Carlo Dorofatti (O M M)
SPIRITUAL
PRANA
HEALING BASIC THEORY
www.horuscentre.org – www.thelema-ascension.org 2005
Pranatherapy is a technique that channels vital energy, and adapts it to the person in order to activate a therapeutic healing and re-establish the natural equilibrium wherever needed. This technique, although accelerating most other therapy cycles, is not specifically aimed at healing existing conditions but rather as a preventative psychophysical safeguarding. The Prana-healer is able to channel and direct prana vital energy to restore the harmonic metabolism of the body and to give well-being and self confidence. A healthy person is able to live each moment of his or her life with confidence: inside the family, as well as in a working environment and in social relationships.
Pranatherapy accelerates the effects of the cure and it is indispensable to re-establish the lost equilibrium by targeting the point of origin, or the imbalance may otherwise re-emerge with different symptoms. Pranatherapy is complementary to conventional medical intervention and can accelerate the healing process. It intervenes at the source rather than simply addressing symptoms of an illness and assists to re-establish good health. The prana-healer cures the person, not the illness. 1
The first step of the prana is to re-establish the energetic balance and to clear the organism. Many diseases certainly have a nervous origin, they are psychosomatic and therefore the prana works first of all on the nervous system. It is important to keep in mind that, just like all natural and traditional medicines, the main purpose of the pranatherapy is PREVENTION. Everyone needs pranatherapy, especially to remain healthy! Therefore it is useful to: • • •
Keep yourself healthy; Favour a general status of well-being; Strengthen your vital, intellectual and physical faculties.
Pranatherapy has been shown to be particularly effective in healing allergies, inflammations, intestine disorders, headaches, neuralgia, arthritis, eczema, constipation, anxiety or depression, insomnia and hypertension.
Pranatherapy in Germany, France, the UK and Russia has for many years been officially considered to be an effective and legal therapeutic pathway. Experts specialised in the administration of Pranatherapy integrate with traditional western medicine at both a general practice and hospital level.
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In general, Prana is a natural manifestation of the vital energy. There is also a more essential and superior quality of prana which can be used in a context of spiritual education. This kind of matrix-prana (called base-prana) is extremely refined and exists in a homogenous state, without colour, form and specialisation. Therefore, it has no limitations and works like an intelligent force.
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In the United States there are many centres and sanitation institutes in which the therapy is based on a form of laying-on of hands. An example in point is the Medical Center of New York where all staff, both nursing and paramedic, is trained and prepared to administer to those in need Pranatherapy. The studies on the effects of Pranatherapy on the human body are always increasing in number. Research completed on the physiological modifications in the patient during and after the therapy have registered diverse effects of the pranic energy. In the United States the Drexel University and Duke University have observed in all subjects treated with Pranatherapy a contraction or dilation of the blood circulation system, an increase in cell oxygenation, and an improvement in the metabolism. Moreover in these subjects, blood acidity has been shown to drop, the regulation of the quantity and quality of gastric juices has improved, and the production of endorphins - the so called “hormone of happiness” because it precedes the control of pain in the body - increased. To control the “placebo effect” many experiments were made on animals – and the same results were found. A study on the various reactions to Pranatherapy conducted in Italy by the Central Hospital of Turin over the period 1982 to 1987 both on healthy and sick participants - affected by diseases that can be diagnosed through conventional techniques - like mammary dysplasia, arthrosis, rhinitis, neck pain – that were unaware that Pranatherapy was being used on them as part of their treatment - showed increased body temperature and beneficial effects on the parts of the body where Pranatherapy was administered. Over time in all cases, improvements in the patient’s health were registered. Pranatherapy, alone or administered in combination with other therapies, rebalances and heals the human body without complications and in a harmonious and non invasive way. It is a valid help in the necessity to reduce the use of pharmaceutical products that frequently create collateral effects. This brief booklet aims to clarify two principal points: • •
Comprehend what is sickness and therefore understand the patient; How to follow a path that brings you toward a healthy body, mind and spirit.
Probably you will find points of view on sickness that are quite different to those that you have usually considered up to now. The new mental openings that you will acquire – for those that want it – will be of enormous help, to face life, sickness and death. In fact, understanding what is sickness and the pain that is associated with the sickness, help us t o 2 understand with a certain level of clarity and depth the reason why traditional natural medicines, and especially Pranatherapy, constitute a truly valid and definitive help to cure, alleviate, and finally heal the sickness that afflicts us.
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There are many types of medicine called “natural” or “traditional” and the operators also often call them “different “ or “alternative”. Many medicines have an ancient origin, while others are modern, for example, homeopathy. Some healers use a simple procedure and practice by instinct; on the contrary others prefer technological instruments and structures. All natural medicines are, above all, preventive and contrary to the automatic use of medicines as well as to resort hurriedly to surgery. This is not a matter of rigidity, but it is a philosophical assumption: in the natural medicine the individual must be the protagonist of the healing process. Thus the term “natural” refers to a way of behaving and thinking and not to the method which is used.
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1. What is illness?
Illness originates from a lack of balance caused by different factors concerning the sick person as a whole; in the long run this can endanger the health. Therefore the unbalance affects the psychic and nervous sphere, and at last the physical one. At this point pranatherapy is best when it is combined with conventional medical advice, as the energetic disorder is by then present on a physical and pathological plain. A serious healer will never have the intention to replace a doctor (neither to make a diagnosis), as the fields of intervention are different.
Usually one identifies illness from a discomfort or when one doesn’t feel well, but a limited and distorted awareness of ourselves and of our own body is already an illness. The mind and the thought can deeply influence our body, and vice versa: thoughts of joy and sadness can have a positive and negative action on the body and on the mind. Restlessness, fears, hidden tensions, and all the moods, that sophisticated instruments of conventional medicine cannot see, can be perceived by our own sensitivity. They are the expression of the health and of the illness of our spirit. It is important to understand that our body and/or our mind are part of the same reality. Therefore the disease must be seen as a sign of unbalance, as a lack of harmony inside ourselves. From an esoteric point of view the body is a simple - but very important - instrument at the service of the soul. Sickness is hence a precise signal of our spiritual state. During this period of time - made of materialism, consumption and pollution – there has been a multiplication of external agents that put to the test our body and the psychophysical balance in its relationship with the environment. This makes us more exposed to sickness, and to the necessity to intervene in a timely way, independently of our interior state. Nevertheless, being more or less vulnerable, even under these conditions can be a synchronic signal 3 , awakened by our own spiritual relationship with ourselves and with the existence. In this sense sickness can be considered an indirect result of our actions and life choices that ar e 4 sometimes, according to reincarnation theories, related even to past lives, generators of Karmic consequences. 3
Synchronicity is a term that was used by the Swiss psychologist Carl G. Jung to describe the alignment of universal forces with one's own life experience. Jung believed that some (if not all) coincidences were not mere chance, but instead a literal "coinciding", or alignment of forces in the universe to create an event or circumstance. The process of becoming intuitively aware and acting in harmony with these forces is what Jung labelled "individuation." Jung said that an individuated person would actually shape events around them through the communication of their consciousness with the collective unconscious. Jung spoke of synchronicity as being a "non-causal connecting principle", in other words a pattern of connection that works outside of or in addition to causality. Therefore, synchronicity interacts with events beyond the time and the law of cause and effect . 4
The law of Karma originated in the Vedic system of religion, otherwise known as Hinduism. As a term, it can at the latest be traced back to the early Upanishads, around 1500 BCE. In its major conception, karma is the physical, mental and supra-mental system of neutral rebound, "cause and effect," that is inherent in existence within the bounds of time, space, and causality. Essentially what this means is that the very being which one experiences on (say, as a human being) is governed by an immutable preservation of energy, vibe, and action. It denies the ostensible arbitrariness of Fate, Destiny, Kismet, or other such Western conceptions by attributing absolute reason and determinism to the workings of the cosmos. Karma, for these reasons, naturally implies reincarnation or rebirth since thoughts and deeds in past lives will affect one's current situation. Thus, every individual alike is responsible for the tragedies and good 'fortunes' which are experienced. The concept of an inscrutable "God" figure is not necessary with the idea of karma. It is vital to note that karma is not an instrument of a god, or a single God, but is rather the physical and spiritual 'physics' of being. As gravity governs the motions of heavenly bodies and objects on the surface of the earth, karma governs the motions and happenings of life, inanimate and animate, unconscious and conscious, in
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Every desire, thought and action taken by a person gives origin, always, constantly and continuously to a force in which the effects operate on that person and on their soul. Sickness can be a signal, a push towards evolution, even through the pain that it provokes. We have to understand that the mind and body are part of the same and identical reality. Sickness is hence interpreted as a signal of imbalance and lack of harmonisation of our being in a most general sense. Many times sickness becomes a master that gives us precious suggestions. Healing requires a deep understanding of this message. Otherwise, no medicine will be of help; each medicine will only shift the sickness to different plains, and onto different parts of our subtle and physical bodies. A spiritual healer can help the process of comprehension and hence of healing. A healing is really successful if the tensions that caused the original imbalance are reduced. In the absence of this, all those pharmaceutical products that are commonly massively prescribed immediate and relentless remedies - might be useful to address the symptoms, causing imbalances and collateral effects, but not to cure and to re-establish fully your health. Sometimes suffering and illness are processes that the body triggers to cure and to de-intoxicate itself and that we block – due to fear – by fighting the illness with antibiotics. It is necessary to emphasise that the obsessive desire to forget and distance illness from ourselves means often wanting to postpone a meeting with our own conscience and responsibilities, accepting illness like an instrument of reflection and change. In pain we can more easily ask ourselves why we behave as we do, why certain events affect us, of our general condition. Hence, we can become aware and find deep within ourselves the reason and sense of things. Pain, can hence represent the work of the human being in reaching its own conscience, through the will to understand and to overcome its condition of ignorance. It is a purifying step. When sickness reaches the physical body it is too late, and the more that it has infiltrated the body, the more invasive and urgent interventions will be required: analgesics, antibiotics, surgical procedures etc... These practices - if all goes well - can re-establish a certain physical state, but the original problem remains and is ready to newly manifest itself through other forms of disease. Hence, Pranatherapy will be necessary to re-establish the balance on other levels and plains, to complete the therapeutic action. In truth, the process should be the opposite: conserve the subtle and spiritual balances to avoid pathological repercussions. Pranatherapy should be undertaken before: it is to be considered a routine and constant procedure to conserve your health and not for the cure of the disease. This should be valid for all medicine in general. These general concepts are not to be confused with superstition or fanaticism: we should apply common sense to understand how to best harmonise the necessary interventions, especially in emergency situations, when the physical damage evidently necessitates interventions with intrusive the cosmic realm. Thus, what certain philosophical viewpoints may term "destiny" or "fate" is in actuality, according to believers of karma, the simple and neutral working out of karma. Many have likened karma to a moral banking system, a credit and debit of good and bad. However, this view falls short of the idea that any sort of action (action being a root meaning of 'karma'), whether we term it 'good' or 'bad', binds us in recurring cause and effect. In order to attain supreme consciousness, to escape the cycle of life, death, and rebirth and the knot of karma one must altogether transcend karma. This method of transcendence can be linked to many religious interpretations, not only Hinduism and Buddhism, but other faiths and philosophical systems as well. From the esoteric point of view the one who follows a spiritual pathway should tend to use one’s own Free Will with Awareness, beyond the relative and limiting opinions about “good” and “bad” coming from the moral or from the convenience of the moment. This way one can act with purity and without attachment, therefore without producing karma and, finally, escape from the cycle of reincarnations. The illness can be a sign which arrives from far away, even from other lives, to allow us to understand something important.
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techniques: for extreme conditions extreme measures are called for. If required these regenerative measures should be applied, not only for the physical body but also for the involved subtle parts, accompanying the convalescence with suitable treatments – Pranatherapeutic energy revitalisation treatments. These are particularly efficient, for example to accelerate the process of regeneration of damaged tissues or to avoid post-transplants problems of rejection. From what we have said it is evident that sickness is a bridge across which it is possible to return and reconsider one’s self. The way in which nowadays we face sickness is the symbol of man’s current condition. Every epoch has given a different interpretation to the state of sickness. Every interpretation reflects a religious conviction - philosophical and political - that has developed through history. It is important to emphasise the fact that frequently within the same society there can exist contemporaneously diverse ways of considering sickness. A very clear example is offered by the simultaneous presence of methods that start from very different assumptions: 1.
allopathic medicine, that which is conventional and academic, that has as a base premise a mechanistic view of the world;
2. Natural medicines, considered by many to be “complementary”, that are inspired by a more 5 spiritual and holistic vision of sickness. Often, official medicine considers sickness like an external factor to man: an uncomfortable incidence that should be addressed as fast as possible. In practice, in our current time, man doesn’t try to serenely face sickness, to understand it, to comprehend it, and to accept it as a clear signal that comes from the being – mind and body. The problem is that i n this way we cure the sickness but not the sick. The dominant tendency is simply that of refuting sickness, uniquely lived as a negative experience lacking in significance, without trying to recover the teachings that it offers us. It is normal that this behaviour is even the cause of a radical fear of death. This attitude corresponds to the current consuming phase of our society: sickness has become an “evil” to consume as soon as possible. Thus, we are completely becoming estranged from our own body and entrust the task to provide for our health, or better for our illnesses – that become more and more numerous and diversified, with absurd and terrifying names - to other people: the doctors.
The delegation of the maintenance of our state of health to others, in addition to confirming our ignorance and of being unaware of ourselves, promotes a state of generalised fear: an additional fear that “civilised” man has created. Man, in fact, while increasing on the one hand its apparent ability to act on the external world with technologies that are always more refined, on the other hand there is a continually increasing disassociation with the deeper self. In modern society we assist a continual delegation of tasks, both physical and mental, to the world of technology and machinery, with a consequent
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Holistic health is a philosophy which promotes wholeness over the reductionism and dualism of conventional Western medicine. Its proponents argue against making an unnaturally acute distinction between soma and psyche, structure and function. According to the “holistic concept” the individual is a superior and complex result, something more than just a sum of organs.
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specialisation of work, fragmentation of knowledge, a homogenisation of patterns of work, habits, behaviour, and a standardization of communication. But just in the period of time of an apparent maximum domination over nature, man rediscovers fear under the form of sickness, within itself. Man has mechanised all its activities, constructed an enormous quantity of useless sophisticated objects, at the same time creating an artificial need for these objects, of which, he does not even know how they function just like he does not know really understand himself. Sickness reawakens fear because it forces us to put into discussion our rapport with our body, to reexamine our convictions, and our basis. It gives rise to an internal crisis. Only if sickness were experienced in a strictly personal way - participating in the experience, like a moment of enrichment – it can represent an element that is perfectly integrated in the process of life and evolution. During the phase of sickness our state of consciousness and our logical patterns change, and we can find new, creative, intuitive and extremely valid solutions. The animal is normally able to re-establish its health, finding by itself, instinctively, and the most suitable remedies in the environment in which it lives. Man, on the contrary, through a relationship with nature that is always more mechanistic, has increased the distance between himself and the environment in which he lives, accepting, voluntarily and passively, alienating conditionings. Sickness has become also a means of social control that obliges each of us to the needs of conformism and of the market. Man delegates to the scientist the job of analysis, diagnosis, cure, with laboratory research, chemical compounds and identical remedies for all. Sickness is no more a precious personal expression but a good for mass consumption. Sickness, like old age, is no longer a source of comprehension, but a state of non functionality to the system. All medicines that are on the market confirm only the impoverishment and the undermining of medicine that is more concerned with the sickness rather than the sick. Sickness is no longer a moment of comprehension but of war against symptoms and bacteria that exit from these wars always transformed and stronger (without counting collateral effects). The official western medicine is above all “symptomatic”, that is, it hunts down the symptom to subdue it with a specific drug, but not resolving the root problem. Often the symptomatic medicine permits a reaching of results – apparently rapidly – only because it acts on the symptom, that is, the pathological local manifestation and on the pain that is expressing it. Not addressing the real cause of the illness it reappears, maybe in a different disguise and the medical treatment may have worsened the damage. Man has lost like this control, in addition to the value of health. The loss of this control is largely demonstrated from the enormous, absurd and superstitious use of medicines, of which little is known of their effective use or even their deleterious effects are discovered only after many years from their launch in the market (that came about certainly not only for altruistic therapeutic reasons but more for considerable pecuniary interests). This abnormal consumption has become an attempt to exorcise sickness through a frequently ridiculous behaviour and the world of health has increasingly become a world for “specialists” that are armed with an increasingly incomprehensible vocabulary used to classify medicines, remedies and techniques, that throws an aura of mystery and reverence onto the “official” world of medicine – that is conforming with academic dogma just like a religion. Heresy and sentence, to those, doctor or patient, that dare not to follow the official way. 7
Unfortunately even the relationship between doctor and patient has completely disappeared. The doctor is no longer able to “feel” the patient through their intuition and sensitivity, based on a quasifamiliar relationship (remember the figure of the family doctor that was almost a member of the family and that could judge sickness within the light of a direct relationship with the sick, his personal story, his environment etc.). Today we run to get x-rays done, ultrasounds, CAT scans, magnetic resonances, just to put our minds at ease – and meanwhile taking in a load of deleterious radiation, frequently causing by themselves serious consequences. In “modern” society, especially in the most developed countries, the sick is considered a “social cost”, a temporary loss of productive capacity that can be compensated only if it becomes an adequate consumer of medicines, of medical tests, prothesis within those big and expensive “supermarkets” that we call hospitals. And so we are still light years away from researching the harmonic relationship with nature and with the energetic forces of the universe: the medical industry finds a place of honour in society while we lose completely the sight of every implication of individual growth and of spiritual progress (the latter is easily satisfied through consuming the goods of the religious industry - but this is another topic...). Fortunately, today many doctors, in particular young ones, are sensitive to this type of view point, and hence are careful to re-impose an adequate and personal relationship with the sick person. This relationship is built on the basis of a deeper understanding of human values, and a disposition of being more amenable to accept or to deepen knowledge - with an open mind - natural medicines. Given the actual environmental, social and cultural conditions it is very difficult today to abandon oneself totally to natural medicines, even if ideally it would be desirable. This is required especially as an efficient prevention, but, in the therapeutic field it is more necessary to find, case by case, what is the most appropriate curative path for a person to take, integrating every possible solution – allopathic or natural – in a harmonic and holistic way, with intelligence, and without sticking doggedly to either type of therapy. This is not only to face sickness but also to bring the individual back to a real state of well being.
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2. The power of thought
Thought has the power to act on the physical world and even on our body. Many illnesses can be considered as if produced from our thoughts and from our way of thinking. You should evaluate sickness like a difficulty that can be overcome even through a positive mental outlook. From an esoteric point of view, sickness is a phenomenon of the “tightening” of thought. It should be considered that our body knows better than us when it is time to do “a spring clean”. The problem is that of wanting to intervene at all costs, interfering with this process and impeding that the opera of natural detoxification occurs. The pain associated with sickness should be lived, accepted and understood: all our life is a school that, even through sufferings permits man to evolve. A sickness never comes without a reason. Sickness is cured even and above all else with love, not only with medicines: a laugh, a hug, a word of hope, an outlook full of faith and optimism. 6
When the mind is full of thoughts of joy, even the body shall be transformed . In some cases, being cured will be an act of humility, an opening towards us and all those near to us. With pranatherapy, through the laying on hands, the healer gives to the sick vital energy (prana) in a way that rebalances and purifies the body, re-establishing the right frequency in perfect harmony with the nature of life. During sickness man can rediscover themselves: tomorrow becomes hazy, the present enlarges, the body becomes a theatre of the physical life, and never like when we are sick are we able to observe our own body and its reactions. Time seems to stop and the external reality becomes more distant and hazy. The masks of security and strength crumble away and we take on new and more humble masks with a more meditative and deep nature: we hence put on masks which are more real, better fitting, and that are more suited to ourselves. Today man becomes ill more frequently than in the last century and the causes can be many. In addition to bad nutrition, consider our fast paced life, and our way of managing society. With the birth of industrial society and super cities man has created around itself an artificial environment and has broken a series of natural equilibriums. The foods we eat for example are frequently not cultivated in the lands in which we live and hence have frequencies and rhythms which are totally different from our own. Pollution is always more evident in every food product that is profoundly stressed, not only by the indiscriminate use of pesticides, defoliants and preservatives, but by genetic manipulations, the consequences of which are still not well understood.
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Positive thinking means to think positively of ourselves and of others, to be optimistic about the different situations of life and their possible developments. This concept is based on one of the fundamental laws of Magic: “the Thought creates”. When we think positive we mentally create some thought - forms that will facilitate us to realise our original idea on the material plain by synchronically catalyzing the right events and circumstances.
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Pollution of air, water, of the earth completes a sorry picture that man with his own hand has created in just a few decades. We should hence not be surprised if sickness in the community has greatly increased. All this, together with the use and abuse of medicines, that on a larger scale reinforce and diversify the causes of ill health, x-rays etc., provoke within the body a chain reaction, and even genetic mutations. From all this we deduce that we have a desperate necessity to live in a more sound environment, to cultivate our own vegetable patch, and to return to nature. Different to symptomatic medicine, natural medicine assumes a completely different outlook. The Pranatherapy, the phytotherapy, acupuncture, phono-chromotherapy, homeopathy, just to name a few, do not stop at the symptom but go to the origin of the problem. The elimination of the symptom not only is useless but is counter productive because it interrupts the communication between the body and the person. Nevertheless “anti-microbial” disposition of modern science has developed due to modern men’s’ incapacity to maintain themselves strong in body and mind. Modern medicine is above all else analytic: it tends to divide the human body into separate parts, and isolate the sickness in a single location concentrating the cure in that specific part of the body and frequently deciding to remove it! Let it be clear that surgery is the downfall of medicine. Natural medicines consider man like a holistic whole: it considers this whole as an unrepeatable individuality. These medicines, antique in their fundamental conceptions, are synthetic, empirical and find in the sick a common origin of diverse symptoms. They can intervene at both a physiological level and on the vital aura that surrounds the living body. The aura is one of the subtle bodies of the human being. It is commonly represented as a cluster of diverse colours that surround the entire body of every living being. Thought, emotion and feelings are all expressed through the aura. Every sickness of the body is first a disturbance and alteration of the equilibrium of the aura. If we did not live in such a polluted and invasive environment we could say in an absolute sense that an individual with a well balanced aura would be completely immune to any type of sickness. On the aura pranatherapy is applied to bring it back to t he ideal equilibrium and hence to remove all negative reflections on the body: removing the cause of illness that resides in the aura makes its effect on the body disappear.
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3. Healers
From the point of view of natural medicines, “health”, simply means “balance”. The breaking of this equilibrium is manifested through sickness that is a natural reaction of the body, which, through sickness itself, tries to re-establish the lost balance. Natural medicine always acts on that thing which has caused the breaking of the natural balance in order to restore it. As we have already said, we are not simply a physical body. There are very subtle vital energies that pervade our entire being and that totally surround us. They are energies that acquire a personal vibration and frequency, corresponding to our vital dynamics. When a healer cures by laying the hands on someone, he or she acts above all on this structure of energy that surrounds the body, making the sound code reverberate on the sick frequency, in order to restore the correct functioning of the entire body, as if tuning an instrument in accordance with a reference base note. The “Healers” are quite a vast and heterogeneous category. Since always, in the country life, a form of traditional medicine is known: it mixes the use of healer energies with many other techniques: the use of officinal herbs, the “touch”, the massage, the palpation, the reciting of ritual formulas, and gestures. It concerns knowledge and methods which were inherited by the most predisposed, in particular young men and women. There are also prana-healers who discovered their faculty as a consequence of traumatic events which have produced the effect of moving their own energies and opening up a power usually expressed in an instinctive way. There are also healers driven by a mystic and religious motivation. The faith is the mainspring that can activate the contact with some forms of beneficial energy. In that case the healer will also probably reveal its own vocation advising and encouraging the patient towards a religious pathway. According to this conception the healing comes as a gift from the High, therefore it must be supported by a moral code. Another category of healers are those who tend to assimilate their own work with the doctor’s. Our School does not agree with this behaviour. Today these operators are the most common; they are driven to this choice by their wish of personal satisfaction. They were educated through readings and systems similar to the medical behaviour and choreography. These kinds of healers often use the Kirlian photography to check the healing process. The spiritual healers make up a separate category. They are activated and educated by schools which consider the healer’s training as a path of exploration of the human soul. They can be easily identified because, generally, they unite the art of healing to a way of life tending to the spiritual research and meditation.
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I belong to this category. I conceive the use of the healing energies especially as prevention: I do not make diagnosis, neither do I prescribe medicines. Hence my role is never in contrast with the doctor’s work. I consider the pranatherapy as the most complete traditional medicine and think that healing is the result of a real inner transformation. Although the word “healer” is often generically used to identify all those curative diseases with methods different from that of the official medicine, in this context Healers are those who are healing only through the use of their hands. The hand, to Zoroaster, is a miracle of nature, to Anaxagoras it’s the organ that makes humankind superior to all the living forms, and to Plutarch the hand is the expression of the human wisdom. The following significant phrase is written in a papyrus of Ancient Egypt, discovered among the ruins of Thebes: “Put your hand over the pain and tell it to leave”. The Book of the Dead says: “I place my hand on you, Osiris, for your well-being, for your life”. Other scriptures write about mysterious medical frictions, practiced by the Egyptian priests, which can certainly be identified with the “magnetic passages”. In Greece, the Pythagoric doctrine defines a universal principle that unifies with harmony all the forms of nature, and the stoicism believes in the existence of a subtle fluid which enlivens all the bodies and enables them to interact. The cure with the hands was also practiced by the ancient Romans, precisely into the temples of Aesculapius. Plinius, in his Histories (book VII), tells that Pirros, the king of Epir, healed sick people having spleen diseases by touching the painful part. Tacitus cites the Vespasian’s faculty to cure blind people by touching their eyes, as well as the power of the emperor Adrian, who was able to heal inflammations imposing his hands. During the dark centuries of the Middle Ages, the art of healing was confused with occultism and mysticism. A lot was written about the healing power of the kings of France, starting from Robert the Pious who traced with his hands the sign of the cross over the sick organ. The faculty of healing was also acknowledged to Philip I and to Louis VI. Edward the Confessor, the king of England, who died in 1066, healed many sick people: there is a manuscript of that period of time, kept in the Cambridge University, which shows him healing a 12
person. This practice went on with Edward I and, according to the chronicles, in 1277 he cured over two hundred people. Saint Louis, the king of France, received the sick people, who were bowing in front of him, after he had prepared himself with fasts and prayers. He laid his hands on over the sick parts and, making the sign of the cross, he pronounced the following words: “Le Roi te touche et Dieu te guérit” - “ As the King touches you, God heals you”. Curing with the use of hands was also used by many saints to obtain miraculous healings. Also Jesus Christ healed by imposing his hands, and he certainly was a very powerful healer. Still today, the thaumaturgic faculties, suddenly discovered in a person, often take it to the fame of holiness. These beliefs are encouraged by the healers themselves, and many of them, in good faith, assign their power to a divine gift. This might be real, and it certainly is if one conceives life as a harmonic relation between Humankind and God. In the XVII century, the great alchemist Paracelsus was probably the first to study the healing energy in a scientific way. He was a deep expert of the ancient hermetic doctrine and of the occult philosophy and discovered that there are two types of healing energy: the cosmic energy and the human magnetism. The researchers who pursued these studies left t he astral theories and preferred to dedicate them to the human magnetism, that is, the biomagnetism, also called magnetism or “mesmerism”. This last term comes from the name of Mesmer, the wiener doctor (1734-1815) who conceived valid healing methods called: “magnetic passages”. The cosmic healing energy, which was discovered by Paracelsus, is the energy that we call bio-radiating: the Prana. This kind of energy is similar to biomagnetism, but is not the same: it’s the energy that gives life, that makes the seeds sprout. It is the archetype of equilibrium and harmony. It’s the vital energy! For many years, several researchers have confused the two different energies. Unlike biomagnetism, healing with bio-radiating energy (prana) has always been practiced: especially in the countryside, where people are closer to traditions, there were several spontaneous healers curing people. This kind of “medicine” is very much used by the Indians: they call it “prana”, that’s where the term pranatherapy comes from, which means “the healing with hands”. The pranatherapy is the most beautiful, pure, instinctive and natural m edicine, and the most ancient in the world. 13
4. Pranatherapy
During a session the patient sits on a comfortable armchair; the healer stands at the back and imposes its hands over the head of the person receiving the prana. The patient must breathe slowly and deeply: inhaling through the nose and exhaling through the mouth. This exercise helps to oxygenate the blood, the cerebral tissue and every cell, permitting the patient to enter into a symbiosis with the healer and better absorb the prana. Even the healer needs to breathe well and deeply: this is one of the first things that need to be done by those who seek to become healers. The application over the head acts first of all on the nervous system: the bio-radiating energy spreads from the head to the nervous centres and then concentrates where it is needed. The energy also cures the latent disorders that the person is often not aware of. Sometimes it can happen that the healer feels the need to act also locally: in that case it will place its hands wherever it “sees” the need to favour an energetic balance. While receiving a prana session it is better that the person is alone with the healer. Only in special cases is it possible to make an exception to this rule: for example when it is about a child who must be held by its mother. This condition is important for two reasons. The first one is to avoid any kind of distraction: the healer must stay concentrated. The second reason is to avoid that someone else absorbs some negativity. In particular situations, considered by the healer, it is possible to have a stronger application by receiving the vital energy from two healers especially prepared to work contemporarily on different parts of the sick person. It doesn’t require any physical contact: the healer carries it out simply through its hands. You sit on the armchair, relax and receive the PRANA from the healer’s hands, which are placed over your head. Every session of pranatherapy lasts about ten minutes. The efficacy of the cure and the time of recovery depend on many factors: 1. The stage of the disease: when the illness is quite rooted the cure will take longer. 2. The age of the patient: the bio-radiating energy works faster on children. 3. Healers may find some individuals who absorb prana easier than others. This depends on the quality of the relationship. Usually the healer should not activate a psychotherapeutic relation: its duty is to be a “channel to the prana”, a meditative state based on silence more than on dialogue. The healer should express its own humanity through listening, more than using words. However there is also an “energetic” adjustment. Thus some patients can obtain, from the first session, extraordinary results, while others need more sessions to have concrete results. During the sessions the patient may not even be able to perceive anything. Some people, shortly after the healer has started the transmission of energy, can feel a pleasing sense of warmth to the 14
head as the effect of the bio-radiating energy. The patient can even become aware of other sensations, like for example, tingling in the hands and feet, or even feel sens ations of hot and cold, or even a slight pain in the area of sickness. It is of no importance whether the patient feels something or not. If pain becomes apparent in the area of the disturbed organs, don’t become alarmed: it means that the energy is working where it needs to. After the first treatment, it is often possible to notice an accentuation of the symptoms of the medical condition for which therapy is sought. This is a good sign because it’s a way for the organism to rapidly get rid of the disease. The first session is a one of examination, of assessment and harmonization, so that the energetic channel between you and the healer is opened. You can absorb the flow of curing energy even daily. In fact, our method instructs the patient to follow the practice of deep breathing for around ten minutes in the evening before going to bed. In this way the patient is assisted daily, in addition to the direct session with the healer that could be weekly or monthly depending on the need. Moreover, the healer can prepare water, by charging it with energy on the personal frequency of the patient. The patient sh ould drink a little of this water in the morning and evening so that the positive effects of the Prana are accentuated. Initially you must repeat the session once a week; in order to re-establish the equilibrium endangered by the illness. In a short period of time you will learn on your own to keep yourself in balance and healthy. In case of necessity it is possible to receive Pranatherapy at distance. In this case it is necessary to mutually arrange a time between the healer and t he long-distance patient. The healing can occur at your own home or anywhere else. It is important that during the time of the sessions you can relax for around 15 minutes and do the respiration exercise. Through one of your photographs or simply through your name, surname, and date of birth, the healer can administer the application of the Prana. Afterwards the healer and the patient can meet again a few tim es a year, for prevention: usually during the changes of the seasons, which are the most crucial moments. The application of Pranatherapy is most useful for healthy people. A regular application, say every four months, serves to maintain your natural defences in a high state of alert and r e-equilibrate those small disturbances in the defensive aura, that occur from time to time, and hence avoiding the occurrence of illness. It is not important to believe in pranatherapy, but it is necessary to be constant and open minded. Pranatherapy works even if the sick person doesn’t believe in it. However, if the sick person has some level of trust in the application of Prana, then healing will be facilitated – due to the positive outlook of the patient. In the relationship with the healer it is better to be neither too sceptical nor too optimistic. The patient should be in a state of serene waiting: the results will become apparent. The pranatherapy is a simple and natural way to keep yourself healthy. The vital fluid, sent out by the healer, enters the body and brings back the balance. When somewhere in the body there is a lack 15
of balance disease may appear. With pranatherapy the natural balance will be re-established: the vital energy that is absorbed by the organism fills the holes and levels the surplus. In theory, any healthy individual is able to give a little bit of its own bio-radiating energy to a sick person. In practice only some people are really capable of doing it: the healers are. They are particularly gifted and prepared individuals, who can give and receive energy. Just like electricity and magnetism, this energy is part of nature. According to an Indian theory, Prana comes directly from the cosmos, where there is a sort of reservoir containing the source of life. If anyone tries to give some of its own Prana to someone else, there is a risk it might be damaged. On the contrary, the healer does not send out its own vital energy, but channels the universal one. The prana corresponds to an archetypal state of balance, intelligent and dynamic. It is the primeval and natural standard matrix of what we simply and ideally call “health”. The healer draws from this primordial source and superimposes the “code of normality”, that is, the map of the body which is perfectly sound and working, on the frequency of the sick, re-bringing, gradually and harmoniously, the status of the sick to this ideal template. Sound information (Prana) acts in an intelligent way, that is, beyond the knowledge of the healer itself. The healer is to “simply” stick to the function of the indifferent channel to avoid, with its interpretation and thought, to interfere with the action of the vital energy, much more complex, pure and intelligent. The Prana enters the body of the patient and through the difference in pressure, acts from within and extracts the excesses or fills empty energetic voids, wherever they may be. Fundamentally there exist two tendencies in the training of a healer: that of the healer who imitates the doctor and seeks to study and intervene on the problem through a personal action; and that of the healer who works predominantly on himself and trains to become a pure channel for the archetypical prana, that is, the intelligent source of life. In the first case we have the prana therapist who is frequently occupied with finding the various correspondences between the various types of illnesses and the way in which the hands are placed, the colours of thought, the possible diagnostic systems, the sensations of the patient etc. In the second case there is the “spiritual healer”, who is typically indifferent to tables and schemes, but capable of evoking the absolute health process. The healer must first remove the frequency that corresponds to sicknes s and then replace it, in a series of successive sessions, with a new frequency - a sound and healthy frequency. At this point complications begin, because the healer, operating in this way, takes the risk of assuming the very sickness that he is trying to heal. For the patient there is never any risk because from the application of pranatherapy they receive only benefits and advantages, but it is not the case for the healers if they are not well verse d in the precise techniques to use to “discharge” themselves. In fact, when energy is transferred from the healer to the patient, the healer synchronizes himself on a frequency that is able to enter in tune with the sick. In this way, like between two vases which are communicating with each other, a channel of passage is created: while the energy of the prana is transferred into the vase that lacks the energy, the energetic content of that vase is displaced and thrown back into the first vase to mix with its energy. Hence, the energy in disequilibrium is transferred from the sick to the healer.
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The healer, if he/she understands the proper techniques to “discharge” him/herself, can manage this energetic back flow and can even provide it for productive use: from session to session the healer is not tired but is even able to auto-regenerate, due to the fact that prana is running through him/her. When, on the other hand, the healer is not fully trained in how to manage this dynamic he/she can assume all the negativity of their patients. Often, worn-out healers that have an absolute necessity to discharge and regenerate themselves will seek out the services of another healer that can help them. In my experience as a healer I have often been called to help out other healers, frequently improvisers with little experience or with a poor level of professional formation, to discharge them and teach them basic principles to operate in full safety and security. When you practice an application it is necessary to respect precise time limits. The healer uses th e energy that arrives from a sort of “cosmic reservoir”, projecting it to the external, and if it doesn’t have precise and well defined limits to stop its flow, it risks falling to a energetic level which is inferior to the required standard, risking to lose control of the operati on. The end result of not stopping the flow in time is that the healer will become sick with the illness that he was seeking to cure. This happens because the healer has transferred more energy than he could support as an energetic channel, creating voids within himself. These voids are refilled with the negative energy back-flowing from the patient. The prana is intelligent energy that acts on the aura and the time factor, accelerating or slowing down the intervention on the basis of what is needed, even acting on the biological clock of the body, and on each single body organ. This regulation comes through the so called “inner healer”. According to some shamanic traditions, inside each of us there is a healer, but when he/she falls asleep that is when we get sick. To get better again we need to re-awaken our inner healer. The prana therapist gives the internal healer a shock awakening. There is a small percentage of sick people in which the internal healer will never awaken. These people will be eternally sick because they have such a deep affection for their sickness and for their state (that gives them a compassionate surrounding, which they like very much), that they are unable to renounce. Hence, they seek out the healer with their conscious part that desires t o be cured and with their unconscious part, more vast and potent, that hopes the healing never occurs. Unconsciously then, they do not want to heal because they are in need of this sickness as a defence mechanism, like a walking stick to maintain a sort of apparent equilibrium. In this case, the illness can serve to attract the attention of others, and fill a void of lacking affection or loneliness. These kinds of patients have the need to be reassured with a helping hand, or at least believe that they are being understood and comprehended. The means that can permit this privileged condition is hence sickness, and to this end, custom made by the unconscious. The action of the healer, that welcomes with love and a full disposition even in these cases, acts on all this process, but cannot (and does not want to) force the re-awakening of a will, aware or not, that is contrary to that of the patient itself.
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