23. Empathic Healing:

A Future Possibility?

There are stories of faith healing in most cultures, religions and eras, so it’s rather curious that we haven’t yet reached any sort of consensus on the possibility of developing such a power in the present. There is abundant evidence available showing that biofeedback is real and quite easily learned. We can raise and lower our blood pressure and heart rate; we can even alter our brain wave pattern once we are able to relate a particular frequency (ex. alpha, beta, theta) to our subjective feelings and state of mind.

We all know that our mind and body are attached.  We know that meditation is good for us, and that too much tension and stress is not; and yet there are some people (including members of the medical community) who still treat the subject of “therapeutic touch” as though it were only slightly more effective than trying nothing at all. In that state of mind, we have created a self-fulfilling prophecy, for disbelief dilutes any energy we might otherwise generate through belief, the very energy we need to develop this ability. 

When interest in a particular topic begins to increase, the subject at first seems to have few details.  It is vast and filled with generalities, superstitions and vague or undifferentiated information.  A "healing touch" might be called empathic healing but then it might get lumped in with words that suggest a superstitious foundation.  It might get mixed up with ideas of pre-scientific medicine, or of ESP, the laying-on-of-hands, shamans, witch doctors and medicine men, phoney faith healers, mind-readers and even fortune tellers. It's easy to turn away from an idea if the first images that spring to mind are of vulnerable or highly suggestible people falling in rapture at the feet of charismatic evangelists or hypnotists.

If such a visual is repugnant to us, we may become strongly sceptical of anything that hints at “faith” or “faith healing.” But before we disregard an idea, we must make sure that we don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.  We mustn't discard the subject just because we don't like someone elses explanation of it.  

Each of us has the ability to learn as much as we want about a subject and then to apply logic to our assessments.  And we need to look for satisfactory ways to explain what has yet to be understood or accepted in our current version of reality.

We'll call it FAB! (A what-if tale)

Earth Date: 17-September-2027

Suppose:

A group of scientists discovers that all human beings have the potential to heal others merely by focusing on them. But they also realize that out of the billions of people on Earth, they've identified only a few thousand who have managed to manifest this power and to use it. 

These healers are observed for decades but because of current attitudes (and their attendant technologies), researchers cannot find a way to explain this odd power or to reproduce it on demand. Eventually, their funding is cut and they must move on to other sources of intrigue.

As the years pass, hundreds of professional sceptics offer all sorts of arguments against the reality of such a power, implying that it was a trick or a case of mass hypnosis, and a soon-to-be urban legend. The farther away the events pass in time, the fewer people believe they ever occurred. But those who witnessed the phenomenon know it was real regardless of its resistance to present definition. They do not want the information quashed or obliterated by vocal non-believers, so how, they wonder, can they keep it safe?  What people or institution will protect the information as it is given for hundreds (or thousands) of years?  The Churches!  So they appeal to the leaders of all the ancient religions, asking that the information be held in safekeeping until the climate is conducive to understanding and development.

• Superstition is a placeholder for that which we have not yet defined.

Earth Date: 15-June-3998

Almost two thousand years pass before the phenomenon, FAB, (“Frequency Adjustment & Balance”) is finally understood, explained, named and practiced. Of course, some of those future scientists might read the religious text relating to the subject of “supernatural or faith healing” and deride the religion (and we ancients) for being ignorant, unscientific, and superstitious.