There are some new research articles about the effect of "touch with intent" on healing. For example, in a study by T. Bunnell, “The effect of ‘healing with intent’ on pepsin enzyme activity” – it was shown that the rate of breakdown of egg albumin by a 1 percent pepsin solution was measured across 20 separate trials. This assessment method was chosen to eliminate the possibility of a placebo effect. The reaction rate of samples “healed with intent” was compared to “unhealed” controls. The samples “healed by intent” demonstrated significantly greater reaction rates than the controls.

Even more striking were the results of a study by Bengston and Krinsley “The effect of the ‘laying on of hands’ on transplanted breast cancer in mice.” After witnessing numerous cases of cancer remission associated with a healer who used energy healing, also known as “laying on of hands,” one of the authors apprenticed in these techniques alleged to produce the healing effect.

The authors obtained five experimental mice with mammary adenocarcinoma, which had a predicted 100 percent fatality rate of between 14 and 27 days. These mice were treated using the healing techniques learned by the investigator. The treatments were given one hour per day for one month. The tumors developed a blackened area, then ulcerated, imploded, and closed. All of the mice treated with energy healing lived their normal life spans.

Control mice sent to another city all died within the predicted time frame. Three replications using skeptical volunteer “healers” at two different institutions produced an overall cure rate of 87.9 percent in 33 experimental mice. Histological studies revealed viable cancer cells through all stages of remission.

When re-injections of cancer were given to the mice in remission, they did not “take” and the animals remained in remission. The authors surmised that the treatment might have stimulated an immunological response.

The authors reached the following tentative conclusions: “Belief in laying on of hands is not necessary in order to produce the effect; there is a stimulated immune response to treatment, which is reproducible and predictable; and the mice retain an immunity to the same cancer after remission … ”