Neil Theise
Adjunct professor of pathology at NYU Grossman School of Medicine and co-discoverer of the interstitium
Neil Theise (Adjunct professor of pathology at NYU Grossman School of Medicine and co-discoverer of the interstitium) has appeared as a guest on 1 episode in TMT. Topics they speak about most include Interstitium, Biofield, Complexity theory.
In their words
Positions and remarks grouped by topic, each with the exact quote and where it was said.
Interstitium
Theise reports that practitioners from acupuncture, Ayurvedic and Tibetan traditions recognized the interstitial anatomy as what they had been describing poetically.
“whatever they were talking about, when I would show them the anatomy, they'd say, yes, that's what we've been talking about”
Mayim Bialik's Breakdown: Re-Air: What is Energy? And Can Energy Therapy Heal?| Phenomena Podcast (Sep 12, 2026) · Listen from 41:59
Theise explains that the fluid-filled interstitial spaces were long dismissed as slide artifact because tissue processing drains the water out.
“And those cracks we saw, those were the remnants of the fluid-filled spaces”
Mayim Bialik's Breakdown: Re-Air: What is Energy? And Can Energy Therapy Heal?| Phenomena Podcast (Sep 12, 2026) · Listen from 40:01
Theise describes the interstitium as a body-wide fluid network through the fascia that functions as a communication network.
“turns out to be a body-wide network through all the fascia of the body connecting everything, and it's a communication network for the entire body”
Mayim Bialik's Breakdown: Re-Air: What is Energy? And Can Energy Therapy Heal?| Phenomena Podcast (Sep 12, 2026) · Listen from 18:21
Biofield
Theise argues that a healer and patient form a single merged electromagnetic field rather than two separate fields interacting.
“And so when they come in closer and closer and closer, it's not two separate fields. It's a single merged field out of the two”
Mayim Bialik's Breakdown: Re-Air: What is Energy? And Can Energy Therapy Heal?| Phenomena Podcast (Sep 12, 2026) · Listen from 1:06:53
Complexity theory
Theise argues bodies are not machines because low-level randomness, like ants that stray from the food line, is what allows adaptation.
“But there's always 2% to 4% of the ants that aren't following the line. And it's those ants that are likely to bump into a food source somewhere else”
Mayim Bialik's Breakdown: Re-Air: What is Energy? And Can Energy Therapy Heal?| Phenomena Podcast (Sep 12, 2026) · Listen from 45:36
Zen koan practice
Theise recounts a meditation experience in which watching incense become smoke resolved his 'body or cells' koan into a both-and realization of Buddhist emptiness.
“I looked up and saw the stick of incense on the altar becoming smoke. And I thought, oh, stick or smoke, body or cells. It isn't one or the other. It's both and, not either or”
Mayim Bialik's Breakdown: Re-Air: What is Energy? And Can Energy Therapy Heal?| Phenomena Podcast (Sep 12, 2026) · Listen from 20:43
Appearances
Re-Air: What is Energy? And Can Energy Therapy Heal?| Phenomena PodcastMayim Bialik's Breakdown · Sep 12, 2026 · 1 h 18 min
A re-aired Phenomena episode in which Ivy Ross, Martin Picard, Richard Hammerschlag, Neil Theise, Meredith Sprengel and Jonathan Cohen ask what energy is in healing.
Often appears with
- Mayim Bialik · 1 shared episode
- Jonathan Cohen · 1 shared episode
- Martin Picard · 1 shared episode
- Richard Hammerschlag · 1 shared episode
- Meredith Sprengel · 1 shared episode