticking to the group. The mind holds memory and extracts meanings out of perceived information. It also includes programs prioritizing the organism’s reaction to changing internal and external conditions, for instance, how to behave when hunger, threat and sex drive act simultaneously. Development of the nervous system and the brain in biological evolution only broadened the mind capacity.

CONTROL SYSTEM OF THE ORGANISM
(Control subsystems exist only in higher biological taxa)

The arrows indicate flows of control signals and feedback as well as directions of energy exchange. The ‘language’ of the feedback must be the same as that of the signals.

1. Processes associated with brain functions – imagination, emotions, etc.;

2. For instance, pain, hunger;

3. For instance, sexual arousal, muscles conscious control, etc.;

4. See C. Backster’s and J. Kiang’s articles in this book;

5. Provide energy supply, sensory information and control over muscular activity

Biofield Control System at the Organ Level

The ability of many organs to function after transplantation to another organism clearly shows the autonomy and survivability of their biofield control systems.

Besides the sensitivity to commands of the whole organism control system, BCS at the organ level can be illustrated particularly by controlling the transformation of inserted stem cells into specialized cells enhancing the organ’s function. Dr. Evan Snyder of the Burnham Institute in La Jolla, California, who specializes in application of stem cells in neurological diseases, writes:

“We found that stem cells will shift to give you the requisite number of cells needed. If you put them into a brain that has fewer functioning oligodendrocytes than necessary, they somehow know to shift to give you the requisite number. They can sense the deficiency.”³

Clearly, stem cells do not sense anything except for commands of the organs’ and organism’s BCS that control their destiny.

Biofield Control System at the Cellular Level

In the 1950’s to the 1970’s, the Romanian biochemist Eugene Macovschi⁴ postulated his concept of cellular ‘Biostructure’ that is very close to the cellular BCS as described above. It is an entity that exists only in living cells and controls chemical processes and properties of organelles and biochemical molecules, leaving space inside the cell for solutions that are in equilibrium with intercellular liquids. G. Drochioiu reviews Macovschi’s concept in the monograph.

The cell’s biofield control system carries all fundamental programs of life: development, maintenance (metabolism, repair, etc.), reproduction (mitosis) and death (apoptosis).

Sensitivity of cells’ BCS to signals of the organ’s BCS is mentioned above but cells are capable of sensing commands of the whole organism’s BCS as well, and even distantly sensing BCS’ of other organisms. The latter is backed up by results of experiments by J. Kiang and C. Backster presented in the book.

Fundamental Programs of Life

Developmental biologists have been opposing the strictly genetic approach since the beginning of the 20^th century. Lev Beloussov, Professor of the Moscow State University, presents in the book the history of the biofield concept from its inception and in the attached to his article Commentary American developmental biologists Professors John Opitz and Scott Gilbert briefly describe the ensuing struggle. Even the very beginning of embryogenesis is controlled by a program that is based on the genome but is not simply chemical — chemistry knows of only stochas tic (chaotic) interactions while the first cell division is strictly deterministic.

However, embryonic development, at least in organisms more complex than a single cell, apparently cannot occur without participation of an external BCS — e.g., mother’s, egg’s, bee hives, ant colony, etc. No more than 80 cells of a human embryo can currently be grown in a test tube. For further development, the embryo must be implanted in a uterus where it is controlled by the mother’s biofield control system — her reproduction program. The birth of the organism means that its own BCS becomes sufficient for further development up to maturity. This subject is being avoided even by the most progressive developmental biologists, perhaps because it challenges current paradigm: What is the physical nature of this BCS communication?

The maintenance program includes obtaining and distributing energy from the environment, breathing, thermal stabilization, self protection (i.e., immunity and avoiding threats) reparation at all levels of organization from a gene to the whole organism, as well as population-supporting behavior and so forth. The latter particularly illustrates how far those programs are from the biochemical mechanisms acting in the organism.

The reproduction program includes both the physiological function and the reproductive behavior controlled by the mind of the BCS. The mother’s reproduction program in mammals, as mentioned above, controls embryonic development and, for instance, milk supply at the physiological level. Attachment, care and protection of the progeny work at the mind level. Pheromones, the chemical molecules, may be only one of many signals engaging the mail reproduction program in some species.

The program of death is an immanent feature of life. It manifests in rather stable life spans characteristics for every biological species and works at all levels of the organism including programmed aging and diseases. The dying process of the organism can illustrate the autonomy of lower levels of the BCS hierarchy. After the organism’s death the organs (that is their BCS), are still alive and can be transplanted into other organisms. When the organ is no longer alive (cannot be revitalized by another organism) the tissues and cells are still alive and can be maintained alive in anabiosis for a rather long time at near 0^oC temperature or being fast-frozen. When we buy meat and fish in markets we buy living tissues. They rot when they die. The latter is the realization of the program of death at the cellular level: the cellular organelles, DNA, proteins and other complex organic molecules are being destroyed by complex genetic and biochemical mechanisms. Rather recent studies indicate that even bacteria and yeasts have programmed death.^5-7

Control Subsystems

More complex organisms are operated by the BCS through four separate control subsystems that use different agents and channels of communication: nervous (electric), circulatory (chemical), electromagnetic (hypothetical electromagnetic coherencies and biophotons in tissues and organs proposed and studied by the F.-A. Popp group⁸) and one manifested in acupuncture (called Qi, prana, and so forth, in Oriental cultures) that may have the same physical carrier as the BCS itself.

Biofield Control System and the Biological Evolution

In the current discussion between promoters of ‘Intelligent Design’ (ID) and Neo-Darwinists, M. Behe is absolutely persuasive showing the “irreducible complexity” of the blocks of a living organism such as the eye, cellular cilium or bacterial flagellum, etc.⁹ These and other most complex organizations could not possibly emerge by random (undirected) mutations. Emergence of a new species is associated not with just one mutation but with a long chain of mutations that are clearly not random and must occur simultaneously. Until the whole chain is accomplished, the individual, leave alone a population or the whole species, would not have any advantage in adaptation selection, as J. Bockris noted in his book.¹⁰ This was understood by many distinguished biologists like Lev S. Berg who wrote his Nomogenesis in 1922 — there must be laws determining ontogenesis (life cycle of an organism) as well as phylogenesis (evolutionary development) and there is no place for randomness in the biological evolution.¹¹

The problem with the current discussion is that it seems more ideological than scientific. Darwinism from the beginning enjoyed an overwhelming support of the scientific community because it presented an alternative to the religious creationism. Then, it became a dogma with the same function as any religious dogma — to keep the social organization stable, in this case the scientific community. However, the actual alternative to Darwinism is not Intelligent Design but the broadening of the scientific paradigm. An ‘Omnipotent Designer’ would not ‘play dice,’ in Einstein’s words—He would know what He wants to begin with. He would not leave the abundant ‘dead ends’ on the branches of the evolutionary tree still providing a reasonable food chain for the “Omega Point” in terms of Teilhard d’Chardin. And indeed in the religion mythology He starts with Adam and Eve.

One cannot exclude intelligence behind the whole Universe but this intelligence must have produced all the physical forces, laws of their interactions and universal constants, including those yet unknown interaction that are responsible for emergence of life. The idea of such intelligence is not more unreal than the Big Bang theory or Chaos as the starting point of the Universe.

The postulated concept of the biofield control system may bring the biological evolution back into the realm of science. Considering the obvious “mother’s” — the egg, the ants colony, etc. — role in the embryonic development (see development program above), one can assume that the mother’s BCS (her reproduction program) can cause changes in the biofield control system of the embryo and consequent simultaneous genetic changes in the embryo. This is what can explain not only the Lamarckian examples of the giraffe’s neck and the bird’s legs elongation but the whole evolutionary process. Back in 1954 biologist Curt Stern mentioned the possibility of the biofield participation in the mutagenesis and evolution.¹² Thus, the proverbial question “What came first — the chicken or the egg?”— remains open: the chicken’s mother might have been a pre-chicken with a transformed BCS.

What might have occurred in biological evolution is that some global factor(s) periodically interfered with the biofield control systems of many living organisms changing the mothers’ reproductive programs and these, in turn, substantially and simultaneously changed genomes of the prodigy organisms. Global forces that caused directed mutagenesis, for instance during the Cambrian period, most likely did not work at the chemical (genes) level. This is another reason to learn the physics of the BCS.

Conclusion

The cost of health care in the United States is skyrocketing and there is no political will to stop it. The process will continue leading to a crisis if biomedical science and pharmacology holds on to the current theoretical and methodological basis — compensating for wrong or missing signals of a deregulated or aging organism. This approach has proven to be viable in many cases such as diabetes, saving millions of lives. However, the deeper into the organizational levels of the organism it goes — organs, tissues, cells — the more inadequate and unpredictable become reactions of the organism. Anticoagulants used by cardiologists can kill patients by brain hemorrhages; anti-cancerous drugs can kill by destroying the immune system, etc. The growing rate of adverse effects and mortality associated with the current medico-pharmacological practices were reported in the Journal of American Medical Association.¹³ Also, an increasing number of newly developed drugs will not pass safety tests and the society will be pressed to pay for this.

Further progress of biomedical science requires a revision of the current scientific paradigm so that it can include the physical basis of life, mind and life-related phenomena. Studying the bricks and building blocks cannot lead to the comprehension of architecture and aesthetics of the edifice of life.

Credible scientific publications, including those published in our book, suggest that the operation of the organism cannot be reduced to chemical interactions since contemporary chemistry knows only electric and thermodynamic forces; that the biological nuclear synthesis presented by Louis Kervran in 1960-80’s is not a myth; that the non-structural memory of water manifests itself at organism, cell and enzyme levels; that human intent and/or expectation may cause bacterial mutations or affect cellular equilibrium, etc. One of the practical applications of these findings is that in studies on the effect of new drugs on animals, the experimenter should be ‘blinded,’ i.e., the experimenter must not know what to expect of a given sample.

We hope that our book will lay the ground work for an international scientific symposium with the objective of forming an international scientific consortium on advanced biophysics. No immediate gratification may be expected but there are no other ways leading to significant progress in biomedical science.

And finally let’s return to the beginning of this article and point out that many people have the ability to interact with BCS of humans and other organisms but, as in all arts, this ability varies from nothing to mediocre and to genii like Romy Bugarin. Sometime, when physics will know better than “this is impossible,” gifted healers will be used in the healthcare system, though I must admit that am not holding my breath that this will occur anytime soon.

References

1. Gurwitsch, A.G. The Theory of the Biological Field. Sovetskaya Nauka, Moscow, 1944, (in Rissian)

2. Robert Rosen. Essays on Life Itself. Columbia University Press. NY, 1999, pp.17-24

3. Snyder, Evan. Stem Cells: Interviews. QUEST, Invitrogen Publication for Discovery, V 2, # p.54, 2005

4. Macovschi, Eugene. The Nature and Structure of Living Matter. Romanian Academy of Sciences, 1976 in Russian. Translated from Romanian version. Bucuresti, 1972.

5. Longo V.D., J. Mitteldorf and V. Skulachev. Programmed and altruistic aging. J.Nature, V.6, 2005, pp.866-872

6. Madeo, F., E. Harker et al. Apoptosis in yeast. In Current Opinion in Microbiology, Elsevier Ltd., 2004

7. Lewis, K. Programmed Death in Bacteria. Microbiol. and Molec. Biol.Reviews. Sept. 2000, pp.503-514

8. F.A.Popp, J.J.Chang, A.Herzog, Z.Yan and Y.Yan Evidence of non-classical (squeezed) light in biological systems. Physics Letters A 293, 2002, 98-102

9. Behe, M.J. Darwin’s Black Box. The Free Press, NY, 1996

10. Bockris, J. O’M. The New Paradigm. D&M Enterprises Publisher, 2005

11. Berg, L.S. Nomogenesis, or Evolution Determined by Law. MIT Press, Cambridge, 1969 (original Russian edition 1922

12. Stern, C.M. Two or three bristles. Am. Sci. V.42, 1954 pp. 213-247.

13. Starfield, B. Is US Health Really the Best in the World? J.Amer.Med. Assoc. July 26, 2000;284(4):483-5

Published in Townsend Letter for Doctors and Patient, #285, April 2007, pp. 136-140