Bridging Cosmic Energy, Psychoanalysis, and Modern Coherence Training

By Michael Dorausch, D.C.

In the late 19th century, as the world grappled with the mysteries of the unconscious mind, Daniel David Palmer (1845–1913) founded chiropractic, a discipline that would intertwine the physical and metaphysical in a quest to understand life’s vital forces. This era, marked by intellectual giants like Emil Kraepelin, Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, Alfred Adler, Pierre Janet, and Alexis Carrel, was a crucible for exploring the interplay of mind, body, and energy. Palmer, a former magnetic healer, stood apart from the psychoanalysts but shared their curiosity about the origins and influence of life energy on health, moods, and behavior. His concepts of tone, nerve tension, and autosuggestion, rooted in the “cosmic energy” of magnetic healing, bear a striking resemblance to the “mental energy” of psychoanalysis, and their legacy finds a modern echo in coherence training (a biofeedback practice optimizing nervous system harmony).

The Historical Context: A Zeitgeist of the Unconscious

The late 19th century was a transformative period for psychology, psychiatry, and alternative healing. The unconscious mind became a frontier, probed by thinkers seeking to explain human behavior and disease. Emil Kraepelin, a German psychiatrist, laid the groundwork for modern psychiatric classification, emphasizing biological roots of disorders like schizophrenia. Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, unveiled the unconscious as a realm of repressed desires driving physical and mental symptoms. Carl Jung, with his collective unconscious and archetypes, infused spirituality into psychology, while Alfred Adler’s individual psychology highlighted social and goal-directed mental energy. Pierre Janet explored dissociation, linking subconscious states to bodily dysfunction, and Alexis Carrel, a biologist, pondered cellular vitality and spiritual health.

Amid this intellectual ferment, D.D. Palmer established chiropractic in 1895 in Davenport, Iowa, after a pivotal adjustment reportedly restored a janitor’s hearing. His background in magnetic healing (a practice rooted in Franz Mesmer’s idea of an invisible life force) shaped his worldview. Palmer didn’t align with psychoanalysts, whom he viewed as overly focused on the mind, yet his work paralleled their exploration of energy’s role in health. Magnetic healing’s “cosmic energy” and psychoanalysis’s “mental energy” converged in their shared question: what animates life, and how does it shape our existence?

Cosmic Energy and Mental Energy: A Shared Inquiry

Magnetic healing, which Palmer practiced from 1886, posited that a universal cosmic energy flows through living beings, and healers could channel it to restore health. This energy, akin to a vital force, was thought to influence physical health, moods, and thoughts. Palmer’s transition to chiropractic reframed this force as “Innate Intelligence,” a life energy directed through the nervous system, particularly the spine. In The Chiropractor’s Adjuster (1910), he wrote, “Innate Intelligence is the life force that animates the body, directed through the nervous system,” emphasizing the spine’s role in regulating this flow.

Psychoanalysis, meanwhile, conceptualized mental energy as the driving force of the psyche. Freud’s libido, a psychic energy fueling desires, could manifest as neuroses or physical symptoms like hysteria. Jung’s collective unconscious tapped universal energies, while Adler’s mental energy propelled individuals toward social goals. Janet’s work on subconscious dissociation showed mental states altering bodily function. Though psychoanalysts focused on the mind and Palmer on the spine, both saw energy (cosmic or mental) as a unifying principle linking health and behavior.

This overlap is evident in Palmer’s concept of autosuggestion, one of three causes of vertebral subluxation (alongside trauma and toxins). He argued, “Auto-suggestion may produce a subluxation by the mind directing an unusual amount of impulse to a certain portion,” suggesting that thoughts or emotions could disrupt nerve tension, misaligning the spine and causing disease. This mirrors Freud’s hysteria, where repressed emotions produced physical symptoms, or Janet’s dissociation, where subconscious states altered physiology. The cosmic energy of magnetic healing, flowing through nerves, and the mental energy of psychoanalysis, expressed through unconscious drives, thus share a conceptual kinship, both seeking to harness vitality for healing.

Palmer’s Core Concepts: Tone, Nerve Tension, and Autosuggestion

Palmer’s chiropractic philosophy hinged on three ideas that resonate with both his era’s inquiries and modern science:

• Tone: Defined as “the normal degree of nerve tension,” tone represented the nervous system’s optimal state (balanced elasticity and vitality). “Tone is expressed in functions by normal elasticity, activity, strength and excitability of the various organs,” Palmer wrote, framing health as nervous system harmony disrupted by subluxations.
• Nerve Tension: Subluxations, caused by trauma, toxins, or autosuggestion, altered nerve “carrying capacity,” pushing tension beyond a healthy threshold. This produced “too much or not enough functionating,” manifesting as disease.
• Autosuggestion: By suggesting mental states could influence nerve tension, Palmer introduced a psychosomatic dimension, aligning with the era’s growing recognition of mind-body connections.

These concepts positioned chiropractic as a bridge between magnetic healing’s metaphysical roots and psychoanalysis’s psychological insights, with the spine as the nexus for energy flow.

The Contemporary Landscape: Coherence Training

Fast-forward to 2025, and Palmer’s ideas find a surprising echo in coherence training, a biofeedback practice developed by the HeartMath Institute and others. Coherence training aims to achieve psychophysiological coherence, a state of synchronized autonomic nervous system (ANS) activity, measured through heart rate variability (HRV). Using devices like the HeartMath emWave or Oura Ring, practitioners engage in slow, rhythmic breathing (6 breaths per minute) while focusing on positive emotions (e.g., gratitude) to produce a smooth, sine-wave-like HRV pattern. This state enhances emotional regulation, reduces stress, and improves physical health, from lower blood pressure to pain relief.

Coherence training draws on polyvagal theory, which links vagus nerve activity to stress resilience, and neurocardiology, exploring heart-brain communication. Its parallels with Palmer’s concepts are striking:

• Tone as Coherence: Palmer’s tone, a balanced nerve tension, aligns with coherence’s ANS harmony. Just as tone reflects systemic vitality, a coherent HRV pattern signals optimal nervous system function, enhancing organ performance and resilience.
• Nerve Tension and HRV: Palmer’s nerve tension, disrupted by subluxations, finds a modern proxy in HRV. Stressors (physical or emotional) fracture HRV coherence, much like subluxations alter nerve flow. Tools like wearable thermistor arrays or EMG patches, measuring spinal tension during sleep, echo Palmer’s heat-tension link (via the 1924 neurocalometer) while complementing HRV data.
• Autosuggestion and Emotional Regulation: Palmer’s autosuggestion, where mental impulses affect nerve tension, mirrors coherence training’s use of positive emotions to shift HRV. Focusing on gratitude to achieve coherence is a refined version of Palmer’s idea that thoughts could restore tone, countering subluxation-inducing impulses.
• Spinal-Nervous System Link: Palmer’s emphasis on the spine as the nervous system’s regulator resonates with coherence’s reliance on posture and breathing (both being spinal functions). Studies (e.g., 2023 research on posture and vagal tone) show spinal alignment influences ANS activity, supporting Palmer’s “neuroskeleton” concept.

Historical and Conceptual Connections

The line between magnetic healing’s cosmic energy and psychoanalysis’s mental energy, as Palmer’s era suggested, is now clearer. Historically, Palmer shared the intellectual milieu of Kraepelin, Freud, Jung, Adler, Janet, and Carrel, all probing the unseen forces shaping life. Magnetic healing’s vitalism, seen in predecessors like Phineas Quimby, paralleled the New Thought movement’s mind-body focus, which influenced psychoanalysis’s psychosomatic theories. Palmer’s autosuggestion, though less theorized, reflects this shared interest in mental influence on health, akin to Freud’s hysteria or Janet’s dissociation.

Conceptually, Palmer’s chiropractic and psychoanalysis converge in their view of energy as a health determinant. Innate Intelligence, flowing through nerves, is Palmer’s cosmic energy; libido or archetypes are psychoanalysis’s mental energy. Both saw disruptions (subluxations or repressions) as causing imbalance, with restoration (adjustments or therapy) as the cure. Coherence training bridges these by quantifying energy’s flow via HRV, showing how mental focus (Palmer’s autosuggestion, Freud’s insight) harmonizes physiology (Palmer’s tone, Jung’s balance).

Modern science validates this synthesis. Neuroimaging (e.g., 2020s fMRI studies of meditation) shows emotional states altering brain-nerve pathways, supporting Palmer’s autosuggestion and coherence’s emotional focus. The vagus nerve, central to coherence, links heart, brain, and spine, echoing Palmer’s nervous system emphasis. Medical doctors like John Sarno, who tied low back pain to repressed emotions in Healing Back Pain (1991), further connect Palmer’s psychosomatic insights to coherence’s stress-pain relief.

A Future Convergence

The relationship between cosmic and mental energy, once a speculative thread, is now measurable. Tools like Oura Ring’s HRV tracking or Eight Sleep’s thermal sensors quantify the nervous system’s state, fulfilling Palmer’s vision of detecting tension imbalances. From the unconscious mind’s exploration in 1895 to coherence training’s data-driven harmony in 2025, Palmer’s chiropractic stands as a prescient link, uniting magnetic healing’s vitalism, psychoanalysis’s depth, and modern psychophysiology’s precision in the timeless quest to harmonize life’s energy.