I would hope that this dialogue over Era 3, non-local aspects of consciousness, can help heal this gap between science and spirituality. But to do this, you have to have the courage and integrity to honor this data and go through it, instead of around it as we traditionally have done.

DiCarlo: Some people make a distinction between being a healer and being a doctor. Is there a difference in your view?

Dossey: There certainly seems to be in this culture. Healing is a word that is practically forbidden in medical schools and hospitals. You don't talk about healing. You talk about the mechanics of medicine. It's really that simple. If you were to actually use the word healing the way you just used the word, people in these places would look at you with very strange facial expressions.

The very possibility that some doctors might have healing capacities unshared by others is a foreign idea. My wife, who is a cardiovascular nurse and an author who is widely known in her profession, got a fax today from a nursing chairman at a major US hospital. It said, "Dear Barbara Dossey, although we do not plan currently to invite you to our next annual nursing conference at our hospital, I can assure you that we will do so in the future when we get into healing." My wife came and showed me that and said, "What do you suppose they are into now?" So, figure it out for yourself. It's all mechanical. The idea that there are these other qualities that could be called healing potentials, healing powers, healing skills--it's an idea that has not yet come for hospitals. It's changing though.

DiCarlo: Weston Agor has been doing a lot of ground-breaking work in the area of intuition in business. Has intuition played a significant role in your work?

Dossey: Well, I think intuition has played a major role. One of the ways that surgeons have of describing internists, of which I am one, is to call them crystal ball gazers. This is not intended as a compliment. This is one of the labels that is always levied by surgeons to the internists because "They think too damn much."

But I think there may be an element of truth to it. I believe that doctors frequently make intuitive diagnoses that have nothing to do with the known facts, physical examinations, and assessment of lab data. I had a long section on this subject in my previous book, "Meaning and Medicine." There was a phenomenon called "snap diagnosis" that was the rage on this continent back in the late 1700s up to the mid-1800s. The great teachers in the medical schools would vie with each other in making accurate diagnoses with a minimal amount of information. Napoleons' physician was one of the best at this. These individuals would have diagnostic information just come to them from within. They would walk past a room and say,"The patient in that bed has this disease." Or they would look at a portrait and say, "This is what the diagnosis is."

Well, few people will talk about snap diagnosis because that's been laid to rest. You have to dig that out of history books. But here's a connection you can consider. If there's some aspect of consciousness that is non-local, that cannot be confined to space and to time, if the mind can reach into the future--which a non-local mind by definition can do--and if there is no separation between minds at some level, then this intuition takes on a whole new luster.

For example, if a diagnosis will one day be known, why can you not intuit it right now if there are no temporal barriers? If someone in the world knows the diagnosis, why couldn't you know it too if consciousness is omnipresent and there aren't any divisions at some level? So intuition takes on a whole new flavor through the lens of non-locality. Where this becomes practical is illustrated in a series of experiments by Dr. Norman Shealy with Carolyn Myss who is an intuitive. Carolyn is 93% correct at a distance in her diagnosis of 100 patients. I know of no internists, relying upon the data and physical exams, who are that accurate in the early stages of diagnosis. So if you can make intuitive diagnosis with that degree of accuracy, this is no longer a laboratory fluke. It is no longer an irrelevant plaything or a stage trick. This has stunning medical implications.

DiCarlo: "Who are we?" and "what is the nature of the Universe in which we live are questions that cut right to the heart of the shift in perspective of the emerging paradigm. In light of your research,what is your response?

Dossey: For at least the last 200 years, our culture has embraced an idea, born of science, that the universe is a pretty dismal place. When we die, that's it. There's nothing that survives. Life is all a matter of chemistry, anatomy, and the physiology of the brain. When the brain and body die and rot--that's it. That's a very dismal outlook, and that doesn't sound like a very friendly universe to me.

On the other hand, if you take seriously the implications of these prayer studies, and other categories of experiments that have been done in addition to prayer, the research seems to suggest that consciousness can violate time and space. It seems to be non-local. It seems to be infinite in space and time in the way that it behaves. If you take those experiments and data seriously, then you can arrive at a completely different conclusion regarding the nature of the universe. You are able to say, for instance, that there is some aspect of the psyche, of consciousness, that is not confined to time and space or to brains and bodies. It is apparently infinite in space and time. And if it is, then by definition it must be omni-present, eternal, immortal. This turns the tables on the dismal, traditional view of science. It says that something about us survives. It has no beginning. It has no ending. It is eternal and immortal. Now I will grant you that we don't have any "soul meters" to give you a direct read-out on whether or not anything like the soul exists, but we've got the next best thing. We have reasonable empirical evidence that is indirect, that something about us is non-local in space and time. That to me sounds like an extraordinarily friendly universe.

DiCarlo: So you are suggesting that science has provided evidence for the existence of an immortal soul? That's astounding.

Dossey: I would add the word indirect to it--because the evidence is indirect. But I think it is absolutely sensational. I have thought about these implications for a great many years and I believe that the reasoning here is as straight as an arrow. I do not know how to take this data seriously and come to any other conclusion. This information is so positive and so potentially transformative that it should be shouted from rooftops. It is that promising. I happen to believe that the fear of death and extermination has caused more fear, pain, agony and suffering in human beings than anything else in the history of the human race. This information has a way of neutralizing that fear. It gives positive answers to those fears. I think this information is what I would call the "Big Cure" for the "Big Disease"--the fear of death. This is no exaggeration. I believe that this kind of reasoning is that potentially sensational. There's a tremendous pay-off here, spiritually and practically for people.

DiCarlo: Do you feel that it's important at this juncture in our collective history that we recognize this aspect of our being?

Dossey: Well, the choice is to continue muddling along with this clinical depression that seems to be affecting our society, our culture and our species. That, "we're bogged down, the planet's going to hell in a handbasket and we're going right along with it." I think that a recognition of these inherently divine qualities can have a rejuvenating effect on our definition of who we are, our collective self-esteem, our sense of empowerment, and what we might be able to do in whatever time we have left on this planet. And I choose these words carefully. I think there is some sense of urgency involved to get this information out, to re-define who we are as individuals and as a species.

DiCarlo: What are the beliefs about "the way things are" that you hold that you feel are especially empowering in the turbulent times we live in?

Dossey: The most important is a felt sense that no matter what happens, at some level it's OK. I basically give a "yes" answer to what Einstein once said is the most important question in the world," Is the universe friendly?" I think there is a pattern. I think there is a process and design in the universe. I think there is place in the universe for enduring human consciousness. I think that the most essential aspect of who we are is immortal. In view of that, the overarching and most important fact is, I think that what happens on this scale is relatively less important. That doesn't mean I am not going to work my fanny off while I am in this form of existence, but I basically think that Gary Snyder, the Pulitzer Prize winning American poet had it right when he said, "The only people who are fit to work truly for the survival of this planet, are those who have the wisdom to see it go to hell in a handbasket." I don't plan to do that by the way. I intend to be as active as I can before I sign-off.

The important thing is the nature of human consciousness and whether or not it has a home in the universe. I think it does. This belief has contributed immeasurably to my mental peace and my serenity. For me, the notion that whatever happens is OK, drives me to even greater activity, not less.

Russell E. DiCarlo is a medical writer, author, lecturer and workshop leader who's focus is on personal transformation, consciousness research and the fields of energy and anti-aging medicine. His forthcoming book is entitled "The Definitive Guide To Anti-Aging Medicine" (1998, Future Medicine Publishing). DiCarlo resides in Erie, Pennsylvania.

Copyright 1996. Epic Publishing. All Rights Reserved.

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