Click here to support the Daily Grail for as little as $US1 per month on Patreon

Compassion Heals?

Parapsychology researcher Dr Dean Radin has posted a summary of a newly published scientific paper (which he co-authored) to his blog: “Compassionate Intention as a Therapeutic Intervention by Partners of Cancer Patients” (subtitle: “Effects of Distant Intention on the Patients’ Autonomic Nervous System”):

Objective: This double-blind study investigated the effects of intention on the autonomic nervous system of a human “sender” and distant “receiver” of those intentions, and it explored the roles that motivation and training might have in modulating these effects.

While it’s a little strong to use the word “healing”, the results of this study do seem to suggest that ‘intention’ may have an effect on the autonomic system of the ‘target’:

Results: Overall, receivers’ skin conductance increased during the intention epochs (z = 3.9; p < 0.00009, two-tailed). Planned differences in skin conductance among the three groups were not significant, but a post hoc analysis showed that peak deviations were largest and most sustained in the trained group, followed by more moderate effects in the wait group, and still smaller effects in the control group. Conclusions: Directing intention toward a distant person is correlated with activation of that person’s autonomic nervous system. Strong motivation to heal and to be healed, and training on how to cultivate and direct compassionate intention, may further enhance this effect.

The full paper is published in the July/August edition of Explore.

Editor
  1. Theory, please
    Radin is a brilliant experimental designer, and this is only the latest in a series of tests he’s done that show clearly that distant intention can affect the automatic functions of another person’s body. It’s exciting stuff, but given all the work that’s been done, I think it might be time to consider the evidence solid and start developing a theoretical basis for WHY and HOW this occurs.

    1. Good point
      Indeed, I was thinking about the same thing, but I realize it may be too premature to do that right now.

      After all, man knew about the properties of electricity since the time of the greeks, when they discovered about static electricity by rubbing several objects of different materials with cloth or wool. It took thousands of years for science to come up with theories about why this phenomenon occurred; and those theories and their practical applications changed the world, slowly at first when electricity was seen as a parlor trick, and frenetically in our days.

      Who knows what doors these experiments might open, but first the scientific establishment must acknowledge the validity of such inquiries, and that I’m afraid will still take some time.

      —–
      It’s not the depth of the rabbit hole that bugs me…
      It’s all the rabbit SH*T you stumble over on your way down!!!

      Red Pill Junkie

    2. Running out of Road
      [quote=pacificwhim]It’s exciting stuff, but given all the work that’s been done, I think it might be time to consider the evidence solid and start developing a theoretical basis for WHY and HOW this occurs.[/quote]

      This is where our physical sciences run of of road. I don’t want to be a spoiler here, but I don’t think that any theoretical basis for these findings can ever be demonstrated objectively, because the phenomena (and everything else we call ‘paranormal’) is likely due to the existence of natural laws that transcend the physical world. Findings such as these suggest the presence of a higher order of existence related to consciousness itself.

      This is just another example of the mysteries of consciousness, and the theoretical basis behind these findings has been articulated long ago, surviving most clearly today in the Eastern schools of thought. In essence, the proposition is that we exist within an ultimately subjective, inside-out reality that has every appearance of an objective, outside-in reality. The proof of a subjective foundation of reality forever remains in the realm of individual realization. It can be known by anyone, but never demonstrated to another once known, though it can be pointed to.

      Woo-woo! 🙂

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Mobile menu - fractal