Welcome back to Unit 12 of the Modern Order of Essenes course! If you are new to the course, it starts out here with Unit 1. And in order to see all the course-related posts on one page, click here.
+++ Urgent: I have published a list of potential attunement dates, and need to know your preferences by Sunday July 20th = TODAY. Please reply asap if you haven’t done so yet. Thanks! +++
Well. It’s a bit hard to believe, but this is the last unit of the Apprentice course! Woohoo!
We have been on this quest together since mid-February. And while at first it felt (at least to me 😉 ) as if there was still an endless amount of lessons before us, it’s now almost the end of July, we’re in the last unit – and have been busy planning for the Apprentice attunements (and at least in my case, also for the upcoming Healer grade).
So first of all, before we dive into Unit 12: Congratulations!
Having made it this far, against all the smaller or maybe even larger obstacles life might have thrown at you, is no small feat. Just the fact that you got this far is worth celebrating – well done! 🙂
And if you should have started later, or taken longer, the same holds for you: You made it to the last unit, and you really deserve to give yourself a vigorous pat on the back (and also a treat or two! 😉 )
(Seriously – you should give yourself the deserved credit for pulling through, and also reward yourself in some way!)
As you will notice, the work of this last unit isn’t exactly less than before. After all, you’re still supposed to continue with your practices. But it gets less in the sense that there are less new things to learn. In this final unit, the work of the Apprentice grade is, finally, winding down…
Coursework
- To Read – “Preparation for Attunement”
Read the section “Preparation for Attunement” (see my notes in the Commentary).
Online Version (only the section “Preparation for Attunement” at the very bottom)
PDF Version (section “Preparation for Attunement” on pages 25 and 26) - To Study – Muscle Testing: “False Positives And Negatives”
As always, you are not supposed to blindly believe this text as gospel, but instead to study it thoroughly, contemplate it, and to come up with your own ideas and thoughts about it.
Online Version (only the section “False Positives And Negatives” at the very bottom)
PDF Version (section “False Positives And Negatives” on pages 51 and 52) - To Practice – Essene Healing Breath: continue as before
Continue with your daily Healing Breath meditation up to and including Step 6 of Phase 2.
Online Version (Section “Essene Healing Breath Meditation”)
PDF Version (Section “Essene Healing Breath Meditation” up to and including Phase 2, i.e. from page 13 up to about the middle of page 20 – Phase 3 is part of a later grade) - To Practice – Blessing Walk: continue as before
Continue to practice the daily Blessing Walk, and continue to more and more incoporate the Blessing Walk into your life.
Online Version
PDF Version (pages 11 to 14) - To Practice – Foot Reflexology: continue as before
Continue to give yourself a daily foot reflexology treatment, and also treat others to foot reflexology to the extent this is appropriate and possible.
Online Version
PDF Version (pages 39 to 44) - To Practice – Healing Hands: continue as before
Continue to activate your Healing Hands each morning, and to use them at least once per day.
Online Version (section “Essene Healing Hands Technique”)
PDF Version (section “Essene Healing Hands Technique” on pages 35 – 37, plus the corresponding images on pages 32 and 32) - To Practice – Muscle Testing: The Pendulum
This is strictly speaking not muscle testing, but since John Gilbert (or whomever) included it… It’s also a fun thing to try – and who knows, you might discover your hidden knack for using a pendulum! 😉
I include some comments of my own about using a pendulum below. If you don’t feel comfortable using one, or if you don’t get along with it at all, don’t sweat it. In this case, simply continue to practice one or more of the muscle testing techniques you have learned!
Online Version (only the section “The Pendulum in Essene Healing”)
PDF Version (section “The Pendulum in Essene Healing” on pages 50 and 51)
Reflection Question
While you do the work of Unit 12, take some time to reflect on the following question:
What have you gotten out of this course so far?
Meditation Topics
If you need fodder for your discursive meditations beyond what you have found in this unit’s texts, the following topics should give you something to work with:
- What does it mean to start a course?
- What does it mean to finish a course?
- Why and when would you follow a set course, instead of setting out on your own?
- And why and when not?
- What are false positives, and where can you encounter them?
- What are false negatives, and where can you encounter them?
- In which ways does using a pendulum differ from muscle testing, and in which ways is it the same?
- Which parts of the course have been easy for you?
- Which parts of the course have been hard for you?
- How does the MOE work fit into your everyday life?
- What influence does the MOE work have on your everyday life?
- What kind of influence has the MOE work had on you?
And if you have enough ideas on your own and don’t need any from this list, that’s even better!
Commentary
Muscle Testing: Using the Pendulum
I have to admit I found it a bit strange that the use of a pendulum is included among the “muscle testing” techniques here. I get where this is coming from – in the end, it’s your fingers holding the thread which (seemingly) move the pendulum (or not?).
For me, at least, a pendulum works differently from muscle testing and has a different range of applications.
Be that as it may, the pendulum is included in the curriculum, and thus we may as well have fun with it! 😉
A few things to note first:
First, as I said, for me the pendulum is not the same as muscle testing – but of course, your mileage may vary. I simply seem to be able to tap into other things with a pendulum – it functions as a kind of divination tool for me, and it seems a lot of other people use it that way, too.
But there are also people who successfully use pendulums for dowsing e.g. to detect water below ground. In this case, the pendulum (just like the dowsing rod) seems to pick up the subtle perceptions of the dowser, amplifies them and thus makes them visible.
There is a border area between divination and muscle testing (aka getting feedback from your own body), and the pendulum seems to cover this grey area, at least for some people and in some cases.
Thus it might well be that for you, the pendulum simply works as another muscle testing technique (which is fine, and you can well use it as such).
It might be that for you, the pendulum simply works as another divination tool, like the tarot or other forms of divination (which is fine, and you can use it as such).
It might also be that for you, the pendulum works as something in between, or both, or a mixture thereof (which is perfectly fine, too – the more you use it, the more you’ll be able to figure out how it works for you, and what you can use it for with good results).
And of course, it might be that for you, the pendulum doesn’t work at all. Which, again, is perfectly fine. Just give it a serious try like you did for all the other muscle testing techniques of the Apprentice grade. And if you should then find that the pendulum isn’t going to be your tool of choice, put it aside and use one or more of the other techniques which suit you better.
Finally, if you should for some reason not want to use a pendulum at all, this is equally ok. You’ve got the choice between all the muscle testing techniques from the last few units. Simply pick one or more of these, and run with them! 🙂
How to Use a Pendulum
If you’ve used a pendulum before, you don’t need to read this section. 🙂 If you haven’t, here are a few tips you might find helpful:
Simple and cheap will do.
You do not need a purpose-made pendulum, or a dedicated quarz crystal, or anything else fancy. In fact, you don’t need to spend money at all on a working pendulum.
Case in point: I’ve been using a simple fake, multi-faceted plastic “crystal”, hung from a (too) thin, cheap nylon thread, as a pendulum for ages, and with very good results.
(It simply happened to be around one day when I needed a pendulum in a pinch, and worked well enough, so…)
I’ve also been using fingerrings hung from jewelry chains, and some other stuff. (I don’t think I’ve ever tried it, but I think a key hung from some kind of thread should work well, too).
All of this have been things I’ve had in the house anyway. And at least in my experience, they’ve all worked equally well.
That’s to say: Don’t spend any money on a pendulum just for this unit! Use whatever you have at hand. What you need is some kind of chain or thread, and some object to hang from it:
The latter should, obviously, have some kind of hole, loop, “waist”, or some other means to fasten your thread to it. It also needs to be heavy enough to pull the thread tight when it hangs down (but not too heavy, or you won’t do many rounds with it before your arm and fingers get tired).
The former can be any kind of thread: a jewelry-style chain, a cord, filament, yarn, thin leather strip, etc. It shouldn’t be too thin, or your fingers will hurt very soon, and you should be able to grasp and hold it reasonably well.
Neither the object nor the thread should be anything to which you (or other people) have a very strong emotional connection, like e.g. your marriage ring. These objects might or might not work well for you (or they might distort your results for some areas without you noticing). For starters, it’s safer and easier to use a pendulum which is reasonably “neutral”.
To start with the pendulum, put things together (e.g. tie your object to your yarn). Wrap your thread around one of your forefingers a few times, and hold the end between your fingers such that the thread won’t slip. The pendulum should hang (and be able to swing) freely from a few inches of thread, down from your forefinger.
You might have to experiment with the “free” length of thread which is hanging down a bit. The longer it is, the longer it’ll take for the pendulum to reverse course between a Yes and a No. The shorter it is, the less freely the pendulum is swinging, and the muddier some answers might get. Just try different lenghts, until you find one which works well for you.
Put your elbow on a table or other suitable surface, with the arm raised up and to the side, so that the pendulum can swing freely. Putting your elbow down on the surface like this will prevent your arm from tiring out very soon, but will also help you to keep your hand more steady, i.e. to not influence the pendulum with too much of your own movements. Sit in a comfortable position.
Make sure the surface beneath the pendulum is clear and empty. E.g. there should be no notes, photos, trinkets, or other stuff below it – depending on how things work for you, your pendulum might otherwise pick things up from whatever you’re holding it over. Only put something beneath the pendulum if you want to test this particular thing (e.g. some foodstuffs, and you want to ask whether they’ll be good for your body right now).
As the instructions say, you take it from here by establishing your personal Yes and No first before you can start asking questions. I think the instructions are pretty clear on this, so I won’t repeat them.
Just one additional hint: Sometimes you might get a reply which is neither your Yes nor your No, but another kind of movement. This is the pendulum’s way of giving you a “maybe”, or a “both”, or a “your question ain’t clear at all”, or a “dunno”, or a “you’re asking the wrong kind of question, mate”, or all other sorts of replies. 😉
If you should get any of these, don’t push the issue by asking the same question again and again, maybe in a different form. Instead, take a step back and figure out where the issue is first, before you frustrate yourself and your pendulum!
Finally, using a pendulum can be a lot of fun, just like muscle testing.
Try to approach it in a playful way, and you won’t just have fun along the way, but will also gain more diverse experience faster, and will generally get more out of it…
Muscle Testing: False Positives vs. False Negatives
I have to admit I find this particular section of the instructions not particularly clear and helpful, especially for people starting out.
If you’ve done your share of muscle testing in the last few units, you will very likely have encountered cases where your testing gave you “wrong” results. E.g. it said some foodstuffs would be good for you, but they still gave you trouble when you ate them.
These things happen in any kind of divination, and also in listening to your own intuition. Sometimes our “deeper knowledge” is overshadowed by other, more obvious needs or wishes. Sometimes we make mistakes, or misunderstand something. Sometimes there is interference in whichever way. Etc etc.
Practice will help with all this, and very much so. But even very experienced muscle testers or diviners will still make “mistakes”.
Thus my personal advice would be to read this section carefully. If you get something out of it, then by all means go ye forth and follow along this path. But if it feels too complicated for you right now, then don’t worry about it too much: Simply be aware that your results might not always be “correct”.
As an aside, I’m also not a big fan of the last two paragraphs of this section, about “wrong” results leading you to (presumably unpleasant) experiences which you needed for your personal growth. I think this is an important issue in our human lives – but not in muscle testing.
For me, muscle testing is a means of gaining clarity about what my body needs. If I want answers conducive to learning experiences, I’ll go elsewhere (e.g. to certain divination methods). 😉
Of course, we can’t always get what we want, and if your muscle testing keeps leading you into such situations, then that’s how it is and you’ll have to deal with it.
But I feel that in any form of divination, and especially in muscle testing which relies so heavily on our own bodies, our expectations do to some extent determine the outcome. I.e. if you go into muscle testing with the strong conviction that it’s likely to lead you towards “learning experiences”, well, it will very likely lead you this way. 😉
You could do that, sure, but it would rob you of a very valuable tool do discover the needs of your own body – something which is very important to us in our current times.
Thus my recommendation is to read these last two paragraphs, and to then put them aside and just continue to do muscle testing as you’ve done it before, to determine the needs of your body…
Daily Practice as Routine
If you think back to the very first units, you might remember how I harped on building up habits and on integrating the MOE work into your daily life routines. 😉
By now, you will probably understand why this is so important: Simply put, these practices aren’t hard or difficult – but doing them daily, faithfully, can be very hard and difficult (especially as there is a lot to remember to do each day, and some practices might fall through the cracks over time).
In this last unit of the Apprentice course, I thus want to encourage you once again to have a sharp look at your daily practices and routines:
What is going well?
What do you do almost “automatically”? Which practices do you tend to forget?
Which ones are always “not urgent enough” and you have to fight yourself to even do them some (or most) days?
Which practices have not yet found a fixed spot in your daily routine?
Do you even have a daily routine at all, or are your days all over the place – and how do you deal with this in regards to your MOE work?
You will know best what your issues are, what is going well and what isn’t. But now would be a good time to recap, and to try new things and tackle improvements in this area… 😉
(As usual, please feel free to use the comment section below to discuss your wins and losses, questions, ideas, to give yourself a pat on the back, find accountability, or to ask for support.)
Preparing Yourself for the Upcoming Apprentice Attunement
This is short and sweet: The only preparation you need to do right now is to continue with your practices (daily if possible).
That’s it – we’ll discuss everything else next time. 🙂
It is important to practice regularly, though, as this clears the channels for the attunement energies and will make things go more smoothly and more productively.
What if you don’t want to receive the Apprentice attunement at this point?
That’s perfectly fine. 🙂
In fact, you don’t need to get the attunements at all. If you simply continue with the regular practice, you will end up at the same place, although things will take a bit longer.
In particular, if your divination advised against it or if it just doesn’t feel right at this point, then listen to your intuition and don’t do it. You can always be attuned later.
(For the records, there are currently three Master Teachers besides me who offer attunements, i.e. you should always be able to find somebody who can attune you.)
I.e. if you don’t want to receive the attunement at this time, for whatever reason, you can simply continue with the practices. And yep, this includes the upcoming Healer grade – you can go ahead with it without having gotten the attunement, and you’re still welcome to continue with this course! 🙂
What if you don’t want to continue with the Healer grade?
That’s perfectly fine, too.
If, for any reason, the Healer grade isn’t for you (or isn’t for you right now), you’ve still done some very valuable work. If this should be the case…
… you can still get the Apprentice attunement,
… you can pick up the Healer grade at any time later,
… and you can (of course!) continue to practice everything you have learned so far – and in fact, I’d strongly encourage you to continue with your MOE practices if at all possible, and if you feel you profit from them. 🙂
Further Resources
Since the coursework is slowly but surely winding down in this unit, there aren’t that many resources left to share – but please feel free to browse back through earlier units and check out some of the resources listed there!
(In case you shouldn’t have noticed yet, all my posts have at least one “category” assigned to them, and most also have “topics” assigned. Categories and topics are listed below the actual post text, i.e. you’ll see them if you scroll just a wee bit further down from here. Clicking on the topic “MOE Course” will get you straight to a list of all course posts.)
The only resources left for this unit are:
a. JMG’s comment section for the relevant course posts, which you can find as usually through any of the “Online Version” links above in the Coursework section, and
b. our own comment section from Unit 11. (It usually fills up over time, thus it might be worth coming back to the earlier comment sections on occasion.)
Outlook
In two weeks (August 3rd, 2025) we will not dive right into the next unit. Instead, there will be a short wrap-up post for the Apprentice grade, mainly with information about the attunement process.
Besides information, this extra post will also give you two weeks of breathing room:
For some of you, they might come in handy to catch up with some of the unit work. Or to re-review things which might have drawn the short straw during your initial pass through the material.
And if you should be very much up to date with all the work and don’t need or want to review any of the earlier material at this stage, that’s fine, too – just continue with your daily practices until the attunement.
After that, in four weeks, we will dive headfirst into the first unit of the Healer grade!
Until then, I’m looking forward to your comments and your feedback, and I hope you enjoy this final unit of the Apprentice material. 🙂
Heloise says
Iappreciate the way you have divided up the MOE apprentice material. The pace has helped me take things slow and the progress has felt natural and relaxed. Even though I received the appreciate attunement from JMG when it first offered, I have found going through your course to be very rewarding. I am really looking forward to the Healer sections.
Thank you very much for sharing your time and talents with us!
Heloise
Regine says
Hi Heloise,
Thanks for your comment and feedback, and I’m glad you have enjoyed the course so far! 🙂
If you should feel so inclined, you could also participate in the upcoming Apprentice attunement. It’s possible to be re-attuned, and while the effect won’t be as strong as the first time, it will usually have some additional effect. It’s not necessary, though, just an option. And either way, I’m glad to have you on board for the Healer! 🙂
Regine
Paedrig says
So, I would like to thank you for making unit 11 and 12 a chance to catch up. I doubt I would have a chance to actually get caught up in time for the attunement without it.
So, the last couple of weeks have been interesting. It seems like almost everything in life is conspiring to make me too busy to do the daily practices. It’s not even that life is bad or stressful – just insanely busy. I manage make it out to the woods to do the full practice most mornings, and on the ones I can’t I still make try to do the protection sphere, healing breath, and empowering the healing hands. On really really busy days its at least the SoP and healing breath.
However, not having time to do the practice each day has caused me try to make it a point to do the blessing walk at all times every day.
This has proven to be… really difficult. I want to radiate positivity and love. I want to bless those around me. But, well… I think I’m running headlong into a lot of my inner blockages. I’ve been getting into more situations at work where I get really frustrated and want to be mean. I find that my personal life seems to be filled with frustrations. And the edginess from quitting cigarettes…
Yet, I also understand that these are tests. That this may be the final hurdle – truly making love and positivity not just something I put out on certain occasions, but always, at all times. And yet… I really feel like the more I try to radiate blessings all the time, the more anger, bitterness, ugliness, nastiness all writhe within me, and that I am endlessly distracted from my focus on the blessing walk life. Any advice on how to bring my mind into focus, and get my heart to return to radiating oure love?
Other than that, everything is going great. The foot reflexology remains a godsend. Healing hands I use on myself and now others – on the Tunesmyth lrayer request, there was a specific request for healing hands for cancer. My friend Jason, while highly dubious, told me I could offer distance healing for his many ailments – as he put it, “you can’t do any worse than the damn doctors have.” Finally, I recently transplanted some cherry trees to my property and am offering them healing as they adjust to their new home.
I do feel a deeper communion with the divine forces, to the point I felt inspired to create a shrine in my woods to Jupiter. I felt worthy to stand before the gods, like their blessings and energies flow through me, and yet…I feel like I still remain too trapped within my mental narratives and dreams to tap into wider cosmic forces. I don’t know… it’s a blockage of some kind. Maybe I should ask you for help removing or resolving this, rather than insisting I can do it myself? Is this something your healing hands could help with perhaps?
So sorry for the late comment. As I said, life has been keeping me BUSY. I look forward to the apprenticeship attunement and am starting the preparations hope to have these last few blockages cleared and wounds healed away by then. Thanks so much!
Regine says
Hi Paedrig,
And thanks a lot for your comment. (No worries about commenting “late”, btw – everybody is doing these in their own timeframe, and I’m deliberately keeping the comment sections open.) I’m glad to hear you’re making productive use of the chance to catch up, and that you’ll be attending the attunement! 🙂
So it seems that there are some parts of you which aren’t happy at all with these recent changes, and are throwing everything and the kitchen sink at you to make you turn back into familiar territory, huh? 😉
You can really give yourself a fat pat on the back, btw – it seems you’ve been managing to stick with the routine despite this, even if it’s somewhat reduced on some days. If you pull through as best as you can, things will get easier at some point.
Btw, activating your Healing Hands can be done on any random occasion during the day if you can’t manage in the morning, and it won’t take long. Do it on the bus, during a bathroom break at work, … Most people won’t notice if you don’t draw too much attention to yourself. If the environment should not be well suited to doing anything the like (e.g. too many curious people around), then don’t draw the symbols with your fingers, but imagine drawing them. By now, this should work just the same. Afterwards, put your hands/palm points together in the usual way. If people are around, make it look like you’re just fiddling, or doing some rubbing of your hands, some stretching of your body, … This works perfectly fine in my experience, and is way better than not activating them. 🙂
> Any advice on how to bring my mind into focus, and get my heart to return to radiating oure love?
Again, you’re running headfirst against the walls of your habits, and some parts of you aren’t happy about entering uncharted territory (or about entering this particular territory, because it’ll make them less important).
My advice is twofold:
1. You’re just human, and (as far as I can tell, and apologies if I’m mis-judging you 😉 ) not a saint, or at least not yet. Cut yourself some slack, and accept that you can’t be perfect 24/7. Issues like these are simply a part of life, and learning how to deal with them is important, too (e.g. when to cut yourself some slack, and when to insist on perfection or even just on pulling through, etc).
2. How about radiating love not only onto others, but also onto yourself? 🙂 There are, most likely, some parts of you which are really scared to go down this path. Maybe because of prior experiences. Maybe because of your habits, worldview, … Maybe because it would render them useless and cast them aside. Or for any other reason. How about showering these parts with some love for a change?
I.e. instead of fighting them tooth and nails, each time you feel the resistance come up, you look at yourself in a kind way (the way you’d look at somebody else lovingly), soothe whichever parts are frightened, tell them you understand their fears (and try to understand them), show them they are loved even if they “misbehave”, etc.
In short: Do unto yourself as you aim to do unto others. 🙂
> I feel like I still remain too trapped within my mental narratives and dreams to tap into wider cosmic forces. I don’t know… it’s a blockage of some kind.
Yeah, well, welcome to the jungle. Do you honestly think any of us has gotten rid of all their mental narratives, dreams or blockages? 🙂
But whichever part of you doesn’t want to move to these new pastures is playing a clever trick on you here: since you are (obviously!) too stuck, you can’t move on… Which, of course, results in you not moving on – exactly what these parts wanted to achieve in the first place. Neat, huh? 🙂
So instead of giving in to them and telling yourself you’re not far enough yet, how about you simply go do the work, and leave judging you and your work to the Gods, who are much better able to do this than us? If there even is to be any judgement, that is… 🙂
Finally, don’t sweat any of these things with regards to the attunement. Simply be there, do your part, and let the divine healing energies do theirs without standing in their (and your own! 😉 ) way… (Seriouly. Do not consider postponing the attunement because of these “blockages”. If you postpone now, you’ll very likely never do it, because there will always be blockages. It’s a very cleverly set trap.)
Hope this helps,
Regine
Paedrig says
Your advice was just what I needed to hear. It all became clear to me – I’ve been radiating love out into the world, but none to myself! I’m adding a new start to my morning ritual – right when I wake uo, before doing anything at all, I’m looking myself in the mirror I keeo next to my bed, and I’m telling myself that I love me and believe in me.
The fear and anxiety over my inability to let the light flow was the main thing blocking it. It’s such a subtle and devious way for the parts of me that don’t want things to change to get me trapped in a loop – an endless, self sustaining loop, where my belief I can’t move forward keeps me from moving forward…
Anyway, while of course there have been and will always be hangups, stresses, fears, anxieties, bills, and problems galore – life is so full of challenges it almost seems like it was designed that way for a reason – none of this needs to be a reason to doubt my ability to make the world around me better, by physical or spiritual means. Sure, sometimes it will be harder or easier, sometimes I will heal more or less – but all that truly matters is that I keep trying, keep doing the work and walking the path.
I will definitely be going forward with the attunement at the set time and date – I’m actually quite exctied for it! Half of me feels ready to take my healing work to the next level, half of me feels like I desperately need to give my subtle body a tune up – and the attunement is kind of both of those things at once, isn’t it? In other words, it seems to be exactly what I need. I’ll keep up with the daily practices as best I can, make it a point to tell myself I love myself, and activate my healing hands daily, even if I never have a moment to myself.
Thank you again for all your guidance and advice, Regine. With your decision to launch this entire MoE training and all the help you’ve offered, you’ve made a deep and profound impact in my life, and I’m sure I’m not the only one. From the bottom of my heart, thank you for everything you have done to keep the Modern Order of Essenes alive and thriving.
Regine says
Hi Paedrig,
Glad to have been of help, and I’m also glad you found a good way forward to balance things out for yourself! 🙂
“It’s such a subtle and devious way for the parts of me that don’t want things to change to get me trapped in a loop – an endless, self sustaining loop, where my belief I can’t move forward keeps me from moving forward…”
You’re not the first to fall into this trap, nor will you be the last – in fact, if I were you, I’d place this line somewhere in a prominent spot for when you hit this same issue next time… 😉
“but all that truly matters is that I keep trying, keep doing the work and walking the path.”
🙂 It’s not only the best thing you can do, it’s also the only thing.
You’re very welcome, and I’m looking forward to attuning you!
Regine