Feline Infectious Peritonitis

Question:
My kitten, Vinnie, is 5 months old and has come down with a virus, probably Feline Infectious Peritonitis. Sadly, this virus is robbing him of his energy and vitality, and it is causing his intestinal walls to leak, resulting in a bloated belly. I've tried helping him with allopathic medicine, homeopathy, a raw diet, tracing figure eights over his belly, and massaging his neurolymphatics, yet he continues to decline. He is such a wonderful spirit being, and I don't want to lose him. This little guy accompanies me on hikes, goes to work with me, and communicates with me on a spiritual level. Can you please give me any other ideas?

Answer:
I of course can’t be certain what Vinnie needs without seeing his energy, but let me venture a guess. When an infection is present, especially such a severe one, the spleen meridian tends to lose its life force. Bloating further suggests that his spleen meridian is in trouble, so I would definitely strengthen it for him. I would also have someone gently hold Vinnie while you use a surrogate test to determine if either his stomach or small intestine meridian also need attention. Once you've learned if either needs treatment, test further to determine if you can help best by sedating or strengthening the meridian.

Often, when an immune system is compromised, I recommend sedating triple warmer along with strengthening the spleen, but because he is such a young cat and may be fighting for his life, I would only do this if a surrogate test indicated that it was needed.

There's a wonderful book on energy methods for animals, entitled Four Paws, Five Directions, and you might look to it for other ideas. We are animal lovers and send our blessing to Vinnie and to you.

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EverettFeline Infectious Peritonitis

Energy Testing a Substance: Is Skin Contact Necessary?

Question:
Does the skin have to have contact with the item in an energy test? Will the test still be valid if I am testing a vitamin through a jar while still in the store?

Answer:
Skin contact through the semi-permeable membranes in your hand or mouth is the most reliable way to energy check an item.  However, because energy fields extend out from the body as well as out from the substance, you can get reasonably reliable results by simply having the substance in your energy field and then performing an energy test using a general indicator muscle such as the spleen test (Chapter 2). It is important to keep in mind, however, that the less direct the contact the greater the opportunity for other factors to influence the outcome. For instance, I find that if I am energy testing vitamins through glass, it rarely affects the outcome, but if they are packaged in plastic, it is more likely that the packaging will get in the way.

One more thing about testing vitamins and other supplements. If you can find a weak meridian and see if the vitamin or substance will make it strong, rather than to see if the substance weakens a strong meridian, this gives additional information. This will tell you that the substance will have a beneficial effect rather than just that it will not harm you. An easy way to do this is to have the person who is doing the energy test flutter a hand over the area just under your left breast. This will temporarily result in a weakened general indicator test. Immediately place the substance in your hand or your energy field and you will see if the vitamin strengthens you.

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EverettEnergy Testing a Substance: Is Skin Contact Necessary?

EMF Sensitivity

Question:
I have an extreme EMF sensitivity and am wondering if you have any advice regarding how I might counteract these ever-present forces. I've done the exercises in your book (which I love), and I've tried working with magnets, but haven't been able to get the complete protection I need. I'm desperate for more ideas because, at this point, I can only use phones, computers, and even simple lights for a short snippets of time. Driving in my car affects me if I'm in it for too long, and I've recently started having severe reactions when planes fly overhead! Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night feeling like my head, my heart, and my nervous system are being fried. Do you have any suggestions? I'll do anything if you think it will work.

Answer:
I have such deep sympathy for you and your EMF problem. I, too, am very sensitive to this kind of energy. We live in a world of EMF soup, and more and more people are becoming painfully aware of how it affects them. I hear your fear and discouragement about the exercises in Energy Medicine not having giving you full protection, but I think you can build upon what you have already learned. I want to give you a little further guidance by pointing out the ones that are likely to help the most. If practiced long enough and often enough, you should see further improvement. Getting an assessment and tailor-made instruction from a qualified energy practitioner would also be a good idea.

  1. Balance your energy by doing the "hook-up": place the middle finger of one hand in your belly button and of the other hand over your third eye, press in, pull up slightly (page 119). Hold this position, breathe easily, and relax. You're likely to sigh or yawn once you're hooked up.
  2. The "Wayne Cook" posture (p. 74) is one of the best exercises I know for unscrambling the body's energies.
  3. You can probably get a great deal of mileage out of "figure-8" exercises. Restoring the body’s figure 8 patterns creates a field around you that actually blocks out EMFs. Stand with your feet a foot or two apart and swoop your arms in figure 8 patterns in front of your body, out to the sides, and over your head (see p. 185). Do lots of them! They're especially fun to do with music.
  4. Chapter 11 chronicles my own slippery adventure with EMFs and presents several ways to use magnets to protect and heal yourself. I experimented with magnets in a hundred ways. These ranged from spinning magnets over my aura to protect it, to taping magnets to specific points on my body, to at one time laying a magnet under my pillow and attaching another one above my head on the headboard.

Because EMF’s are everywhere and can affect you throughout the day, I'd do the energy exercises several times each day to keep yourself balanced. This will gradually retrain you’re the protective energy field that surrounds you to be more resilient even when you're being exposed to strong EMFs.

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EverettEMF Sensitivity

Emphysema

Question:
A dear friend of mine has serious emphysema and is being evaluated for a lung transplant. So far, she hasn't been willing to consider anything outside of traditional medicine, but she might change her mind one of these days and I'd like to know if energy medicine could help her. Your class at my Unity Church while I was battling bladder cancer several years ago set me on a life-saving course, and that experience left me with a passion for alternative medicine. I’m hoping that my friend will soon open to these possibilities.

Answer:
Because energy medicine is non-invasive, gentle, and not prone to serious negative side effects, people are often willing to try its methods even though they may be skeptical at first. Further, it will not interfere with, and often complements, more traditional courses of treatment. You could suggest to your friend that she might feel a little better if she does the following simple exercises. You or someone else can help her with them if she is in a weakened state:

  • Have her do a hook-up (described on page 119 of Energy Medicine -- you can hold the points for her if it is too exhausting for her to hold them herself).
  • Flush lung meridian on both sides of her body. Simply trace the meridian backwards one time with your hand and then forwards three times. See p. 107 for a drawing of this meridian pathway.
  • Work with the pain chasing technique described in Chapter 10 for lung meridian and see if it helps to rid her of any tender spots along the meridian pathway.
  • Massage the neurolymphatic reflex points for both lung meridian (on the sternum and between the ribs) and for the central vessel (where the arms hook onto the torso). These spots are illustrated on p. 85. They are usually tender because toxic energies tend to get clogged in them.
  • Finally, hold the neurovascular points on her head for about 3 to 5 minutes. Use your hands to lightly hold spots both on the top of her head and on her forehead. This will help the circulation to her lungs.

If she finds some relief from these procedures and wants to pursue an energy approach more aggressively, finding a qualified energy practitioner would be a natural next step, but even these techniques, done with consistency, might help considerably. When someone is in a health crisis, as your friend seems to be, it would be ideal to do these techniques at least 3 or 4 times a day, although there is always a dance between what is ideal, what is practical, and what her stamina will allow.

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EverettEmphysema

Energy Testing and Multiple Chemical Sensitivities

Question:
I have been devouring your book and tape series since I attended your recent lecture in Portland. It was an extremely enthusiastic crowd and arms waved like grain in the wind with questions. Mine didn't get answered. I have multiple chemical sensitivities and am reactive to even the most ordinary environments. I’ve had no luck with allergy doctors or the usual alternative therapies such as homeopathy and acupuncture. I am working with a naturopath who is trying to figure out how to help me, and he has already given me one really valuable tool, which is energy testing. Since he taught it to me, I have been relying on it heavily to determine what is safe for me.

But both energy testing and a Vega testing machine indicate that certain compounds my naturopath would like me to take, and which wipe me out, should make me much stronger. If I take even one drop of what he gives me, I have extraordinary reactions—awake for 36 hours, incapacitated with flu-like symptoms for two days, etc. How can this be? Energy testing seems to be accurate with many other things, but not for these remedies.

Answer:
I am sorry your question didn't get answered at the lecture. Without being able to watch what happens to your energy when you are being energy tested, I can only venture some guesses about what may be helpful.

First, I would test specific meridians rather than using a general indicator test. Begin with the spleen meridian test and then, for verification, have your naturopath follow it with the kidney meridian test. Spleen is the most likely test to detect potential problems in metabolizing a substance that other meridians might show to be agreeable with them (your body may need it, but if it can't metabolize it, the substance can still cause harm). Another reason not to rely on a general indicator test (such as the stomach) is that the beliefs and expectations of the practitioner or of the person being tested are more likely to interfere. The reasons I would verify the results by testing the kidney meridian are: 1) kidney meridian governs the organ that filters and moves toxins out of your body, 2) it is a junction meridian (it affects all the other meridians), and 3) it governs the life force, so kidney meridian responds quickly when a substance compromises the body’s energies. You might also review the "nuances" of energy testing in Chapter 2 of Energy Medicine.

Your practitioner can also place the remedy on your alarm points in order to determine its impact on each individual meridian.

I have a lot of sympathy for you with multiple chemical sensitivities, and I believe the route out of this dilemma is to strengthen and reprogram your immune system so your body learns to adapt rather than go into allergic reactions. I hope you will continue to find Energy Medicine to be helpful as you formulate a strategy to accomplish this.

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EverettEnergy Testing and Multiple Chemical Sensitivities

Energy Testing – If Everything Tests Strong

Question:
When I tested my son for allergies, he remained strong on everything—even poison!   I then tried a few friends, and they reacted the same way.  I am so disappointed because now they do not think anything in your book works. What am I doing wrong?

Answer:
Without having seen what was going on, here are my suspicions. The most important thing to know is that this is not a contest of will or strength. Sometimes people throw in all of their muscle strength, including all the auxiliary muscles that support the muscle being tested. But what you are wanting to test is whether the energy is flowing. Putting all one’s muscle strength into the test begins to test something different from the flow of energy. Think of pushing against a wall. You don’t need to use all your strength to know that the wall is going to stay standing. You can push lightly and know it is solid.

Testing family members can also be tricky. In the mother-child relationship, for instance, the mother is wired to be giving healing energy to the child, and the energy test can be picking up this influx of energy rather than the substance being tested. There can also be a surrogate relationship that is unintentionally formed between family members, where the test is providing information about the tester rather than the person being tested.

Then once you had an obviously inaccurate result with your son in front of everyone, your confidence was gone and the test with the other people may have been influenced by your fears or their growing skepticism. There are a number of important nuances in energy testing (see closing discussion of Chapter 2).

There is, however, no substitute for practice and confidence in getting accurate results. One of the best ways to develop confidence is to set up some "double-blind" situations so you can know after the test whether the results were accurate and build a track record of accurate tests (also discussed in Chapter 2). There are two other conditions, however, which may confound an energy test, and these are always taught in more advanced classes: "frozen" muscles and "switched or scrambled" energies:

  1. Sometimes, muscles can become "frozen." What is happening is that the body’s cells, which are actually tiny batteries, lose their polarity. The inside of the cell, which normally has a "positive" charge, and the outside, which normally holds a negative charge, both wind up having the same charge or a neutral charge. When this occurs, energy cannot move in and out of the cells or the muscles and organs made up of those cells. While learning how to correct for frozen muscles is a more advanced technique that generally I only teach in classes where I can supervise the person’s work, I do address it in another Q/A (see "Frozen Muscles").
  2. Sometimes, a person’s energies may be "switched." This means that the meridian energies are running in the opposite direction from their normal flow. This will confound an energy test of that meridian. This is also true for "scrambled" energies, where the meridian energies are uneven in their flow or move off their natural pathways or aren’t crossing over or are colliding with other energy systems. The 5-minute daily routine is designed to restore and keep such energies in alignment and to build patterns and habits that keep the energies from becoming switched and scrambled.

Energy testing is a reliable procedure backed by increasing numbers of research studies being published in reputable journals, but it is also an art, and it is an art worth cultivating.

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EverettEnergy Testing – If Everything Tests Strong

Chronic Fatigue

Question:
I have a job that requires that I do many things at once.  As a result, I feel pulled and drained all the time.  I have been told I have a depleted kidney meridian.   Does that have anything to do with triple warmer?  Does my kidney energy have anything to do with my always feeling drained?

Answer:
Yes, kidney energy is very important in how you feel.  When the kidney meridian is depleted, all the meridian energies in the body often become reversed, literally flowing backwards, causing you to feel utter exhaustion. So the "three thumps," which begin with the endpoint of kidney meridian (K-27), are a good place to start. But other energies may be involved as well. For starters, I would check to see if your energies are failing to cross over (corrected by the homolateral cross-over and figure 8s).

It is also probable that your triple warmer meridian is "on alert."  Triple warmer governs the adrenals.  When kidney meridian is not strong enough to supply the body with enough of its energy, triple warmer draws extra energy from your adrenals. This can then become habitual. Triple warmer holds habits in place, and it can establish dysfunctional as well as efficient energy habits, such as maintaining a depletion of kidney energy. Whenever you feel "pulled and drained," find a way to remind yourself to do the following: "Smooth behind the ears" (pp. 235 – 236). Then do a "hook up" (p. 119) for at least a minute.  First, you will be interrupting the energy habit mid-stream. Second, you will be shifting the habit with the smoothing and the hook-up. This will help triple warmer go off of alert. Sedating and then strengthening kidney meridian using the acupuncture holding points will then be able to address the problem without interference.

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EverettChronic Fatigue

Ankle – Heel Pain and Sciatica

Question:
I have a client who has excruciating pain in her ankles and heels. As a reflexologist, I would assess this as a form of sciatica, although she has yet to feel pain in her hips or lower back. I have held acupressure points on her, and have gently pulled and stretched the skin over the painful areas, which has brought her some relief, but I want to know what else I can do to help her.

Answer:
My own experience suggests that if there is no pain in the hip, back, or leg, it is probably not sciatica. To help with her ankle pain, I would work with the bladder, kidney, or spleen meridians, depending on where the pain is sharpest, because these are the meridians that run along the ankle. Energy testing will help you to zero in on the specific meridian that is involved, although there may actually be more than one to treat. If you feel uncertain about your testing results, you could also sedate all three (using the acupuncture points shown on pp. 134 – 137 of Energy Medicine), noting which one helped to ease her pain the most. Then, follow this by strengthening the spleen meridian, also using the acupuncture points. You can also determine which meridians need attention by the location of the pain and the break and comparing these to the meridian flow diagrams in Chapter 4 of Energy Medicine.

You could also tape the north side of a magnet to her heel to reduce the pain (read and experiment with the pain techniques in Chapter 10 of Energy Medicine and the use of magnets in Chapter 11 of Energy Medicine). Painful heels also often indicate a problem with a person’s spleen and pancreas energy, indicating the possibility of blood sugar issues.

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EverettAnkle – Heel Pain and Sciatica

Asking the Body Questions

Question:
​I am a nutritionist, and while I’ve known of energy testing for years, I have looked with great skepticism at practitioners who ask the body "Do you need more carbohydrates in your diet?" or "Does this cough require a visit to the doctor?" It was through your book that I came to understand that there are less flaky ways to energy test and began to experiment. Now I would say that using the spleen indicator test to determine whether particular foods, vitamins, and supplements are needed, and in what amounts, is the most useful single tool I have found in the past decade, and I thank you profusely for opening me to it. However, the question still comes up for me, what are the constraints of energy testing? Surely you cannot rely on an energy test of "Is this lump malignant?" How much can you ask the body?

Answer:

A. This is a very difficult question for me. Many respected colleagues regularly pose verbal questions to the body. I rarely do. Introducing verbal questions into an energy test brings in a whole other realm beyond the body’s wisdom. I, instead, use energy testing to tune into the language of the body, which I’ve come to profoundly trust. Energy testing the body, without an overlay of words, is generally quite reliable when the procedure is followed correctly. Energy testing verbal questions, regardless of how it is done, brings in many more variables.

I have felt uneasy about this issue for decades. Some practitioners have learned to use verbal questions followed by an energy test as a way of tuning into a higher source of information, so it becomes for them a way of channeling, a bridge to the truth of the situation. More often it is probably picking up on their unconscious assessment. I believe that this is what “ideomotor” devices like pendulums also often do. Nothing wrong with that, just don’t assume it is God speaking.

I am not placing a judgment on people who have developed to a refined art ways of asking the body questions or using a pendulum that they find trustworthy. My real point here is that casually using energy testing to answer any of a wide range of questions is a questionable approach. I have seen more nonsense emerge from this than I like to think about.

But since this is a valid method for some people, I’ve never taken a public position on it. I have simply gone about teaching energy testing in the contexts in which I use it, which are much more traditional—checking, under specific conditions, the relative strength of indicator muscles to determine the energetic state of a meridian or chakra or other system.

Efforts to ask the body questions about the future seem particularly ludicrous to me: "How long before I will be cured of this illness?" While I may have a lot of information to make an educated guess about such a question, an energy test is not a source I look to for that information. I believe there is fate, there is free will, and there is chance. An energy test of the future assumes it is all fated. But free will and chance converge with whatever may actually be fated. This is why readings from even the most talented psychics are only a percentage game. Many factors influence the single question being asked.

But even questions about treatment are very tricky. "Should this problem be treated with the meridians or the chakras?" Energy tests can be influenced by so many forces, even for people of the highest integrity who do everything they can to get out of the way. It is challenge enough not to exert an influence on the test based on your beliefs, desires, or unconscious expectations. This is true for any energy test, but so much more so when it is based on a verbal question rather than letting the body respond in its own language. The same problems apply to “surrogate testing” yourself for another person from a distance. It is more likely to be picking up on your unconscious take on the situation than providing a direct assessment about the client’s health condition.

Beyond all of this, I believe that the body often does not have a clear yes or no. The seven layers on each chakra can contradict one another. Triple warmer and spleen often contradict one another. It is quite a complex drama to reduce down to “Yes” or “No.”

As I write this, I am having images of colleagues who ask questions before an intervention such as "Is this for the body’s highest good?" or "Do I have permission to proceed?" I ask these questions intuitively, but I personally do not energy test for them. However, practitioners I admire do ask these questions and test for the answers so respectfully, almost as a prayer, that the questions themselves set an energy field of respect and equality. So the energy test itself can serve the very legitimate purpose of setting a morphogenic field for healing. There are many truths and many ways to get at them. Asking the body questions is one of the trickier of the bunch.

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EverettAsking the Body Questions

Breathing Techniques

Question:
What is the purpose for the breathing technique you teach—in through the nose and out through the mouth?

Answer:
This form of breathing moves vital energy through the chakras and it keeps the central and governing meridians, which meet in the back of your throat, connected to one another. Breathing in through your nose brings a force up your spine (governing meridian) that is fed by each of the chakras, and then shifting to breathe out our mouth creates a connection at the back of your throat which stimulates central meridian.

I see value, however, in many of the techniques that are used in traditional healing and yoga practices. These vary according to the purpose of the breathing, and they also vary from individual to individual. I even see value in "not breathing"—in the shallow breathing that sets off an alarm for many healers. When a person goes into an almost stillness with the breath, he or she may energetically have entered an altered state that can be very healing. Some exercises also have a stronger impact on the body when the person stays in that stillness of breath. A yin force is activated, and along with it, receptivity.

Anyway, it isn't that one way is right and one way is wrong, but rather there are many forms with many purposes. And sometimes it is important to just trust the energy that begins to lead the process when a person is not controlling the breath. While the healer’s attention to breath is often to change habits that keep people from getting the oxygen they need, I personally have on occasion wanted to slug a healer when I've been the one on the table and been told, "Take some deep breaths now." This has felt like a violation of my own rhythm, imposing a more yang rhythm. At other times, however, it has been helpful, so the main guideline is to stay closely attuned with your client and with what you are wanting to accomplish

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EverettBreathing Techniques