Therapies and the NHS
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The NHS and Complementary Therapies
The following article appeared on Daily Mail website:
Could spiritual healing actually work?
By Dr DANNY PENMAN
Healer Ruth Kaye is employed by the NHS
Once dismissed as hokum, new evidence is forcing doctors to accept the power of spiritual
healing. Click here to see why the laying on of hands may not be quackery after all:
After six years of agonising pain, Ailsa Marsh was beginning to despair that she would ever
lead a normal life again. 'I was bedridden and couldn't leave the house,' recalls the
28-year-old student.
'All of my senses became hypersensitive. If somebody spoke to me, it felt as if they were
shouting. I couldn't bear the light so my parents hung duvets over the windows. Even lying in
bed was painful.'
Ailsa's suffering began in 1998 following a bout of glandular fever. At the time she was a
politics and philosophy student at Durham University. But the disease robbed her of drive and
energy, eventually forcing her to return home to her parents in Newcastle.
Over the following months she became weaker and weaker and was eventually diagnosed
with ME. Conventional medicine offered no hope. Ailsa saw more than 20 doctors and was
hospitalised countless times. The doctors could find no cause for the ME and could offer no
cure.
Then in January 2004, quite by chance, Ailsa read an article about the spiritual healer David
Cunningham. 'I'd tried everything else,' she says, 'so I thought I might as well go and see him.
'I didn't know what to expect, but he listened intently to me for half an hour and then put on a
tape of soothing music.
'As I began to relax, David placed his hands about a centimetre above my shoulders. I felt as
if he was putting his hands inside me and untwisting a tap. The pain just vanished - it went in
an instant. That day, I left David with more energy than I'd had in six years.'
Over the following four months, Ailsa returned every week. Within a few months she was able
to go shopping and walk from one side of Newcastle to the other.
'That summer, I went on a family holiday and there's pictures of me doing handstands in the
sea. I'd gone from being in a wheelchair to being able to do all the normal things a woman
of my age could do.'
Although Ailsa is utterly convinced that David Cunningham cured her of ME, many others are
sceptical. How can a man with no medical training treat a chronic painful disease merely by
placing his hands over a patient's body? For decades, researchers have dismissed cases such
as Ailsa's as pure hokum.
But now, in an astonishing about-turn, scientists in the U.S. and UK have compiled a dossier
of evidence that might - just might - show that prayer and spiritual healing are not just
quackery after all.
Professor Harald Walach, a psychologist from the University of Northampton, says: 'We should
take this phenomenon seriously even if we don't understand it. To ignore it would be
unscientific. Our work shows that there is a significant effect.'
For despite it being the most widely practised alternative remedy, science has only recently
begun to investigate whether spiritual healing actually works. Scientists and doctors simply
assumed that it didn't.
One of the first attempts to investigate healing focused on its flip side: the curse. In the late
1960s, U.S. Scientists decided to see whether focusing vindictive and negative thoughts on a
small sample of mould - chosen because it is one of the most primitive living organisms -
could somehow inhibit its growth.
Astonishingly, out of 194 mould samples 'cursed', 151 showed retarded growth.
Another group of scientists began researching whether thought power alone could be used in
a positive way, to help diseased animals. Experiments revealed that mice wake faster after a
general anaesthetic if healing thoughts are 'sent' their way.
In other studies, mice recovered faster and more completely from a form of breast cancer if
healers 'laid on hands' while sending them positive thoughts and energy.
So if healing helps ailing lab animals, might it also help the sick to recover faster? Surprising
as it seems, there's growing evidence that it might.
According to cardiologist Dr Randolph Byrd at San Francisco General Hospital, heart patients
who are prayed for by Christian groups need less medicine and suffer fewer complications.
Other scientists have found similarly inexplicable results. In virtually every area they have
looked, scientists have found evidence that praying for the sick helps them recover faster.
For example, studies at the California Pacific Medical Centre on Aids patients found that
they survive in greater numbers, become sick less often and recover faster than those who are
not prayed for.
Professor Walach, a psychologist at the University of Northampton, recently conducted an
exhaustive analysis of all the data and came to the conclusion that spiritual healing really
does work. He is gaining powerful supporters, too.
Professor Peter Fen-wick, a consultant neuro-psychiatrist at King's College London, has
studied the phenomenon and says: 'There are four possibilities.
'Either we're dealing with fraud on a massive scale; or large numbers of able and gifted
researchers are simply wrong; or hundreds of reports disproving healing haven't been
published. All these seem unlikely, so we're left with the possibility that the effect is real.'
'Now we need to move on and understand what "healing" is and how it works. And we're
starting to do just that.'
Dean Radin, a parapsychologist working at the Institute of Noetic Sciences in California, is in
the vanguard of this research. He has found compelling evidence that one person's positive
healing thoughts has a noticeable impact on another's mind and body.
Radin focused his work on couples, one of whom had cancer, reasoning that any 'psychic'
connection would be strongest between people who loved each other. He trained the healthy
partner to cultivate and project positive healing thoughts towards their ailing loved one.
To help eliminate pure chance, the healthy partner was asked to send the healing 'energy' at
a time randomly chosen by computer.
The results were both amazing and startling. At the precise moment the healthy partner
transmitted the healing thoughts, remarkable changes occurred in the mind and body of their
ailing partner. Their breathing and blood flow increased significantly, while their brain and
skin electrical activity changed dramatically. Clearly something profound was happening.
'Patients described having a warm feeling inside,' says Dr Radin. 'Whether this promotes
healing remains to be seen.'
The NHS already employs healers to help seriously ill and dying patients. Ruth Kaye is a
healer at the Yorkshire Centre for Clinical Oncology in Leeds. She has spent the past 16 years
spiritually healing patients in the NHS. Her aim is to augment conventional medicine and to
help eliminate the side-effects of such treatments as chemotherapy.
'The spirit is the missing link that medicine does not address, but it is the key and secret of
life,' she says. 'One of my patients described my work as being one part of a three-legged
stool.
'There is the medicine, which is one leg, the surgery, and finally the spirit. Without the spirit
element, the stool would fall over.
'Patients who use things like spiritual healing often use fewer drugs and are less reliant on
antidepressants or sleeping tablets. In short, they are less of a drain on an over-stretched NHS.'
Jenny Quantrell, who successfully underwent treatment for breast cancer, says she was
helped enormously by Ruth.
'Ruth has a special gift. I simply closed my eyes when she was healing me and I saw loads of
bright lights. It felt as if I was having my battery recharged.
'I hadn't slept for days, but afterwards I fell into the most wonderful relaxing sleep. I don't know
how it works but I know that it does. I don't need to understand it.'
And that's perhaps all the faith you need to benefit from this most mysterious phenomenon.
Donovan is able to offer similar services, why not contact him to discuss your
case.
House of Lords Report
The House of Lords Science and Technology Committee, sixth report On complementary
medicine divided therapies into three separate groups.
Group One embraces what may be called the principal disciplines, two of which, Osteopathy
and Chiropractic, are already regulated in their professional activity and education by Acts of
Parliament. The others are Acupuncture, Herbal Medicine and Homeopathy. Their evidence
indicated that each of these therapies claim to have an individual diagnostic approach and
that these therapies are seen as the 'Big 5' by most of the CAM world.
Group Two contains therapies which are most often used to complement conventional
medicine and do not purport to embrace diagnostic skills. It includes Aromatherapy, The
Alexander Technique, Body Work therapies, including Massage, Counselling, Stress therapy,
Hypnotherapy, Reflexology and probably Shiatsu, Meditation and Healing.
Group Three embraces those other disciplines which purport to offer diagnostic information
as well as treatment and which, in general, favour a philosophical approach and are
indifferent to the scientific principles of conventional medicine, and through which various
and disparate frameworks of disease causation and its management are proposed.
These therapies can be split into two sub-groups:
Group 3a includes long-established and traditional systems of health care such as Ayurvedic
medicine and Traditional Chinese medicine.
Group 3b covers other alternative disciplines which lack any credible evidence base such as
Crystal therapy, Iridology, Radionics, Dowsing and Kinesiology.
The following article appeared on Daily Mail website:
Could spiritual healing actually work?
By Dr DANNY PENMAN
Healer Ruth Kaye is employed by the NHS
Once dismissed as hokum, new evidence is forcing doctors to accept the power of spiritual
healing. Click here to see why the laying on of hands may not be quackery after all:
After six years of agonising pain, Ailsa Marsh was beginning to despair that she would ever
lead a normal life again. 'I was bedridden and couldn't leave the house,' recalls the
28-year-old student.
'All of my senses became hypersensitive. If somebody spoke to me, it felt as if they were
shouting. I couldn't bear the light so my parents hung duvets over the windows. Even lying in
bed was painful.'
Ailsa's suffering began in 1998 following a bout of glandular fever. At the time she was a
politics and philosophy student at Durham University. But the disease robbed her of drive and
energy, eventually forcing her to return home to her parents in Newcastle.
Over the following months she became weaker and weaker and was eventually diagnosed
with ME. Conventional medicine offered no hope. Ailsa saw more than 20 doctors and was
hospitalised countless times. The doctors could find no cause for the ME and could offer no
cure.
Then in January 2004, quite by chance, Ailsa read an article about the spiritual healer David
Cunningham. 'I'd tried everything else,' she says, 'so I thought I might as well go and see him.
'I didn't know what to expect, but he listened intently to me for half an hour and then put on a
tape of soothing music.
'As I began to relax, David placed his hands about a centimetre above my shoulders. I felt as
if he was putting his hands inside me and untwisting a tap. The pain just vanished - it went in
an instant. That day, I left David with more energy than I'd had in six years.'
Over the following four months, Ailsa returned every week. Within a few months she was able
to go shopping and walk from one side of Newcastle to the other.
'That summer, I went on a family holiday and there's pictures of me doing handstands in the
sea. I'd gone from being in a wheelchair to being able to do all the normal things a woman
of my age could do.'
Although Ailsa is utterly convinced that David Cunningham cured her of ME, many others are
sceptical. How can a man with no medical training treat a chronic painful disease merely by
placing his hands over a patient's body? For decades, researchers have dismissed cases such
as Ailsa's as pure hokum.
But now, in an astonishing about-turn, scientists in the U.S. and UK have compiled a dossier
of evidence that might - just might - show that prayer and spiritual healing are not just
quackery after all.
Professor Harald Walach, a psychologist from the University of Northampton, says: 'We should
take this phenomenon seriously even if we don't understand it. To ignore it would be
unscientific. Our work shows that there is a significant effect.'
For despite it being the most widely practised alternative remedy, science has only recently
begun to investigate whether spiritual healing actually works. Scientists and doctors simply
assumed that it didn't.
One of the first attempts to investigate healing focused on its flip side: the curse. In the late
1960s, U.S. Scientists decided to see whether focusing vindictive and negative thoughts on a
small sample of mould - chosen because it is one of the most primitive living organisms -
could somehow inhibit its growth.
Astonishingly, out of 194 mould samples 'cursed', 151 showed retarded growth.
Another group of scientists began researching whether thought power alone could be used in
a positive way, to help diseased animals. Experiments revealed that mice wake faster after a
general anaesthetic if healing thoughts are 'sent' their way.
In other studies, mice recovered faster and more completely from a form of breast cancer if
healers 'laid on hands' while sending them positive thoughts and energy.
So if healing helps ailing lab animals, might it also help the sick to recover faster? Surprising
as it seems, there's growing evidence that it might.
According to cardiologist Dr Randolph Byrd at San Francisco General Hospital, heart patients
who are prayed for by Christian groups need less medicine and suffer fewer complications.
Other scientists have found similarly inexplicable results. In virtually every area they have
looked, scientists have found evidence that praying for the sick helps them recover faster.
For example, studies at the California Pacific Medical Centre on Aids patients found that
they survive in greater numbers, become sick less often and recover faster than those who are
not prayed for.
Professor Walach, a psychologist at the University of Northampton, recently conducted an
exhaustive analysis of all the data and came to the conclusion that spiritual healing really
does work. He is gaining powerful supporters, too.
Professor Peter Fen-wick, a consultant neuro-psychiatrist at King's College London, has
studied the phenomenon and says: 'There are four possibilities.
'Either we're dealing with fraud on a massive scale; or large numbers of able and gifted
researchers are simply wrong; or hundreds of reports disproving healing haven't been
published. All these seem unlikely, so we're left with the possibility that the effect is real.'
'Now we need to move on and understand what "healing" is and how it works. And we're
starting to do just that.'
Dean Radin, a parapsychologist working at the Institute of Noetic Sciences in California, is in
the vanguard of this research. He has found compelling evidence that one person's positive
healing thoughts has a noticeable impact on another's mind and body.
Radin focused his work on couples, one of whom had cancer, reasoning that any 'psychic'
connection would be strongest between people who loved each other. He trained the healthy
partner to cultivate and project positive healing thoughts towards their ailing loved one.
To help eliminate pure chance, the healthy partner was asked to send the healing 'energy' at
a time randomly chosen by computer.
The results were both amazing and startling. At the precise moment the healthy partner
transmitted the healing thoughts, remarkable changes occurred in the mind and body of their
ailing partner. Their breathing and blood flow increased significantly, while their brain and
skin electrical activity changed dramatically. Clearly something profound was happening.
'Patients described having a warm feeling inside,' says Dr Radin. 'Whether this promotes
healing remains to be seen.'
The NHS already employs healers to help seriously ill and dying patients. Ruth Kaye is a
healer at the Yorkshire Centre for Clinical Oncology in Leeds. She has spent the past 16 years
spiritually healing patients in the NHS. Her aim is to augment conventional medicine and to
help eliminate the side-effects of such treatments as chemotherapy.
'The spirit is the missing link that medicine does not address, but it is the key and secret of
life,' she says. 'One of my patients described my work as being one part of a three-legged
stool.
'There is the medicine, which is one leg, the surgery, and finally the spirit. Without the spirit
element, the stool would fall over.
'Patients who use things like spiritual healing often use fewer drugs and are less reliant on
antidepressants or sleeping tablets. In short, they are less of a drain on an over-stretched NHS.'
Jenny Quantrell, who successfully underwent treatment for breast cancer, says she was
helped enormously by Ruth.
'Ruth has a special gift. I simply closed my eyes when she was healing me and I saw loads of
bright lights. It felt as if I was having my battery recharged.
'I hadn't slept for days, but afterwards I fell into the most wonderful relaxing sleep. I don't know
how it works but I know that it does. I don't need to understand it.'
And that's perhaps all the faith you need to benefit from this most mysterious phenomenon.
Donovan is able to offer similar services, why not contact him to discuss your
case.
House of Lords Report
The House of Lords Science and Technology Committee, sixth report On complementary
medicine divided therapies into three separate groups.
Group One embraces what may be called the principal disciplines, two of which, Osteopathy
and Chiropractic, are already regulated in their professional activity and education by Acts of
Parliament. The others are Acupuncture, Herbal Medicine and Homeopathy. Their evidence
indicated that each of these therapies claim to have an individual diagnostic approach and
that these therapies are seen as the 'Big 5' by most of the CAM world.
Group Two contains therapies which are most often used to complement conventional
medicine and do not purport to embrace diagnostic skills. It includes Aromatherapy, The
Alexander Technique, Body Work therapies, including Massage, Counselling, Stress therapy,
Hypnotherapy, Reflexology and probably Shiatsu, Meditation and Healing.
Group Three embraces those other disciplines which purport to offer diagnostic information
as well as treatment and which, in general, favour a philosophical approach and are
indifferent to the scientific principles of conventional medicine, and through which various
and disparate frameworks of disease causation and its management are proposed.
These therapies can be split into two sub-groups:
Group 3a includes long-established and traditional systems of health care such as Ayurvedic
medicine and Traditional Chinese medicine.
Group 3b covers other alternative disciplines which lack any credible evidence base such as
Crystal therapy, Iridology, Radionics, Dowsing and Kinesiology.
