In my last blog, Energy Healing: Why Does it Work? Why Doesn’t it Work?, I suggested a couple of reasons why I thought it might not work. While I didn’t exactly get a flood of comments here, I did get one very helpful comment on Google+ from someone who has a lot more experience than I. I’ll let Steven Hollifield speak for himself before I throw in my two cents worth:
As a practitioner of Chinese Medicine for 25+ years, I agree that it doesn’t always work. Some of the problem comes from faulty diagnosis, and faulty execution of the treatment by the practitioner. But, also, the patient has to have faith in the Dr. and His/Her treatment selection. This is part of the healing placebo effect that is mostly looked upon as a negative thing here in the West. In Tibetan Medicine, The Dr. prays to the Medicine Buddha. The Dr. becomes a manifestation of the Medicine Buddha in the patients eyes. So, all healing is manifested in the patient through the Medicine Buddha. The Dr. stays out of the way and has no ego involvement.
I’ve added the bold type in a few places because those are the issues I want to comment on.
I wouldn’t even write about energy healing if I hadn’t experienced it myself, both as a patient and as a practitioner, so what follows is experiential, not theoretical:
- In the class I took, the instructors started out by demonstrating how kinesiology (“muscle testing”) works. By the end of the evening, I was convinced that it worked. A simple muscle testing exercise was the diagnostic tool used in the technique. Without it, the practitioner would be flying blind.
- Next, we were taught a reasonably complicated set of statements to use to elicit positive (true) or negative (false) responses during muscle testing.
- Finally, when a correct diagnosis was reached, a precise verbal forgiveness procedure would elicit healing.
Okay, that was the ritual. As Steven pointed out, the patient has to have faith in the treatment. I doubted that at first, because the subjects I used for my case studies knew I was a rank amateur, but upon reflection, I remembered how a treatment session began. First I’d do a few muscle testings, just to tune in and to get the client tuned in. Then I would receive permission from the client via their muscle testing response. That’s important, because belief or non-belief is deeper than conscious awareness.
I’m just going to briefly touch on the placebo effect. In my opinion, we’ve been thoroughly brainwashed to believe it is a minor factor in healing and even that it only works on naive if not downright stupid people. Well, I for one have had to swallow my pride for thinking I was “above” the placebo effect and am grateful for it.
Now for “the Dr. stays out of the way and has no ego involvement.” One of my first big successes was in going through the procedure and restoring flexibility to a woman’s thumb that had been fixed in place for years after being twisted back in a swimming pool accident. Not exactly curing cancer, I know, but conventional doctors had given up on it. I’m as egotistical as they come, but I vividly remember placing my doubtful, even cynical self in a box in the back of my mind for the duration of the session. It was allowed to observe, but not to interfere. In other words, I was keeping my ego out of it.
On another occasion, when another student was working on me, we got right down to the core of the issue when her ego got involved and she started in on a diagnosis without getting verification from my body through muscle testing. I could feel the connection break as she turned to the observing students and expounded her personal theories.
Then there was the time I tried the procedure on a friend during a New Year’s Eve party, but I don’t want to go into that because it’s embarrassing. Suffice it to say, no “miraculous” healings occurred that evening, though we did have a good time.
So, I think Steve Hollifield hit the nail on the head. However, I’m convinced that you don’t need to be a conscious believer for energy healing to work and you don’t need to be an egoless saint to be an effective practitioner. The brilliant thing about muscle testing, when used correctly, is that it taps in to the body’s “knowing”, which can be diametrically opposed to your conscious belief system. As I demonstrated to myself, if you can find a way to put your ego on the back burner and focus on the technique, it can work. Hoping for a positive outcome, too, is a form of ego involvement, by the way, so the important thing is to follow the ritual, whatever it is, and don’t worry about whether it’s going to work or not.
One more thing: Kinesiology always seems to go awry when people get overexcited about it and do one or both of two things:
- Start self-testing. It’s very easy to fool yourself that way. I think it’s virtually impossible to successfully self-test, since there’s ego-involvement from the start.
- Use it to test the truth or falsehood of things outside of your own energetic body or the energetic body of your client.
These are subjects I’d like to go into at a later date, but I want to mention them now, just in case some readers google muscle testing or kinesiology and run across claims that you can muscle test to, for instance, determine if a politician is telling the truth.
Later I’ll go into some more specifics about the technique I’ve alluded to here, but that’s enough for today. Thanks for stopping by.
