Hey Gang! I’d like to start this post off with an apology for being away so long… I was completely without an Internet connection for 2 weeks and it like to drove me up a wall! Things are back to normal now, at least I hope they really are, and so we can get back to our regularly scheduled programming.
To that end I’d like to report a very interesting article posted in last week’s Miami Holistic Health Examiner, written by Jed Shlackman, and entitled Beyond Massage – Healing on Deeper Levels with Subtle Energy Healing, Reiki and Energy Therapies that really explained some things in a most clear and understandable way. Here’s the article in its entirely, in case it is relocated, followed by my comments.
Dr. Gary Schwartz, researcher in consciousness and holistic healing, has conducted landmark research at the University of Arizona, including research sponsored by The National Institutes of Health Center on Complementary and Alternative Medicine. Reports published in journals and described in his book The Energy Healing Experiments: Science Reveals Our Natural Power to Heal, demonstrate that energy healing therapies have shown impressive benefits in experimental research. The benefits of massage and acupuncture have been well documented in medical research, yet many physicians and laypersons are skeptical of therapies that claim to produce an effect without the need for any physical pressure or touch. There are a multitude of studies that show how vibrational energies affect our physiological and psychological states. Thus, therapies that apply vibrational energies would logically tend to show some effect. The vibrational energies can include sound, light, color, electromagnetic frequencies, and the energies that radiate from a healer’s hands.
Energy healing treatments have been shown to support pain relief, to speed up healing and recovery from illnesses and injuries, to lower blood pressure in those with hypertension, to help relieve stress, depression, and anxiety, and even to enhance the health and growth of animals and plants. Energy healing therapies appear to be a valuable and important component of holistic health care and health maintenance. Energy healing treatments are difficult to standardize for research, since each healer is unique in his/her skill of projecting energy and intention for healing purposes, and there is an intuitive element in assessing the energy state of the recipient and guiding the application of energy to restore a healthy, balanced energy flow. At present, it appears unlikely that Western allopathic medicine will provide much acceptance for energy healing therapies, since these approaches are patient-centered rather than disease-focused or standardized according to a diagnosis and prescribed treatment model. Additionally, many energy therapies can be applied by anyone, including laypersons, and would reduce the need for professional physicians and pharmaceutical medicine treatments. This could be seen as a challenge to the economic viability of existing treatment institutions and has already produced resistance from these institutions, even while energy therapies have provided sometimes dramatic benefits to recipients.
Therapies such as Reiki, Therapeutic Touch, Healing Touch, Quantum Touch, Pranic Healing, and other energy healing and spiritual healing techniques can be applied with or without touching the recipient. Those experiencing these treatments often report feelings of warmth, tingling, and other sensations that occur as the energy field radiating from the healer interacts with their own energy system. Experiences of deep relaxation or tension release are also typical of these energy healing therapies. Some people compare these therapies to massage, as massage helps release tension in muscles and other tissues through physical manipulation. Energy healing therapies can be seen as releasing tension on deeper levels of one’s energy system. By using the term “deeper,” it is non-physical layers of one’s being that are being referred to. Rather than applying pressure more deeply to the body as in deep tissue massage, energy healers can tune into deeper layers of a person’s energy system and access the layers where emotions, subconscious memories, and thought patterns are held. These layers govern what is being manifested on the physical level, so there are many physical issues that can be healed or alleviated through energy healing therapies.
The part that really caught my attention came right at the end… the lines:
“Rather than applying pressure more deeply to the body as in deep tissue massage, energy healers can tune into deeper layers of a person’s energy system and access the layers where emotions, subconscious memories, and thought patterns are held. These layers govern what is being manifested on the physical level, so there are many physical issues that can be healed or alleviated through energy healing therapies.”
are so spot on that I wish I wrote them myself. 
I’ve always maintained that these layers were not really deeper, just at a different energetic frequency… but the deepness metaphor cuts through quite nicely and is bound to raise less eyebrows. Further, that these layers (whether deeper or at a different frequency) are where emotions, memories and thought patterns are held is quite astute, made more so by the realization that these layers govern what is being manifested on the physical level. Again… spot on!!!
According to Schwartz, a professor of psychology, surgery, medicine, neurology and psychiatry at the University of Arizona and author of The G.O.D. Experiments: How Science Is Discovering God In Everything, Including Usconcludes in his work that the human body is a bundle of energy that can be healed by another such bundle of energy. This, in a nutshell is exactly what Reiki is all about.
Elsewhere, Shlackman offers the following:
I first came across Schwartz’ work almost a decade ago in the Living Energy Universe. His subsequent books have been more focused, and the Energy Healing Experiments looks at the research and evidence validating the power of consciousness and intention to guide healing energies. This book provides solid evidence and explores important questions raised by both believers and skeptics. As an energy healer I know what I observe and experience with myself and clients, so I don’t need convincing… but for those who lack the expanded sensory awareness to feel and perceive energy healing it’s useful to have empirical findings and methodically designed experiments that confirm something is happening that can’t be explained in a materialistic manner. Gary Schwartz has done well in collecting this evidence and presenting it within a thoughtful analysis and discussion of its implications. This book is practical and more scientifically-oriented than spiritually oriented even though it does bring up the spiritual and philosophical implications of energy healing. I recommend this for healers who want to have a collection of research that supports their work, as well as the general public and skeptics who wish to carefully consider the evidence regarding this phenomenon.
I haven’t read any of Dr. Schwartz’s books before but i certainly intend to do so and would love to hear from any of you who have, as to your impressions and reactions to his work. Sounds like it might just fill in a few of the gaps that have been causing problems for Reiki for far too long.
For further explanation or discussion, your thoughts are most welcome and highly encouraged, please feel free to comment below!!!
