Some call it one of the oldest forms of medicine.
The Chinese call it Chi... and in yoga it's referred to as Prana.
Whatever you call it... it's being tapped into by people involved in holistic health as a tool for healing.

The common name for it is kinesiology or muscle testing...the basis of it is that everything on the planet has energy...positive and negative... advocates like Joan Davis say it's only when you're able to tap into it... that you get the most out of it.

"What you really need to realize is that we're not diagnosing. you are testing the energy in the body, we are energetic beings."

Joan Davis owns herbal advantage in Northeast Ocala. An avid muscle tester herself, she says every organ in the body gives off energy and it's the same energy that's monitored on EKG's in your doctor's offices, but you don't need a machine to tap into it.

I probably have maybe seven or eight things that i could suggest for someone...and rather than me guessing going here try this if that doesn't work come back and try that. rather than doing that, it gives us a place to start with somebody. we need to isolate a muscle in the body and there's several ways you can do this."

Holistic practitioners like Thomas Mammana, say if used properly with modern medicine...the patient will see a difference.

"It buys time for them, the holistic practitioner to get their job done. you cannot change somebody who's been sick for 30 years in two months. you need time. you need time to feed those cells underneath good food and allow them to recover."

Mammana says kinesiology is used in his practice all the time.

Does cancer develop in a day. no it takes years to develop as a dysfunction and then finally it manifests as cancer. what we need to do is catch it early and that's what kinesiology helps the doctors do.

Davis says she's seen her fair share of skeptics.

It's really an individual decision but i don't see how it could hurt them.

Davis conducts a muscle testing classes twice a month at her herbal shop.

Shani Muhammad WCJB TV 20 NEWS.