In a recent essay, I described the Modern Order of Essenes as a “system of spiritual healing”. Of course, this raises the question what I mean by “spiritual healing”… ๐
Thus in today’s essay, I’m going to explain my understanding of this term. My hope is that this will not just better help you understand some of my other essays (and, of course, the Modern Order of Essenes), but also that it will lead you to develop your own understanding of what spiritual healing could be for you.
(And just to be clear: What I’m laying out here is my personal understanding of this term at the current time. I don’t presume to proclaim an unfailing truth, nor do I expect you to see things the same way!)
In order to understand what I mean by spiritual healing, we need to take a step back first and think about what healing means in general – and how it happens.
Lets take a look at our physical bodies first. They are complex systems. And sometimes, something within such a system gets out of kilter. Since our bodies are complex, this can be all sorts of things, for all sorts of reasons: High blood pressure. A heavy cold. An ekzema. An inflammation. A broken bone.
Whatever it may be, the affected person’s physical system isn’t in its natural balance anymore.
Healing, then, means to restore the natural balance, in this case the balance of the physical body.
Now, there are some issues related to this concept which I feel we should address before we move on to spiritual healing:
First, not everybody’s natural balance is the same, and that’s ok. Some people have a higher natural blood pressure or weight than others, and so on. Any form of “balance” can thus only ever be a personal thing – there is no one size fits all when it comes to health.
Secondly, and as a direct consequence, the term “natural balance” must always be somewhat vague. I don’t think it’s possible to define exactly X parameters, and then assume everybody whose body is within the defined ranges is healthy, and the others aren’t. Our bodies aren’t machines.
Thus your natural balance and my natural balance are most likely at slightly different points. We can’t “define” them in mechanistic terms – but if we’re honest, we know quite well whether we’re at this point of balance or not, whether we’re physically “healthy” right now or not.
Thirdly, health isn’t a static balance, in two ways: With the constant changes in our environment and in ourselves, it’s not possible to ever reach this point and then to cling to it for the rest of our lives. Instead, even the most perfect “balance” will be swinging slightly back and forth around this point – we don’t reach the equilibrium by becoming rigid, but by reacting flexibly and productively to any changes.
But there is another aspect to this: Our point of natural balance itself isn’t static over time either. As we develop, and when we get older, things change in our bodies, and our needs and requirements change with them.
Thus “perfect” health is an ideal which is impossible to achieve, or at least to maintain for any length of time.
What is achievable, though, is ongoing healing – a constant movement towards our natural balance point of health, wherever that point might be at this stage, and no matter in which direction and to what extent we’ve moved away from it.
Of course, there are lots of ways our bodies’ natural balance can get out of whack, and there are also massive differences in the extent to which this happens. While one person might just need a bit more sleep to reach their health balance point again, somebody else might have to deal with a life-threatening illness or a serious injury.
While these might seem like very different cases, the underlying principle is the same: We’ll reach the best “health” which is possible for us by helping our bodies move back to our own individual balance points, or at least as close to them as we can.
In order to do so, there are several factors involved:
The first is the nature of the health issue: a cold is different from a stomach flu, and they require different interventions.
The second is the remedy or treatment. In terms of your physical body, this could be a drug, an herbal tea, a surgery, or hot compresses (or loads of other things).
The third is the “healer“, i.e. the person who administers or advises the remedy. In some cases, this could be yourself, e.g. when you home-treat the sniffles. In other cases, it might be a physician or other licensed professional.
(Note that everybody’s comfort level for self-treatment is different, and that’s fine. I’m not giving any health advice in this essay – you’ll know best when you should seek qualified help, and when you’re well off taking care of things on your own.)
And the fourth, of course, is the person being healed (or healing themselves).
Now, as astute reader, you’ve probably noticed that the headline of this essay promised you my take on spiritual healing – but so far, we’ve only talked about our physical bodies. So how does all of what we’ve covered so far relate to spiritual healing?
Well, us humans don’t just consist of our physical flesh and blood. There are also some other levels which are important parts of us, for example the energetic level of life force, the level on which we process and create thoughts and emotions, and (finally getting there! ๐ ) the spiritual level.
How these levels relate, and especially a model of how healing works across these levels, is something I won’t go into here. If you’re interested in my take on it, I’ve gone into some detail in my essay The House of Healing.
For the purpose of spiritual healing, suffice it to say that these levels aren’t independent of each other, but interconnected. Healing can percolate from a “higher” level down to a “lower”, and also vice versa.
An example for the former would e.g. be somebody reducing their work-related stress (on the level of thoughts and emotions), and thus lowering their elevated blood pressure (on the physical level). An example of the latter would be somebody finally getting their hay fever in hand (physical level) which had been plaguing them for years and made life very difficult for them in spring and summer (level of thoughts and emotions).
While these levels are distinct-but-interconnected, there are certain similarities to how healing works on each of them:
As I explained above related to the physical level, health is the (individual, and not fixed) natural balance point, and “healing” means moving towards that point. And there are four components to any healing process: the issue which needs to be healed, the remedy, the healer, and the person being healed.
The same is true on all other levels as well. Here are a few examples, just to give you an idea of what I’m talking about:
On the material level, i.e. the physical body, typical remedies are allopathic drugs or surgery, with the “healer” being e.g. a physician.
On the level of the energy body, issues are things like energetic imbalances or blockages, remedies include e.g. acupuncture or homeopathy, and, correspondingly, “healers” are for example homeopaths or acupuncturists. Examples for self-healing remedies on this level are reflexology or acupressure.
On the level of thoughts and emotions, common issues are stress, unproductive anger, or getting stuck on thoughts or emotions. One widespread remedy is psychotherapy in its various forms, with the psychotherapist acting as healer; and forms of journaling and introspection can act as methods of self-healing.
So how does this work on the spiritual level – and more importantly, what is the spiritual level?
The spiritual level contains everything that connects us to the spiritual world. Our religious beliefs belong here, and also our connections to our gods. Feeling connected to higher forces, or to the source, or to eternal love and life. A sense of purpose and meaning, or a basic sense of trust in life. But also a connection to nature, to the world around us, or to the spiritual sides of fellow humans or other creatures.
It’s a wide field, just as your body or your level of thoughts and emotions (and dreams, hopes, plans, daydreams, …) are a wide field.
And within this wide spiritual field, each one of us has their individual natural balance point – the point where we feel fine, where we are productive, and where our spiritual selves are healthy.
Where exactly this point is located can differ vastly from person to person, but also for ourselves at different stages or our life. (And again, all of this is fine: There is no right or wrong here, just individually different needs and desires.)
But just as things can get out of kilter on the other levels, the same can happen on this spiritual level.
And issues of spiritual health can be as varied as health issues on said other levels: From feeling out of touch with the world around us to a religious crisis of sorts, from lacking a sense of purpose or meaning to lacking a connection to the divine, and from feeling cut off from other humans to a lack of basic trust in life. And since the spiritual level extends so far beyond our everyday language, some spiritual ailments simply can’t even be put into words.
Consequently, the remedies which are well-suited to healing spiritual issues are even more varied:
Some people might benefit from regular prayer, or from establishing a relationship to a deity in the first place. Some others might benefit most from taking up something which gives their life meaning and purpose. Some might be healed best by being outside in nature, some by spending more time with fellow humans, or at certain places. Some might profit from getting a pet, others from reading philosophical texts or holy scriptures.
Just as the remedies are very diverse, so are the healers: Spiritual teachers, priests, spiritually inclined therapists or coaches, but also your ordinary co-worker, your spouse, a random stranger on the bus, or a friend… They all might be able to point you towards the direction of spiritual healing – if you will let them, that is. But so might animals, plants and trees, stones, the elements, or many other things in the world around you.
And, of course, there is always the option of becoming your own spiritual healer, of figuring out which remedy will benefit most, and from applying it.
(Although my guess is that the basic rule which holds for the other levels is also valid here: The further away you are from your balanced state of health, the more you’ll benefit from getting outside help.)
As you can see, the process and the components of healing on the spiritual level are very alike to healing on the other levels. There is one interesting difference, though, and you might have spotted it when reading the list of potential spiritual “healers” above:
In this list, there are not just humans.
Now, this is to some extent also true on the energetic level and on the level of thoughts and emotions: You might be able to cure some of your stress or worries through contact with a pet, for example.
But in the case of spiritual healing, this goes much further – and in fact, there is something very important missing from the list of potential spiritual healers above. What is present on the spiritual level, of course, are other spiritual beings.
(I’m deliberately keeping the terminology rather general here, to allow for different religious and spiritual beliefs. Please feel free to change the term “spiritual beings” into whatever expresses your personal beliefs best: a particular deity, or more than one, angels, guides or guardians, the universe, higher love, or whatever else is most fitting for you.)
Think about it for a second: If a spiritual ailment can be caused by somebody not being as close to a deity or other divine being as they’d need… should these divine beings then not be able to help us heal spiritually, if they so choose and if it’s a good fit for our spiritual needs?
They are, after all, the “experts” for this level, so to speak (just like brain surgeons are the experts for brain surgeries).
And this is the secret of spiritual healing modes like the Modern Order of Essenes: In the MOE, the healing energy doesn’t come from the human healer – it comes through the human healer. It is divine healing energy, which the human healer only redirects to where it is needed.
In a system like the MOE, the remedy is the divine healing energy, and the “healer” is a combination of wherever-that-energy-comes-from and the self-healing abilities of the person being treated. And the MOE practitioner?
Well, in a sense, he or she is comparable to the means through which the remedy is administered: If you so will, the MOE practitioner is the syringe through which the divine healing forces administer the remedy…
(Ok, this is a simplistic image, I admit it. And of course the MOE healer does more than just hold still while being wound up and discharged! But there is some truth to it, and besides, I just wanted to check if you’re still awake and following along… ;-))
Of course, the MOE practitioner does matter: His or her intent, the healing energies which he picks, the things he puts into the healing process, they all make a difference. But spiritual healing forces have a life of their own. And the healing they do is, to a large extent, outside the grasp of the healer – instead it’s between the “patient” and the spiritual energies or beings involved.
The same, btw, is true for other methods of spiritual healing, e.g. through a priest or spiritual worker. In the end, we must all find, nourish or restore our own connection to the spiritual world. Nobody else can do this for us – but modes of spiritual healing can help and support us on this path back to our natural spiritual balance when we are spiritually ill, depleted or injured.
But is this it? Is this really all there is to spiritual healing?
Well, yes and no.
Yes, that’s “all” there is to it – although I think being spiritually healthy can mean quite a lot to us humans, and thus modes of spiritual healing are of tremendous importance for our overall well-being.
But nope, that’s of course not all there is to it. ๐
You might remember that, somewhere further above, I introduced the concept of different levels of healing, levels which are distinct, but interrelated – and I gave a couple of examples of how healing can percolate up and down to other levels.
Well, the same is true for healing on the spiritual level. Spiritual healing is not the be-all and end-all to cure all your physical or psychological ailments, of course – just like physical healing can’t cure every ailment on other levels either.
But sometimes issues on the other, “lower”, levels are caused or at least influenced by underlying issues on the spiritual level. And in such cases, addressing the spiritual issues is important, too.
Since this essay has gotten rather long as it is, I’ll leave at that – but if you’re interested, you can find more details in my post on The House of Healing.
So there you have it: My personal understanding of spiritual healing, what it is and how it works.
On another note, this essay is going to be part of my attempt at teaching the Modern Order of Essenes, a system of spiritual healing, in an online course, and thus I very much wanted to get it published before we start the course on Sunday, February 16th 2025.
If you enjoyed this essay, or if you’re interested in the Modern Order of Essenes in general, I’d encourage you to check out the course (it’s free, and there are no strings attached other than that I hope we’ll have a good time together!).
And finally, I’d love to read your take on spiritual healing, or any thoughts you might have about this essay, in the comments below. ๐
Image: Luis Villasmil on Unsplash
Leave a Reply