Essentials of Complementary and Alternative Medicine (June 1999)

Seventh to Seventeenth Century 
AD
By the seventh century, after the conversion of Constantine to Christianity, the church exerted a domination over healing. Theological cosmologies, religious dogmas, 
and the hierarchy of divine power through the clergy (often used also to enhance political power) were given credence and preference over healing gifts. As in the 
general world views of the next 800 years, historical precedents were cited as explanations for natural events. Healing gifts were ignored, or, when outside the aegis 
of the church, they were often discouraged and healing practitioners persecuted. The church “looked to the practices of its past rather than to the gifts of its living 
members, and its rites directed greater attention to Christ's instructions to remember His last supper than to His injunction to work (or attempt to work) other miracles 
in His name ...” (
15
). Disease was viewed as an expression of God's will that should be addressed by prayer. Healing as a deliberate and potent intervention for 
everyday ills was neglected.
A few shreds of healing were sanctioned within the church. The first was the ritual of  exorcism, institutionalized in the Council of Antioch of 341. The second was the 
sacrament of unction in which the dying were anointed with holy oil.
There were few physicians, and they were too expensive for most of the populace. Apothecaries, barbers, leeches, wise women, and witches provided the primary 
care at the village level. Physical interventions included prescribing herbs, sweating, cupping, blood letting, and simple surgery. In parallel, magical healing powers 
could be sought through talismen, relics from violent deaths, elves and fairies, healing wells, as well as the laying on of hands by white witches and warlocks. These 
folk traditions held a strong influence through the seventeenth century and currently persist in diminished numbers (although still significant forms). Currently, 
untested remedies touted to cure many symptoms and illness (e.g., wearing copper bracelets, visits to shrines, and various plant and animal products) are not 
uncommon.
Christianity, focused on the authority of its clergy, acknowledged unusual healing gifts in particular individuals who were sanctioned as saints if not during their lives, 
then posthumously (
15
, 
16
).
In the seventeenth century, Paracelsus shed the first modern, holistic light on the fossilized system of medicine of the Middle Ages. He refocused the study of 
medicine on naturalistic observations and saw human beings as an integral part of nature, reflecting within themselves the larger cosmos outside themselves. He 
apparently saw auras because he reported “a healing energy that radiates within and around man like a luminous sphere” (
17
). He called this force archaeus, 
believing it could be effective from a distance and could cause as well as cure disease. He also believed that magnets, stars, and other heavenly bodies could 
influence humans via the archaeus force; these views persist in Western notions of  magnetic or sympathetic medicine (later reinforced by Mesmer and other 
hypnotists).
Paracelsus further noted that a human being has a second body, which he labelled the  star, or sidereal, body. He thought that the lower instincts are housed in the 
animal body, whereas higher instincts, such as wisdom and artistic capacity, are housed in the astral body. He believed that the etheric body motivates the physical 
body under the influence of the mind. He felt that both are integrally related and that both can be subject to disease (
17
). He also believed in a third body, a soul or 
eternal spark which is immortal.
Paracelsus was eccentric, hot-tempered, and impetuous. Despite his brilliant observations and conceptualizations, he alienated his contemporaries to the degree that 
many of his notions produced far less impact than they may have otherwise. Moreover, his ideas had little chance of competing with those of two other scientists of 
the seventeenth century, Francis Bacon and René Descartes.
Francis Bacon led the Western world along the path of understanding the laws of science in order to  master rather than become harmonious with nature. René 
Descartes revolutionized Western thinking by applying mathematical, logical concepts to analyses of the world and of humans. Descartes' thought is so much a part of 
current Western views that it is difficult for many to conceive of a world in which systematic, quantifiable, linear relationships do not exist among objects and among 
parts of objects.
Descartes' insight led to a firm dichotomizing between body (measurable) and mind (intangible) and to the assumption that body could influence mind but not the 
reverse. These concepts helped lead us out of the Dark Ages in the physical sciences and to search out physical causes for illness, but led to denial of the mind as a 
causal influence on the body. This influence has led modern science to devalue everything that is neither measurable nor verified objectively.
The West entered an industrial revolution at the time Descartes' ideas were spreading. With growing success in comprehension, manipulation, and control of the 
environment, the West focused more and more on a material view of the world. In medicine, this has extended to a nearly exclusive concentration on the physical 
aspects of disease. This focus has lead to the identification of causative agents of diseases, including bacteria, parasites, viruses, vitamins, hormones, and genetic 
anomalies as well as the discoveries of chemicals and mechanical interventions to treat diseases. However, the contributions of emotions, mind, relationships, and 
spirit are often neglected. Only a few scientists, such as Leibnitz, dared to question the view that the mind cannot influence the body; other cultures did not share this 
view. For example, kahuna healers in Hawaii were aware of the unconscious mind and of principles of suggestion many centuries before they were discovered in the 
West (
18
).
Eighteenth Century 
AD
At the end of the eighteenth century, Franz Anton Mesmer popularized another aspect of healing. He demonstrated that he could improve numerous symptoms with 
magnetic passes of his hands around patients' bodies. At first he held magnets in his hands but soon found he was just as effective without them. He hypothesized 
that he channeled a magnetic fluid into the patient. Although he had staunch followers, the vast majority of the medical community was critical and did not accept his 
findings. A commission was set up in France to study the subject, but they produced a negative report that effectively sidelined Mesmer's methods outside of 
mainstream medicine.
The Marquis de Puysegur introduced a form of healing similar to that of Mesmer. He demonstrated that he could influence patients by an act of will, without the use of 
magnetic passes and with no recourse to theories of fluids. His work with hypnosis reintroduced an appreciation of the impact of thought on the body.
Nineteenth and Twentieth Century 
AD
E
NERGY
 M
EDICINE
Karl von Riechenbach, a German industrialist in the middle of the nineteenth century, explored a variety of physical properties of living beings, relating them to a 
universal energy that he believed permeated the body. He called this force  od, or odyle. Scientists such as Riechenbach, who sought to study forces within the body 
that seemed associated with health and disease, often went against the mainstream public opinion. Because Cartesian influence had reasoning and research to 
support its views, scientists with theories that contradicted conventional beliefs were ignored, ridiculed, or worse.
Wilhelm Reich, an American psychiatrist in the first half of the twentieth century, developed elaborate theories about  orgone energy. He reported that it is a distinct 
form of universal energy that becomes blocked in the body because of emotional problems (
19
). He was persecuted and jailed in America by the government because 
of his views, and his books were publicly burned. Nevertheless, his adherents (Lowen, Pierrakos, and other practitioners of bioenergetics) continued to develop his 
ideas (
20
, 
21
).
Research in neurology supported the trend against energy medicine. Electrodes inserted in the brain can elicit specific sensations and memories. To neurologists, 
this is apparent proof that the mind is a product of the physical brain.
T
HE
 U
NCONSCIOUS
 M
IND
At the turn of the century, Sigmund Freud and Carl Gustav Jung clarified that the unconscious mind may be an agent for certain illnesses. This was the birth of 
modern psychosomatic medicine, which advocates integration of mind and body. Sir William Osler recommended that physicians seek to understand the patient who 

has the disease and not merely the disease that the patient has.
Modern behavioral psychology demonstrates that learning by reward and punishment, or conditioning of the unconscious mind, may produce illness. This has 
supported a mechanistic view of human beings, even when mental influences on physical illness is accepted. Further fragmentation of the whole self has come with 
the explosion of medical knowledge and specialization. No single physician today can understand all there is to know about the body. A patient, therefore, has to 
parcel out his or her body among various specialists. Specializations in our hospitals have added to compartmentalization of mind and body.
Modern Health Care
Many factors mitigate against the acceptance of spiritual healing as a legitimate therapy. Drug therapy is a major industry throughout the world. Private health care is 
another major industry that resists competition. Governments are forced by budgetary considerations to limit health care to the bare essentials of physical treatments, 
leaving health care professionals without time to attend to other aspects of the patient's needs.
Medical education, with its long hours and emphasis on learning volumes of information, may be teaching young physicians to neglect the more personal and spiritual 
side of healing. Fortunately, more medical schools are developing programs to help students develop these aspects of themselves and relate them to patient care 
(
22
).
PROVIDER–CLIENT INTERACTIONS
The Role of Diagnosis in Spiritual Healing
Many spiritual healers will ask about the healee's symptoms and medical diagnosis, if this is known. Some healers feel that they must adjust the biological energies of 
the healee according to their intuitively perceived assessments of the initial state of these energies. Healers of many other traditions do not require detailed 
information for diagnosis. They simply make themselves available as channels for energy, turning over the management of the problem to a higher power (e.g., the 
intuitive awareness of the healee and/or healer, God, Christ, spirit guides, guardian angels).
Healers may perceive part of the diagnostic picture but not all of it. For example, in tests of intuitive diagnosis, healers simultaneously observed a series of individuals 
with known diagnoses. Each drew a picture and wrote down his or her diagnostic impressions of what was observed in the auras. Then each, in turn, reported to the 
person observed what his or her impressions were. No one was more surprised than the healers when each of the reports was significantly different from the others' 
reports. The next surprise was when the people who had been given the intuitive diagnostic impressions indicated that they agreed with all but one of the “readings.” 
All but one of the healers resonated accurately with a different facet of the problems of the people they were observing. (One healer clearly was projecting her 
impressions, reporting she sensed depression in most of the people she observed.) Before these studies, most of the healers had believed that they were perceiving 
the whole problem when they were giving intuitive diagnostic readings (
23
).
Among those healers who focus on diagnosis, a pendulum or other such device may be used to help them bring intuitive information into awareness. It is generally 
assumed that these devices are activated by the unconscious mind of the healer, through subtle muscular movements (
24
, 
25
 and 
26
). Clinical progress in treatment 
is assessed by healee subjective reports, by objective evidence of change, and by serial intuitive diagnostic impressions.
Types of Healing
L
AYING ON OF
 H
ANDS
A laying-on-of-hands healing may last 5 to 30 minutes or longer. In my experience and that of others, healees usually relax and may even doze or enter deep altered 
states of consciousness during healings. Beneficial responses to healing may be felt immediately, especially with relief of anxiety, tension, and pain. Pain may 
increase briefly over the first few treatments and is often interpreted as a positive sign, apparently indicating that shifts are occurring in the processes underlying the 
pain; with additional treatments, a decrease in the original pain is expected. Chronic conditions may require repeated treatments, usually given at weekly intervals 
over several months.
D
ISTANT
 H
EALING
Distant healing may be done by one or more healers who focus on the name of the person in need of healing. The distance between healer and healee is thought to 
be immaterial to the success of treatment; successes have been reported when healers are many miles away from their healees. There is a general belief that a group 
sending absent healing may be more effective than a single healer. Many healers find that the rapport established through telephone contact, a photograph, or even 
just a name and a summary of the problem facilitate absent healing, whereas other healers find that unconditionally accepting detachment rather than personal 
rapport works better and suffice with only a name for contact.
THERAPY AND OUTCOMES
Responses to Healing
Healing efficacy is unpredictable. Acute conditions, such as headaches, trauma, and infections, may respond within minutes or hours. Chronic conditions may require 
weekly treatments over a period of months to obtain maximum benefits. If positive effects are going to occur, one often has some indication of improvement in the first 
three to six sessions. A lack of effects with one healer is no indication thabenefits will not be obtained with another healer. Subjective improvements are more frequent 
than objective ones (
27
). The physical disease may be unchanged, but a person's attitude may shift so that he or she lives more comfortably with his or her disabilities 
or seeks the meaning of the illness.
Emotional conditions, such as anxiety and depression, often respond well to healing. Poor mental attitudes, impaired self-image, long-harbored resentments and the 
like may improve dramatically with healing. Relationships also may improve with healing. This might be the result of healing directed to the involved parties or of 
healing directed to only one of them. Many healers believe that our world is more intimately linked through nonlocal awareness than is generally appreciated (
28
).
Spiritual awareness may be awakened during healings, bringing people in contact with a vast source of inspiration that can help them deal with their dis-eases and 
diseases (
29
, 
30
 and 
31
). Many healers feel that awakening of spiritual awareness is the most important aspect of healing and that the body is a vehicle for the 
expression of the needs of spirit and soul. They feel that the soul chooses to be born into a particular family to learn lessons in relating with love and forgiveness to 
others with whom it may have had difficult relationships in previous lifetimes (
32
, 
33
, 
34
 and 
35
).
Healing into death is a major contribution of healers to conventional medical practice (
36
). Conventional medicine tends to fight death and prolong life at all costs, 
sometime without regard for the quality of life. Spiritual healing views a peaceful death as a good healing and finds that healing often eases the transition between 
worlds. Survival of the spirit after physical death is assumed by many healers who claim that they channel spirits who contribute to their healing (
37
, 
38
). This type of 
guidance may come from the spirit guides of the healer or from spirits related to the healee.
MAJOR MODALITIES AND INDICATIONS
There are few studies on spiritual healing published in major medical journals, although over 175 controlled studies of healing have been conducted (
1
). The majority 
of these studies are published in peer-reviewed parapsychology journals. Approximately twelve of them are doctoral and master's degree dissertations. They include 
studies of humans, animals, plants, bacteria, yeasts, cells in laboratory culture, enzymes, and models. The following are some examples of healing studies.
Distant Healing
Distant healing is an excellent therapy for controlled, double-blind studies because it can be given with absolutely no physical or social contact between healers and 
healees. This factor makes it easy to maintain a blind study because no one but the experimenter assigning the patients for distant healing and the healers sending 

the healing will know which patients are being given the treatment.
Randolph C. Byrd, MD, studied the effects of intercessory prayer healing on patients hospitalized in a coronary care unit (CCU) (
39
). In a prospective, double-blind, 
randomized study, 192 patients were sent distant healing and 201 patients served as controls. There were no significant differences between groups on admission in 
degree of severity of myocardial infarction or in numerous other pertinent variables.
“Intercessors” were born-again Christians who prayed daily and were active with their local church. Each CCU patient had 3 to 7 intercessors praying for him or her. 
Intercessors were given patients' first names, their diagnoses, and updates on their condition. “[E]ach intercessor was asked to pray daily for a rapid recovery and for 
prevention of complications and death, in addition to other areas of prayer they believed to be beneficial to the patient.” Significantly fewer patients in the prayer group 
required intubation/ventilation (p < .002) or antibiotics (p < .005), had cardiopulmonary arrests (p < .02), developed pneumonia (p < .03), or required diuretics (p < 
.05). A multivariate analysis showed a very highly significant difference between the groups (p < .0001). Despite these differences between groups, the mean times in 
CCU and durations of hospitalization between groups were nearly identical. Healing appeared to reduce the severity of cardiac pathology but not shorten duration of 
hospitalization. This exceptionally good study is an exception in yet another way: it was published in the  Southern Medical Journal.
Therapeutic Touch
Healing by the laying on of hands has been standardized into a treatment system called therapeutic touch by Dolores Krieger, PhD, RN, professor of nursing at New 
York University, and Dora Kunz, a gifted clairvoyant and healer. It is conservatively estimated that 40,000 nurses in America practice therapeutic touch. More than 90 
nursing schools offer courses in therapeutic touch.
Therapeutic touch is given either with the hands lightly touching the body or as noncontact therapeutic touch, with the hands a few inches away from the body. 
Healers center their minds, focusing on the intent to help and heal while excluding other thoughts from their minds. The term  centering comes from the potter's wheel: 
if the clay is in the center of the wheel, it stays there. If it is off center, centrifugal force sends it flying in all directions.
Healing and the Immune System
Healers have proposed that enhancing immune system functions (and thus strengthening the body) is one way in which healing works. Anxiety and stress bring about 
changes in the immune system. Changes in circulating immune proteins, such as immunoglobulins (Ig) and lymphocytes, may thus provide measures of physiological 
stress responses, as in the following study.
Melodie Olson and colleagues anticipated that students who were to take their professional board examinations would be highly stressed and would show changes in 
their immune systems which could be influenced by therapeutic touch (
40
, 
41
).
Immune system values measured after therapeutic touch treatment on the day before the exams showed significant differences for IgA and IgM (p < .05) and for a 
T-lymphocyte function (apoptosis, p < .05).
1
 Experimental and control groups showed comparable levels of stress at the start of the study.
The authors note that confounding factors may have included nutritional changes, especially because dietary intake may have been altered before the exams, and the 
presence of a caring person for the experimental group that was not counterbalanced for the control group.
Pain Relief
Healers and healees report that pain is the symptom most responsive to spiritual healing. Several studies of therapeutic touch reported immediate reductions in pain 
from tension headaches and surgery (
42
, 
43
, 
44
, 
45
 and 
46
). The following study showed effects that were of longer duration: Robin Redner et al. studied effects of a 
method of healing which was developed by Johnston (
47
). This healing method
“... begins with the treater's assessment of the bioenergy field around the patient's physical body. Using their hands, the treater senses only imbalances, 
(which may evidence as heat, a dense quality, or a sense of blockage), and treats the imbalance by visualizing the energy becoming balanced and free 
flowing. This visualization continues until the treater senses a change towards balance or the free flow of energy in that area.
... Johnston's technique occurs entirely off the body in the patient's energy field....”
Johnston's healer training includes a series of three courses. Treaters in the study had completed two or more courses and participated in weekly practice sessions 
for 2 years. The study introduced an  attention placebo control group, which is intended to control for expectancy effects and for relaxation effects that occur when one 
receives attention from a caring person. The study also provided 30-minute interventions by two healers for four treatments during the study; compared bioenergy 
diagnoses with medical diagnoses; studied positive and negative moods as well as levels of anxiety; and checked outcome measures 1 week following healing.
Participants suffered from arthritis, headaches, and low back pain, and they could not have been taking narcotic medications or been receiving massage, physical 
therapy, acupuncture, or acupressure during the study. The 47 participants were randomly assigned to experimental or control groups, being told only that there were 
two intervention possibilities, but remaining blind regarding assignment. This study demonstrated significantly reduced severity of affective and sensory aspects of 
pain 1 week after the healing intervention on the McGill-Melzack Pain Questionnaire (each at p < .05) [F(1,45) = 5.88]. The persistence of pain reduction 1 week after 
healing is a significant finding over previous research on healing for pain.
On the weekly Profile of Mood Scale (POMS), the high-intensity treatment group showed increased anxiety over time, whereas the low-intensity placebo group 
showed less anxiety (p < .05) [F(1,45) = 4.77]. The lack of findings on the physical measurements and bioenergy evaluation may have been due to small numbers in 
each of the target problem categories.