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Substack Live Re-Air: Did An Energy Healing Practice Stop Cancer Cells From Growing? | Meredith Sprengel

August 7, 2026

AI Summary

5 min read

Energy Healing and the Science of the Biofield

In a 2023 study from MD Anderson Cancer Center, three practitioners using a method called the Bankston technique placed their hands near pancreatic cancer cells in petri dishes—and the cells stopped metastasizing. The researchers observed changes in the cells' electrical gradient, swelling of mitochondria, and disruption of multiple biological pathways that cancer uses to spread. The treatment appeared to target only the cancer cells, not healthy ones, and showed potential to work across different cancer types. This is the kind of evidence that Meredith Sprengel, Research and Program Director for the Subtle Energy Funders Collective, has been working to generate—data that might help explain what energy healers have claimed for centuries.

What We Mean by "Subtle Energy" and "Biofield"

When healers say they work with subtle energy, they are describing the mechanism they believe facilitates healing. Sprengel explains that healers use different terms—subtle energy, God, consciousness, the universe—but the core idea is the same: there is an energy that connects all things and can help trigger a healing response. Healers describe connecting themselves to "source" and becoming a channel for that energy, which they then use to interact with a person's biofield—the field of energy and information that surrounds the body.

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What you'll learn

  • 1 Substack Live Re-Air: Did An Energy Healing Practice Stop Cancer Cells From Growing? | Meredith Sprengel
  • 2 (04:14) **Defining Subtle Energy and the Biofield** - Meredith explains what healers mean by "subtle energy" and introduces the concept of the biofield
  • 3 (08:32) **How Biofields Are Being Measured Scientifically** - Discussion of current scientific methods for detecting fields outside the body
  • 4 (14:30) **Why the Biofield Matters for Health** - The potential clinical applications of understanding biofield patterns
  • 5 (17:10) **Energy Healing Alongside Conventional Medicine** - Meredith clarifies that energy work complements rather than replaces traditional treatment
  • 6 (20:46) **How Energy Healing Works as an Entry Point** - Why energy healing may be more accessible than other self-care practices
  • 7 (23:53) **Types of Healers and Their Core Similarities** - Meredith breaks down the categories of practitioners and what unites them

+ Full timestamped outline available in the app

Show Notes

This week we’re sharing something special that was previously only available on Substack: Jonathan’s conversation with Meredith Sprengel, Research and Program Director for the Subtle Energy Funders Collective and Fellowship Director for the Biofield Fellowship Research Program. Meredith studies what most people would call energy healing — someone holds their hands over you, or sends an intention, and the body drops into a deep state of rest. In that state, curious and sometimes miraculous things start to happen.


Science can already measure the electrical field your heart and brain give off, and the faint light your cells emit. But what about a field that connects all of us? And what if it’s the missing piece in how the body heals itself?

Meredith walks us through a preclinical study at MD Anderson Cancer Center where a specific energy healing practice stopped the growth of pancreatic cancer cells. She also describes her own research in the Netherlands, where people receiving healing showed an exponential rise in biophoton emissions — the faint light our cells give off when they’re metabolically active. A mitochondrial researcher who reviewed the data said it resembled what you see in someone who just went for a run.


Meredith has interviewed many healers who describe scanning the body and feeling spots that are heavy, hot, or stuck — places where old emotional pain is believed to be held. What her research has found is that healing rarely looks like pain suddenly disappearing. More often, a person’s relationship to that pain changes, and connection to other people and a sense of meaning seem to play a role in that shift.


So how does it actually work? Some healers say they’re channeling god, source, or consciousness. Others describe clearing blockages of stuck energy. And others say they’re not doing the healing at all — just giving the body space to do what it already knows how to do.


Meredith and her co-host Ivy Ross explore all of this in their six-part podcast series, Phenomena: The Science and Stories of Energy Healing, sitting down with healers, people who’ve received healing, and the scientists studying what’s actually happening.


Energy healing has been practiced for centuries. Science is finally starting to catch up!