Topic: Energy Healing Techniques
The information is presented as it appears in each source. As the compiler of this information, I am not making any definitive claims about the effectiveness of any technique, or making any recommendations for medical treatment. The definition at the beginning of each section may be quoted from the source, as cited, or may be my own summary.
I have routinely referred to the person who is actively using the healing technique as the “practitioner” and the person who will receive healing as the “client.” Certain techniques use different terms, but I standardized these all to the above terms.
Because the majority of my sources are “instruction manuals” on various techniques, the descriptions of how to do a healing session are generally presented in the second person. This is not meant to imply that you can learn how to perform the healing technique merely by reading this short summary. If you are interested in learning to be a practitioner of a technique, I encourage you to obtain the primary source for each technique, attend workshops, or pursue other sources of information.
In the source listings, I have differentiated between “manuals” and “descriptions” of healing. Manuals contain detailed instructions designed to help the reader learn how to practice the technique (although, again, most writers state that additional training or in-person workshops are the recommended ways to learn healing.) Descriptions include information about how the healing is done, but the author’s goal is to describe the healing technique, not to teach it.
Energy Healing
Background: Where does this technique come from?
Definition: A modern spiritual healing technique in which the practitioner places his hands on or near paired polarity points, allowing the energy to flow between them. Goal is to release long-held energetic wounds, and help ‘nudge’ the patient’s system to begin a process of healing and growth.
Source: Energy Healing: A Pathway to Inner Growth by Jim Gilkeson. New York: Marlowe & Company, 2000. Manual.
Origin of Method / History: Not specifically addressed. Perhaps developed by author with a strong basis in polarity therapy, Rosalyn Bruyere’s chakra theory and other sources.
Theory: What is energy? What is energy healing?
What energy is being worked with? Human energy field. Field has these qualities: surrounds and permeates the physical body, can be experienced with our physical senses; some aspects can be measured with scientific instruments; changes in the field precipitate changes in mind, body, emotions, and spirituality; we can consciously influence field with attention, thoughts, feelings, and action. (Gilkeson, 19) Field is in “constant flux and change… a semi-permeable membrane, where our external or environmental influences meet with our internal life… Etheric conducts energy and consciousness.” (Gilkeson, 98)
Energy centers/pathways: 7 chakras. Meridians.
What is illness? Energy cysts: “Many events, from sudden impact and pain, loud sound, threat of danger… trigger the ‘fight or flight’ arousal of the sympathetic nervous system.” “Traumatized body parts or emotions become desensitized or numb…” whether this lasts “for an hour or an instant, we still sustain a wound and the energetic component of that wound is held in the etheric.” (Gilkeson, 101)
What is the mechanism for healing? “Awareness and attention nudge a process into action that leads to opening, balance, communication with the whole person and healing.” (Gilkeson, 140)
Role of practitioner: Create for client “a means of shifting out of the… traumatized state, clearing a space for consciousness and healing energy to enter areas that were injured, either physically or emotionally.” (Gilkeson, 77)
Role of person receiving healing: The natural tendency of repressed materials is “to try to move towards release… the instant the minimum requirements are in place – balance, safety, relaxation, openness – the process of transformation and healing starts.” (Gilkeson, 174)
Who can heal? Training? Book includes a number of exercises for learning to sense energy, and to begin doing healing work. Exercises are presented as laboratories for experiential learning.
Practice: How does a healing session work for this technique?
Beginning a session: Before starting, practitioner takes a moment to disconnect from client’s energy and orient himself by taking a “snapshot” of his own energy system, noting any areas of pain or discomfort, noting what is happening emotionally, and what attitudes and intentions he’s holding. Doing this helps ensure that the practitioner can recognize what impressions are internal and which are coming from the patient. (Gilkeson, 69)
Then he attunes to a higher consciousness or intelligence… may pray for a blessing or guidance.
Assessment: “In energy-based healing work, very often ‘sensing’ and ‘treatment’ are indistinguishable… awareness and attention, of themselves, nudge a process into action that leads to opening, balance, communication with the whole person, and healing.” (Gilkeson, 140)
Process: Healing involves placing hands on prescribed pairs of polarity points (e.g. medulla and forehead, or left foot chakra and left knee, etc.) and wait a few minutes to feel the natural exchange of energy, then move hands to the next pair of points.
Can be done with physical contact or just off body.
Uses: When is this Technique useful?
What do practitioners say it is useful for: Not addressed directly.
Contraindications: On one particular treatment, which activates energy processes, he notes that it should not be used on cancer patients with rapidly metastasizing tumors or on persons with severe schizophrenia, because part of their system has split off and is operating independently. It is appropriate to do techniques with these clients that calm and harmonize their energy.
Spiritual Component: States that healing the energy field is “inherently spiritual in nature” and “we need to think of energywork as essentially a spiritual practice.” (Gilkeson, 10) “Current interest in bodywork has fortunately, or unfortunately, been centered around its therapeutic aspects… for example, physical therapy and stress reduction. There is nothing wrong with using them for such purposes, but we should never overlook the fact that energywork comes from spiritual tradition… energywork, by its nature, brings us face to face with the spiritual, and by limiting its use to therapy, we overlook the vast wisdom that is offers.” (Gilkeson, 3)
“When energy healing is employed with multi-dimensional goals it is really in its own element. Such goals might range from self-exploration and a search for understanding of what might be behind our illness, to a quest for insight, growth, and wisdom about the totality of our lives. Likewise, energy healing can set in motion a change in consciousness that can transport us from a strictly self-centered, personal focus to a perspective of compassion and a felt sense of interconnection with all of humanity, the natural world, and the cosmos. The sacred healing arts and sciences have always dealt with what links the body with the soul, and the soul with God.” (Gilkeson, 13)
Healing Touch
Background: Where does this technique come from?
Definition: Modern technique. “Healing touch is a nonintrusive, complementary energy-based program developed through the nursing profession to clear, align, and balance the human energy system through touch. Through this realignment, the client’s energy system is restored to higher levels of functioning and healing of the physical body is promoted and accelerated.” (Batie, 56)
Source: Awakening the Healer Within: An Introduction to Energy-Based Techniques. Howard F. Batie, D.M. St. Paul: Llewellyn Publications, 2000. Description. [See note below]
Origin of Method / History: Janet Mentgen, RN, BSN, noticed in her nursing practice the “beneficial effects many clients exhibited after having their energy field ‘manipulated’ in various intuitively guided fashions. She began correlating certain hand movements within the patient’s energy field and the results that energy manipulation produced… these positive effects were discernable and repeatable… she [developed] a more formal, structured program of instruction for others.” (Batie, 57-58) Healing Touch is now taught in universities and many major hospitals.
Theory: What is energy? What is energy healing?
What energy is worked with? Batie has an extensive discussion of his theory of energy and energy medicine, but it isn’t clear how much of this is in line with Healing Touch theory and how much comes from other sources. (Healing Touch is only one of multiple techniques covered in this book.)
Practice: How does a healing session work for this technique?
Treatment techniques: Healing Touch teaches 30 or so core techniques, including therapeutic touch, “ultrasound”, magnetic unruffled, hopi technique, pain drain, pain ridge, lymphatic drain, and spiritual surgery.
Ultrasound. A basic HT technique. Good for pain management, stopping bleeding, accelerating wound healing, accelerating healing of broken bones. Practitioner places “the tips of the thumb, forefinger, and middle finger of one hand together and imagining or visualizing the unseen energy spike, which projects out the end of each digit for 6-8 inches, being focused into a single, strong beam of energy. Now, without bending the wrist, move your whole forearm back and forth in a random motion so that your fingertips are about an inch or two above the injured area… the energy beam from your moving hand is penetrating deeply within the etheric body… this focused energy beam breaks up disturbed or blocked vibrational patterns caused by the energy. If this technique is begun immediately after traumatic injury and continued for several minutes, the trauma to the energy pattern of the physical body will not be reflected up into the energy pattern of the etheric body.” (Batie, 61-2)
Spiritual Surgery: An advanced intervention whose goal is to repattern the etheric body to a vibrational state of greater health. The healer “simply opens himself as an instrument of healing from the higher dimensions… the energies are recognized as the energies of specific higher-dimensional beings and spiritual surgeons who are working through the healer for the greatest good of the client.” (Batie, 70) In Batie’s example, he laid his hands on the client’s abdomen, then felt his etheric hands slip inside her abdomen. During the 15 minutes of healing, he “saw” and “heard” a “medical operation being performed inside her abdomen with several instruments including scalpels, hemostats, and needle and thread.” (Batie, 72)
Studies done: Multiple studies are cited in Benor.
[Please note: This article was written in 2001, and the information is based on Batie. In 2007 and 2008, 2 healing touch practitioners wrote to me that they felt the information presented here does not fully represent the technique, and they recommend that those who wish to learn more about Healing Touch go to www.healingtouch.net]
Ju|’hoansi Community Healing Dance
Background: Where does this technique come from?
Definition: Ancient technique. Following hours of community dancing and singing, healers enter an altered state, where the energy boils up within them, and they heal by laying-on hands. “Healing has three main aspects, ‘seeing properly’, pulling out the sickness, and arguing with the gods.” (Katz, 23)
Source: Healing Makes our Hearts Happy: Spirituality and Cultural Transformation among the Kalahari Ju|’hoansi by Richard Katz, Megan Biesele, and Verna St. Denis. Rochester, VT: Inner Traditions, 1997. Description of healing.
Origin of Method / History: The healing technique of the Ju|’hoansi, a group of Bushmen of the western Kalahari desert of southern Africa; one of the last surviving hunter/gather societies. The healing dance is believed to be a very ancient tradition, which appears to be depicted in rock paintings believed to be several thousand years old. (Katz, 52-54)
Notes on pronunciation: “The dental click (“|”) sounds like ‘tsk, tsk’, the English expression of irritation. It is made by putting the tongue just behind the front teeth.” You can substitute a ‘t’ sound. “The alveolo-palatal click (“!”) is a sharp pop made by drawing the tongue down quickly from the roof of the mouth.” You can substitute a ‘g’ sound. (Katz, xxii)
Theory: What is energy? What is energy healing?
What energy is being worked with? “N|om, a spiritual substance or energy residing in the bellies of the men and women who have been taught to activate it.” (Katz, xiii) “N|om is ‘invisible’, though it can be seen and picked up by experienced healers during a state of enhanced awareness. Otherwise, n|om is known only by its action and effects.” (Katz, 18) “Traditionally, n|om is not in limited supply. Individuals need not compete for its healing power. The activation of n|om in one person stimulates the activation in others. The total healing effect of n|om at a dance far exceeds the individual contributions toward activating that n|om.” (Katz, 137)
Energy centers/pathways: “It resides in the dance fire, in the healing songs, and most of all, in the healers, concentrated in the pit of their stomachs and the base of their spines.” (Katz, 18) “N|om is said to ‘boil’ when [healers] dance strenuously, or sing the healing songs strongly; it leaves their stomachs and travels up their spines and out to their fingers, where it may be used to heal by the laying on of hands.” (Katz, xii) “As n|om reaches the base of the healer’s skull, they enter a state of transcendence called !aia.” (Katz, 19)
What is illness? “Sickness is a process in which the spirits try to carry a person off into their realm. In !aia, the healer expresses the wishes of the living to keep the sick person with them. The healer is the community’s emissary. If a healer’s n|om is strong and the Great God wishes the spirit will retreat and the sick one will live.” (Katz, 1)
What is the mechanism for healing? When n|om boils, it brings on !aia, an enhanced state of consciousness which enables them to heal.
Who can heal: “Healers’ vocation is open to all, and most of the young men and many of the women seek to become healers. About half the men and a third of the women succeed… “ (Katz, 25) The Ju|’hoansi say that a healer’s most vital quality is an open heart. “To have an open heart is to have… courage to face the raging pain of boiling n|om, trust in the community’s support for the healing journey, dedication to serving the people, and passion to sustain the healer’s journey.” (Katz, 142)
Training of healers: “The training is difficult. Not everyone can stand the excruciating pain on the boiling n|om, which is said to be ‘hot and painful, just like fire.’” (Katz, 25) “When healers are overwhelmed with the searing pain of boiling n|om, their bodies often writhe in a rigid, convulsing agony.” (Katz, 6) Healers describe the experience of !aia as a death from which they return to heal. “When Ju|’hoansi healers face the fact of death and willingly die, they can overcome their fear of n|om and break through to !aia.” (Katz, 111)
“To heal depends upon developing a desire to ‘drink n|om’, not on learning specific techniques. The healer's education stresses… the importance of dancing so one’s ‘heart is open to the boiling n|om’… and singing so that one’s ‘voice reaches up to the heavens.’” (Katz, 60)
Practice: How does a healing session work for this technique?
The Dance: “The central event in the healing tradition is an all-night dance. It occurs on average four or five times in a month. The women sit around the fire, singing and rhythmically clapping as night falls… the men, sometimes joined by the women, dance around the singers. As the dance intensifies, n|om is activated in those who are the healers and they experience !aia.” (Katz, 1) Both the dancers and the female singers can reach !aia, and both contribute to raising n|om. The songs call the spirits to the dance, so that healers may bargain with them for the health of the people.
Assessment: During !aia, healers can see inside of others’ bodies, which allows them to locate and diagnose the illness, and begin healing.
Treatment: The healer who is in !aia goes to each person at the dance, whether showing symptoms of illness or not… Healers plead and argue with the gods to save the person from illness. They lay their hands on each person, and as they ‘pull out the sickness’ (≠hoe) they usually utter their cries of healing, earth-shattering screams and howls that show the pain and difficulty of the healing work.” (Katz, 21)
Healers may work “standing up, kneeling down, lying down, back and forth, wherever their boiling n|om leads them.”(Katz, 172) Healers “place their fluttering hands on either side of the person’s chest or wherever the sickness is located. They touch the person lightly, or more often vibrate their hands close to the skin’s surface. At times healers wrap their bodies around the person being healed, rubbing their sweat – believed to carry healing properties – on the person. The sickness is drawn into the healers, who then expel the sickness from their own bodies, shaking it from their hands out into space, their bodies shuddering with pain.” (Katz, 24)
Uses: When is this Technique useful?
What do practitioners say it is useful for: This is the primary technique for treating all illness within the traditional culture. In addition to the healing of specific illnesses, all who participate in the dance experience “a sense of joy, renewed social commitment, and spiritual connectedness.” (Katz, xiii)
Spiritual / Emotional Component: “Ju|’hoansi healing involves health and growth on physical, psychological, social, and spiritual levels; it affects the individual, the group, the surrounding environment, and the cosmos. Healing is an integrating and enhancing force, touching far more levels and forces than simply curing an individual’s ‘illness.’” (Katz, 1)
REKI
Source:Wikipedia
In a typical whole-body Reiki treatment, the practitioner asks the recipient to lie down, usually on a massage table, and relax. Loose, comfortable clothing is usually worn during the treatment. The practitioner might take a few moments to enter a calm or meditative state of mind and mentally prepare for the treatment, that is usually carried out without any unnecessary talking.
The treatment proceeds with the practitioner placing his hands on the recipient in various positions. However, practitioners may use a non-touching technique, where the hands are held a few centimetres away from the recipient's body, for some or all of the positions. The hands are usually kept still for 3 to 5 minutes before moving to the next position. Overall, the hand positions usually give a general coverage of the head, the front and back of the torso, the knees and feet. Between 12 and 20 positions are used, with the whole treatment lasting 45 to 90 minutes.
Some practitioners use a fixed set of hand positions. Others use their intuition to guide them as to where treatment is needed, sometimes starting the treatment with a "scan" of the recipient to find such areas. The intuitive approach might also lead to individual positions being treated for much shorter or longer periods of time.
It is reported that the recipient often feels warmth or tingling in the area being treated, even when a non-touching approach is being used. A state of deep relaxation, combined with a general feeling of well-being, is usually the most noticeable immediate effect of the treatment, although emotional releases can also occur. As the Reiki treatment is said to be stimulating natural healing processes, instantaneous "cures" of specific health problems are not usually observed. A series of three or more treatments, typically at intervals of 1 to 7 days, is usually recommended if a chronic condition is being addressed. Regular treatments, on an on-going basis, can be used with the aim of maintaining well-being. The interval between such treatments is typically in the range of 1 to 4 weeks, except in the case of self-treatment when a daily practice is common
Following are more Healing Modalties that you may want to research.
Ø Ju|’hoansi Community Healing Dance
Ø Qi Gong
Ø SHEN
