Spiritual healing is a set of alternative medicine practices that only uses the energy of the healer in order to influence the inner Life Force (or life energy) of the consultant in order to help them overcome their physical disease and the deeper mental or spiritual problem causing that disease as an external signal. After years of research on spiritual healing, we can now better answer the age-old question: How Does Spiritual Healing work? Let’s dive together into the heart of this fascinating topic, which is far easier to grasp than you might think.
A common core with subtle differences
There are many spiritual healing systems, but they all share the same core principles, even if the terminology used for these principles and actions can differ from one spiritual healing path to the next. This article will provide a guide for these principles as concisely as possible so that you might find relevant connections with the therapeutic spiritual path you are more interested in among them.
You could be a healer too!
This is most likely one of the most revolutionary and innovative concepts in the spiritual healing field: anyone can heal themselves and heal anyone else!
This principle explains why spiritual healing is so successful, but there is also a good reason why it is not really widespread, and why so few people actually practice it! Indeed, for numerous cultures, including traditional medicine paths that practice spiritual healing, the basic principles of this natural kind of therapy are known, but they are left to specialists: shamans, medicine-men, faith healers, witches, bone setters, or any other kind of natural, manual, or spiritual therapy practitioner.
And yet, according to several experts in spiritual healing, anyone can perform spiritual healing because every human being fundamentally possesses the ability to heal themselves and other humans, deep within. But most people are not comfortable with this conception of things, among traditional therapies and among unofficial western healing systems alike.
People are conditioned to look for a specialist
Usually, when someone gets sick, no matter where you live in the world, your main reflex would be to go see your physician, healer, medicine-man, shaman… as soon as possible, so that they might cure that disease or relieve your pain! It would be unusual for most people to think, “What if I tried to get rid of this health problem or unease on my own?”
This is, however, what the most recent spiritual healing paths would recommend, breaking the usual taboo implying that only gifted people who have a knack for healing, have followed a long training course, and have reached a higher kind of wisdom could be able and capable of practicing spiritual healing on other people. This prejudiced misconception has even been – and still is nowadays – relayed by people belonging to the multiple disciplines that use one of several spiritual healing methods. Some did them in good faith, though others had more selfish reasons for it, drawing a lot of power and/or money from their own healing practice and unwilling for other people to intrude on their area of expertise.
Some healers use their ability for social status and power
Indeed, in many societies and civilizations, someone who can heal others usually has an almost supernatural aura of great prestige, with many material advantages, a great power of influence over their peers, and the ability to secure a comfortable source of income. Spiritual healing practitioners are men and women who can be as flawed as anyone else, and some of them deliberately obfuscated the access that could lead anyone to a spiritual healing path.
The downside to such a behavior is that other people believe their arguments in good faith, and then spread this flawed theory because they firmly believed that it was true. As a result, even today, most people have no clue that there might be a way for them to learn how to heal themselves and heal others.
This does not mean that anyone can become a good healer either. Even though this is an ability that can be found in almost everybody, a lot of human beings will find that they have no calling or interest in becoming a spiritual healer. Having the gift is one thing, but it needs practice and a certain state of mind, along with some skills and talents. This requires some serious training in order to finally master energy-based medicine.
Different ways to practice spiritual healing
Spiritual healing can be found all over the world in numerous variations, among traditional medicine practices but also among the most modern spiritual therapies. However, among all these differences in the method used to spiritually heal someone, there are five great kinds of spiritual healing that eventually stand out:
- Healing through direct contact
- Healing without direct contact
- Remote healing
- Medical recovery support
- Spiritual self-healing
- Healing through direct contact
Spiritual healing through direct contact manifests as a transfer of energy between the practitioner and the patient through touch, or body manipulation (or the specific areas of the body where the health problem is located, for example back pain, bone or joint pain, inflammations, wounds, broken bones…)
When there is direct contact between the practitioner and the consultant, the former usually uses their hands to operate this physical junction, leading to a kind of fusion of energy between both actors of this therapeutic relationship. The patient will usually be seated or lying down (though they can be standing up too). The practitioner will stand before them in most cases (but they might stand on the side or behind them in specific cases) depending on the actual technique being used.
Through this direct manual contact, the practitioner – usually in a higher state of consciousness – will channel their healing energy into the patient. The practitioner might close their eyes, enter a state of trance, sit next to the patient or at their feet, or next to their head if the patient is lying down on a massage or consultation table. This is what happens in most manual therapy practices, where the health practitioner needs to move around the patient, sometimes more than once, in order to deal with several different zones on the body without any interruption to the performed therapeutic touch.
The health practitioner can operate with light, gentle touches, apply a variable amount of pressure on the patient’s body, massage or manipulate some muscles or bones that need to be set right… This is particularly common for manual therapies like osteopathy or chiropractic.
- Healing without direct contact
In this spiritual healing method, both actors (the practitioner or healer and the patient or consultant) face one another, but the practitioner never touches the consultant. He operates through laying on hands, magnetic or energy motions around the entire body or part of it, without any actual physical contact. This is most notably used for therapeutic practices using laying on hands. The practitioner waves their hands above the patient’s body or places them a few inches above the area that needs treatment: anywhere the patient feels sick, or in pain, or the seat of an inflammation. You can find this kind of process in many therapeutic, spiritual, or religious paths. This is also what happens with energy-based medicine, where the practitioner is meant to channel their therapeutic energy. The most commonly known example would be healing through aura or chakra cleansing. Once they are purified, so is any related sick, painful, or inflamed area connected to the chakras that were imbalanced and affecting their corresponding body parts.
- Remote healing
In this context, the two actors (the healing practitioner and the consultant) are not even in the same place. They could be thousands of miles apart, unable to directly see, hear, or touch the other. They often merely agree on a specific time for the consultation, so that the patient might put themselves in a state of full physical and mental availability towards their remote spiritual healer. This is not always a mandatory clause, but it nonetheless helps speed up the recovery process, the cure for the disease, the relief from the pain, or the reduction of the inflammation… Prayer healing can also be considered as a remote healing practice that can be enhanced if the person mentioned in these prayers makes themselves available at any previously agreed upon time. However, sometimes the people that you want to help do not share the same beliefs as your own, and might not want you to pray for them, or would rather not know that you are using therapeutic prayer on their behalf. In that case, you can take the initiative and send them your therapeutic energy regardless. It will always provide a great benefit.
By using remote healing, you are channeling spiritual energy by visualizing, for instance, the person you are helping, with each of you – according to their own beliefs – reciting mantras, prayers, or holy sentences… Or simply having positive thoughts and sentences about healing and recovery.
- Medical recovery support
Spiritual healing is not a closed discipline and may perfectly be used in addition to traditional or modern medicine, or any other kind of therapy. In that situation, if the person is unwilling to stop their treatment, or if they are under strict medical oversight due to the serious nature of their disease, most notably for heavy pathologies like cancer, then they can absolutely keep following their treatment until they notice genuine improvement to their condition. They might even undergo a few medical tests and/or a consultation with their physician to check on their progress. The spiritual healer will never get offended for this, since their main goal is to make their patients feel better. Some healers even work in some clinics or medical departments on an official basis, most notably in the US and the UK.
- Spiritual self-healing
This kind of spiritual healing is the ultimate of its kind for this therapeutic discipline, because the goal is having the patient heal themselves, preventing physical diseases and psychological issues. This nonetheless requires some kind of serious spiritual healing training, attested by experts that you will find on your own or over the internet on one of the many websites dealing with this concept. Only give your trust to serious professionals with a physical cabinet and a long history of spiritual healing.
Once you have finished your certified training, you will then need to get results where you manage to heal yourself before you try and heal others or help them solve their physical or mental problems.
The secret being spiritual healing
While the specifics about the kind of spiritual healing process you are using are irrelevant (direct contact, no direct contact, remote healing, self-healing…)… what matters most is not the means that you are using (prayer, mantra, invocation, ritual spell), but your sincerity in that process and genuine empathy with the consultant. You should be filled with a genuine desire to provide a cure or bring some relief to others.
Indeed, the therapeutic process at the core of any spiritual healing is first and foremost driven by genuine love towards humanity in general, and for your patients in particular. This must be driven by greed, in that you should not expect anything in return from the person in pain. This drive, or even passion to heal others must be much larger than the actual financial contribution you might legitimately ask for should you decide to become a professional healer full time.