| |
Very basic life forms, such
as bacteria, are clearly pertinent to our well-being,
and a number of experiments explored whether individuals
can affect their growth rate. In France, for example,
Dr. Jean Barry, sought to determine whether subjects
could inhibit the growth of a disease-causing fungus.
The fungus was cultivated in petri dishes, in a
laboratory incubator, with careful controls of the
genetic purity of the fungus and the composition of the
culture medium. Environmental conditions, like
temperature, humidity and lighting, were identical for
‘influence’ vs ‘control’ dishes; the handling of the
dishes and measurement of results was performed by
individuals who were not otherwise involved in the
experiment.
Ten subjects participated in the study. Seated about 5
feet away from the dishes, each person attempted to
mentally affect the ‘influence’ dishes, for about 15
minutes. At the end of the experiment, the cultures were
all weighed; if the ‘influnce’ dish weighed less than
its control, then a ‘hit’ was recorded (‘influenced’
bacteria indeed grew less); otherwise the experimental
trial was a ‘miss’. Normally, then, we would expect a
random ‘50-50’ distribution of hits and misses. In fact,
in about 75% of the comparisons, the ‘influence’ dishes
were lighter than the controls, showing a clear cut
mental effect of the subjects on the bacteria.
This experiment was later repeated in the U.S. at the
University of Tennessee by an American group of
researchers. Here, subjects attempted to affect the
petri dishes from large distances (up to 10 miles away).
Nevertheless, the results confirmed the findings of
Barry: subjects apparently could inhibit bacteria growth
simply by mental concentration or visualization.
One of the most interesting laboratory healing
experiments, by Dr. William Braud, involved the most
vital juice of life - blood . The question was whether a
psychic could ‘protect’ red blood cells from the
destructive effects of a toxic environment. For each
experimental session, a few drops of human blood would
be placed in a saline solution. The differences in
osmotic pressure between the inside of the cell and its
surroundings ‘stresses’ the cell walls, which quickly
explode; the blood cells’ haemoglobin then escapes into
the surrounding solution. Thus, as more and more blood
cells die, the appearance of the blood/saline solution
changes from cloudy and opaque to clear, allowing more
light to pass through. In this way, a spectrophotometer
can constantly measure the process of cell destruction.
Over the course of ten trials, the psychic Mathew
Manning attempted to prevent the solution from becoming
clear (the sign that the cells were exploding and
dying). Overall, compared to ‘control’ test tubes, the
rate of destruction was indeed significantly lower for
the ‘influence’ tubes. What was most striking was that
the difference was strongest in the very last trial, in
which Manning was separated from the apparatus,
attempting to affect it from a distant room.
Braud later repated this same experiment with 30
‘normal’ subjects, who claimed no psychic gift. This
time, all trials were conducted at a distance: the
spectrophotometer apparatus and the test-tubes were in
one room, and subjects were in a distant room, observing
the progress of the results through signals coming from
the spectrophotometer. While all subjects did not
succeed in retarding blood cell-breakdown, a third of
them did, and the overall results were highly
significant. Once again, by comparison with the control
test tubes, ‘influence’ tubes took a much longer time to
become transparent - that is, the influenced cells
‘resisted’ breakdown a much longer time.
|
|
|
|
|
Become a
PA Member