An Extensive Laboratory Study of Pranic Healing Using Contemporary Medical Imaging and Laboratory Methods

SUMMARY The objective of our long term study, conducted over the past decade, was to critically evaluate Pranic Healing in a laboratory setting using rigorous mainstream scientific methods. In this study, we investigated possible mediation effects of Pranic Healing on human cells in culture, which had been subjected to gamma radiation. We chose human HeLa cells for our study since radiation survival rates are well known for such cells and this laboratory model is well established and well characterized for radiation effects studies. Here the goal of the Pranic Healers involved in our study was to alter the effects of radiation and enhance the survival rates of the HeLa cells. In 520 experiments using 10 different Pranic Healers, typical survival rates increased from an expected 50% for untreated cells to over 90% for cells treated both before and after radiation. The distance between the healer and the cells proved unimportant. Shielding the cells and the healer from electromagnetic radiation, including gamma rays, had no effect on the results. The experience of the healer proved to be slightly important. Four experiments involving groups of Pranic Healers, suggests that group healing enhances the desired effect. Even though these results are remarkable, healers produced no effect whatever in about 12% of the total runs. Although the reasons for these failures are not fully understood, further experimentation indicates that appropriate preparation of the laboratory space is essential to produce a significant outcome. That is, poorer results are seen in a dirty environment. All of these experiments involved two people directly: a Pranic Healer and a person that managed the cells in culture. A new series of experiments involved three people directly: a Pranic Healer, a person that managed the cells, and a third person that observed the process. This third person telephoned a favorite charity during the treatment of the cells and made a donation to this charity using their credit card, willing that any good karma that came to them because of the donation be directed to the cells in culture and to their recovery from the effects of radiation. At this point, 100 such experiments have now been conducted. Although the cell survival rates did not improve from those of the earlier experiments, the failure rate dropped significantly from 12 % to 4%. These experiments represent, to the best of our knowledge, the first experimental observation and measurement of karmic intervention. Finally, using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we have measured neurophysiological changes in subjects treated by a Pranic Healer. Shielding both the healer and the subject from all forms of radiation had no effect on the results, even when the two were separated by a great distance. Our long term study, the details of which will be published shortly in the mainstream scientific literature, clearly shows that Pranic Healing can reverse the effects of radiation on cells in culture, that the healing process is enhanced by a suitable environment, and that karmic intervention can be directed to improve the probabilities of success. Scientifically, these findings are quite remarkable and are difficult if not impossible to explain in terms of the standard scientific paradigm. A Newtonian physics world view, which serves as the basis for contemporary biology and Western medicine, is incapable of explaining these experimental results; however, the data are quite consistent with a quantum mechanical world view.