Some implications of the reported effects of Johrei on the viability and proliferation of cultured cancer cells in vitro.

The paper by Yamamoto et al. on the ‘‘Effect of a Japanese Energy Healing Method Known as Johrei on the Viability and Proliferation of Cultured Cancer Cells In Vitro’’ indirectly points to some potentially profound questions that to date have been inadequately addressed by researchers of ‘‘energy healing.’’ After at least a half century of research, it is no longer either necessary or particularly interesting to demonstrate the simple fact of healing. Only those ignorant of the voluminous data on the subject, and those who for one reason or another refuse to look, can at this point question whether ‘‘energy healing’’ is real, as fair-minded readers of JACM and other journals that publish articles on alternative and complementary medicine surely know. Real progress in energy healing research must address what could be called ‘‘second generation’’ questions about healing efficacy along a wide variety of parameters: dose– response, differential outcomes, the role of states of mind on the part of the healer and healee, and even whether ‘‘energy healing’’ is a misnomer, to name a few. Is there really ‘‘energy’’ involved with healing? If so, what are its salient attributes? If energy, why doesn’t healing efficacy diminish with distance? You get the idea. The Yamamoto article directly addresses the question of differential outcomes to the same treatment, and indirectly raises some profound questions about the place of intention in healing. The latter also carries with it some interesting data analytic implications. First, differential outcomes will be discussed. Dose– response questions are notoriously difficult to address for two reasons: the basic inability of an operational measurement of a healing unit per se, and the human problem of healer reliability. Does healer X deliver the same dose upon each application in a way analogous to drug dosage? In the present article, the researchers do not address dose– response, but instead expose seven different cancer cell lines to the same Johrei healing, whatever the dosage. Also, they get different outcomes across the different cell lines. The human gastric cancer cell line AGS and the uterine cervix epitheloid carcinoma HeLa proved most susceptible to Johrei, while the prostate carcinomas PC-3 and PPC-1 the least susceptible. Somewhere in between were the human malignant lymphoma U937, the prostate carcinoma ALVA-41, and the mouse melanoma B16. All of these cell lines received treatment by the same healers. This is really interesting. Why the differential response? The authors state that