Healing

Healing
By Marinus Jan Marijs

ALTERNATIVE HEALING PRACTISES

FROM TRADITION TO
MODERN TIMES:
–Prominent Traditional
healings methods in
general
–Common Modalities and
Techniques
–From Paracelsus to
modern pharmacy

–Efficacy and Modern
Integration
THEORY and some
PRACTISE:
–Acupuncture
–Qigong
–Traditional Chinese
medicine (also against
malaria)

LAYING ON HANDS:
–In many cultures

–Procedure
–The Cathars
–Mice
–Psychic energy and
healing (Tart; Estabani)
–Bioenergotherapy and
healing (Krivorotov(3))

PRANA AND EQUIVALENTS;
VITALITY:
–Prana and equivalents
–Prana and energy
systems
possible working principle

–Yoga and Vitality (5 vital
airs)
–Prana Nadis

–Vitality globules and
prana and chakras
–Observation of the
vitality globules
–Interaction of the
chakra’s and subtle
energies on different
ontological levels –Reich and orgone
–Two forms of energy
transfer (granthi)
(Tenhaeff and M.J.M.)

————————————

FROM TRADITION TO
MODERN TIMES

Traditional healings methods

Traditional healing encompasses diverse, nature-based, and holistic healthcare systems that focus on restoring the balance of the body, mind, and spirit. Ranging from indigenous ceremonies to codified ancient disciplines, these practices complement or inform modern medicine and pharmacology.

Prominent Traditional Healing Systems

• Ayurveda: Originating in India. This ancient system uses diet, herbal remedies, yoga and meditation to balance the body’s life forces (doshas) and maintain overall wellness.
• Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM): Focuses on balancing the flow of energy or life force (qi) through the body using methods like acupuncture, herbal medicine, and tai chi.
• Indigenous Healing Practices: Many communities globally, such as the Aboriginal and First Nations peoples, rely on holistic healing using plant-based medicines (bush rubs), spiritual ceremonies, and
  communal support

Common Modalities and Techniques

• Herbal Medicine: The use of plant extracts, roots, and leaves (teas, poultices, tinctures) to prevent or treat illness. Many modern pharmaceuticals are derived from traditional plant knowledge.
• Energy Work and Bodywork: Practices such as mirimiri (traditional Māori massage), acupressure, or Reiki, which aim to release physical tension and balance energy fields.
• Spiritual Therapies: Rituals designed to cleanse the spirit and remove negative energy, such as the burning of sacred herbs (smudging) or participating in purification ceremonies.

Counseling and Communal Healing: Talk therapies or healing circles that allow individuals to process emotional trauma in a safe, judgment-free communal space.
————————————-

From Paracelsus to modern pharmacy

Paracelsus ( 1493-1541 ), who was an alchemist, was the founder of the pharmaceutic medicine.
This historical fact is acknowledged in many major medical publications.
His alternative approach became standard in modern medicine.

Pharmaceutical medicine is a distinct medical specialty focused on the discovery, development, evaluation, registration, monitoring, and medical marketing of new medicines. It bridges laboratory research and patient care, ensuring that drugs are safe and effective
————————————-

Efficacy and Modern Integration

While some traditional practices have been rigorously studied and proven effective (e.g. acupuncture for pain relief or yoga for functioning), others focus primarily on spiritual and mental wellness. Modern healthcare systems are increasingly recognizing the value of combining these methods with conventional medicine, a concept known as integrative medicine.

To explore specific practices, evidence, and safety guidelines.

———————————–
ACUPUNCTURE

The art and philosophy of Acupuncture cannot be understood in western scientific terms, although there are a thousand locations on the body called “Acupuncture points”, which are not distinguished by any observable structural features in the body tissues, although the electrical resistance (measured in Ohm)of the skins show a precise decrease within a few millimetres of the classical Chinese Acupuncture points, and can be used as an aid in locating them.
————————————
Scientific evidence that Acupuncture works:

The Science of Acupuncture BBC Documentary Traditional Chinese Medicine

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D53UwyJWa3w

An Accenture documentary by the BBC.
You will see traditional Chinese treatments, different healing as Qi Gong, Tai Chi Chuan and also heart surgery, only using Acupuncture.
————————————-
 How Chinese traditional medicine helped beat malaria

Chinese scientists used ancient traditional medicine to find a cure for malaria in the 1970s.

Artemisinin was discovered by exploring the medicinal properties of a herbal remedy from the 4th century.

It can cure most forms of malaria with very few side effects and has saved millions of lives all over the world.

Professor Lang Linfu is a pioneering Chinese scientist and key member of the original Project 523 team during the 1970s.
———————————–
THE LAYING ON OF HANDS

This traditional healing method is described in many cultures:
Christianity  2.4 billion people
(By Christ himself: Jesus laid his hands upon the sick ( Mark 6:5 ).
China (Chi)  1.4 billion people
Hindu (Prana) 1.2 billion people
And many other cultures.

The fact that this concept is multi-cultural present, makes it socially relevant.
————————————
The Procedure of laying on of hands
The method to improve a person’s health through laying on of hands is generally by  making stroking motions.

The patient is sometimes lightly touched during the treatment, but that is not necessary.
The healer makes contact with the patient and influences the sick person through his focused  attention.
Next, the hands or fingertips are placed on the affected area—the so-called “irradiation.” Subsequently, stroking movements are performed over and above the diseased area of ​​the body. Almost all healers speak of a “force” that they feel passing through them and which leaves their body, primarily through their hands, and particularly through their fingertips. The healer attracts a large amount of ‘energy’ through his concentration, which he extracts from the surroundings.   
Subsequently, this energy passes through the arms and hands onto the patient,

This healing power is seen as a universal human ability, which is more strongly developed in some people than in others.The nature of this power and its application for healing: 

The physical body has an etheric double that permeates the entire physical body. Moreover, it surrounds it up to a distance of 10 to 15 cm, a distance that is related to the nature and health of the individual. We call that protruding part the health aura.
————————————-
Arthur Guirdham in his book “The Great Heresy.”
‘The Cathars anticipated penicillin by the use of moulds to combat infections. These measures are classifiable as orthodox medicine but in addition they practised the laying on the hands. It was largely through this latter technique that their psychic power and emanatory capacity was manifested.
The laying on of hands as practised by the Parfaits was something inherited from primitive Christianity. It was in no sense a generalised benediction plus the relaxing effect induced by contact with those who had the gift of healing in their fingers. It was a sophisticated, comprehensive and scientifically based system of healing. The hands were kept still at certain fixed points. The latter were established in relation to certain bony areas. Treatment to a diseased tissue or organ involved placing one hand over the affected area and the other on one of the fixed points, not necessary the nearest. In cardiac disease one hand could be placed over the heart and the other at a certain point near the thumb. An alternative method was to place the hands on  the nearest points at either side of the affected area. A person with an abscess on the forearm could be treated by hands placed at specific ally indicated sites at the thumb or elbow ok the same side. This geographical siting of the hands was a basic feature of the technique but the possession of healing power by the therapist was absolutely essential.
One had in Catharism the same pattern as that revealed in primitive Christianity, a limited number of individuals with special gifts preaching the word, healing the sick and igniting a number of others with the capacity to do so.
———————————–
The laying on of hands

“It is possible to trace this back as far as the New Testament, in which we read about the imposition of hands and after an initial period of great popularity, has settled down to the level of quite common practise. This is used quite frequently even now in an attempt to improve physical health and many of the “patients “maintain that they do in fact benefit from it.
Healers claim to make use of a subtle power that emanates from their hands.
As to the question whether there has been any proof of the reality of this healing power or is it at all possible to establish any proof?
There are experiments conducted by B. Grad, R J Cadoret and G. I.Paul with mice.

They worked with three groups of mice which had deliberately been hurt in precisely the same way. The first group was treated by a healer twice a day, being held in the healer’s hand for 15 minutes each time. The second group was treated by people who did not claim to possess these special curing powers and the third group was not treated at all.  It was observed that the cure of the mice treated by the healer was more rapid than that of the other two groups.
The importance of this experiment is that all possible suggestion was excluded.”
———————————–
Richard S Brougton in his book “Parapsychology”
Gives the following description:

“In the mid-sixties Bernard Grad of Mc Gill University in Montreal worked with a healer, Oskar Estabany, in a series of experiments examining  Estebany’s effect on mice with experimentally induced medical problems. In one of the biggest experiments, three hundred female mice had a small oval portion of skin removed. Wounds were measured , and matched sets of three mice were randomly assigned to three conditions. In the first condition Estebany placed his hands around cages containing ten mice each and practiced his healing for fifteen minutes twice daily. The cage was inside a paper bag , and the treatment was done either by placing hands inside the bag (for half the cage ) or by simply holding the bagged cage between his hands. In the second condition medical students performed the same actions as Estebany. In the third condition the cage containing the mice was simply placed on a table for the 15 minutes. At the end of 16 days the wounds were measured. Estebany’s mice showed significantly smaller wounds than either of the other conditions. The wounds of the mice held by the medical students healed no differently from those  of the mice that were not held at all.
The past decade has seen a veritable explosion of healing research in China, where more than 200 universities , medical centers, and independent laboratories are using 20-th century science to help understand the ancient system of Chinese healing known as qigong.
Actually qigong is a program of deep- breathing exercises that are meant to promote one’s health and wellbeing. In Chinese philosophy qi is  a type of fundamental vital energy, and qigong exercises helps the individual master the flow of this energy within the human body. Extended qigong practise eventually may enable a person to “externalise” his qi  and direct it toward others for healing purpose. Persons with this ability are known  as qigong masters and frequently serve as healers, either informally or in “traditional medicine” clinics. Recently some Western style hospitals have opened traditional medicine departments in which qigong masters work alongside conventionally trained physicians.”
————————————-
Charles T. Tart :  Psychic Energy And Healing:

“ Many of the spiritual psychologies postulate various kinds of psychic energies, energies which are not physical but which exist on some nonphysical level; and can influence living organisms and sometimes non-living matter. PK. Of course , must be one such form of energy, with its observable manifestation being a change in physical objects. An energy manifesting only in terms of its effect on life  and consciousness has been called such names  as prana in India ( Garrison, 1964 ), chi in India, and ki in Japan ( Frager, 1970 ). Some Western scholars have attempted to deal with it: Franz Mesmer ( 1774 ) called it magnetic fluid, and von Reichenbach ( 1968 ) called it odic force, but these conceptions have never been accepted in orthodox, Western science. Some people experience unusual sensations they consider psychic energyin their ordinary state of consciousness , and many more have experienced it in some d-ASC. When I surveyed experienced marijuana users, for example, 35 percent of them said they experienced it very often. Nine percent said they usually experienced it.”
( Tart , 1971b ).

The ability to produce, control, and direct this energy is often used to explain the basis of paranormal healing, the alleviation of physical ailments when there seems to be no adequate physiological or medical explanation for the healing. This is a difficult area to investigate, for so many physical ailments actually have a partial completely psychosomatic basis , and the belief that a treatment is going to be effective may be sufficient to produce a cure, without involving any paranormal elements. Some excellent experiments by Bernard Grad, at Mc Gill University, have now established a substantial case for the existence for some kind of psychic energy being involved in at least some cases of healing. Since Grad’s experiments are the best in the field on psychic healing and energy, let us look at them in some detail.

Grad worked with a Hungarian healer, a Colonel Estabani, who had a long history of healing both animals and people by laying his hands on the afflicted areas for some time. The basic experimental question Grad addresses himself to was whether there was some sort of nonphysical energy emanating from Estabani’s hands that could affect wound healings. In a number of studies ( Grad, 1963; 1965; 1967; Grad, Cadoret, and Paul, 1961 ), experimental organisms were mildly wounded and then received a healing treatment in a way that eliminated known physical and psychological factors. In one early experiment , mice received small, surgically inflicted wounds on their skins, and the rate of healing of the wounds was objectively measured daily. The mice were divided into an experimental and a control group, and those in the experimental group were treated by Estabani. Each mouse in the experimental group was put into a paper bag by an experimenter, and Estebani held the bag and its contained mouse in his hands while doing his healing .Mice in the control group were put in paper bags for equivalent periods of time but not held by Estabani . The results showed that the wounds healed much more rapidly in the mice who received the healing treatment.

Because there might be some sort of physical handling factors of warmth factors involved in such an experiment , Grad then did a series of experiments eliminating even this possibility. The experiment organisms were seeds which had been “wounded “by being heated in an oven in a temperature that would kill some of them and adversely affect those that survived. These seeds were then planted in pots and watered with sterile , saline solution, mild salty water of the sort used for transfusions .The baking and the use of the mild saline solution for the seeds were to simulate conditions of illness, non-optimal conditions for the organisms. The saline solutions came in hermetically sealed jars. Some of the jars were held between Estabani’s hands, and he did a healing treatment on the saline, presumably passing nonphysical energy through the walls of glass into the water. The seeds watered with this treated water were the experiment group. Seeds in the control group were watered with jars of sterile saline solution that had simply sat around in the room without receiving a treatment from Colonel Estabani. A technician who did not know which water had received the healing treatment took care of the actual watering of the plants; and another technician measured the number of sees which actually sprouted and the height to which the seeds grew in a certain period of time, as well as the final weight of the plants at the end of the experiment. The results showed repeatedly that for seeds watered with the treated solution , more seeds sprouted, the seedings grew faster, and the final plants weighed significantly more at the end of the experiment.

The only thing that could happen in physical terms as a result of Estabani’s healing treatment was that the water in the jar that he held would get slightly warmer. Since all bottles , control and experimental , were allowed to sit around and come back to room temperature before watering the plants, this variable was cancelled out. No known form of physical energy emanating from the healer could get into and be stored in the water. Thus we can argue strongly that some nonphysical  ( in terms of our current understanding of the universe ) kind of energy, a physical energy, must be capable of attending itself to water and then affecting growing organisms.”
————————————
Healing
Bioenergotherapy and healing Victor K Krivorotov, Alexei E Krivorotov and Vladimir Krivorotov
Tblisi, Georgia, U.S.S.R.
The method of healing by placing hands upon the patient’s body has been reported since ancient times. The technique was utilized thousands of years ago in India, as recorded in the Vedas.
Laying-on of hands is also recounted in ancient Egyptian scrolls. By using modern scientific methods, we can study the nature of this healing process and utilize it in treating various illnesses.
Because the process appears to involve some type of biological energy, we can refer to it as “bioenergotherapy”.
Clinical testing and experimental research are needed to clearly define the potential boundaries of this therapy.

What are the feelings of the patient during treatment?
Often, he/she experiences “tingling” or “goose pimples”.
The physical manifestations of these phenomena often cause the afflicted zone to become visible and clearly defined.
Sometimes the patient experiences a pleasant feeling of warmth spreading over his/her entire body. At other times, the patient feels some pain when the healer places his hands upon the patient’s body. A feeling of warmth from the healer’s hands may blunt the pain after one or two minutes.
In some instances, the patient feels as if something has entered his/her system, grasping the pain, and dissolving it.

Very often, the patient feels an intense warmth localized in the treated zone, many hours after the treatment has ceased.

The dynamic forms are classified into two principal modes, linear motion and rotary motion.
One or the other is selected in accordance with the location of the afflicted zone. Thus, in the case of action upon the extremites of the spine, the motion is linear In the region of the heart or solar plexus, rotary motion is indicated.
Both linear and rotary forms may be employed to advantage in other locations.
All principal methods of bioenergetics activity may be classified further into local and general types. Local methods suggest direct action upon the diseased zone or nerve center; the general method innervates the entire nervous systems as well as energizing the afflicted part. The general mode is utilized in those instances where  the patient appears to be lethargic and where exhaustion is apparent. Such patients may “shatter” the healer’s own system while at the same time the patient experiences an increase of energy.

A further division of forms of action is specified in the use of the “currents” in each hand and their interaction. In one form of action, both hands are placed upon the zone; each hand is energetically active. In this case, the hands are placed near to each other. This results in a massive undifferentiated interaction of both hands, and is best utilized in the “general” method.
A different action employs the use of one hand only. It has been established that it is important to ascertain which hand is more efficacious. The nature of the “current” in one hand differs from that in the other hand. This becomes apparent in that in the other hand. This becomes  apparent in cases when use of the left hand yields no effect, but changing to the right hand is effective.

In directed action, a more subtle form of energy is generated;  a smoothness and quietness of the hands is felt.

On the basis of the experiments carried out by the Kirlians, it can be suggested that bioenergotherapy shares many characteristics of electrification.
This type of healing appears to be accompanied by complicated electrical manifestations resulting in action which takes place on the enervating systems of the human skin and tissue. Considerable amounts of some energetic processes appear to flow into the human organism, restoring a balance to all systems of the body. The more one studies the essence of the action of this energy, the more apparent is the conclusion that there exists a single energetic principle regulating the living organisms.
Th e processes in living organisms depend on the transformation and distribution of this single energetic principle throughout the systems of the organism.

The forms of healing discussed in this paper have great potential for assisting sick people. Thus,  furthermore scientific investigation is of the utmost importance.

The vital powers flow in through the breath, solid food, liquid food, and sleep. In these ways one’s basic supply is replenished.
Source: Psychoenergetic systems
edited by: Stanley Krippner and Mary Lou Carlson.

————————————
Prana and vitality, crosscultural data

One is inclined to think of the Indian concept of prana in connection with the strength or the degree of exhaustion of the nervous system.

Different names for this concept:

Prana  –  India
Chi  –  China
Ki  –Japan
Bio plasma  –  Russia
Etheric energy
Elan vital
Vitality

————————————-
Prana and energy systems

Prana. A form of energy postulated in ancient Hindu texts as the basic life force. Prana is thought to exist outside the types of energy ( electromagnetic, nuclear and  gravitational forces) known to Western science. It conceptually resembles the odic force (Reichenbach), orgone (Reich) , chi (acupuncture theory ) and bio plasma.

Prana is an energy which is transported through the human body by a network of channels called nadis.

The term prana is generally used to describe the total system, but is later differentiated where pram is one of five energies.
————————————
Yoga and Vitality

“The books give us a list of five vital airs ( vayus ) which are declared to have their influence in the several regions of the body. They are named prana at the heart; apana at the very base of the spine, samâna at the navel; uduna at the throat; and vyana all over. Thus briefly states the Garuda Purana.

The old teachers always very definitely described the vital airs of five kinds, or as having five locations in the body, with different functions. The list is similarly given in the Gheranda  Sanhita:
 Prana moves in ( the region of ) the heart; apana in the region at the very base of the spine; samâna in the area  of the navel; uduna  around the throat; Vyana pervading the ( entire ) body.
These are invariably referred to as the five principal or important vayus. Five minor ‘airs ‘are incidentally mentioned here and elsewhere, as concerned with belching and vomiting, opening and closing the eyelids, sneezing, yawning , and distributing nourishment. The location of the five vital airs as given in the standard lists, as being associated with the centres and areas of the heart or chest, at the very base of the spine, the navel, the throat  and the genitals, would indicate that they are concerned with the various functions of the body such as breathing, excretion and digestion, as distinguished from the work of the organs of voluntary action, such as the hands, the feet, etc.

Not only in the hatha-yoga books are these ‘vital airs‘given, but in various other works. For example, in the Sankhya philosophy, the sutras of Kapila mentions them, stating that prana is in the heart region, that apana lies downwards from the pelvis, that samâna is round the umbilicus, that udâna is from the heart to the throat, and that vyana is all over the body.
  -Gheranda Samhita. v,61, 62. The five are also sometimes related      respectively to breathing, evacuation, digestion, speech, and general energizing.-

..in case of psychic healing-which takes place among gurus and yogis , and among modern practioners- is that the healer gives some of his own ‘vitality‘ by a process.

Prana  Nadis
The elaborate list is given in the Shandilya Upanishad, for example, differs considerably from what may be called the standard given in many works. That the descriptions were given ‘from observation ‘by the various old authorities on the subject is shown by the colours allotted to the vital airs. Prana is generally described as of a yellow or coral colour; apana as red or orange; samâna as green or like coloured milk; udâna as a pale or whitish blue; and Vyana as red, rosy, pale rose, or like a ray of light. The last is sometimes described as seen as a general health aura, extending a little outside the body, and appearing sturdy when there is good general health and droopy and thin when the health is poor.”
————————————
Vitality globules and prana
Used for healing

The vitality globules that yogic tradition speaks of and see them as evidence for prana, a Sanskrit term for the basic life force.)

Vitality globules are an aspect of Pranic forces
————————————-

The vitality globules Are Absorbed in what is called the chakras
A chakra is a vortex which is located just outside the physical body.  

The chakras or force-centres are connected with granthis, rings of 27 mm diameter with in the middle an opening of 9 mm diameter, at where energy flows into the nadis.
The granthis are located just inside the physical bod and inside the spine.

The chakras interact with subtle energy fields on different ontological levels.

The spleen chakra absorbs the vitality globules.

THE ABSORPTION OF VITALITY  THE GLOBULE

The vitality globule is about 1.5 mm in diameter, each consisting of seven different kinds of elements, each with their own color.

When this globule is floating  about in the atmosphere, it is almost colourless, and shines with a white light.
But as soon as they are drawn into the vortex of the force-centre at the spleen it is decomposed and breaks up into streams of different colours.
They are whirled round the vortex, each of the six spokes seizes upon one of them, so that all the particles charged with yellow flow along one, and all those charged with green along another, and so on, while the seventh,, the rose colored, disappears through the centre of the vortex – through the hub of the wheel, as it were. They  pass first to the big 9 mm nadis, and then to the small nadis, off in different directions, each to do its special work in the vitalization of the body.

This website gives a diagrammatic representation of these paths of the dispersed prana.
See: www…..
and: www……
The six colours of the spleen chakra are therefore violet, blue, green, yellow, orange, and dark red; while the seventh or rose-red (more properly the first, since this is the original element where the force first appeared) passes down through the centre of the vortex. Vitality is thus clearly sevenfold in its constitution

Observation of the vitality globules

To have observed that, in sunlight, a subtle change occurs in some otherwise unattached particles in the air, which binds them together into a group carrying a charge of a special growth-stimulating force.

This group is the vitality globule described above and is said to be formed only in sunlight (Reich observed the same phenomenon and called it dancing dots of orgone).

Free prana travels through the nadis (not by the nerves as some traditions claim) and then prana is thrown off from all extremities, all orifices, and the skin.
In a healthy body the pranic flow from the body constitutes a fine spray of 1.5 mm transparent globules.
At about 10 meter disband and look like streams of light.
About 100 meter it looks like a haze.

There is also a form of static vitality closely associated with the structure of each cell and organ. The interplay of the quick-moving prana, drawn in from the air, with the static prana (sometimes called the etheric body)  anchored in the cells, this constitutes a formative field that generates and sustains the physical body.

In health, the radiations stand out at right angles to the surface of the body, throwing out surplus or used vitality about in all directions, perpendicular to the body.
In disease and fatigue  they droop and become tangled. Tangled spots due to local disorder can hold back the circulation of prana.. and congestion of vitality then takes place locally

Reich and oragon

This is described in the book Future Science by:
John White and Stanley Krippner pages 106 – 109

“Reich saw foglike emanations and bluish dots and lines of light. After prolongued  exposure the blue glimmer would then be visible as a slowly moving

gray-blue vapour around one’s body.
Reich concluded that the energy was present in organisms, that it comes from the sun and is present everywhere.

.. one could see dancing dots of light, pinpricks which seemed to assume an arc like configuration. Some have called these the vitality globules that yogic tradition speaks of and see them as evidence for prana, a Sanskrit term for the basic life force.)  Among other things, these visual phenomena were considered  evidence for the atmospheric orgone.

….orgone’s motion through the body is quite slow compared with the speed of electromagnetic radiation.”
————————————
Prof. Dr. W.H.C. Tenhaeff
about a healer who was also a medical doctor:

“When he treated a patient in this way, he observed a tingling sensation in the tips of his fingers, hands, and arms. “This is, said this doctor, “a sensation different from what one is accustomed to calling paresthesia in medicine.”

In contrast to those who reported the ‘warming’ of the treated body parts and other paresthesias (itching, tingling, clonic contractions, etc.), there were others who gave a negative answer to the question asked. Tests conducted by me on patients, using a very sensitive skin thermometer, yielded no data indicating that the sensation of warmth reported by a number of patients was based on an objective basis.”
————————————

The two distinct forms of energy transfer, the one which gives a tingling sensation in the tips of his fingers, hands, a cool stream, is the result of activating the energy streams that flow through the small pink nadis, that find their origin at the heart of the spleen chakra.
The one which gives a warm sensation in the  palm of the hand, finds its origin in a 27 mm diameter granthi, a ring that is connected with the heart chakra.  (M.J.M.).
——————————–

CAN  THOUGHTS  HEAL  AS  WELL  AS  DESTROY?

Ian Stevenson;
Reincarnation  and  Biology

General  Discussion

Published  seemingly  miraculous  cure  (at  Lourdes)  of  an  enormous  fibroid  tumour  of the  uterus.  The  case  happened  to  come  under  his  own  observation,  and  he  was able  to  examine  a confirming  medical  record  of  it.  Everson  and  Cole  (1966)  summarized data  on  176  reported  cases  of  “spontaneous”  regression  of  cancer  from 1900  on.  Boyd  (1966)  added  another  61  cases.  Challis  and  Stam  (1990),  searching the  medical  literature  from  1966  to  1987,  identified  a further  504  cases  deserving credence,  making  a total  of  741  cases  reported  over  a little  less  than  90  years. O’ Regan  and  Hirshberg  (1993)  published  a vast  bibliography  of  spontaneous remissions  of  cancers  and  other  diseases.  Even  so,  such  unexpected  recoveries must  be  rare  events.  Their  infrequency,  however,  does  not  justify  neglecting  the knowledge  that  they  do  occasionally  happen,  and  “rarities  and  reports  that  seem incredible  are  not  to  be  suppressed  or  denied  to  the  memory  of  men”  (Bacon, 1605/1915,  p.  29).

The  unexpected  healings  to  which  I have  drawn  attention  are  not  necessarily due  to  altered  images  in  the  minds  of  the  patients.  We  might  assume  that  this  was true  of  the  cases  in  which  some  religious  intercession  was  sought;  and  Meares’s patient  engaged  in  intense  meditation  and  attributed  his  recovery  largely  to  this measure.  No  such  altered  mental  state  was  claimed  for  Kessets  patient  or  for  that of  Blades  and  McCorkle.  I mention  these  unexpected  healings  to  show  the  ability of  some  persons  to  recover  from  life-threatening  illnesses  without  conventional medical  treatment  (or  when  this  alone  would  ordinarily  be  insufficient).  Altered mental  imagery  may  play  a significant  part  in  some  of  these  recoveries,  although obviously  other  restorative  forces  may  be  in  play  as  well.

Some  physicians  and  other  therapists  have  encouraged  and  instructed  their patients  in  the  deliberate  use  of  imagery  to  restore  their  health  (Epstein,  1986; Sheikh,  1984),  and  at  least  one  patient  prescribed  and  used  imagery  in  healing himself  (Shattock,  1979).  In  Chapter  2,  I cited  reports  of  the  successful  application of  imagery  in  amplifying  women’s  breasts.

Cancer  is  not  only  invasive;  it  is  often  destructive  of  the  tissues  it  encounters. And  yet  in  the  cases  of  healings  from  cancer  that  I have  cited,  form  as  well  as function  became  restored.  The  healed  person’s  body  can  only  have  reconstituted its  normal  form  if  the  plan  for  that  form  had  somehow  been  preserved;  and  I consider this  preservation  some  additional  evidence  for  a vehicle  that  I am  calling  the psychophore.

ENVOI

The  cases  I have  described  in  this  work  lead  me  to  conclude  that  sometimes mental  images  in  the  mind  of  a deceased  person  who  has  survived  death  can  influence the  form  of  an  embryo  or  foetus  so  as  to  cause  birthmarks  and  birth  defects. This  is  a conclusion  at  variance  with  assumptions  the  majority  of  scientists  hold, and  because  it  must  seem  startling  to  many  readers,  I do  not  wish  to  be  charged with  claiming  more  than  I do.