CLEVELAND (TDB) -- A Case Western Reserve University professor has been studying Sufi mystics from the Middle East and has published scientific research that indicates there could be a "paranormal" force allowing rapid healing of wounds to the human body. The mystics may have harnessed the force, according to associate professor Howard Hall, whose data is summarized in an abstract online in the U.S. government's National Library of Medicine:
Division of Behavioral Pediatrics, the Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH, USA. hrh@po.cwru.edu
This paper examines in a Western medical setting the claim made by a Middle Eastern school of Sufism that its members can attain unusually rapid wound healing from deliberately caused bodily damage. The demonstration involved a Sufi practitioner inserting an unsterilized metal skewer through one side of the cheek area of the face (lateral buccal) and out through the other side. The insertion was observed by Western scientists. The left facial puncture healed within 2 minutes; the right facial puncture was three-quarters healed after 8 hours. According to the practitioner, the piercing was not associated with subjective pain."
Hall is scheduled to present some of his findings March 29 at Cuyahoga County Community College in Parma at the the western campus theater. The 1 p.m. event is open to the public. His work, which apparently is not widely known in Ohio, is the subject of a British documentary or film called The Cleveland Experiment. Hall has a doctorate in experimental psychology from Priceton University, and he has a clinical practice using hypnosis and mind-body holistic approaches to healing the body. An announcement about his lecture at Tri-C says he has "served on local, national and international boards, including the Association for Applied Psychotherapy and Biofeedback, the Monterey Institute for the Study of Alternative Healing Arts and the Cuyahoga County Community Mental Health Board."
Paranormal research is not traditional -- it can range from ghostbusting to trying to contact the dead to tracking down UFOs. Or it can just look for physical explanations behind events or apparitions or happenings that seem inexplicable but actually comply with natural laws.
Sufism is a form of Islamic mysticism. Hall's 2001 scientific paper reported the kind of event that the fictional Dr. McCoy, Bones on the Star Trek TV series, could accomplish for patients with his Warp-era medical equipment. Hall's paper said it wasn't clear what causes such fast "re-establishment of tissue integrity" but that the Sufi mystics deserved more serious study from western scientists.
"Such rapid wound healing has therapeutic implications for new treatments of serious medical and pain-related problems as well ans implications for the study of 'paranormal' healing phenomena."
The Web site HERE has more information about Sufism.
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