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| "If I heal on a massage table and science can not prove it, do I exist?" |
I tried something new today. Avery, a talented massage therapist at the Well-Being Center for Health in Monroe, Washington, doubles as a Jin Shin Do practitioner. Chick here for a picture of Avery. Avery described Jin Shin Do is an ancient healing art originating in China. It is a form of acupressure based on the same energy points that are used in acupuncture.
What is clear about Jin Shin Do is that in the body it takes advantage of the same highway system for moving energy – kundalini channels, energy points, chakras and meridians – that are at play in Reiki, acupuncture, cranial-sacral, reflexology, shamanism and other alternative therapies. What is not clear is precisely how Jin Shin Do works. During the session Avery and I puzzled over this question, delving into the mystery being half of the fun.
At the start of the session Avery indicated that she was trying to decide between two Jin Shin Do energy paths: one that focuses on the central channels of the body and another that works on the gall bladder meridian. The gallbladder it seems has many functions, one of them being to hold the energy of personal truth. Given the civil war percolating in my right arm - and that I am become more public with my spirituality and healing work - I suggested we focus on the gallbladder meridian. She agreed.
Cranial-sacral therapy, like Jin Shin Do, has an enigmatic side to its personality. Through cranial-sacral work with Tasha and Richard, I was able to physically feel movement inside of my body followed by an emerging awareness of my own buried psychological patterns. Over time this has led to a change in physical symptoms in the form of reduced arm numbness.
I’ve started to notice another pattern – in my book and on-line research into alternative healing methods. A controversy brews around cranial-sacral therapy, Jin Shin Do and energy medicine in general. Science can find no explanation and even within people partial to these forms of healing, the inner workings are an unrevealed mystery. There is plenty of testimony out there about the positive impact of alternative healing methods on health and well-being. There is also vociferous scientific and medical opinion to effect that the healing practices that have improved my life, exist only within my mind.
I try not to let the fact that science and medicine can not account for my experiences bother me. However, I will admit that sometimes it puzzles me, the fact that the highly educated men and women we rely on to research and report back to us on how to sustain health consider the fact of my improved condition biologically implausible!
The central question is this: How can it be ‘implausible’ if it has happened?
I am left to wonder: If I am helped by Reiki and the way Reiki helped was imaginary, does that make me imaginary? Does the fact that cranial-sacral therapy is apparently non-existent render my arm and shoulder phantom parts plagued by phantom numbness? Will I wake up one day to discover that all the energy workers and massage therapists, my body, its aches and pains, my apartment, my computer and my cat are just figments of my imagination? Do I even exist?!
Rather than wring my hands in existential despair I realize that I will have to decide for myself. As the controversy rages on I have a life and within that, a purpose.
I hear a small drum roll as if someone is using toothpicks like tiny drumsticks against wood. It is the sound of my fingers against the table top while I mull it over.
Okay, I’ve decided.
It’s official: I exist.
(For more on Jin Shin Do treatment, see next post).
The problem with science is in assuming it is an authority unto itself. It is not. It's a tool and a method of inquiry, and to assume otherwise is to treat science as a deity, or some kind of bible.
ReplyDeleteMy partner is an old physicist and a spiritual seeker, who happens to be quite psychic. When he noticed that he could sense chi even though it didn't register on any instruments, he didn't say "that's impossible" and dismiss it. He trusted his experience and try to figure it out. He once did some work on a cancer patient with another energy healer, and he noticed that chi rays behaved like nothing in the electromagnetic spectrum. It was impossible according to what he knew of physics. Some time later, he worked out a theory that chi is actually a third component of the EM spectrum, and that we cannot detect it because all of our instruments detect electricity or magnetism. Current science is missing a third of the equation.
There are more implications than I've mentioned here, and I'm working on getting him to start a blog about it. But my point is, the science is not there yet. True scientists would bother to inquire, rather than denigrate.