Although I was seeing the serious side of the healing work and how it could alleviate suffering, I continued to have fun with it. Now and then I’d get together with a friend, and we’d see how far we could back away from each other and still feel the energy from each other's hands. We’d start with hands facing one another a few inches apart, sensitizing ourselves to the energy, then we’d move our hands farther and farther away, stretching and pulling the energy as we went — one foot, then two, three, four, and farther still. Ten feet was not unusual; twenty was a real stretch and doing it outside in a gentle breeze was pushing the limits.

Something else I found we can do is regulate the temperature in the air around our bodies. If it was cold, I could ramp up the energy in my aura, and I’d be warm. I could also do it for people sitting beside me. The first time I did this was at a meeting room at a health food store where someone was giving a lecture on Pranic Healing. I was extremely interested in attending this lecture, and a few friends came as well. The air conditioning was set far too low, and it was quite chilly in this room, but we were all dressed in summer attire, shorts, tee-shirts, sandals, and such. 

I was sitting beside a friend in shorts and short sleeve shirt who was shivering and rubbing her arms to try to warm up. I asked if she’d like me to warm the energy around her and she looked at me with a cockeyed glance and said, “Yeah, go for it.” A minute or two later she looked at me and said, “Oh, wow! You really can do that!” That was fun. I didn’t know I could do that for anyone other than myself until just then. I’m not sure if it was just my aura that increased in energy and surrounded her with warmth, or if her aura became energized as well. Either way, it worked.

There was a break in the lecture, and she went to the restroom and when the talk started back up my friend sat down and told me to do that energy thing again. I smiled and complied. Soon she relaxed and smiled at me to let me know she was warm again.

I recalled a time many years before when I’d gone on a whale-watching boat ride off the coast of Southern California. Onshore the day was hot and we’d dressed accordingly. However, away from shore the air was quite chilly, and on the way back the sun was setting and it was getting cold. There was a cabin on the boat that was overcrowded and provided a limited view of the ocean and any whales that might show. I stood out on the front of the boat and decided to be warm. I didn’t resist the cold, rather I warmed up my aura and was okay. I say I warmed my aura, but this was years before I knew about auras, or chakras and such. It just came naturally to me to do it. Others in the cabin looked at me like I was a nut.

A woman about my age, dressed more sensibly for the chilly air, struck up a conversation and we soon found we’d both read “The Body Electric: Electromagnetism and the Foundation of Life.” by Robert Becker.  The first chapter of the book starts: “There is only one health, but diseases are many. Likewise, there appears to be one fundamental force that heals, although the myriad schools of medicine all have their favorite ways of cajoling it into action.”  It’s a fascinating book, still well worth reading.

I was learning how to cajole this fundamental force in interesting ways to do interesting things, even back then when I was on that boat. But now I was more deliberate and focused and wanting to learn as much as I could.

The Pranic Healing lecture wasn’t very compelling. It seemed dry, mainly since I had studied and known the subject much deeper than the lecturer went. Afterward, I asked the lecturer if he could give me a demonstration of the energy and he did his thing, but I felt nothing. I thanked him, and I asked about Choa Kok Sui, and he told me he had died some years earlier. Before the lecture, I had thought about traveling to take a course from the center where the lecturer was based, but since I was unimpressed I decided to continue to study on my own instead.

As time went by I was given more opportunities to practice, and the way people found out about me seemed entirely random. As I recall, everyone guided to me was open and accepting of my energy work even though what I was doing was not ‘normal.’ 

Some people that I expected would be at least a little familiar with the energy, were surprised by the intensity of it, yet however startling it may have been, the success rate was high. Almost all of the people I worked on were experiencing profound results, and sometimes I’d get a written testimonial like this:

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“Still at work but wanted to drop you a line thanking you again for the energy work. Last night I could barely go to sleep because my entire body was tingling from head to toe – like a million Mexican jumping beans or bees buzzing. My hands were so hot it was almost uncomfortable. I kept thinking I should do something with all that energy from my hands, is that type-A, or what? LOL. 

I’m still tingling now and my hands are still hot. Joints continue to crack. And today was one of the best days I’ve ever had. Even though work was crisis-ridden as usual, I was not. I felt so calm, so in touch with my higher self, I could respond from a good place. I noticed more things, I was kinder, and I laughed a lot. I forgot and went up the stairs, knee still hurt, but not as bad. Same with the shoulder. Everything feels looser. Can’t wait to see what tomorrow brings!!!! 

Linda H.”

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Feedback like that kept me motivated to continue on the path. Not just studying and practicing for my benefit, but to help others. A couple of months later the same person volunteered a second testimonial for the same session:

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“I had no previous energy work so I came into this with no ideas if this sort of thing even worked, but trusting and open to the experience, and was amply rewarded. My knees had started hurting again so much so that I couldn't climb stairs, so that was the main thing we worked on. I left the session with my hands on fire and energy (I assume) moving around unlike anything I'd ever experienced. I felt lighter and peaceful like I'd been on vacation for a while. Steve also taught me some exercises to keep the flow moving, and how I could move the energy around myself. Talk about teaching yourself out of a job! Now, the knees didn't clear up right away, in fact, the pain moved around into different areas of my knees and I worried they were actually getting worse. But at some point a week or two later I realized I was pain-free and walked up the stairs with no problems at all. That was two months ago, the pain never returned and my energy level remains high to this day. I can't thank Steve enough for the wonderful work he does and the practical information he shares so generously. 

Linda H.”

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Feedback like this also informed me of phenomenon that I didn’t know about, like the way the energy continued to clear the system for several days after a session. In time, after more and more people reported this occurring, I began telling people they could expect it. I explained how I thought it might be working: When clogged or tangled energy pathways get opened up a little, the energy starts to flow through a bit stronger and, like a hole in a dike, it can slowly open, clogged pathways, gradually getting bigger and bigger, or the pathways can open very rapidly, releasing a flood of energy. It can be startling if you don’t know what’s going on. I’ve only heard positive feedback when it happens. 

It would be helpful to have long-term feedback from clients to help understand the long-term nature of the work. Most clients get healed and move on with their lives, so I don’t get to track them, but now and then I’ll become aware of how things work out for a client over a longer time frame. 

Perhaps as healing work like this becomes more mainstream, and feedback on the long-term effects are reported more often, we’ll gain a deeper understanding that could lead to improving these methods. Still, the point of doing the healing is so people can move on with enjoying life.

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    I continued to practice qigong in the backyard when the weather was nice and could notice more and more how the practice was affecting me. It has many of the same benefits as meditation in that it can calm the mind and emotions and increase your attention span. It also strengthens the body and increases stamina, while increasing the flow of subtle energy through the energy body, energizing and healing it. 

An interesting item about practicing qigong and increasing the energy in my aura; the more it cleared channels in my body, and the more I practiced, the stronger my aura got and the faster I could increase the energy, and the more sensitive I became to the energy and the more I was able to work with it. In this way, the benefits would snowball.

I got to where I could raise the energy in my hands tenfold in a minute or two. Sometimes to get objective feedback on what I was doing with the energy I’d ask someone if they could feel the energy coming from my hand before and after doing a few exercises to increase it. The change was always noticeable and frequently dramatic. 

My mother was aware of me doing this strange stuff, and I often asked for her objective opinion about the energy in my aura when she was around. I’d ask her to hold her hand out, and I’d put my hand near hers and see if she could feel it. 

It got routine for her, and she thought nothing of it. She’d say it was weak if it was, or pretty strong if it was. She didn’t think much of it or put any importance on it. She wasn’t easy to impress, which made her a good test subject. 

One time I asked for her input, and she plainly said there wasn’t much energy coming from my hand, not compared to past times. She was watching television and turned her attention back to it. I told her to hang on a minute and did several repetitions of an exercise called breathing of the universe, and within a few minutes, I repeated the test with her. She exclaimed with a little bit of excitement, “Wow, what did you do? It’s much stronger now!” She still didn’t put much stock in what I was up to and returned her attention to the t.v. again and I went about my business and made mental notes of what worked and what didn’t.  

Once in a while, I had thoughts about maybe going to China to find a qigong master to study under, but I figured I’d have to get much better before a master would take me under his or her wing. I also thought the language barrier could be a significant obstacle and I was still very new at this. Oddly enough, a year or two later a woman I knew commented, out of the blue, that she thought I had done energy work in past lives in China. That sounded like an interesting possibility, but I didn’t see any point in latching on to the idea.

~ S