Over this present year I have begun developing a number of additional classes to bring more of what I have learned over the last few years to our community. The goal of these classes is to help people to add more skills to their current practices, deepen the integrity of energy medicine practices, and to satisfy the curiosities of those interested in these practices. To this end I have begun the frustrating endeavor of trying to research the history of energy medicine based practices.
I hear and read all the time about how energy healing is thousands of years old, it was a part of many of our ancient cultures primary medical practices, none of these things appear to be true. There are many references to The Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Medicine when people talk about the validity of energy healing practices, but the book says little about it. The book talks about principles of Chinese medicine and mentions acupuncture as a way to influence the body to bring about health, but there is no mention of the chakra system, Human Energy Field, or any energy system that we know about today.
There are also many references to the Mahabharata. Again, I have found little to no verification of energy medicine practices here. There is some discussion of the Chakras but the information seems to be lacking in depth. However, the important thing to realize here is that these are translations of original texts. Often times, when things are being translated, people tend to seize the opportunity to assert their personal bias, omitting certain things they feel to be irrelevant to the body of work.
This has never become more evident to me than when I started reading about the ancient healing practices of ancient cultures. I researched Mesopotamia, Greece, Egypt and many of the oldest civilizations we are presently aware of. When you compared the translated information to the original text there were huge discrepancies in what made it into the translated work. This to me seemed largely irresponsible, why would they do such a thing, leaving out what could be vital practices from these ancient processes.
Upon further research the parts that were glossed over and omitted were the parts that were deemed by translators to be acts of “magic” or “worship”. If these practices were mentioned at all in the translated texts they were swept aside as being spiritualist ideas of undeveloped cultures, they were seen as being silly, and not worth mentioning.
So what is in these magical practices that have been disregarded and tossed in the pile of useless relics of knowledge? Is this magic in fact the human history of energy healing practices?
There are still some literal translations of certain bodies of work that exist in the world, so not all hope is lost in terms of trying to rediscover these ancient practices. I feel that with the work of Wilhelm Reich, Barbara Brennan, Eileen Day McKusick, Brian Weiss and many others who are trying to bring to light the efficacy of energy practices, we are relearning what has been lost to time, which will be a huge step forward for the overall health of our people, but what is preventing this advancement?
I think the real issue here is the mindset and the perception of energy healing practices. If we were to indeed look at all the information that we had available, without omitting the things that we find to be silly or unimportant, because of our own prejudices against the information, could we all be achieving a greater level of health and well-being? Not only where health is concerned, but what other pieces of our history have been omitted through this behavior?
To me this all means that as practitioners of energy medicine and alternative healing we need to be doing double duty to keep accurate logs of the work we do, chart the progress we are making so that we can amass a body of work that we can show the world that doesn’t believe that we are witnessing real physiological changes in the human body, not just some form of spiritual well being. It would be in our best interest to procure as much data as we can on our particular practices so that we can ensure that many of those who need it and could benefit from it could have opportunities to experience it.
Another issue that I have discovered while taking on the arduous task of trying to unearth scientific research on studies of energy healing practices is that much of the information is severely out dated, most of it is not primary literature, and many of the experiments that have been done have been done poorly at best leaving experiential knowledge the main way in which we know energy healing to work. This does not bode well for us in our attempt to be taken seriously by present medical practices.
I know there are a fair amount of people working in the realm of alternative healing that do not see a point in these efforts. That our experiential knowledge alone is all we need to continue the work we are doing. I think this way of thinking is dangerous to the longevity and validity of alternative medicine, and even to the world as a whole. If we are not taking our selves seriously, and we are not presenting ourselves and our knowledge as such then we are harming the millions of people who could benefit from it by giving them one more reason not to invest in taking their health into their own hands.
I know there are many people in this world who are working toward the betterment and enhancement of standard medical practices through alternative healing. I know several PHD’s who are doing their part to ensure that our practices are making it into the books and that people are coming away from the view of magic and mysticism commonly associated with alternative healing and coming to accept it as a very real and viable tool to aid in our goal of enhancing what medicine can do for people. There is also a decent amount of people working in the realm of alternative healing who do not see the benefit to forming an alliance with allopathic medicine, but if you consider those who could benefit it who have been misinformed about the potentials of these methods you can see the clear answer is to learn of new ways to advance the validity of what we are trying to do for people. My hope is that I am not alone in my efforts and we will continue to work towards a common goal rather than giving in to divisory modes of thinking. When we grow we grow as a community, in order to create that atmosphere we need more understanding and to realize we are all working towards a common goal.
Nightwing Healing Arts 