Spiritual Mechanisms of Energy Healing: Applications of Mediumship and After-Death Communications Research

An integrative whole person approach to understanding mechanisms of healing -especially energy healing - requires that certain controversial spiritual experiences in healers and patients be included as potential sources of clinical effects. Energy healers often report that intuition and spiritual guidance plays an important role in determining the healing techniques thev employ. Well known spiritual healers like John of God, aided by a dedicated circle of mediums, purportedly channel over thirty deceased surgeons. It is possible to conduct controlled systematic research on spirit-assisted healing using contemporary experimental designs - including triple-blind studies - developed in ongoing mediumship experiments in the Human Energy Svstems Laboratory at the University of Arizona. Recent findings from an ongoing clinical outcomes study in the Center for Frontier Medicine in Biofield Science illustrates the potential role that the experience of after death-communications in patients has in reducing depression and pain following cardiac surgery.