My Experience at IONS with the Exceptional Healers Study Part 2

Part Two: An Overview of My Methods and How You Can Apply Them In Your Own Life

The Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS) recently asked me to be on a panel webinar discussing some of the results from their Exceptional Healer Study, which I had participated in last June as an energetic healer.  Here are some of the ideas that I shared during the second half of the webinar which was titled: Consciousness & Healing: Energy Medicine — The Intersection of Mind, Body, and Spirit

I was asked to explain the mechanism of how I did my work during the study.  I shared that it was much like how I do my work at home, only it was an abbreviated version.  After having been hooked up to the scientific measuring wires myself, and while the client was being hooked up to their wires and getting settled into their chair, in the big steel box, I proceeded with my usual internal clearing protocol.  This involves using my imagination to ground and center myself.  Then I invite in my higher self, feel my aura, focus on my heart and then reach out into the greater environment.  After this, I ground the room and the earth and call upon protection, along with peace on earth and beyond.  Then I move into my psychology, reminding myself that we are all equally precious, that I stand on my own values, and am fearless in the face of challenges.  I also remind myself that the Universe shares one benevolent consciousness with me and with everyone and that I trust that love. I focus myself in my joy, love myself and always expect the best, free from attachment to outcome, while being centered in the present moment.  Finally, I run my chakras and then focus my awareness on the iridescent white light chakra just above my head.

From there I use my intention to connect with my client and allow our combined higher self to inform me of what is going on in their bodies.  It is a lot like trying on someone else's coat.  These are the techniques that I teach my students, and I often offer parts of them in great details in my podcasts, which are free on my website, stepintomagic.com.  

I then shared how I usually receive an opening image that informs me about the beauty of the soul whom I am having the pleasure of connecting with.  This image often serves as a guiding light for the reading.  And anything that is present in that person that is not in harmony with their true nature then reveals itself for healing.  Sometimes the helpful course of action comes in the form of lifestyle changes, or changes in diet, perhaps with helpful herbs.  Sometimes there can be perceptions and beliefs that the person has which limits them and can prevent their true expression.  As images and sensations arise, I share them and make a few scribbled notes and drawings of them.

The union of our hearts, in the present moment, with full acceptance and love, shows me who they are, their unique part to play, in the vast contextual whole, of that great jigsaw puzzle of life.  It also allows them to open up to the love that they have for themselves, for who they are and for who they would truly love to be, and are, indeed, meant to be.  This helps them to liberate themselves from what ever is blocking their ease.  And herein is where the mind, body, spirit connection lies.  It is the union of: the true purpose, inspired by spirit, held precious and dear by the heart/mind and manifested by the body.  This is where the interaction of energetic healing comes alive.  This is what positively activates our psychoneuroimmunology into a healing mode.

Unfortunately healing techniques of the energetic nature, such as: laying on of hands, shamanic work, medical intuition, calling in the holy spirit or quantum touch are not very commonly accepted in our culture because we have a very left brain dominant view of how life should be conducted.  Now, it is important to say that we absolutely need both halves of our brains in order to function.  We can't walk down the hall and speak without both hemispheres in full operation.  But, we definitely have a tendency to favor the left brain focus when it comes to our cultural emphasis.  

You will recognize the traits and focus of the left brain here.  It is linear, analytic and factual.  It focuses on the past, with what has happened before and it holds concerns about the future.  The left brain also values established routines, it likes what is familiar.  It is responsible for our feeling individuated as a separate self.  And, funnily enough, the left brain tends to be somewhat dismissive of right brain skills and values.  

(As an aside, I think it is our preference for the left brain view that has resulted in a materialistic or mechanistic view of nature and the cosmos.)
 
Our right brain, by contrast is focused on non-conventional approaches to life.  It is spontaneous and is involved in spatially related endeavors like how our bodies move through space, dancing or building sand castles.  The right brain dwells in the present moment and is also where our sensual perceptions arise, including our psychic senses.  The right brain favors new and novel solutions to problems.  It engages the imagination and creativity, often while we are being idle, dwelling in the present moment, not thinking of anything.  It is the right brain that brings forth, to our conscious awareness, insights and inspirations.  This is part of why meditation is so valuable.  It helps to put us in that right brain space of oneness, where we have access to all.  

(I feel that the right brain point of view is more aligned with our Quantum Mechanical view of science.) 

Since our culture is so very left brain dominant, in order for us to achieve greater balance both individually and societally, it benefits us to engage in right brain activities.  These can include: sitting idly or meditating, walking in nature, dancing, singing, and listening to or playing music.  

Children are often still quite balanced in their right and left brains and they tend to exhibit wonderful right brain oriented behaviors.  They play and pretend, using their imaginations.  It would be great for us, as adults, to do some of that too.  And doing anything that involves a sense of humor, laughing or cracking jokes is great, because it involves the sense of surprise.  Telling stories or finding images in clouds, engaging in dream interpretation and drawing are all right brain dominant activities that we can easily cultivate and add into our daily routines.

When it comes to how we can help ourselves to become more perceptive in terms of our own health and healing and what might be needed there, I shared that letting go of the cultural model of being the tough farm boy type, who keeps on working even though he has injured himself, would be a good place to start.  It brings great benefit when we allow ourselves to be more sensitive.  If something is wrong, all we need to do is to take a few breaths and ask ourselves what we can do to help make things right again.  There is an unending wealth of inner knowing available to all of us if we simply take the time to ask and then listen from within.  And to begin to do this with others, we just need to center ourselves in our hearts, free from any preconceived agenda.

Dr. Garret Yount then spoke to how we might be able to use a scientific model to demonstrate how energetic healing work takes place and he shared three possible ideas.  The first was by some sort of energy or chi that is transmitted from the healer to the patient.  Thus the term "Energy Healing."  The second possibility is through the subconscious where we share and exchange knowledge but are unaware of it.  The third involved the use of telepathy sent from the mind of the healer to the client with the intention of restoring balance.  But it seemed to me that the third model was better postulated through the heart to heart connection, with a genuine sense of love happening between the two, going both ways, as if we were one.  We both liked that idea.

I feel that the heart is were the real power lies.  It is where we harmonize with our interconnected oneness, in the present moment, in that vast sea of the acceptance of our true nature as infinite beings.

At that point, Helané asked me if I might have a practice that I could recommend for our listeners.  And I did.  It is an open eyed meditation, that I love to do, focusing on the present moment. 

Here it is now:
Using your five senses, one at a time, starting with hearing, see if you can hear something in your environment, right now.  Perhaps you can hear a bird song, or the sound of the wind in the trees.  Give yourself a moment to listen.
You may have noticed that you didn't have any thoughts while you were listening.

Now, vision.  Let your eyes settle on something right in front of you.  Notice its color and texture and how the light bounces off of it.  Now, while still looking at the object straight ahesd, see if you can notice, with your peripheral vision something just to the left of it.  What does that look like?  Notice the colors and textures that you can see.
Again, you may have noticed that you didn't have any thoughts while you were looking.

Moving on to our sense of touch.  Can you feel the fabric of your clothes touching your body anywhere?  How about your hands, where are they resting, what does the surface they are on feel like?
If you are focusing here and now, there are no thoughts.

Taste.  Perhaps there is something lingering in your mouth, the residue of a cookie or a cup of coffee.  I'll sometimes lick my hand to see if it has a taste.
Again, more time without any thoughts.

Smell.  Can you smell anything in your environment.  Maybe there is something blooming in the garden.  I sometimes smell my skin.

We can do this meditation for just a moment or two for each sense, or we can really soak in it and take ten or more minutes on each of our senses.  It does offer a refreshing break from all of the constant chatter of our thinking mind, which, by the way, always takes place in the left brain.  The whole time that we were doing this meditation together, we were definitely more in our right brains than our left brains.  And, then later, once we have become familiar with this meditation, we can then begin to use our imaginations at the start, and allow ourselves to open up to perceiving with our psychic senses: clairvoyance, clairaudience, clairsentience, etc.

Practice brings it closer and closer.

I then explained that I also like to give homework, but perhaps it is better described as homeplay, because it really is quite lovely.  It's sort of like the game of pretend that we all played as children, using our imaginations.  This is another great right brain exercise.  It helps us to begin to enter into oneness.

Here it is:
Take some time, a couple of times this week, for just a moment or two, to think of one of your loved ones, someone that you are near to or spending some time with, a family member or a friend, and try to imagine what it is like to be them.  Just for a second.  Let yourself try them on, like a coat, and allow yourself to connect heart to heart with them.  Perhaps they are with you in the kitchen before dinner and are opening up a bottle of wine or maybe they are across town, playing volleyball or walking their dog.  What might it feel like to be in their body, just for half a minute.  What might they be thinking or feeling in that moment.  This can increase our compassion for each other and it open us up to our sense of oneness. 

This is how we can open ourselves to animal communication or plant communication, as well.  Whoever it was who came up with the term, "anthropomorphizing" did a lot for promoting the left brain dominant view of the world by making it seem like a silly thing to think that animals or plants could possibly be sentient beings with intelligences and characteristics not too unlike our own.  And, of course, now we know that various researchers have shown that both animals and plants not only feel, they communicate, they care for their young, look for food, find comfort and use tools, differently from us, indeed, but really, just like we do.

I was asked if I felt that people can do energy healing remotely and I responded that remote healing is exclusively what I do and that my clients call me back for more, so it must be working otherwise, why would they.  I was also asked if this is a skill that any one can do.  My feeling on this is that yes, everyone can do it.  People do seem to have natural tendencies and skills.  Families that focus on economics, with a father who is a banker and a mother who is a mortgage broker will likely have children who are good with numbers.  I think natural propensities can be both inherited and learned.  But, as I like to say, everyone of us can learn to play the piano.  If we sit down and practice, long enough, we'll get there.  The same holds true for psychic ability.  I happen to have psychic skills in several close relatives on either side of my family line.  I also happen to have a number of relatives with a scientific bent.  And both of those come easy for me.  Mathematics, not so much.  But if I really work at it, I can do it.  So, yes, I do feel that we can all learn any psychic skill.  

I also feel that we all do already have, typically, some degree of natural psychic ability.  We commonly speak of our gut reactions, or déjà vu, some even have been touched in one way or another by a deceased loved one.  We have lucky socks or watches and we trust our dream impressions.  We already believe and culturally accept these lower level examples of psychic skills without question.  We are just on the verge of stretching ourselves a little bit farther into an arena that will expand our consciousness into a whole 'nother realm, embracing telepathy, premonitions and energetic remote healing.

In closing I'd like to thank the Emerald Gate Foundation, who was inspired to fund this study, and thereby help to open the eyes of humanity to our greater potentiality, and for the benefit of us all.  Their support will continue to not only give genuine scientific credibility to energy healing modalities, but it will also help us to free our selves from the limiting thoughts and beliefs, of our left brain dominant culture, that are not only holding us back socially, but also potentially harming us and the world around us gravely, through preventing us from seeing the depth of beauty and healing that is readily available, all around us, permeating our shared consciousness, and uniting us all, in love.

© Josephine Laing 2020

My Experience at IONS with the Exceptional Healers Study: Part 1

Part One:  The Scope and Breadth of the Project

The Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS) recently invited me to be a part of a three person panel, webinar on Zoom, discussing the early results from their Exceptional Healer Study, conducted last June.  Nearly a thousand listeners joined us on-line, from around the world, some just before tucking into their beds in Europe, others with their very early morning cup of tea, down under, in Australia. 

Here are some of the parameters and findings that were shared during the first half of the webinar which was titled: Consciousness & Healing: Energy Medicine — The Intersection of Mind, Body, and Spirit  

 Dr. Helané Wahbeh, Director of Research, and the major organizer of this entire project, started us off with a brief explanation of psychoneuroimmunology, which is a very long word indicating how our glandular system can affect our nervous system, which in turn can affect our immune system and visa versa, with each one potentially affecting the others.  This was given as a model for how energy healing might work.  A healer could potentially positively affect one or more aspects of a client's psychoneuroimmunology and then the client could potentially feel better.  

Dr. Garret Yount described the design of the study.  He said that the primary goal of this study was to see if energy healing could reduce levels of pain.  Carpal tunnel syndrome was the disease condition that was chosen for the study.  The study involved having clients, who were suffering from carpal tunnel syndrome, come to the IONS campus and allow measurements of their heart rate, brain waves, nervous system conductivity and many other physical tests.  They also answered an extensive questionaire, which in part revealed if they believed energy healing could be effective.  The clients would then have a healing session, with their healer, in a big steel box, ten foot square, which had additional measuring devices, some of which they were hooked up to, like the electrocardiogram or EKG.  Immediately after the healing session the same measurements were taken again to find if there would be a before and after affect.  And then the clients came back to IONS three weeks later to have the tests run a third time, to see if any of the potential changes were lasting.

Dr. Yount also gave us a glimpse into the scope of this research project, which was extensive.  All of the seven full-time scientists at IONS were put to work overseeing various aspects of the task.  A number of research assistants were hired to help.  Statisticians and a project manager jumped into the fray along with a number of additional support people and volunteers.  Then, there were the seventeen energetic healers, representing a variety of healing modalities, all of whom had global acclaim and testimonials for their excellence.  In addition, there were the one hundred and eighty-seven clients, each with carpal tunnel syndrome, hoping to improve their levels of pain. 

During the webinar, I explained that I felt these volunteer clients were very courageous to come up a long twisty road, get poked and prodded by a bunch of scientists in white lab coats, and then go into a steel box that was just like a bank vault, feeling not unlike a cage, with all sorts of gizmos and machines that were recording, who knows what, all while being hooked up to wires and sitting with a couple of people that they have never met before.  I think that takes some bravery.  And they did this not only for themselves, for their possible reduction of pain and avoidance of surgery, but also, for the benefit of us all, showing that energy medicine is not some fake "Woo woo" thing, but that it is real and as the results have thus far demonstrated, very effective as well. 

I was amazed by how many scientific measuring devices were in that little steel room.  There were four magnets in each of the corners of the ceiling and four more in the corners of the floor, plus one discretely tucked under a lovely reclining chair, which was placed in the middle of the room, for the client. I had my little chair and folding writing table, and our "seer," a clairvoyant and sensitive, had her chair as well.  She sat quietly in the corner, writing notes and drawing pictures of her perceptions, during the healing sessions, recording what she perceived was going on energetically.  A thermometer hung on the lamp pole and there was a low cabinet with a dark curtain hanging down in front of it.  On it's shelves were several computers and interesting looking recording devices.  These included the EKG's or heart monitors, one for my heart and one for the client's heart.  There was also a random number generator and several other machines that I couldn't identify.  

One of the machines was designed by Loren Carpenter, one of the IONS scientists and founder of Pixar.  He is an internationally acclaimed scientist in the field of computer graphics.  I called his device 'the pileoerection machine' because it had a host of short electrical wires poking up from the back of it, looking not unlike goosebumps or hairs standing on end.  It was apparently able to record the vibes in the room.  Extraordinary!  Near the end of the week, he casually approached me and showed me what looked like a little tiny black piece of plastic.  He mentioned that the entire amount of data collected from all of the machines, during the previous six weeks of observations, was stored there.  Amazing!

Dr. Yount had said that the primary goal of this study was to reduce levels of pain.  He showed us that the pain levels, on average, went down from: before the healing session at around a four, (out of a scale using one as minimal pain and ten as maximal pain,) to around a two immediately following the healing session.  And that they had only risen to around a two and a half, three weeks later, after the healing sessions.  These are very good results and Dr. Yount explained that they were on par with the effects that would be expected with a successful pharmeceutical drug intended for use for pain.  He also explained that in the case of using a pharmeceutical drug, the medication would need to be taken daily, whereas these results, from this study, came with only one twenty minute long session with an energetic healer.  So these were very good results indeed.   

Lots of other measures were taken, besides the levels of pain.  These were referred to as secondary measures.  IONS wanted to see if there would be improvements in psychological responses.  One example was 'pain interference,' where pain interferes in one's life.   For instance, would the pain cause the inability to pick up a grandchild, therefore adversely affecting feelings of connectedness.  And there were positive results there as well.  Another area of secondary measures was environmental.  IONS wanted to see if things like the bonds of water were affected, since our bodies are made mostly of water.  And the chemical bonds in water were affected.  A third area of secondary measures was physiological, looking at changes that might happen in the bodies of the clients, things like genes and heart rates.  And indeed, positive changes occurred.  

One very revealing observation that was made involved the "expectancy and beliefs" of the clients, which was inquired about, with their questionaire, both before and after their healing session.  Interestingly enough, if there was a placebo effect, the results would have shown a correlation between what participants expected and believed would happen prior to their healing session and what did actually happen after their healing session.  Instead, the results showed that there was no correlation between expectancy and beliefs of the client and the results of the client's pain relief.  So, what the client expected and believed might happen, had no affect on the outcome.  Thus, "the placebo" was not in effect for this study.

Then, Dr. Wahbeh asked me to explain how I do what I do.  I shared that my psychic skill spontaneously arose within me.  When it first started, I was in my early thirty's and thought I was going crazy.  If I was standing in line at the grocery store, I would begin to feel something like kidney pain or really sharp back pain.  I might see the person standing in front of me put their hand on their back and wince a little.  So, I'd change lanes and the pain would go away.  But then someone else might get in line behind me and they would be scowling and rubbing their forehead and suddenly I'd start to feel a severe headache coming on.  If I changed lanes again, it too would go away.  I felt like a human sponge, like I was taking on everyone else's aches and pains.  It was scary and terrible and I thought I was loosing it, mentally. 

Fortunately, I went to see a chiropractor, who had helped me to heal from some injuries and other problems.  He was a kindly, elderly gentleman and he essentially came to my rescue because he was open minded and familiar with Edgar Cayce's work.  Dr. Cayce was a clairvoyant healer, who reached great acclaim for his many successes while practicing in the earlier part of the last century.  My chiropractor friend recognized my perceptual ability as being very similar to Edgar Cayce's and helped me to not be afraid and to instead hone my skills. 

This changed the course of my life, and my psychic ability, which started out as one of my biggest challenges soon became one of my greatest blessings.  In the crucible of my chiropractor's office, during his off hours, and using only a patient intake card, I was able to help him identify a given patient's problems, by using my psychic perceptual abilities.  To our mutual delight, it was very effective and helped him to heal his clients.  This taught me the importance of doing what we love.  Almost nothing brought me more joy than working in this way.  It thrilled us both and we absolutely loved it.  It was a very wonderful and productive time.  

As my service took hold, and I further developed my preparatory protocol of meditating and clearing myself and using my intention to hold to the highest good for all, over time, that sponge like quality gradually went away.  And, while I was working, sensing on another's behalf, I found that I could ask to simply know, rather than feel, what was going on in someone else's body.

I explained that only a few short years before, I had earned a degree in horticulture and had planned on spending my life doing something along those lines.  But, clearly the universe had a different idea in mind for me because, pretty soon, word got out and people started calling, requesting my help.  One person would tell another and before I knew it, I had served thousands of people from all over the world, using my skills, doing remote healing work, over the telephone.  Isn't that amazing?  And I've never done any advertising; it has all been through 'word of mouth.'

With that, I'll leave the rest of the story, about the actual mechanism of my psychic skill and how with practice, you could learn how to do it too, for Part Two, which I will post for you, sometime in the middle of next month.

© Josephine Laing 2020