The Encyclopedia of Energy Medicine: A Comprehensive Reference to Healing Modalities from Acupressure to Zero Balancing

By Linnie Thomas

An Expansive Resource with 55+ Energy Healing Modalities

This newly revised edition of The Encyclopedia of Energy Medicine is an extensive directory for anyone wishing to study energy healing practices. With newly added modalities, updated course listings, and an improved list of energy medicine associations, this comprehensive reference features dozens of healing schools as well as licensure and certification programs in a field that is constantly growing and evolving. Linnie Thomas offers resources for pursuing your education in fifty-six energy healing methods, such as:

Reflexology • Healing Touch • LomiLomi • Holotropic Breathwork • Thought Field Therapy • Reiki • Medical Qigong • Melody Crystal Healing

This much-needed sourcebook covers healing session summaries, certification and continuing education requirements, endorsements and accreditations, standards of practice, legalities, and class availability. Thomas lists each therapeutic approach, course descriptions (including contact information), and codes of ethics, making it easy to find the information you need to explore these healing techniques for yourself.

 

Includes a foreword by Cyndi Dale, internationally renowned author of The Complete Book of Chakra Healing

• Language: English
• Publisher: Llewellyn Worldwide
• Release date: Apr 8, 2023
• ISBN: 9780738774480

Linnie Thomas

Linnie Thomas, HTCP, HTCI, MLW, has a background in energy work and technical writing (Tektronix and Intel), and she studied nuclear engineering at Oregon State University. She has a healing practice and teaches classes at local hospitals.

Book preview

Foreword: Energy Medicine

By Cyndi Dale

Everyone loves a good mystery. There is nothing more mysterious than the nature of the universe—except, perhaps, the meaning of our existence within it. It turns out that we’ve had access to the secrets of the ages since time began. We’ve simply struggled with focusing on the center puzzle pieces. We can better figure out the beauty and intricacies of the world around us, as well as how to be best supported by it, by first understanding this most fundamental building block of reality. Fortunately, a single word encompasses the explanation for the creation and the power of the creatures within it. For some, that concept even hints at the signature of a Creator.

And guess what? This foundation is also the substance of Linnie’s oh-so-practical and necessary encyclopedia: energy.

There is nothing that is not energy, whether it is material or immaterial. That means all problems reduce to energy, but so do all solutions. The goal doesn’t matter. You might be seeking to soothe stress or sciatica, ease the mind or muscle aches. Creating the most vital and potent change depends on figuring out what is occurring energetically.

I define energy as information that moves. The task of the energy medicine protocols presented in this updated version of The Encyclopedia of Energy Medicine is to assist you with altering the information or vibration causing a challenge and activating what is needed for health, balance, and joy. While the presented treatments are often delivered by practitioners, also listed are modalities you can learn through classes. All energy medicine methods found in this book have one thing in common: they seek to transform information or vibration, the two components of energy.

I’ll give you an example of how simple this process can be—at least, on the surface.

Imagine you’re at a restaurant and you’ve just ordered a café au lait. Make it hot, you add. The ingredients of your drink? Those equate with the information part of our energetic formula. If the waiter alters the data, maybe by skipping the milk, you’ll get plain old black java. Add back this element and you’re back to ground zero.

What’s the parallel to the vibrational component of energy? Let’s say the waiter forgets to steam your beverage, and it arrives cold. In this case, the vibration of the molecules in that cup make all the difference between getting a hot or cold fix of caffeine. And by the way, you won’t end up with café au lait without a good steaming! Heat up that chilled coffee and you’re back in business.

We can’t simply destroy the negative energy creating a problem. In fact, from a scientific perspective, energy can’t be obliterated. It can, however, be transferred or transformed. To morph what we don’t like into something likeable or shift a starry dream into 3D existence, we employ a rather extraordinary tool: consciousness. If energy is the building block of the seen and unseen reality, consciousness is the steering wheel for determining what will become beneficial versus harmful energies. It is the second and perhaps most important key of the universe, and what depicts our purpose within it.

Consciousness is the most incredible but also confounding function of animate beings and, some would say, is a descriptor of the initiating, driving force in the universe—whatever you might call God. It’s hard to define, I’ll give you that. But here we go.

To be conscious is to be aware, as in being knowledgeable of what’s happening inside or around you. But that’s not enough. The ultraconscious person can direct energy through their awareness. In fact, that’s what all the energy medicine protocols in Linnie’s book have in common. They involve the intentional guiding of energy to meet a need or bring about an effect.

Like a traffic cop, you’re instructing energy all the time, whether you know it or not. Every time you put something away in the kitchen, you’re moving energies. When you grab hold of a negative thought and turn it into a positive one, you’re altering energy. There are two types of energy, however, and energy medicine is mainly concerned with the type most difficult to observe or detect.

Physical energy is the easiest to measure. It’s the stuff of knock-on-wood, concrete reality. Most of us spend a lot of time and effort consciously focusing on the energies, for obvious reasons. We need money, clothing, food, and other tangibles. When we’re feeling ill or uncomfortable, we want to know what to do or take.

From a scientific perspective, physical energy is formed from matter, which has weight. It’s a critical factor in our lives. Our skin and organs are made of it. Our prescription pills and surgical sutures are composed of it. Matter is also scattered around the universe, embodied in the stars and planets, and held within atomic and subatomic particles.

The thing is that most energy isn’t physical. In fact, subtle energy, which is far less measurable than physical, constitutes 99.9999-plus percent of an object, including our bodies.¹ For the most part, subtle energies are the lattice work that underlies physical energies, often determining what will appear visibly or not.

How can the invisible create the visible, you might ask? I’ll paraphrase an observation of the famous Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger, who stated that physical objects and forces are merely shapes, or variations in the structure of space. Nothing is truly solid. What we call matter is only energy taking on different forms.²

Now we’re back to the navigational controls for shifting energies. Consciousness.

I’ve already shared that the energy medicine processes and classes in Linnie’s book are aimed at modifying energies for health and well-being. There is something even more special about these treatments, however. They are also subtle energy medicine protocols. They enable the analysis and alteration of the subtle energies that decide what shows up in the physical world, including in the body.

Of course, many of these modalities also emphasize the importance of interacting with physical energies, such as through making dietary or lifestyle changes. They’ll operate most effectively and brilliantly for you, however, if you enter the gateway of a process understanding what you must bring to the table, which is your consciousness.

You are a conscious being. You have the right to analyze for subtle energies and apply your inner self toward changing energy. You have been doing this your entire life, and through Linnie’s energy medicine manual, you are invited to up your game. You get to level the playing field that so often feels like it’s disempowering you through disease, depressing attitudes and people, and events beyond your control. You get to take up the birthright of becoming ever-more conscious of your decision-making abilities in a universe constructed by invisible subtle energies constantly being made visible.

As an energy medicine professional, I’ve been fascinated with the workings of the invisible realm and the power of consciousness for over thirty years. Events have expanded my concept of what it means to be conscious, and exactly who or what is conscious, to include just about anything or anyone. With that in mind, the next story I’m going to share isn’t meant to spook you. Rather, it’s to prompt you to widen your mind so you, too, might start to believe that the entire universe just might be conspiring to help you own your consciousness and, therefore, your capabilities of stimulating creative change.

Years ago, I led a group of individuals deep into the jungles of the Amazon to learn about natural healing. There, we worked with a shaman, whom I call Don Jose. One day, Don Jose asked if I would like him to guide the group to meet his teacher. I excitedly agreed.

It took half a day to reach his teacher. First, we clomped onto a slow-chugging boat, which starting putzing down the brown river, hugging the borders. Parrots screeched at our passing, monkeys threw clumps of leaves and twigs upon us. (We were lucky they weren’t getting their little hands around coconuts!) The merciless sun was endurable because of the fronds stretched across the top of the boat.

Eventually, we landed ashore. Two boys with machetes jumped out of the boat and hurried ashore. Immediately, they began chopping away, widening an overgrown path in the jungle. Don Jose followed in their wake, and we trudged behind him.

The going was slow, but we made our way to a clearing. In it stood a great and huge tree.

This is Teacher, the shaman introduced us with a smile beaming on his face.

Along with my group members, I gazed at the age-old tree, marveling at its mottled spots and thick branches. Then, I heard a voice in my head.

Let me teach you how to heal.

I looked around. No one seemed to have spoken, but the timbre of the tone caused me to wonder. Had Teacher, the tree, spoken with me?

Before I could further analyze the situation, a swarm of insects burst from the tree. As a singular force, they surrounded one of the women on the trip. As they stung her, she howled in pain. None of us could get close enough to help until the hive had swept upward into the sky.

The shaman simply stood there, motionless.

I knew I had to do something. So, I dug in my bag. Nothing. Nada. No medicines of any sort, not even bug spray. I only had Carmex, the menthol-rub that comes in a little white jar with a yellow lid. Carmex doesn’t exactly convey medicinal properties. But, not knowing what else to do, I asked the tree to help, hid the yellow Carmex top, and spread slick goo all over the injured woman.

Immediately, she calmed down. I don’t know what’s in that medicine, but it’s awesome, she said. Shocked, I watched the welts and pinpointed bites literally disappear from her skin.

I could feel the tree chuckle. It had made its point. Everything really is energy; energies seen and unseen can be directed with consciousness.

Does it matter what consciousness you connect into when altering the subtle energies that compose physical matter? It’s certainly necessary to embrace your own. (I’m not suggesting you talk to that tree in your lawn every time you want to perform a healing, although that might work for some people!)

Search out and consult your wise inner self. Cultivate your intuition, follow your gut hunches, and form a learned mind. Consult and learn from the types of practitioners found in this encyclopedia. There are infinite sources of consciousness, and maybe one greater than all who initiated and continues to guide this universe along. In the end, the modalities within this book are paths for the most creative endeavor: the composing of your best life. And the ultimate meaning of your life—the development of your consciousness toward the creation of goodness within this creation.

Bibliography

Sundermier, Ali. 99.9999999% of Your Body Is Empty Space. ScienceAlert. September 23, 2016. https://www.sciencealert.com/99-9999999-of-your-body-is-empty-space.

The Illusion of Reality: The Scientific Proof That Everything Is Energy and Reality Isn’t Real. Esalq. Accessed March 4, 2022. http://www.esalq.usp.br/lepse/imgs/conteudo_thumb/The-Illusion-of-Reality---The-Scientific-Proof-That-Everything-is-Energy-and-Reality-Isnt-Real.pdf.

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1. Ali Sundermier, 99.9999999% of Your Body Is Empty Space, ScienceAlert, September 23, 2016, https://www.sciencealert.com/99-9999999-of-your-body-is-empty-space.

2. The Illusion of Reality: The Scientific Proof That Everything Is Energy and Reality Isn’t Real, Esalq, accessed March 4, 2022, http://www.esalq.usp.br/lepse/imgs/conteudo_thumb/The-Illusion-of-Reality---The-Scientific-Proof-That-Everything-is-Energy-and-Reality-Isnt-Real.pdf.

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Introduction

This encyclopedia is a reference book, not a how-to book. It is meant to serve a variety of important purposes. For the student looking for a rewarding career, my goal is to provide the most comprehensive description of the opportunities available in a tremendously exciting and rapidly growing field. For the researcher looking for new and fertile areas for investigation, this encyclopedia provides a compendium of techniques and concepts waiting to be explored. For patients wondering about alternative and complementary therapies, this is a good place to start. For the hospital administrator, this book is the place to find out what these practitioners are doing and how they are credentialed.

Since 1997 when I began studying energy medicine, the world has changed in many ways. In the beginning, very few people I knew had any knowledge of energy medicine, and many of those who did usually thought of it as some form of quackery used by people to get attention. That has all changed now. Even though I still run into people who have never heard of it, for the most part, it has become well known and respected.

Americans spent over thirty billion out-of-pocket dollars in 2016 on complementary and alternative medicine.³ The amount spent on energy medicine alone is hard to figure as most of it is not reported to organizations that keep track of such things.

The variety of programs teaching energy medicine have not changed very much. What they are teaching has changed a great deal and reflects the growth of the industry, the amount of research being done, and the information gathered from constant practice. The teaching methods have also changed. In 2010 when the first edition of The Encyclopedia of Energy Medicine came out, classes were taught in person. Distant healing was known to work, but not used as a teaching method.

When Covid-19 hit, in-person classes all but stopped. The various modalities began to wonder how they were going to keep teaching. Some quit. A few brave souls decided to try teaching online and use distant healing as a way of introducing the techniques. To everyone’s delight, it worked. Now almost all of them are teaching online. Many have resorted to hybrid courses that combine both online and in-person classes and practicums.

Unfortunately, energy medicine has not yet been recognized by the allopathic medical community. The witnessing of millions of people is not enough. They want to measure it, record it, and see it with their own eyes. Recovery from an affliction through the use of energy medicine is often passed off as the placebo effect and ignored. The good news is that I am encountering doctors who have respect for energy medicine. Energy medicine practitioners are showing up in hospitals and clinics. We see energy medicine on TV and hear about it on social media. It’s not going to go away.

Because hands-on healing does not bring in the big bucks and cannot be controlled by large companies, funding for research is hard to come by. Still, we are making progress. I was delighted to discover how much research is actually being done. Most of the modalities in this book have clinically accepted research studies, which I have listed under Research Resources. These are studies that have shown up in science and medical journals and in the National Institute of Health records. Most have been funded by nonprofit foundations. The need for more research is great and donating to these foundations encourages the work to continue. The Associations of Interest appendix contains many of these foundations in its list.

Terminology

The field of energy medicine is loaded with specialized terminology, such as energy medicine, biofield therapy, holistic medicine, complementary medicine, alternative medicine, integrative medicine, and so on. How does it all fit together?

All these terms, and many more, come under the umbrella of holistic medicine, which is a philosophy of caregiving that actively looks at the whole person. It forms a system of healthcare catering to a cooperative relationship between the physical, emotional, mental, social, psychological, environmental, lifestyle, and spiritual aspects of health and well-being. Holistic medicine includes all modalities of diagnosis and treatment, even surgery and the prescribing of drugs, as well as natural and noninvasive procedures. It also emphasizes the responsibilities of individuals to educate themselves and the importance of their personal efforts to maintain good health practices.

One of the specialized terms that has grown in popularity with the advent of holistic medicine is modality. Where it once referred mostly to a therapeutic method or agent used (especially in physical therapy), the term now has become a buzzword that reaches all forms of medicine. Any one of the many different complementary medicine therapies, from chiropractic to aromatherapy to Healing Touch, is called a modality. I have even heard the word applied to various traditional Western medicine treatments such as antibiotics and surgery. In this book, the term applies to each of the individual programs in energy medicine.

The field of energy medicine is generally understood as a subset of holistic medicine that composes two branches. One branch focuses on the use of electrical equipment to assess or stimulate a part of the body. One of the better-known examples of this is the Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation machine, better known as a TENS, that encourages the body to produce pain-relieving chemicals by sending electrical impulses to the brain through a corresponding area of pain. This is a separate branch of energy medicine not discussed in this book. Rather, the term energy medicine refers to the therapeutic use of a practitioner’s or healer’s hands to assess and balance the human (animal or plant) energy field and enable healing and wholeness by the body.

Energy medicine is a complementary body of work that integrates with other forms of medicine. It is not intended to be a substitute for any other form of medicine. Neither do energy medicine practitioners consider it an alternative medicine. Rather, they like to use the term complementary, and some refer to it as integrative.

To illustrate, I like to use the example of a construction worker who has had the unfortunate experience of falling and breaking his leg. It is a nasty break in which the bone has snapped in half and the skin is torn and exposed to dirt and grime. On its own, it is possible for the body to heal the leg. It may not be fully functionally restored, but at least the construction worker will survive this serious injury.

However, if a surgeon resets the bone, the leg will heal faster, and the patient will most likely be able to walk again. If the surgeon stitches up the tear in the skin, the leg will heal with less scarring. If the wound is sterilized, the leg will heal with less chance of infection. If the patient is given antibiotics, he will have a chance to heal without complications such as a staph infection. By balancing the disturbed field around the injury, the leg may heal faster with fewer complications and less pain. An energy medicine practitioner may also help relieve some of the stress caused by the fall and the resulting surgery. All these procedures working together ensures the speedy recovery of the patient. Not one of them can do it alone.

Energy Perception

While the techniques employed by various energy medicine modalities throughout this encyclopedia may be similar, the way individual practitioners perceive the energy field changes considerably from person to person. In much of ancient literature, the term aura referred to subtle color radiances surrounding the body. Barbara Ann Brennan, founder of the Barbara Brennan School of Healing (page 189), and John F. Thie, founder of Touch for Health (page 135), helped set the precedent for what I call traditional Western energy medicine, which perceives the energy field as composed of several layers of energy penetrating and surrounding the body. This field is described by Donna Eden as a multilayered field that interacts with other energies in the environment, filtering out unwanted energies and drawing in others that are useful to the body. Cyndi Dale refers to the energies that penetrate and surround the body, and that we can’t yet see, as subtle energies. She postulates that these subtle energies form what she calls the subtle body and that they direct and form the physical framework of the body.

The early written records of the chakras occur in the Yoga Upanishads (circa 600 BCE), and later in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali (circa 200 BCE). At that time, chakras were described as psychic centers of consciousness. In 1919, Englishman Arthur Avalon translated two texts—the Sat-Cakra-Nirupana, written by an Indian pundit in 1577, and the Padaka-Pancaka, written in the tenth century—that also list seven basic chakras existing within the energy field around the spine. They are located at the top of the head and at the brow, throat, heart, solar plexus (just below the center of the rib cage), sacral (just above the pubic bone), and base of the spine. The brow, throat, heart, solar plexus, and sacral chakras spin outward from the spine to the front and the back.

Although the seven-chakra model based on these ancient Indian texts is the most commonly accepted understanding, some modalities differ in the number and location. Many modalities recognize 256 smaller chakras located wherever there is a bone joint in the body. Some recognize chakras above the head and below the feet. For more information on the various cultures and how they see chakras, read Cyndi Dale’s book, Llewellyn’s Complete Book of Chakras: Your Definitive Source of Energy Center Knowledge for Health, Happiness, and Spiritual Evolution.

In addition to the chakras, running within the body are also pathways of energy called meridians. Proof of the existence of meridians was provided by French doctor Jean-Claude Darras and Professor Pierre de Vernejoul in the early 1990s. They injected a harmless radioactive isotope into an acupressure point located on a meridian. Using a gamma-imaging camera, they traced the radioactive isotope as it traveled roughly thirty centimeters through the body. It followed the meridian channels documented by the Chinese over five thousand years ago. When they injected the isotope into areas of the body that did not connect to an acupressure point, the isotope formed a random pattern.⁴

figure 1

Figure 1: Front and Side Chakra Figures

The primo-vascular system, a part of the cardiovascular system discovered by scientists at the Seoul National University, helped change Western thinking. Their research suggests this system channels the flow of energy and information relayed by biophotons, which are electromagnetic particles of light. Researchers are finding evidence the primo-vascular system may be the physical component of the acupuncture meridian system. Meridian lines are not confined to the skin but flow within the body and are found throughout the primo-vascular system.⁵

According to traditional Chinese medicine, meridians consist of fourteen specific pathways that deliver energy throughout the body. Each organ and physiological system is fed energy by a meridian. Some practitioners count twenty-six meridians, as twelve of the meridians are actually made up of pairs mirroring each other on opposite sides of the body. The other two go up and down the head and trunk of the body. Our understanding of meridian pathways has not changed for thousands of years.

Some meridians travel up the body and others travel down the body. For example, the first meridian is called the central meridian and travels from the perineum up to the middle of the lower lip. The governing meridian, the second energy pathway, goes from the base of the spine up the back, over the head, and ends at the middle of the upper lip. Some forms of meditation suggest putting the tip of the tongue on the roof of the mouth to connect these two meridians while meditating, allowing a continuous circuit of energy. These are the only two meridians that travel in a somewhat straight line. The pairs of meridians comprise stomach, spleen, heart, small intestine, bladder, kidney, circulation sex, triple warmer, gallbladder, liver, lung, and colon (large intestine).

Meridians are classified as either yin or yang depending on which direction they flow. Yin energy in traditional Chinese medicine is feminine and flows up from the feet toward the head and from the shoulders toward the fingertips. Yang energy is masculine and flows from the head to the feet and from the fingertips to the shoulders. Yin meridians provide energy to nourish the body and are passive. Yang meridians are active and protective.

figure 2

Figure 2: Front Meridian Figure

Choice of Modalities

I have investigated some two hundred fifty different healing schools and programs. When choosing the modalities for this book, I looked for professionalism, longevity, and diversity. The modalities presented in this encyclopedia have demonstrated to my satisfaction that they have staying power and the ability to reach a wide audience. They all have training programs, most leading to some form of certification.

We are blessed to have a wide variety of energy medicine modalities. The founders of each modality have built a program around their unique ability to detect the energy field. The story of the three blind men describing an elephant helps explain the differences. Very few people can actually see the energy field. The blind men cannot see the elephant. One of them finds the tail and thinks the elephant resembles a rope. Another encounters a leg and announces the elephant is like the trunk of a tree. The third blind man touches the trunk of the elephant and decides the elephant must be some kind of snake.

Each person is unique in the way they recognize the energy system. Some can feel it. Sensations of warmth or coolness, density, lack of any sensation, or a feeling something is there that can’t be explained. Others have an intuitive sense of it. Some hear sounds as they pass their hands through the field. A rare few can actually see the energy field.

One of the most important steps a person can take deciding which modality fits them is to discover how their body and mind recognize the energy field and the fluctuations within the field. Not everyone has the ability to sense anything in the field, but must rely on the responses from their clients. Setting an intention for the healing and accepting that the work will get done isn’t always easy, but it works.

Once you know how you, personally, recognize differences and similarities in the energy field, you can develop and expand that ability with lots of practice. If working with the energy field doesn’t appeal to you, you may like working with meridians and acupuncture points. It’s up to you. Spend time reading the modalities listed in this encyclopedia and inquire into those that appeal to you. Remember to take care of your own health. If you do not take care of yourself, you cannot take care of others.

Important Considerations

Some modalities have credentialing that provides continuing education units (CEUs) and certification. For example, several modalities issue CEUs provided by the American Holistic Nurses Association, which is accredited as an Approver of Continuing Education in Nursing by the American Nurses Credentialing Center’s Commission on Accreditation. The program or school must apply for and be accepted by the organizations that provide CEUs. The program must prove its curriculum is of educational value to the student before the provider will allow the issuance of CEUs. Many states and/or nursing organizations require nurses to complete a certain number of hours of continuing education each year. The same is true for massage therapists and many other medical practices, including some of the programs in this encyclopedia. Where possible, the providers of the CEUs are listed in each chapter to enable potential students to choose which one applies to their needs.

Achieving certification adds credibility to a practitioner’s work and shows they are serious enough in their practice to go the extra mile. Proficiency is determined by certification. A few states exempt certain certified practitioners from the massage laws. Who supplies the certification and what credentials associated with it are important to note. Being handed a certificate at the end of a workshop that says you are certified doesn’t necessarily mean you are proficient in that healing modality. True certification requires successful completion of classes, case studies, often working for a period of time with a mentor, considerable practice, and often the passing of an exam.

Some states require licensing of some kind for certain modalities before you can practice as a professional. Reflexology is a good example. In some states, reflexologists must have a massage license. Licenses to practice are issued by a government agency. When a modality program offers a license, it means granting the applicants the right to use the company name and logo in their advertising and on their websites.

Medical licenses for nursing, physical therapy, and the like will apply for energy work only if the energy work is part of the job description. As a nurse, you may do energy work on a patient and log it on the patient’s chart (and are covered by the nursing regulations to do so), but payment for the energy work must come from your nursing salary and be part of your job description. See the legalities chapter for more information on laws regarding touch and counseling.

On a More Personal Note

I began this work in 1997 when I was offered a scholarship to the healing school of my choice. At the time, I had no knowledge of energy work and had never heard of energy medicine. The reams of uncultivated information on the internet did not help very much. I encountered the Barbara Brennan School of Healing, but it was across the country, and even with a scholarship, it was more than I could afford at the time. I looked at Reiki, but I needed something with more science behind it.

My college major was nuclear engineering. Looking back, I think my interest in nuclear physics was really a search for God. Coming from a family of engineers and lawyers, I needed science in order to be comfortable studying energy medicine.

Fortunately a friend introduced me to a woman who was studying Healing Touch. She put me in touch with the Healing Touch home office and, to my delight, I attended a class scheduled in my area a few weeks later.

After one hour in class, I was hooked for good. It changed my life completely. I had had a lifetime of experience working with reason and logic. In class, I learned how to pair that with my natural intuition, which I knew I had, but had never acknowledged much. Three years later, I certified as a practitioner in Healing Touch and two years later as an instructor. I still love it. I have taken classes in several of the modalities offered in this encyclopedia (and many that are not) and have received treatments from practitioners of most of them.

My students frequently ask me what is the right form of energy healing for them to practice. I encourage them to explore their own abilities and to look for modalities that match their own comfort zones. I needed science, while others need spirituality or something less structured. Some people require credentialed certification, and others prefer to do healing work without the worry of a title or paperwork.

Last, because of the rapid growth and continuing research in the field of energy medicine, information in this encyclopedia is subject to change without notice.

Welcome to the exciting and highly rewarding world of energy medicine.

May you be in good health,

Linnie Thomas

Bibliography

Americans Spent $30.2 Billion Out-Of-Pocket on Complementary Health Approaches. National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health. June 22, 2016. https://www.nccih.nih.gov/news/press-releases/americans-spent-302-billion-outofpocket-on-complementary-health-approaches.

Estimates of Funding for Various Research, Condition, and Disease Categories (RCDC). NIH. May 16, 2022. https://report.nih.gov/funding/categorical-spending#.

Science Finally Proves That Meridians Exist. Restore Health & Wellness. Accessed March 4, 2022. https://restorewellness.com.au/2016/05/1387/#:~:text=The%20researchers%20discovered%20that%20the,flow%20deep%20within%20the%20body.

Brown, Wendy. Intriguing Research of Acupuncture Meridians. ElementalChanges. Accessed March 4, 2022. http://elementalchanges.com/analytical/intriguing-research/.

Chikly, Bruno, Paul Roberts, and Jörgen Quaghebeur. Primo Vascular System: A Unique Biological System Shifting a Medical Paradigm. Journal of Osteopathic Medicine. Accessed March 4, 2022. https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.7556/jaoa.2016.002/html?lang=en.

Gallo, Fred, ed. Evidence of Meridians. Aipro. Accessed March 4, 2022. https://www.aipro.info/wp/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/EVIDENCE_MERIDIANS.pdf.

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3. Americans Spent $30.2 Billion Out-Of-Pocket on Complementary Health Approaches, National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, June 22, 2016, https://www.nccih.nih.gov/news/press-releases/americans-spent-30.2-billion-outofpocket-on-complementary-health-approaches.

4. Fred Gallo, ed., Evidence of Meridians, Aipro, accessed March 4, 2022, https://www.aipro.info/wp/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/EVIDENCE_MERIDIANS.pdf.

5. Bruno Chikly, Paul Roberts, and Jörgen Quaghebeur, Primo Vascular System: A Unique Biological System Shifting a Medical Paradigm, Journal of Osteopathic Medicine, accessed March 4, 2022, https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.7556/jaoa.2016.002/html?lang=en.

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SECTION 1

LEGALITIES

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Legalities

Several years ago, one of my mentees advertised her Healing Touch services on Craigslist. One of the requirements for certification with Healing Touch Program includes documenting one hundred healing sessions and spending a minimum of one year with a mentor, which is where I came into the picture. About a week later, she received notification to appear in front of the Oregon Massage Board, and that she was facing a possible fine of six thousand dollars.

My mentee had failed to mention in her ad that she was a Healing Touch Program apprentice and that she would be doing energy work. What she didn’t know was that in the past, a group of sex workers had come up from Nevada advertising their services as healing touch. The Oregon Board of Massage keeps a sharp eye out for that kind of thing. From the wording in my mentee’s ad, they thought she was either practicing massage illegally or advertising for lady-of-the-evening services. Once they found out she was doing energy work, the charges were dropped. Even so, we spent a couple of uncomfortable weeks sorting things out.

More recently, an Oregon legislator introduced a bill requiring all alternative practitioners to register with the state. Fees were involved, of course. Also mentioned in the bill was the intention to provide testing for licensing. The way alternative practitioner was defined, everyone from caregivers to energy practitioners, aromatherapists, hypnotherapists, homeopathic practitioners, and even ministers fit the definition. The people in the legislature knew little to nothing about what all these different practitioners do, and caregivers and ministers certainly didn’t belong in the picture.

I serve on a steering committee working to stop the bill from passing. We put the word out about the bill. After a period of time, a public meeting was held, and over three hundred people showed up, either in writing or on virtual media, to protest the bill. Checking on the status of the bill at the time of this writing, it appears we succeeded and it has been stopped, although this doesn’t keep someone from introducing another one in the future.

We sought the help of the National Health Freedom Coalition. With their help, we have written what is called a Safe Harbor bill. It allows the public freedom of choice for their own healthcare. Oregon isn’t the only state wanting to license energy medicine practitioners. Bills are showing up in several states.

Safe Harbor Exemption bills protect access to healthcare practitioners who do not hold state occupational licenses and are currently practicing in the public domain. Historically, these healthcare practitioners have been unfairly charged with practice of medicine without a license. Safe Harbor Exemption laws for these practitioners protect consumer access to the broad range of healthcare and healing practitioners, such as herbalists, traditional naturopaths, homeopaths, bodyworkers, energy medicine practitioners, and culturally specific healing practices that are not currently regulated by the states and that do not rise to the level of concern requiring state oversight, certification, registration, or licensure. Eleven states now protect consumer access to these practitioners on some level, including Oklahoma, Idaho, Minnesota, Rhode Island, California, Louisiana, New Mexico, Arizona (limited exemption for homeopaths only), Colorado, Nevada, and Maine. At the time of this writing, fifteen additional states have introduced similar legislation within the past ten years.⁶

Some practitioners have put themselves on a watch list. Legiscan.com sends advanced notifications of specific topics to people who have expressed interest by state and nationally.

Once you sign up with them and specify what you want to know about energy medicine practitioner or alternative healthcare legislation, you are notified when the subject of licensing energy medicine practitioners and other alternative healthcare issues come up. My steering