Two major goals for the design of new catalysts are the facilitation of chemical transformations and control of product outcome. An antibody has been induced that efficiently catalyzes a cationic cyclization in which an acyclic olefinic sulfonate ester substrate is converted almost exclusively (98 percent) to a cyclic alcohol. The key to the catalysis of the reaction and the restriction of the product complexity is the use of antibody binding energy to rigidly enforce a concerted mechanism in accord with the design of the hapten. Thus, the ability to direct binding energy allows the experimenter to dictate a reaction mechanism which is an otherwise difficult task in chemistry. New catalysts for cationic cyclization may be of general use in the formation of carbon-carbon and carbon-heteroatom bonds leading to multi-ring molecules including steroids and heterocyclic compounds.