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our earliest history, religious thought, as we know it today, might never have evolved. |
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For millennia, shamans and medicine men from Siberia to the Amazon have known and used healing practices, although the effectiveness of these practices was not discovered in Europe until the eighteenth century. Through all these years, a parade of shamanic drummers, dancers, diviners, herbalists, bone setters, trance mediums, spirit communicators, ritualizers, chanters, incanters, and exorcists have pursued their healing arts, about which we still have much to learn.
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In 1993, psychiatrist Dr. Daniel Benor brought together a compendium of over 150 controlled studies of psychic, mental, and spiritual healing on organisms as diverse as enzymes, cell cultures, bacteria, yeasts, plants, animals, and humans. More than half of the studies in his book Healing Research demonstrate significant effects of healers.8 Nonetheless, the very possibility that nonlocal healing might offer valid therapy continues to challenge our prevailing worldview, especially in the United States. |
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In an article entitled "Healers and a Changing Medical Paradigm," Benor tells us that in the United Kingdom today, over 8,000 registered healers are officially recognized in the health-care system, and are certified to treat patients in over 1,500 government hospitals.9 Physicians in private practice in Great Britain refer patients to healers, invite healers to practice in their clinics, and in some cases are themselves giving "paranormal" healing. The nonlocal healing therapies are known there as ''spiritual," "faith," or "pranic" healing, or "bioenergy therapy." Healers in England regularly treat patients in government hospital centers for cardiac rehabilitation, pain, and cancer. |
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According to Benor, who founded a Doctor-Healer Network that publishes a newsletter in the United Kingdom, complementary healing therapies are being integrated with conventional treatment in Eastern Europe and Russia.10 Some medical schools in Russia and Poland teach homeopathy and other alternative approaches to healing, and in Bulgaria, a government-appointed commission of scientists assesses healers' abilities and oversees their licensing. In fact, experiments investigating the efficacy of |
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