How "energy healing" works

This is how "energy healing" works, according to the PEAR lab. I put "energy healing" in quotes because what is being suggested here is clearly not based on energy, but information:

Taking consciousness as a form or manifestation of information, Jahn and Dunne suggest a metaphoric extension of quantum mechanical principles into the consciousness domain (3, 36). Consciousness is regarded as both particulate and wavelike, in analogy with quantum mechanical descriptions of matter and energy. In its nonlocalized, wavelike manifestation, it is unbounded and can penetrate barriers and resonate with other consciousnesses and the environment, thereby acquiring or inserting information that is unique to the interacting system. Based on this metaphor, Jahn and Dunne suggest possible mechanisms for anomalous influence. For example, they invoke the quantum mechanical principle of indistinguishability to help understand bonding. When molecules are formed from atoms, the constituent elements lose their identity and from this loss a classically anomalous "exchange force" results, producing a strong covalent bond. Analogously, through a sacrifice of conscious individuality, a unifying resonant bond may be established with another consciousness or a physical system, allowing the acquisition or insertion of information. Viewed as an influence of one system on another, this would be anomalous, but in a coherent, unified system, information is distributed throughout. The merging of subjective identities with each other, or with the environment, enables the transfer of objective information manifesting as coherence between previously separable constituents, yielding a total system within which entropy is reduced (37). While these suggestions may seem abstruse, the fundamental principles are parallel to those involved in common interactive experiences such as falling in love, or creating a work of art, or enjoying the beauty of a sunset.

...The research on anomalous interactions provides intriguing evidence that a nonlocal intervention such as intentional healing may contribute similarly to the continuing exchange of information that is essential to maintaining the integrity of living systems... Living bodies, with homeostatic, immune, and nervous systems that epitomize the realm of applied nonlinear dynamics are intrinsically susceptible to influence from small inputs and are able to identify and amplify the most subtle of inchoate patterns and information. Biological systems utilize random processes and uncertainty to maintain the highest level of sensitivity to subtle changes in the environment. They are reactive on the finest scale to information that reduces entropic disorder and provides an increment of structure and predictability, yielding a stable internal milieu and successful interaction with the environment. In this context, we see that healing a wound or recovering from an illness is dependent upon the generation or addition of appropriate information to help restore order and structure.

... An injury or disease manifests as a disturbance or disorder in a system that, when healthy, is magnificently structured and orderly. It is, on the other hand, so complex that its function at the fine scale is beyond our full scientific understanding, as in the extraordinarily precise homeostatic control of the body, or in the exact mechanisms of mending and regeneration when we are injured, or in the creation of ideas. When there is a disruption, and healing is required, the need is for additional order, the infusion of information. Of course consciousness is nothing if not a manifestation of information, and in its creative and structuring capacities, it is ideally suited as a reservoir for the processes that sustain and restore health and wellbeing.

This is just a small excerpt from an article entitled "The Physical Basis of Intentional Healing Systems" written by Roger D. Nelson for the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research (PEAR) lab and published in 1999. To read the full document, click here. The PEAR lab itself closed in 2007.

If I understand the excerpt correctly, it says that based on the principles of quantum physics one consciousness can affect another consciousness and help it return to healthy homeostasis. The effect observed at PEAR was not very strong, but anecdotal evidence suggests that it has been getting stronger, and that the ability can be developed.

The mind is a powerful thing

I had a discussion with a patient today that helped me crystalize some of my ideas about the contribution of patients to the success of their treatment. As we were speaking it suddenly came to me that no form of treatment, allopathic or alternative, actually heals anyone. What all forms of treatment do is help create conditions favourable to healing. The final step -- the actual healing -- comes from the patient himself.

We have all heard stories where healing occurred against impossible odds -- and also stories where people who should not have died did. At one end is the almost unbelievable Krebiozen story, described in Michael Talbot's Holographic Universe, in which a man riddled with tumours and expected to die was given an experimental drug called Krebiozen by his physician (see embedded video below). The tumours practically melted away and the man was discharged from the hospital to resume his normal life. Then he read in the paper that Krebiozen was shown to be less effective than expected -- and his tumours returned with a vengeance. The second time his curious physician gave him nothing more than a saline injection, and told him that it was a new, improved form of Krebiozen. Again the tumours melted "like snowballs on a hot stove", but the patient died after reading in the paper that Krebiozen had been definitively discredited.

At the other end of the spectrum are the victims of voodoo curses who die because they believe they have been mortally hexed, or patients whose lives are shortened by negative prognoses. Larry Dossey wrote an entire book on this subject entitled Be Careful What You Pray For: You Just Might Get It. He calls it the "nocebo" effect, which is the opposite of the placebo effect. The doctor, who is seen as a powerful and knowledgeable authority figure, pronounces that the patient has 3 months to live. The patient believes this, and obediently dies in the allotted time. Dossey cites a case where the patient had in fact been misdiagnosed and did not have the condition that was supposed to kill him. He died anyway because his doctor told him he would. The mind is an incredibly powerful thing, far more powerful than we give it credit for, for better or for worse.

The question then is, how can the mind's power for healing be engaged? The general pattern for cancer patients -- in fact, patients in general -- is to go to a practitioner (doctor, naturopath, chiropractor, homeopath, energy healer) and ask to be healed of an ailment. The patient expects that the practitioner will use some outside agency (chemotherapy, radiation, chelation, intravenous vitamin-C, cleansing agent, bioenergy) to cure him. In this scenario the patient is a passive recipient of the treatment, much like one goes to the dentist and opens one's mouth, and then quietly submits to whatever happens next.

What happens next outside the dentist's office, at least in the case of cancer patients who seek alternative therapies, is often nothing much, because most treatments don't have immediate effect. Most alternative treatments work through creating a positive healing environment for the body by removing stressors or harmful agents and/or by building up the immune system. This takes time. In the meantime the patient goes on to the next practitioner, and the next, and the next, in each case expecting something immediate and miraculous to happen, ultimately ending up disappointed, unless somewhere along the way he also manages to engage the incredible ability of his own body/mind to heal himself.

It seems to me that the next step in healing is to help the patient do just that. I will be returning to this topic in further posts as I work out the ideas around it -- stay tuned as this is definitely a work in progress and I am quite aware that I only raised the question and have not yet answered it. In the meantime, I welcome your thoughts and comments.

Now available for your perusal: The mind is a powerful thing - Part 2

Postscript: Here is Michael Talbot on Youtube, speaking about the holographic brain model. The discussion on the Krebiozen story comes shortly after the 20-minute mark:

Bioenergy healing and childhood cancers

Children, according to Dr. Bengston, are very responsive to energy healing because, unlike adults, they are in the process of "composing" (as opposed to "decomposing") and have no preconceptions or prejudices that could get in the way. They also have a much faster metabolic rate than adults, and Dr. Bengston had observed that metabolic rate is a determining factor in how fast remission occurs.

Two years ago two of us trained in the Bengston method gave a single treatment to a little boy who had been diagnosed with neuroblastoma, a deadly form of childhood cancer. We had intended to treat him before he received chemotherapy, but were too late. The effect of our treatment was to give him what his mom described as "the best bloodwork he had since his diagnosis," which astonished the medical staff, as the effect of chemotherapy is supposed to be the exact opposite. Since the Bengston method is contraindicated when the patient is receiving chemotherapy or radiation, we decided not to continue, for fear that we might counteract the effectiveness of the allopathic treatment he was receiving.

At about the same time I had an interesting discussion with a nurse from Sick Kids' hospital. I proposed to her that we try energy treatments on the small percentage of cases they see where the initial diagnosis is so dire that the parents are told "nothing can be done" (other than palliative care). It made great sense to me that the parents of children who had no chance of survival through conventional means should be given the option of trying alternative therapies with the blessing of the hospital.

Her response surprised me. She said that in 99 per cent of these cases, where conventional therapies offer no hope, parents still opt to give their children chemotherapy and radiation, they are so desperate to see something done. It makes me wonder what these parents would do if they were told about all their options, not just the conventional ones.

I have also heard of cases where the parent does choose alternative treatments in preference to conventional ones and the state then intervenes and removes the child from the parent's care so the child can receive chemotherapy or radiation -- even when he or she has refused it! I am not sure, however, that this would also apply to cases where conventional therapies offer no hope.

But I think my proposal to the nurse was entirely reasonable. Chemotherapy and radiation cause great suffering. Why subject a child to them where they offer no hope? What possible harm could there be in offering energy healing as an option?

Postscript: I just found this interesting and informative article on childhood cancer from the BC Children's Hospital Foundation.

Can healing be learned? - Part 3

Almost as if in response to my comment that in order to become the most effective healers we can be we each have to find our own connection to the Source, along comes Frank Kinslow, the founder of Quantum Entrainment, with a method that seems to teach just that. Healing modalities are proliferating like bunnies these days!

Frank Kinslow is a chiropractor who spent many years on a path of spiritual search and meditation, and his healing method is based on going to your own source, what he calls your capital-S "Self", the eternal you that observes the small everyday "you" going about its business. The first exercise for learning the method, which is really a non-method, involves observing your thoughts. It is not you who does the healing, it's "awareness".

Quantum Entrainment seems to have some similarity to Matrix Energetics in at least one technique. Richard Bartlett of ME teaches "two-pointing", where you find two points, connect them, and then through observation "collapse the wave." Frank Kinslow teaches "triangulation", where you find two points, connect them, observe the way they feel, connect to your Self, and then watch what happens.

Having spent two years learning Mahamudra meditation, I can really appreciate the simplicity of Kinslow's method and I have now also begun to incorporate his "thought observing" exercise both into my meditation and into some of my healing practice. It's quite effective at stilling the chattering monkey mind that interferes with healing.

For the purposes of the specific topic of this blog I should note that in his book Kinslow also describes his experience treating a case of metastasized uterine cancer and touches on a number of topics covered in this blog: e.g., the acceptance or non-acceptance of energy healing by medical staff, and the participation of the patient in the healing.

This was Kinslow's experience: When he began treating this patient in the hospital room where she was expected to die, he was initially unwelcome by staff, who then became quite accepting and helpful when they saw the effects of his treatment. He saw the cancer shrink markedly in eight treatments, with the primary tumour disappearing altogether and the secondary tumour shrinking from the size of a grapefruit to the size of a walnut. The patient was then released to go home and resumed a normal life, but when Kinslow offered to continue treating her until the cancer went away altogether, she said that would not be necessary, that "she would take it from here". When the cancer became a threat again and he offered to resume treating it, she still declined treatment and died peacefully at home. Her family said that the extra time he gave her was the most beautiful time of her life and that she was grateful for it. Why this happens is appropriately the topic of another, more lengthy discussion, about life, illness, death, choices, beliefs, and how little we know about what really goes on.

Since I've not studied or experienced Mr. Kinslow's method, this post is not an endorsement but a commentary on what I've read about it. I do like its meditative aspects, however, and will follow up further on it.

Herewith a link to a free audio download of two of Mr. Kinslow's meditations.

Are energy healing modalities affected by the personality of the founder?

A few years ago I took a workshop in a method called BodySpin. The method, which involved the use of small, specially designed magnets illustrated with intricate and colourful geometric patterns, was quite elegant and architectural. Its creator, Jeff Levin, also happened to be an architect.

Richard Bartlett, the creator of Matrix Energetics, who likes to play air guitar at the beginning and end of his workshops, comes across as a would-be rock star and media personality. He is spontaneous, fun, and irreverent, and he created a system that is likewise spontaneous, fun, and irreverent.

Bill Bengston is a professor and a self-described skeptic and rationalist. So when almost 40 years ago he encountered a strange man who was able to bust clouds, read real-time diagnoses from signatures hidden in envelopes, and eventually developed the ability to cure cancer, he immediately asked himself, what is this strange phenomenon? can I prove that it exists? can I tease it apart to see what makes it work?

Out of these questions came a series of seminal experiments that proved that what we call "energy healing" indeed exists and can work on cancer. At the same time Dr. Bengston also devised a teaching method which he has since used in a dozen or so workshops, but his preference as a skeptic and as a rationalist continues to be the probing of these healing energies in the lab to see if they will yield up their secrets.

By way of contrast to Dr. Bengston's approach, I would like to present the case of Richard Gordon, the founder of Quantum Touch. Like Dr. Bengston, Richard Gordon 30-odd years ago met a man who could dissolve grapefruit-sized tumours and move vertebrae with the touch of a finger. Richard Gordon learned to heal from him and developed Quantum Touch, which has since then become a world-wide phenomenon with reputedly over 500 instructors. He says Quantum Touch is easy to learn and his motto is "your love has impact". Along the way there seems to have been some dilution, but practitioners out there are arguably doing quantities of "good" -- as are practitioners of other modalities all over the world.

Both Dr. Bengston and Mr. Gordon serve the public weal through their own particular means and it is difficult to judge which means will ultimately prove to be of greater benefit to society. Dr. Bengston would like to figure out the underlying mechanism of healing and find alternate means of delivery for it. Richard Gordon wants to teach his method to as many people as possible so they can go out there and help others.

Judging by the unprecented results of Dr. Bengston's mouse experiments, the closest we have come to date to finding a cure for cancer is the healing energy that came through Bennett Mayrick, Dr. Bengston's mentor, almost 40 years ago. It was then that Dr. Bengston also learned to cure cancer, and a short while later a method was devised to also teach others. Yes, it is a worthwhile exercise to study this healing energy in a lab to see what makes it tick and whether it can be reproduced by other means; but it also belongs in the hands of people helping real cancer patients in real time, out in the real world. That is why I keep carping on the need for an institute to do teaching as well as research, so not only the energy itself could be studied, but also the most effective means of passing it on.

Bill Bengston interview with Dr. Kamau Kokayi on WBAI New York

I particularly recommend listening to this interview if you are curious about the role of consciousness in healing. Dr. Kokayi asks Dr. Bengston some very compelling questions about the implications of his research. At ca the 39 minute mark Dr. Bengston says that he is trying to find the underlying mechanism for the healings and Dr. Kokayi comments that it sounds like he is trying to find an underlying mechanism for consciousness. An interesting discussion ensues.

You will need to scroll down the page to get to the interview, which is dated November 3rd.

An important link for practitioners

I was impressed by this thorough and informative FAQ for cancer patients posted on the website of a Bengston practitioner who has learned the method in 2008 and has received a good deal of personal mentoring since from Dr. Bengston himself.

I noticed that many of the challenges she faced were similar to the ones we did: tumours that grew, the need for many hours of treatment, and the uncertainty of patients about the progress of their treatment.

She writes:

Wouldn’t it be nice if the tumor got smaller and smaller and smaller and then gone? It doesn’t usually work this way. Be prepared. This is a natural, not a magical process and most tumors get bigger before they get smaller.

Patients tend to become quite concerned by this development, but then they are encouraged to practice the "cycling" process, to recall that the mice in Dr. Bengston's experiments developed large tumours that then imploded and healed, and to notice how they are feeling:

If you are feeling good, sleeping well, eating well, living well and your body is "taking" the treatment, it is all a sign that you are getting well. In fact, in nearly every tumor it gets bigger before it gets smaller … [I]f you are responding well to the treatments, and your gut says you are OK and if other aspects of your health are improving, it bodes well.

How many sessions are needed? It is dependent on the cancer. According to this practitioner, it could be 20 or 200 or more. We too have found that there was a need for many sessions. I suspect we could have helped some of our patients more efficaciously if we treated them 4 hours a day instead of one. But realistically we simply didn’t have the time; also, if a practitioner is to eat, he or she needs to be paid, and how many patients can afford this kind of intensive treatment?

The patient is asked to make a huge leap of faith: to put many hours into treatment, to pay large sums of money, and to accept that his or her cancer will grow before imploding. Yes, their sleep has improved, they have more energy, and they are able to do things that other people with their cancer are no longer capable of. But then they go to their doctor, who says “your tumour is larger” or “such and such cancer marker has gone up”, and then they start looking at you funny and wondering if you are really doing them any good. I think their often unarticulated fear is that though they are feeling well, in fact much better than anyone else in their condition would be feeling, their cancer may just be gathering steam in the background and preparing to pounce.

It sounds like this practitioner, with Dr. Bengston’s mentoring and personal assistance, may have overcome the hurdles that some of the rest of us stumbled over when trying to treat terminal cancers. But I note that none of us, not this practitioner or even Dr. Bengston himself, can ultimately guarantee that a full cure will occur. Of course neither can an oncologist, and a patient is likely to have a much better quality of life with this treatment.

In my opinion this powerful method begs for institutionalized learning, ongoing follow-up, and the creation of an accumulated body of knowledge to assist practitioners. Longer-term teaching would allow practitioners to strengthen their abilities, follow-up would help them with any problems they encounter, and an accumulated body of knowledge would give them access to the experiences of those who have gone before them. This helpful FAQ is a beginning.