DID SOMEONE SAY 'VOODOO?'
It's interesting to note that these 'distant healing' studies do not necessarily suggest
that just anybody can come along and 'force' another person's body to conform to their
wishes. It's much subtler than that. In one particular study by Braud & Schlitz,
subjects were sometimes asked to visualize a mental wall, a protection surrounding their
body and preventing any external influences from reaching them. In other sessions they
were asked to allow the effect of the distant person to come through. Sure enough, it was
found that during the usual 'influence' periods, patients' GSR activity shifted from
baseline; but in 'influence' periods which coincided with their own 'protection'
visualization, the GSR did not change significantly. So it seems that, rather than
thinking of healing as a 'force,' flowing from the healer to the patient, it may be more
appropriate to think of it as a kind of cooperative relationship -- an 'opening' of one
person to the beneficial thoughts of another.
One thing is certain: if we can obtain such distant-influence effects in laboratory
simulations, then it seems more than likely that similar kinds of effects occur in
real-life settings, where there are real, pressing needs, and where healers are highly
committed to helping others. So, while placebo effects and self-healing certainly play a
major role, I think that we can now safely state that sometimes, something even more
profound and miraculous is indeed taking place. |
