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When the Extraordinary Hits Home
Each time I have served as a healer, the experience has been differ-
ent. But the sense of contact with another’s energy remains and, in
fact, becomes stronger and stronger with time. A few weeks after my
first experience as a healer, I wrote the following:
I’m sitting in church, waiting for the evening service to begin. I feel
my hands buzzing. I have felt this often when I meditate in the last
few weeks. Is it related to the healing? After opening prayers, Elis-
abeth is the first medium to speak. She goes straight to me. I must
tell you, while you were sitting there before the service, your hands
were surrounded by blue light. (Fieldnotes, October 9, 2003)
The buzz in my hands is a normal part of healing for me; others tell
me they feel heat in their hands. However, healing is not the same ex-
perience from one occasion to the next, just as it is not the same expe-
rience from one person to the next. Over time, the sensation of heal-
ing energy feels less localized in the hands; sometimes it feels like a
global sensation, sometimes very real, out there, like something I am
touching. Yet the sense of contact with a different kind of energy is
always there.
Giving healing often brings flashes of clairvoyance for me, which ac-
cording to church rules should not be communicated during the heal-
ing service. (Apparently, it’s ok to communicate these flashes to the
individual if they remain after the service.) I have done healing out-
side the church context twice, both times at the request of the other
person; these are the only occasions when I have received feedback
from those receiving healing from me.
Bridget (an academic friend) is at a low ebb. Divorce, the ensuing
legal wrangles, illness, work, stress, and money worries have left her
exhausted. We agree that I will try healing on her. I give her a medita-
tion tape to listen to and have her sit with her eyes closed. I work on
her energy field as I would do in church. While I’m working near her
throat, I get the sense that there is something funny here; she needs
to say something. This surprises me; Bridget is so emotive and very
communicative; what could she not be saying? Afterward I tell her
about this. She says, “While you were doing healing I realized that
I had to talk to X,” a boyfriend she has broken up with. She needs
