Glen Rein, PhD           

We have to rethink the world with the whole of the nervous system, with our nervous centres in the belly as well as, if not more so than, in the cortex.             
                                 John Heron - Confessions of a Janus Brain

It was of interest to explore the role of consciousness in the healing process and to correlate different mental content (imagery, intent and thought) with biological effects in tissue culture.  The growth of tumour cells in culture was chosen because it could be monitored quantitatively using the state of the art biochemical techniques and was highly relevant clinically.

  The protocol involved measuring DNA synthesis by quantitating its incorporation of radioactive thymidine.  The rate of cell proliferation was then determined relative to the total number of cells which were counted in a hemocytometer.

  The healer, Dr Leonard Laskow, shifted into a specific state of consciousness and mentally and energetically focused on three petri dishes held in the palm of his hand.  Another aliquot of cells from the same stock bottle was being held simultaneously by a non-healer in an adjacent room.  The non-healer was reading a book to minimise the interaction of his consciousness on the cells.  The two sets of three petri dishes (6 in total) were brought back to the tissue culture hood where they were coded by a person who did not know which came from whom.  Without knowing which cultures received healing, the author then labelled the cells with radioactive thymidine and processed them after 24 hours' growth to measure cell proliferation.

  The same exact protocol was also followed in another parallel set of experiments done with the healer giving healing to distilled water contained in a plastic lid-sealed test tube, instead of cells in a petri dish.  This water, as well as untreated water, was used to make standard tissue culture medium which was then added to separate cell cultures at the beginning of a 24 hour growth period.

  Five different healing states of consciousness were explored with Dr Laskow.  He describes an overall loving state that was maintained throughout all the experiments, which allowed him to be in resonance with the tumour cells.  The technique for attaining this non-ordinary state is a form of meditation which allows intentional focusing and cohering of energy.  He refers to these intentions as different contents of consciousness.  He distinguishes the intentions as:

1. returning to the natural order and harmony of the cell's normal rate of growth;
2. circulating the microcosmic orbit (a Taoist visualisation after Mantak Chia);
3. letting God's will flow through these hands;
4. unconditional love; and
5. dematerialisation.

  Dr Laskow describes and explains the psychoenergetic states of consciousness as follows:

        I shifted to a 'transpersonal healing state' of consciousness' by using a balancing breath which balanced and cohered both hemispheres of my brain, followed by aligning, centring and energising techniques.  These processes produce, for me, a loving state which allowed my mind to come into resonance with the tumour cells as I focused on them.  While in this transpersonal loving state I varied the content of my consciousness to specifically evaluate the differential influence of changes in mental content on tumour cell growth.  We evaluated five different intentions while I was holding petri dishes containing tumour cells in my hands for each of the mental intentions.

          We were interested in varying what I was intending in my mind for these tumour cells.  The first intent was focused instruction that the tumour cells return to the natural order and harmony of their normal cell line.  By normal I meant that the cells should grow at a normal rate, rather than their present accelerated tumour cell rate.  Another intention was to let God's will flow through my hands, so in this case there wasn't a specific direction given.  Unconditional love was giving no direction at all.  When I do healing work, I shift into an unconditionally loving transpersonal state, with superimposed unconditional loving intent, without giving specific direction to the energy.

          I had two forms of dematerialisation: one was 'dematerialised into the light' and the other was 'dematerialised into the void'.  I wanted to see whether there was a 'reluctance' on the part of the cells to go into the unknown or is it better to give them a direction into the light.  Obviously, this has import for people who are doing healing work in terms of giving direction to tumour cells and energy forms that you want to release.  It is easier to release them giving them a direction or releasing them into their potential, but without the light.

The experimental results on the tumour cells indicate that the different contents of consciousness could be distinguished in terms of their biological responses.  Of the various intentions studied, only three showed significant effects on inhibiting the growth of the tumour cells.  The most effective intention we tried with tumour cell cultures was 'return to the natural order and harmony of the normal cell line' (39% inhibition).  'Allowing God's will to manifest' appeared to be only half as effective (21% inhibition).  Under the same experimental conditions, unconditional love neither stimulated nor inhibited cell growth.  Its effect was neutral and seemingly accepting of the present condition.

   These results have important implications for healers.  They suggest that certain healing states and contents of consciousness may be more effective than others.

  Treating the tissue culture medium (rather than treating the cells directly) with 'microcosmic orbit' produced 41% inhibition, equally effective as treating it with 'returning to the natural order', although the two focuses of consciousness were significantly different when treating the tumour cells directly.

  The roles of thought, image and intent in healing were studied further.  We sought to clarify the relative roles of non-focused thought and image as distinct from intention.  We again had Dr Laskow give healing directly to tumour cell cultures and checked their rates of growth.  Different biological effects were found when he altered the intent or the imagery associated with the healing process, but non-focused thought had no effect.  Thus, while he was in the 'microcosmic orbit' state of consciousness the mental image of visualising only three cells remaining in the petri dish after the experiment caused an 18% inhibition of cell growth.  On the other hand, switching the mental image to one where many more cells were visualised in the dish resulted in a 15% increased growth of tumour cells.  The results are remarkable since not only could a different biological response be observed by changing the mental image, but an actual reversal of the biological process of cell growth was achieved.

  We then explored to what extent intention, as a focused mental thought, might contribute to the healing response.  This was achieved by Dr Laskow intending and instructing the cells to 'return to their normal order and rate of growth', while holding no visual image - thus separating intent from imagery.  We found that this produced the same inhibitory biological response (20% inhibition) as did imagery alone.  This experiment can be directly compared with the previous one, since the microcosmic orbit state of consciousness was maintained throughout and the previous experiment involved no consciously focused intent.

  When we included the intention for the cells to return to the natural order of the normal cell line together with the imagery of reduced growth, the inhibitory effect was doubled to 40%.  These results suggest that imagery and intent each contributed equally in inhibiting the growth of tumour cells in culture.

  We must perform many more experiments to clarify to what extent these effects are target-, healer- and mental state-specific.  It is possible that other intentions would have been effective if other biological targets had been chosen.  The content and states of consciousness that were effective in this experiment for Dr Laskow may not be optimal for other healers treating the same types of tumour cells.  Other factors, such as geomagnetic activity or as yet unidentified influences may also contribute to variability of healing studies which are done on different days and will be replicated in different locations.

Glen Rein, PhD, Quantum Biology Research Labs, P. O. Box 60653, Palo Alto, California 94306
 

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Copyright © Daniel J. Benor, M.D. 1993 Reprinted with permission of the author P.O. Box 76 Bellmawr, NJ 08099 www.WholisticHealingResearch.com   DB@WholisticHealingResearch.com 

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