Healing is Believing, Science studies metaphysical healing Options

The following is an exerpt from the book The Science of the Craft by William H. Keith

Back in the 1960s, Dr. Bernard Grad, a biologist at McGill University in Montreal, carried out a fascinating series of experiments. He had a healer lay his hands on one of two containers of salt water. After this treatment, he soaked seeds in both containers, a process guaranteed to slow the growth of the plants when they sprouted.

The plants from seeds soaked in the water treated by the healer grew taller and faster than the plants from the other seeds. Somehow, energy from the healer's hands was entering the salt water and changing things, somehow preventing the salt from injuring the seeds.

In a follow-up experiment, he repeated the process ... only this time instead of a healer, one of the containers was handled by a mental patient, a man with a serious case of depression. This time, seeds soaked in the "treated" water grew poorly, or failed to sprout at all.

The results of these experiments were published in 1965 in the Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research under the title "Some Biological Effects of 'Laying of Hands'" A Review of Experiments with Animals and Plants."

Laboratory analyses of the water treated by the healer showed interesting changes: a decrease in the bonding between hydrogen atoms in the water molecules and some subtle shifts in the overall molecular structure, almost as though it had been subjected to an intense magnetic field.

In later studies, Grad demonstrated that healers could reduce the growth of tumors and increase the rate of healing in skin lesions in lab mice, even when the warmth of the healer's hands and other variables were eliminated as possible factors.

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Since Grad's pioneering studies, hundreds of similar experiments have been carried out. Time after time, healing has accelerated and tumor growth or parasite infection limited by healing energy, by prayer, by belief, even by wishful thinking.

Don't believe me? One classic experiment can be carried out easily by anyone in his or her own home: plant two sets of seeds. Give them the same soil, the same light, the same water, and the same environment, but every day think good thoughts about one and bad thoughts about the other. Wish and believe one set of plants will do well, believe that the others will fail. Or, depending on your particular belief structure, simply pray for one set of plants. Nearly always, the prayed-for plants do better - grow taller and faster, show better colour, and better overall health - than do plants that are ignored or, worse, cursed with bad wishes.

A classic and important study was conducted in 1988 by Dr. Richard Byr, a physician. Four hundred patients in a particular hospital were divided into two groups. Over the course of almost a year, a Christian prayer group outside the hospital was asked to pray for one of the groups. The patients had been selected for factors that put all of them into the same statistical boat: age, severity of their condition, economic and social backgrounds, and their previous medical histories. Neither group knew about the prayer study. With all other factors being equal, both groups should have had similar outcomes. And yet, consistently and measurably, the patients who'd been prayed for showed fewer symptoms, used fewer antibiotics, required less time on ventilator-assisted breathing, developed fewer cases of pneumonia or hospital staph infections, and in general had shorter hospital stays.

Something, clearly, was going on. The members of the prayer group had carried out their part of the experiment outside the hospital entirely. The patients themselves had no idea that strangers were praying for them.

In 1995, psychiatrist Dr. Elizabeth Targ and psychologist Fred Sicher carried out an even more impressive study. Fewer patients were in the study - only forty - but this time every possible factor that could make a difference was allowed for. All of the patients were AIDS patients, and all, chosen for their T-cell counts, were at the same general stage of the disease. Personal habits like smoking and exercise, use of recreational drugs, and even religious beliefs were weighed and factored in. All of the patients were on the same basic treatment regimen: protease inhibitors and retroviral medications.

This study was intended to test the validity of healing beliefs in general, not the beliefs of any one group. Forty healers were chosen. They included Christian healers, evangelicals who believe din the power of laying-on-of-hands, New Age healers who worked with patients' auras and energy fields or who used crystals or chakra healing, a Jewish mystic, a Lakota shaman, and a Chinese Qigong master. The only two things the list of healers possessed in common was a belief that they could heal, plus a proven track record of healing others at a distance in the past.

The patients didn't even know they were in the study. Twenty patients were randomly chosen to undergo this treatment-at-a-distance, while the other twenty would be the untreated control group. A system of rotating each patient through the awareness of each healer was established, so that each treated patient was addressed by each of the forty healers in turn. Double-blind systems for analyzing the results ensured that the only people who knew who was being healed at any given time were the healers themselves.

The study lasted for six months. During that period of time, the treated group was significantly, even dramatically improved, compared to the control group. Among the control patients, twelve out of twenty developed new AIDS-related diseases, and twelve had been hospitalized. Among the treated patients, only two developed AIDS-related diseases, and three were hospitalized. All of the treated patients reported fewer doctor visits, fewer hospitalizations with fewer days in the hospital, and an overall sharply lowered serverity in their disease.

Dood this stuff is awesome. I enjoy the one about aids because it is one of the deadliest diseases yet these healers were able to slow down and improve it. The significance of this article is that NONE knew they were getting healed so that knocks out the placebo theory here. Puts fairly good proof of magick on the map.

Ya, thats awesome. I heard a story about how some one was talking with a Goetic spirit and asked for the cure for aids. The spirit said that he had actually been involved in the creation of the disease but was not alowed to let humans know how cure it but said we are very close to the answer. Mabey magick has a big role? It would be funny (in a way) since sooo much money is spent on researching and magick healing is basicly cost free.