Spirituality
Healers and Healing Responsible Hands by Ben Willemsen and Penny Margolis There is no question that laying on of hands can facilitate healing by providing energy to an ailing body, thereby giving it the opportunity to heal itself. Every healer and every person seeking healing should be aware, however, that there is more to energy manipulation and healing than the apparent simplicity of that method might suggest. Although the benefits of energy healing are well documented, this article will explore several of its major pitfalls. There are no healers, only facilitators to healing. Forgetting that fact can create a potentially detrimental outcome for both healer and patient. For example, as a patient, we may believe that a particular person has the power to heal us. As a result, we may be inclined to trust him unquestioningly and give him responsibility for our recovery. Apart from leaving us open to disappointment, we may neglect to look after our bodies - for example by ignoring crucial medical advice or our own intuition - and end up in a worse condition than before. A person who is known as a healer is often given a great deal of respect. The hidden danger here is that such a person may be reluctant to turn people away even if her own energies are depleted and she herself is in need of healing. She may feel she has a duty to be available at all times, regardless of the detrimental effect on her own health. Perhaps she believes that because she is channelling a higher energy, she will somehow be protected. As a result, she will continue to practise healing even when she finds herself in a negative state of mind. She may mistakenly believe that her state of mind cannot interfere with the pure energy flowing through her hands and, as a result, she may do more harm than good. What appears to be an act of selflessness may, on closer inspection, be a form of self-centeredness. Therefore, not only will she fail to facilitate a true healing, but in addition she may encourage a dependency which will diminish the patient's ability to take control of his own health. Energy healing or manipulation is a very complex phenomenon and can affect all aspects of the human psyche, including the mind. For this reason, a healer must take it upon himself to become a student of the mind, not least of all his own. If he does not know himself - his limitations, his mental tendencies, and so on- he may inadvertently bring harm to his patient. For example, it sometimes happens that a person comes not so much to be physically healed as to receive desperately needed attention; for complex psychological reasons, she may not even want to be healed. There is also the not uncommon situation where an illness, apparently of physical origin, originated within the person's own mind. Is the healer equipped to deal with this kind of situation? Will he recognize that sometimes he may need to refer a patient elsewhere for appropriate help? Every healer has a responsibility to become aware of his own needs and insecurities. Does he work long hours, sacrificing his own health, in order to fulfill the perceived needs of his patients? Is it perhaps his own need to be needed that drives him? If this is the case, while the needs of both patient and healer are met - the one needing attention and the other needing to be needed - it may be at the expense of any true healing taking place. A person who views himself as a healer may believe that he cannot be held accountable since he is merely a conduit for energies above and beyond himself. If his energy work has a negative outcome, he may argue that it is "God's will." This is an irresponsible and potentially dangerous position to take because the healer's state of mind can and does impact upon a person during a healing, and more so if the healer is unaware of what is happening. Disharmonious thoughts and feelings, in other words negative energy, can easily be transferred to his patient, whose trust and receptivity makes her especially vulnerable. As a result, after the healing, she may be left with feelings which she is unable to identify or deal with. Another potential cause of harm arises if the healer does not have a good understanding of the energies he is manipulating. He may claim that he has removed negative energies from a person's body when instead those energies have merely been moved around within the body. This may give relief in one area, but ultimately create problems elsewhere. As with modern medical practice, traditional methods of healing, such as energy manipulation, acupuncture, herbal medicine and rituals for psychic and spiritual purification, require many years of study to master. Yet today, many of us think we can become healers after attending a few courses or participating in a weekend workshop. This is not to say that we can't be facilitators of healing in the early stages of our training. Since time immemorial, people with little or no training - mothers with infants for example - have practised the ‘laying on of hands,' frequently with very good results. If, however, we start believing that we are healers rather than facilitators and neglect to consider the effects of our interventions on the entire psyche of a person, then we are acting irresponsibly. As healers, whether we are manipulating or transferring energy, or drawing on energies outside ourselves, it is our responsibility to monitor our own state of mind and health. Even though the outcome of a healing is not ultimately within our control, we are always accountable to our patient for our actions and for any guidance we offer, even when practising within a religious or spiritual setting. Ben Willemsen lives in the Halifax area. He has adapted this article from his book, "Don't Water the Stick: the path of the psyche."
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