Energy Healing - between Science and Spirituality

Alternative healing and treatment modalities often lack enough or sufficient vocabulary to describe them. Even the word “energy work” sounds very vague and doesn’t really clarify what it’s about. It could just as easily refer to an electrical power supply. Fortunately, more and more people are having spiritual experiences and noticing that there is much more around us than we can perceive with the naked eye. As a result, both supply and demand for energetic healing forms are increasing and more people seem to be curious about alternative treatments. Energy healing is a broad field that ranges from Reiki and chakra work to communication with otherworldly energies such as angels or spirit guides. Human Design, Theta Healing, sound healing, and various forms of meditation, as well as Acupuncture or Shiatsu, are all forms of energy work. It’s hard to pigeonhole those alternative treatments and it's not necessary because when it comes to energy, there are no limits.

Einstein said - casually summed up - that everything is energy. Animals, humans, plants, as well as so-called inanimate objects, consist of—or better, are—energy. The chair you are sitting on consists of atoms vibrating at a certain frequency, and that’s energy—simply put. The universe vibrates at a particular frequency, just like our bodies or any kind of music we hear. Beethoven already knew that 432 Hertz has a positive effect on us because it’s the same vibration generated by the universe. When we listen to music at that frequency, it has a strongly calming and healing effect on our mind and body. So even though most people typically can’t see these energies, they are there—around us and within us. We are energy.

Perhaps some of you remember physics class in school when the law of conservation of energy was discussed. It states that energy cannot be created or destroyed—it can only be transformed. This law was actually first formulated by the physician Robert Mayer. These two aspects—that everything is energy and that energy can’t be destroyed, only transformed—are, for me, the scientific foundation of energy work. For all highly rational people who want evidence for something they cannot see—the energetic laws that have been known in physics for hundreds of years provide that proof.

To many Indigenous peoples or groups with strong ancestral connections, this knowledge is nothing new. They know how to use energies to heal their fellow humans, communicate with their ancestors, and much more. It is well known that energy has no spatial or temporal limitations. Therefore, it is common and absolutely possible to practice long-distance healing in energy work. To me, it is clear that every person has the ability to work with energies. It’s in our capacity and as natural as any physical function we have.

Through millennia of religious and social conditioning—during which people were made to believe that anything arising from their own power, anything that works with nature’s forces, is bad—we lost most of this knowledge. Religious institutions fought against what they could not control or understand, and people who cultivated ancient healing knowledge were executed. Even today, sensitive people with certain abilities are still often labeled as crazy. Fact is, there are people who react more sensitive to energies than others and can simply feel them more intensely. We all have different strengths, and high sensitivity—the heightened perception of energies around us—should be seen as such.

Returning to energy work, we possess these incredible abilities within ourselves, and some people know how to use them. When we are ill—mentally or physically—we carry blockages within us that want to be resolved. Illness is energetic disharmony. When we bring our energy back into balance—that is, when we vibrate at our healthy frequency—we have no symptoms. For me, working with our chakras is very effective for maintaining balance. Chakras are energy centers within and around our body that affect our entire mental and physical well-being. Another incredibly powerful form of energy work are shamanic healing methods. Shamans know how to enter the spiritual realm to dissolve blockages on different levels. Since we are made of energy and energy is multifaceted, we are incredibly complex as well. Many people suffer from chronic illnesses that cannot be resolved on a purely physical level. Doctors merely prescribe medication because they don’t know how to heal these blockages. Energy work allows access to various levels of our being and can help dissolve these blockages.

Psychosomatic illnesses are very common in our society and usually can’t be healed by using only Western medicine. It is coming to people's awareness that our emotions are the main cause of diseases. Stress is the greatest factor of disharmony—or illness—in the body. Emotions are, like everything else, energies with different frequencies. We distinguish between positive and negative emotions. The reason love feels so good and fear or anger feels so bad is because of their respective vibrational frequencies. Fear is very 'low-vibration' and not in harmony with our basic frequency. Love feels so good because it matches our original frequency. If we’re exposed to low vibrations for too long, we develop illnesses. On a physical level, this means our immune system becomes weakened and we get sick—therefore even this process of catching a cold for example has an energetic origin.

Some energetic blockages go very deep because they often have accompanied us for a long time. Our DNA stores information (= energy) over generations (hereditary information), and to resolve these ancient blockages, energy healing is incredibly helpful. We are such complex beings, and it is important and necessary that holistic knowledge about our existence is shared. We can no longer consider only our bodily functions and symptoms when it comes to healing—it is too one‑sided and obviously not effective.

When it comes to energetic work or treatments, terminology is often lacking because it’s so difficult for us to put into words what we don’t understand. That doesn’t mean it’s not legitimate—on the contrary, something we perceive more on the feeling-level often has a stronger effect precisely because our rational thinking doesn’t interfere. I recommend anyone with mental, emotional, or physical complaints of any kind to examine them on a deeper level. Energy work addresses the root of a problem and doesn’t merely attempt to suppress the symptom. Unfortunately, it can be hard to explain how energy healing works because it is a deeply intuitive process. On the other hand, hardly anyone knows how a heart transplant is performed, and yet no one questions that it is possible.

Energy practitioners are sensitive people who can receive and transform energies in different ways and serve as a channel for healing energy. No reputable energy worker claims to create healing. They never give energy off of themselves but act only as a medium or channel to dissolve blockages. Every person has incredible self-healing abilities, and energy healing practitioners help awaken and strengthen these. It’s always up to the client—if they want to heal, they must participate themselves and truly want to make changes.

Any form of information—whether words, feelings, or thoughts is of course energy too. Since energy cannot be destroyed, these pieces of information exist in some form around or within us. Everything we say or think is “out there,” and that’s why our thoughts and words have such strong powers. They can manifest and thus shape our reality. So-called mediums—people who communicate with, let’s call them, higher beings—can connect within this information level, that is, vibrate on the same frequency. Like a radio searching for a specific station—when the right frequency is established, you can receive the sound (information). Even when it comes to communicating with our higher self, our soul, or with the Divine within us, energy workers or mediums can immerse in that vibration, and, if needed, dissolve blockages at that level.

This topic is so infinitely vast that I could write for pages. It is so wide‑ranging and multi‑layered because we, this world, and the universe are so incredibly complex. Just because we cannot see something—or don’t often understand it—doesn’t mean it’s not legitimate or even completely natural. It’s about opening up and perceiving that we can do so much more. We must see ourselves as the holistic, multi‑layered beings we are and re‑recognize and normalize alternative forms of treatments and healing that are as old as humanity itself. I know that to our human, rationally trained mind, this all often sounds questionable. What we don’t know or understand can be frightening—but it’s also wonderful to know that there are so many protective and healing energies around us and that there are people who can help us connect with them. To me, it is as natural as any other process we perceive in nature, whether biological or physical. Energy work is simply an immense enrichment that enables us to live in harmony and it is a return to our innermost being, our origin.