How to be a wise consumer of bioenergy healing workshops

A friend recently had lunch with a young woman from out west who had just taken a 2-day workshop on bioenergy healing which set her back a whopping $1500. After completing the workshop she and her fellow students were told that they would not be allowed to charge for treatments as practitioners until they took the second level workshop, which would cost a further $6000. However, if they acted fast, they could sign up for the second workshop at the (cheap) early-bird rate of $3500.

After I picked my jaw up off the floor I betook myself to my computer, where I googled this workshop provider, a certain Michael D'Alton of Michael D'Alton's School of Bio-Energy Healing. Mr. D'Alton's bio tells us that he learned bioenergy healing at Plexus Bio-Energy in Ireland. If you follow bioenergy healing trends and modalities as I do, you will know that the folks from Plexus Bio-Energy studied the Domancic Bioenergy Healing Method with Zdenko Domancic. They took the Domancic Method back to Ireland and are enthusiastic participants in a movie on Mr. Domancic entitled "Think About It", which can be viewed on YouTube.

Mr. D'Alton offers a series of bio-energy healing courses, for which no price appears on his website. They are, in order of appearance,

• Level 1 Bio-Inspired
• Level 2 Bio Body/Mind/Spirit and or Bio-Pro
• Level 3 Bio-Advanced trainings workshops
• Level 4a Bio-Teacher L1 training
• Level 4 Bio-Teacher L2 training
• Level 5 Bio-Jedi

In my humble opinion, bolstered by 14 years of experience both teaching and learning bioenergy healing, three levels ought to be sufficient to teach any energy healing method. Some enterprising Reiki masters manage to break up the three levels of Reiki into seven, with the price going ever higher with each level, ostensibly to give the student time to absorb and practice the teachings. In my humble opinion, again, that is just not necessary. Bioenergy healing is not that difficult to teach. The student may need time and practice to absorb the teachings, and may need some mentoring, but not to the tune of six or seven levels of the same method, and certainly not to the tune of thousands of dollars.

I perused Mr. D'Alton's website some more. I looked at the testimonials, which were very nice, but not anything terribly special in the world of energy healing, and certainly nothing beyond the capabilities of many talented and diligent Level 1 practitioners of Quantum Touch, the Domancic Method or the Bengston Method. I now have about 20 energy healing workshops of different stripes under my belt and my attitude to anyone who wanted to charge me the kinds of money Mr. D'Alton is charging would be to ask, only half tongue-in-cheek, whether he was proposing to teach me how to raise the dead in his workshops.

Some comparison shopping

There are three types of teachers in the business of energy healing instruction. The first are the founders or "originators", the people to whom the ability to heal came spontaneously and who then developed a system for teaching their method. The second type are their authorized instructors, the people whom they train and appoint to teach their system. The third type are the "aggregators", who learn one or more methods and then proceed to fashion them into something of their own (some of them add "personal development" to the mix as filler, though one could reasonably ask how much personal development one can fit into a weekend dedicated to learning energy healing). I would say that in my experience each method is strongest at the source, so one's best bet is always to learn it from the founder. At this point I wouldn't take a course from an "aggregator" for the very simple reason that by now I may know more than they do. But if you are new to energy healing, and just want to get your feet wet, an "aggregator" could be a perfectly fine choice for you. The question that remains is how much you want to pay.

So with that in mind, let's see what is out there that is comparable to Mr. D'Alton's $1500 two-day workshop.

Level 1 of the Domancic Method, taught in North America by Zoran Hochstatter, now called PureBioenergy, will set you back about $600 for a 3-day workshop. Level 2 will cost you $800.

The Bengston Method, taught by Dr. Bengston (who has healed mice of cancer in laboratory studies), will cost you $300-$350 for a 2-day workshop.

Matrix Energetics, taught by Richard Bartlett, the originator, costs $600 for levels 1 and 2 combined, which is another 3-day workshop.

Quantum Touch, taught by authorized representatives, will cost you $350-$400 for level 1, and $450 for level 2. Or you can learn it on-line with videos of the founder for $67.

Reconnective Healing, levels 1 and 2, taught by founder Eric Pearl and "the Reconnection teaching team", will cost you $657 for a 3-day workshop in the U.S., more in Europe.

And I note that Mr. D'Alton's own teachers in Ireland only charge 350 and 425 euros respectively (approx. $480 and $585) for levels 1 and 2 of their own program. Why is Mr. D'Alton's program so much pricier?

In terms of value, for the amount of money that it costs you to take a 2-day workshop with Michael D'Alton ($1500), you could do two levels of the Domancic Method with Zdenko Domancic's authorized instructor, Zoran Hochstatter; or, you could take level 1 of the Domancic Method and levels 1 and 2 of Matrix Energetics, and throw in a weekend with Dr. Bengston to learn his method; or you could do levels 1 and 2 of Reconnective Healing and Matrix Energetics and still have money left over to do the online course in Quantum Touch.

For the amount of money that it would cost you to take levels 1 and 2 of Michael D'Alton's method, you could probably fly to Slovenia and learn the Domancic Method from the master himself, Zdenko (750 euros for level 1, and 980 euros for level 2), with money left over to do a bit of traveling around Europe.

All these workshops are worthwhile investments, singly or in combination. The different price tags are a reminder that in learning energy healing, as in any other consumer endeavour, it pays to shop around.

Postscript: Recently it was pointed out to me that Mr. D'Alton's method in fact has a lot in common with Pranic Healing, which I hadn't mentioned in this post. Something else to research! For the purposes of this post it is sufficient to note that their healer certification program costs $350, also well short of Mr. D'Alton's $1497.

Bioenergy and Cancer Web Resources

Here is the practical stuff I promised. It is offered for your information only. Please note that none of this is meant to be used to replace standard medical care by your physician.

Aside from the Bengston Method, which is covered in earlier posts on this blog, one other bioenergy healing modality I know of that speaks of taking on cancer is the Domancic Method. While Bill Bengston focuses on cancer, saying that his method works on other illnesses as well, the Domancic Method (www.healingbioenergy.com) deals with a broad range of illnesses, and cancer, particularly breast cancer, is mentioned as just one of them. The video on the website briefly describes a case of breast cancer that shrank by half in a 4-day course of treatment. For people seeking practitioners, the same problem applies to the Domancic Method as to the Bengston Method: there are relatively few practitioners in North America, and most of them are quite new. Practitioners are not advised to try to treat metastatic cancer until they have at least one year of consistent practice under their belt. (Update Nov. 2011 - there now some Domancic practitioners with sufficient experience - consult info@healingbioenergy.com for practitioners in the U.S. or overseas, or contact me for names of practitioners in Toronto.)

Three other methods that have been known to affect cancer occasionally are Quantum Touch, Matrix Energetics, and Reiki. An earlier incarnation of the Quantum Touch website had a story by an MD who used Quantum Touch on a patient with breast cancer after the patient refused all other forms of therapy. The tumour shrank significantly in one session. I notice that the story is no longer on the website -- I wonder whether the MD got into trouble for posting it or for using an unorthodox therapy on a patient, or the patient's situation changed. If you troll the message board, you will not find many mentions of cancer cures.

Richard Bartlett, the founder of Matrix Energetics (www.matrixenergetics.com), has said that he does not like to attempt to heal cancer, because a) he does not believe in illness and healing, and b) cancer has too much "consensus reality" around it. Once a cancer has been CT-scanned, MRI-ed, and biopsied into full reality, its existence has solidified to the point where it is difficult to shift. There have only been reports of sporadic successes with ME involving cancer. It might be worth a try, but only with an open mind, and with no expectations of success. (Update Nov. 2011 - an associate of Dr. Bartlett's, Dr. Hector Garcia, is anecdotally reputed to be able to treat cancer.)

Reiki is an excellent modality to apply in conjunction with orthodox medical care. It eases the anxiety, side effects, and pain associated with cancer treatment. Patients receiving Reiki have been known to "sail through" radiation and chemotherapy. On occasion Reiki too has been known to make cancer vanish, but its chief benefit in most cases is to create a better treatment outcome. It has particular application in palliative care where it helps the patient on many levels -- including the emotional and the spiritual. It can also help family members cope with the stress of dealing with the serious illness of a loved one.

The great-grand-daddy of all forms of energy healing is Qi Gong. Qi Gong hails from China, and its roots are shrouded by the mists of time. It's related to Traditional Chinese Medicine, acupuncture, and to Tai Chi. In China of old, as in China now, longevity was much prized. Many exercises were developed to maintain health and to promote long life. There exist Qi Gong exercises particularly aimed at curing cancer. The Qi Gong Institute has published a scientific overview of the use of Qi Gong in the treatment of cancer (link).

One set of such Qi Gong exercises was developed by a woman called Guo Lin, who reportedly cured herself of cancer using Qi Gong. All Guo Lin instructors in China are former cancer patients. There is a highly informative website on Guo Lin Qi Gong, including free videos of the exercises. The use of these exercises for cancer patients is recommended alongside conventional Western cancer treatments including radiation and chemotherapy.

I have now tried out the exercises and I was astonished at their energetic effect. I would recommend them to cancer sufferers for the increase in energy levels that they can bring about, even if their curative effects turn out to be exaggerated.

Update, Nov. 2011: I received a beautiful qi gong meditation from a reader, John Hill, who says he used it to heal his 93-year-old mom of stage-4 cancer. Here is the link.

I will edit and update this post as I find new information.