The psychic phenomenon of healing

The December 1995 Harvard Medical School Conference on ''Spirituality and Healing'', in which Dr. Herbert Benson sought to connect the spiritual practices of religion and health care provision, was heralded as a breakthrough for the medical profession. A blurb for the conference videos mentions that ''spirituality was expressed as experiencing the presence of a power, a force, an energy, or what was perceived of as God and this presence was close to the person.'' It will be apparent that these options embrace individuals whose definitions would have disagreements of boundary. This is abundantly exemplified in the hand-out sheet of 13 definitions (from Advances, v.9 no 4, p.6, fall '93). The term spiritual is used here to imply commitment and/or governing sense not understood as this stage of humanity's unfolding.