Specific Mind-Body Treatments

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• QWhat is Reiki?

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  A Ben Kaminsky , Dermatology, answered

  Reiki, the Japanese word for “universal life force energy,” is an ancient energy-channeling technique that releases Qi that is blocked in the body. Many of today’s day spas, medical spas and resort spas offer Reiki to patrons who want to improve physical and emotional health and reduce stress.
  
  With Reiki, the practitioner places her/his hands on or near the client’s body in a series of hand positions. Each position, whether on the hands, feet, shoulders, or other, is held for three to ten minutes depending on how much Reiki the client needs. The entire treatment usually lasts between 40 to 90 minutes. This subtle form of healing may be done through clothing and without any physical contact between the practitioner and client.
  

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• QHow should I begin a Pranic Healing session?

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  A Master Stephen Co , Alternative & Complementary Medicine, answered

  Begin practice/healing session by invoking. As you work with more energy that comes from outside your body, you may need some guidance in your healing work. Thus before starting any self-healing routine, we suggest that you invoke a higher being, saint, or deity of your choice. It helps ensure safe practice and the safety of anyone on whom you may practice. You can use a favorite prayer or inspirational passage, or even direct your invocation to an undefined higher power. It can be simple and brief. Here’s an example: “Thank you,________, for this healing energy and for the guidance to use it safely and properly."
• QWhat is sweeping in Pranic Healing?

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  A Master Stephen Co , Alternative & Complementary Medicine, answered

  Sweeping is the Pranic Healing method of ensuring energetic cleanliness by manually removing contamination, or dirty energy, from your aura. Sweeping is the second of the three energy manipulation techniques.
• QWhat are the two types of sweeping in Pranic Healing?

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  A Master Stephen Co , Alternative & Complementary Medicine, answered

  There are two types of sweeping, general sweeping and local sweeping. General sweeping is a series of 10 two-handed sweeps - five down the front of the body and five down the back - that constitutes an overall head-to-toe and front-to-back cleansing of the energetic anatomy. Local sweeping is more targeted manual cleansing of a specific body part or chakra. Local sweeping is carried out with one hand, and the cleansing is deeper and more concentrated.
• QHow did Pranic Healing come into practice?

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  A Master Stephen Co , Alternative & Complementary Medicine, answered

  Pranic Healing was created by a Chinese-Filipino spiritual teacher and energy master named Grandmaster Choa Kok Sui, who spent years researching the root teachings of esoteric systems such as yoga, chi kung, Kaballah (an ancient Jewish mystical-spiritual tradition), and many others in order to create a simple, practical, effective, "optimum" energy healing system that anyone could learn and use.
  
  In his teens Grandmaster Choa was already an accomplished student of yoga and various meditation and spiritual systems. In his twenties, he continued intensive study of higher-level esoteric practices, with a particular focus on the use of vital life force for healing. He concluded that healing, at its most basic, consists of cleansing and energizing - that is, cleaning away dirty or blocked life force from the aura and replenishing the aura with fresh energy. Next, Grandmaster Choa, who by this time had also established himself as a businessman and engineer, applied a rigorous scientific approach to his inquiries. He set up a number of healing clinics in the Philippines to test the effectiveness of laying on of hands, chi kung, and other energy healing systems. Each patient who came in received a particular type of energetic treatment, and the results - or lack of results - of that particular treatment for that specific ailment were recorded. Grandmaster Choa also had highly skilled healers with heightened sensitivity - people with the ability to see vital life force in the body -  observe the patients before and after treatment, so that he could detail the exact energetic effect of each system. These experiments were overseen by nurses and other medical professionals, as well.
  
  These healing clinics continued for years, with Grandmaster Choa constantly testing and refining methods of cleaning out dirty energy and increasing the supply of healing energy. Finally, in 1987, Grandmaster Choa published his first book and held his first workshop in the Philippines to introduce Pranic Healing, a "best of the best" system of very specific instructions and sequences for cleansing and energizing particular parts of the body to achieve rapid healing. The system spread to the United States in 1990 and is now practiced worldwide.
• QHow can I perform general Pranic Healing sweepings?

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  A Master Stephen Co , Alternative & Complementary Medicine, answered

  To perform general sweeping, you use both hands in long, slow, graceful, hands-cupped movements. This induces what is called the healing state, a condition of advanced physical and mental relaxation in which you are optimally receptive to healing energy - and to healing. People describe this super-relaxed state as “a tremendous release of tension,” “all the heaviness is gone,” or “a feeling of lightness.” This relaxation is due to removal of dirty prana from the energy body and indirect clearing of negative emotions. As you sweep away the energetic blockages or functional boundaries from your aura, your body and mind fully relax.
• QWhy should I perform energy cleaning before Pranic Healing?

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  A Master Stephen Co , Alternative & Complementary Medicine, answered

  Here’s a way to look at the healing state. Electrical current passes easily through high-grade wire because the metal from which the wire is fashioned has few impurities. By contrast, electricity passes through low-grade wire with more difficulty because the metal from which low-grade wire is created has many impurities. A clean energy body in the healing state is like high-grade wire; prana flows through it smoothly. A dirty energy body is like low-grade wire; prana can’t flow through it very well because it’s full of impurities, or energetic congestion. As prana tries to move through a dirty aura, it clogs up even more, leading to greater energetic imbalances and eventually health problems.
• QWhy is Pranic Healing preferred over acupuncture and chi kung?

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  A Master Stephen Co , Alternative & Complementary Medicine, answered

  While it is based upon some of the tenets that underpin both acupuncture and chi kung, Pranic Healing is easier to learn and use. As in acupuncture, Pranic Healing works with the meridians, but unlike acupuncture Pranic Healing concentrates on only the largest meridians, along which the major chakras lie. Hundreds of other, smaller meridians crisscross the body, but by performing focused energy work on the large meridians, which feed the others, pranic healers can achieve more effective results in a much shorter period of time. And of course, pranic healers, unlike acupuncturists, needn’t study for years to learn the location and path of those smaller meridians and which organs and parts of the body they energize.

  There are numerous chi kung schools and thus many types of chi kung healing techniques. Chi kung routines, or “sets” of physical and breathing exercises, were developed by Chinese monks centuries ago to supplement their spiritual development and martial arts training, and also to facilitate physical healing. The biggest differences between chi kung and Pranic Healing lie in their energy-generation philosophies and the length of time needed to become proficient in the practice. Chi kung relies on internal generation of energy, which means that students learn techniques to help them build up and store energy within their body. They then tap this surplus for meditation, spiritual development, fighting, and healing. Pranic Healing, by contrast, is an external-generation system. Students are taught powerful techniques that enable them to draw in energy from outside the body and then project it into areas of deficiency for healing. Thus, pranic healers don’t have to worry about their energy battery “running down.” Pranic healers also don’t have to spend years learning and practicing complex physical exercises and breathing patterns to build up the level of internal energy needed to heal effectively.

  Finally, missing from nearly all other energy medicine systems are two cornerstones of Pranic Healing: the methodical use of colored pranas, which focus and greatly accelerate the healing process, and energetic hygiene, or rules and practices for avoiding energetic contamination and keeping the practitioner’s personal energy tank clean and full.

• QWhat is energetic anatomy?

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  A Master Stephen Co , Alternative & Complementary Medicine, answered

  Pranic Healing teaches that illness and health problems result from disturbances to the flow of prana through a network of power centers, passageways, and energy fields that interpenetrate the physical body called the energetic anatomy. Your energetic anatomy, also called your energy body, or simply, your aura, is a three-dimensional cloud of prana that begins inside your physical body and emanates outward in all directions to form a rough outline around your body.

• QHow do I keep my sweeping/energizing arm clean?

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  A Master Stephen Co , Alternative & Complementary Medicine, answered

  As you sweep, you will find that your hand and arm may feel heavy. This is partly due to the repetitive physical motion of sweeping, but more due to your arm picking up dirty energy. Keep your sweeping hand and arm from becoming unnecessarily contaminated by spraying them every ten sweeps with alcohol, witch hazel, or salt water. A mister used to spray houseplants is perfect. If the nozzle is adjustable, set it to its finest spray. You can also use a small pump sprayer, which you can find at your local drugstore. As you become more proficient and more able to detect just how contaminated your hands are getting, you can spray as necessary, but in the beginning, just spray every ten total sweeps.