There is a lot of skepticism in the scientific community about the effectiveness of healing through laying of the hands.  For those unfamiliar with the concept, this process involves having someone (healer) lay their hands either directly or in close proximity of someone who is sick (healee) or injured and making a conscious decision/prayer/intention to heal their injured cells.

Dr. William Bengston is a professor of sociology at St Joseph’s College in New York, the president of the Society for Scientific Exploration and author of the book The Energy Cure: Unraveling the Mystery of Hands-on Healing.  Dr. Bengston has specifically been working with attempting to heal mice who have been injected with cancer.  Through his experiments he found that not only was he 100% effective in curing the diseased mice, he was also able to positively affect up to 80% of the control group.  These findings led him to study the interconnectedness of not only mice but people as well.

In a paper published in the Journal of Scientific Exploration, Dr. Bengston describes his findings while using Electroencephalograms:

Under Jay’s technical direction we procured a couple of very sophisticated EEGs to be able to test two people at the same time. One person, the healer, was in one room and another person, the healee, was placed in a different room. The healer produces a specific brain state, which is seen to be mirrored in the healee.

Based on the experiments he’s conducted over the years, Dr. Bengston is convinced that living beings have a bond with each other that can be measured in a scientific way.

I am sure at this point that mice can become bonded together; that humans can become bonded together. I am sure at this point that the bonding is not permanent. Just as everyone has probably had the subjective sense of connection, they also have the experience that the subjective sense of connection is not fixed, it’s a fluid thing.

A person can be attached to things, places, people, and pets, and the same is true of mice. They can grow closer together and they can grow farther apart. Perhaps this is where a conscious aware connection comes in, but I am speculating of course. I don’t really see how consciousness or awareness affects healing all that much, but the healing does appear related to connection. In so far as some kind of connection is involved in healing, it seems that it would only be some kind of indirect method or indirect means by which consciousness would affect healing.

To read the full Super Consciousness article go here.  To find out more about Dr. Bengston go here.

Photo courtesy of Bengston Research.