A Scientist's Healing Hands
Is healing others an innate human ability? Most practitioners of the new healing modalities are sure of it. But in our culture, belief and results are not enough for acceptance. Replicable scientific research is required to “prove” any such claims.
Unlike most of the new healers, Dr. William Bengston, author of The Energy Cure: Unraveling the Mystery of Hands-On Healing, is primarily a researcher(http://bengstonresearch.com/). As a professor of sociology at St. Joseph’s College in New York, he specializes in research methods and statistics. But for over thirty years he has also been investigating anomalous healings.
Dr. Bengston’s curiosity about energy healing (1) began in the late 1970s when he met a man named Ben who turned out to have quite extraordinary healing abilities. Ben had no belief system attached to his abilities and no need to prove anything. He simply did what he did, and it usually resulted in complete cures of malignant cancers and other serious conditions.
After spending a lot of time with Ben and asking a lot of questions, Bengston developed his own ability to heal. He has no idea whether his ability was innate, acquired somehow by proximity, or learned from Ben.
Bengston began to develop laboratory protocols for testing energy healing under carefully controlled conditions. In the first experiment, much to his amazement, he achieved 100% remission of fatal cancer in the mice he treated.
He did not know whether his healing method could be taught to others, but he chose skeptical students for the first tests. The experiments appeared to prove that energy healing could be taught, or at least transferred, when the students achieved success rates of healing approaching 100% in the lab.(2)
Bengston published his results (3) and continued to design new experiments. To date he has accumulated an impressive body of replicable, controlled experiments and their published results. (4)
Bengston’s remarkable method is detailed in The Energy Cure: Unraveling the Mystery of Hands-On Healingand further explained in his dvd courseHands-On Healing: A Training Course in the Energy Cure The method is tricky to learn, but it can be mastered with perseverance. Amazing results are reported.
Perspective shift
Dr. Bengston has had spectacular success in remitting fast-growing cancers in mice and humans. Once the mice remit, further injections of the previously-fatal cancer fail to cause cancer growth, implying that the mice have not only healed, but developed immunity. No human that Ben or Bengston cured of cancer ever developed it again.
Interestingly, there is a caveat: Neither Ben nor Dr. Bengston were able to achieve remission in people who had received chemotherapy or radiation treatments, even when the practitioners were unaware that those treatments had been given. Dr. Bengston speculates that what the practitioners do with life-enhancing intent is fundamentally incompatible with the conventional approach, which aims to kill cancer cells.(5)
(1) Dr. Bengston’s uses the term “energy healing” loosely because there is as yet no proof that a transfer or manipulation of energy is what activates healing.
(2) Since Bengston had no baseline data, it is possible that the students possessed the healing ability before they were taught his method.
(3) William Bengston with David Krinsley "The Effect of the 'Laying On of Hands' on Transplanted Breast Cancer in Mice," Journal of Scientific Exploration, Fall 2000.
(4) For a complete list of Dr. Bengston’s published and forthcoming scientific articles, see http://bengstonresearch.com/scientifi... .
(5)From a highly-recommended interview with Dr. Bengston at http://www.soundstrue.com/weeklywisdo....
Unlike most of the new healers, Dr. William Bengston, author of The Energy Cure: Unraveling the Mystery of Hands-On Healing, is primarily a researcher(http://bengstonresearch.com/). As a professor of sociology at St. Joseph’s College in New York, he specializes in research methods and statistics. But for over thirty years he has also been investigating anomalous healings.
Dr. Bengston’s curiosity about energy healing (1) began in the late 1970s when he met a man named Ben who turned out to have quite extraordinary healing abilities. Ben had no belief system attached to his abilities and no need to prove anything. He simply did what he did, and it usually resulted in complete cures of malignant cancers and other serious conditions.
After spending a lot of time with Ben and asking a lot of questions, Bengston developed his own ability to heal. He has no idea whether his ability was innate, acquired somehow by proximity, or learned from Ben.
Bengston began to develop laboratory protocols for testing energy healing under carefully controlled conditions. In the first experiment, much to his amazement, he achieved 100% remission of fatal cancer in the mice he treated.
He did not know whether his healing method could be taught to others, but he chose skeptical students for the first tests. The experiments appeared to prove that energy healing could be taught, or at least transferred, when the students achieved success rates of healing approaching 100% in the lab.(2)
Bengston published his results (3) and continued to design new experiments. To date he has accumulated an impressive body of replicable, controlled experiments and their published results. (4)
Bengston’s remarkable method is detailed in The Energy Cure: Unraveling the Mystery of Hands-On Healingand further explained in his dvd courseHands-On Healing: A Training Course in the Energy Cure The method is tricky to learn, but it can be mastered with perseverance. Amazing results are reported.
Perspective shift
Dr. Bengston has had spectacular success in remitting fast-growing cancers in mice and humans. Once the mice remit, further injections of the previously-fatal cancer fail to cause cancer growth, implying that the mice have not only healed, but developed immunity. No human that Ben or Bengston cured of cancer ever developed it again.
Interestingly, there is a caveat: Neither Ben nor Dr. Bengston were able to achieve remission in people who had received chemotherapy or radiation treatments, even when the practitioners were unaware that those treatments had been given. Dr. Bengston speculates that what the practitioners do with life-enhancing intent is fundamentally incompatible with the conventional approach, which aims to kill cancer cells.(5)
(1) Dr. Bengston’s uses the term “energy healing” loosely because there is as yet no proof that a transfer or manipulation of energy is what activates healing.
(2) Since Bengston had no baseline data, it is possible that the students possessed the healing ability before they were taught his method.
(3) William Bengston with David Krinsley "The Effect of the 'Laying On of Hands' on Transplanted Breast Cancer in Mice," Journal of Scientific Exploration, Fall 2000.
(4) For a complete list of Dr. Bengston’s published and forthcoming scientific articles, see http://bengstonresearch.com/scientifi... .
(5)From a highly-recommended interview with Dr. Bengston at http://www.soundstrue.com/weeklywisdo....
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Dean
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Oct 24, 2012 03:13PM
Nice!
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Wow, thanks so much Dean!
I think his School is in Syracuse? It is a well respected nursing school if it is the same one. Thanks for the interesting article. Love exploring this side of healing.
Anne, I think Dr. Bengston is at St. Joseph's on Long Island. His research has been done there and at Queen's College at City University of NY, University of Arizona, University of Connecticut Medical Center, and Indiana University School of Medicine. He's really a funny and delightful speaker - the podcast (note 5 above) is wonderful. Thank you SO much for reading and commenting!
Thanks Beth! Interesting that it cannot be used on those who have already received chemo and radiation etc .. an important caveat.
Susan, yes, the caveat is fascinating, and certainly raises all sorts of questions about what is really going on in the body during healing. Dr. Bengston says he still has far more questions than answers and it would take several lifetimes for him to design and carry out all the experiments he'd like to do! He says jokingly that he has never been able to cure a wart, either, whereas many other energy practitioners consider warts easy. What's really going on? Surely much more than we understand yet!
Believe ...don't try to Understand...<=>=0 Less = More = Balance
One of the wondrous things about Bengston's method - and most other energy medicine modalities - is that you don't need to believe in it to get results. Dr. Bengston specifically chose skeptics for his experiments. The grad students he chose thought the whole thing was a joke - and yet they all healed the mice anyway. So it seems like the main thing we need to believe is the evidence!
