Last September I signed up for a Level I workshop on Therapeutic Touch offered by the Edgar Cayce group, ARE, on the Ohio State Campus in Columbus. The weekend training session offered 20 contact hours as well as continuing education credit for registered nurses. For those interested in practicing Therapeutic Touch as part of the alternative health system, or teaching Therapeutic Touch, the course was the first in a series that could continue for up to four years. Although sponsored by ARE, the course was presented under the auspices of the Colorado Center for Healing Touch Inc. Thirty-three women and five men enrolled in the course. I kept track of the comments during the "sit in a circle and tell us who you are session," and found that 17 of the participants were nurses or other medical personnel. Massage Therapists, ARE members, Homeopathy, and various healers were other participants. I was one of six people indicating they attended for personal reasons. By 2:00 PM Sunday our leader made sure the group spent a full 20 hours learning the ballet like rituals that make up Therapeutic Touch. The sessions reminded me vaguely of sensitivity training workshops I attended in the early seventies. Instant intimacy was established by the many activities that involved working in two's or three's. By Sunday there was a "definite group identity" established and we all shared addresses and had our picture taken. These were very nice people who worked hard at developing their intuitive and clairvoyant side.
Dora Kunz, a co-founder of Therapeutic Touch, was born in the Far East about the turn of the century. She was a fifth generation clairvoyant, and took up meditation at the age of five. Her interest in Eastern Religion led her parents to send her to Australia for instruction by Charles Leadbeater, a leader in the theosophical movement founded by Helena Blavatsky. Dora served as Leadbeater's secretary and later as a psychic healer, clairvoyant, and President of the US Theosophical Society, and as editor of the Theosophical Journal. She met and recruited Delores Krieger who was working on her doctorate in Nursing at NYU. In 1972 Krieger obtained her degree with Kunz' help by "proving" that "In-vivo human hemoglobin" was increased by the laying on of hands. Krieger and Kunz began teaching their method first at summer workshops of the New York Theosophical Society and later to nurses. "Research" by Janet Quinn in 1982 showed that Therapeutic Hand-Waving (without touch) worked just as well as the touching method. We were told that touch was permissible if the healee agreed to it in advance.
I learned that Healing Touch is a philosophy, a way of caring, and a sacred healing art. In practice Healing Touch is one of many energy-claimed therapies in the alternative health armada. Therapeutic Touch differs from Reichi and Reflexology in that it is an official nursing method, the Krieger/Kunz therapy. We all have four layers of "energy" called auras of different sizes and colors which extend beyond our physical body (the etheric, emotional, mental, and spiritual). Health exists when the energy is flowing freely and these auras show no tears, clogs, or imbalances. Problems in the auras lead inevitably to disease, which can be prevented by clearing the energy fields, patching them in advance. The body also has Energy Centers, which resemble small tornadoes. These chakras are described by the Britannica as imaginary elements of Hindu or Yogic physiology. Clogged chakras are the second disease causing element in Therapeutic Touch. Each chakra is associated with a color, an emotion, a focus, a psychological function, a gland and an area of the body. For example the last of the body's seven chakras points due south from the base of the spine. It covers "survival", the color red, the key of C, the adrenal gland, the spine, knees, feet, legs, ankles, kidneys, and fatigue.
The healer is instructed in centering, diagnosing, "unruffling" the energy field, transferring, or modulating energy into and through the healee, evaluating, and stopping. The centering precedes each session and requires you, the healer, to close the eyes, go within, breathe deeply, inhale calming energy, exhale tension, and feel yourself in your heart chakra. Thus purified and meditated, you will be able to turn on your intuition, your subjectivity, and your diagnosing hand or finger tip chakras. The healee is then "scanned" by moving your paired hands till you feel the "field", then down the back and then the front of the body. Any difference in sensation between one had and the other (heat, pressure, tingling, etc.) are noted. At the end the patients feet are gripped near the ankles to move excess energy into the ground. The sensations are then shared with the healee who is encouraged to interpret them in health terms. The leader asks for "hits" and they come in floods. Tingling near the ears elicits headaches, ear aches, and cavities. The knees and base of the spine are fruitful tinglers, cool spots, or tears. Those who missed the "field" receive condolences and advice from alcoholics anonymous to "fake it until you make it."
The aura smoothing as it was called in another psychic healing class at Crystal's Gem Shop, involves moving the hands over the body from head to toe and from center line to beyond the edge with finger tips wiggling as an option. As you pass the edge the pain and congestion are flicked away with a graceful swoop. This works great with depression. All treatment is done with lights lowered and repetitive new age tapes playing in the background. It was wonderfully relaxing and Herbert Benson would have approved.
The chakras, I should say Energy Centers, are diagnosed using a pendulum, for example a heavy ring on a string. Lets say that if your pendulum moves counter-clockwise all is well and energy is moving. If it just hangs there, moves from side to side, or in another direction -well the chakra is clogged and in need of healing. I learned that a pendulum will do what you intuit it to do. The manual describes replacing the pendulum with a dowsing rod which is equally accurate.
The final step is to add additional energy to the places or chakras with problems. Placing a hand on one chakra and the other on another will balance the energy between them. One elaborate ritual, "the chakra connection", requires two people to follow a complicated plan of cross-handed chakra moves that takes up to 30 minutes. By the time each team member plays healee, a lot of time has passed and the relaxation is epidemic. I doubt that any monastery enforces the rule of silence as effectively as did my workshop colleagues. The slow ballet like movements of thirty persons in a dimly lit room has a deeply mesmeric look to it. The healees often needed several minutes to unlax and get back on their feet.
Additional energy can be added to single problem areas by using the "laser" technique. The right hand pointer finger is extended, the three adjacent fingers are folded into the hand chakra and the thumb is coiled next to the pointer. The well centered healer then wills the flow of energy out of the ground and through the pointer finger thus not depleting the healers own energy fields. If the problem is really severe the "four finger Laser" can be deployed by extending the other three fingers. Space precludes detailed description of the seven or eight other healing techniques we covered but I think that your imagination can fill the gap.
There is no evidence that energy fields or Energy Centers exist beyond the finger tingling suggestions reinforced by the trainer. The pendulums, dowsing rods, and Kirlian auras discussed as evidential are well known psychic scams and it's a shame that these intelligent, well meaning people are believers and users. Indeed the literature of Therapeutic Touch is unacceptable as scientific research. Several major hospitals in Cincinnati appear to support the teaching and use of Therapeutic Touch. The State of Ohio accepts what you read above as continuing education credit required to maintain a nursing degree. I think this is a problem that deserves attention from the educated public.
Copyright 1992-2005, The Association for Rational Thought