If you visit chapels and cathedrals, glowing haloes are often seen around divine beings and saints in murals. Such imagery is used to indicate the holiness or greatness of these individuals. In reality though, as long as a being is alive and metabolizing, it will emit faint light. While a human body’s luminescence is usually not well distributed, its highlights are almost identical to the meridians, or energy channels, described in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM).
In the 1980s, scientists used a highly sensitive photomultiplier tube as a detector to measure a faint but visible glow emitted by organisms. Studies have found that the levels of the human body’s luminescence correlate to physical and psychological health. Therefore, the study of luminescence may serve as a detection method for such conditions.
Human Bioluminescence Is Emitted When Metabolism Is Active
Scientists have discovered that the body gives off a glow during daily metabolic activities. To test their hypothesis, researchers measured the luminescence of blank paper against that of both a piece of pork and a human hand under the same dark conditions. While the paper glowed 10 to 1,000 times brighter than a human hand when exposed to sunlight, the glow faded before long. By contrast, the luminosity of the human hand remained at the same level in the dark. The fingertips were the most luminous, followed by the palm and the junction between the thumb and the index finger, respectively. The weakest part was the back of the hand. The piece of pork, however, gave off no light.
Scientists believe that the stronger the human body’s metabolism, the higher the level of luminosity. A research team led by Chinese scientist Yen-Chih Chiang measured the luminosity of 158 people’s bodies in complete darkness. The researchers found that 14 high-luminescence lines cover the body, and these align with the 14 meridian lines, or energy channels, mentioned in “The Medical Classic of the Yellow Emperor” by Dr. Maoshing Ni. There were 1,934 acupoints on these high-luminescence lines. The acupoints completely identical to the energy meridians accounted for about 93 percent, while those partially identical accounted for about 7 percent. The research team was convinced that luminescence is the embodiment of energy and that meridians indicate how dynamic a person’s metabolism is.
These findings have suggested that the TCM theory that meridians serve as the body’s energy passages may be accurate.
Although the anatomical structure of meridians has not yet been discovered, researchers have found many distinguishable acoustic-optical and electromagnetic phenomena related to these energy channels. A meridian transmits sound, light, and heat faster than the skin outside the meridian, and the electrical resistance at the meridian or acupuncture point is also lower than in other parts of the body.