Barbara Brennan is a former NASA scientist whose ground-breaking exploration of the human energy field is discussed in her books "Hands of Light" and "Light Emerging."

DiCarlo: In your work you have explored the human energy field and I am wondering if you could tell me exactly what the energy field is?

Brennan:From a scientific perspective, nobody has really proven what it is so I can only talk from the perspective of a healer who works with it. I have a scientific background, but in fact there aren't any adequate experiments to tell you what the field really is. So I am going to have to speak solely from my experience as a healer who is able to perceive the field. From this perspective, the human energy field is the matrix structure upon which the cells of the physical body grow. It is the template of the physical body.

It is also the vehicle for psychosomatic reactions, or the "mind-body" connection. The human energy field can be perceived by anyone with practice. It's of vital importance since it is a foundation for the physical body. It is directly connected with health and illness. Based upon my experience as a healer conducting private sessions with clients spanning a fifteen year period, and asa teacher for as many, I can tell you that anything that happens in the physical body will happen in the pattern of the energy fields first.

So the energy field precedes the physical body. It sets the foundation for the physical body, and anything that goes wrong in the energy field will eventually make its way into the physical body.

DiCarlo: Is the field fairly stable or does it tend to shift?

Brennan: Actually, your field changes with each thought. Once you open your high sense perception as I call it, and can see the field (the major two senses I use are seeing and feeling but any of the inner coorespondences to the outer five senses can be used) you will be amazed at how it changes from moment-to-moment. It moves very, very fast.

The field has several different components and can be broken up into at least seven different layers. These seven layers are commonly reported in the esoteric literature and by people from different cultures around the world who have the ability to directly perceive it.

From my perspective, every other level of the energy field is structured- organized lines of scintillating light with a specific pattern. The structured layers can be perceived as a frequency band, with each layer having its own frequency. Little sparks of light can be observed moving along these lines.

In between the structured layers of the field is a bioplasma-like energy that simply flows along the lines of the structured field pattern. It's the energy that flows along the lines of the structured field pattern that changes very fast with thoughts and emotions, not the structured pattern itself. For example, if you stop yourself from feeling something, it will stop the flow of energy in the field. And if you experience the feeling, the energy will be released. There is a direct correlation. There are even correlations between the energy field and the part of the brain you are thinking with. As you change your thought patterns, the patterning of the field changes.

DiCarlo: So if you switched from being very analytical and left brained, to being very intuitive and right brained, there would a change?

Brennan: Yes, there would be definite flow patterns that change. For example, we mostly are trained from very early in our childhood to be rational. And traditionally, we go to school and we learn to think logically and we memorize information. And that shows in a particular field pattern or a generalized flow. And intuitive thinking is very different than that. Different parts of the brain are used and the flow and pattern of the field is different.

What's really interesting is that it corresponds more or less to what a PET scan shows.

DiCarlo: Let's try to make this rather abstract concept of an energy field permeating the physical body a bit more concrete. What are some of the common experiences people have that directly relate to activities which take place in the field?

Brennan: Knowing something before it happens, because it's happening in the energy field first. Feeling that someone is looking or staring at you when your back is turned to them. You turn around, look and yes, someone is looking at you. You may not even know that's why you turned to look. There are streams of energy that come out of the eye and you can feel it on your body. Another example: the phone rings and before you answer it you already know who the person is and that they have good news. Also, feeling good when you wear specific cloths, even specific colors because they are related to the colors that your energy field needs that day. Interactions with animals- people can communicate with their pets and know what the animals are feeling. These are all energy field interactions.

DiCarlo: Now let's say I have an affinity to someone I have never met before, or on the other hand there is someone I immediately dislike, is that phenomena related to activities taking place at the level of the human energy field?

Brennan: That's directly related to the interactions of the field. Everybody's field pulsates within a range of frequencies. If the range is about the same for two people, then they will usually have a lot of affinity with each other. If it's not, it will make them nervous. If you have a higher general frequency tone to your field than someone else, you might feel drugged out. On the other hand, if somebody has a higher frequency than yours and that frequency is chaotic, it will make you nervous. There are many of those examples.

DiCarlo: I like the example you give of the man and woman who attend the same social function. Even though they might ignore and pretend to not notice each other, this is not the case since at the level of their fields there is a great deal of activity, cascades of energy moving back and forth which indicates a genuine interest and a testing of each others fields for compatibility.

Brennan: Right. That happens a lot. All of the beginning stages of courtship can be seen quite clearly in the field.

DiCarlo: If you read all the self-help literature that is available, it would seem that we could all benefit from learning to forgive ourselves and others. That certainly seems like the right thing to do in life but I'm wondering, from a more concrete perspective, what happens in our energy field when we do this?

Brennan: When you forgive yourself, there are some wonderful things that happen. There is a certain tension and stagnated energy that is held in the field whenever there is anything that you won't accept within yourself. It's kind of like a mucous that you get when you have a cold. So you actually create distortions in your own energy pattern that have to do with unforgivingness towards your self. These distortions will eventually lead to illness. When you forgive yourself, you are actually unblocking the flow of energy in your field so that it can flush itself out. It allows for the resumption of the normal life flow.

Life is associated with constant movement in the personal energy field, so any attitude of non-forgiveness within the self will create blockage. When you have an non-forgiving attitude towards an individual, there will be a definite pattern in your field. The outer edge of your field will become rigid and brittle when interacting with that person. There will be additional ways that you will not let your life energy flow out towards that person.

There are great bands of energy or bio-plasmic streamers that normally flow between people when they interact. If you have an unforgiving attitude towards another person, that won't happen. So there's not an exchange of life energy that normally goes on between all living things and it's not just human beings. There's a flow between humans and animals. Humans and plants.

But if there is a sense of unforgiveness, all that will be stopped. There will be the same type of stoppage in the other individual also. It's usually a two way street.

DiCarlo: Would that be the same phenomena you would observe if someone was judging another person?

Brennan: That would be a little bit different. All of these different attitudes and mental states would result in a little bit different flow. Usually judgement has to do with an energy flow running up the back of the body and sometimes hooking over and a rigid withdrawing back. Also, energy running up the front of the body and kind of "hooking over" towards the other person.

If you look at the energy field, there are three major aspects: reason, will and emotion that are associated with psychological phenomena. When you judge another, you stop the flow of your emotions towards that person which would be on the front of the body, and you would be pushing your energy to the back of the body, into the will, and then running it up into the mind. So you "will not" accept this person, and then the energy moves up your body to the head region and you rationalize it in the mental sensors.

DiCarlo: What if someone is experiencing love?

Brennan: With love, especially when both people are feeling love towards each other, there is a tremendous flow of energy between the two. But you don't even have to have two people. When a person allows love into their field, the field becomes very soft, very flowing, resilient. The whole field blows up sort of like a balloon. It becomes very energized and the energy flows out of the field in a very healthy way.

All fields have different kinds of boundaries, so the boundary of someone who has a lot of love or is feeling love toward a particular person, will be soft and more resilient. As a result they can interact with another human being in a much easier way.

DiCarlo: Well, how would that compare with a person who was experiencing gratitude in their life?

Brennan: To feel grateful is one of the most important experiences we need as humans. When we feel it, there is an acceptance of everything in our life and a surrender to basic values in life. We can see the positive in everything and also feel thankful for it. That's essential, because it allows a connection to take place between the personality self and the deeper regions of the human being, the core essence or the divinity within.

The intense energy from the core essence then radiates out. It's as if a corridor opens from the core essence of an individual, an the energy is able to flow out and into the entire world. Also, the connection from the personality to the spiritual or divinity within is open and made more solid. The feeling of gratitude is an essential experience we all need.

Gratitude also puts the individual in synchronicity with the universal energy field that connects all of life, the flow of the life force, or the morphonogenic fields of the whole planet and the solar system. That is also very important because it puts you in sync with your life. When you can flow in that way and find that place in life then the entire universe becomes very supportive. Gratitude is essential.

DiCarlo: So when you have the experience of being in sync, in the universal flow, do more positive events, circumstances and people come into your life experience?

Brennan: Yes, because you will allow them. You won't be stopping them. This is the opposite of judgement, which stops the flow of energy. You don't let anything in and you don't let anything out- or what you do let out isn't so nice.

DiCarlo: Do you find the environment effects the human energy field, take for example fluorescent lighting?

Brennan: Yes. The environment effects the field very much and there are several chapters in Light Emerging about that. I can't work under fluorescent lights. I have spoken with Dr. Brainard, a professor at Thomas Jefferson Medical Center in Philadelphia who's been studying the effectiveness of fluorescent lights in reducing "Seasonal Affective Disorder" (SAD). He has helped develop a very high frequency (40 kilowatt) pulsing flourescent light with x-ray shield. It as well as halogen work well for SAD without disturbing the field as much as normal flourescent lighting. Full spectrum flourescent lights also need to be converted to a higher frequency and have x-ray shields.