Non-Local Consciousness and the Revolution In Medicine : Part 2

Healing Our Planet, Healing Our Selves: The Power of change Within to Change the World
by Dawson Church, Geralyn Gendreau

(Page 2 of 4)

Our national culture needs less a dramatic shift in our programs, private or public, than it needs a shift in consciousness. The programs that have been advanced during the last few years, notably the Kyoto Protocol, have had great difficulty gaining traction in the U.S. The problem is not only the actual physical pollutants unleashed by our activities, but also our unwillingness as a nation to muster the will to do anything about it. The problem is not a failure of programs; we have plenty of those. We have plenty of intelligence and ingenuity, but we are suffering a failure of will. We need to muster the will, the vision, and the initiative to dig in and do something. We're like a nation of anesthetized zombies, sleepwalkers, stuck in deep emotional mud, unable to find the vision to motivate ourselves.

Fundamental shifts are occurring in certain areas of science if one knows where to look for the indicators. They portend a huge transition in the way we see ourselves in terms of connectedness with the world. The area that excites me most, personally and professionally, is the evidence that our consciousness can make concrete changes in the world. Ancient wisdom held this to be true, but it is new to modern science. Many controlled clinical trials of distant healing make it quite clear that our thoughts, intentions and prayers can help heal the world. We can do this at a distance, we can do this volitionally, we can do this through our intentions and good wishes, and so we're not as helpless as we might think. These studies show clearly that we can change the state of the physical world by our thoughts, to say nothing of our actions. This opens up a huge new horizon of personal empowerment.

These studies show clearly that we can change the state of the physical world by our thoughts, to say nothing of our actions.

The studies in distant intentionality and healing fall into two different categories. One group, like the Duke University study, examines the restoration of bodily health. The other group studies fertility. If I were designing an ability through which consciousness could interact with the world, I'd select these two categories. What is environmental action if not an effort to heal the earth and increase its fertility? Studies in distant healing examine precisely those factors: Helping restore health in human beings (and sometimes other species), and increasing fertility.

One particular fertility study is very simple, and profoundly positive. Performed by Columbia Medical School in New York City, the study focused on women suffering from infertility. The triple blind study was designed so that the doctors and the patients involved didn't even know a study was going on. The subjects of this study were visiting a fertility clinic in Seoul, South Korea. The patients were undergoing a technique called in vitro fertilization and embryo transfer, in an attempt to have a baby.

The doctors at Columbia initiated this study, and didn't inform the doctors and patients in Korea that the study was in progress. They recruited people in Canada, Australia and the United States to pray for a successful pregnancy in the women in the experimental group. The women in the control group were not assigned prayer. The results were startling. The women who received the prayers had twice the successful pregnancy rate as the women who were in the control group. There is less than one chance in a thousand this result could be explained by ascribing it to chance.

As one of the most elegant studies that has been done in this field, the Columbia fertility experiment is profoundly important. It ought to raise the eyebrows of anyone who is interested in fertility, not just in women, but in the earth itself. Bernard Grad, at McGill University in Canada, is a pioneer in nonhuman studies, which I consider to be of Nobel quality and significance. He points out similar remarkable increases in the germination rate of seeds, which is another form of fertility, and the growth rate of plants and seedlings. The nonhuman studies are immensely important because they bypass so many of the objections of critics in this field, such as the placebo response.

Beginning in the 1980s, researchers began to examine the correlations between religious and spiritual conduct, and how long people lived and how healthy they were. Currently we have upwards of 1,200 studies that explore the relationship between religious practices, and health and longevity. This is a huge database. The results are not trivial. These studies show a consistent pattern. Those people who follow some sort of religious path (it doesn't seem to matter which one they pick) live, on average, seven to thirteen years longer than those who do not. They have a lower incidence of virtually every disease, including the major killers of our day such as heart disease and cancer. One of the reasons that medical schools have begun to take notice is because of such data. It is becoming clear to most scholars and academics in medicine that we are no longer justified in not speaking about this effect of religious and spiritual practices on health. There are few things that doctors can recommend to patients that add seven to thirteen years to their life expectancy. This is a huge effect. To withhold this information and advice from patients is unethical and may constitute medical malpractice.

People who follow some sort of religious path live, on average, seven to thirteen years longer than those who do not. They have a lower incidence of virtually every disease.

The reasons for this effect are several. Living within a rich social network-which most religious people do-promotes health. A positive health effect also comes with having a sense of meaning and purpose in life. Religious people may pay more attention to diet, and may avoid excessive smoking and drinking. When you put all these factors together, the incremental effects are significant. But where disagreement with the biomedical model opens up is when we begin assert that prayer works in and of itself.

© 2005 by Dawson Church and Geralyn Gendreau