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From: Esalen Center for Theory and Research
Date: 1/21/2001
Time: 2:28:18 PM
Remote Name: 204.116.134.62
From: Esalen Center for Theory and Research "Subtle Energies and Uncharted Realms of the Mind": an Esalen Invitational Conference, July 2nd to 7th, 2000
New Research in Distant Healing Elizabeth Targ
Elizabeth Targ's research focuses on the influence of distant healing on AIDS patients. Her goals include:
1. demonstrating whether there are any real effects of distant healing 2. isolating the factors that maximize the effect healers have on patients 3. revealing the best "target systems" for distant healers to focus on 4. discovering possible explanations for how distant healing works
In the course of her presentation, she also mentioned that the NIH (National Institutes of Health) is planning on funding research in two separate categories of healing: "distant healing and intentionality" and "bio-energetic healing". Targ suggested that the two approaches may in fact represent facets of the same mechanism.
Targ's study has already shown very significant effects, and she is preparing to move on to the next stage - where the patient pool grows to approx. 1000 subjects and the protocols become randomized and double-blind.
In her future study she will look to isolate some of the factors she sees at work in distant healing, checking for evidence of this ability in the general population, testing for a curve of healing proficiency, and looking at what helps a distant healer target the patients they are praying for (e.g. name and birthdate, photographs, etc).
In the conclusion of her presentation, Targ re-emphasized the multifactorial aspect of healing and stressed the importance of incorporating the physical with the emotional, intentional and spiritual levels of the patient's life.
(Synopsis by L. Sidorov. For more details on this presentation, see original write-up at www.esalenctr.org)