Energy Healing 101 - A free online "introductory course" - Part 1 - Healing Self

This is being offered for your information only, and it is not in any way intended to replace the services and advice of a qualified physician. This section focuses on basics and "healing self". For healing others, see Part 2.

Introduction

Energy healing is actually quite easy to learn. Most courses begin with a history of the technique being taught, followed by preparation to receive the "teaching", instruction in the technique, one or several "attunements" (which the participants may or may not be told about), instruction on how to apply the method, and finally ethical considerations on using the method, which chiefly boil down to "thou shalt not advise the client not to seek orthodox medical care" and "make no claims of being able to heal anything".

This techique has no history, as it does not rely on any single school of teaching. But I will give some basic "science" that should make all this much easier to learn.

Biologist James Oschman discovered the existence of "energy healing" after he hurt his back through years of bending over microscopes and an energy healer fixed it. Oschman then asked himself "what is this, how does it work, and why haven't I heard about it?" and went on to devote his time as a scientist to studying the phenomenon.

In his book Energy Healing: The Scientific Basis Oschman proposes that we, humans, arrived on this planet as a species hardwired to be able to perform and receive energy healing. I am no scientist, and I may be hopelessly mangling his argument, but from what I understand Oschman suggests that energy healers first concentrate the earth's extremely low frequency (ELF) electromagnetic fluctuations (called the Schuman Resonance), possibly through their pineal gland, and then emit this energy out through their hands. The energy has been measured, and has been shown to be more powerful than expected. (link to Oschman chapter)

Oschman's hypothesis seems to be confirmed by some of Bill Bengston's mouse experiments, in which geomagnetic probes set around the cages of sick mice he was healing showed that the earth's geomagnetic micropulsations, which normally show up as a random pattern of spikes, became a visibly organized series of waves (referred to as "negative entropy") at the times the mice were receiving healing.

What you need to take away from the above is that a lot of people, including some scientists with impressive academic credentials, believe that being able to heal through bioenergy is an innate human ability. So essentially you are not so much learning something new here as having something awakened in you that is already there.

I have noticed that children readily feel the energy (and react to it with joy and a sense of discovery) but that adults tend to be less able to feel it. In fact a young man I watched growing up from the time he was a child still felt it at the age of 9 or 10, but lost the ability by the time he hit puberty. My sense of it is that we Westerners tend to live in our heads, except when we are pursuing pleasure, and even within our heads we tend to favour our left brains. The ability to sense bioenergy is in the domain of the body and the right brain, so no wonder most of us are not aware of it.

Preparation

I propose to begin with some sensitizing and energizing exercises that come from Qi Gong, a Chinese form of healing that is the great-grand-daddy of most energy healing modalities. In China of old, as in China today, longevity was much prized. The ancient Daoists, to whom we owe the beginnings of Chinese medicine, worked out numerous exercises designed to heal the body and to prevent disease. They believed that human beings did not only take in nourishment through food and water, but also from the earth and from the sky, as trees do. In fact the most basic Qi Gong exercise you can learn and practice is called "Standing like a tree". (link: see second video).

The first exercise
Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart, with your spine straight and all your joints slightly bent. As you breathe in, circle your arms up, and as you breathe out slowly bring your hands towards your crown as if your were pulling down the air you gathered up above you and then gently lower your hands in front of you as if you were washing your front with the air. Next open your arms wide at chest level as you reach out and slowly gather the air in front of you and bring it into your heart; and again lower your hands and wash your torso with the air you gathered. Next bend down, open your arms wide, and scoop up the air from around your feet, bringing your hands towards your lower abdomen. Finally, rest your hands on your lower abdomen and concentrate on breathing into your belly for a few breaths. Your intention as you do this exercise is to gather in the life energy (chi or qi) from all around you, above, in front, and below.

Repeat this a few times.

A somewhat more complex version of this exercise can be viewed on the Guo Lin Chi Gong website (the sixth video from the top, entitled "Three Part Gathering").


The second exercise
Stand in the same posture: legs shoulder-width apart, spine straight, joints slightly bent. This time hold your arms at belly button level, as if you were holding a child's ball in front of your abdomen. The fingers and wrists, like all other joints, should be soft. Now imagine that you are growing deep roots into the earth. To use another metaphor, imagine that the earth is a giant battery charger, and you've just plugged yourself into it. You are going deep enough to get past all the pollution to the primal earth. As you breathe in, bring earth energy up through your roots, up your legs, up your spine, up to the top of your head, and as you breathe out, let the energy roll down your front to gather into your hands. Again, breathe in, bring the energy up to the top of your head, and as you breathe out, let it roll down and gather in your hands.

After a few breaths you may begin to feel something in your hands -- warmth, or buzzing, or magnetism, or electricity. That is chi or qi (ki in Japanese), or life energy.

Lift this energy up (or if you don't feel it, lift up the imaginary ball you are holding), over your stomach, your chest, and your neck; wash your face with it, wash your eyes, massage the top of your head; then push the energy in through your crown, and, breathing out, slowly lower you hands. The general idea is to feel the energy filling you up as you breathe out and lower your hands. You could visualize it as a white or golden energy, and you could visualize the stale energy that it is pushing out through your feet as gray or brown.

Repeat this a few times.

If you still don't feel energy coming from your hands, then clap your hands together vigorously, and rub your palms against each other. Do it three times. Now hold your hands 6 to 8 inches apart and see what you feel. If you feel an energy ball, you can now use it to energize any part of your body that is unwell or injured.

These are great exercises to do even if you do not intend on learning how to do energy healing. The Chinese believe that most illness is caused by stuck energy. Keep the energy moving, and you'll improve your chances of keeping illness at bay.

I will now post this, as there is sufficient information to begin. Please read Part Two to find out you how can take this ability to sense energy and apply it to healing others.