Gone Bananas: Some Replications and Extensions of Bernard Grad’s Banana Mummification Experiments

Bill Bengston (speaker) and Don Murphy

Bernard Grad, arguably the father of modern healing research, discovered that some individuals could mummify bananas using techniques analogous to laying-on of hands. When successfully “treated,” picked bananas appear to bypass normal autolytic stages, accelerated weight loss relative to controls, and finally hardening to a permanent state of mummification.

We have done more than four dozen replications, testing conditions well beyond those attempted by Grad. We suggest that a single event leads to a cascade effect, altering the production or reception of ethylene (a plant hormone key to banana ripening) and amylase (responsible for conversion of starch to sugar during ripening), as well as modifying conversion of protopectin to soluble pectin.

Among our findings: mummification is contact dependent (different from “normal” hands-on healing data); takes place without regard to the intent or mental focus of the healer; is blocked with plastic and copper foil; cannot be done through healing surrogates (e.g. cotton); is dose dependent. Resonant bonding with controls may be occurring, though it is not consistent.

With further work, the physiology of this form of banana mummification can be clarified. The phenomenon may provide some clues to understanding patterns of anomalous healing.

Recorded at the 33rd annual SSE Conference in 2014 at the Hyatt Regency San Francisco Airport,

Burlingame, California, USA.

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Published on November 18, 2018