Healer Intention by Leonard Laskow, M.D.
Just as healing bridges the gap from illness to health, from disharmony to harmony, so love bridges the space between fragmentation and wholeness, between separation and unity.
– Leonard Laskow
First I will begin with some operational definitions that I found useful in my healing work and research. Then I will present data on some of the consciousness and intention studies that I have been involved with. We will look at the relative differences between thoughts and images as vehicles of intention as well as the impact of love and spiritual impress on cancer cells and water and DNA. We will see what all of this suggests and look at some ways that we can use this information in our daily lives. In doing this work I have been most fortunate to have collaborated with some gifted and creative healers who were not afraid to go to the frontiers of science, to risk the disapproval of their colleagues and search for truth. People like Beverly Rubik and Glen Rein, Bill Tiller, Marcel Vogel, Helene and Allan Smith, and some of the folks at HeartMath. I am deeply indebted to all of them.
I was offered synchronistic opportunities in which healing was the only option available at the moment and I was frankly surprised at the results.
I would like to take a moment to share with you what inspired me to explore the role of intention in healing. It began during a retreat in the mid-seventies. It was two o’clock in the morning, I was in a deep meditation, the room was dark. Suddenly it seemed as if someone had turned on the lights. I opened my eyes and the room was still dark. Closing my eyes I again had a sense of being filled with light. Then I felt a presence and I heard a voice inside my head. This indescribable voice said, “Your work is to heal with love.” Tears began rolling down my cheeks, the hair stood up on the back of my head, and I silently said, “Oh so I am worthy?” This voice said, “You are no more or less worthy than anyone else. Your work is to heal with love.” See how that little ego concern came in. Worthy? This presence had nothing to do with hierarchical, egoistic considerations. I did not know at the time what that meant, but as I subsequently began to work with people I was offered synchronistic opportunities in which healing was the only option available at the moment and I was frankly surprised at the results.
I decided to explore this further in the course of my Ob-Gyn practice with select patients. I had concerns that the Board of Medical Examiners would come knocking at my door one day. I was what you might call an open skeptic. The results working with patients were remarkable and I was intrigued. I began to wonder—much as the folks at Spindrift did: How much did the placebo effect contribute to these remarkable results? How much was a manifestation of the body-mind response currently being explored by psychoneuroimmunology? How much was due to an interaction between my consciousness and that of the person that I was working with? Because there were so many variables involved, I decided to focus my research on single-celled organisms such as bacteria and tumor cells and also on water and DNA.
I decided to explore this further in the course of my Ob-Gyn practice with select patients. I had concerns that the Board of Medical Examiners would come knocking at my door one day. I was what you might call an open skeptic. The results working with patients were remarkable and I was intrigued. I began to wonder—much as the folks at Spindrift did: How much did the placebo effect contribute to these remarkable results? How much was a manifestation of the body-mind response currently being explored by psychoneuroimmunology? How much was due to an interaction between my consciousness and that of the person that I was working with? Because there were so many variables involved, I decided to focus my research on single-celled organisms such as bacteria and tumor cells and also on water and DNA.
As we move toward new unifying visions for healing, it is important to remember the value of individuation, from which our illusions of separation may grow.
I continued to work with people but I did not do formal clinical studies. I collaborated with a friend of mine, Dr. Glen Rein, who is a neurobiologist and, at the time was working at a major University in the San Francisco Bay area. We designed a series of experiments to explore the effect of different intentions, while in non-ordinary states of consciousness, upon the growth of cancer cells in the tissue culture.
I want to emphasize that these were exploratory studies designed for the purpose of discovering what was most effective so that we could develop pilot studies that had the best chance of success. We worked under trying conditions. At night sometimes until four or five in the morning. We worked on weekends, because this was not approved research at these universities.
First, let’s look at my operational definition of intention. The word “intention” is derived from Latin intenitus: a stretching toward, and the American Heritage dictionary defines intention as an aim that guides actions. This is the definition I use: Intention is holding attention on a desired outcome, and holding intention requires will that is persistent, focused desire. Attention is focused awareness and it energizes the object of attention. Desire relates to the magnitude of energy associated with the intention, the feeling state. The outcome provides information that gives direction to that intention and this information can be in the form of thought or imagery. One could say that attention aims the arrow and desired outcome draws the bow.
I want to emphasize that these were exploratory studies designed for the purpose of discovering what was most effective so that we could develop pilot studies that had the best chance of success. We worked under trying conditions. At night sometimes until four or five in the morning. We worked on weekends, because this was not approved research at these universities.
First, let’s look at my operational definition of intention. The word “intention” is derived from Latin intenitus: a stretching toward, and the American Heritage dictionary defines intention as an aim that guides actions. This is the definition I use: Intention is holding attention on a desired outcome, and holding intention requires will that is persistent, focused desire. Attention is focused awareness and it energizes the object of attention. Desire relates to the magnitude of energy associated with the intention, the feeling state. The outcome provides information that gives direction to that intention and this information can be in the form of thought or imagery. One could say that attention aims the arrow and desired outcome draws the bow.
The energy of intention is provided by attention, desire and will.
Another way of looking at this is in terms of energy and information. The energy of intention is provided by attention, desire and will. The information is provided by the focus on outcome, direction, goal or aim, and it can be in time and space or it can be active non-linear information which impacts distant healing. Also there are the contextual variables; the one that is most important is my work being the spiritual influence both consciously invoked and also superconsciously present. Then of course there are all the unconscious influences and environmental influences that make this a very complex and difficult area to study.
Now a word about the protocol. The first set of experiments involved measuring the growth of tumor cells in culture as a biological endpoint. These were mast cell tumors that came from mouse intestinal tissue. State of the art techniques were used to quantify the incorporation of radioactive Thymidine into the DNA of the growing cells.
I would begin the protocol by establishing what I call a “loving, healing presence” through a transpersonal alignment and a conscious heart focus. This shifted my consciousness into a non-ordinary state. I then looked at the tumor cells that we were working with under a microscope. I put the Petri dish containing the cells under a microscope and came into resonance with them. I did this by regarding them as inherently having as much right to be here as I did even though they were cancer cells.
Now a word about the protocol. The first set of experiments involved measuring the growth of tumor cells in culture as a biological endpoint. These were mast cell tumors that came from mouse intestinal tissue. State of the art techniques were used to quantify the incorporation of radioactive Thymidine into the DNA of the growing cells.
I would begin the protocol by establishing what I call a “loving, healing presence” through a transpersonal alignment and a conscious heart focus. This shifted my consciousness into a non-ordinary state. I then looked at the tumor cells that we were working with under a microscope. I put the Petri dish containing the cells under a microscope and came into resonance with them. I did this by regarding them as inherently having as much right to be here as I did even though they were cancer cells.
Love stimulates healing by relating us to the natural order and harmony inherent in our cells, in our selves, and in universal consciousness.
I took a different perspective than the one most people use when they think of cancer cells. I did the same thing when I worked with Salmonella typhimurium, bacteria that caused dysentery in humans. Coming into resonance with them means I came into a loving acceptance of their existence as it is. When I did that my awareness began to vibrate at the same frequency as the cells. We became, as it were, phase locked, perhaps entrained. Once that entrainment took place I could then introduce intentional information and get the most efficient result.
In other words, I learned that there was a great secret to operating on the subtle level. The secret was to focus lovingly on whatever you want to change. It seems like there is a paradox here: If you lovingly or unconditionally accept something, why would you change it? You are just lovingly and unconditionally accepting it. Well, think for a moment about a child. If you unconditionally love the child and the child does something that could be harmful to itself or to others, could you still unconditionally love the child and yet want the child to change? Of course you could. In fact that may be the most loving thing to do. So there is no contradiction to healing in this particular way.
In terms of the rest of the protocol, I then held separate sets of three Petri dishes containing these cell cultures in my hands for each different state of consciousness or intention that we wanted to study. In an adjacent room, a non-healer was simultaneously duplicating the same protocol but was reading a book instead of focusing on the culture cells. All the specimens were blindly labeled, scrambled and read after twenty-four hours. Subsequently we also treated the water which was used to make up media without the cells, to see if water could store biological information. Then the treated and control media were used to grow the cells.
Again, my state of consciousness was a loving acceptance, a heart focused resonance with the cells for all of these different contents of consciousness. The first of these three different intentions that we studied with cells was to “Return to the natural order and growth rate of your pre-cancer cell line.” These cancer cells were growing at an accelerated rate relative to their pre-cancerous cell line. My interest was simply to return them to the pre-cancerous growth rate. That was the first intention. The second intention was to “Let God’s will flow through these hands.” The third intention was simply unconditional love.
These were the results that we got focusing on returning to the natural order and growth rate. There was a 39% inhibition of the growth rate relative to the contemporaneous controls. With “Let God’s will flow through these hands,” there was a 21% reduction.
In other words, I learned that there was a great secret to operating on the subtle level. The secret was to focus lovingly on whatever you want to change. It seems like there is a paradox here: If you lovingly or unconditionally accept something, why would you change it? You are just lovingly and unconditionally accepting it. Well, think for a moment about a child. If you unconditionally love the child and the child does something that could be harmful to itself or to others, could you still unconditionally love the child and yet want the child to change? Of course you could. In fact that may be the most loving thing to do. So there is no contradiction to healing in this particular way.
In terms of the rest of the protocol, I then held separate sets of three Petri dishes containing these cell cultures in my hands for each different state of consciousness or intention that we wanted to study. In an adjacent room, a non-healer was simultaneously duplicating the same protocol but was reading a book instead of focusing on the culture cells. All the specimens were blindly labeled, scrambled and read after twenty-four hours. Subsequently we also treated the water which was used to make up media without the cells, to see if water could store biological information. Then the treated and control media were used to grow the cells.
Again, my state of consciousness was a loving acceptance, a heart focused resonance with the cells for all of these different contents of consciousness. The first of these three different intentions that we studied with cells was to “Return to the natural order and growth rate of your pre-cancer cell line.” These cancer cells were growing at an accelerated rate relative to their pre-cancerous cell line. My interest was simply to return them to the pre-cancerous growth rate. That was the first intention. The second intention was to “Let God’s will flow through these hands.” The third intention was simply unconditional love.
These were the results that we got focusing on returning to the natural order and growth rate. There was a 39% inhibition of the growth rate relative to the contemporaneous controls. With “Let God’s will flow through these hands,” there was a 21% reduction.
This is one of the challenges in doing work with subtle information and subtle energy in healing.
Interestingly, with unconditional love, there was no change. But if you stop to think about it, when you unconditionally love something and you totally accept it as it is, from the perspective of the consciousness of these tumor cells, they say, “great, we will continue to do our thing.” We did not give them any direction via intention. The direction associated with unconditional love can come from conscious or superconscious or unconscious forces. I did the best I could to simply unconditionally love them without intentions.
As I mentioned, we also focused on the water that was used to make up media to grow these cells. Again we used three different intentions: “Return to the natural order,” “unconditional love” and “dematerialize into the light.” (I was interested in exploring the differences between dematerializing into the light or into the void to see if a cell’s consciousness would have a preference between the two. I wondered whether single celled organisms had a fear of “dematerializing into the void” much as people have. However in this series we used “dematerialize into the light.”
“Return to the natural order” resulted in a 29% inhabitation of growth rate relative to contemporaneous controls. This time, with “unconditional love” there was a 22% inhibition of growth rate and “dematerialize into the light” produced a 29% inhibition. But I had a consideration when I went over the results because I had charged three flasks of water and we stored these flasks next to one another for three months before we used this water to make up the media for these experiments. There was good news and there was bad news from this experiment. The good news is that water stores biologically active information for at least three months. The bad news was that there may have been a resonant transfer of information from one flask to another since there was an unexpected effect from the unconditional love.
When I give seminars, I have people charge wine and water as a group after establishing transpersonal alignment and conscious heart focus. We can actually smell and taste the difference between the charged wine and uncharged wine, the charged water and uncharged water. If you leave the two in relative proximity to one another over a period of time there is less and less difference. On the other hand, if you separate them at least five feet, then over time there is a greater difference between charged and the uncharged liquid.
As I mentioned, we also focused on the water that was used to make up media to grow these cells. Again we used three different intentions: “Return to the natural order,” “unconditional love” and “dematerialize into the light.” (I was interested in exploring the differences between dematerializing into the light or into the void to see if a cell’s consciousness would have a preference between the two. I wondered whether single celled organisms had a fear of “dematerializing into the void” much as people have. However in this series we used “dematerialize into the light.”
“Return to the natural order” resulted in a 29% inhabitation of growth rate relative to contemporaneous controls. This time, with “unconditional love” there was a 22% inhibition of growth rate and “dematerialize into the light” produced a 29% inhibition. But I had a consideration when I went over the results because I had charged three flasks of water and we stored these flasks next to one another for three months before we used this water to make up the media for these experiments. There was good news and there was bad news from this experiment. The good news is that water stores biologically active information for at least three months. The bad news was that there may have been a resonant transfer of information from one flask to another since there was an unexpected effect from the unconditional love.
When I give seminars, I have people charge wine and water as a group after establishing transpersonal alignment and conscious heart focus. We can actually smell and taste the difference between the charged wine and uncharged wine, the charged water and uncharged water. If you leave the two in relative proximity to one another over a period of time there is less and less difference. On the other hand, if you separate them at least five feet, then over time there is a greater difference between charged and the uncharged liquid.
Both form and field (body and mind) contribute to the creation of holographic standing waves.
My concern was that there is some exchange of information and perhaps energy when they are in proximity. This is one of the challenges in doing work with subtle information and subtle energy in healing. Also, if you do not clear your intention after each set, the next intent can be contaminated by the previous intent. It is that subtle.
Next, we were interested in exploring the relative impact of thought vs. imagery on the growth of cancer cells. This time we used different initiating intents. Again, the first intention was “Return to the natural order and growth rate of your pre-cancerous cell line” which produced and 18% inhibition of cell growth. Then, as I held the thought of returning to the natural order I also introduced an image. Since the Petri dishes that we worked with contained quite a few cells covering almost the entire surface of the media, I imagined just three cells in culture. When I did that the result was a 39% inhibition, implying that adding imagery to thought doubles the effectiveness of intention.
The next time instead of holding natural order as an initial intent, I simply circulated energy. Now all of this of course was still done while in loving resonance with the cells, using the same protocol as before. So there was an overall loving field in which this was taking place.
In circulating energy I sensed and imagined my attention moving up my spine and down the front of my body. I would breath in through the Hara or Dan Tien about two finger breadths below my navel, down to the base of my spine, up my spine, and through the crown and around the transpersonal space above my head and down the front of my body and back into the Hara. When I did that I did not hold a thought of “returning to the natural order” but did hold the image of just three cells and in that situation we got an 18% inhibition of cell growth. Then I repeated the experiment circulating energy again but this time holding the image of many cells, and we got a 15% increase. In other words, we were able to reverse the intention and stimulate growth by 15%. In summary then, when we add thought to imagery or imagery to thought we can double the impact of our healing intention. And also we can reverse it.
Eventually we lost our lab access so we started looking for a different experimental end point. We decided to explore modulating the molecular confirmation of DNA by winding it or unwinding it. We worked with human placental DNA dissolved in water which had distinctive characteristic patterns when measured with ultraviolet spectroscopy.
I would enter into this loving state and have the intention of unwinding the double helix of DNA using both thought and imagery. Folks at an organization called the Institute of HeartMath heard what we were doing and invited me to come by. They monitored me with an electrocardiogram, electroencephalogram, and electromyelogram, ran the leads to a computer and processed the date. We found when I was in these non-ordinary states of consciousness and was able to unwind the double helixes of DNA the frequency power spectrum revealed a state of internal coherence. I could also intentionally rewind DNA that had been heated or de-natured, in effect bringing the two DNA strands together again. In order for DNA to replicate it needs to unwind so there are implications here for our biology.
Next, we were interested in exploring the relative impact of thought vs. imagery on the growth of cancer cells. This time we used different initiating intents. Again, the first intention was “Return to the natural order and growth rate of your pre-cancerous cell line” which produced and 18% inhibition of cell growth. Then, as I held the thought of returning to the natural order I also introduced an image. Since the Petri dishes that we worked with contained quite a few cells covering almost the entire surface of the media, I imagined just three cells in culture. When I did that the result was a 39% inhibition, implying that adding imagery to thought doubles the effectiveness of intention.
The next time instead of holding natural order as an initial intent, I simply circulated energy. Now all of this of course was still done while in loving resonance with the cells, using the same protocol as before. So there was an overall loving field in which this was taking place.
In circulating energy I sensed and imagined my attention moving up my spine and down the front of my body. I would breath in through the Hara or Dan Tien about two finger breadths below my navel, down to the base of my spine, up my spine, and through the crown and around the transpersonal space above my head and down the front of my body and back into the Hara. When I did that I did not hold a thought of “returning to the natural order” but did hold the image of just three cells and in that situation we got an 18% inhibition of cell growth. Then I repeated the experiment circulating energy again but this time holding the image of many cells, and we got a 15% increase. In other words, we were able to reverse the intention and stimulate growth by 15%. In summary then, when we add thought to imagery or imagery to thought we can double the impact of our healing intention. And also we can reverse it.
Eventually we lost our lab access so we started looking for a different experimental end point. We decided to explore modulating the molecular confirmation of DNA by winding it or unwinding it. We worked with human placental DNA dissolved in water which had distinctive characteristic patterns when measured with ultraviolet spectroscopy.
I would enter into this loving state and have the intention of unwinding the double helix of DNA using both thought and imagery. Folks at an organization called the Institute of HeartMath heard what we were doing and invited me to come by. They monitored me with an electrocardiogram, electroencephalogram, and electromyelogram, ran the leads to a computer and processed the date. We found when I was in these non-ordinary states of consciousness and was able to unwind the double helixes of DNA the frequency power spectrum revealed a state of internal coherence. I could also intentionally rewind DNA that had been heated or de-natured, in effect bringing the two DNA strands together again. In order for DNA to replicate it needs to unwind so there are implications here for our biology.
When we add thought to imagery or imagery to thought we can double the impact of our healing intention. And also we can reverse it.
When we looked at the frequency power spectrum of someone who was not trained in these methods but who was trying to love, there was a lack of coherence. Coherence is what makes laser light so powerful.
As energy is cohered it is squared. When you come into cardiac coherence, the energy is squared and whatever you focus your attention upon becomes dramatically amplified and has greater impact. You become laser-like.
At the Institute of HeartMath ten people who were trained in these methods of heart coherence were asked to focus their intention on DNA and they were able to unwind it. Ten others who were not trained in these methods were asked to hold the same intention, but were unable to unwind the DNA.
In another experiment I was interested in finding out what would happen if, instead of my intention, I called upon spiritual impress to influence the molecular confirmation of DNA. I silently said, “I ask that you manifest your spiritual presence on the material plane in such way that science can acknowledge it. I will not take personal credit for the results.” What I heard was “we know what you say is true. Just remain with your eyes closed, relax and be still.” Then I felt a shift that I can only describe as an expansive emptiness having fullness to it. That worked to unwind the DNA and then when we heated the DNA and repeated the experiment the denatured DNA was rewound. So this demonstrated that we are able to work with spirit in a way that really manifests its presence.
I want to close with a word of caution about extrapolating these results to human beings because people have their own countervailing intentions both conscious and unconscious. That has a tremendous impact on the healing response. Also I would just like to simply remind you of what you already know: That we are all graced with spirit which flows through us and this flow can be enhanced as we lovingly ask and allow it to be. Then the creative separation of individuation becomes the conscious recognition of unity.
Published in the Fall, 1999 issue of Bridges, ISSSEEM Magazine, Volume 10, Number 3
In another experiment I was interested in finding out what would happen if, instead of my intention, I called upon spiritual impress to influence the molecular confirmation of DNA. I silently said, “I ask that you manifest your spiritual presence on the material plane in such way that science can acknowledge it. I will not take personal credit for the results.” What I heard was “we know what you say is true. Just remain with your eyes closed, relax and be still.” Then I felt a shift that I can only describe as an expansive emptiness having fullness to it. That worked to unwind the DNA and then when we heated the DNA and repeated the experiment the denatured DNA was rewound. So this demonstrated that we are able to work with spirit in a way that really manifests its presence.
I want to close with a word of caution about extrapolating these results to human beings because people have their own countervailing intentions both conscious and unconscious. That has a tremendous impact on the healing response. Also I would just like to simply remind you of what you already know: That we are all graced with spirit which flows through us and this flow can be enhanced as we lovingly ask and allow it to be. Then the creative separation of individuation becomes the conscious recognition of unity.
Published in the Fall, 1999 issue of Bridges, ISSSEEM Magazine, Volume 10, Number 3
