Energy healing therapies, such as Reiki, Pranic Healing and Healing Touch, are becoming increasingly popular. What does it feel like to get an energy healing session? Both healers and clients report unusual sensations during energy healing, including:
- Feelings of heat or warmth
- “Tingling” sensations
- Sensing light pressure and a fluid-like substance
- Sensing something like an electrical current
- Feeling light or “lightness”
- Seeing colors, lights or images
- Hearing bells ringing
Investigators have speculated that healers, through practice and/or natural ability, have more electrical charge, more current flow, than the average person. Just as a car battery has a certain amount of stored electrical energy (12-Volts), so does the human body. By placing an electrode on a healer’s ear lobe, Dr. Elmer Green and colleagues (Subtle Energies, Volume 2, No. 3, 1991) were able to measure changes in the electrical potential of the healer’s body during healing sessions. Healers were able to produce electrical surges from 4-Volts to 221-Volts while healing a client without any physical touch between them. Dr. William Tiller (Journal of Scientific Exploration, Volume 9, No. 3, 1995) notes that the electrical signals produced by healers in the Green study (called the “Copper Wall experiments”) are 1000 times greater than normal physiological values. Tiller speculates that, “the training and practice involved in [Therapeutic Touch] develops in the healer a somewhat automatic internal power buildup…that discharges periodically and generates a very large electrical voltage pulse in the body”.
So what does it feel like to touch one of these high-voltage healers? In his book, The Uncommon Touch, journalist Tom Harpur describes the unusual sensations during energy healing he felt with the charismatic healer, Kathryn Kuhlman:
“…when the first [healing] session was over and the second had not yet begun, there was an interval during which Kuhlman remained on stage. Quite suddenly she turned around and walked over to me…she spoke my name and, holding out her hands, took both of mine…I will never forget the experience. The nearest I can come to describing it is to say that it was like holding onto the terminals of a strong battery or being plugged into some other source of electrical current. There was an unmistakable – and, for me, quite unexpected – surge of an electric-like current into my hands and up my arms. At six feet four inches in height, I towered over this elderly, petite woman. Yet she seemed at the center of a force or energy field that was palpably alive and much stronger than I was.”
Another example of a high-voltage healer is Bill Gray (deceased), who wrote Know Your Magnetic Field. Healer Rosalyn Bruyere has described her encounter with him while he was hospitalized with abdominal cancer (see How People Heal by Diane Goldner or the Pathways to Healing website by Jim Kepner and Carol DeSanto). As the story goes, Rosalyn was attempting to give Bill energy healing. In frustration at her apparent slowness, Bill placed his hand over her abdomen, and said, “Do it like this”, whereby she felt a jolt of current, that “nailed my feet to the floor”, and “felt like I had been plugged into a 220-volt socket”.
The average healer is not “high-voltage”. According to Bruyere, most energy healers work with “ethereal light energy” rather than “sound energy”. With “ethereal light energy”, clients report sensations of heat and warmth, rather than electrical charge or current.
Different types of energy healing, different healers, different sessions – all feel unique and different, depending on the needs of the client and the training of the healer. For example, some of the unusual sensations during energy healing: With Healing Touch energy therapy, I have experienced sensations of heat and warmth, as well as mild current, deep relaxation, and visualization of colors and images. With distant healing from a Reiki Master, I experienced a sweet, spiritual energy and reversal of my physical symptoms. With prayer from a Navaho healer, I felt my love of nature, which I had forgotten. After a Zero Balancing energy session, I felt “joy”.
Healer and physician, Richard Bartlett DC ND, has observed that the biofield of clients becomes more coherent with energy healing. The result is that the clients report, “feeling like myself again!”. I think that really captures what I have experienced with energy healing. The subtle benefits of energy healing are:
- Reduced stress
- Feeling more “whole”
- More like yourself
- Able to meet the challenges facing you
- Able to let go of past disturbances
- Moving forward with your life
Energy healing is healing, but it is often subtle and not immediately obvious. As one of the healers in Harpur’s book notes, most healings are not dramatic, but instead cause a shift in the direction of a person’s life, such that 6-months later they find themselves on a more positive path, largely forgetting the healing that helped get them there.
Is this study out of indiana? How is Indiana.edu connected to this site?
I would be interested in conducting an experiment that would compare 2 different healing energy modalities, am I in the correct place for such inquisition?
Thank you greatly,
Nesho
Yes, this is Indiana, Nesho, are you in Chicago? I am a faculty member at IU. Yes, I would be interested in comparing different healing modalities. I focus on Healing Touch, because the training is fairly uniform across the country.
-Margaret Moga, PhD
Love this! Hoosier native (raised in Pendleton, Noblesville, and just outside of Geist. I recently just recognized my gift of energy healing I have carried since birth. I am looking to expand my knowledge experience and healing ability to profit all. This article is so very helpful for being my first on looking to understand I am classified in this world from without a doubt respectable source! Best blessings.
Thank you Shakyria, and welcome!
-Margaret
If you are doing experiments, I would be interested in taking part. I do reiki healing. I had a client on Friday where we both experienced extreme heat with the energy flow in two different places on her body where she said she was having pain. Sometimes when the flow gets going I can feel it coursing through my whole body, all the way up from my root chakra and then out my hands, and it gets really intense. I am very curious about all of this.
Hi Sharon-
Yes, I am doing experiments ongoing. I hope to drive north in the Spring to do experiments with healers in Minneapolis. Maybe I can stop by your place (Wisconsin?) on the way? Thank you for your input.
-Margaret
Hi my name is Deana. I believe that I am also an energy healer. I can feel vibrations on a person’s body where the sickness or pain is. Then once i place my hands on that spot it is intense heat and the client sometimes says they can feel what feels like a shock and a current running thru there body. I feel the current running thru me. I have just recently started to see things in the body. Like cancer or torn muscles.
Deana,
if You would like to train and develop your abilities, can you contact me please at alikas0992@gmail.com. I have a cat with cancer and would like to find some energy healer who would try to heal her. It would be useful for you too as a practice.
Hello Deana,
Have you ever read about the fella Bill Gray that was mentioned in the article above (in this blog). His entire work was direct touch (hands-on). Your post sounds very much like you possess the same or near ability that he had. I have been searching for someone like him for 26-27 years but no luck. Many say they can but can’t others say they are working along the same lines but will not answer an e-mail nor postal.
Where in the U.S. are you located? If you are close enough I would consider traveling to you for a possible try if we can talk by this method or by phone.
Hope to hear from you soon,
Dan Smith
Los Angeles touch energy practitioner here. If your in this area I would love to get involved.
My Facial Spa clientele for the past 20 years has inspired me to follow my passion in the healing arts.
Buddhist meditation methods also got great spritual power which is path to great nirvana. These meditation methods also got great healing in our day to day life also
Hi I’m just started out I feel I’m a healer..just tried it a couple of times my son said when I ran my hands over his body he felt tingling in certain spots..it felt some of the places I ran my hands along it felt a sort of a pull thick feeling if that makes since …when I was done he said wow I feel so relaxed. You think I’m a healer. ..I believe I carry alot if energy I’ve had a few people tell me they feel it
Energy healing is a quick and effective way to set a positive tone for your day. Staying calm and optimistic can truly be a challenge in today’s modern world. With demands and expectations coming from left and right, stress has become the new normal.
Not sure if this is the place or not but I have been a massage therapist for 15 years & been told countless times I am great at finding the exact location of their pain. I’ve been told I have Hot Hands and would be amazing at Reiki, I’ve also always have felt a constant Energy presence around me… I’ve read a bunch of the “how to know if your a Healer” pages and am familiar with allot of signs.
I guess where I’m going with this is “I had an experience just 2 days ago that I want to understand,I feel it has really raised my awareness to what I maybe capable of, an wanted to find out more about my experience from someone who has been an Active Professional Energy Healer for quite sometime. TIA
Hi Nicole, thank you for sharing. Sounds like you are a healer. It is not as exotic or unusual as you might think. Yes, take a Reiki class. Healing Touch (or Polarity Therapy) classes may be a better fit for a massage therapist – these classes are designed to give you the confidence and confirmation that you are a healer.
I just received Bengston technique therapy and felt tingling and high body heat followed by a scan-like heat wave down to my toes, up to my head, and back again. Very unusual, but pleasant.
I’m also a energy healer. I would love to find someone in my area so I can be tested. My friends seek me out when they have pain or want a diagnosis. I live in Arizona so I’m too far.
Im not a healer. However, just had a chakra healing session bout a week ago and i feel good. Right after felt so high and tingling all over my body electros shooting all over and energetic. That night i rearranged my room lol. During i felt warmth, then cold and tingling starting on my hands and feet. It was amazing. A week after still feeling those eletrons all over my body flowing arounf my body. Minor headache tho, and sleepy just took a nap just now. I know my body is still working on the whole transition. I will go back in a few weeks to get another session because i know i had major blockage for yeeeears. I now started back up on medidtation with healing crystals 15 mins at least eveyday just to help balance my energy amd vibrations. Hare Krishna!