Phenomenological Analyses of First Person Reports from “Healers” and “Healees” Involved in Unexpected Recoveries
October 7, 2008
Phenomenological Analyses of First Person Reports from “Healers” and “Healees” Involved in Unexpected Recoveries
October 7, 2008
Phenomenological Analyses of First Person Reports from “Healers” and “Healees” Involved in Unexpected Recoveries
Stanley Krippner, Charles W. Winstead, III, and Rhea A. White
ABSTRACT (forthcoming)
Descriptive Reports
Although the data are not extensive, the phenomenology of anomalous healing experiences has been investigated both on the part of the “healee” and the “healer.” Despite the limitations inherent in small, retrospective studies of people’s experiences depending on descriptive reports, the findings bear consideration. At the same time, one must always ask if similar subjective reports could have been elicited from individuals who did not survive! Some studies have taken this group into consideration, but others have not.
Healee Descriptions
Several investigators have produced data bearing on the phenomenology of anomalous healing experiences. Knight (1994) asked 3 people with unexpected recoveries from serious conditions to describe the “experience of hope in your illness,” then used Giorgi’s (1970) method of phenomenological analysis to identify a general structure. This structure consisted of such commonalties as “immediate rupture” (e.g., a break with former concepts about the illness), a reactive phase in which this “rupture” was pondered and conceptualized, engagement of alternatives (in which the polarity between old and new concepts was engaged), and the realization and embodiment of such new concepts as hope, transformation, and integration.
Berland (1995) conducted semi-structured in-depth interviews with 33 “long-term survivors” who had been given less than a 15% chance of 5-year life expectancy, and yet had lived long after this limit. He also administered the Health Attribution Test (Achterberg & Lawlis, 1989) which taps beliefs about one’s responsibility for the control over health and illness, as well as the “Pie Chart” (Achterberg & Lawlis, 1989), an informal measure in which his group divided circles into “pie slices” that represented factors to which they attributed their recovery. When asked what they personally believed accounted for their longevity, Berland’s group cited psychosocial factors (attitudes, behaviors, spiritual beliefs and practices, social support) twice as often as medical treatment. Berland found that they did not attribute their circumstances to chance, nor to any “spontaneous” events, but rather to causal events about which they had clear and steadfast opinions (even though these opinions may not have been shared by medical practitioners).
Hawley (1989) also conducted in-depth interviews with 16 cancer survivors whose recovery was considered unlikely, finding that almost all had paradoxical responses to their diagnoses. They were not denying they had cancer and that cancer was often a fatal disease, but they did not accept that it was fatal for them. Nor were most of them “good patients” whose compliance was non-initiating and obedient. Instead, they assumed “appropriate control,” feeling that they were active participants in their own health care team. In general, they regarded their diagnosis as a “challenge” to be overcome, and their conditions as “signals” that they had to take charge of serious but very challenging life events.
Psychosocial and spiritual experiences were investigated by Hirshberg and Barasch (1995) in some 45 individuals who were deemed to have made “remarkable recoveries.” Items on a questionnaire (pp. 311-315) checked off by more than 50~ of the group were prayer, meditation, exercise, guided imagery, walking, music, and stress reduction (p. 332). A list of 26 items Hirschberg and Barasch considered to be of a psychospiritual nature was also administered. Items cited most frequently as important in recovery were belief in positive outcome, having a fighting spirit, accepting the disease, seeing the disease as a challenge, having the will to live, taking responsibility, displaying positive emotions, retaining faith, renewing a sense of purpose, making changes in lifestyle and behavior, eliciting a sense of control, nurturing oneself, and seeking social support (p. 333).
Greenfield (1997) interviewed 32 clients of Mauricio Magalhaes, a Brazilian practitioner of Spiritist religious persuasion who claims to “incorporate” the spirit of a deceased German physician who directs Magalhaes’ hands while he performs minor and major surgery. Greenfield’s interviews lasted about 90 minutes; he asked 18 questions, 4 of which were open-ended. Only 14% claimed to have experienced pain, despite the lack of anesthetics, even though all but one said they had been subjected to the insertion of needles or cutting with a scalpel. Only one of the respondents claimed to have experienced complications; 88~o claimed to have been helped by the treatment and 64% pronounced that they had been “cured”; 95% said that they preferred Magalhaes to conventional medical treatment. When asked if their experience had influenced their point of view about religion, 56% answered that they were now more positively inclined toward Spiritism.
Westerbeke and Krippner (1980) utilized a 10-item questionnaire that emphasized healing experiences rather than healing events, obtaining data from 88 tourists who visited one or more Filipino healers, and who completed the forms immediately after their healing session and, again, 6 and 12 months later. “Degree of confidence in mental healing” both before and after seeing the healer, as well as “perceived amount of energy and vitality change” were significantly related to reported long-term physical, mental, and spiritual improvements. “Willingness to change one’s behavior” was significantly correlated with positive long-term mental and spiritual, but not physical, improvement. Because not all the tourists completed the questionnaires, self-selection must be considered when evaluating the results. Reliability between measures was satisfactory as respondents did not contradict themselves when describing their ailment and its severity; validity (in terms of self-descriptions vs. medical reports) could not be assessed because of the distance involved.
The same questionnaire was used by Krippner (1990) in a study of 25 North Americans visiting a Brazilian healer; the variables that reach significance were “willingness to change behavior,” positively related to spiritual improvement, and “energy and vitality” positively related to mental improvement. Responses to the open-ended questions in both studies confirmed the importance of attitudinal shifts on the part of the healees.
At Netherlands’ Erasmus University, van Baalen and DeVries (1987; van Baalen, DeVries, & Gondrie, 1987) compared interview data from 6 people whose recovery from cancer had been attributed to “spontaneous remission” with 6 patients with advanced progressive cancer. The investigators found that the former group members were more likely to report enhanced sensory acuity in which life events became more vivid, detailed, and magnified. In addition, they were more likely to report profound fluctuations in mood around the time of the remission, shifting from depression and hopelessness to a profound sense of autonomy. One of these individuals was transported to a hospice while in a coma. Upon awakening, she was angry to discover that she was expected to die, pulled out her urinary catheter, and cursed continuously and sang filthy songs for three weeks. After a few weeks, the fluid disappeared from her belly; her liver, which had grown into her pelvis, returned to a normal size. She was still in remission a year later (van Baalen, DeVries, & Gondrie, 1987). Numerous case reports indicate that during the time the anomalous healing take place, it is not unusual to see religious figures, balls of great white light, to have special dreams or visions, and to feel heat and tingling in the location of the problem (e.g., Gowan, 1980; McClenon, 1997). In this regard, LeShan (1974) observes that the sensation of “heat” is simply the “expected response” when someone’s hands are held on someone’s body (pp. 112-113) and that there is a phenomenological difference between the “perception of heat” and “heat” as measured in degrees. He notes that instrumentation has never shown a difference in degrees even when both healer and healee strongly reported such a perception.
Schwartz, Russek, and Beltran (1997) found that blindfolded subjects could correctly detect the presence of an experimenter’s hand placed a few inches above one of their hands two out of three times. The phenomenological experiences of those experiencing both “official cure” and “unofficial cures” at the shrine at Lourdes, France include mention of a sense of “unawareness,” of being absorbed in thought, being dazed, being transported beyond themselves, and exhibiting such physical sensations as red hot heat permeating the body (Cranston, 1951/1957).
There are few research studies that have attempted to identify the degree to which psychological processes contribute to anomalous healing experiences, but one of the most ingenious was conducted by McClenon (1997) who supervised an ethnographic research study in which anthropology students at a North Carolina college obtained reports of over 1,000 “anomalous experiences” from their relatives, friends, neighbors, and acquaintances. Of these transcribed narratives, 85 pertained to folk healing practices. To determine the role that suggestion and placebo processes played in the reported experiences, two independent judges coded the narratives on 11 dimensions, e.g., “Does the person being healed report an instantaneous reduction of pain attributed to the healing activity?” “Is belief mentioned as a factor influencing either behavior or the outcome of treatment?” “Is there a person…regarded as able to perform healing?” “Belief” was cited as a factor in 13% of the narratives, supporting the hypothesis that hypnotic and placebo processes are shaped and enhanced by a person’s beliefs. In addition, 39% of the healings by “preachers” and “healers,” 25% of the church healings, and 26% of the prayer healings included anomalous perceptions, sensations, or bodily movements (e.g., unusual heat or “energy”). The frequency of unusual experience motifs in the narratives supported McClennon’s hypothesis that folk healing and hypnotically facilitated therapy to use parallel methods, i.e., a special person who provides therapeutic suggestions through ritual procedures. From McClenon’s perspective, folk healers typically attach symbols to ailments, then ritually manipulate these symbols so that the complaints
are resolved. However, the experimenters were students with a minimum degree of training; thus, these results can be best considered as suggestive, and as a stimulus for future research.
Irwin (1994) has summarized the anomalous healing experiences of healees from several studies in a number of Western cultures, noting that many are at a low ebb when they first visit the practitioner. The practitioner attempts to encourage rapport, expectation, and relaxation. During the treatment session, such physical sensations as “heat” and “increased vitality” are typically reported; following the session, conviction in the treatment’s efficacy is usually stronger, and a commitment is made to take a greater sense of responsibility for one’s life (pp. 40-41). However, Irwin emphasizes that research efforts would be facilitated if care were taken to insure that the healer’s language and concepts were understood by healees, as the latter often represent a wide range of occupations, ages, and cultural backgrounds (see Harvey, 1983).
Healer Descriptions
A major contribution to standardizing the terminology of healing practitioners has been made by Winkelman (1992) who studied the records of spiritual practices in 47 different societies, past and present. He found documentary evidence identifying several categories of practitioners. The healing experiences of these practitioners included access to spiritual entities (e.g., deities, ghosts, spirits), the direction of their society’s healing activities (e.g., prayer, sacred ceremonies), and their employment of special powers (e.g., casting spells, bestowing blessings, exorcising demons) that allowed them to influence the course of their injury or sickness in ways not possible by other members of their social group.
Winkelman found remarkable similarities among members of these groups, especially regarding the manner in which their roles changed as societies became more complex. For example, shamans (i.e., practitioners who claim to access and interact with the “spirit world” by deliberating changing their ordinary modes of perceiving, thinking, and feeling through drumming, dancing, ingesting psychoactive drugs, etc.) were typically found in groups with no formal social classes such as hunting and gathering tribes and fishing societies. (Obviously, each society had a different word to describe what are now called “shamans.”) Once a society began to practice agriculture, a process of social and economic stratification took place. Concomitant with this development, priests and priestesses emerged who controlled a society’s religious rituals; shamans’ power and status were reduced and they became “shaman/healers” (or “shamanic” healers) because healing became their major function and their political influence was reduced. At the same time, the shamanic healer typically engaged in more self-regulatory activities such as changed states of awareness than did priests and priestesses.
Social and economic differentiation became even more complex with the appearance of separate judicial, military, and legislative institutions. As the competition between (and within) these groups took place, the malevolent practitioner (e.g., sorcerer, witch) appeared. The shamanic healer’s scope of activity, already marginalized by priests, was further restricted by the activities of sorcerers and/or witches. There were sorcerers among the Aztecs; there were witches among the Navahos. Both groups claimed to enter changed states of awareness, as did another group of healing practitioner, diviners or mediums (such as those found among the Eurasian Kazakhs) who claimed to “incorporate” spirits, allowing them to speak and act through their voices and bodies. The shaman’s remaining functions included such specialized healing capacities as the performing of healing songs and dances, dispensing herbal medicines, diagnosis, bone-setting, midwifery, and surgery. Winkelman referred to these practitioners as “healers” (i.e., “shamanistic healers”) for whom changed states of awareness was not longer a defining characteristic.
Winkelman’s classification system was found to be remarkably accurate when cross-societal comparisons were made; with only two exceptions, shamans never were found in tribal groups displaying an administrative political organization beyond the local level, and no shamans were found in sedentary agricultural societies where the nomadic way of life was absent. Winkelman’s four categories (i.e., the “shaman complex,” priests, diviners, malevolent practitioners) experienced their search for knowledge in somewhat different ways. The shaman’s ways of knowing depended on accessing information from “spirit entities” in “upper” worlds, “lower” worlds, and in “middle earth” (i.e., ordinary reality). The priest’s way of knowing was dependent on a body of revealed knowledge, often preserved in the form of sacred scripture. A medium’s way of knowing was to use himself or herself as a vehicle for “channeled” information, a technique not unique to these practitioners alone. Malevolent practitioners’ ways of knowing also depended on a body of traditional knowledge, either written or passed down verbally, spelling out various rituals, hexes, and spells. Shamanic ways of knowing were quite active, demanding both flexibility and strength on the part of the practitioner who would bargain, negotiate, or plead with spiritual entities for the knowledge that would save their community from a plague or restore a lost soul to its owner. These distinctions have important research implications; Rouget (1980/1985) points out that shamanism and mediumship “are products of two quite different ideologies of trance” (p. 25); the role played by social context and personal intention in constructing experience requires investigatory methodologies that do justice to the complexity of the phenomena they hope to describe and fathom.
The experiences of contemporary practitioners have been the topic of several investigations. Cooperstein (1992) read 10 first-person accounts by well-known healers and interviewed an additional 10 healers who had participated in laboratory experiments. An analysis of their cognitive styles indicated that their attention tended to become diffuse, neither exclusively focused externally or internally, but simultaneously encompassing both the outer and inner environment, with an emphasis on the former. There was a tendency for healers to use mental imagery and become absorbed in the process, often to the point of feeling that they were “merging” with the healee. The types of reported imagery included mythic symbols that supported the healer’s belief systems, diagnostic information, and treatment process.
Appelbaum (1993) conducted a participant/observation research study, combined with psychological testing, involving 26 self-described “healers” who claimed to heal their clients through touch. He administered the Rorschach and Thematic Apperception Test, and asked them for their earliest memories, and underwent “healing” himself. There were many individual differences among the healers: 3 demonstrated psychiatric disturbances, 12 were “psychologically sound”, and 11 were inclined to “shape reality according to their wishes.” In general, Appelbaum’s test results indicated “expansiveness, grandiosity, and a belief in limitless possibilities”; the healers enjoyed “being the center of attention” and had
great confidence in their capacities. Applebaum concluded that “the typical healer basically tests reality accurately, but is open to self-delusion through being less interested in checking ideas with reality than in having wishes supported by like-minded people” (p 37). Although professing humility, the healer resents rules and structure and is committed to finding his or her own path. “Healers are aided in this pursuit by sublime self-confidence…. and are drawn, in fact or in fantasy, to center stage” (p. 38).
Applebaum conjectured that people who benefit most from such healing may have similar or complementary personalities. They, too, may be people who tend to suspend disbelief, who submit easily to awe and admiration of others, who are oriented toward having their needs met by others, and who are confident that others have the power to help them. “Such a perspective is most likely distasteful to many people in Western culture who deify individual initiative and swaggering intelligence, and who insist that any external help should be in the form of the high technology of drugs and machines” (p. 40). Some of the healers Applebaum worked with told him they experienced conducting “God’s healing power” while others experienced transferring “energy” from their bodies to that of their client.
McClelland (1989) personally tested his hypothesis that healers were most successful when they elicited what he thought of as “affective trust.” Feeling a horrible cold coming on, McClelland decided to visit a charismatic Boston healer who called himself Karmu, known for his utilization of herbal concoctions, massage, and humor. When McClelland arrived, Karmu took one look at him, realized the seriousness of his condition, and sent his other clients away. Much to McClelland’s surprise, Karmu held him like a baby for 30 minutes; his cold was gone the following day. McClelland then conducted a study with university student volunteers, finding that those who felt the symptoms of a cold were more likely, at statistically significant levels, to demonstrate an abatement of cold symptoms and an increase in IgA antibodies after a session with Karmu. For McClelland, these results were largely a function of the establishment of feelings of trust between client and caregiver (see Borysenko, 1985). There are research data indicating that such variables as hypnotizability and absorption might have played a crucial role as well (e.g., Wickramasekera, 1989).
Research Methodology
It will be noted that none of these studies followed a strictly phenomenological method as defined by the German philosopher Edmund Husserl who is credited as the primary proponent of phenomenological research. This method attempts to explicate the structure, form, or “essence” of human experience and behavior as revealed through descriptive techniques including disciplined reflection (Valle, King, & Halling, 1989, p. 6). More than such purely subjective approaches as introspectionism, phenomenology is based on the following assumptions: (1) the indissoluble interrelationship of individuals and their world; (2) people have the freedom and obligation to make choices within the situations that their world presents to them; (3) people’s everyday language can portray their direct and immediate experience taking the investigator “back to the things themselves” (p. 9), back to the world as lived by the person; (4) this “life-world” can be revealed by adroit interviewing because speaking is an expression that “pours forth spontaneously” (p. 11).
Thus the data in phenomenological research projects consists of retrospective reports concerning the situations under investigation. There are several phenomenological research methods, but all of them require the researcher to (1) read the entire account to get a “sense” of it; (2) read it again, attempting to identify and note the account’s “meaning units,” i.e., the phrases boundaried by a key shift in meaning of the description being analyzed; (3) once the meaning units have been delineated, the researcher reads them again and expresses the psychological insight explicitly or implicitly contained within them more directly; (4) finally, the researcher describes the structure of which each meaning unit is a part, and articulates this in the final report (Giorgi, 1989, p. 101).
Irwin (1994) insists that there is “a legitimate and valuable role for phenomenological investigations” in the investigation of anomalous phenomena (p. 66) but observes that “parapsychologists typically have not utilized the empirical procedures developed in the context of mainstream phenomenological psychology” (p. 65). In order to help redress this imbalance, a collection of reported “unexpected recoveries” from serious illnesses was examined. Some of these reports were written from the perspective of the healer while others were written from the healee’s point of view. The written reports had been solicited in response to a “contest” sponsored by Alexander Imich, and coordinated by one of us (RAW). 34 reports were received, and 32 of these were selected final consideration.
These reports were sent to one of us (CWW) (1996) who conducted a phenomenological analysis of the material, attempting to identify the commonalties of these experiences as well as the differences. Four groups of reports were created: (1) healee report finalists (N=12), (2) healer report finalists (N=8), (3) healee report non-finalists (N = 7), (4) healer report non-finalists (N=5).
Colaizzi’s (1989) method of phenomenological analysis was adapted for this project. Working with each group of reports separately, CWW broke the reports down into their constituent meaning units, setting irrelevant meaning units aside. These meaning units were grouped according to themes; a paragraph describing the “essence” of the replies to each question was constructed according to the set of themes.
Results
In accordance with Colaizzi’s procedures, the results are presented for all four groups, first in terms of a general description of the experienced recovery, and then in enumerating specific themes with several verbatim examples from the actual reports. Errors in spelling and grammar have been corrected, and one account written in the present tense was changed to the past tense for consistency. Ellipses indicate where phrases have been omitted.
1) General Description, Healee Report Finalists
The 12 research participants with unexpected recoveries who were report finalists generally described their experience in a step-by-step manner. The description began with a portrayal of their malady–physical, psychology, spiritual, or a combination. The description continued with their reaction to the condition and the conventional treatment that was received. Their purported unconventional healing began by encountering a healer whose dynamic presence was associated with forceful energy, and
who wasted no time in beginning the healing process. This encounter with a healer, often an inner healer, sometimes occurred in dreams or visions; the healer occasionally was experienced in the form of a deity, a spirit, or an energy form.
Some of the research participants reported that prayer, whether enacted by them or by the healer, was an important factor in their recovery. Others reported a spiritual aspect to their physical healing; they described experiencing a turning point in their condition beyond which they knew they would recover. During the healing process, some respondents reported seeing themselves from an external perspective, either viewing their bodies in the present or observing their past activities. The healing, for some, was experienced as light or warm healing energy that entered the body. Sometimes there was a concurrent experience of the injury/sickness leaving the body.
Most research participants reported having been healed with no relapse. Some respondents reported that they construed their illness as an opportunity to grow spiritually, to help others, to find their vocation, and/or to achieve a new appreciation of life.
Specific Themes, Healee Report Finalists
encounter with healer, forceful energy, no wasting time
B. The healer’s energy was forceful and dynamic and he didn’t waste words or steps.
Prayers
SW I had only one week in Florida for treatments and praying to see results.
encounter with a spirit, presence or energy
M “I still continued to suffer from seizures after the operation. One day when I was home alone I sensed a seizure coming on. I was terriffied because I knew I could die. In the middle of it, Jesus, surrounded by a brilliant light, appeared before me and placed His long finger on my tongue to stop me from choking. He then showed me the wounds on His hands and head.”
turning point in illness experienced
HR One day I stopped by the liquor store. But when I grabbed for a bottle, something inside me hesitated. I couldn’t do it. I didn’t understand what was happening, but finally I left the store empty-handed, thinking I would return later.
healing energy, light, or warmth enters body
JB I felt an overwhelming pure and loving energy spill into my abdomen—rejuvenating and blissful energy tearing through the pain and the tissue.
Seeing self, present or past, from outside body
EsK I cried myself to sleep. I had a dream or maybe I had a vision. The next thing I knew I was experiencing a drifting feeling. I felt as if I was floating above my body, watching a play. I could see myself laying on my cot in my prison cell.
experiencing illness leaving body
MR And my body swelled, and my blood raced, and I could feel the last of the virons racing out towards my skin and leaping out.
healed with no relapse
LF Harold’s work put all the many fragments of my brokenness back together again and healed me of the lump in my breast.
LF I can now say my healing is complete.
after healing expected to, able to heal others
PC Ultimately, however, I was to teach others how to do this for themselves. My role was to initially perform the healing work, using universal energy, with my body and hands as the catalyst to assist others.
illness seen as an opportunity
B. My spiritual experience in December of 1994 has provided me with an interactive dialogue with the realm of spirit and the mind of god. I was made aware of the mechanism of disease and how the words of separation become attached to each one of us and when enough of these words are circulating within the auric field of each one of us and the auric field of the people we surround ourselves with, we start to manifest disease. Yet, it is an opportunity to look at our life circumstances and make some adjustments.
spiritual aspect to physical healing
B. I can now only think my body healing was incidental and that the real outcome was to reconnect my spiritual essence to its wholeness (holiness), and thereby circumvent disease.
2) General Description, Healee Report non-Finalists
As in the first group, these essays began with a description of the onset of the injury, or the sickness. Again, physical, psychological, spiritual and combinations of those three types of maladies were described. This group described an initial reluctance to accept the fact that they were injured/sick. At some point a choice was made to either reject or go beyond western medicine.
At some point during the illness (here meant to include also: injury, trauma, and any other situation from which healing is desirable), the healee asked for help. At the onset of treatment, the healee was unsure of what to expect. The onset of the treatment resulted in a sense of relaxation. Healees experienced a healing light, a sense of time distortion and some form of tactile stimulation such as warmth, tingling, electricity or heat. There is an experience of symbolic visual imagery during which a transformation of the ‘energy’ of the illness is experienced; this symbolic transformation correlates with an actual transformation of the manifest illness. An understanding of a meaningful context for the illness is reached through the process of the cure. There is an experience of healing or release from trauma that can be correlated to the healing sessions.
These healings were met with various types of confirmation, either from within the medical establishment or from friends or family. These healings also led to life changes, but not to the extent of the first group.
Specific Themes, Healee Report non-Finalists
Description of the onset of the injury/sickness that was healed
T.B. In the summer of 1987, I had a very serious bicycle accident in a small town in northern Spain. This is the true story of how the injuries resulting from this accident were healed by the “laying on of hands.”
reception of injury/sickness ocurred outside of rational thought. There is a refusal to accept injury/sickness
B.S. I did not take the diagnosis very seriously. I did not entertain the idea that I might bleed to death, if I did not get some serious help.
B.S. I was reluctant to go to town to an emergency room, because I did not want a surgical procedure, and definitely did not want to miss the workshop.
choice not to use western medicine is made
G.S. One day it occurred to me that I might get some help from an ‘alternative’ practitioner.
At some point during the illness, the healee asked for help.
E.F. I telephoned my loyal minister, of course, who began immediately to pray for me.
At the onset of treatment, the healee was unsure of what to expect
G.S. I had no expectations when I made the appointment and very little information about homeopathy. I didn’t know what to expect.
relaxation
B.S. I went inside my little dome tent, and zipped up the front flap so I would not be disturbed. I felt like I was enveloped in a womb. How appropriate! I lay down in the center of the tent floor, closed my eyes, and relaxed.
healing light
M.D. Zap. just like that it came in the form of a blue ray of light. No one including myself could see the light by way of normal vision- Yet at some knowing deep level I was aware of it.
Time distortion
S.G. all consciousness of the music, the sitter, actual time and space, disappears. That happened to me for most of the time in both sessions. I became lost in timelessness.
Tingling/warmth… sensation. Healing energy experienced as warmth, electricity, heat …
P.R. My wife said she was holding her hand about eighteen inches from my back, and there was an incredibly strong pulse coming out of my ruptured disc.
Visual imagery leads to a symbolic transformation of energy
S.G. The morning begins with a meditation. we become one collective animal. I begin to have images of myself as an American Indian girl long ago whose hands were cut off for punishment. Not sure why, something to do with healing with hands in a way forbidden to unauthorized persons. Lived to be old without hands, torture of wanting to touch and not being able to. Like the memories I had several years ago of being an Aztec sacrifice, and another memory of speaking against the rich and as a result suffering beheadlng in France. I lost an Aztec heart, a French head, and Indian hands.
Reaching understanding with cure
G.S. That evening I was sitting on the sofa when I had a very new type of thought. It seemed as if this idea simply plopped into my head from the universe, unconnected to any previous thoughts. I had the certainty that if I lived the rest of my life on the sofa, it would be my life and it would be a good life. For the first time I felt that I could make something of this limited situation. I realized that I was not my actions, but I was my being, and that I could be in a number of ways.
Experience of healing/ release from trauma
E.F. Suddenly,the pain let go — unclenched and my body felt as if it were sledding down old “Ice Mountain.” Painlessly! I sat up and announced to the nurse, “Thank you, I’m ready to leave now.”
Healing confirmed by medical establishment/ epilogue
T.B. Naturally, my rapid healing astonished the Spanish surgeon who had given us such a grim prognosis.
T.B. In fact, when I went to take a rather gruesome test in which they poked a sharp needle into my arm to determine nerve activity, the technician could not contain his excitement. He said that normally he does not share the results of these tests with his patients, because that is the doctor’s prerogative, but that these results were so positive that he simply had to tell us what we already knew–that the nerve had completely regenerated, an occurrence that is highly unusual.
Healing leads to life changes
G.S. When I discovered that I was no longer able to run on ‘automatic pilot’ as easily as before, I was forced to slow down; In this new pace I discovered many areas I had not explored, areas about the soul, personal values, questions of meaning and destiny.
3) General Description, Healer Report Finalists
The healer’s encounter with the client begins with a request for healing. Using a sensory modality not quite the same as vision, the healer “sees” damage in the client’s energy field. Occasionally the client also sees this damage and its source in an earlier lifetime. The healer asks for help from a higher power, referred to variously as God, the Creator, Spirits or guides. The healing may or may not require physical touch, or the laying on of the hands, but may be done from a distance. The healer, using visualization or prayer, begins to work on the client and frequently sees a light (described in a variety of colors) engulf, surround and protect the client. The healer engages in a process of weaving, unruffling or straightening out the energy field of the client. This process results in an immediate improvement in the client’s symptoms, although for more difficult cases several treatments may be required before the client experiences the full effect.
Specific Themes, Healer Report Finalists
Asked me to work on him/her.
M.K. On the second day [after coming home from the hospital he asked me to work on him. I had done some multimodal energy work on some of the people there and he was desperate.
Seeing damage in energy field.
N.T. Even though I was busy caring for my own babies, I was able to move to Kristin's bedside and assess her energy field. I had never before felt such sensations. The field over her heart was extremely dense and her right let felt like heavy ice. The coldness extended 12 inches above the surface of her body. I noticed waves of heaviness over my own heart, and a feeling of despair. I re-centered myself several times and for a few brief moments, directed energy to her leg after unruffling the area.
Client has visions of damage in earlier life.
H.B. In class, Lynn had a vision and relived a lifetime where as a young girl near puberty, she was sacrificed by her tribe.
Asking for Help (God, the Creator, Spirits or guides, etc.).
R.C. [I] asked God to assist me to heal my mother’s right hand.
Distance Healing.
K.K. Unfortunately I could not give her any direct healing during these eight weeks as she was bed bound a long way away from where I live. However, I continued to send her distant healing.
Prayer or visualization.
B.S. His mother and I bowed our heads, and all three still holding hands, we prayed silently together —.
LIGHT- Golden or Blue (sometimes white or green)— engulfs, envelops or surrounds, also protects.
D.Q. I began to notice that my tears as they were falling on Diamond glowed with a golden blue hue as they landed on her swollen body. Seemingly a force field of illumination enveloped her. This force formed a field of light that surrounded her completely. Shining first golden white, then blue, and then green, I was transfixed in a state of great energy.
Client Empowerment.
H.B. I create an environment or space where individuals can experience their inner world and the energy of the channel and I ask questions that help the individual to find and explore their origins. There may be more than one origin to a problem and often a client will review each of these in healing themselves.
Weaving, unruffling of energy field.
M.K. My first goal was to reweave the integrity of his etheric body. Specialized teachers guided me in this task, no-nonsense etheric surgeons who showed me through gentle touch and visual images how to place my hands, what sequence of movements to perform, and simultaneously what was happening interdimensionally with the body part on which I was working. Essentially I was shown a multidimensional approach to healing deep and extensive burns.
Time required for healing. Some report instant results, others longer.
D.Q. As I continued in adoration and astonishment over this encounter, I sat in shock and amazement when the back door of our home ( which had been shut and locked) flung itself open. As this happened Diamond leaped to her feet! She then ran outside. Barking playfully she began to run and leap in wide circles as she continued staring toward the heavens. When this occurred I remained still in the space where we were originally. I was feeling overwhelmed by the energy and glowing warmth that had overcome me.
4) General Description, Healer Report non-Finalists
The healer’s encounter with the person to be healed begins when the healer is told about or notices the illness. The healer experiences a sense of urgency and a desire to help, while the healee asks for help and presents a desire for healing. The use of prayer and creative imagery, including visions of earlier lives, were felt to be instrumental in the healings. The healers experienced relaxation and tactile sensations, through touch and with some experiencing tingling or warmth in their hands. Inexplicable phenomena were observed and there was a feeling that the healers were not completely in control of the healing process. The healees were healed with no relapses. The healers were prone to assign responsibility for the healing to outside sources.
Specific Themes, Healer Report non-Finalists
healer told about/ notices illness
F.T. A half-hour later we sat at the table and the serving dishes were passed around. I noticed that Audre, on my left, was rigid and staring straight ahead, taking a helping of everything that passed, but automatically, and without looking.
healer experiences a sense of urgency
P.T. The word that had come to me was that they were going to overdose
themselves. Something inside me knew they would so I went to the
house at the lake as quickly as I could.
prayer
L.A. Even though I had gotten involved in a healing ministry, I resisted. After all, this was a top hospital and surely that was all Shirley needed. I left after whispering a short prayer.
creative imagery
J.W. Gradually I synchronized my breathing to his and envisioned pulling energy from the universe in through the soles of my feet and my naval and then sending that energy through my right hand into my son’s solar plexus.
including visions of earlier lives
I.G. In our next session, Fran reported that she had felt more scattered than usual during the week following the initial session. I asked her to go back to the time where the origin of the problem with the body started. She went back in time where she found herself as an old woman lying on the floor of a cave, alone. She was sobbing.
healer experiences relaxation
J.W. Mentally and physically I was relaxed and I could feel some kind of energy pulsing through me.
tactile sensation in hands
L.A. I felt some kind of reaction but thought that the pressure of my hand alone was responsible.
healee asks for help, wants to change
P.T. She said she was finished with Ronnie and wanted to change her life, she didn’t want to live like this anymore.
paranormal phenomena accompanies healing
P.T. God will show you, I told her. No sooner had those words left my lips when a deck of cards that had been lying on a dresser flew up into the air and rained down all over the room!
feeling that healer was not in control of healing process
J.W. I remembered Oscar’s instructions to mentally step aside and just let it happen.
healed, no relapse
I.G. The effect on Fran’s current life, however, was immediate and far-reaching. Her major symptoms were almost immediately resolved. She was able to access her will power, her distractibility disappeared, and she found herself enjoying human interaction at a deeper level than she had ever remembered experiencing.
Assign responsibility for healing to other source
P.T. She thanked me for saving her life. This embarrased me and I told her I’d done nothing. It was whatever lifted those cards and tossed them around the room that made the difference.
