"Your appreciation has been
most intelligent."
-Oscar Wilde
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   Source: Powers of Healing, edited by Janet Cave and Sara Schneidman.
Joan Ranquet is an animal communicator. That is to say, she speaks to animals - and they to her - through images. Improving an animal's behavior, she has found in over twenty years of practice, is often as simple as visualizing it. She covers all that in her book Communication With All Life: Revelations of an Animal Communicator (Hay House, $16.99). The advantage of animal communication is simple: knowing what's on our animal companions' minds enables us to better care for them. With that in mind, Ranquet wrote Energy Healing For Animals: A Hands-On Guide for Enhancing the Health, Longevity & Happiness of Your Pets.
E=mc2
Digging into the pages of Energy Healing, you may be surprised by some of the techniques included. I didn't expect, for instance, the laying on of hands - something I've always associated with religious faith - to be included next to homeopathy. Or essential oils being ballyhooed alongside healing machines. Essential oils, as I understood them, were to be inhaled, digested or used as topical treatments. This seemed a world apart from healing apparatus like the Rife Machine which performs on the theory that disease corresponds with different frequencies in the body. Change the frequency, rid the body of disease. Now that, to my mind, is literally energy healing. Ranquet points out, though, that the two - healing machines which manipulate frequency, and essential oils that smell and taste good - are not so different from one another. While the machine operates in a macro environment - no subtlety there -
essential oils operate less intrusively on the molecular level. Different modalities; same results. Science maintains all things are made up of energy, thus all things vibrate at a frequency unique to themselves. When we take a tincture, or eat an orange, we're inviting that object - food, ointment or scent - along with its unique frequency, to incorporate itself within us. Thus, herbs, oil essences, magnets, frequency-altering machines, etc. all fall under the umbrella of Energy Healing. And generally, all aspects of energy healing fall under the auspices of Alternative Medicine; even if such therapies have been around for millennia.
Energy Healing is a well organized book. Ranquet gradually introduces the reader to a variety of healing modalities, beginning with an overview of the fundamentals of energy healing. It's part history, part zoology, and part physics. She digs deep into chakras, providing the best introduction to this ancient art of health and balance you're likely to find. Traditional Chinese Medicine and Energetic Systems - basically a map of the conduits, or "meridians" as they're called, that direct the flow of energy in every living thing - are also covered.
Bodywork
with your animals," the author advises, "there to remind you
of all things possible and to be the jumping-off point
for you to co-create your life with them."
The Time-Life series Mysteries of the Unknown is a veritable encyclopedia of the supernatural. Ranging from the occult to UFOs to strange and psychic phenomena, the editors at Time-Life Books have compiled the series with objectivity in mind. They don't shy away from placing naysayers
right alongside proponents of the same subject. The series' pages are filled with truth; the series' pages are filled with fancy. Time-Life trusts its readers to sort it out for themselves.
Mind and Body
Chapter three lumps faith healing and therapeutic massage together under one heading: Faith and the Human Touch. Here the authors dive into the hotly debated subject of faith healing. Over the years faith healers have been called everything from charlatans to quacks; saints to miracle workers. It seems with the exposure of each fake healer, there are a dozen more to take their place. For many, faith healing is a means of last resort. For those patients, faith may be all they have left to buck their infliction, often resulting in positive results. These successful healings may suggest our minds are
a largely untapped reservoir of power, an argument examined at length in chapter four.
The fourth and final chapter of Powers of Healing looks at the mind's connection in healing. Belief is a powerful - some would argue necessary - component of healing. The Mind as Physician examines the role our mindset plays in health. Obviously, we approach faith healing with a belief (faith) in its process, we also approach medicine - Eastern and Western alike - with the same mindset. Instead of calling it faith, we just believe the therapy will yield positive results. Whether you call it "faith" or "belief," researchers are finding a positive mindset is crucial for the curative process. We've all known
that guy who doesn't think doctors know anything, so he approaches therapy without any expectation of success. And, lo and behold, once therapy is concluded, his expectations are met. Big surprise.
Snake Oil
posted 03/07/20
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