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HEALING RESEARCH - Volume II
Consciousness, Bioenergy and Healing
BOOK OF THE YEAR
The Scientific and Medical Network (UK)
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A full review of this book would take many pages. This is unequivocally the encyclopedia of evidence for self-healing, a port for holistic, complementary, and alternative medicine approaches, and a look at an overview of subtle energy, especially looking at the human energy field and environmental electromagnetic energy, cosmos-biology and even astrology.
In Volume I, Dr. Benor summarized an extensive body of research confirming claims by spiritual healers that they can "effect improvements in the health of the healees who flock to them, suffering from all the ailments known to human kind."
This book in his Healing Research series continues to address the question, "How does healing work?" I have never seen a more concise but adequate definition of personality disorders, neuroses, and psychoses. The book is worthwhile just from that point of view alone. There is a discussion of physical symptoms addressed by psychotherapy, as well as by bodywork and by bioenergy therapy. There is a good overview of psychological conditioning and behavioral therapy. Body/mind therapy, spiritual healing, hypnosis, biofeedback, transpersonal psychology, and even spontaneous remissions are addressed. The emphasis is very much on the fact that "The world is not all in the mind. It would be more accurate to suggest that the mind is all in the world. That is part of the world, in fact, because we are intimately involved." (Lyle Watson)
Finally the 168 pages of references alone make this the richest single resource available to us in this field.
C. Norman Shealy, M.D., Ph.D.
President, Holos Institutes of Health, Inc.
President, Holos University Graduate Seminary
http://www.shealyhealthnet.com/
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Someone recently gave me a copy of 'A Short History of Nearly Everything' by Bill Bryson � an excellent read should you want to know more about the origins of the earth and cosmos and don't have a degree in astrophysics! Dan Benor's book is equally comprehensive in that is covers everything you wanted to know about consciousness, bioenergy and healing. This second volume, is one of four volumes he has written in this area and have been very much a labour of love. Indeed, you would be hard pressed to find anything as well researched and documented. The reference section alone in this particular volume runs to 136 pages, not to mention the 41 pages of Notes!
All four volumes explore wholistic spiritual healing � 'treatment by the laying on of hands and by mental intent/meditation/prayer'. Whilst volume one, 'Scientific Validation of a Healing Revolution', reviews much of the published research on spiritual healing, this second volume looks more at the way in which people can heal themselves or can be helped to heal through complementary and alternative medicine (CAM). As such, there is also a popular edition entitled 'How can I heal what hurts?'. The third volume 'Science, Spirit and the Eternal Soul' explores studies of consciousness, in particular out of body and near death experiences, and the issue of objectivity � the influence observers have on experimental outcome. Volume four brings together the information presented in all three preceding volumes and provides a range of theories and models to try and explain the whole process of spiritual healing. Given the ground covered it is perhaps no small wonder that all four volumes have been more than twenty years in gestation.
In launching into the many forms of CAM, Benor takes it as a given that spiritual healing does exist (two thirds of the 191 studies reviewed in volume one were found to demonstrate significant effects of healing). The volume, 'Consciousness, Bioenergy & Healing', attempts to address further the question of 'how does healing work?' in relation to three different areas � self healing (Chapter 1, 145 pages), wholistic energy medicine (Chapter 2, some 235 pages) in which a detailed overview is given of the whole spectrum of CAM therapies from acupuncture through to water therapies (eg hydrotherapy) and in Chapter 3 (50 pages) research undertaken to establish the existence of a human energy field. Chapter 4 (40 pages) examines the data to support the idea that biological fields, with which healing is purported to interact, may also be affected by fields in the natural environment, geo-biological effects.
As the above page lengths indicate, the bulk of this book focuses on the body's ability to heal itself, the circumstances in which this occurs and the various CAM therapies where this healing potential is brought to the fore and maximized. It is this bulk - and there is such a wealth of it - which is both the book's weakness as well as its strength. At several times when reading it, I found myself asking for a simple route map on how the information presented all fitted together � I couldn't always see the wood for the many trees, shrubs and nuggets of information which kept coming up before me. Perhaps some of the explanations I wanted will be presented in volume four. That said though, this is the kind of book you almost will never finish there is so much in it which needs to be revisited many times over. It certainly provides the jumping off point for further research. A case in point is that I was fascinated to read under the section on hypnosis (page 79), that studies conducted in the eighties found that when �one 'member' of a multiple personality is allergic, diabetic, cross-eyed, exhausted or in other ways physically debilitated, other personalities in that same individual may not exhibit these physical conditions at all, or not to the same degree.� So the same physical body can manifest almost totally different symptoms, depending on the mind-set that has been invoked. Such was my interest in this statement that I ordered the references cited in the references section. Whilst the articles pointed to some of the above, each had the usual caveat applied of further research being required. My interest though has been caught and continues.
Benor's major contribution in compiling these volumes � like Bill Bryson � is to make a whole wealth of information more accessible to the reader who wants to discover more about the scientific underpinnings of healing. I for one, am enormously grateful that he has done so, as I'm sure will be many others.
Dr Peter Davies (Dean of School)
School of Integrated Health, University of Westminster
115 New Cavendish Street, London W1W 6UW
tel: 020-7911-5038 fax: 020-7911-5028
e-mail: daviesp@westminster.ac.uk
July 2005
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Gunnel Minett, Consciouisness, Bioenergy and Healing
Review published in Network, Journal of the Scientific and Medical Network, UK; No. 87, Spring, 2005, p. 50; also in Breathe, UK
This book offers a very thorough and comprehensive overview of all the alternative healing methods available today. It is written in a accessible and objective style, presenting both positive and negative aspects of each techniques by someone with a real passion for his subject. As well as being a medical doctor, the author Daniel Benor is Founding Diplomat of the American Board of Holistic Medicine and editor of the International Journal of Healing and Caring (www.ijhc.org).
Chapter one deals with self-healing and provides among others an introduction to Psychodynamics and Psychopathology, Normality and Psychosomatic Disorder, the body's regulating system, physical symptoms addressed by Psychotherapy and psychological conditioning. For every topic it provides an overview of research done in each area and well as problems and weaknesses.
Chapter two looks at Wholistic Energy Medicine. It starts by examining allopathic medicine (or conventional medicine), its strength and weakness and moves on to addressing the issue of qualitative versus quantitative assessment and integrative medicine and whole person care and wholistic care. It also provides a thorough overview of a number of alternative therapies, including yoga, kinesiology, aromatherapy, biofeedback, ayurvedic medicine, breathwork and acupuncture etc.
Chapter three presents the Human Energy Field covering the aura, Kirlian photography, laboratory measurements of Biological Energy Fields etc. This area in particular is extremely exciting for all alternative therapies since modern technology can do a lot to confirm what healers and therapists of all kinds have known intuitively throughout history. Our increased understanding of the human energy fields may ultimately also provide us with answers to eternal questions of how the universe was created and what its driving force is.
Chapter four deals with Geobiological effects. Here we learn about the environment in which we live and how it effects us. We get a presentation of Cosmobiology and Astrology as well as the effects of ley lines.
To find such a comprehensive and well researched overview of alternative therapies and self-healing is a real gift. Apart from being a very interesting read, it is a book that will function as well as an encyclopaedia for all working therapists as well as their clients.
The book is also available on CD-Rom.
Gunnel Minett
Psychologist, Author of Breath & Spirit and Exhale
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"The first thing I always do with a book like this is turn to the section on craniosacral therapy. For once I wasn't disappointed -- there are nine pages devoted to CST from a well-informed, favourable viewpoint. Franklyn Sills's writing on the principles of healing is referred to as 'among the finest [examples] in the literature of spiritual healing.' This cheered me up immensely. I then went on to read the rest of the book and it is clearly explained and well written with good referencing and indexing throughout. There are interesting and extensive explanations of all the forms of holistic medicine I have heard of as well as many I haven't.
This book is one of a series of four which has taken 23 years to research and write. If you want what is mainly an encyclopaedia of complementary medicine, you couldn't find better. As well as the descriptions of methodology, from transpersonal psychotherapy and psychoneuroimmunology to hypnotherapy and herbalism there are sections on ethical issues and how to select a therapy as well as extensive descriptions of different perspectives on the human and environmental energy fields. 700 pages of information that manage to be precise, comprehensive and easily understandable."
Mij Ferrett, Editor of The Fulcrum, a publication of the Craniosacral Therapy Association of the United Kingdom:
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eBook: $9.95
