Occasionally, somebody asks me what the Modern Order of Essenes is. And despite being a Master Teacher, I have found this question surprisingly difficult to answer (at least within less than 10 minutes of explanation).
The most concise reply I can give is “It’s a system of spiritual healing.” – but that immediately raises the question what I mean by the term “spiritual healing”.
Obviously, I need a bit more space than just one sentence to get the gist across (and maybe even a second essay to talk about spiritual healing, but let’s cross that bridge later, shall we?). But I think the question deserves an answer. So let me dive right in:
In order to answer the question “What is the Modern Order of Essenes”, it’s helpful to first explain what the Modern Order of Essenes (henceforth in short “MOE”) is not:
The MOE isn’t an order.
Or rather, it’s not an order anymore. The MOE used to be an organization run by a person with the title “Abbot”. Its structure was changed in recent times, though, and it’s now a tradition rather than an organization.
So despite the name, there is no monastery, and not even a shared religious belief apart from the very general notion that something divine exists. There is no religious organization, no shared creeds, and no meetings or obligations of an order, religious or otherwise.
The MOE has nothing to do with the ancient Essenes.
I’m not going to go into the details here, but suffice it to say that the ancient Essenes existed – and to the best of my knowledge, nothing of their practical tradition survived. If you’re interested in more details, JMG’s introduction to the MOE gives a short overview.
And whether the MOE is “modern” is up to debate.
Nobody really knows where the material and some of the practices of the MOE originated. What we do know is that it was officially founded in 1948 – I’ll leave it to you whether you consider this to be ancient or not. ๐ Again, JMG’s intro gives the details as far as they are known, thus I’m not going to repeat them here. His post is also an excellent overview in general and a highly recommended read, although I disagree with one of his statements – but more on that in a second.
Having discussed what the MOE is not (and yep, I know… the name “Modern Order of Essenes”
I already gave you the short answer above (a system of spiritual healing), but given the vagueness of this term, I don’t find this answer particularly helpful. What I will do in the remainder of this essay, thus, is to explain what the Modern Order of Essenes is in terms of its elements and its output. I.e. if you practice this system of spiritual healing, what will you practice, and what can you expect to happen?
What does the Modern Order of Essenes consist of?
On first glance, the MOE is a motley collection of different elements: some theory, some healing practices, body testing, meditation, and some other strange stuff. Working through the material, it might take you a while to find the common denominator between them – and I’m not going to take this achievement and the joy of discovery away from you by spelling everything out here. ๐
Without explaining too much, though, remember that the MOE is a system of spiritual healing. Both its theory and its practice focus on the idea that there is more to healing than just the physical body.
During the course of the work, you’ll be confronted with various other levels of healing (and of sickness or imbalance) in the theoretical parts of the material. The methods which are taught apply these principles in practice, again on various levels other than the physical.
It’s important to know that the MOE is not a system of physcial healing. That’s not to say that it might not sometimes heal a physical ailment, much like e.g. therapy can cure a stress-induced headache, or regular walks in the woods can bring job-related tension down and thus help lower somebody’s blood pressure.
But the MOE does not heal or cure on the physical level, and it will not teach you how to heal others physically. In order to learn this, you’ll need to take one of the approved courses of physical healing or medicine; and in order to be treated on this level, you should seek out help from a qualified professional. The MOE doesn’t replace either.
What the MOE does is teach you how to treat some “illnesses” and imbalances and restore healing on other levels of your being, by use of the following elements:
- Body testing to help you figure out what is good for you and what isn’t.
- Foot, hand and ear reflexology to clear energetic and emotional blockages.
- The Blessing Walk, a simple yet highly effective way to align yourself with divine healing forces.
- Two methods of spiritual healing which work with different aspects of these divine healing forces.
- Exercises for relaxation, breathing and meditation to complement the rest of the work.
- And theoretical content to help you understand the methods and induce spiritual healing within yourself.
If these descriptions sound rather vague, then that’s because they are rather vague. ๐ In my experience, the MOE methods and their potential can’t properly be grasped without actually working with them. That, and some of its effects are highly personal, and what these methods do for me might not be same they do for you (more on that in a sec).
Thus I could explain the MOE methods to you all day, and you wouldn’t be much wiser (but probably a lot more confused). If you’re curious, the best way to learn about the MOE system of healing is to actually practice it.
Now, if you’ve read JMG’s introductory post, you might have noticed that he talks about “two methods of spiritual healing”, namely “Essene healing” working through the palm centers of the hands, and reflexology – whereas above, I’m talking about two methods of spiritual healing plus reflexology. So, how come?
My (very slight!) disagreement with JMG’s description is that he lumps two methods together, while I think both deserve a place in the spotlight on their own. These two methods are the so-called “Healing Hands” and what the current material calls the “Bridge of Love”. The Healing Hands work through the palm centers. The Bridge of Love, or Bridge of Light, is a different method of spiritual healing, working through another set of energy centers in the body, in particular through the heart, and it has different effects.
As I said, this is a very slight difference. But it’s important to me to stress it, since I think the Bridge of Love is highly underrated. In fact, to me it’s one of the best and most useful parts of this system, and there are some very strong contenders! As such, I think it deserves to be highlighted all on its own. ๐
Now, all of these methods can seem like a lot (and in fact, they are). Fortunately, you don’t have to learn them all at once:
The MOE itself and the material is split up into five grades. The main ones are Apprentice, Healer and Master, with some material upfront in preparatory lessons which is called Canditate grade. The fifth and last grade is the Master Teacher which requires some extra course of study and enables people to teach the MOE material and confer attunements to others.
You can go as far into the material as you wish. If you want to proceed all the way to Master or even Master Teacher, that’s fine – and if you never get any further than the preparatory Candidate lessons, then you will still benefit greatly!
Thus what might seem overwhelming now is a well-laid out course of study which you can take at your own time and leisure, as all of the material has been made freely avaiable here.
(Note: The latest post is on top; you need to scroll back to the first page and start with the bottom-most post.)
In addition to the self-study material, there are three so-called “Attunements”, one for each grade. These attunements are short rituals which an MOE Master Teacher performs to attune (duh!) students to the divine healing energies.
All the attunements can be done via distance or in-person. I.e. no matter where you live, you can participate in the attunements which my fellow Master Teachers or me offer as distance attunements, even if in-person attunements should be out of reach for you.
On the other hand, the attunements aren’t mandatory. You could just as well practice the material on your own without ever being attuned, and get to the same results, albeit a bit more slowly. They simply help practitioners to establish and strengthen their connection to these healing energies. Without attunement, that process might be a bit slower, but you’ll be fine, too.
Having covered the content of the course, we’ll now tackle the more interesting question:
What effects does an MOE practice have?
So maybe you’re considering to “join” the MOE (just kidding – as I said above, it’s not an order. You’d just be doing the practices on your own, as you see fit.). What effects could you expect the MOE practice to have on yourself and your life?
This is a difficult question, since your results might be quite different from mine or from those of other practitioners. After all, we’re all individuals, and each of us has specific strengths, needs and shortcomings. Thus I can only describe some results in general terms to give you a general idea. If you start practicing the MOE, just keep in mind that your mileage my vary.
The first and most important thing you should know is this: Whatever effects the MOE practice has, and however many other people you treat with it for spiritual healing, it’ll affect and heal you more than anybody else.
There are, I think, two reasons for this: First, in order to reach a point where you can perform some of these spiritual healing methods for others, you’ll have to practice them quite a bit, and (whether by official attunement or not) become attuned to the divine healing forces behind them. These forces will work on you, too.
And secondly, when you treat others with the MOE methods, the healing energy will generally flow through yourself first. And some of this energy will stick. (Imagine something tasty but viscous flowing through a pipe. Maple syrup maybe, or strawberry jam. Some of it will just stick to the pipe along the way…)
I.e. the first thing you should know is that if you practice the MOE, it will change you and your life, too. Or, to put it more bluntly: If you think you’re just perfect as you are, and it’s only the others who need treatment, the Modern Order of Essenes is very emphatically not the right system for you… ๐
So when I say “changes”, what can you expect?
This is the point where it gets difficult to generalize. Spiritual healing is a very broad field. Where one person might need healing in some emotional areas, another might need healing in their connection with the divine, or with certain stressors, or old memories, or…
There is no one size fits all in this case. All I can tell you is that the MOE methods have an effect, and that this effect will, over time, somehow change yourself and your life for the better. Usually, these divine healing energies are rather subtle, i.e. you might not notice a big fireworks right away. But here again, there is no hard and fast rule.
It’s also important to remember that we’re talking about divine energies or forces here. They might have different things in mind than you and me, and they might also sometimes know better than us. ๐
Of course, it’s entirely up to you whether you focus the healing forces on some specific things in your life and in yourself, and thus steer the process towards the things you’d like to tackle! (But then it’s up to the divine healing energies how they deal with your request. We aren’t talking about a jukebox here where you throw in a coin and out comes the song you’ve chosen…)
Thus a certain amount of willingness to change yourself and to make your life and that of others better helps when taking this course.
Lastly, I keep talking about divine healing energies or forces, but what (or who) are they, or where are they coming from?
Well, that’s a very good question, which I’m afraid I can’t answer either. All I know is that these forces exist, that they are real (or as “real” as something non-material can be), and that they do their best to help the MOE practitioners in their spiritual healing process, and to help them help others.
After all the vagueness in this text, I feel I should at least give you some idea of what these methods can do. By application of these methods, I’ve personally experienced or witnessed effects like the following: alleviation of fear and stress in challenging situations; assistance with letting go of old emotional patterns, habits, attitudes; a marked increase in energy and joy; a more positive, optimistic and friendly behavior; reduction of stress and stress-related issues like muscle tension; and sudden insights and intution which helped to solve issues and overcome challenges. There have been other things as well, but these examples should help to give you an idea of the range of things you could achieve by applying the MOE methods in your life.
I hope that this text has given you a better idea of what the Modern Order of Essenes is, and what it could do for you. If you’d like to get more info, or get started with the practice right away, here are some resources:
- JMG’s original posts of the MOE material (in reversed order, i.e. latest on top; contains also links to some videos/audios and other material; the comment sections are also worth a read!)
- The material in pdf form (on the website of the Octagon Society)
- And of course the MOE-related posts here on The Hidden Things. I will add to the pile over time, so it’s worth coming back to check for more!
I hope I’ve been able to wet your appetite a bit – the MOE is a very valuable system of spiritual healing which has made a huge difference in my own life, and I’d love to see more people taking it up! ๐
Finally, to note:
- I’m planning to write more posts about the MOE and related things in the upcoming weeks. If the topic is of interest to you, it pays to check in occasionally: Simply click on “Blog” in the top menu to see the latest entries. All posts related to the MOE, including any attunement announcements, are filed under the tag “Modern Order of Essenes” or can be accessed straight through this link.
- I have some plans to organize an online MOE course, starting with the basics and working up to the Apprentice attunement, and (if there is any interest) maybe even further. It will be suitable for beginners, but also for people who want to recapitulate certain things, or who started out earlier and then fell off the bandwagon and would now like to begin again. I still need to think a few things through, but will post more info soon. Stay tuned!
Image: Michael and Diane Weidner on Unsplash
RL Lee says
Thank you so much for this! I’m looking forward to hearing more from you on this subject and gleening insights from your experience with the MOE work.
Regine says
Hey RL,
You’re very welcome – and as we move through the course, I’m looking forward to hearing about your experiences with the MOE work as well! ๐
Regine