Healing touch

This article has been nominated for a name change to life and death. To discuss the proposed name change, see the discussion page.

Healing touch
Linderman revives a dying flower.
Originally held by:	Daniel Linderman (deceased), Ishi Nakamura (deceased), Jeremy Greer (deceased)
Absorbed by:	Peter Petrelli (lost)
Ability to:	Heal the injuries of any living thing

Healing touch is the ability to cause other individuals to heal injuries at an increased rate, resulting in complete recovery in a matter of seconds. In some cases the user is able to drain the life out of living subjects, thus killing them.

Characters

Confirmed

• Daniel Linderman is the first character to demonstrate this ability. (.07%)
• Ishi Nakamura also demonstrated this ability. (Our Father)
• Jeremy Greer also possessed this ability. (Tabula Rasa)
• Peter Petrelli had replicated this ability from Jeremy (Tabula Rasa), but has since disgarded it in favour of Flight (Brother's Keeper).

Unconfirmed

• An unnamed woman from China mentioned by Noah Bennet also possesses this ability. (Tabula Rasa)

Limits

Daniel Linderman

Linderman has demonstrated the ability to completely heal serious injuries including a bullet wound that went all the way through a man's abdomen, a broken jaw, and a spinal injury that had left Heidi Petrelli's legs paralyzed for six months. He was also able to heal the damage caused by his mother's liver cancer, but it is unclear whether he fully "cured" the disease.

It is not currently known if Linderman could have healed Dallas's injury if the bullet was still in the wound. It is also not known if he can heal his own injuries.

During the Vietnam War, Linderman seemed to need to be in physical contact with the sick or injured person--touching the wound, if possible--for at least several seconds to cause healing. By 2006, he appears to be able to initiate healing with brief contact and then continue merely by holding his hand close to the subject. When healing Heidi's spinal injury, he only touched her hand, but he did hold it for several seconds.

By his own admission, Linderman cannot "bring back the dead". This apparently means that he cannot heal someone who is clinically dead, even if they have only been dead a short time. Specifically, although none of them had been dead for more than a few minutes, he could not revive members of his special operations unit who were killed in an ambush, nor could he revive Au Co. He also seems unable to cure illnesses caused by viruses and/or bacteria, otherwise he would have been able to cure Molly Walker without the assistance of Mohinder Suresh.

Linderman can heal the brain damage caused by telepathic attacks that alter a person's behavior or memory, effectively restoring the person's original memories and personality. (Villains)

Linderman's healing abilities are not restricted to human beings or even animals; he seems to be able to repair damage to any living thing.

Ishi Nakamura

Ishi Nakamura was apparently unable to use her ability to heal whatever condition was killing her. It is unclear if this means that healers cannot heal their own injuries or if Ishi's condition was beyond all healing. An alternative possibility is that her disease was caused by a pathogen, in which case the limitations on Linderman's ability mentioned above (he was unable to cure the Shanti Virus) could apply here.

Ishi's apparent preferred gesture was that of a kiss, due to her affection for her son and for her dove, but she presumably has the same physical contact requirements as Linderman.

Though she was unsure, Ishi was able to restore more than a decade's worth of her son's memories after Arthur's attack.

Jeremy Greer

Jeremy had the ability to heal, but he could also use his ability to take the life out of living things. This seemed to happen whenever he experienced negative emotions, as he said that he was angry when he used his ability to kill his parents. But by thinking positively, he was able to use his ability to heal. While in anger, Jeremy killed a citzen of his town and Noah tried to get him to reverse it, but instead he chose to let him die. Later, Jeremy had the choice of using his ability to kill Deputy Gil, but didn't as he was finally able to control himself with using this ability.

Peter Petrelli

Peter initially took this ability in order to heal Hiro of his brain tumor, but Hiro teleported away before he got back and Peter never got the chance. Peter began using this ability to help people in his job as a paramedic. When two trains collided, he healed at least four people of most of their injuries on the way to the hospital (including one man who was paralyzed from at least the waist down indicating a broken back or neck) and one man with serious burns at the hospital. He also is able to control this ability enough that he heals most of the people's injuries to presumably avoid suspicion, targeting only the most serious and life-threatening ones. An example is how he healed the paralyzed man's paralysis but not an apparently minor head wound he had. However, using this ability so much exhausted him with Peter describing it as the ability draining in and out of him, however he refuses to give it up and be ordinary.

Selected Examples

• 
  Austin tells Dallas about how he was treated after he healed his mother of liver cancer.
  (War Buddies, Part 3)
• 
  Austin tries to heal Au Co, but is unsuccessful--he cannot heal the dead.
  (War Buddies, Part 5)
• 
  Linderman demonstrates his powers to Nathan by returning a flower to full bloom.
  (.07%)
• 
  With just a touch and a rub, Linderman heals Heidi Petrelli and she can walk again.
  (Landslide)
• 
  Linderman uses his ability to heal Angela's mind.
  (Villains)
• 
  Ishi heals Hiro's mind.
  (Our Father)
• 
  In 1961, Linderman heals Angela's leg scar.
  (1961)
• 
  After shooting Peter, Jeremy Greer heals him.
  (Tabula Rasa)

Notes

• Linderman's healing is similar to Claire Bennet's regeneration power because they both have regenerative properties. However, they differ in that Claire has demonstrated her ability to come back from the dead, whereas Linderman specifically states that he cannot bring back the dead. Linderman is also able to heal others, whereas Claire is unable to heal anyone other than herself without the person being injected with her blood.
• Yamagato Fellowship has files on heroes of the past. One hero is Gawain, whose knowledge of herbs made him a great healer.
• At a young age, Peter had a meeting with Linderman, but Peter had not displayed his ability of healing.
• Noah says that healing abilities often evolve into abilities that can also take away a person's life force. This has been demonstrated by Jeremy Greer and an unnamed woman from China. However, Daniel Linderman and Ishi Nakamura, two healers, have never displayed this aspect of healing.
• Every on-screen character who naturally possessed this ability has ironically died.

See Also

• For other uses of healing, see healing (disambig).
• For the similar ability to take the life force and change age, see age transferal.
• For the similar ability to detect and heal physical, mental, and emotional damage, see health optimizing.

Fan Theories

Please refer to Theory:Healing touch for fan-created theories and other speculation.

Evolved Human Abilities edit
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