The fascinating insights of applied and behavioral kinesiology.

Dr. George Goodheart originally pioneered this work and studied how a physical stimulus, such as good nutrition, might increase the strength of certain muscles, while a negative stimulus would cause those muscles to suddenly weaken.

The work was carried forward in the late 1970s by Dr. John Diamond, who discovered that muscles would strengthen or weaken when subjected to positive or negative emotional and intellectual stimuli.

Dr. Diamond’s book, Your Body Doesn’t Lie, explains the procedure for testing such stimuli. A person should stand erect with one arm at his/her side and the other arm held parallel to the floor with the elbow straight. The person giving the test should face the person and place his/her right hand on the other person’s extended left arm just above the wrist. The person is supposed to resist the pressure when you push down quickly on his/her arm.

If the test is performed in the presence of a negative stimulus, such as artificial sweetener, the muscle will not be able to resist the pressure and the subject’s arm will fall to his/her side.

Like the experience with water crystals (see WILTW last week), listening to hard or metal rock music produced a universally weak response.

David R. Hawkins, M.D., Ph.D. took this work further by researching the kinesiological response to truth and falsehood. His very illuminating book, Power vs. Force: The Hidden Determinants of Human Behavior, is a classic. We summarize as follows:

Hawkins often conducted tests in large groups of people. He asked them to close their eyes and to hold in their mind the memory of a time when they were angry, upset, jealous, depressed, guilty or fearful. And everyone universally went weak.

He would then ask them to think of a loving person or life situation—and all of them universally went strong.

Because societies lack the necessary reality base for formulation of effective problem resolutions, they fall back, over and over, on a resort of force (in its various expressions—such as war, law, taxation, rules and regulations), which is extremely costly, instead of employing power, which is very economical.

For example, Mahatma Gandhi, who was very close to the top of normal human consciousness, won his struggle against the “force” of British Empire through “power.” Essentially, his power emanated from the concept that all men are created equal by virtue of the divinity of the creation, and human rights are intrinsic to human creation and therefore, inalienable.

While all subjects went weak from negative stimuli (such as fluorescent light, pesticides and artificial sweeteners), students of spiritual disciplines who had advanced their level of awareness did not go weak as ordinary people did.