Prayer, energy healing and spiritual are widely used by people with all levels of illness. Eisenberg (1998) reported that more than 26% of his survey reported using """"""""every healing"""""""" within the last year. Most practitioners of these types of healing believe that it is their inner intentions that result in any benefits, either through the agency of love, of some sort of energy, or of a Higher Power (Benson 1992). One of the other hand, the most common conventional explanation for benefits of these interventions is that it is the patient's hope, expectation, or experience of support from a practitioner that accounts for any benefits (Benson 1996). The proposed study is a double-blind randomized controlled clinical trial of """"""""distant healing intentionality."""""""" Distant Healing (DH) is defined as a """"""""mental intention on behalf of one person, to benefit another at a distance."""""""" The purpose of the trial is to investigate whether DH may have an effect on the survival time and loss of function of glioblastoma patients under conditions where hope and expectation are controlled. This study is designed to detect potential moderators of response to set inclusion/exclusion and stratification factors for a larger trial. To increase the chance of detecting a treatment effect, we will focus on patients with glioblastoma, a population that tends to have rapid progression of disease. Approximately 150 patients will be enrolled in the study at the beginning of their radiation therapy treatment. All patients will be photographed and will completed questionnaires assessing quality of life, psychological status and physical symptoms. In addition, baseline information regarding health habits and attitude toward Distant Healing will be collected. To equalize illness severity between groups, patients will be stratified based on their age and functional status as measured by Karnofsky score and then be randomly assigned either to a """"""""standard treatment plus distant healing"""""""" group or to """"""""standard treatment only"""""""" group. Photographs of patients in the DH group will be sent to experienced healers who will spend one hour per day three times per week for 20 weeks sending a """"""""mental intention for the health and well being"""""""" for the patient assigned to them. The healing intervention will be performed at a distance, such that patients and healers never meet. Patients will not know whether or not they are in the healing group. Healers of diverse schools and backgrounds will be recruited from communities all over the United States. Healers will be assigned to patients on rotation, such that each patient in the DH group will be worked on for two weeks by each of 10 different healers.
