Phenomena Podcast: The Science & Stories of Energy Healing

Merraki Media LLC

Researchers at Harvard, MD Anderson Cancer Center, and Columbia are bringing practices like reiki, qigong, and other biofield therapies into the lab like never before, testing and quantifying what has often been considered unmeasurable and unproven. And the results could be showing us the way to the next frontier in healing.
Phenomena: The Science and Stories of Energy Healing is a documentary-style podcast hosted by business leader and artist Ivy Ross. Join Ivy as she explores astonishing new science alongside moving human stories of healing from chronic pain, PTSD, and even cancer through ancient practices modern medicine has often dismissed.

Produced and mixed by Sounds True

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7 episodes
Updated July 21

Episodes7

Newest first

July 21 · 1 hr 16 min
Not a Machine but a Flame | The Biology of Energy at Columbia and Beyond
What is the “energy” in energy healing? Every healer in this series uses the word. Every patient reaches for it. Ancient traditions built entire systems around it. But what is it — biologically, physically, measurably — and how does it move through the body to heal? Three renowned scientists begin to offer answers: Columbia University's Martin Picard on the mitochondria that may link consciousness to biological health, Richard Hammerschlag on the biofields that run all the way in and all the w
July 7 · 45 min
There’s Something Between Us | The Science of the Healer-Patient Connection at Harvard
What actually happens between a healer and the person they're healing? It starts at a dinner table — energy healer Laurie Nealon and her old friend Alan Brown, visiting from Brisbane. A 20-minute kitchen table session leaves him changed: heat through his head, a jolt through his chest, and a connection he says he'd never truly felt before. That moment leads us to two researchers taking the question seriously. Tor Wager (Dartmouth) argues that trust and connection aren't noise in healing — they'
June 23 · 1 hr 1 min
No One Left Behind | PTSD, Healing Touch, and the Military’s Research Into Finding Relief
What happens when traditional medicine leaves veterans behind? In this episode of Phenomena, host Ivy Ross dives into the intersection of PTSD, military research, and energy healing. We share the moving story of Ron, a 79-year-old Vietnam veteran who spent seven years battling debilitating trauma following ICU delirium—until a single session with intuitive healer Maggie McIlvaine changed everything.
June 9 · 43 min
Healing as a Way of Life | Qigong, Meridians, and the Science of Qi at Harvard
What if healing isn't something that happens to you — but something you're always doing for yourself? That question sits at the heart of Qigong, and this episode. Anne Hering has practiced every day for over twenty-five years. Her doctor told her at 22 she'd spend the rest of her life in pain. But he was wrong, and she'll tell you it wasn't a treatment that changed things. It was a practice. At Harvard, researchers Andrew Ahn and Peter Wayne have spent years trying to understand what Qi actual
May 26 · 39 min
Reiki versus Fakey | A Clinical Trial on Chronic Pain with Harvard and the University of Utah
Rick Axelson spent his career teaching research methods at medical colleges. He also spent decades suffering from debilitating migraines that even his team at the Mayo Clinic couldn't resolve. Then he tried one session of Reiki with a practitioner named Natalie Dyer. Forty-five minutes. And his migraines have never come back. That story on its own might be easy for some to dismiss. But new research from the University of Utah and Harvard—the most comprehensive study of its kind ever conducted—s
May 12 · 48 min
The Healer in the Lab: Studying Energy Healing and Cancer at MD Anderson
In Episode 1, we explore the work at MD Anderson Cancer Center—one of the largest and most respected cancer research institutions in the world—where something remarkable is happening in the laboratory. Scientists are bringing energy healers into controlled experiments to measure what happens to pancreatic cancer cells when a biofield therapist (another term for energy healer) goes to work. What they’re finding is measurable, repeatable, and difficult to explain: biofield therapy slows the abili
April 26 · 1 min
Phenomena: The Science & Stories of Energy Healing
Phenomena: The Science & Stories of Energy Healing is a documentary-style podcast series, hosted by artist and business innovator Ivy Ross, that investigates this and other quietly urgent questions at the intersection of modern medicine and ancient healing. Join Ivy as she shares the latest research findings and the incredible, inspirational stories of energy healers and those who have found relief with them from conditions ranging from chronic pain, PTSD, even cancer. Together, we’ll explore

Phenomena Podcast: The Science & Stories of Energy Healing

Not a Machine but a Flame | The Biology of Energy at Columbia and Beyond

There’s Something Between Us | The Science of the Healer-Patient Connection at Harvard

No One Left Behind | PTSD, Healing Touch, and the Military’s Research Into Finding Relief

Healing as a Way of Life | Qigong, Meridians, and the Science of Qi at Harvard

Reiki versus Fakey | A Clinical Trial on Chronic Pain with Harvard and the University of Utah

The Healer in the Lab: Studying Energy Healing and Cancer at MD Anderson

Phenomena: The Science & Stories of Energy Healing