March 3, 2023
Energy healing is more than placebo: Testing our healing techniques
Ever wondered if energy healing is just placebo? We have. Here’s how we test our energy techniques to ensure they’re more than placebo.
While placebo can have real results, we want to ensure our techniques are doing the work, not our clients. Read on to see how we test our energy system!
“How do you know energy healing is actually real? How do you know it isn’t just our imaginations or placebo?” This was a question that plagued me throughout the early years of my work with energy. And if you’ve ever considered using energy healing for yourself, it’s probably a question that’s popped up for you as well.
It’s a fair question. After all, how can we separate the power of the mind’s expectation of results (placebo) from the effects of a technique itself?
Even with years of study, rigorous practice, and reading most of the well-regarded research on energy healing, our founding healer Mike Sententia wanted to find a better way to answer this question.
In 2015, Mike came up with a game that’s now part of his regular training for all his students.
While it’s a rather simple game, Mike’s found it to be one of the most effective ways to enhance the effectiveness of energy techniques and ensure students are using energy, not imagination and placebo.
Is it Energy or Placebo?
When honing energy healing techniques, one of the biggest potential confounding variables is the placebo effect.
Placebo effects refer to results that take place due to our mind’s expectations. A common example of this is giving study participants a sugar pill and telling them that it’s intended to reduce or cause a certain symptom. Because participants expect to experience a certain result, their brains inadvertently produce the result all by themselves!
It’s important to note that just because something occurs because of the mind, that doesn’t make the results any less real. For instance, research has found that open-label placebos have been able to provide real results for chronic pain, anxiety, arthritis, depression, allergies, and more.
However, placebo varies from person to person, and it doesn’t work for everyone. Placebo isn’t reliable.
At Healing Lab, we’re all about techniques so reliable, they’re guaranteed. So how do we test to ensure we’re working with energy, not placebo?
Blindfolded Energy Exercises
In 2015, Mike wanted to perfect his own techniques, and help students ensure they were really moving energy, not just imagining sensations. He developed an exercise, which was the first among many blindfolded energy exercises we use to ensure our energy techniques are working.
The game itself is simple. Two people pair up. One person sends energy, the other receives it. The receiver wears a blindfold and holds out their hands. The sender picks a hand and sends the energy. Don’t touch them, don’t tell them which hand. Using only the energy, get them to feel it.
Sounds easy, right?
A lot more goes into this “simple” game than you might think…
First, both individuals must be very tuned into their own energy. Learning to sense and steady your own energy is an essential first step, so you can identify energy coming from outside yourself.
Second, you must be able to visualize and send energy. Visualizing energy will look different for each of us. Some of us are more auditory, while others are visual or tactile. This means if we seek to work with energy, we must understand how we perceive energy. Only then can we begin to build, direct, and send energy.
