Magazine 2 2011

MESSAGE
FROM THE
EDITOR
from Celia
Here are seven authors who have something to say about the new directions subtle energies
research must take – and is taking. Perhaps you’ve experienced times when the right things
just seemed to appear and fall into place. That’s the way this issue came about – through
a collection of chance events. A book arrived or a title caught my attention, an article was
submitted, or a conversation took place, creating ideas that developed and grew together.
Although Bridges Magazine does not usually have a central focus, it does this time.
In 2009 I came across A New Science Of The Paranormal by psychologist and
parapsychologist Lawrence LeShan. For decades he has written groundbreaking, best-selling books about healing,
mysticism, meditation, and psychic events. His latest book is another of his pioneering statements, one that I read
with delight and then set aside. In January it became obvious that his book should be taken off the shelf so his call
to action could lead this issue.
LeShan and his late wife, Eda, made everyday use of psi, as in this story she told long ago:
One day after work Larry kept seeing images of cows in his mind, so when he got
home he asked, “Eda, why were you sending me pictures of cows?”
She answered, “Well, I wanted you to stop and pick up a quart of milk. “
Many, many people have had experiences of non-material reality (the paranormal), but mainstream science has not
considered it a subject worthy of research. William Kautz has written an article that details steps that science must
take in order to deal with the existence of subtle energies and our “other ways of knowing.” He says that rather than
dismissing the effects of mind as a distraction while conducting research, as is done now, they must be included.
And, he recommends that we first concentrate our new, inclusive research on healing.
I read Dream Healer by Adam (he uses just one name), and found this prediction: “In the future, being able to heal
by thought will be the norm.” I believe he’s naming a far from ordinary kind of thought, one that in different ways
both William Bengston and Joseph Pierce Farrell describe as they write about their experiences with the powerful
role of mental events in healing. Working both as researcher and healer, Bengston has developed a technique for
“cycling” images of greatly desired outcomes, a hyper-energized visualization that can bring about real changes when
practiced over time. It opens us to a non-ordinary state of consciousness, one that I think Farrell experienced
spontaneously when, with profound and intense longing, he envisioned healing the faces of disfigured children.
Bengston has been told that he has touched Source, a description that might also fit Farrell’s having been touched
by another level of being. Bengston is now researching whether healing can be taught, and Farrell is documenting
his work to counter the usual criticism of skeptics.
In his article, Gary Schwartz describes calling out to Spirit – and receiving an answer. He is a researcher who has
been bridging science and Spirit for many years. Now he writes that it is not enough to leave research to the experts,
we must also develop “self-science” and use the living laboratory that each one of us is to discover what is true.
As soon as I read the term “consciousness medicine” in Farrell’s book, it seemed the obvious right name for the next
great step - the one predicted by Adam. Consciousness medicine goes beyond the mind-body medicine that opened
us to the reality that the mind and body form an interacting whole and moderated our purely biological approach
to health. Consciousness medicine even goes beyond the mind-body-spirit approaches that take into account the
positive effect spirituality can have on a person’s overall health. I believe that it will bring healing back into medicine
through teaching us about an expanded state of consciousness that has been known for millennia but not honored
in our materialistic times.
Many voices have been calling for new approaches in mainstream science and in the study of healing. There’s a
double demand in this – not only must the experts and professionals explore non-material reality, but each one of
us must discover how to bridge from what we know to the subtle levels of reality currently dismissed in our culture.
As more and more of us discover that we are multi-dimensional beings in a multi-dimensional universe we may be
able to renew science - and life in this world.
EXCERPTS FROM
A NEW SCIENCE
OF THE PARANORMAL
Lawrence LeShan, who was born in
1920, has long been a pioneer in the
study of both healing and the
paranormal. He is the author of
many articles and books including A
New Science Of The Paranormal
which was published in 2009. Here
are some of his thoughts on what we
must do now.
page 4
We desperately need a new concept of what a human being is
if we are to learn how to stop killing each other and
poisoning our only planet. The old, materialistic worldview
has not enabled us to do this. Psychic research, however, does
offer the opportunity for a new picture of the world.
page 3
There is a tremendous hope and great promise in psychical
research – the study of the paranormal. In spite of where
the field appears to be now, this promise is close to
fulfillment. We know far more about the paranormal than
is generally believed.
BRIDGES Magazine
page 3
In 1 9 3 0 , a o n e - e ye d p i l o t n a m e d Hi n c h l i f f e w a s
attempting the first east-west transatlantic flight. He had
intended to fly alone. Unexpectedly, at the last moment,
his financial sponsor insisted on a woman copilot. Several
hundred miles away, on an ocean liner, unaware that
Hinchliffe was making a crossing attempt at this time, or
that there were any plans for anyone to be with him, two
old friends of his, Air Force Colonel Henderson and
Squadron Leader Rivers Oldmeadow, were asleep. In the
middle of the night, Henderson, in his pajamas, opened
the door of Oldmeadow’s cabin and said, ‘God Rivers,
something ghastly has just happened. Hinch has just
been in my cabin. Eyepatch and all. It was ghastly. He
kept repeating over and over again. ‘Hendy, what am I
going to do? I’ve got the woman with me and I’m lost.
I’m lost.’ Then he disappeared in front of my eyes. Just
disappeared.”
It was during that very night that Hinchliffe’s plane crashed,
and he and the woman copilot were killed. This is the type
of data that historically has been the primary concern of
psychical research. The information that Henderson reported
was both meaningful and important. Unfortunately, very little
progress has been made in the past hundred years to increase
our understanding of this type of phenomenon. It is with the
meaning and implications of these occurrences that my book
is concerned.
2011 Issue 2
(volume 21 number 2)
Page 3
8 E XCEPRTS
FROM :
A N EW S CIENCE
OF THE PARANORMAL
page 4
The scientific study of paranormal phenomena - ESP,
poltergeists, hauntings, deathbed apparitions – is in
complete disarray. The major laboratories have closed, and
scientific journals in the field have shown nothing
importantly new for many years. The few libraries dealing
with the subject are deserted on an average afternoon, and
this at a time when there is tremendous and widespread
public interest in the paranormal.
This book tells why this is so. It explains why psychical
researchers have abandoned the study of large, well-attested
psychic events…and limited themselves largely to studying
statistical analyses of people guessing thousands of cards being
turned over in the next room or next country, or of people
trying to influence by mental means the long lists of numbers
produced by an electronic random-number generator. This
approach has shown scientifically that ESP exists, but it has
been unconvincing to the mainline scientific establishment
and, moreover, of little interest to the public at large. The
book then proceeds to show how a real science can be made
out of the large, exciting events – such as the (Hinchclife)
incident … – that brought most of the psychical researchers
into the field. If this can be done, it would bring mainline
science into the study of psi and thus revitalize the whole
field. Our culture would be changed in a positive way as the
reality of the paranormal became part of our general
worldview and of what it means to be a human being.
BY
L AWRENCE L E S HAN 8
page 25
Many people become anxious when they hear or read of
examples of psi, or encounter affirmations of the existence of
psi. The strength of this anxiety should not be
underestimated. It has led to the wholesale rejection of the
data of parapsychological research by a large number of
people in terms far more extreme than they would use in
other areas. Consider, for example, the early nineteenth
century natural philosopher Alexander von Humboldt, one of
the greatest scientists of recent centuries. He stated that no
matter what the evidence for the existence of psi was, he
would not believe it: ‘Neither the testimony of all the Fellows
of the Royal Society nor even the evidence of my own senses,
could lead me to believe in the transmission of thought from
one person to another independently of the recognized
channels of sensation. It is clearly impossible.’ He chose to
give up his lifelong attitudes toward science and the scientific
method rather than consider changing them. Here is a great
scientist stating that he knows so much about reality that the
universe holds no more surprises for him. No doubt that is
a comforting and reassuring belief, but it is an astonishing
one for a scientist to hold.
page 15
Today we have another method of distancing ourselves from
the implications of what we are observing. We can decide
that, since the science of quantum mechanics is so full of
mysterious concepts, the ‘explanation’ of psi must be there.
Thus there is really no problem: everything about psi has
already been explained by quantum science, or will be very
soon. Forty years ago, I was one of the people who started
the idea that psi could be explained in terms of quantum
mechanics or relativity theory. I now believe that we were
wrong and I regret my part in it. Dignity, love, loyalty, awe
and psi must be dealt with on their own terms in a science
built on these observables, not one built on the observables of
subatomic particles.
page 18
Psi is a terribly important adventure. It is the wild card in
our seemingly hopeless attempt to get the human race off the
endangered-species list. As the physicist and psychic
researcher Robert McConnell showed at the hundredth
anniversary meeting of the Society for Psychical Research in
1982, we treat something according to how we perceive and
define it. …. Psychic research has the data to give us a new
way to view ourselves and each other.
Lawrence LeShan, Ph.D., is author of the best-selling How To
Meditate and many other books on psychotherapy, cancer
treatment, and mysticism. He has appeared on the Today Show
and Good Morning America.
Exceprts from:
Lawrence LeShan, Ph.D. A New Science of the Paranormal:
The Promise of Psychical Research, Quest Books (2009)
This Material Was Reproduced By Permission Of Quest Books,
The Imprint Of The Theosophical Society.
BRIDGES Magazine
2011 Issue 2
(volume 21 number 2)
Page 4
TRUE
DISBELIEVERS
When I asked if he knew all
the laws of the universe, he
replied heatedly that he still
would not participate. It did
not help when I complained
that he was a strange
scientist, ready to write a
final report before we even
conducted the experiment,
and that he sounded like the
medieval Cardinal who
would not look through
Galileo’s telescope because he
already knew that the moons
of Jupiter could not be there.
I maintained that I was a
neutral investigator (though
hopeful), where he was a
‘true
disbeliever,’
as
unscientific in his way as a
‘true believer’ could be in
another way.”
Elmer Green
Elmer Green tells this story
about doubt and resistance
to new ideas from the time
when studies of Swami
Rama were being conducted
in the voluntary controls of
internal states research
program at the Menninger
Foundation.
BRIDGES Magazine
foolish experiment.
I
pointed out that the Swami
could only succeed or fail. If
the Swami said he could
demonstrate something we
had nothing to lose by
watching him succeed or
fail, and if he succeeded we
could inquire further. My
colleague still refused and
said there was no use in
conducting the test. It was
bound to fail, he said,
‘because it breaks all the laws
of the universe.’
“An esteemed friend, a
‘hardheaded’ scientist, was
asked if he would participate
in testing one of the Swami’s
more ‘far-out’ proposals, and
he bluntly said no. When I
asked why he said that he
did not want to be This story comes from Vol 10
connected with such a of Subtle Energies.
2011 Issue 2
(volume 21 number 2)
Page 5
SCIENCE AND
HANDS-ON
HEALING
William Bengston
THOUGH
MY INITIAL
RESPONSE TO THE
VALIDITY OF HANDSON HEALING WAS
ONE OF
INCREDULITY, THE
ACCUMULATION OF
REPLICABLE
SCIENTIFIC DATA HAS
OVERWHELMED MY
OWN DISBELIEF. I
HAVE BECOME A
FAILED SKEPTIC.
BRIDGES Magazine
I discovered my own hands-on ability
through a mentor who was a natural
healer. We met in Long Island, New
York, during the summer of 1971,
when I was twenty-one. Though
Bennett Mayrick was in his late forties,
he had only recently discovered that he
had psychic abilities. By his own
testimony, he could hold an object
belonging to someone he had never met
and give detailed information abut its
owner. In parapsychological literature,
that’s known as ‘psychometry.’ For
months I tested him with objects
provided by friends, determined either
to debunk his alleged abilities or to
understand scientifically how they
worked. Even when I designed doubleblind studies to outfox him, using
protocols that I considered flawless, Ben
always beat me.
2011 Issue 2
(volume 21 number 2)
While conducting readings, Ben began
to pick up physical sensations
corresponding to the medical problems
of the object’s owner. His initial
impulse was to draft me to help him
banish these unwelcome effects.
Instead, I became his first patient. He
cured me of chronic back pain that has
never returned.
Through trial and error, Ben morphed
into a hands-on healer without either of
us knowing what was happening.
Through word of mouth, people would
come to him with their afflictions. Ben
would put his hands on each one, for
thirty minutes to an hour, curing or
improving conditions previously
considered incurable. He had some
unexpected failures. He could not
make warts disappear, and as far as the
Page 6
8 S CIENCE
AND
H ANDS - ON H EALING
common cold is concerned, you’d
probably do just as well with an inhaler.
With cancers we would often learn later
through blood work and CAT scans
that the disease had retreated, then
disappeared. Most of our patients’
doctors classified these unexpected cures
as spontaneous remission, a rare but
medically recognized phenomenon. By
contrast, we were routinely observing
such remissions, involving a wide
variety of cancers. What was happening
in each case? What tied these cases
together?
Despite gratifying results, I was growing
increasingly frustrated from a scientific
viewpoint. Each and every patient
came with complex physical and
psychological issues that made it
difficult to isolate the results of Ben’s
work. Perhaps one might be taking
massive doses of vitamin C, or visiting
an acupuncturist, or undergoing more
orthodox medical treatments. As a
scientist, this problem confounds me
even today.
My relentless need for answers drove me
into the controlled world of the
laboratory in search of ironclad,
replicable validation. Our first
experiment was to be conducted with
mice in 1975 in the biology department
of Queens College of the City
University of New York. At the last
moment Ben, who abhorred formal
testing, refused to participate. Since I
had been healing together with him for
several years, I reluctantly substituted.
In the initial experiment, which became
the template, mice bred for research
were injected with a particularly lethal
strain of mammary cancer that always
resulted in 100 percent fatality within
fourteen to twenty-seven days.
Through hands-on healing, these results
were completely reversed: 100 percent
of the mice survived the disease to
become cancer free and to live a normal
two-year lifespan! This experiment was
replicated once more at Queens College
with the same 100 percent success.
Eight other replications, with minor
BRIDGES Magazine
BY
W ILLIAM B ENGSTON 8
variations, at four other biological and
medical laboratories produced
comparable results. Just as amazing,
mice that were re-injected did not get
cancer, suggesting they had developed
an immunity.
I wish to remind readers that my animal
research findings reverse the classic
experimental model. I did not begin by
healing be learned by others using
techniques that I have developed?”
Hands-on healing has emerged
independently as a tradition in most
cultures, including the West, despite
having been severely repressed here for
the last three hundred years. Since most
cultures have independently produced a
tradition of hands-on healing, it seems
“Unraveling the mystery of hands-on
healing has been the passion driving much
of my work over the past three decades.”
testing mice in a lab, producing a
theory that now awaits human
application. I went into the lab to
verify and gain insight into a procedure
that I had already successfully used to
cure many people of a variety of
medical problems, especially cancer.
Unraveling the mystery of hands-on
healing has been the passion driving
much of my work over the past three
decades. Like most high-stakes, life-anddeath stories, this one has not always
proceeded smoothly. Along with
exhilarating triumphs, I have
encountered perverse roadblocks, strange
anomalies, and – most discouraging of
all – the arbitrary rejection of hard
scientific data on the grounds that it is
too good to be true. I have also gained
intriguing insights into the complexities
of human nature, the tragedy of selfsabotage, and the yawning gap between
stated desire and behavior.
Over the years I peppered Ben with
questions, hoping to find ways to
reproduce his experiences. In between
discussions on horse racing, astronomy,
and politics and our ordering pizza, we
evolved what began to look like a
process. Recently, I have directed my
curiosity toward a question with broad
clinical application, “Can hands-on
2011 Issue 2
(volume 21 number 2)
reasonable to assume that this ability
may be distributed throughout any
population, much like artistic or
musical talent.
In Western culture, Jesus is still the
preeminent model of a hands-on healer,
suggesting that this ability is the overflow
of a wise, compassionate, highly evolved
consciousness. The word consciousness
does not have a plural and that may be
instinctive wisdom built into the
language, reflecting our awareness that all
consciousness is connected.
When I met Ben I would say I was
open-minded about psychic phenomena
in principle, but was intensely skeptical
of those claiming to produce it. As a
teenager, I had had a number of dreams
around death that had proven
startlingly prophetic. This motivated
me to read some of the popular
paranormal literature, most of which
was anecdotal and little of which
impressed me. I had also taken a
noncredit, adult education course on
the paranormal at Buffalo State
University, with instructor Douglas
Dean, a well-respected parapsychology
researcher. In the course, Dean
reviewed laboratory experiments,
conducted with strict protocols, into
such phenomena as telepathy and
Page 7
8 S CIENCE
AND
H ANDS - ON H EALING
energy healing. Those did impress me,
and I was puzzled as to why so many
scientists were hostile toward what
appeared to be legitimate results.
Unfortunately, I was to find tunnel
vision within the whole scientific
community, and the bigger the picture
became, the more certain the experts
were to miss it.
“I was puzzled
as to why so
many scientists
were hostile
toward what
appeared to be
legitimate
results.”
An obvious problem with energy
healing is determining who is qualified
to practice. Currently anyone can claim
to be a healer, whether through genuine
ability, fraud, or self-delusion. I would
like to see the development of tests that
can show ‘something’ relevant is
happening when healing is supposed to
be occurring. For example, after I held
a beaker of water for several minutes, a
chemist friend reported that the water’s
oxygenization had increased 25 percent.
When he tested other healers, increased
oxygenization also occurred, but only
by about 1 percent. Does this have
anything to do with healing? The field
is still too mysterious for us to know.
Perhaps all Creation as we know it is an
extraction from a totality, which I have
chosen to call the ‘Source. Three
psychics have told me the same thing:
‘You’ve touched Source energy.’
Though I don’t know what that means,
sometimes I do have an experience of
traveling to a place in which everything
I need for healing is in infinite supply.
My mind moves into super-
BRIDGES Magazine
BY
W ILLIAM B ENGSTON 8
consciousness and a sense of higher
intelligence, then past that into peace,
and past that into Nothingness – a place
of pure potential where all possibilities
exist at the same time. The higher I go,
the less I feel. The Source doesn’t do
anything, it just is.
The best way I can describe the
Nothing that contains Everything is
through the metaphor of white light.
Physicists tell us it contains all other
colors: when we see red or green or
yellow, that’s a subtraction from white.
Perhaps by touching the Source I can
give my patients what they need to heal,
because the Source offers an infinite
number of simultaneous existences
transcending time and space. Just as I
speculate that Creation may be a
subtraction from the perfection of
Nothingness, I see disease as a
subtraction from perfect health. I find
that I am unconsciously drawn to
physical need in others, and that
somehow I’m able to offer a patient
what he or she requires. Instead of time
travel backward or forward perhaps I’m
able to access some kind of universal
energy, intelligence, awareness, or
information beyond my perception. I
can’t describe any of this more clearly –
that’s why we have poets!
What I am sure of, through personal
experience, is that this kind of healing is
a natural system, not a magical one,
which is why it’s also an imperfect one.
Sometimes I can help, and sometimes I
can’t. What I endeavor to do is to offer
patients the whole spectrum –
metaphorically, white light – in hopes
they can subtract from it what they
need in order to return to health.
That’s different from my healing them,
though out of habit I still use that word.
It’s also why I’m always surprised when
patients thank me for restoring them to
health. While those were my hands
moving around, I never feel as if I was
the healer.
But is it really necessary for me to tell
you these things? In a national survey
forty percent of all Americans admitted
2011 Issue 2
(volume 21 number 2)
to having had at least one profound
mystical experience that took them
beyond time and space, with many
others perhaps too shy to report such
experiences. That was touching the
Source. And the Source doesn’t pay
attention to national borders. In
countries where the spiritual is woven
more firmly into daily life, the numbers
are likely to be much higher.
My hope is that all those who read my
book take from it an expanded sense of
the resources offered by the Universe,
along with a greater awareness of their
own potential in calling upon that
abundance, not only for healing, but for
all aspects of life. The possibilities are
infinite. The limitations are our own and
we need not faith, not belief, but trust.
William
F.
Bengston is a
professor
of
sociolog y at St.
Joseph's College
in New York,
and President of
the Society for
Scientific
Exploration, an
international group of scientists who study
anomalies. His areas of specialization
include research methods and statistics. For
over twenty five years, Dr. Bengston has
been doing research into anomalous healing
and has numerous publications in the
Journal of Scientific Exploration, the
Journal
of
Alternative
and
Complementary Medicine, and Explore.
In addition, he has lectured widely
throughout the United States and Europe.
His research has produced the first successful
full cures of transplanted mammary cancer
and methylcholanthrene induced sarcomas
in experimental mice by laying-on-of-hands
techniques that he helped to develop. He
has also investigated assorted correlates to
healing such as geomagnetic micropulsations
and EEG harmonics and entrainment. He
has recently published a memoir, The
Energy Cure, with Sounds True, along
with a 6 CD set Hands On Healing: A
Training Course in the Energ y Cure,
which describes his healing techniques.
Page 8
ADVANCING
CONSCIOUSNESS-BASED
HEALTHCARE
Joseph Pierce Farrell
IT WAS
JANUARY OF
2000, THE
DAWN OF A
NEW
MILLENNIUM,
AND CHANGE
WAS IN THE
AIR.
It was a time when people around the
world, individually and collectively,
paused to look inside, to examine and
question who they were, how far they
had progressed, and where they were
BRIDGES Magazine
heading. I was no exception. I was
working in a corporate business
environment and miserable having
abandoned my childhood dreams.
When I was a child, my dad, a New
York City firefighter, was injured on the
job fighting a fire. Afterwards, as he lay
languishing in the hospital, my mother
implored the physicians for an answer as
to when he would be back on his feet,
but no one could provide a prognosis.
From witnessing my mother’s pain and
feeling her anxiety, a seed was planted in
my heart: a desire to advance healthcare
and restore people’s lives. For the first
30 years of my life that was not to be.
When I revealed my heart’s aspiration to
work in healthcare, my high school
guidance counselor delivered the painful
news that, on paper, I was ill equipped
to realize my calling – this was primarily
due to a childhood learning disability,
later diagnosed as dyslexia. His well2011 Issue 2
(volume 21 number 2)
intentioned, albeit conventional, advice
for me was to seek a less competitive
and demanding career, where I would
be more likely to succeed. I did just
that and for a decade I worked in the
real estate market until several soulstripping events prompted me to quit
my job.
I had to find something to do so I could
pay the bills and while walking on 71st
St. in Manhattan I noticed a sign on an
interior design shop that said,
“Transforming
Ordinary
into
Extraordinary.” I rang the bell and
went into the office. After the owner
learned that I knew something about
working with wood, we agreed that I
would do restoration work for him.
About a month later, I was asked to
restore a pair of antique carvings from
an old European church. After working
Page 9
8 A DVANCING C ONSCIOUSNESS -B ASED
through the evening and into the early
morning hours restoring the facial
features of the broken statues, I took a
moment to look over my work. The
thought occurred to
me that, although
God hadn’t blessed
me with the fast
reading
skills
necessary to get
through med school,
He had given me the
artistic prowess to
breathe new life into a
broken sculpture. I
hadn’t experienced so
much joy since I was a
child. For a moment
I
allowed
my
imagination
free
reign. In my mind’s
eye I saw the
disfigured faces of
children
I
had
watched leaving the
hospital nearby. As
my
imagination
soared, I dreamed....
Wouldn’t it be great if
doctors could restore
these children’s faces
seamlessly to blend
skin grafts and prosthetic ears and noses
with the same God-given artistry that
permitted me to restore a statue
seamlessly?
HEALTHCARE
BY
J OSEPH P IERCE FARRELL 8
And then it happened. Before my eyes,
less than two feet away, a shape started
to appear like little bits of iridescent
sand forming into a solid mass. I was
transfixed as the
shape gradually
took form, growing
denser, until it
resembled
a
freshwater pearl.
This pearl of light
rolled upon itself as
if around an unseen
center. And then it
pulsed. It seemed as
though a tiny chick
were trying to break
out of its shell with
its beak. Suddenly,
a ray of illumination
shot straight up and
down and to the left
and right, forming a
pair of axes. My
heart began to beat
very fast, yet I didn’t
blink. I couldn’t
have taken my eyes
off what I was
seeing if I had
wanted to.
“The truth
that subtle
energies can
alter pathology
runs in direct
opposition to
strongly held
beliefs of
mainstream
science and
medicine.”
Then my boldness grew as my heart
expanded in the joy of the moment.
Wouldn’t it be amazing if I could shape
and restore the faces of children with
my hands the way my gift to sculpt
allowed me to shape wood? As I held
the sensation of that thought in my
heart, a smile grew on my lips and I
began to feel immense happiness and
joy. I imagined that my joy was akin to
what disfigured children would feel if
they could be healed, and their joy
became my joy as I imagined them
walking the streets unnoticed. I guessed
that for many of them the greatest wish
was to be unremarkable, to look so
ordinary that nobody would give them
a second glance.
BRIDGES Magazine
Then the pearl pulsed again and
exploded, like a cloud in a lightning
storm, the energy passing through my
face and into my skull, searing the backs
of my eyes with energetic lightning.
My hair seemed to stand up on my
scalp and the back of my neck, and then
BOOM! Everything went pitch black.
There was not even a faint glow,
nothing but complete darkness. I could
not see anything.
Eventually the blindness vanished and
the relief I felt gave way to curiosity and
wonder. What had just happened to
me?
I learned in the weeks that followed that
something momentous had happened I had developed a healing ability. I
found that I had been gifted with the
ability to alter the facial features of
disfigured children and adults. It was as
though I had developed the capacity to
2011 Issue 2
(volume 21 number 2)
direct non-local mind to alter human
tissue, similar to the workings of a
medical grade laser.
The truth that subtle energies can alter
pathology is not in accord with the
current paradigm and, in fact, runs in
direct opposition to strongly held beliefs
of mainstream science and medicine. I
realized that humankind has been
hoodwinked about our true potential.
That, in fact, the mechanistic paradigm
had swung the pendulum so far, that it
had effectively relegated our true
capacities to that of myth.
Within a few years I joined with a crossdisciplinary team of brave doctors,
scientists, and theologians who were as
eager as I to study, record, and educate
the public about the profound potential
of the mind-body-spirit connection. In
2003, the interdisciplinary team drafted
a mission statement for what would
become the Global Health Institute, a
not-for-profit educational and research
foundation. Since that time, the team at
GHI has been engaged in furthering
research in the application of
Consciousness Based Healthcare in
clinical care and the archiving of a body
of evidence.
As I observed Joseph
work, through my
scientific clinical eyes,
my perception
permanently shifted as I
witnessed the effective
intervention of a
modality not known by
Western medicine.
Joseph was transforming
human tissue, through
intention, within a
matter of minutes.
- Frank Salvatore, M.D.
(Quoted in Manifesting
Michelangelo)
Page 10
8 A DVANCING C ONSCIOUSNESS -B ASED
HEALTHCARE
BY
J OSEPH P IERCE FARRELL 8
“MY
LIFE HAS BEEN
IRREVOCABLY TRANSFORMED:
MY DREAM OF HELPING PEOPLE
HAS BEEN REALIZED.”
I continue to demonstrate subtle energy
healing before medical doctors in an
effort to further truth and
understanding and to benefit health and
wellbeing, not only for the patient but
also for the community.
Clinical outcome studies have produced
evidence of dramatic improvements in
the physical state of participants who
have had the benefit of this
intervention. These include restoring
the disfigured face of Sammy, a young
man born with a craniofacial birth
defect, as well as mending shattered
bones, and substantially decreasing the
size of an inoperable Grade IV glioma the same type of brain tumor that
affected Ted Kennedy.
Images of faces that have received
treatment have been rated by blinded
board certified plastic surgeons to
demonstrate an efficacy rate of greater
than 90%. These outcomes have been
peer-reviewed and painstakingly
documented in the form of pre and post
intervention photographs, x-rays, MRIs,
and recorded testimony from eyewitness
medical doctors. They have been
published in the “Body of Evidence”
chapter of my book and also featured in
the short film Pioneers in Integrative
Healthcare: Exploring the Relationship
BRIDGES Magazine
of Consciousness and Healthcare
(debuted in 2008 in New York at the
Yale Club & Fordham University and in
Aspen at the Women’s Health &
Wellness Forum).
A challenge faces us that Dr. Larry
Dossey describes well: ‘What I am
saying is that the psyche has ways of
manifesting far beyond anything known
to materialistic science,’ he wrote. ‘You
need to get a feel for what’s at stake
here. The reason that many of the
dedicated materialistic scientists are so
infuriated over the mere discussion of
prayer and distant healing is that it
really begins to call into question their
worldview. It calls into question the
adequacy of materialistic science, upon
which these people have staked their
careers, self-identity and self-esteem.’
My life has been irrevocably
transformed; my dream of helping
people has been realized. Collectively, as
a species, we are standing at the
precipice of a new paradigm where the
old mechanistic world view will have to
give way to the truth that we as humans
have the capacity to intentionally wield
subtle energy to alter the environment
around us. In the near future, the world
will embrace an expanded view of our
2011 Issue 2
(volume 21 number 2)
latent potential, shatter the limitations
of the old paradigm, redefine what it
truly means to be human, and be
opened to consciousness-based
healthcare.
Joseph Pierce
Farrell is a
Founding
Board Member
and the
Director of the
Global Health
Institute (New
York).
www.ghifoundation.org He is the
Ambassador’s Chair in Consciousness
Studies, spearheading research on the
efficacy of Consciousness Based
Healthcare in clinical care. In addition,
he is a Representative to the United
Nation’s and appointed Special Advisor
on Scientific Dimensions of Spirituality
and Consciousness. He is a lecturer at the
university level and author of
Manifesting Michelangelo: the Story of
a Modern-Day Miracle that May
Make All Change Possible (Simon &
Schuster, 2011).
www.josephpiercefarrell.com
www.manifestingmichelangelo.com
Page 11
ON
CHARLES TART
DIRECT OBSERVATION
described in detail in The End Of
Materialism. It’s not scientism – the
blind belief that science can know
everything. And I’m not claiming
that science is the only way to better
approximations of the truth, only
that it’s a good one, especially in the
long run.
About subtle energies: I’m convinced
there are some real things happening
under that label, important things. I
would also be absolutely amazed if
we human beings weren’t fooling
ourselves about it a lot of the time.
This presents a unique role for
ISSSEEM. We are supportive of
research and application, but we are
not a bunch of naïve “believers.”
We can support constructive
criticism and examine, correct, and
refine what we think is out there
What
makes
it
especially
insidious
is
without automatically dismissing the
uring an e-mail dialogue a
that
it’s
not
just
intellectual.
It’s
not
whole study of subtle energies as
question was asked: “Can
our own experience be that you observe something adherents of scientism do.”
wrong?” Charles Tart wrote in ambiguous and consciously decide to
interpret it in a certain way. Our
Dr. Charles T.
response,
beliefs automatically affect our
Tart has been
perceptions,
so
we
often
‘see’
our
involved with
“Sadly to say, yes. As the great
beliefs
directly.
The
old
model
that
research and
spiritual traditions say, we live in
theory in the
“maya,” “samsara,” a Fallen State our eyes are like cameras producing
accurate images that then connect to
fields of
and so on.
mental interpretation, no longer
Hypnosis,
works.
We
know
that
(generally
Psychology,
As I’ve put it in modern scientific
unconscious)
parts
of
our
minds
are
Transpersonal
terms, we don’t live directly in
“photoshopping”
a
lot
of
those
images
Psychology,
reality, we live in a biologicalParapsychology, Consciousness and
psychological virtual reality before we see them.
Mindfulness since 1963. He has
(BPVR), an active, ongoing,
internal simulation of reality, fed by One corrective is the virtue of authored over a dozen books, two of
zillions of automated, usually not- humility, so you can just admit, which became widely-used textbooks;
consciously evaluated or chosen, “This is the best I can make of this he has had more than 250 articles
beliefs, biases, hopes and fears, and now, but I should hold it lightly published in professional journals and
so a lot of the time our apparent since it may not be the final truth.” books, including lead articles in such
direct experience of things is a It’s a virtue often preached and prestigious scientific journals as
Science and Nature, and provides
highly selected and biased seldom practiced.
regular
public speaking appearances.
construction embodying us and our
A
second
corrective
is
properly
done
www.paradigm-sys.com/cttart/
culture, with little reference to
science, using methods I’ve
what’s actually out there.
D
BRIDGES Magazine
2011 Issue 2
(volume 21 number 2)
Page 12
SPIRIT AND
SELF-SCIENCE
Gary E. Schwartz
Either Spirit exists, or it does not.
Either Spirit is here, helping to direct this work,
or it is not.
Either Spirit is calling upon us to wake up, to
discover our true identity and reality, and to
join with it to heal, grow, and transform, or
it is not.
If the answers to these questions happen to be no, so be it. We
will hopefully learn to live our lives in harmony with nature
and each other whether or not a larger spiritual reality exists.
However, if the answer is yes, and we can establish this
scientifically, the Universe is more marvelous and exciting –
and filled with more wonders and opportunities – than most
of us can imagine.
About twenty-five years ago, when I was a professor at Yale, I
did something that was really foolish. I had purchased a sixfoot tall wooden grandfather clock and decided I would try to
carry it down a small flight of stairs, by myself. As I leaned
BRIDGES Magazine
over, holding the huge clock cabinet, I felt something snap in
my back, followed by excruciating pain. A medical
examination of my back suggested that I might have pulled a
ligament and/or ruptured a disk. I was encouraged to take
muscle relaxants and to put as little strain on my back as
possible. Though my back recovered, it was left weakened
and wounded. In the following years it would go out again
from time to time.
It was January 1, 2000. I had just made what I called my
millennium resolution – a resolution for the next one
thousand years. It was simple, yet profound. I made the
decision that I would choose to live the rest of my life as if
survival of consciousness were true. I was not drawing a
scientific conclusion prematurely about the truth or fiction of
life after death. What I was doing was mindfully considering
the options and consciously choosing to make certain
decisions with the understanding that survival of
consciousness might be true. Little did I realize that I would
immediately be tested on my resolution.
On January 2, 2000, I was bending down to put a book on
a lower shelf, and my back went out. Just like that, and I
2011 Issue 2
(volume 21 number 2)
Page 13
8 S PIRIT
AND
S ELF -S CIENCE
BY
was in severe pain. It then occurred to me that I had not
implemented my millennium resolution. By this time I had
received training in various healing techniques, including
healing touch, Reiki and Johrei, and I was familiar with the
claims that experienced healers often invited Spirit assistance
in the form of deceased people, angels, and divine energy. I
had never thought to ask for Spirit assistance for myself – or
anyone else for that matter.
I said to myself, “If anyone in Spirit can help my back, I
would greatly appreciate it.” I sent my request to various
beings that I knew of, including Sam, short for Shemuel, in
Hebrew the name of God. After about five minutes I was
shocked to experience that my back pain had decreased a good
80 percent. On a scale from 0 to 10, with 0 being no pain
and 10 being severe pain, my back pain had gone from 8 or 9
to a 1 or 2. I could not
believe it. This had never
happened before. I began
considering
possible
alternative explanations for
the abrupt and dramatic
reduction in my pain. How
did I know that this was not
a placebo response?
What I heard next
completely took me by
surprise. I quietly yet
clearly heard in my head,
“Very simple, we will take
our support away.” Upon
hearing the words “take
our support away,” I
immediately experienced
the most severe back pain I
could remember. On the
scale of 0 to 10, it was least
a 12.
G ARY S CHWARTZ 8
validate our experiences and beliefs, and hopefully in the
process advance our knowledge and its practical
applications.
I use the word ‘Spirit’ generically here and it can be likened
to the word frequency in physics. Conceptually it refers to a
wide spectrum of possible spiritual frequencies of energy that
potentially can have an effect in the world. It follows that
the word “spirits” is more specific and can be thought of as
being at least figuratively (and possibly literally) similar to
particular bands or patterns of frequencies such as radio
waves, light waves, or gamma waves in that they can be
clearly distinguished one from another.
Are there sources of invisible information and guidance
waiting to be tapped and harnessed if we are just willing to
listen? The fact is that the media,
as well as academia and even
organized religion, is on the whole
super-phobic
about
these
possibilities being provable. But I
believe that science can address this
question and in the process might
help increase our ability to receive
spiritual information accurately,
and we can then act upon it safely
and wisely. If we continue to
ignore our true spiritual nature and
act in unhealthy ways, we will miss
the opportunity to make corrective
and wise choices in virtually all
aspects of our individual and
collective lives.
“The fact is that
the media, as well
as academia and
even organized
religion, is on the
whole super-phobic
about these
possibilities being
provable.”
If you are a skeptic, and/or
a conventional psychologist, you will presume that what I experienced was either a
rare chance event or some sort of double-placebo (mindbody) effect. Either way, the explanation would have
nothing to do with Spirit. But what if it is in our power to
sincerely ask for additional Spirit assistance, and then
actually receive it?
The history of science reminds us that we have the power
of possibility to make these kinds of discoveries and
transform our minds and hearts in the process. Many
peoples and cultures around the world have believed, and
continue to believe, that Spirit is real and plays a
fundamental role in our lives and the life of the planet.
What science may finally be able to do is to address and
BRIDGES Magazine
2011 Issue 2
I may be working in the realm of
new science, but my findings are
real science and true science. I am
not alone in contemplating the
existence of a zero point, where all
memory and all energy continue to
exist forever. For example, Dr.
Ervin Laszlo has done pioneering
work in contemplating the relationship from a variety of
disciplines creating experiments to test and verify the role of
Spirit in everyday life. The totality of the evidence indicates
that science is on the path to proving that a greater
spirituality does exist.
Two kinds of investigations are not officially considered
research. The reasoning is that these investigations are not,
by themselves, generalizable – for example, they are often
based on a single instance – and they are frequently not
systematic. Hence (1) careful observations made in one’s
personal life and (2) exploratory investigations where
university scientists pretest themselves before performing
subsequent controlled research with recruited subjects are not
(volume 21 number 2)
Page 14
8 S PIRIT
AND
S ELF -S CIENCE
BY
G ARY S CHWARTZ 8
considered research in the eyes of the federal government or
the institutional review boards of universities.
living laboratory and some discoveries can only be made by
us as individuals.
However, the restricted use of the word ‘research’ does not
mean that these observations are either unimportant or
uninformative and should therefore be dismissed. Quite the
contrary, what we are calling self-science – conducted in the
living laboratories of our personal lives – sometimes uncovers
essential proof-of-concept evidence that provides the
foundation for advancing science and society.
In The Sacred Promise I have collected experiments and
investigations conducted in the university laboratory as well
as the laboratory of my personal life and that of others –
including pretests where the researchers conducted
preliminary investigations on themselves – which all point
inexorably to the existence of Spirit and our collaboration
with a larger spiritual reality. None of the experiments or
investigations are definitive by themselves. Moreover, many
of them are too exploratory, as well as controversial, to be
published in mainstream scientific journals (and I have
published hundreds of scientific papers in such journals).
Every now and again science discovers that something is
reliable and true, even if the scientists do not know precisely
how it works or why. Let’s consider the case of gravity. You
However, this does not mean that the findings reported in my
book lack scientific validity and utility. Quite the contrary,
they are significant and offer meaningful conclusions and
raise important questions for future research. Again, we are
at the proof-of-concept stage in this exploration of Spirit and
its possible relationship with us. Note that it is the
combination of these daring and unorthodox experiments
and investigations – and the synergistic nature of their
conclusions – that together establishes a compelling case for
science to address these fundamental questions creatively,
comprehensively, and definitively.
“It is one thing
to observe a
phenomenon in
a basic science
laboratory, it is
another to
observe it in
our daily lives.”
experience this every day when you step out of a vehicle or
walk down a flight of stairs. Physicists and engineers have
made tremendous progress in studying the effects of gravity,
to the point where we can launch and position stationary
satellites in space and even land robotic probes on the
moon, Mars, and places beyond. However, it is important
to note that, while we can achieve these incredible feats of
technology, we still do not know for sure whether gravity is
a physical force, the bending of space-time, or a property of
superstrings that actually creates mass (rather than the other
way around); and there are additional credible theories
about gravity still in contention. The analogy here is
realizing that we can investigate whether something exists or
does not by its effects alone even if we are unable, with
complete assurance, to come up with an ultimate theory to
explain it.
Self–science is similar to what we all do every day when we
follow our hunches and intuitions, but it adds the objectivity
of the scientific method, that is, questioning everything and
looking for independent confirmation. Each of our lives is a
BRIDGES Magazine
It is one thing to observe a phenomenon in a basic science
laboratory and it is another to observe it in our daily lives. It
is one thing to have a medium confirm facts about the
deceased in a double-blind experiment; it’s another to hear a
voice telling us to pull off the freeway and ride out a
thunderstorm that creates a pileup two miles down the road.
When the types of evidence converge, and do so repeatedly,
we not only have more reason to believe in the reality of the
phenomenon, but we also have reason to incorporate this
knowledge into our personal lives and act upon it.
John Dewey wrote, “Every great advance in science has issued
from a new audacity of imagination.” We need both audacity
and imagination to take the next step in science.
Gary E. Schwartz is Professor of
Psycholog y, Medicine, Neurolog y,
Psychiatry, and Surgery at the University
of Arizona, and Director of its
Laboratory for Advances in
Consciousness and Health. He is also
Corporate Director of Development of
Energy Healing at Canyon Ranch. He
completed his PhD at Harvard
University and was a Professor of
Psychology and Psychiatry at Yale University. He has published
more than 450 scientific papers; his books include The Sacred
Promise and The Energy Healing Experiments.
2011 Issue 2
(volume 21 number 2)
Page 15
Science and Subtle Energies:
Is There Another Way of Knowing?
William H. Kautz
Early in the 1970s I met
some psychics, channels,
clairvoyants and healers
and noticed that they
sometimes brought forth
information, both
personal and general,
which they did not have
any ordinary way of
knowing. As a young
scientist I found this
incredible. All I had
been taught said such
things were not supposed
to happen!
BRIDGES Magazine
I tried to verify that the information
they gave was accurate and that they
had not derived it from prior knowledge
or by guessing it. I knew how to
conduct such an investigation and did
so. I discovered that their statements
were indeed genuine. I was forced to
conclude that there has to be a faculty
by which information can be obtained
outside the familiar channels of
reasoning, sensing, and remembering.
It did not take long to discover that
the capacity for ‘direct knowing’ has
been around for a long time –
throughout recorded history, in fact.
It is called INTUITION. It is not
mentioned by scientists or discussed
i n p s y c h o l o g y t e x t b o o k s . Ho w
could a human capacity so crucial
2011 Issue 2
(volume 21 number 2)
for generating
overlooked?
knowledge
be
So I began to try to systematically
answer basic questions about the
intuitive process. The resulting
investigation, fifteen years in duration,
turned around my inner world and
career, led to the creation of an
organization for research, education,
and application (The Center for
Applied Intuition), nudged me out of
science and technology, and resolved for
me many technical, societal and
personal problems. Today, thirty-five
years later, I cannot imagine living my
life without the active presence of
intuition. Moreover, it still holds the
same promise for all of us that I
imagined at the beginning of my search.
Page 16
8 S CIENCE
AND
S UBTLE E NERGIES
We will do well to examine this ‘other
way of knowing’ more closely.' But let's
look first at science, the field most in
need of it.
Those of us in the subtle energies
community generally assume that the
grand institution
of science, our
society's principal
instrument for
generating new
knowledge, will
be our main
means
for
understanding
subtle energies.
But we must ask,
is contemporary
science really up
to the task? To be
sure, most of us
who are active in
the field are not
researchers or
scientists
but
prefer to make practical discoveries to
benefit ourselves and others. Still, we
have a great interest in seeing the field
of subtle energies raised to the status it
deserves in medicine, science,
spirituality, and the understanding of
human potential.
BY
W ILLIAM H. K AUTZ 8
The methodology of science involves
discovery and verification. Discovery
includes observation, the collection and
organization of data into conceptual
models, and then the formulation of
tentative knowledge in the form of
hypotheses, claims and theories.
Verification involves
demonstrating that
this
tentative
knowledge is true. It
normally involves a
tight protocol for
testing the collected
data, hypotheses, and
claims. While less
creative than the
discovery phase it has
been science's main
strength in the face of
i g n o r a n c e ,
superstition, religious
pressure and sloppy
thinking. Its purpose
is to provide the
certainty that enables
new knowledge to become consensual
and accepted by both scientists and the
general public.
“..most of us who
are active in the
field are not
researchers or
scientists but prefer
to make practical
discoveries to benefit
ourselves and
others.”
Science is not merely a huge body of
accumulated knowledge with a large
cultural institution to support it: it is
a methodology for developing new
knowledge. It is based on a set of
assumptions and beliefs contained
w i t hin a larger paradigm that
underlies modern man’s entire way of
viewing and interpreting the world.
Paradigms are not static but change
s l owly as societies evolve. The
paradigm that has prevailed over the
last three centuries supports and is
largely suppor ted by mainstream
science, which is highly materialistic,
based as it is upon rationality and
dependent upon measurable data
perceived through the five physical
senses. Our ancestors saw the world
very differently – but that is another
story.
BRIDGES Magazine
Modern science is firmly based upon
a set of fundamental metaphysical
assumptions about the nature of reality.
Stated very simply:
1) All reality is external to man himself
but may be observed. (objectivity)
2) All reality is quantifiable and can be
perceived with our senses and
instruments. (positivism)
3) Results are valid only if they can be
obtained repeatedly by anyone at
any time. (reproducibility)
4) The complex can be understood in
terms of the simple. (reductionism)
5) Every effect has a cause, and this
cause must precede any of its effects.
(causality)
These assumptions have proven to work
well when studying the material, sensebased world. Indeed, science's
applications have been remarkably
successful, as we all know. But these
assumptions do not necessarily hold
well when investigating and explaining
2011 Issue 2
(volume 21 number 2)
subtle energies. They exclude the
relevance of subjective experience, for
example, as well as inner sensing and
the non-material, unquantifiable, nonrepeated and acausal aspects of the
human mind. Contemporary science
has effectively separated itself from the
reality it seeks to describe. It has moved
beyond the days when these very
human factors could be safely neglected,
and they are now missing from science's
perspective and methodology. Modern
science is therefore not so much wrong
as incomplete, and it is being seriously
hampered by this incompleteness.
This incompleteness can be seen clearly
in the limitations science is facing today.
Modern physics is being confronted
with fundamental contradictions in its
understanding of the nature of physical
reality. An impressive body of data on
anomalous human experience is
showing that the human mind alone is
able to significantly modify solid matter,
the cells of animals and living human
bodies. It is revealing that the mind has
the capacity to obtain many kinds of
information not accessible through
ordinary thought, scientific instruments
or perception through the five senses.
And, sometimes results precede their
causes. We all know that science has
never been as successful at explaining
human-related phenomena as those
found in the material world.
Science's methodology, and eventually
its knowledge base, will have to be
enlarged sooner or later to embrace
these mind-related activities. It must
somehow be based in human experience
and thus be participative, subjective and
not so heavily quantified. It must allow
for more connectedness and holism
instead of separateness. It must include
consciousness as a contributing agency
and embody a deeper understanding of
causality.
The huge task of shifting the paradigm
and creating a new science is already
happening, albeit slowly. However, we
who are occupied with subtle energies
are not in a position to effect this
change by ourselves. Neither can we
Page 17
8 S CIENCE
AND
S UBTLE E NERGIES
wait for a new science to come along to
help us generate new and useful
knowledge about subtle energies. We
must find an extension of science that
we can work with – or discover an
alternative means for probing the
mysteries of subtle energies.
The positive practices of scientific
inquiry do not need to be challenged:
we can retain open inquiry, careful
observation, empirical exploration,
healthy skepticism, logical reasoning,
critical analysis, accountability and the
public validation of knowledge. We
may keep its practices of clear, accurate
and unrestricted communication,
giving due credit to others, the freedom
to explore, and honesty and integrity,
of course. We can safely build upon
most of science's mammoth knowledge
base. However, when the mind is
intimately involved, as it can be, either
as an unintended intrusion into our
explorations or as an active agent being
explored for itself, the scientific
requirements of objectivity and
measurability cannot be retained. An
alternative must be found.
Perhaps even more important, the
subtle energy systems we are studying
are often affected by higher-level as well
as lower-level causes. That is, the
system is a part of something larger
which is significantly affecting its
behavior. In the new physics and new
biology such downward causation has
already been recognized as an essential
consideration: observation of a
phenomenon or even thinking about it
can affect the phenomenon itself.
Allowance for downward causation will
be essential when mind influences are
taken into account.
Data collection on subtle energy effects
seems easy enough, though we still need
to learn how better to gather subjective
data within an otherwise objective
framework and to draw valid
conclusions from them.
We would also like to have better
means for making discoveries about
the mysteries of subtle energies within
BRIDGES Magazine
BY
W ILLIAM H. K AUTZ 8
the mind – what a successful healer
actually does mentally to remove a
tumor, for example, or what are the
remarkable processes involved in
dreaming. This is a deeper problem of
discovery since we do not have a
sufficient understanding of mind
function. Brain studies are abundant
these days but they offer negligible
Imagine the scenario in which you have
set up an RCT in the usual way, and
your study team happens to include
someone who has telepathic or
clairvoyant knowledge. Dozens of
experiments have established an
unconscious sense among remote
viewers, including the general
population, which reveal that no one is
“...observation of a phenomenon or
even thinking about it can affect
the phenomenon itself.”
insight into the mind that is behind
and beyond the brain.
In contrast to discovery, it appears that
science’s verification methods cannot be
carried out at all reliably in the presence
of these mind influences. Science
insists that data must be discarded upon
the least hint of the very influences we
are most interested in! Verification is
the very backbone of science; to give it
up would be tantamount to giving up
science itself. Effective collaboration
with science will not be possible unless
we can work out a new way to verify
hypotheses and preliminary findings
when intended or unintended mind
influences are present.
Science's insistence on reproducibility –
that findings are valid only when they
can be obtained by others under the
same conditions – cannot be satisfied
when exploring phenomena that are
one-time or one-of-a-kind events, as
mind-generated and other subtle energy
phenomena often are. It seems
impossible at this point to bypass this
reproducibility requirement entirely
unless we can somehow move
verification to the general public in the
form of personal experiments and say,
for example, "Look, check it out for
yourself."
Randomized Control Trials (RCTs) are
commonly used for verification.
2011 Issue 2
(volume 21 number 2)
truly “unknowing” or "blind." If
someone is in a position to affect the
results of the trials, he may be doing so
without anyone knowing, including
himself. Similar limitations apply for
unintentional influences on random
event generators and for precognition of
research results.
The only possibility for transcending
traditional verification is that the mind
itself must become involved in the
verification process. We must somehow
learn to use the mind to monitor and
control the mind. We are going to have
to draw the information we seek from a
realm of knowledge that lies behind
and beyond the familiar, largely
scientific one.
Achieving separation of observer from
observed is the central obstacle when
trying to study how the mind can study
the mind. To drop the assumption of
objectivity is to accept the fact that we
are an inherent part of the very mystery
we are trying to solve. Just as has been
discovered in quantum physics, we
cannot separate ourselves from the
phenomena being explored, because we
are assisting in producing them at the
same time that we are observing and
interacting with them. Those of us in
the healing community already know,
for example, that we cannot resolve the
problems of physical health at the
physical level alone because the mind is
Page 18
8 S CIENCE
AND
S UBTLE E NERGIES
the primary factor governing health and
illness in the first place.
The great wisdom teachers from all
major cultures and times were aware of
this seeming impasse, and they have
much to say about it. In Western
philosophy it is called the "mind-body
problem" and in esoteric philosophy the
problem of “duality.” These teachers
assert that all conceivable knowledge
already exists within the mind, or is at
least directly accessible to it. Thus, in
the search for understanding we do not
so much generate new knowledge as
recognize it. Once again, the mind
itself is the doorway.
The idea that this knowledge is
omnipresent and eternal and that we
are omniscient has been around for
centuries. It is recognized in the
esoteric core of every major religion
and philosophy in the world. Moreover,
a long esoteric tradition suggests that
this ubiquitous source of knowledge is
one and the same with the non-physical
realm from which subtle energies and
similar phenomena arise. Certain
shamans, prophets and enlightened
beings, including Jesus, manifested the
two skills of exceptional wisdom and
genuine healing. We are still somewhat
uncertain about the connection
between the two but may be guided by
it as we search for an understanding of
subtle energies.
Intuition is the access process or "link"
to this non-physical realm. It is broadly
recognized even though it is usually
taken lightly as just “intuitive hunches,”
or “gut feelings.” Intuition is actually
the innate and universal human
capacity to acquire knowledge and
understanding apart from ordinary
reasoning, sensing and remembering.
Individuals who have learned how to
utilize this link effectively have a skill
that provides them with an effective
BY
W ILLIAM H. K AUTZ 8
bridge between levels so they can
"download"
whatever
needed
information they can understand well
enough to use themselves or
communicate to others.
The record of accomplishments of
expert intuitives for obtaining accurate,
new, and useful information – personal,
societal, and scientific – is well
established. Carefully conducted
experiments
in
clairvoyance,
mediumship, precognition, and
telepathy provide excellent evidence for
the power of intuition. The most
persuasive recent examples are found in
remote viewing, where dozens of
experiments have shown its validity
even with untrained subjects. Many
artistic creations and some of science's
finest discoveries (to name just two
areas) were made through sudden
intuitive insights rather than reasoned
deduction and analysis.
Intuitive inquiry requires only a
committed and sometimes courageous
shifting of one's consciousness into a
deeper, normally hidden level of the
mind. It is a learnable art anyone can
undertake, though not everyone is
willing. Thousands of people have
already done so. It requires only that
you set aside strictly personal desires,
any conflicting beliefs and normal
thinking activity and simply “let go” of
control so your mind can enter into an
open but focused state of receptivity.
This is quite the opposite of the goaldriven mental effort preferred by most
of us, especially by scientists, which is
the main reason so few of them have
intentionally reached this inner level of
receptivity.
Intuitive inquiry is a viable "other way
of knowing" besides the scientific one.
It is therefore a ready and proven
alternative for generating new
knowledge about subtle energies.
There appear to be very few constraints
on the kinds of information accessible
by intuitive means.
Extensive
experience suggests that the
superconscious source is unlimited in
both breadth and depth. The only
limits seem to be those imposed by the
habits and beliefs of the receiver.
Intuitive inquiry will be most directly
useful during the discovery phase for
probing the depths of the energetic
healing process, for creating new ideas
and hypotheses and for broadening
one's perspective. For verification
intuition will unfortunately be of little
direct or immediate help because the
criteria are firmly prescribed by the
prevailing scientific/societal paradigm,
which accepts only a narrow kind of
"proof" and does not honor intuition
even as an aid to verification.
The situation is not hopeless, however.
Experiments with intuitive inquiry have
shown that the ideas and hypotheses
that emerge are often simpler and
clearer than typical scientific hypotheses
and are therefore more readily verified.
The credibility of intuitive information
may also be increased through
corroboration among several expert
intuitives rather than relying on only
one – a well-tested method called
intuitive consensus. Also, computer
automation of test procedures can
sometimes be employed to bypass
human interference. Nevertheless, no
generally valid and direct way to verify
intuitively derived information is
available within the existing paradigm
of science and society.
Looking farther ahead it makes good
sense that we humans will eventually
rely more and more upon our intuitive
faculties for discriminating the relevant
from the irrelevant and the true from
the false. Each of us will find it possible
to verify new intuitive information by
"The idea that this knowledge is omnipresent and eternal and that we
are omniscient has been around for centuries."
BRIDGES Magazine
2011 Issue 2
(volume 21 number 2)
Page 19
8 S CIENCE
AND
S UBTLE E NERGIES
relying upon our own intuition and
other inner faculties instead of relying
solely on external sources such as
scientific proof. The resulting
knowledge is then private, not
consensual, but it is still useful to the
individual and contributes to the
accumulation of knowledge.
Eventually the paradigm must change,
as social belief systems always do. More
flexible verification criteria will emerge
and enable discoveries in subtle energies
and consciousness to be more readily
accepted.
For the time being we may ask, “Might
we leave unverified our new discoveries
about subtle energies?” This option is
not as drastic as it sounds. We may
choose to release some of our finest
discoveries directly to the public,
trusting that the valid portions will
gradually be accepted and the invalid
portions rejected. Such a process has
already happened in alternative
medicine, for example. After sixty years
in the public domain it has reached a
certain measure of public acceptance
and medical respectability despite the
lack of firm scientific evidence. It is
respected because it is needed, and it
works well enough.
In conclusion, while our work with
subtle energies will both aid and be
aided by the coming changes in science
and its paradigm, we must proceed
almost independently by engaging
ourselves, intuitively and experientially,
in discovering the mysteries of subtle
energies.
How can we translate these findings
into action? We may do so through
collective endeavors as well as through
individual effort. Here are some initial
steps ISSSEEM can profitably
undertake or sponsor:
1) Adopt a policy and a program of
activities consistent with the inclusion
of an intuitive approach toward
discovery.
2) Support the individual exploration of
subtle energies and continue to verify
BY
W ILLIAM H. K AUTZ 8
“There appear to be very few constraints on
the kinds of information accessible by intuitive
means.”
discoveries as may be possible through
controlled scientific experiments.
2.
3) Develop conceptual models for
particular underlying subjective factors
such as belief, intention, and
suggestibility, which are already known
to be involved in the flow of subtle
energies, and evolve from them an
acceptable protocol for collecting and
verifying subjective, immeasurable and
one-time data.
4) Devise a practical way to carry out
key experiments in subtle energies in
the presence of unintended mind
influences.
However, the principal effort must be
individual and personal. We can:
1) Give top priority to acquiring
knowledge and understanding of
subtle energies through our own
intuitive and experiential efforts.
2) Apply what is truly useful from
standard science but avoid being
diverted by its limited methods and
criteria.
3) Focus our efforts on health and
healing, rather than consciousness
and the full range of subtle energy
mysteries.
“Remember the deep root of your
being. … Experience where you
came from. Listen to what's
knocking from the inside. … You
have the energy of the sun in you,
but you keep knotting it up at the
base of your spine. … Work on
the invisible world at least as
hard as you do in the visible.”
- Rumi
3.
4.
5.
Practical Application Of Intuition
(New York: iUniverse).
Harman, Willis W., & Jane E. Clark
(1994), New Metaphysical Foundations
Of Modern Science (San Francisco, CA:
Institute of Noetic Sciences).
J. P. Bisaha and B. J. Dunne (1979),
"Multiple Subject and Long-Distance
Precognitive Remote Viewing of
Geographical Locations," Mind at
Large, C. T. Tart, H. E. Puthoff and
R. Targ, Eds. (New York: Praeger),
p.107ff.
Palmer, Helen, Ed. (1998), Inner
Knowing: Creativity, Consciousness,
Insight And Intuition (New York:
Tarcher/Putnam).
Tarnas, Richard. (1991), The Passion
Of The Western Mind: Understanding
The Ideas That Have Shaped Our
Worldview (New York, NY:
Ballentine).
William H.
Kautz, Sc.D.,
was Founder and
Director of the
Center for
Applied Intuition
(CAI), a San
Francisco
organization
devoted to
research, consulting and public education
in intuition and its practical
applications. He was previously Staff
Scientist at SRI International where he
carried out research in computer science,
geophysics and communications.
RECOMMENDED READING:
1. Kautz, William H. (2005, Opening
The Inner Eye: Explorations On The
BRIDGES Magazine
2010 Issue 3
Page 20
BRIDGES Magazine
Volume 21, Number 2
the ISSSEEM magazine, explores leading ideas in the fields of subtle energies and energy healing.
Its interdisciplinary focus creates an open forum for healers, teachers, researchers, pioneers and all interested and involved – within
the ISSSEEM membership and the world at large – to exchange information and discuss new discoveries.
Published and delivered to subscribers in digital format three times a year , Bridges Magazine presents articles, reports,
reviews, and interviews with a personal, clinical or experiential perspective in order to further our understanding of the
great range of human capacities and to expand our inquiry into the subtle realms of existence.
The articles presented are provided for informational purposes and are not meant to substitute for the advice provided by your own
health professional.
Visit www.issseem.org/bridges.cfm to submit relevant (500 to 2500 words) written pieces to be considered for publication.
Past issues and subscriptions can be purchased on our online store at www.issseem.org/storebridges.cfm
Editor
Associate Editor
Managing Editor
Design Editor
Celia Coates, [email protected]
Lucia Thornton, [email protected]
Denise Lewis Premschak
Justin Block
www.issseem.org
The International Society for the Study of Subtle Energies and Energy Medicine is a non-profit public benefit corporation based in Colorado.
© 2011 by The International Society for the Study of Subtle Energies and Energy Medicine, all rights reserved. No reproduction or other use
without the permission of the publisher.
Mailing Address: 2770 Arapaho Rd, Suite 132 Lafayette, CO 80026 Phone: (303) 425-4625 Email: [email protected]
THE INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR THE STUDY
OF SUBTLE ENERGIES AND ENERGY MEDICINE
Bridging Science and Spirit
As a member you assist ISSSEEM to continue to be the leader in the field of
Subtle Energies and Energy Medicine.
You can support discovery and application in the increasing body of knowledge about consciousness, healing and the
subtle levels of reality, not only through your membership dollars, but also by contributing your own participation.
Members receive:
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Basic ISSSEEM membership is $75 per year, and the International rate is $84. Telephone or visit our website to join
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ISSSEEM BOARD
OF
DIRECTORS
Jacob Liberman, Ph.D., O.D.
President
Kate Hastings, Th.M.
Director
Beverly Rubik, Ph.D.
Director
Hendrick Treuget, M.D.
Director
Scott Anderson, M.D.,
Director
Gilah Yelin Hirsch, MFA
Director
Claude Swanson, Ph.D.
Director
Lynn Van Buren, M.A.
Treasurer
Puran Bair, M.S.
Director
Karen Malik, M.A.
Director
Charles Tart, Ph.D.
Past President
Bernard Williams, Ph.D.
Chair of the Board, Journal Editor
Lilly Coniglio, M.A.
Director
Karl Maret, M.D.
Director
Shin-ichiro Terayama, B.S.
Director