Adam the Healer

July 13, 2006 — -- Adam Dreamhealer is not your average 19-year-old. This Canadian college student makes more than most doctors do. He says he can heal people with just his hands.

ABC News estimates that Adam will make more than $1 million this year, and that doesn't include the income from his books, DVDs and $150 healing sessions he offers over the Internet.

The $1.2 million does include his seminar work in darkened rooms, with 600 people gathered before him. That's when Adam goes into a trancelike state and begins to work what some say is magic.

It was at the age of 15, Adam says, that he began manifesting bizarre powers. "All these strange telekinetic things [started] happening around me. Just little things like pencils flying out of my hands, erasers flying out of my hands," he said.

Now Adam says he channels that power into healing cancers and infections.

Linda Peterson, a fourth-grade teacher from Minnesota, says she experienced the healing benefits of Adam's hands.

Linda was diagnosed with inoperable pancreatic cancer in 2004. She went to one of Adam's workshops; then, two weeks later, when doctors took a look at her tumor, they discovered there was no tumor.

"There was nothing there. Gone," says Peterson.

Two years later, Peterson's cancer came back. So she returned to Vancouver to see if Adam could heal her for a second time.

The Healing Process

Adam says when he is trying to heal a person he sees a "quantum hologram" -- a representation of the combined energy of everyone in the room.

"I'm not actually sure what it is I do. I go into this trance," says Adam. "I don't see anything else around me except for this person in front of me. And then I'm just changing these things, this image in front of me."

He says he uses his hands to fix breaks in the energy flow, which allows the healing to begin.

But Adam can't guarantee the success of his work.

Mavis Joy went to Adam to get healed and says her lymphadema did not get better. And another time, when "Primetime" cameras were rolling, Adam correctly diagnosed a woman as having minor back and shoulder problems but completely missed her bigger problem: breast cancer.

The Believers

Then there are those, like Debbie -- who didn't want her last name used -- who believe wholeheartedly in the miracle of Adam. She says she's seen his power firsthand.

Debbie's fiancé, Trevor -- a journalist, author, and father -- went to Afghanistan four months ago. Debbie says he was mediating a dispute in a small village when a militant came up behind him and split his head open with an ax.

Debbie started a diary the night she got the news that Trevor was in a coma, from which doctors said he would not awake. Debbie says she was convinced the doctors were wrong.

A friend told her about Adam. Debbie says she asked Adam if he could do a long-distance healing on Trevor. Over the course of the next few weeks, Trevor began to gain consciousness.

Debbie wrote in her diary that when Trevor awoke, he said to Debbie, "I love you." Debbie writes that she began to cry. Trevor could speak and his humor had even returned. "Made you cry," laughed Trevor.

Although Debbie says Trevor still remains very sick, she credits the fact that he's still alive to Adam.

"The doctors said that he wouldn't recover, so to me, that's a miracle. It's a miracle that he's still alive and he's going to continue to be a miracle," says Debbie.

Then there's Dawn O'Kane, a ballroom dancer diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2003. Dawn's husband, Grant, says the disease progressed with frightening speed.

"The lowest point was when I had to push her in public places," says Grant.

The couple wanted a child; in spite of her MS, Dawn made the risky decision not to take drugs to control the disease. Her mother-in-law told her about Adam, so she went to him.

At the group healing seminars, Adam introduced Dawn to his healing visualizations. Adam says he does not advise people to stop taking medication. "Visualizations are something that can be used in conjunction with anything: chemo, radiation, conventional medicine," says Adam.

For Dawn, all that matters is that she has a 6-month-old baby, Isabelle, and that she's about to dance with her husband for the first time in public since her MS diagnosis three years ago.

Dawn says she thinks her healing comes both from Adam and her own mind-set. "I think him [Adam] believing that it's possible allows me to tap into believing that for myself," she says.

Science or Scam?

Adam says what he does can be completely explained by science. Edgar Mitchell -- who walked on the moon during the Apollo 14 mission -- says he recognizes the science behind Adam's work. "It's about channeling energy and resonating with the person," says Mitchell.

Mitchell has spent the last 30 years exploring the science of the paranormal. "The principles of quantum physics explain many of these intuitive mystical aspects of attention and intention," says Mitchell.

Other scientists don't agree. "I'm sure he's wrong, because that's not the way science works," says Bob Park, a physicist at the University of Maryland. "Whether Adam is a fraud or not, I don't know because I haven't tested him."

Dr. Herbert Benson of Harvard Medical School and the Mind/Body Center says it does not surprise him that people improve or are even healed after going to Adam.

"We have within ourselves self-healing capacities that can be turned on by belief and expectancy," says Benson. "When you're in pain or you're suffering, you can't [turn them on]. It's very difficult to believe that you could heal yourself."

Benson says that's why Adam's role, as an external healer, is so important.

Whether or not science can defend Adam's work remains in question. One thing, however, is undeniable: This teenager gives some people the hope they need.