Scientific Studies

Poodle (The following is excerpted from Nicole Wilde’s book, Energy Healing for Dogs and may not be copied or reprinted without express permission of the author.)

Just as science has since proven that the earth is indeed round and revolves around the sun, studies are now proving the existence and validity of many healing modalities that have conventionally been regarded as “alternative” at best. Energy healing in its various forms falls squarely into this category. Over the years at least 150 studies have been done on energy healing and the changes and benefits it can produce. Some of the resulting research papers have even found their way into respected scientific journals.

Here are just a few of these studies:

In the 1960s, Canadian biologist Bernard Grad demonstrated that seeds watered with a solution that had been “treated” by healers—the container of solution was held, and healing energy sent into it—grew much more vigorously and had more chlorophyll than seeds that had received untreated water.¹ Interestingly, Grad also wanted to see if the reverse was true, so he had clinically depressed patients hold the container of water—the seed growth was suppressed.

Grad also experimented with the effects of healing on mice. He had healers send energy to mice who had been given skin wounds in a laboratory setting. Grad controlled for a number of factors including warm hands, and found that the skin healed far more quickly when it had been treated by healers. He also showed that healers could actually reduce the growth of cancerous tumors in lab animals. Those animals who did not receive the healing died more quickly.²

What may seem even more amazing is that “remote healing”—healing that takes place at a distance, whether across a room, across the street, or even across the world—has also been scientifically proven. In her book The Field, Lynne McTaggart describes an experiment conducted in 1995 by psychiatrist Elizabeth Targ and psychologist Fred Sicher involving the effects of energy healing on AIDS patients. Two months were spent carefully designing the trial so that no outside variables could affect the results. All twenty patients had the same degree of illness, as measured by T-cell counts. Healers of diverse backgrounds were employed, including Christians, Buddhists, a Jewish kabbalist healer, a Lakota Sioux Shaman, and a Qi Gong master from China. Each used their own healing techniques, some of which included singing, toning, and visualization. They all held the intention for the health and well-being of the patient.

The patients were divided into two groups: the treatment group received healing, while the control group did not. Neither doctors nor patients knew who was in which group. Each healer was assigned a new patient each week via an envelope containing a photograph, the name of the patient, and the T-cell count. Each healer sent energy remotely one hour per day, six days a week, for ten weeks (with alternate weeks off for rest). By the end of the study, each patient in the treatment group had been treated by ten healers. During the six months of the trial period, forty percent of the patients in the control group had died. But all ten of the patients in the healing group were not only alive, but had actually become healthier, as assessed on the basis of their own reports, medical tests, and examinations by a team of scientists.³

“The Mind Mirror”—Sounds like some weird, futuristic self-help tool, doesn’t it? Actually, it’s a brain-wave feedback device developed by Maxwell Cade, an English biofeedback researcher. Cade used the invention in the late 1970s and early ’80s to study the synchronization of brain rhythms between healers and patients. The device translated the lines of the EEG into a graph that showed patterns of both the left and right hemispheres of the brain. When monitored during the process of healing, healers showed a distinct pattern known as the “state 5 pattern,” which consists of three peaks of activity in three different frequency ranges, all occurring simultaneously. The peaks were seen in the alpha range (associated with relaxation), the alpha-theta range (associated with creativity), and the delta range (seen during deep sleep). The middle peak in the alpha-theta range was 7.8 cycles per second, the same frequency as the electromagnetic waves given off by the earth. This frequency is known as the “Schumann resonance.”

Not only did the healers’ brain waves go into the state 5 pattern, but whenever a healer began the healing process, the Mind Mirror showed that the receiver’s brain wave pattern also went from the alpha-beta range, associated with normal waking consciousness, into the state 5 pattern. In other words, the receiver’s brain became entrained with the brain wave pattern of the healer’s. After the session, the receiver’s brain waves would return to their normal state, or one of greater relaxation. As Dr. Richard Gerber, author of Vibrational Medicine for the 21st Century puts it, “What may be occurring is that the healer, by shifting the patient’s energy frequency to the same as the earth’s field, opens up a kind of ‘resonant frequency window’ through which the magnetic energies of the planet can flow from the healer directly into the patient’s body. In other words, the healer might be ‘channeling’ energy to patient from the healing magnetic energies of the earth itself.”⁴ An alternate interpretation of this “earthfield hypothesis” describes higher, more etheric vibrations flowing through this “resonant frequency window” as well, working in tandem with the geomagnetic currents. These higher spiritual frequencies, coupled with the earth’s magnetic ones, allow for healing on all levels.

Oftentimes those who are skeptical of studies of energy healing attribute the successful results to the placebo effect. After all, if an individual is told that a headache will be gone after healing hands have been placed on the sides of their head for ten minutes, relief could occur because of the person’s belief that it will happen. However, with seeds, there is no chance that beliefs or thought processes contributed to the healing. And in the Targ study, none of the patients even knew whether they were receiving healing or not. When working with animals the placebo effect is also negated, which makes it that much easier to attribute an outcome directly to the healing process itself. Perhaps in the not-too-distant future, the benefits of energy healing for people and animals will become common knowledge.

¹B. Grad, “Some biological effects of ‘laying-on of hands’: a review of experiments with animals and plants.” Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research, 1965: 59: 95-127.

²B. Grad, “Some biological effects of ‘laying-on of hands’: a review of experiments with animals and plants.” Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research, 1965: 59: 95-127.

³Fred Sicher and E. Targ et al., ‘”A randomized double-blind sudty of the effect of distand healing in a population with advanced AIDS: report of a small scale study”. Western Journal of Medicine, 1998: 168(6):356-63.

⁴Richard Gerber, M.D. “Vibrational Medicine for the 21st Century” pp. 384-5.