Christ Jesus’ story is so epic, it could be thought of as a foundational legend for research into Mind-healing.

You may know the tale, but it doesn’t get old: Just over 2000 years ago, Jesus developed a skill that could heal human minds and bodies less intrusively and more precise than even today’s high tech methods of healing. Jesus’ skill, termed spiritual or metaphysical healing, was not exclusive to him. For eons, mind-healing has been reported to be practiced by people around the world. And today, together with religion and science, mind power is being readily researched and spiritual healing is being scientifically validated.

Echoes of Jesus’ story may include his humble roots as a carpenter’s son. He healed and fed great crowds of people of sicknesses and mental disorders by means of spirituality, greater than his own humanity. While teaching others how to learn to tap into this energy of spirituality, he did not sugar coat the sacrifices that would come with its practice. Today, the public, along with both religion and science, has somewhat distinguished Jesus for his contribution to spirituality and the power of mind.

It’s the sequel to the story that grows complicated. The megalomania of religion and science enforce propaganda aimed at mind, and are blamed for public health and ethical problems. Although the world has mind power, not everyone gets it, and people suffer the consequences of partisan hegemony, confusion, fear, and ill-health.

Meanwhile the world’s population increases. By the middle of this century, the world’s population is expected to reach 9 billion. Right now, there are almost 7 billion people in the world, a high percentage of them mentally disconnected because the research of spiritual power is sometimes undermined by religion and science themselves.

A major setback to the advancement of scientific mental healing is due to stereotyping—casting into iron the thinking that mind-healing is restricted to religion and science. Truth be told, neither religion nor science are sources of spiritual healing, they are only venues of learning. And, learning is not accomplished in the school of conformity, but in the discipline of learning how to learn.

The challenge for the upcoming decades is not only to produce more spiritual power, but it’s “how” to produce spiritual power without further deteriorating what we have today and then jeopardizing what we have tomorrow. This requires taking into account many factors, especially the element of unlearning.

There are scores of spiritual seekers, scientists, and religionists who are, directly or indirectly, addressing the new millennium’s problematic mental healing phenomena. The span of their expertise is fitting for such an immense, prickly problem and its multifaceted agents of education, sustainable health care, philanthropy, culture, and technology. In fact, there are so many people undertaking the challenge, from so many directions, that it’s difficult to remember what they’re communicating about— scientific spiritual mental healing.

All these thinkers are demanding and searching for better solutions to wellbeing, to replace the old-fashioned faith tethered to rituals or temporary unsustainable therapeutics. Basically, the mind-healing dilemma is embedded in systems that have resources and cultural problems—a heady admixture to say the least. The upshot is: religions, the sciences, the human mind and brain are self-limiting. Moreover, new discoveries that don’t resonate with traditional thinking are habitually and sometimes adamantly shirked.

New York Times Bestseller, The Brain That Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science, by Norman Doidge, M.D., proclaims, “Of neuroplasticians with solid hard-science credentials, it is [Michael] Merzenich who has made the most ambitious claims for the field…that plasticity exists from the cradle to the grave; and that radical improvements in cognitive functioning—how we learn, think, perceive, and remember—are possible even in the elderly.” Yet, Merzenich had to pioneer experiments for a long time, even while enduring dismissal from prominent neuroscientists, before hardcore localizationists took notice of brain plasticity in adults. Fortunately, brain plasticity supports mind healing, but unfortunately plasticity also is dangerous—think brainwashing. More research is imperative and successful research will involve breaking past our trained thought processes.

Learning how to learn requires time, energy, understanding, practice, and respect. Mind-healing is not going to be perfected any time soon but it must be seen as a universal prerogative accessible to each individual regardless of their ethos or background. Technology, textbooks, research laboratories, and religions, may serve as instruments to shed light on scientific metaphysical energy, however, individual proactive practice of Mind-healing is the clincher.

In his book, Complications: A Surgeon’s Notes on an Imperfect Science, Surgeon Atul Gawande points out an “uncomfortable truth about teaching. By traditional ethics and public insistence (not to mention court rulings), a patient’s right to the best care possible must trump the objective of training novices. We want perfection without practice. Yet everyone is harmed if no one is trained for the future. So learning is hidden, behind drapes and anesthesia and the elisions of language. Nor does the dilemma apply just to residents, physicians in training. In fact the process of learning turns out to extend longer than most people know.” In the long run, more harm is done when a privileged few are delegated responsibility than if rookies are encouraged to think and practice for themselves.

Mistakes will be made, but they are being made already. Mind-healing through prayer is not consistent. Clearly, the body, brain or human mind can be changed by mainstream medicine, but that doesn’t mean healing is occurring. When one disease is settled down, two new diseases slither in to explode. But evidence has it that mind-healing, without chronic prayers or human manipulation, has been and is happening, albeit classified as miracles and anomalies due to an “unseen” element and ignored nevertheless like triggered car alarms.

Effective research into mind-healing requires a tectonic mental shift away from the limited seen to an expanded observation encompassing an unseen healing force. Call the force spirituality, divine Principle, Mind, Love, or Father (Christ Jesus’ favorite), but the shift will be delayed unless it is more fully realized that mind power is not under the restrictions of the brain, human mind, hierarchy, religious institutions or the sciences. As the matriculation of students into the field of Mind-healing becomes inclusive, the collective perceptions will naturally broaden our understanding and practice of Mind-healing.