The Twentieth Century saw many innovations in the blending of energy healing with spiritual development. Although we now have Western medicine to rely on for most of our health care needs, energy healing has remained the important link between the energy body and personal and spiritual development aspects of our health. Science recognizes the impact of this in the acknowledgment of the placebo effect: the action of the belief system on physical reality. But beyond the current understanding of modern science lies the wisdom and power of the human energy body, in all its variants. Yes, energy healing speeds up physical healing. But it is just as important is its ability to help us awaken to our full personal and spiritual potential.
At the beginning of the Twentieth Century we had two important streams of grass roots thought, both looking towards blending the ancient traditions and knowledge of Asia with that of the scientific Western mind. Theosophy, blooming out of the writings and influence of Madame Blavatsky, a Ukrainian-born psychic and mystic, still heavily impacts our early Twenty-First century ideas around soul development, the energy body, and the impact of spirit beings guiding our earthly progress.
The second stream of influences flowed from England and Europe, after the dissolution of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, and the impact of Aleister Crowley and other Western Magicians, in the early Twentieth Century. This led to Austin Osman Spare’s postmodern creation of Chaos Magic, a modern approach to Magic that minimizes the ornate symbology and ritual of the Order of the Golden Dawn practices.
If we jump further along the time line, to the 1980’s, which was the beginning of my involvement with energy healing work, two new teachers emerged out of these earlier streams of energy healing work, both of which allowed me to bring into focus my own direction as a healer for others. Both teachers were examples of the passing of the torch: the evolution of energy healing across multiple generations, built on earlier work.
After my initial study of the esoteric Chinese martial arts came my discovery of the work of Rev. Rosalyn L Bruyere. Rev Bruyere maintained a connection with her early Spiritualist roots in promoting mediumship along with energy healing work, while also adding in a cross-cultural exploration of energy body development, stretching from the Hopi Native American, all the way to the Tibetan Bon tradition (which predated Buddhism in Tibet). A teacher as well as a healer in private practice, Rev Bruyere tutored and supported many energy healers, myself among them, guiding us into the embrace important wisdom traditions, emulating in my opinion, the work of Madame Blavatsky, a century before.
The second important influence in the 1980’s was Barbara Anne Brennan, originally a student of Rev Bruyere, an innovator who brought together Bruyere’s energy healing technologies with the Core Energetic psychotherapeutic model of character structure distortions. All healers and teachers of energy healing and spiritual development build on their predecessors, updating old knowledge for eager new minds. Barbara Brennan, while creating a professional system of working with clients to enhance healing and personal growth, also bequeathed to us a vital insight to help us with our personal growth: chakra function and personality distortions are impacted by early life developmental deficits, or unresolved trauma.
If Freud and Jung shifted psychology away from outer influences and into the hidden impact of the personal inner world, and Rev. Bruyere provided practical tools to stimulate both inner and outer esoteric and spiritual forces, pulling from world-wide traditions, it was Barbara Brennan who pointed us towards the health distortion effect in each chakra, often due to inner developmental challenges and early life experiences. The character structure distortions that led towards inauthentic self expression – and self connection – could therapeutically be addressed with energy healing work, she suggested.
For example, the ungrounded Schizoid character structure, leading to a slightly disembodied experience of self, could be improved upon and shifted towards a more rooted and human experience. This was less about “healing” the schizoid’s experience, and more about awakening support that was latent but not yet activated.
To that end, Barbara added addition skills to her original ones learned from Rev Bruyere. The “Hara line”, an enforced grounding technique drawn from Barbara’s observation of martial artists and dancers, helped anchor those with Schizoid tendencies more deeply into their body. Then, feeling safer and welcomed into the world, the Schizoid character could complete their individuation process. And, so it was with the other chakras, their function, and their related character structures. Each chakra could be linked to a character type, with increasing sophistication and nuance the further up the chakra system we go.
Barbara Brennan’s work has come to an end with her retirement, but she leaves behind her a vast storehouse of resources from teaching and writing over many decades. The contemporary Barbara Brennan School of Healing, now owned by Lisa Van Ostrand, and filled with teachers trained by Brennan and others, will no doubt carry this legacy into the next generation of healers, and further on into the Twenty-First Century.
My own energy healing work, as outlined on this web site, blends together the impact on my life of both Rev Bruyere and Barbara Brennan, and leads me down a parallel road based upon their contributions. I focus my energy healing work on specific chakras, and their impact upon a client’s life through their relational connections to others – chakra cords – as well as how that experience of the other rooted back into the chakra petals themselves – self-cords. This work is called Relational Energy Therapy, and can be added to any energy healing system that wants to strength relational clearing and remove emotional invasion issues.
I also have expanded upon my early teachings from Rev Bruyere by including the Western Magical Traditions, going back even beyond Blavatsky. This allows my clients to draw on the rich resources of Western Esoteric Magic, such as psychic attack clearing work, astral healing, entity removal, and candle magic. I tend to think of these resources as Therapeutic Magic, adding to the client’s support system and inspiring them to go deeper into their transformation.
As has always been the case, we can dive as deep as we like, as long as we are willing to put in the hard work to confront and understand the past, while actively working towards creating an authentic self. There are different approaches that both East and West take, in spiritual development. While Buddhism, as one example, strives to eliminate our reliance upon the false self, and be attuned to higher and greater spiritual truths, the Western Esoteric traditions strive to take a different, if more bumpy road, towards the same goal: initiation through engagement with the world. With these additions, I label the full system – combining astral healing, chakra and chakra cord work, and magickal practices – as Therapeutic Energy Healing.
Western seekers seek to understand their inner realities, while aligning themselves not to an ego will but to their true Will. We strive to get in touch with our soul truth, and to dance in harmony with the soul realities of others. Our freedom comes, says the emerging energy body knowledge, from making choices that are authentic to who we are, and not distracted or influenced by our distorted perceptions. This is one torch passed on to us, from Barbara Brennan: character structure or personality distortions can be mapped in the chakra system, and modified into healthier versions of themselves with energy healing work.
If the character structure that dominates our life rests on a stuck developmental phase, embedded in a chakra and its relational connections, then we can work towards healing that chakra – or entire chakra system – and transcend the character structure that distorts our human perceptions. Even half a step forward, out of our false persona, and into our authentic self, is enough to shift us from our suffering. Then, we are back on the road to personal and spiritual freedom, rather than remaining stuck in endless looping of past karmic patterns, and lost in illusion.
© 2020 by Dean Ramsden. All rights reserved.
