Summary of The Subtle Body ||
Part I: Energy and Energy Healers
(2.) Being An Energy Healer
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Cyndi Dale begins the encyclopedia with describing "energy anatomy," beneath the surface of the world, where one might discover a universe of subtle energies that swirl. They form you. Dale introduces basic principles of energy and of a system that is constructed by subtle energy fields, often referred to as energy channels or energy bodies. After briefly discussing separate anatomical structures, Dale looks into healing work and unique factors when involved in subtle energy healing; Dale refers to an subtle energy healer as someone who senses, sees, hears, and works with less substantive and subtle energies. This part takes special consideration to training, ethics, and boundaries as a healer, while guiding us through a portal right into up to the world of energy.
What is a healer?
Dale asks a group of questions when defining an energy healer. "What is a healer? All healers are energy workers, but are all energy workers 'healers'? Does someone actually have to 'heal people' to be considered a healer?" She answers,
"Yes—if healing includes creating positive change, not only a cure" (2009, p. 23). The notion of curing and healing a different concepts, which Dale defines separately. Determining the different between the two allows Dale to depict practice of care and treatment.
To cure - erase symptoms
To heal - assure a state of wholeness
The notion is that a whole person does not imply the physical body, which Dale acknowledges through three main ideas. One idea that Dale shares is that one is whole in spite of missing a leg. The other two ideas mentioned are connected to situations and circumstances, in that neither does wholeness relate with physical sickness like a flu bug, nor does wholeness relate with the physical body being free such as from a death sentence. These three ideas on wholeness led Dale to describe a clearer understanding about the role of a healer. Dales states: "A healer is essentially someone who helps another person realize his or her inherent wholeness, regardless of appearances or the outcome of treatment" (2009, p. 23). The idea is to mirror to an individual that they are whole as an individual self.
The notion mentioned earlier - that all healers are energy workers - continues as Dale shares how an energy healer can be allopathic, complementary, Western, Eastern, spiritual, or any other sort. All forms of healers, Dale addresses, involve understanding energy and the effects of energy. On the other hand, Dale says, "Being a subtle energy healer requires comprehending an even more unique set of issues" (2009, p. 23). These issues are connected the beliefs and ethics need for being an energy healer - "which all healers essential are" (ibid., p. 23). Being a healer involves following a code of honor, which promotes healthy feelings, thoughts, actions, and beliefs in a patient, without compromising all the same within the healer. Dales says that this involves being wise and acting wisely, by using intuition and insight; this provides parameters that a specialist can apply to their own practice.
Requirements for working energetically
A professional energy worker has to decide how to operate with techniques, beliefs, and ethics, by "diligentally selecting training, behaviors, and boundaries that serve self and patients" (2009, p. 23). Dale addresses how this follows universal guidelines that can be borrowed from the Hippocratic oath, which is learned in medical school and taken up by many medical doctors. The basis of the oath: to help and not to harm. There has been proven to be a large gray area when it comes to the edges of harm and help. Thus, an updated version of the oath is taken into account, as applied by energy workers.
Dale created an outline based on the classical version (sworn to the gods so many years ago). Below is the syntax of the outline, in which Dale italicized the words of the oath and added comments in standard text.
To benefit the sick according to one's ability. Only treat the people you are qualified to treat.
Keep them from harm and injustice, or tell them if you think there are injuring themselves or someone else. Report severe endangerments to authors where necessary and do not overstep your own boundaries. If you are a hands-on healer, you are not trained to decide whether a cancer patient would benefit from chemotherapy.
To hold him who has taught me as equal to my parents. Respect your teachers and seek out trainers, schools, and programs that are respectable.
Not give a deadly drug to anyone who has asked for it, or makes suggestion to this effect. All energy is medicine—even if subtle energy. Whether packaged as herbs, sound, light, words, or prescription medicine, medicine has an effect and is not to be used without full knowledge of its effects.
In purity and holiness I will guided my life and my art. This means that you count. Your life and morals are important and are not to be sacrificed for your work.
Whatever houses I may visit, I will come for benefit of the sick, remaining free o all intentional injustice, of all mischief, and in particular sexual relationship with female or male persons, be they free or slaves. Do not get involved with clients. Most professional and licensed medical professionals cannot date or see their patients outside of work unless treatment has ceased for two years.
What I may see or hear in the course of the treatment or even outside of the treatment in regard to the life of men, which on no account one must spread abroad, I will keep to myself, holding such things shameful to be spoken about. Clients deserve privacy.
Lastly, Dale states that the contemporary version of the oath also recommends that professional practitioners avoid doing what other specialists can otherwise do better, sending clients to the correct referrals.
Being a subtle energy technician: specialized training
To be a subtle energy healer involves consciously learning techniques that may go beyond allopathic medical dicipline, Dale states. There are three main techincal areas that Dale lays-out, which are necessary to know to when becoming a learned technician:
Expertise in at least one subtle energy practice. There are great chiropractors who have also taken a few hours of acupuncture training. This does not make them specialist in acupuncture, not outstanding energy workers. A qualified subtle energy professional must meet the following criteria:
Be knowledgeable about the subtle energies and the energy anatomy involved in the chosen area.
Understand the relationship between applicable subtle structures and the physical body.
Accept and have a working comprehension of the relationship between the energy area and the other components of the human self: mental, emotional, and spiritual.
If applicable, be attuned to and develop the intuitive aspect of the energy art.
If using intuitive facilities, also rely upon the intellect and common sense. Many Western medical doctors follow "hunches" to diagnose. That is superb—but they follow up with scientifically sound tests and procedures. Even an intuitive practitioner must do this. Consider how you can corroborate your intuition mechanically.
If one's practice is integrative, expertise in at least one other professional area. Integrative medicine is exploding across America, joining a worldwide trend. In fact, some countries have never completely Westernized their medicine practice. Their traditional medicine is so-called complementary or integrative. An integrative Western world must have a degree that is academically and legally recognized, in addition to expertise in a subtle energy discipline. State law determines which degrees and training qualify.
Ongoing training. Subtle energy medicine is one of the fastest-growing fields in the world, gaining recognition and validity, while also expanding in terms of the information that is avaliable. Keep informed, read books, and take classes.
The Power of Belief
Dale states that effectiveness of healing depends on the beliefs of the energy worker (and whether the energy healer works subtly or not). There are three main questions that Dale suggests an energy workers must ask of themself: "Do you believe in the effectiveness of your energy disicipline? Do you believe in yourself? Do you believe in your client's ability to heal or grow?" (2009, p. 26). These belief-based questions are meant to safeguard personal well-being and impact professional success. Dale also makes it clear that, as an energy healer: "Your energy fields interact with your patients' fields. How you feel about yourself—transfers into a client's heart-space, and from there, into his or her body" (ibid., p. 26). This leds Dale to discuss the rising awareness of the placebo and nocebo effects in research on the mind and body.
Placebo: when a false drug or treatment is disguised as the drug or treatment at hand, as subjects "do not know they are receiving something medically
ineffective. In fact, they are told it 'will work'" (ibid., p. 26).
Nocebo: the reverse effect of the placebo effect; what can heal, can also harm.
If a subject "believes that something bad is going to happen, it probably well"
(ibid.).
Since 1955, these effects have been studied after appearing to be magical effects, as the positive effects would sometimes work as well or better than "real" treatments and medicines. Dale uses children's cough medicine and placebos as an example. Dale also addresses cases that are not simply drugs or substance, such as devices for hydrotherapy, and the use of heat or light, as well as physical techniques such as massage or naturopathic and chiropractic care.
Dale shares the knowledge from three sets of researchers to explain the course of understanding these effects: (1.) mind-body practitioner Dr. Herbert Benson of Harvard University, (2.) professor Michael Jospe from the California School of Professional Psychology, and (3.) researchers Levenson and Gottman of the University of California, Berkeley. These researchers offer a greater awareness for healers to understand the connections between physiology and psychology.
- Dr. Herbert Benson: "Our brains are wired for beliefs and expectancies. When
activiated, our bofy can respond as it would if the beleif were a reality,
producing defness or thirs, health or illness" (2009, p. 26).
- Michael Jospe: "The placebo effect is a part of the human potiental to react
positively to a healer" (ibid., p. 27).
- Levenson and Gottman: the effects are reduced to empath; studying married
couples who excell at empathizing revealed shared physiological reactions like
heart rate, which would increase or decrease depending on their partner's rate.
The Heart-Centered Energy Healer
"We intuitively know that the heart is the center of love and empathy" (2009, p. 27). Dale offers a collection of studies on the heart to show how this is to be true. Empathy manifests in the EMF (eletromagnetic field), Dale states. "The heart's EMF emits fifty thousand femtoteslas (a measure of EMF), in contrast to the ten generated by the brain...the heart's electrical field is sixty times greater in amplitude than the brain's field. Through this field, a person's nervous system tunes in to and responds to the magnetic fields produced by the hearts of other people" (ibid., p. 27). This is why the heart's field is one of means in which a practitioner affects their patients.
Dale shares how it is then important to ask oneself as a healer, "What do you want to share?" The idea is for a healer to recognize their own presence, aiming to hold positivity in one's own heart for the profit of patient and healer. It is also important to pay attention and learn the difference between negative and positive emotions, noticing the differing responses from one's heart. Dale shares how for decades scientists have decoded patterns of electrical activity from the nervous system, but more recent studies suggest there is a hormone pulse within the body that coincides with heart rhythms.
This knowledge of the nerves and hormones, Dale states, reveals "that information is also shared in the interveat intervals of the pressure and electromagetic waves produced by the heart" (ibid., p. 28). The connection found is that negative emotions like anger, frustration, and anxiety have a tendency to distrub the heart rhythm, while positive emotions like appreciation, love, or compassion create coherent or functional patterns. These emotions are distributed through the body, producing chemical changes and electrical shifts within the entire system.
If one wants to be a healthy person, Dale advises that one be as sincerely positive as often as possible, to then increase the probability of maintaining coherence, sustaining perservation, and reducing stress, especially during stressful situations.
The Intuitive Healer
Dale states that most studies of healing have revealed the effective application of intution. She explains that there are many forms of psychic abilities, which are known to be use in subtle-based healing. "Everyone is born with various 'psychic' abilities, as extensive studies have revealed. These gifts can be developed and used to make intuitive assessments for physical and psychological problems" (2009, p. 28). Dale wants to make it clear that not every healer is good at all forms of intution, as we all have strengths and weaknesses. An example used in Dale's encyclopedia refers to an intuitive diagnostican who determined organ problems with large degree of accuracy but could not determine or identify fertility disorders.
The key, Dale addresses, is to learn which abilities one is gifted in. Below is a list offered in this section of the encyclopedia, to differentiate various types of intuitive gifts that come into play for energy work. Dale notes that some of the types listed may seem far-fetched, but she shares how there is ample literature that decribe the experiences that are listed.
Types of Intuitive Gifts
Clairaudience (also called channeling and transmediumship): Gaining information from the spiritual realm, often involving the entrance of an entity in one's own body.
Clairsentience: Knowledge about the external work with no known source for the information.
Distant of absent healing: Ability to conduct diagnoses, perceive another's situation or needs, or send healing energy from a distance.
Divination: Obtaining psychic information by calling upon spirits or peering in the future.
Dowsing: The use of instruments, such as pendulums or dowsing rods, to transfer energy or obtain information.
Empathy: Sensing others' emotions, needs, or physical conditions. Includes body-based empathy, the ability to detect smells, feelings, sensations, bodily reactions, and the awareness of others' states in the self.
Hands-on healing: Use of the hands for diagnosis, interpretation, or energy shifting, either for present or distant subjects or groups.
Kinesiology: Sensing muscular change and reading the body's messages accordingly.
Mind-based techniques: The use of mind-altering substances or activities to activate intuition, such as hypnosis, sacred medicine, foods, music, sounds, and colors.
Precognition: Foresight of the future.
Projection: Ability to see into, sense, or visit other current realities
Prophecy: Ability to see or sense what might happen, if all goes according to a divine plan
Psychic surgery: The actual penetration of the body through psychic means. Can result in removal of tissue, bones, or other matter.
Retrocognition: Knowledge of the past.
Shamanic work: The art of energetic walking between worlds and dimension with full access to all intuitive abilities, usually while in an alternated state. Abilities might include entity detection or exorcism; dealing with possession (an attachment to an entity or a part of it) or recession (part of self is in something or someone else); soul retrieval and healing (the soul or part of it is absent from the body): delivering people from energetic bindings, such as cords (energetic contracts between two or more people or souls), or life cords (attachments between two or more parts of the self); codependent bargains (energy contracts where only one of the members gains); and curses (negative energy fields that hold one or more in bondage).
Spiritual techniques: The use of connection with a divine or nonlocal reality to induce change, including the use of religious prayer, intercessory prayer, non directed prayer, nonlocal healing, meditation, and contemplation.
Telepathy: Mind-reading
Visualization: Clairvoyance or perception of images, spirits, visions, or colors; reading the aura (energy field around the body); various types of perceiving (or creating) the future or the past, including foretelling, precognition, and recognition; and remote viewing, the ability to perceive what is going on outside of the self, sometimes at great distances.
Intentionality: Involves the projection of awareness toward a desired outcome or object. In many ways, it is the sum of total psychic abilities. If you set a positive and noble intention, your intuitive abilities will naturally align to help achieve it.
As Dale stated, all healers are energy healers. Dale also makes clear the importance of following a code of ethics to serve the healer and the patient. The practice of intuition can allow an energy healer to excell with an additional level of ethics, with practical application, knowledge, and boundaries. The information offered in this section of the encycolopedia is meant to inspire natural healers to cultivate their psychic and intuitive abilities, and to inform readers of the process and training necessary to become a subtle energy healer.
What you as a practitioner believe will be shared—everywhere and with everyone you meet.
(Dale, 2009, p. 28)
References:
Dale, Cydni. (2009). "Human Energy Fields." The Subtle Body: An Encyclopedia of Your Energetic Anatomy, Part III, chapter 27. Publisher: Sounds True.
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