Energy healing is the application of bio-energy (known as prana, or Qi) to balance or enhance our physical and emotional well-being. Chinese energy healing methods include acupuncture (balancing Qi, using needles on acupuncture points) as one example. But in the West energy healing is more often experienced in the presence of any charismatic helping professional. A good physician, nurse, or psychotherapist unknowingly exudes healing energy. We naturally feel safer in their care than with others who don’t have this quality. We all recognize natural healers and helpers, and we gravitate towards them.
But energy healing is more than just a way to help heal the physical body. Many humans intuit that they possess a spiritual nature, and not just an everyday ego personality. This may be experienced during times of emotional stress, while moving through an ecstatic experience, or during meditation or prayer. We humans are more than just matter: we are beings of consciousness, of light, and as such unlimited by the restrictions of the physical body.
Energy healers, mystics, and shamans have many different names that describe the functioning and development of the human energy (or light) body, each according to their cultures. The European energy healer, for instance, may be a student of some esoteric or magical system, such as the Hermetic Order of The Golden Dawn, or the Kabbalah. Similarly, an Asian energy healer may practice a style of Qi Gong, based on Chinese energy healing principles. Traditional native peoples on different continents have tribal ritual elders called Shaman, who integrate cultural wisdom with natural curing methods. Modern-day American energy healers may combine emotional/belief system personal process work alongside energy healing. And there are medical professionals – physicians, nurses, research scientists – who seek to enhance their allopathic medical treatments with insights from energy healing. But these multiple approaches to bio-energy healing can be distilled down to one unmistakable conclusion: energy is the foundation of the human experience, rather than the material body.
There is another aspect to the coming into awareness of this, our light body. As we relocate our attention and identity from the egoic and material self, and into the energetic self, we naturally find ourselves questioning many of the assumptions we have made about the world, and about our shared reality. We find ourselves willing to see something radically new. Locked into the “normal” world view – as material bodies with egos, with social or family commitments, following careers and paying taxes – we can live a fairly predictable life. But once our energy body begins to wake up, the experience of “normality” usually changes. And may change fundamentally, to the very core of our understanding of the world. These internal paradigm shifts are always shocking to each human ego: an inner identity which, although accepted as “normal” by society and family, suddenly can seem incredibly limited and false to us. Our true identity, as taught by many of the worlds wisdom traditions, is that of an energy body, imbuing the physical body with consciousness. Energy healing – when applied at the right time, and by the healer most helpful to you – not only speeds up any physical healing process you may need, but will also energize this, your light body.
If enough people begin to operate more from their authentic energy bodies rather than their egoic (i.e.,physically-based) reality, our species may be able to evolve beyond our often destructive animal roots, and past the challenges of tribalism. The realization of our body of light as our true nature is not just a personal goal; it has the potential to help others. One “en-lightenment” event can inspire another, and then another, like one candle lighting the unlit one next to it, or like a row of dominoes falling in sequence. Every “en-lightened” human (which I’m defining here as those who drop into deeper contact with their light bodies while also remaining fully present in the physical world) helps others awaken. And remaining in ignorance of our true nature – the light body – may no longer an option for our species. The world which we all share is growing small, and more crowded. Global dangers are brewing, and now threatening our survival as a species. We must evolve to a new level of consciousness. We must fully awaken.
