The healing connection: ancient insights, modern discoveries and future implications for the health care professions
The healing connection: ancient insights, modern discoveries and future implications for the health care professions
Issue Date
1985
Authors
Bugaj, Ronald
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Abstract
Healing through touch is an ancient therapeutic art which has intrigued the human mind and spirit since the beginning of civilization. This treatise comprehensively examines the historical and contemporary scientific evidence for the phenomenon that human touch, energized by mind and intention, can facilitate the healing process and promote health.
The historical review includes consideration of a Paleolithic cave painting of a shaman in Spain, medical papyri in Egypt, votive tablets in Greece, and documented references within the Hebrew and Christian Testaments. Additional documentation of this therapeutic practice among Christian saints, kings and queens of England and France, and other Post-Reformation healers including Paracelsus, Mesmer and Esdaile is presented.
Recent investigative findings of laboratory studies on "laying-on-ofhands" healing by several independent research investigators are reviewed. In addition, related results of the effects of psychokinesis on biological organisms in parapsychology and the effects of specific psychosocial qualities on therapeutic effectiveness in psychotherapy are examined. These findings provide support for the phenomenon of mind perturbing matter, and more important, that touch, combined with intention, can be a healing force.
Discoveries in modern quantum physics, the life sciences, behavior medicine, and consciousness studies are presented which require a reassessment and revision of traditional philosophical perspectives and theoretical constructs regarding our views of reality, human nature, and the therapeutic relationship.
These research findings provide scientific support for the emerging holistic health paradigm and a model of reality which implies that we are all interconnected with one another and with all other things in the universe. The implications of these research developments for expanding and advancing education, training and practice within the health care professions are considered.
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Keywords
Healing , Touch