In the age of mobile phones and the internet,
we are liable to take for granted how easy it
is to connect with each other across great
distances. What the technology doesn't quite
reveal, however, is a deeper truth that has
always been known, but is only just beginning
to be widely accepted: we are already
connected. We just tend to forget this fact
periodically.
In the healing field, the growing recognition
of our interdependence will transform the way
that we treat people, and expect to be
treated, as the old medical paradigm based on
the illusion of separation falls away. I'd
like to share a few examples of how this is
already happening.
Dr Larry Dossey has identified three eras of
healing in his book Reinventing Medicine,
from the mechanical era (drugs, surgery,
radiation) through the mind-body era
(psychology, emotional healing) to the
dawning era of cosmic consciousness. This new
era embraces the reality that we are all one,
and that thought, prayer and healing
intention can promote healing instantaneously
across space and time.
Dr Dossey's groundbreaking work has included
large-scale double blind experiments which
have shown repeatedly how prayer and other
forms of healing intent can and do influence
the outcomes for patients, even if they don't
know they are being prayed for. Non-local
healing is of course nonsensical in the old
mechanical medicine paradigm, but modern physics
has recognized the existence of non-local
phenomena for decades.
In homeopathy, it is frequently observed that
a person begins to respond to the treatment
at the very moment the homeopath decides
what to give, even though they may be
miles away from each other at the time. We
also know that during the proving experiments
conducted to test a new remedy, provers
taking placebos often display symptoms of the
remedy being tested. Even family members of
provers have been known to do the same, as
the group 'field effect' seems to transmit
information from one to another.
The Emotional Freedom Technique which works
by tapping certain energy points is now
widely known. What is not so well known is
the fact that various forms of surrogate
tapping have also been found to be highly
effective. I can, for example, tap the points
on my body on behalf of another
person, and they seem to get the benefit. I
can also simply think about tapping
those points, and still it seems to work.
Dr Hew Len became famous for his work at a
state hospital in Hawaii. Practising a method
known as Ho'oponopono, he offered a regular,
silent prayer of healing to every patient in
a ward whose inhabitants were considered to
be criminally insane. They were either
heavily medicated, or physically restrained,
or both. By 'healing the part of me that
created them', Dr Len was so successful
that one by one, the patients got better and
were released into the community, until
finally the ward was closed due to a lack of
patients!
What these and many other healing miracles
serve to illustrate is not that we can heal
another by the power of intention, but that
we are the other, and the intention
simply closes the gap so that our sense of
one-ness is restored. We live in interesting
times!
