Introduction 

Natural abilities are like natural plants that need pruning by study; and studies themselves do give forth directions too much at large except they be bounded in by experience.
                                                                       -Francis Bacon. 

Intuitives, including healers, are often able to obtain psychic impressions about people upon whom they focus their attention. These impressions may include information about the states of the subject’s body, emotions, mind, relationships and spiritual dimensions. Research on intuitive assessments is limited. This includes anecdotal reports, series of assessments by several healers, a qualitative study, and several modest attempts at controlled studies.

The development of intuitive awareness has far broader implications and applications beyond medical intuition. The process of knowing the world intuitively opens into an awareness of oneness with all creation, into realms that we have labeled as spiritual and mystical. This mode of knowing may be of enormous value in addressing some of the global crises challenging the continuation of our very existence on this planet
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Terminology

I suggest assessment is more appropriate than diagnosis for the intuitive impressions about health and illness that are discussed here. Reasons are presented in the discussion, below
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Anecdotal Reports

When I examined myself and my methods of thought, I came to the conclusion that the gift of fantasy has meant more tome than my telent for absorbing positive knowledge.
                                                             Albert Einstein

Reports abound of healers identifying problems present in healees. Many healers are able to intuit where to place their hands in order to give healing. Healees often comment on the fact that healers "find the right spot" without being told. Healers explain this in several ways. Some report they have an "inner knowing," an intuitive guidance system that simply leads them to place their hands automatically where they are needed. Some healers feel or see the biological energy fields around people and are guided by their sense of touch or by the colors of the energy field to places that need healing. Some report they have inner guidance from spirits, angelic presences, Christ, other religious or healing luminaries, or God.

I have spoken with hundreds of healers and healees over two decades of healing explorations. I cannot count the numbers of stories I have heard of chronic pains, fevers, and diseases that eluded medical diagnosis and were clarified through intuitive assessments.

Methods of Assessment

Tactile sensations inform many healers, as they pass their hands around the body of a healee. Areas of pain or other dysfunction may feel hot, cold, sticky, gooey, or prickly (Krieger 1979; 1993). Other healers may see auras of color surrounding a healee. From the colors they can identify abnormalities in body, emotions, mind, relationships and spirit.

Because auras serve as one of the most common avenues to diagnosis, I will discuss them in some detail.

Anecdotal observations on the aura have been published from early in the 20th century.

Annie Besant and C. W. Leadbeater (1925) wrote a classic work describing auras. Though they mention a few physical and emotional correlates of particular aura colors and shapes, their work is of limited help because it did not include medically trained researchers.

Walter Kilner (1965) used special cyanin dyes on glass screens to induce auric vision. He reported that physical states correlate with auric changes.

More recent explorations have refined these early observations. John Pierrakos (1987), a New York Psychiatrist specializing in bioenergetics, wrote a few words on his abilities to see auras. He notes that they correlate with states of health and illness. Sigrun Seutemann was a homeopathic physician-sensitive who lived in Germany. She reported she could detect changes in the auras of patients accompanying medical treatments and psychic surgery (Meek 1977). Clear correlations between aura perceptions and medical diagnoses are reported by Shafica Karagulla, a physician who worked closely with Dora Kunz, a gifted psychic (Karagulla 1967; Karagulla and Kunz 1989). Other excellent discussions on aura diagnosis are presented by Jack Schwarz (1980), a gifted psychic, and Barbara Brennan (1987; 1993), an astrophysicist who is now a teacher of healing. Brennan has worked with many doctors to clarify and confirm her auric observations. All of these support the claims that auras may provide assessments of physical, mental, emotional and spiritual conditions. Numerous other healers also mention that aura perception is either an occasional or a regular adjunct to their diagnosing and healing. For instance, Tony Agpaoa, the Philippine psychic surgeon, was said to be able to identify from the auras of patients which other healer had treated them (Meek 1977).

Only a few systematic studies of reports of aura diagnosis have been published.

Carlos Alvarado and Nancy Zingrone studied 19 people who are able to see auras. They found that a high percent of these people had very vivid visual imagery and imaginative-fantasy experiences, as well as a wide range of psi experiences.

Various colors have been described in the aura which typify particular physiological and disease processes. Individual perceptions of sensitives may vary so greatly, however, as to be puzzling and confusing to researchers. In a pilot investigation I studied eight healers who reported they see auras. They simultaneously observed, consecutively, four subjects who sat in the same room with them. The subjects had diagnoses which were known to the referring physician but not to myself or the healers. The overlaps in aura observations and interpretations were far fewer than the divergences between the sensitives. Yet the subjects felt that most of the sensitives' observations were applicable to themselves. A replication of this pilot study, with four healers who are more sensitive and experienced, produced modestly better concurrence in impressions (Benor 1992, described in greater detail below).

Many healers and clairvoyants report that auric vision can be learned (Brennan 1987; 1993; Kilner 1965; Pierrakos 1987; J. Schwartz 1980). Most people can learn to sense the biofield with their hands (Krieger 1979; 1993). I teach this regularly to people who are interested in learning about healing.

Understanding Auric Perception

The auric field is reported to be a template, or programmer/ organizer, of what occurs in the physical body. This may explain how healers can treat by holding their hands near the body. The healers’ energy fields interact with those of the healee, which then can influence the body. Krieger reports that the process of passing one's hands through the aura for diagnosis cannot be separated from the process of treatment. That is, at the same time that one is gaining an impression of the status of the healee, the interaction of the two energy fields may lead to alterations in both healee and healer fields. This may make it impossible to obtain consensual validation through serial examinations by separate healers of the same healee, as the healee will be changed by each interaction with a healer.

It is unclear whether auras are energy fields around the body or clairsentient perceptions which are interpreted by the healer's brain in this way.

We must clarify whether (or to what degree) the visible aura corresponds with fields which are palpable and/or detectable on electromagnetic instrumentation. Pierrakos says the aura consists both of a variety of emanations from the body and at the same time is also a field or etheric body which is akin to a template for what transpires within the physical body. Pierrakos and other healers tell us that the biological energy body is the primary body of an individual, and the physical body is a secondary expression of what transpires within the energy body. This is consistent with a great body of research on survival of the spirit, reincarnation, and mystical experiences - all of which point to a spirit which takes on a body for a period of learning various lessons (Benor, unpublished). Some of these lessons have to do with the challenges of dealing with illness. There are intuitives who can read this level of the aura, bringing to consciousness past life traumas, soul-intents, and other issues that impact on states of health and illness.

It may be that radiations of energies recognized by conventional science, such as infra-red waves, produce many or all of the aura perceptions. Changes in these emanations may occur with altered physiological conditions (Bigu 1976; J. Evans 1986; Oschman 1997; Russek and Schwartz 1996; Schwartz and Russek 1999) and may provide information which can be interpreted by sensitive people to make diagnoses. The perceived aura may thus be a mental construct based on clairsentient perceptions and therefore subject to individual perceiver variations.

In support of this hypothesis are observations of some healers that they make intuitive assessments on the basis of smells.

Others (including myself) may perceive images that relate to the situation of the healee. These, however, could represent telepathic impresssions or channeled information.

The individuality evident in aura perceptions of diverse sensitives might be explained in several other ways. Each sensitive may have limited, partial perceptions, differing from the perceptions of other sensitives because each focuses upon a different aspect of the subject. Sensitives may be viewing different layers of the aura without realizing it. More skilled or experienced sensitives might have more concurrence in their perceptions.

It is not clear whether the colors perceived by sensitives have any objective relevance or whether they are idiosyncratic constructs of healers' minds. That is, it may be that the processing of various conventional or subtle energy perceptions, or of clairsentient impressions from unconscious 'out-there' events become translated to the conscious mind via color projections from sensory processing parts of the brain to the conscious mind or brain. This might be little different from visual images produced by the brain from stimulation of the retina by photons of various wavelengths. Such processes might explain some healers' reports that they can see auras with their eyes closed (Gladden 1988; Worrall 1983), and that they can localize problems in the healee's body by a murkiness, 'break' or other disruption in that region of the aura.

Why some see auras and others do not is a puzzle. Children probably see them more than adults in western society. James Peterson (1975; 1987) studied American children who said they see colors around people. Peterson was careful to present his questions in such a way that the children did not merely take suggestions from his inquiries and report colors to please him. He noted fewer reports the older were the children. He feels that children lose this ability primarily due to lack of acceptance of these perceptions by people around them. It would also be fascinating to look for possible differences in incidences of aura perception between sexes, by personality traits or preferred perceptual modes, and the like.

Reports that one can learn to see auras through various exercises are worthy of further study. Numbers of intuitives teach this.

Whether treatment is more or less effective in the aura compared to on the body is another question. The theory of those who practice aura healing is that it should be more powerful than touch healing because the aura is a template for the physical body.

Which manipulations in the aura are effective would be another question to examine. Practices and recommendations vary widely; similarly for what healers must do with their hands following treatments. Some say that on completing treatments they must shake their hands; others that they must wash them in order to rid themselves of adhering negative auric matter. These also warn that if they does not do so they may contract some of the healees' symptoms (or even the diseases) or transmit them to others.

Further aura research promises to add many dimensions to our understanding of states and processes of health and disease. It must also clarify which reports of sensitives have consensual validation and which are specific to individual perceivers. It should further clarify whether there are differences in results of healings done by healers who perceive intuitive impressions (via aura imagery or otherwise) and those who do not. (More on theis later.)

Great clinical benefits could be gained from diagnostic inputs of sensitives who seem able to diagnose illness based on what they perceive in the auras. This non-invasive method could be used for screening people in emergency wards and other medical units where diagnoses are in question.

I have developed my own healing gifts and use these in my practice of wholistic psychotherapy. Intuitive impressions often come to me as feelings. I might say to a client, "I feel a sadness behind your words." They might not have been aware of their hurt or depression, and my feedback may help them get in touch with these underlying feelings. Such impressions could be due to visual or auditory cues, though I believe they are intuitive. I might perceive imagery that may make little sense to me but is very meaningful to the person I am working with. An image of an angry, threatening man once came to me as a woman was telling of her panic attacks on leaving the house. This resonated with her memory of an abusive father when she was a child, and of a rape she had experienced years earlier. She had had counseling to deal with the trauma of the rape, but unacknowledged and unresolved feelings remained, leading to her later panic attacks. I believe that intuitive awareness and healing combined with psychotherapy are far more effective than either alone (Benor 1994; 1996).

There are few instances in which reports of such intuitive abilities are verified by medical observations or laboratory studies. The results sound impressive, but are difficult to assess because of the lack of rigor in the assessments and reports.

Anecdotal reports are the basis for more systematic investigations. For instance, radiesthesia specialists suggest that the compass direction in which the therapist and healee are facing may influence the assessment and treatment. This sort of observation may help clarify some of the heretofore unexplained variability in research in intuitive assessments and healing.

We are clearly in the early days of investigating intuitive assessments. Much remains to be clarified.

Kinesiology and Ideomotor Responses

Intuitive information is available to almost everyone, as evidenced by extensive studies of psi (psychic) experiments (Edge 1986; J. Nash 1986; Radin 1997; Rhine 1964; L. Rhine 1961; 1967). Intuitive information is difficult for most people to access directly. It tends to appear as spontaneous "hunches" or to come in dreams, where it is often cloaked in metaphoric imagery (L. Rhine 1961; 1967).

Health caregivers, particularly in complementary/alternative modalities (CAM), have learned to access their intuitive awarenesses through muscle responses to questions held in mental focus. I present this as an exercise that you, the reader, can explore yourself.

These techniques have been known for centuries in hypnotherapy as ideomotor responses. The classic way in hypnosis is to have the subject place his hands on his knees, suggesting that the unconscious mind will speak by allowing a finger of the right hand to rise as an indicator for YES, and a finger of the left hand to rise as an indicator for NO.

Applied Kinesiology, a derivative of acupressure, has developed this into a systematized approach to asking people to answer for themselves questions about their health and illness (Diamond 1978; 1985; Durlacher 1995; Gallo and Furman 2000; Whisenant 1994).

Reports on Series of Assessments

C. Norman Shealy, MD (1975; 1988), published an exploratory study of the abilities of eight psychics (including Henry Rucker) to diagnose 17 patients. Pooled diagnoses were "98 percent accurate in making personality diagnoses and 80 percent accurate in diagnosing physical conditions." Too few details are provided regarding the procedures, diagnoses, and methods of assessing accuracy to validate the claimed successes in this study.

In informal testing, Shealy gave Caroline Myss, a gifted clairsentient diagnostician, only the names and birth dates of 50 patients. He found her to be 93 percent congruent with his own diagnoses. Shealy lists the pairs of clinical diagnoses but provides very little substantiating data.

In a somewhat more formal study, Shealy diagnosed a series of patients by his own physical examination and administration of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory. A photograph was taken of each patient, and his or her name and birth date written on the back. Six clairvoyants were given the photographs, names, and birth dates; a numerologist was given just the names and birth dates. No other contact with patients was allowed. A professor of psychology, who made no claim to psychic ability, also guessed the answers on the basis of the photographs. Two major questions were asked: "Where is the difficulty or pain?" and "What is the major and primary cause of the patient’s illness?" Each diagnostician filled out a questionnaire."

    We had complete data on some 78 patients and at least one or more clairvoyant diagnosis carried out on almost 200. Two of the clairvoyants were 75 percent accurate and a third was 70 percent accurate in locating the site of pain. . . In determining the cause of the pain, the clairvoyants ranged from 65 percent accuracy down to 30 percent. Here there was only a 10 percent probability of obtaining the correct diagnosis by chance. (Shealy 1975)

The psychologist did not exceed chance levels with his guesses. Robert Leichtman, an internist who is a gifted clairsentient diagnostician, was 96 percent accurate in descriptions of patients’ personalities.

Again, very little substantiating data is provided.

1. Number of processed dyads (x)

2. Number of congruent diagnoses

3. Percentage of congruency

This translated study indicates that in some instances clairsentient diagnosticians can achieve as high as 85 percent congruence with medical diagnosticians. Unfortunately, the report does not tell us whether the various diagnoses were validated by objective laboratory data. No controls or statistical analyses are presented.

Qualitative Studies

Daniel J. Benor (1992), with the help of a general practitioner, Jean Galbraith, invited healers who see aura to simultaneously observed a series of patients with known diagnoses. In the first series, each of eight healers drew a picture of the colors they saw around each patient and wrote down their interpretations of what they saw. Each one then read out their impressions. No one was more surprised than the healers to find that the divergences in aura observations and in their interpretations were far greater than the overlaps. It was like the blind men and the elephant. Each of the healers had previously believed they saw THE picture of what is going on inside their healees.

Next, each patient responded to their various aura readings. This was a second surprise. The patients resonated with most of the readings, different as they were. There was only one healer whose readings were consistently rejected by the patients.

It was apparent that each healer saw "A" picture rather than "THE" picture of the healee.

We repeated the procedure several months later with a more select group of four healers who had reputations amongst their colleagues for being very advanced in their aura perception abilities. These healers gave many more interpretations in the psycho-spiritual dimensions than the first group. They had the same results as with the first group. The differences were far more prominent than the overlaps, and the patients resonated with aspects of each reading.

David Young and Steven Aung (1997) studied three psychics’ abilities to diagnose the medical conditions of five people with known illnesses. Concurrence of intuitive and medical diagnoses were rated at 6-14% (mean 9%). They conclude that intuitive diagnosis is of limited value, not to be trusted. Kim Jobst, the editor-in-chief of the journal, criticizes their conclusions as being too narrow. Jobst raises many interesting and relevant questions, including the legitimacy of determining the value of intuitive assessment by the yardstick of medical diagnosis.

Controlled Studies of Medical Intuition

There are three very modest controlled studies of intuitive assessment:

Robert Brier, Barry Savits, and Gertrude Schmeidler (1974) studied recent graduates of a Silva Mind Control course for the development ESP. Many graduates who seem intelligent and sincere claim that they can diagnose ailments clairsentiently, given some minimum information about an individual, such as their name. Brier et al. performed two experiments in which a surgeon selected 25 cases and "identified each by first name and initial of last name, age and sex and divided them into five groups so that there was minimal overlap of symptoms among the five members of a given group." Five enthusiastic mind-control graduates each received one group of data and made their clairsentient diagnoses. No significant results were found.

A slight tendency was noted for more positive results in more recent graduates of the Mind Control Program. A second experiment was therefore run with subjects tested on the day after graduation from training. Although the overall results were not significant this was misleading. "Two of the subjects were children, aged 10 and 12, and their readings were meager and uninformative." One subject’s results taken alone were significant (p < .05) and "If the scores of the three older subjects had been examined separately, they would have been significant." Another graduate of the same course volunteered to be tested and also achieved significant results (p < .05).

Alan Vaughan (1974) studied 21 people who had taken the Silva Mind Control course. He obtained from a physician the names of five patients with known illnesses. Subjects received patients’ first names, initials of last names, gender, age and city where they lived. Of the 105 readings, the physician felt that only one "bore a correct diagnostic statement." The physician could not identify beyond chance which of randomized paired readings from two patients of the same sex and similar age belonged to which patient.

Nils Jacobson and Nils Wiklund (1976) studied a teacher (Mr. BA) of the Swedish Mind Dynamic method, which claims that its practitioners learn to diagnose illness at a distance from patients’ names and addresses.

In the first study, one of the experimenters, NW, gathered information on 10 sick male people. Two lists were prepared, each randomized independently. "One contained the names and towns of residence (but not street addresses), and the other contained correct diagnoses. . . ." Both lists, each in a sealed envelope, were given to the other experimenter, NJ, who conducted the study thereafter. N J did not know which name corresponded with which diagnosis. Mr. BA gave verbal diagnoses for each of the named persons, and then also matched the diagnoses from the list with the named persons.

In the second study, the above was repeated with female patients. In addition, NJ knew the correct matching of names and diagnoses. He did not reveal to Mr. BA that he knew them. NJ made every possible effort not to give out any cues. In actuality, the names and diagnoses were invented by NW This subterfuge was unknown to NJ at the time of the experiment.

A check was run on Mr. BA by asking him whether he knew personally any of the ten real people listed in Experiment 1, along with four people whom he presumably knew. He admitted only to knowing one of the latter four.

As he had in Experiment 1, Mr. BA expressed some disappointment that he did not reach his usual level of contact with the target persons. He showed distress and on two occasions asked for a rest. After three hours only seven target persons had been worked through. The work was terminated at this point, as seven trials was a suitable number for the intended statistical procedure. . . seven descriptions were matched with 10 different diagnoses. . . .

In neither experiment was there a correct diagnosis, which could occur purely by chance.

Mr. BA was highly motivated during the experiment. He complained that he usually knew the address of the patient and that the patient or someone who knew the patient was usually present when he made his diagnosis.

Dowsing

The use of various simple instruments held in the hands of the intuitive assessor may facilitate the transfer of information from the unconscious mind to consciousness. Pendulums and dowsing rods may also facilitate the learning of of intuitive assessments, acting as feedback devices that cue practitioners to attend to intuitive awarenesses.

Dowsers may ask their pendulum or other device to identify illnesses in people, animals and plants. They arrive at the answers through a series of yes/no queries or through swinging the pendulum over radially-distributed lists of problems, percents of deficits, doses of medication and the like. When the patient is not present they usually prefer to have a witness, that is any object closely associated with the healees in order to link with them. This may be a lock of hair, a drop of spittle, urine or blood on a piece of blotting paper, a photograph or an object belonging to the healee. Lacking these, the person’s name written on a piece of paper may suffice.

A contribution to energy medicine particular to dowsing is the identification of illnesses that are caused by underground streams or other sources of negative earth energies, called geopathic zones. These are said to stress people who spend time over them, such as when sleeping or working above a geopathic zone (Bachler 1989; Pope 1987).

Sensitive medical dowsers may develop powers of clairsentience so that they need their instruments less or not at all. They simply ask their questions mentally and the answers come to them intuitively.

Skeptics have suggested that dowsers may be well versed in geology and/or keen observers of various cues that they then translate into intuitive impressions projected for whatever reasons onto their devices. Others have hypothesized that dowsers may be extra-sensitive to various EM or other radiations of known type.

Research has confirmed in a modest way some of the claims made by dowsers. Studies show that they can identify earth energy lines and electromagnetic radiations. For instance, studies in Germany summarized by Ilse Pope (1987) showed that particularly negative locations identified by dowsers could be associated with development of cancers in up to ten people who lived successively at these locations.


Hand assessments of healing bioeneergies

Energy field assessments involve the use of intuitives’ hands as instruments for assessing the bioenergy states of patients.

Susan Wright (1988) developed an energy field assessment (EFA) form to identify particular qualities during assessments of the human energy field. This study was set up to develop the validity and reliability of the EFA in assessing the location and intensity of pains, as well as in identifying generalized fatigue and depression.

Wright and an assistant each scanned the energy fields (a process of two to four minutes) of 52 people undergoing chronic pain of various sources. The two examiners noted with each scan sensations of heat, tingling, and cold, as well as any right-left differences in the energy field.

The subjects filled out a demographic questionnaire, the Brief Pain Inventory (BPI) and the Profile of Mood States (POMS). The pair of healers sensing the fields were blind to any information about the people whose fields they sensed and recorded. Of primary interest in the BPI is a drawing of a person, front and back, upon which subjects indicated the locations of their pains by shading in the relevant body parts.

Significant correlations were found between the sensed field abnormality and pains in the neck, upper back, and lower back (high significance: p < .0008-.0000l).

There were not enough subjects with pains at other locations to reach the experimental criterion of p < .01 level of significance through the statistical analysis used. Of note is the additional finding that left shoulder pain assessment was significant at the level of
p < .03 (modest significance).

It is very helpful to have a study confirming with high significance the validity and inter-rater reliability of the sensing of biological energy fields. One would hope to see replications of such a study before drawing any serious conclusions from it.

Unfortunately, there was a significant flaw in the research protocol, which could have allowed the healers access to information by normal sensory means. The report is also incomplete for the assessments of the second healer.

Gary E. Schwartz, Linda G. Russek, and Justin Beltran (1995) noted that various measurable energies of two people may interact when they are close together. For instance, electrical cardiac energy (ECG) interactions occur and may vary with the degree of openness of the participants to interpersonal information. The ECG patterns of each of two people sitting near each other appear in each other’s electroencephalogram (EEG) patterns.

 The researchers also noted that the hands carry direct current (DC) skin potentials, as part of a complex, dynamic energy pattern around the hands and other parts of the body.

Two experiments were performed to establish whether ordinary people who were blindfolded could identify the presence of the hand of an experimenter which was held several inches above one of their hands. (Subjects had no claims to any healing abilities.)

In the first experiment, the subjects’ mean guesses were above chance (58.5 percent; modest significance: p < .02), while estimates of their own performance were 12 percent lower (not significant). Subjects’ mean confidence ratings were higher for correct guesses than for incorrect ones (high significance: p < .004). This suggests that they were partially aware of when their guesses were correct.

In the second experiment, guesses were 69.8 percent correct, significantly above chance (highly significant: p < .00001). Again, estimated performance was 12 percent lower than actual performance.

In the combined experiments, results were highly significant (p < .00005). There were no differences between men and women in percent of successful guessing. Both groups also had higher confidence ratings regarding correct guesses compared to incorrect ones (p < .007).

This study clearly demonstrates significant evidence that ordinary people can sense when another person’s hand is near their own. This supports the claims of healers to be able to sense an energy field around the body.

Schwartz et al. suggest that electrostatic and/or electromagnetic effects may contribute to these sensations.

The mystery of intuitive assessment is truly starting to be addressed through such pioneering work as that of Wright and of Schwartz and colleagues. It is only through methodical confirmations and eliminations of various hypotheses that we will come to understand the true nature of healing.

David Eisenberg et al (2001) studied the abilities of an intuitive diagnostician to identify the presence or absence of organ problems in a convenience sample of 28 infertile women who lacked physical findings and another 9 normal, fertile women. The diagnostician scanned the women with his hands held a few inches away from their bodies. The healer was unsuccessful in identifying the presence or absence of fertility disorders.

In contrast with the last three studies, the next one is of interest primarily for its publication in a prestigious American medical journal, and for its demonstration of the readiness of conventional medical journals to present what they perceive to be negative results of healing studies.

For a fourth grade science fair project, Linda Rosa’s nine-year-old daughter, Emily, did a study of 21 Therapeutic Touch (TT) healers’ abilities to sense biological energy fields (Rosa et al 1998). Fifteen TT healers were tested over several months in 1996 at their offices or homes. The study was published in 1998 in the Journal of the American Medical Association under the title "A Close Look at Therapeutic Touch."

In the study, healers laid their hands on a table, palms up, 25 to 30 cm apart. The experimenter sat opposite them, screened from sight by a tall barrier. Healers inserted their arms through holes at its base, with the further precaution of a towel placed over their arms so that they could not see the experimenter through the arm holes. Each healer was tested 10 times, being allowed to prepare themselves mentally for as long as they wanted before each set of trials. The experimenter held her right hand 8 to 10 cm above one of the healer’s hands (chosen by coin toss) and alerted the healer, who then identified over which of her or his hands the experimenter’s hand was located.

To reach a significance level of p < .04, healers had to identify the targeted hand correctly 8 out of 10 times. In the first series only one healer scored 8, but on a retest scored only 6.

A second series was completed in a single day in 1997 and recorded on videotape by a TV broadcasting crew. Healers were permitted to sense the experimenter field and each also selected which of her hands she would use for their test (seven chose her left hand; six chose her right). Healers identified which of their hands was being tested in 53 out of 131 trials (41 percent). The range of correct responses was 1 to 7.

The healers gave a variety of excuses for their failures.

The 123 correct responses out of 280 trials (44 percent) in the two series obviously did not support claims of healers to be able to sense the energy field. Rosa et al. note that if healers had responded correctly in 2/3 of the trials their results would have been significant at p < .05; if in 3/4 of the trials, at p<.0003. "However, if TT theory is correct, practitioners should always be able to sense the energy field of their patients."

Accuracy would also be expected to correlate with the length of practice of healers. No significant correlation was found in this study between healers’ performance and their levels of experience.

Rosa et al. conclude that TT healers have no ability to sense the biological energy field because the 21 TT healers they studied did not succeed in identifying which of their hands was being tested. "To our knowledge, no other objective, quantitative study involving more than a few TT practitioners has been published, and no well-designed study demonstrates any health benefit from TT."

George D. Lundlberg, M.D., then editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association, concluded that TT is useless as a therapy.

On the face of it, the study by Rosa et al. seriously challenges the ability of healers to sense energy fields. However, the study itself presents its own challenges. It is surprising, for example, that a study done by a 9- to 10-year-old girl would be published in a prestigious medical journal such as this. The standards for accepting research reports in such journals usually require that they must have been performed by a medical practitioner.

The first, third, and fourth authors of this article are self-identified skeptics, the last two being members of an organization called Committee for the Study of the Paranormal. This organization is known to be dedicated to discounting any evidence for the existence of parapsychological phenomena. The methods it uses are not always of the highest scientific standards, and to many observers appear to be deliberately misleading. Several examples of such methods are evident in the study of Rosa et al.

The article looks, at first reading, quite convincing in its damnation of published TT research. It would appear, however, that significant omissions and distortions in the presentation and discussion of the results contradict the authors’ and editor's beliefs (Benor 2001a; 2001b). The sweeping dismissal of TT as a valid therapeutic method by the authors and by the editor of the journal, based upon the evidence of this limited research by a 9- to 10-year-old girl, is patently ridiculous. This study simply explored the ability of healers to sense the energy field of one experimenter under specific test conditions. In no way did it test healing abilities.

Related Research

Ganzfeld Studies

Charles Honorton and others developed the ganzfeld technique for enhancing psi expression. Bland sensory visual and auditory inputs enhance subjects’ abilities in intuitive awareness. Subject sit in a quiet room, viewing diffuse white light through plastic eyepieces and hearing a nondescript hiss (white noise) through earphones. Under these conditions, intuitive, psychic impressions occur more often. Statistical meta-analyses of series of ganzfeld studies show astronomically significant results (Utts 1991).

While the ganzfeld technique has not been used for this purpose, there is every reason to believe it could enhance medical intuition.

Remote viewing focuses largely on inanimate objects, but can overlap with intuitive assessments.

In remote viewing an intuitive sits in a laboratory with an experimenter. Another experimenter goes to a remote place that is randomly chosen from a pool of such locations and revealed to the outward bound experimenter after she leaves the laboratory. The subject then uses her intuitive abilities to describe as many aspects of this location as she can. This experimental format has repeatedly produced significantly positive results in a number of different laboratories (Jahn/Dunne 1987; Puthoff/Targ 1976; Targ/Puthoff 1974). The successful research on remote viewing supports the possibility that healers can diagnose illnesses from a distant location.

Remote viewing has been used for spying (Katra/Puthoff 1999; McMoneagle 1993). In this usage, a second person is present to guide the intuitive and record his perceptions.

This is another possible model for the enhancement of medical intuition.

Radiesthesia

Dowsers may use radionics devices (sometimes affectionately called black boxes) for diagnosis and treatment. These have assortments of dials and compartments for sample specimens from the patient. A rubber diaphragm on the earlier model of the box was rubbed with a finger until a particular sensation was felt, indicating that the machine was tuned to the vibration of the item being sought mentally by the dowser.

Devices with electronic dials plus visual and/or tonal outputs have ushered dowsing into the modern age. They may utilize sealed vials of toxic and medicinal materials instead of the dowser’s mental image as a focus for tuning. A person with chronic tiredness, for example, will be told to hold an electrode of such a dowsing device. As the dowser puts each of a series of vials of toxins in the diagnostic chamber, the operator places an electronic probe on an acupuncture point. The dial will give a reading indicating whether the person has the given chemical present at deficient, normal or toxic levels. Similarly, tests can be made for allergens, vitamin and mineral deficiencies and for predicting efficacies of therapeutic agents.

The operator appears to be an essential link with the instrument with all of these devices, though many dowsers who use them tend to project the responsibility for the results entirely onto the devices. This is patently impossible with the rubber diaphragm, as the boxes have no intrinsic circuitry that would do more than give mental focus and/or feedback to the operator. Some radionics practitioners hypothesize that these devices may, in and of themselves, hold and/or project energies (of as yet unclarified nature) once they are tuned by the practitioner.

Both dowsing and radiesthesia may be parcticed from any distance.
    Further electronic elaborations on these devices have been popularized by Voll and others. It is difficult to assess to what degree these are operator-dependent or operator influenced, but my impression is that the operator is a significant factor in these systems. The very latest in these is postulated to operate through so-called scalar waves (Mercola 2001).

Lessons from Intuitive Awareness

If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?
                                                                            - Albert Einstein

Variability between practitioners

It appears that intuitive sensitives resonate with partial aspects of the people they observe. Each sensitive appears to look into the subject’s inner dwelling place through a different window.

We are must therefore be cautious in accepting any intuitive perceptions as only partly true. It appears that intuitive information is filtered through the deeper layers of the brain/mind in a manner very much similar to how dream materials bring information to the surface of our awareness from our unconscious mind. The various bits are clothed in garments cut out of our personal histories, fantasies, wishes, and anxieties. The end product is quite individual to each of us.

In the modest qualitative experiment is a world of information. I am reminded of the Japanese film, Rashomon, which tells the stories of four witnesses to a murder. Each is so different that it almost seems they have seen four different murders. We have assumed that this is simply the psychological makeup of people which distorts their perceptions and memories of "objective" truth. If there were a film of the actual event, it would be possible to see what really happened. In the realms of subtle energies, it may be more difficult. Not only are there no films of events, but the perceptions of the events and possibly even the events themselves may be shaped by the beliefs and psychological awareness of the perceivers.

Terminology

"Diagnosis" is a medical term denoting a process of logical analysis of details provided through questions and answers, physical examination, and laboratory data. These details are organized into disease categories according to allopathic understanding of health and illness. They are used to rule in or rule out the presence of specific problems, for which specific treatments can be applied.

It could be misleading for an intuitive to presume to be making a diagnosis, unless s/he were trained in medical diagnosis or working together with someone who was so trained. Medicolegal questions could also be raised by the use of this term.

"Intuitive assessment" appears a more accurate and useful term.

Fears of Psi and Boundary Issues

Fears of psi can limit people’s involvement with intuitive assessment, as with any area of psi (Benor 1990; Tart 1986; 1994). There is often concern that intuitives might be able to read the minds of subjects and reveal their secrets.

Feedback

Medical dowsing appears to offer a feedback system that facilitates both the learning and practice of intuitive awareness. These devices are clearly dependent on the fine muscle movements of practitioners. When the string of a pendulum is held in a clamp below the hand of the practitioner, no motion occurs. These devices therefore appear to be variants on the theme of ideomotor responses (term from hypnotherapy), the movements of muscles under guidance of the unconscious mind.

We tend to think of medical intuition as something done only by highly gifted, psychic people. The truth is that everyone has some measure of intuitive abilities. There are simple exercises people can do to develop and enhance their own intuitive awareness. A simple one is to rub your index finger across your thumbnail like a bow across the violin strings, asking yourself, "What does Yes feel like?" and then repeat the process, asking, "What does No feel like?" Many people find this method can rapidly access their intuitive awareness. (Other such exercises are available, drawn from Applied Kinesiology and related practices.)

Practicing intuitive awareness in everyday life can enhance this ability. This can make it a natural part of life, available for times of serious need. It can also demystify it and remove fears.

Cautions

The unconscious mind is extremely literal. The answers you get are shaped by the questions you ask. Be specific, write down your questions verbatim, have several intuitives focus on the same question when serious issues are under consideration.

When asking for intuitive guidance it is important to specify that it should come from the highest possible source.

People who are seriously mentally unstable should not be encouraged to focus on intuitive awareness. This can be destabilizing.
 

Politics and Social Commentary on Intuitive Awareness

In England, radiesthesia and radionics (the use of black boxes for healing) has been accepted, along with other aspects of healing, since their development, early in the last century. In the US, such devices have been strictly prohibited by the Food and Drug Administration, and practitioners have been hounded for practicing medicine without a license.

I would have to suspect that there are financial and political pressures behind these discriminatory practices in the US. The radionics devices in particular hold promise for decreasing the need for medications and pesticides.

Radionics devices have been shown to eliminate pests from crops (Russell 1973).

Theoretical Issues

Intuitive assessments are testimony to the presence and action of non-local mind. They suggest that there are no boundaries, no limits to the reach of the mind.

All verbal observations on intuitive awareness must contain distortions, as they are translations into linear language of information, global impressions, imagery, and feelings that derive from other dimensions.

As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.
                                                             — Albert Einstein

Even in parapsychology, which is the closest science to the heart of intuitive awareness, there is generally what is called in sociology an etic approach. Explanations are based on the Western convictions that modern science can provide "objective," i.e. linear, reductionistic explanations for every phenomenon.

What is needed is an emic approach. Explanation should acknowledge that peoples from cultures other than our own, behaving in manners that are different from ours, and with their own ways of experiencing and conceptualizing the world, usually have their own cultural explanations for their beliefs and behaviors which are equally valid to our own.

Procrustean distortions of intuitive awareness will not bring us closer to understanding them. They will simply make us comfortable in our ignorance, less uncomfortable with the bits and pieces of observations and experiences that do not fit our paradigms (Benor 1990; Benor, in press; Tart 1986).

Ethical Issues

Respect for interpersonal boundaries must be considered in the ethical practice of intuitive assessment. Several of the healing organizations have developed codes of practice that include ethical considerations.

Broader Applications of Intuitive Awareness

Logical thinking, reified by Western science as the epitome of human evolution, has distinct limitations (to put it in very mild British understatement). Linear reasoning starts with hypotheses, often unstated; more often even unnoticed and unacknowledged by proponents of theories and plans for solving humanity’s problems. Intuitive awareness reaches into dimensions of wisdom where logical thinking often cannot begin to visit – first of all because it assumes it has THE answers rather than AN answer. Logical thinking is either-or. Intuitive awareness is both-and.

Intuitive awareness reaches into dimensions of consciousness that we have labeled as mystical and spiritual. Both of these terms carry connotations (within linear reasoning) that are pejoratively negative and dismissive. These are realms of creativity, inspiration, and guidance from wisdom that is higher than that of any individual, that reaches into the collective wisdom of man across space and time, and that also reaches higher than the collective of all of mankind.

This awareness, exemplified in the Native American tradition of considering the effects of decisions on the seventh generation in the future, holds a promise of helping mankind solve the problems that threaten our very existence on this planet.
 

Summary

This is but the tip of a very large intuitive iceberg. Many sleuths will be needed to sort out this part of the mystery. Yin and yang may be far more accurate ways of acknowledging the space between the notes, wherein realities are perceived and created every moment by each of us.

The applications for intuitive awareness are of enormous potential. Medical diagnosis can be facilitated significantly. Further research is sorely needed in this area.

Broader acceptance of intuitive awareness could contribute to transforming societal attitudes towards spiritual dimensions of life.

*Summaries on energy field assessments were taken from Benor 2001(a).

References

Alvarado, Carlos S./ Zingrone, Nancy L.: Individual differences in aura vision: relationships to visual imagery and imaginative-fantasy experiences, European Journal of Parapsychology, 1994, 10, 1-30.

Bachler, Kathe, Earth Radiation: The Startling Discoveries of a Dowser, Manchester, UK: Wordmasters 1989.

Benor, Daniel J. Intuition: Discussion of pattern recognition and psi awareness, International Journal of Healing and Caring, May 2002, Volume 2, No. 2
http://www.ijhc.org/FreeJournal/Homepage-2-2.asp

Benor, Daniel J, Intuitive Diagnosis, Subtle Energies 1992, 3(2), 41-64, posted at Articles/IntuitDx.htm.

Benor, Daniel J. Spiritual healing and psychotherapy, The Therapist 1994, 1(4), 37-39. Copy posted at: s