After about six weeks of going to the reiki healing circle, a couple came from out of town to give a demonstration of Quantum-Touch. The place was packed and the demonstration was impressive. Several people in the audience were healed of one malady or another. A few had frozen shoulders and were unable to lift their arm very high, and they were healed in a matter of a few minutes. The couple signed up quite a few people for their upcoming weekend workshop. 

After the presentation, I was standing in the bookstore and had a chance to speak with the husband of the pair, and he offered to demonstrate the energy for me. He asked if there were a part of my body I’d like to heal and I suggested he put some energy in my right torso since he was standing to my right. He put a hand on the front and back of my torso over the liver area and almost immediately I felt something I can only describe as effervescence in my body. Like you unscrewed a bottle of soda and the bubbles quickly formed inside. Needless to say, I was quite impressed and signed up for the course.

On the drive home and for the next few days I wondered about that effervescence, how it happened, what it was, and how it worked, and what it had done inside me. Had it healed something? Do others experience the energy like this? My curiosity was up!

About 30 people showed up Saturday morning that first day of the two-day course and by ten o’clock we were practicing basic Quantum-Touch techniques on one another. I paired off with a woman and she had me focus energy into a spot about at the middle of her spine. The technique called for touching the person very lightly with the tips of the index finger, middle finger, and thumb to direct subtle energy into the area of the body where healing was desired, while also visualizing energy moving from the cosmos, into and through our body and into theirs while doing some special breathing techniques. Within three seconds the woman’s spine started popping like someone gently cracking their knuckles and she spoke up with excitement; “Oh-wow! Did you hear that? I can feel it moving! Oh wow!”

I put a finger to my lips and shushed a little so others wouldn’t be distracted from focusing on their exercises. I thought maybe everyone there would be having similar results, but if there was, I never heard tell of any other immediate results happening for anyone else, and no other immediate results happened for me either.

In the following months, I would scour the internet for as many sources of information as I could find on energy healing. I took the time to read material on quite a few websites of healers, and testimonials were sometimes fantastic, but I wanted to know more about the mechanics of all this. I was looking for practical approaches that I could use. 

I downloaded several pdf books and some training manuals from different sources and would poke around in them cautiously. I was leery of getting drawn into believing a load of malarky. It was all so new to me that I couldn’t distinguish between what might be helpful and what wasn’t, or what might even be a hindrance. 

Within a few months, I’d found books on the broad topic of qigong (pronounced chi-gong) to be quite interesting, but it was not easy to understand. Nevertheless, I was attracted to it. I figured I’d be poking around qigong for some time to come, so I took it easy and let the understanding of the material I was reading sink in slowly if it was going to sink in at all.

One thing about qigong teachers from the past is it has been said that many of them would purposely try to complicate things to make their students come to them for more lessons and to prevent others from ‘stealing’ their techniques. However, in some cases, it may have been to prevent students from running off half-baked in their training. The teachers also tended to promote their lineage with claims it went far back into the mists of time, which in and of itself was meant to indicate the high value of the masters’ teachings like he held a secret mined from the heart of a mythical mountain. 

There was often good stuff in the mix, but with what I thought was a heaping helping of obfuscation. The trick was to discern the good stuff from the not-so-good stuff. I usually had to practice various techniques daily for a month or more to see what did and did not work for me, which may or may not be indicative of what might or might not work for someone else. 

For various reasons, I was not drawn to study Reiki. There were quite a few Reiki practitioners in the area who didn’t seem to be getting much in the way of impressive results. Not that I knew of anyway, and I didn’t want to compete on any of this. I felt there were layers of confusion about it that I didn’t want to deal with at that time. I thought it best to leave it for a later date. 

 On the other hand, I found the Australian healer and author by the name of Robert Bruce to be unusually clear in his writings on working with energy. He avoided esoteric terms like “chakra” and used the English equivalent “energy center” instead. He also had made freely available on the internet a manuscript on New Energy Ways that would later be turned into an illustrated print edition called Energy Work. In it were a series of exercises you could do to explore working with this energy. I found it extremely practical, and effective.

There’s another, pared-down version of Mr. Bruce’s work online called Simplified New Energy Ways that simplifies his system even more and produces results very quickly, with the least amount of effort. 

Robert Bruce’s contribution to the field was the exact opposite of the old school tendency to make things more mysterious than they already were. He put every effort into making things more accessible to the average person. 

I also found Mr. Bruce to be down-to-earth. He has a natural writing style that doesn’t talk down to the reader. I found his work inviting and his exercises easy enough to give them a try. In short order, I was feeling, moving, and cultivating energy in, around, and through my body. Eventually, it became second nature to me.

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Unless I was actively doing the energy exercises, I wasn’t all that aware of the energy in my aura. I think this is normal for all of us. We don’t pay much attention to our aura at all. And, since you are in the midst of it, it can be difficult to get a feel for it. If your aura slowly builds up in size and gets dense with the subtle energy you may not know it.

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I’d been doing energy exercises on myself for a while, clearing blockages and building up the flow of energy through me and in my aura and one Sunday I went to the Unity church and after service when we were leaving, an older woman walking maybe three feet in front of me turned and said, “You know, with all that energy, you could go through crowds and heal people.” My first thought was something like, “What an odd thing to say.” It didn’t occur to me that my aura could get that big or dense. I recall feeling like I still wasn’t very sure about any of this stuff or where it may lead. In retrospect, I’m guessing my aura had gotten big and wooly with energy from the exercises I’d been doing, but I didn’t know it, and she was sensitive and could feel it when she passed near me. 

I’m still not a church person, but I was enjoying visits to this one. The ministers told jokes, the people hugged, there was laughing, and lunch afterward. It was an excellent place to socialize and explore. It beat the hell out of going to a bar or nightclub, and it wasn’t dogmatic in the least. You could get books there about Christianity, Buddhism, or Judaism, other isms, and various metaphysical topics. The sermons were uplifting, and there was no talk about hellfire and brimstone. No fear-mongering, or guilt trips.  

One day at the Unity church I was sitting next to a woman who appeared to be in some discomfort. I offered to do healing work on her as we listened to the sermon. Here’s how Sylvia recalled what happened: 

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“A few years ago, I was experiencing almost constant pain in my mid-back area. It was difficult to sit through an hour and a half church service. On several occasions, I sat next to Steve, who noticed my discomfort. He would place his hand on my back and I would, almost immediately, begin to feel a healing warmth permeate throughout the area. Sweet relief! It was truly amazing how almost instantaneously the pain would ease and then disappear.“

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At the time I wasn’t very aware of how strong the effect of this healing energy was having, and I assumed other people who worked with healing energy were doing what I was doing, and more. I was still new to all this and had the idea that results like I was getting were much more common than they were. 

A month before I was asked to give a ride to this Unity church I said aloud to the Universe “I need to get going on my spiritual path again. I’m ready to move.” I thought I had to leave town to find my path again. Within a week I got that call about a ride to church. Doors opened, the path appeared again, and I moved forward. I later learned that Unity is considered a healing church. In general, I agree with that assessment, but take it with a grain. After all, people are people, and groups of people are usually a mixed bag. Nevertheless, Unity Church remains a valuable resource for me.

~ S