One extremely important factor in mental enhancements which CANNOT be overlooked, is the necessity of a positive outlook, or state of mind. Again, Mitsuo Ishikawa:
     "... Positive thoughts of love and joy promote healing, while negative thoughts of anxiety and rage tend to foster various illnesses...We are facing the necessity of introducing physical parameters related to consciousness into Physics."

        The research of Kiecolt-Glaser (1986) and Xuanzuo (1987), etc., clearly demonstrate that even a modest amount of regular meditation results in immunoenhancement and increased resistance to disease.
[As defined by the studies, MEDITATION IS THE SYSTEMATIC APPLICATION OF FOCUSED ATTENTION, SUSTAINED CONCENTRATION OR MOMENT-BY-MOMENT   AWARENESS TO CERTAIN EVENTS IN THE STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS.]

      Dr. Antonio Damasio, Head of the dept. of Neurology at the U. of Iowa Medical School:
"Some Tibetan meditation techniques may enhance people's ability to monitor their bodies. If we can train prople in this ability, it might have clinical uses."

      Immunoenhancement can be produced merely by viewing films showing loving relationships. Harvard psychologist David McClelland recently demonstrated that levels of immunoglobin A (IgA), an antibody important in combating colds and the flu, dramatically and consistently rise in people viewing films of positive content, i.e., social and medical healing. This effect is measurable even in people who don't 'like' what they're seeing, suggesting a subconscious response.

      A study by Alice M. Isen, a psychologist at the University of Maryland, found that after viewing short, funny films or receiving small gifts, one group of people became much more creative at solving a series of problems than another group who viewed a film about math. "The study suggests", she says, "that anybody could be creative under the right circumstances. When people feel good, they're likely to be more creative, and it doesn't take much to produce this effect: a joke, a little gift, even a pleasant atmosphere."

      Since, as current research indicates, the immune system itself is one source of the chemicals that control mood, the link between mood, immunity and creativity would appear to be an important, but usually omitted, factor in current medical practices.
      Other documented uses of diverse media (Bach recordings, Marx Bros. movies, cartoons, etc.) as aides in recovering from disease states beg the question: "What's entertainment?"

      Oliver Wendell Holmes said it very well, long ago:
    "Healing is a living process, greatly under the influence of mental conditions. It has often been found that the same wound received in battle will do well in the soldiers that have beaten, that would prove fatal in those that have just been defeated."

      Researchers at the Charles River Hospital in Wellesley, Mass., gave personality tests to 111 college students, as well as simultaneously measuring the activity of each student's NK killer cells, which help fight infection and malignancy. Students with the healthiest, positive psychological profiles also had the most active NK cells. Students who had high scores on the ego strength scale, which measures general psychological health, had robust NK cell activity. Conversely, depressed and malajusted students had low NK cell activity.
          Similar studies performed at Ohio State University College of Medicine in Columbus that investigated the relationship between loneliness and the immune system, produced parallel results: lonely people have significantly lower NK cell activity.

      The results support theories that there's a link between mental health and the immune system. Further links will surely be established as research is conducted on individuals suffering from multiple-personality disorders who also exhibit multiple physiologies.

          There may be as many as 16,000 multiples in the United States alone.
      Case histories show as many as 63 splinter personalities within one body.
[ See: Clinical psychologist Trula McCall, International Society for the Study of Multiple Personality and Dissociation; Case---Cheryl Kukuk; Spokane, Wash.]

          In some of these multiples, one personality may show insulin insensitivity, while the others do not, one may be allergic to bee venom, while the others are not, a tranquillizer adminstered may sedate one personality, but have no effect on the other, a personality in the throes of heroin withdrawal can show no symptoms upon switching to a different personality, one with a blood pressure of 150/110 can switch to a pressure of 90/60, etc..
        Many of these switches represent direct and plastic manipulation of the immune system.

      PERHAPS THE ABILITY TO CHANGE ENTIRE PHYSIOLOGIES AT WILL, WITHOUT THE ASSOCIATED CHANGE IN PERSONALITY, CAN BE LEARNED.