Short history of the energy of life
The life energy that we're measuring as vitality has been well known for a very long time in the history of civilization and it's very hard to find a place where life energy wasn't used for healing purposes. Ethnographical researchers found traces of healing with this kind of energy (life) among many tribes thought to be primitive in Australia, Siberia, from the Pacifics to America, and Africa. Since this life energy is present in everybody, in smaller or greater quantities, and since we can pass it on to each other to some extent, it's known to be the oldest and a very effective "medical" treatment.
It had a name in all cultures. In India it was called Prana, in China, Chi, but it's also known by all the other old cultures. Healing with bioenergy is a wide-spread human ability. In the ancient times its importance was recognized in China and India roughly about the same time. In India, yogis worked out exercises to increase energy through meditation and breathing exercises. Even greater effects have been achieved in China by controlling and directing this energy. Acupuncture could probably be led back to this energy because in some points of our body there is more of it than in others.
During the measurements it came to the light that the greatest life energy from the human body is released from areas where there are lots of acupuncture points, while less active life energy areas are where there are only a few or none of them. We suppose that the energy making the wheel rotate is probably the same as the one spreading through the acupuncture meridians. In China, though, this life energy has not been used only for healing, but also for fighting. This is the so-called "soft" martial art (Wu-Shu) where the enemy can be defeated without any physical contact, simply with an energy "shoot". Some parts of the body can be hardened this way so one can withstand extremely strong hits. This martial art is unknown except for in China, making it quite incredible and difficult to imagine.
On this xylograph from 1591 the ruler of Scotland is leading Agnes Sampson's and her followers' witchcraft trial. In those days they used force, beating them to confess.
In Europe, this method of healing (with life energy) was known during the Roman Empire as one of the means of curing. If we open the Bible to the New Testament, all four gospels write about healing by the touch of hands. Here sometimes it is called the "Power". Even the Bible describes this phenomenon not only as an exceptional ability of God because the apostles and their disciples also used it for healing (the transfer of life energy). With the spread of the Christian belief, all Europe found out about this energy, but during the Middle Ages it all changed taking a reversed course. People who had much more energy, for some reason or another, than the average were regarded sometimes as witches. And witchcraft was a punishable crime during the inquisition. Two things could happen in this case: they were burnt to the stake, or tortured. But, in some cases the fortunate ones were declared as saints. If you read the collection about the life of the saints, you meet quite often the effects, incidents, or paranormal phenomena which for sure had been caused by this type of bioenergy.
Unfortunately, thousands of people could have died in Europe only because they had these capabilities with bioenergy. Not just because of high bioenergy level, did they burn at the stake, but sometimes for enviousness or for some ideological reasons. But lots of people ended up on trial for witchcraft for healing with bioenergy. While the prelates and kings were "officially" possessed with this ability of bioenergy (they used this method to pass their power and ability of bioenergy to the ones under their command), for the ordinary people it wasn't permitted to exercise these abilities.
On this German xylograph from 1580, we can see how the dowsing rod was used in practice. The man in the middle of the picture, in the background, cuts the fresh twig. In the upper left corner, the man walking holds the Y-shaped twig in his hands, this is the position when nothing has been found. The twig in the hands of the man in the middle, suddenly turns down - meaning that something has been found. Next to this we see the digging of the search groove. Lastly, on the bottom of the picture, the examination of the findings takes place.
Nowadays, there are still a lot of remains of the pursuing and fear, even today's natural science denies officially the occurrence of this phenomenon of life energy. At the beginning of modern times Mesmer started to deal with this method of magnetic healing again in Europe. In his case, the method of transmitting energy and hypnosis were still mixed together. Hypnosis can be effectively used to release it or to increase the power of it.
The vitality or the life energy is present everywhere around the human body with a variable intensity. This is usually called the aura instead of life energy. Some people (after exercising a lot) can feel the distribution of this energy field and relying on this they can tell with more or less accuracy what illness others suffer from, simply by feeling where is this energy field weaker or stronger around the human body. By replacing, refilling the missing life energy, disorders can be recovered at least for a short time and illnesses can be cured.