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Healing Research: Proposals for Future Studies

From: Daniel J. Benor, M.D.
Date: 1/20/2001
Time: 2:17:15 PM
Remote Name: 204.116.134.144

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The following is reprinted from www.WholisticHealingResearch.com with the author's permission. For contact or further details, please see

Daniel J. Benor, M.D. P.O. Box 502 Medford, NJ 08055 Phone/Fax (609) 714-1885 E-mail:db@WholisticHealingResearch.com Internet Address: http://www.WholisticHealingResearch.com ©2000 by Daniel J. Benor, M.D.

Theoretical issues for healing research

INTERESTING TOPICS FOR RESEARCH

1. Problems that have yet to be formally studied: Enhancing recovery from burns, fractures, infections.

2. Clinical problems that have responded to healing: Replications of published studies is important. It firms up the evidence for the efficay of healing by confirming that reported effects are replicable with different healers, in different clinical settings, under different investigators. Healing has demonstrated effects in randomized controlled studies in humans on arthritis (swelling and limited motion in addition to pain), problems in cardiac intensive care units, hypertension, muscle fatigue, hemoglobin levels, AIDS, anxiety, pain, and depression. Highly significant effects have been found in electrodermal responses (skin resistance, which roughly correlates with anxiety and tension).

3. Effects of healing in animals: Enhancing wound healing, slowing the progress of malaria and cancer, waking mice selectively from anesthesia.

4. Effects of healing in plants, bacteria, and yeasts: Enhancing and retarding growth.

5. Effects of healing on cells in the laboratory: Protecting red blood cells from bursting when they are placed in dilute salt water (hemolysis)

6. Enzyme activity Enhancing enzyme activity

7. DNA Altering the winding of DNA chains

THEORETICAL ISSUES FOR HEALING RESEARCH

1. Experimenter effects, Super-ESP, and healing

The most fascinating healing study I know is that of Jerry Solfvin: "Psi expectancy effects in psychic healing studies with malarial mice", European Journal of Parapsychology 1982, 4(2), 160-197.

Solfvin set up a highly unusual, complex study of several experimental variables. He explored the effects of mental expectations of animal handlers' on the rates of illness in mice that were in their care. In addition, he studied the effects of expectations that healing would occur -- without the actual use of healers and without knowledge on the part of anyone during the experiment as to which mice were designated to be healed.

The manipulations in the experiment were of the expectations of the student assistants. All the mice were innoculated interperitoneally with 0.1 milliliter of 1:10 stabilate (babesia rhodaini), the rodent version of the malarial blood parasite. Each student was assigned 12 mice housed in a single cage and was told that half of them would be innoculated with babesia while the other half would receive a sterile injection. The students themselves randomized and marked their mice with either yellow (babesia) or black (non-babesia) markings to indicate which were which, thus this condition remained non-blind to them. In addition, the students were led to believe that half of each of these two groups would be receiving distant healing from a psychic healer, when in fact there was no such healer in the study. These expectations formed a balanced two-way analysis of variance that was fully randomized. The students were not aware of which mice were supposed to be healed and which not, these being randomly assigned to the healing and control conditions by the author.

This allowed evaluation of cross-correlations amongst the elements of malarial organisms and animal handler expectations of illness and healing. While all the mice had the same injected dose of malaria, the handlers believed the control group had been injected with sterile saline. Randomization procedures were elaborate, so that the experimenter could not know which mice were assigned to which condition. Solfvin only saw the outsides of double-sealed, opaque envelopes (each containing the code number of a mouse). On each envelope there was only the designation of "malaria" or "control". He then divided each of these groups of envelopes (malaria and malaria-control) into two piles, one for "healing" and one for healing-controls. No healing was sent to any of the animals. In Experiment 1, Solfvin had three handlers. Two were clearly sheep (believers in ESP) and one was clearly a goat (disbeliever in ESP) . The sheep produced random results. The goat produced significant results (p < 0.021) on the dimension of illness expectancy and a suggestive trend (p < .092) for healing expectancy, both in the direction opposite to that predicted by experimental hypothesis. That is, the results were strongly in the direction a goat would predict. In Experiment 2. Solfvin had five handlers. "The babesia and non-babesia designations (used for inducing expectancies in handlers) were changed to high or low babesia." Again, all animals were actually injected with the same dose of malaria, but the handlers were unaware of this deception. The results were uniform across the five groups.

The results show a significant main effect for the healing expectancy factor (p < 0.05) and a marginal trend for the illness expectancy factor (p between 0.05 and 0.10). Both of these are in the direction of the induced expectancies. This healing expectancy effect is definitely a parapsychological one in the sense that it cannot be entirely explained in terms of known sensory processes, since the target animals [for healing] were not known by anyone until the end of the study. We have therefore produced a paranormal healing effect, or something that resembles a healing effect, in a well controlled laboratory study which cannot be attributed to a specific psychic healer or healing treatment. It must therefore be attributable to something else and that something else may be operating in other psychic healing situations as well. In experimental studies of psychic healing treatments the experimenters may have reason to expect positive results. The healer may have performed well in pilot or screening trials, may have brought an impressive anecdotal case history of successful healings, or may make a strong personal impression on one of the experimental staff members. The results of the current study, modelled after this situation, suggest that the expectation structure may be an important contributor to the results, regardless of what the healer does.

This is a key study for understanding possible errors of interpretation that might arise even in controlled studies. Mice in this study were all innoculated with the same dose of malarial parasites, yet in Experiment 1 a significant number became sicker than others, in line with the designated expectations. Similarly, in Experiment 2, a healer effect was demonstrated when no healer was involved. One must postulate that one (or more) of the experimenters or handlers could have been responsible for the significant healing effects. Solfvin points out that this need not be so. Differentials in the physical handling of mice in the various groups in line with handler expectations (perhaps augmented by clairsentient or precognitive perceptions of mouse group assignments) could have produced portions of the results.

Discussion: Healing effects were suggested, in line with the design and expectations surrounding this experiment. This was so even without the intervention of anyone designated as healer and without anyone knowing by sensory means which animals were assigned to healing and nonhealing groups. This study suggests that it is possible to scan one's environment using ESP and to influence it via mental intent. The mental intent does not have to be conscious. This is called Super-ESP. The implications of this study are truly revolutionary. They indicate that psychic healing influences can be produced selectively in an experimental group of mice despite apparent totally controlled, double-blind conditions. If substantiated by repetitions under a variety of circumstances this will force science to re-evaluate one of its most valuable tools in research, the randomized, double-blind, controlled trial. Rupert Sheldrake speculates that experimenter effects (such as those in Solfvin's study) may be present in the hard sciences as well as in the biological sciences.

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You may quote part or all of this article if you include the following credits and addresses: Copyright © Daniel J. Benor, M.D. 1999 Reprinted with permission of the author, P.O. Box 502 Medford, NJ 08055 www.WholisticHealingResearch.com DB@WholisticHealingResearch.com

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2. Possible healing effects on genes, mutations, and evolution

Historical background: In the early 1900s, Luther Burbank developed over 800 new varieties of fruits, vegetables, flowers, and trees. This was a time when the railroads opened broader horizons for farmers, and they sought produce that had improved keeping qualities so that they would last better on the longer journeys beyond local markets. Burbank was able to produce plants with the required new qualities "to order." He planted thousands of seeds. When they sprouted, he would walk rapidly along the rows of seedlings and uproot most of them for discarding -- long before the qualities for which he was selecting (such as tougher fruit skins or slower ripening of fruit) were evident. The remaining specimens had the properties he was seeking. The Food and Drug Administration sent an inspector to review Burbank's nursery business because they suspected him of fraud, but could find none. Neither could they understand how he achieved his remarkable successes. While Burbank published many catalogues of his new plants, he never wrote about his methods. Swami Yogananda visited and asked him how he did it. He said, "I have many senses that other people don't have, and can recognize qualities of plants with these senses." Yogananda persisted, asking how Burbank could produce a cactus without thorns. He responded, "I talked to the cactus, telling it that it didn't need its thorns because I would protect it."

Scientific background: Healing can alter physical states and can act at a distance. There is a suggestion that healing can influence mutations in bacteria (Nash 1984). W.E. Cox (1957) found that in families with four girls, the fifth child was more likely to be a boy, suggesting that the wish for a boy might predispose towards this outcome. (The reverse expectation of more girls after four boys was not confirmed.) Rex Stanford suggests that psychokinesis (PK; mind influencing matter) acts well on systems that are in random flux. This has been substantiated through many studies of PK on random number generators that show highly significant effects. When egg and sperm cells are formed (in a process called meiosis), the genes in each pair of chromosomes in their nucleii are randomly distributed. This forms a living analog of a random number generator.

Suggested research: When a cross fertilization is made with a dominant and a recessive trait, such as black and white beans, a ratio of 3 black to 1 white progeny is produced. It appears likely that focused intent could produce more black or more white beans. (Cross-fertilizations for dominant and recessive traits in fruit flies, bacteria, or other organisms could provide results more quickly.) Should such research provide positive results, it would bring us to an awareness and understanding of the role of consciousness in evolution.

Discussion: Prior to the general acceptance of Darwinian evolution as the dominant theoretical model in Western science, Lamarckian theory proposed an intelligence that guided evolution. Various scientists have proposed that consciousness could be a factor that shapes evolution. Stephen Gould points out that it is difficult to postulate how Darwinian evolutionn could produce physical forms that had not existed previously, where intermediary evolutionary steps would have no advantage for survival. For instance, how would an extra digit evolve merely by chance on the hand of a panda, essential for splitting bamboo, the principal item in its diet? How would feathers evolve for flight? Rupert Sheldrake proposes that morphogenetic fields could serve this function. Individual members of a species could contribute their personal experiences to the collective consciousness of their species-specific morphogenetic field. The field could then be available to inform future members of information that is useful for survival, such as migration routes -- as well as through information on advantageous adapteations of body form for evolution into more successful physical forms. The proposed experiment, in which mental influence could produce a shift in the numbers of particular genetically-determined forms, could provide direct evidence of such a process. I have been sharing these observations with scientists for more than a dozen years but have never found anyone willing to run this study. I hope that a visitor to this site with access to the resources for running this study will begin this pioneering exploration.

Benor, Daniel J. The work of Luther Burbank and possible psi/healing effects on genes, mutations, and evolution

Click here for full article on this site

A briefer version of this article appears as: Benor, Daniel J., Lamarckian genetics: Theories from psi research and evidence from the work of Luther Burbank, Research in Parapsychology 1987, Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow 1988.

Cox, W.E.: The influence of 'applied psi' upon the sex of offspring, Journal of the Society for Psychical Research 1957, 39, 65-77.

Nash, Carroll B. Test of psychokinetic control of bacterial mutation, Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research 1984, 78(2), 145-152.

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You may quote part or all of this article if you include the following credits and addresses: Copyright © Daniel J. Benor, M.D. 2000 Reprinted with permission of the author, P.O. Box 502 Medford, NJ 08055 www.WholisticHealingResearch.com DB@WholisticHealingResearch.com

Last changed: August 17, 2002