title: The healing presence: can it be reliably measured?
abstract: Religious and spiritual traditions from all cultures and times describe a spiritual or loving presence as a contributor to healing. In addition, there is a common belief that a special "presence" can exude from certain practitioners. Is it possible to measure a healing presence in an objective and reliable way? Most research on healing has focused on trying to prove spiritual and "energy" healing in comparative tests. However, if a measure of healing presence is to be sensitive and reliable, objective and real-time indicators of such a presence will be needed rather than comparative and statistical outcomes. This paper discusses what healers from various traditions have felt are the primary components of a healing presence, summarizes various attempts to measure healing, and describes two recently published approaches that have potential to provide such an objective and realtime indicator of a healing presence.
authors.affiliation: Samueli Institute for Information Biology, Alexandria, VA, USA.
authors.forename: Wayne B
authors.initials: WB
authors.lastname: Jonas
authors.forename: Cindy C
authors.initials: CC
authors.lastname: Crawford
mesh_terms: D006801:Humans; D008519:Medicine, Traditional; D012068:Religion and Medicine; D012106:Research; D026443:Spiritual Therapies; D016896:Treatment Outcome