Energy Healing Experiments Science Reveals Our Natural Power to Heal

Chapter 1 My Eyes Are Opened Would you believe that a healer removed the pain of a broken wrist and bone in fifteen minutes? Would you believe that another healer removed an ovarian tumor in a matter of weeks? Would you believe that a third healer regenerated the nerves of a broken spine in a few months, remotely, on a person thousands of miles away? As thoroughly unlikely as these examples may sound, I have personally witnessed such healings at first hand. They seem like miracles -- yet they really did happen. The question is, how? The answer to this question involves a new understanding of energy and consciousness. I'm a Harvard PhD, a former Yale professor of psychology and psychiatry and director of the Yale Psychophysiology Center. I'm currently a professor of psychology, surgery, medicine, neurology, and psychiatry at the University of Arizona. I was awarded one of two NIH grants to establish a Center for Frontier Medicine in Biofield Science. Though I was originally taught that such healing miracles do not and can not happen, the fact is that they do. Science can now help us to understand and celebrate them. Pain That Disappears The first energy healing I ever experienced was completely unexpected. In the summer of 1994, I was visiting a colleague on the East Coast, a psychotherapist I will call Suzanne. Her father had been a distinguished physician and scientist who, though conventionally trained, was open to alternative therapies. After his death, Suzanne developed an interest in energy healing and was taking advanced courses in what's called healing touch. While I was visiting with her, Suzanne received an emergency phone call from one of her counseling patients. In tears, the patient explained that her husband had been repairing the roof and had fallen off. He was rushed to the hospital in extreme pain. The lady pleaded with Suzanne to meet her at the emergency room and help her cope with this stress. Suzanne agreed to go, and I went as well. We found her husband, Robert, apparently in excruciating pain, with his right wrist bent at an unlikely angle. I stepped out of the room so Suzanne could attempt healing. Curious about the process, I snuck a quick peek over her shoulder before I left. I saw Robert lying with his eyes closed while Suzanne waved her hands a few inches above his arm and wrist. I realized she was being circumspect: the hospital staff would not have been pleased about these goings-on, which they probably would have thought closely akin to voodoo. After about fifteen minutes, Suzanne asked us to return. We found Robert with his eyes wide open and smiling like a surprised Cheshire cat. He said he had no idea what had just transpired, but to his amazement the severe pain in his wrist and arm was virtually gone. And no, he had not been given any pain medications. He still couldn't move his limb, and X-rays would confirm he had a fractured wrist. Nonetheless, he was unexpectedly pain free and greatly relieved. So was his wife. As for me, I was frankly in shock. If this was a placebo response -- if Robert had believed Suzanne could relieve his pain, and his belief had tricked his body into making the pain disappear -- then it was certainly a dramatic example. Could the elimination of Robert's pain be explained solely as the power of his mind over his body? Or had something more occurred, something to do with healing that Suzanne had induced? Had I witnessed my first energy healing? A Tumor Vanishes Several years ago, a New Yorker I'll call Jane was diagnosed using ultrasound as having a large tumor on her right ovary. Refusing an immediate biopsy, she announced that she wanted to take a month to try alternative healing techniques. She focused on two modalities -- herbs, prescribed by a psychiatrist, and energy healing, to be performed by her husband, Mark, who hapSchwartz, Gary E. is the author of 'Energy Healing Experiments Science Reveals Our Natural Power to Heal', published 2007 under ISBN 9780743292375 and ISBN 0743292375.