JOHREI ENERGY HEALERS’ HEALING EXPERIENCES

JOHREI ENERGY
HEALERS’
HEALING
EXPERIENCES
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(Sherwood, P., & Edwards, S.D. (2009). Johrei energy healers’ healing experiences. University of
Zululand Journal of Psychology, 24 (1), 3-21)
ABSTRACT
This paper explores the experience of Johrei healers within the context of energetic
healing practices in the world. Johrei is a Japanese method of healing developed in
the 1930’s and now practiced by thousands of people across all continents of the
world. A phenomenological methodology is used to explicate the healer’s experience
of practicing Johrei as a healing practice. Johrei is experienced by the healers as a
process for accessing the abundant universal source of healing energy experienced as
warmth and light, energizing the healer as well as the client, while contributing to the
purification and elimination of disease states in the individual, the family and the
community. Johrei healers also see themselves as a channel for purifying toxins in
the client’s body including toxins arising from environmental pollution and from un
resolved mental, emotional and spiritual traumas within the client. This elimination
process is experienced physically as belching, yawning, burning sensation in the
body, tingling sensation in the hands and watering eyes and running nose. Johrei
healers may experience vivid imagery during the healing process including colours
within and around the body that may be used diagnostically and the appearance of
deceased relatives. After administering Johrei, healers experience a bodily re-
energizing and a renewed sense of personal well being.
Key Words: Energy healing, experience, Johrei, Japanese, mental health care.
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INTRODUCTION
Energy healing refers to holistic forms of health care, medicine or therapy that
integrate modern and traditional forms of healing for which there is a recognizable,
phenomenological evidence base that has stood the test of time and demonstrated its
utility in practice. Along with its practical value in preventing illness and promoting
various forms of health care, energy healing also has the theoretical potential to
integrate common components of health care. It blends modern, traditional, Eastern,
Western, Northern and Southern health care practices that view diverse aspects of
body, mind and spirit as energetic patterns that interrelate and which can be
transformed by human intervention (Graham, 1990; DiNucci, 2005; Reid, 1998).
The etymology of the term energy healing is derived from the Greek roots energeia,
meaning activity, the German terms heilin (whole), helig (holy) and related old
English terms hael (whole), haelen (heal) and halig (holy). Etymologically speaking,
to be healthy is to be whole or holy, which embraces both the physical and spiritual
aspects of humanity. Modern energy healing is characterised by a holistic,
holographic attitude, where all parts of the universe are viewed as fundamentally
inter-related at the energetic level (Wilber, 1998). Nature is perfectly replicated in
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each person, so that every cell in the human body is a microcosm of the cosmos and
all levels of an individual’s being, physical, psychological, spiritual, social and
ecological, are of equal importance in the prevention of illness and promotion of
health (Chopra, 2000; Chopra & Simon, 2004; Reid, 1998; Graham, 1990; Bott,
1996). In essence the healing task is to balance and harmonise various patterns of
energy flow within and without our physical body that vibrates energetically
alongside the bodies of thinking and feeling and in our interpersonal, social and
ecological relationships.
Energy healing has a long history in human culture. Indigenous healers in Africa,
India, China, Australia, Philippines and the Americas have practised various forms of
energy healing (Chopra & Simon, 2004; Reid, 1998; Taub-Bynum, 1984). Healing
traditions variously extol a form of healing energy called N/um (San), Ka (Ancient
Egypt) Umoya (Zulu), Elima (Congolese), Ruach Ha Kodesh (Hebrew), Prana
(Hindi), Nafas Ruh (Moslem), Baraka (Sufi), Spiritus Sanctus (Latin for Holy Spirit),
Pneuma (Greek), Chi (Chinese), Mana (Figian), Ni (Sioux), Manitu (Alonquin),
Chindi (Navajo) (Elinwood, 2004, Reid, 1998; Taub-Bynum, 1984). This healing
energy is typically experienced through the life-breath as a form of bridge between
nature, God, ancestors and people.
Energy healers typically view their role as helping nature to heal itself, through
rebalancing the energy flow disturbed or blocked by the disease, which will release
the natural flow of energy to reduce or eliminate the illness. Their usual role is that of
therapists (from the Greek therapeia; attendants) in the healing process (Graham,
1990). However it is conceptualised, from the yin and yang polarity of Chinese
medical model through to modern models such as Rudolf Steiner’s four fold model of
a human being which underlies the practices in anthropsophical medicine (Evans and
Rodger, 1992) or to Freuds’ libido and Reich’s orgone theories (Reich, 1942), energy
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healing incorporates the experience of a vital invisible sensed energy, necessary for
all forms of life.
Energy flow is experienced and communicated to self and others through core
languages of all human beings. Primary human languages are breathing, sensing,
gesturing, sounding, and visualising as elaborated by Sherwood (2007, pp. 56-66),
who gives particular emphasis to the breath as the mediator between mind and body,
and gesture as the language which captures the movement of the breath in a human
body and thus provides a concrete map of the flow of energy through a person.
Sherwood (2007: 50) describes the capacity of senses collectively to work together as
sensing . This is defined as the capacity to access vibrational patterns, both within the
energetic bodies of a human being as well as in the external environment. It is a
quality possessed by human beings and it is core to accessing ones’ experience of well
being or ill health. One senses one is becoming unwell, before one is actually sick
and one senses one is on the way to recovery before one is actually well. Through
gesture we communicate concretely the flow of bodily energy, which Reich (1942)
elaborated on in some detail in his character formations and body structures. Through
sounds, prior to the formation of words, we express the flow of energy through the
body for example, from ‘ouch’ to ‘ooh’ to ‘arhh’. We can also create images of the
flow of energy through our bodies and around us.
ENERGY HEALING TRADITIONS
We experience energy constantly. Various traditions have differentiated aspects of
the ebb and flow of the subtle organizing energy system we call life and are
essentially based on introspective, phenomenological forms of knowledge passed on
over generations.
African traditions
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In Ancient Egypt the emphasis was on Ra and ka, becoming an enlightened, immortal
spirit/soul (ka) through merging celestial forces of the sun god (Ra) with the telluric
forces of the earth (symbolized in the form of a cobra rising through the brow).
Contemporary African patterns focus on healing through the energy of the ancestors
(ukwelapha amandla amadlozi), where ancestors ultimately refer to a vast array of
energetic forces ranging from the Creator/being (uNkulunkulu, uMvelinqangi) through
the evolutionary spirits of nature and the cosmos, reptiles and animals, earlier
humans, divinities such as Christ, to recently departed parents and grandparents
(Graham, 1990; Myers, 1993). African energy healing emphasises the dynamic
interrelatedness of all life given through the ancestors. This fundamental spirituality
has infinite energy, for example as revealed through dreams and the extended family
unconscious (Ngubane, 1977; Taub-Bynum, 1984; Myers (1993).
Eastern traditions
Indian yogic traditions postulate that life-energy flows up and down the spine in terms
of three main energetic pathways, called ida, pingala and sushumna. Ida carries
prana in the form of feminine lunar energy along the left side of the body, pingala
transmits masculine solar energy along the right side and sushumna runs up the
middle of the body connecting seven spinning energy wheels called chakras. The
chakras are associated with particular anatomical locations of the spine and brain,
plexuses of the nervous, endocrine and other human functional systems as well as
colours, sounds, patterns and symbols (Mumford, 2005, Reid, 1998). For example
from perineum to crown, the chakras muladhara, svadisthana, manipura, anahata,
vishudda, ajna and sahasrara are respectively associated with systemic functions of
elimination, reproduction, digestion, circulation, respiration, enervation and ultimate
realisation through relation with the cosmos. The process of accumulating and
releasing energy discharges obstacles in energy pathways. When the channels and
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locks are open, vital energy is able to flow freely.. Breath work practising control
over the three bandhas enables energy to be consciously moved up the spine. The
three basic bandhas involved are the perineum root (moola bandha), the abdominal
lock (uddiyana) and the throat lock (jalandara). This process becomes increasingly
refined through meditation, visualisation and the sublimation of physiological and
sexual energies into spiritual energy (Chopra & Simon, 2004; Hewitt, 1977).
Chinese traditions emphasize movement and change based on the notion of dynamic
patterns, continually forming and dissolving in the cosmic way of the Tao as
exemplified in the I Ching (Book of Changes). Chi-gung is an ancient Chinese
system of cultural therapeutics with medical, martial and meditative implications.
Chi means breath and air and by extension, energy and vitality. Gung means work,
skill or practice. Hence chi-gung refers to breathing exercises or energy work, based
on the subtle skill of breath control. Chi has various connotations including the
essential energy of the universe, which manifests in polarity (yin and yang), the five
elements; water, earth, fire, metal and wood and the vital, life-force in human beings.
Chi therefore refers to the most fundamental essence of life, nuclear, physical,
chemical, electrical, emotional, mental, social and spiritual, to which we have direct,
phenomenological access through intra and interpersonal experiences and
environmental relationships (Capra, 1983; Reid, 1998).
Contemporary Western traditions
Contemporary Western traditions of energy healing, can be marked by the medical
work of Rudolf Steiner in the early 20th
century. He distinguishes four main energy
layers or bodies which surround the physical body; the etheric/health,
emotional/astral, mental/I am and causal/I AM energy bodies (Dziemidko, 1999).
There are over 80 hospitals world-wide that are now run by the anthroposophical
medical model (Evans & Rodger, 1992; Bott, 1996). Brennan (1988) expounds the
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contemporary trend to use one’s hands to heal others. She has trained therapists
extensively in healing through the hands, directing energy into and removing energy
from the energy bodies surrounding the physical body. She provides detailed
descriptions involving the use of sensing colours around the human body to effect
healing in the energetic layers. Today there is a strong energy healing movement in
most western countries based on the work of Brennan.
JOHREI ENERGY HEALING
Johrei is typical of a method of healing where healers act as a conduit to pass on the
universal energy of the cosmos, especially in the form of light, love and wisdom.
Dziemidko (1999) describes such healing as radiant healing, Such healing also
enables healers to heal themselves and typically involves hands off or light touch
methods. Proponents of Johrei such as Nitta (1994) propose that it involves beaming
universal healing energy through the palm of the hands to points in the meridians
where the energy flow is blocked. Mokichi Okada originally founded the method in
1933, as a result of his profound energetic experiences. He developed a system of
transferring healing power to any human being who is interested in becoming a
healer. Healers do this by wearing a pendant or Ohikari which traditionally was a
round gold disc, with an image of the sun on the front and containing within it an
inscription in Japanese for universal light energy. Once trainee healers acquire a
pendant to wear, they then need to learn the meridian points that govern each illness,
so they can channel energy through the palms of their raised hands directly to the
relevant points. If this is done accurately, then the symptoms of the illness recede or
disappear, often following a purification or process of coughing, diarrhoea, colds,
fevers or mucous discharges.
Johrei is taught internationally by an organisation called the Mokichi Okada
Association or MOA, which has tens of thousands of practitioners including many
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medical doctors and health professionals in all continents of the world. The
practitioners channel universal energy to clients who may make a donation for the
service but there are no formal charges. In Japan, Johrei is done in healing settings
devoted entirely for the purpose and comprising a multi skilled team of medical
doctors, therapists and Johrei practitioners. Here the doctor maps out the energy
points to be treated, prescribes the frequency and length of the treatment and takes
over all responsibility for the diagnosis, prior to passing the client to the Johrei
practioner. This process ensures quality service delivery and healing outcomes, which
have been impressively documented in medical research on the process by Dr Nitta
(1994).
Extensive positive wellbeing changes on giving and receiving Jorhei have been
reported in a comprehensive, quantitative study. (Reece, Schwartz, Brooks & Nangle,
2005). The present, qualitatively orientated research focussed on Johrei healing
conducted at Sophia College in Western Australia where a senior Japanese Johrei
healer, regularly resides for up to four weeks every two to three months on his healing
tours around Australia. Six persons, who were experienced Johrei healers as well as
having experienced Johrei themselves as clients, were interviewed. All the
interviewed persons were female and Australian, excepting the Japanese healer who
was male. One participant was in her thirties, two participants were in their forties,
one was in her fifties and two were in their sixties. Two participants had professional
careers in teaching, three were from the retail sector, and one was a health worker.
All Australians had had experience with Johrei for more than one year and one had
been a practitioner for over sixteen years. The Japanese healer had over forty-five
years of experience as a healer.
When asked why they chose to become Johrei healers all healers gave personal
testimonies of illnesses they had experienced in their lives which were not responding
to conventional treatments and which were alleviated by their own experiences of
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being a client of Johrei healing. Toni remarked, “my experience of the healing of
Johrei upon myself was profoundly cleansing and healing”. Tara recounted how she
had had 25 bouts of mastitis and could not prevent its recurrence until she had her first
Johrei treatment. Jack stated: “I was saved from disease, poor health, stomach, kidney
trouble and high blood pressure by Johrei”. Karen described her motivation coming
from the following experience: “it felt beautiful and soothing and I could see its
energy enter my body and this made my pain dissipate. It sparked my interest …” In
addition the Johrei healers expressed the interest in helping others who were suffering
to experience this remarkable healing process. Lenita captured this: “Everyone of us
has the ability to heal .. this is easy to take anywhere to anyone in need.” Tara
emphasized the benefits to her family “ my children were babies and get those
childhood illnesses and I could see that Johrei would be fast and helpful for them
without the side effects of conventional medications.
METHODOLOGY
A phenomenological approach was selected because of its suitability to explicate the
energetic healing method of Johrei through exploring practitioner’s experience.
Participants were all chosen on their willingness to discuss their experiences. The
first round of interviews was conducted by one interviewer who obtained collective
data on these person’s experiences of Johrei both as healer and as recipient. A second
interviewer conducted the second round of interviews in order to gain more in-depth
information about their experiences as a healer. During the first interview, participants
were simply asked to describe their experience of Johrei. This single question was
maintained with appropriate reflective techniques throughout the interview. During
the second round of interviews, the following questions were specifically asked: Why
did you be come a Johrei healer? What is your experience of the Johrei healing
process pre-session, in session and post session? Do you experience any bodily
sensations in your experience as a Johrei healer? Do you experience any visual
imagery or particular thoughts when you are performing Johrei healing? How do you
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experience illness in clients as a Johrei healer? How do y our experience illness in
yourself as a Johrei healer? How do you experience personal and other change as a
Johrei healer? Any other experiences you wish to share?
The responses were documented during the interview using speed typing on a laptop
and read back to the participant. They were then analyzed using the
phenomenological explication method as described by Giorgi (1975,1985),
Schweitzer (1983) and Devenish (2002). This explication process involves six
separate identifiable stages, moving from idiographic to nomothetic data, whereby
individual experiences are clustered into group experiences or central themes. These
central themes then become the foundation for the interpretative themes, which form
the heart of the experience.
Stage 1. Intuitive/holistic understanding of the raw data
This first stage involved reading the interviews repeatedly to achieve a fluent
understanding of the meanings attributed to the phenomena as well as checking the
data with the participants for accuracy.
Stage 2. Forming a constituent profile
This stage involved the construction of a constituent profile, which summarises the
raw data from each participant. A set of natural meaning units, or NMU’s, is
extracted. NMU’s are self-definable, discrete segments of expression of individual
aspects of the participant’s experience. The purpose expressed in each of the extracted
NMU’s is reduced to central themes. Central themes express the meaning concisely,
whilst maintaining the original mode of expression. Central themes reduce the NMU’s
to recognizable sentences conveying a discrete expression of experience. Finally,
central themes that are repeated are organized and clustered together. Central themes
are then re-ordered, which through improved sequencing and refining allows better
coherence of the data. The subsequent reconstituted list of central themes provides a
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non-repetitive list of descriptive meaning statements for each participant, which is
termed the constituent profile.
Stage 3. Forming a thematic index
Constituent profiles of each participant are used as a basis to construct a ‘thematic
index’, which highlights major themes that have emerged. The ‘thematic index’
enables the data to be moved from being examined at an idiographic level to a
nomothetic level of data handling. Additionally, the ‘thematic index’ establishes a
referent system that allows any emergent themes to be easily accessed. The delineated
meaning units of each constituent profile are combined and re-ordered into one list of
emergent themes. The thematic index establishes a non-repetitive, sequenced list of
meaning statements and referents or key words, used to search for interpretative
themes. The thematic index contains the constituent profile statements attributed to
singular meanings of experience. In each case the referent that emphasises the
meaning being portrayed is identified as a key for any subsequent searches. From this
point on the data is examined collectively.
Stage 4. Searching the thematic index
Integration of referents, central themes and constituent profiles forms a set of
interpretative themes. Interpretative themes are statements that succinctly capture the
meanings portrayed through the constituent profiles, and do not necessarily retain the
original mode of expression. The interpretative themes provide the key dimensions of
the experience, which enable the formation of the extended description. Interpretative
themes that have been identified are also examined for their relationship to each other.
Stage 5. Arriving at a extended description
Interpretative themes are used to rigorously explicate meaning attributed to the
phenomena under investigation, in this case the experience of being a Johrei healer.
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Stage 6. Synthesis of extended description
The heart of the interpretative themes is synthesized to produce an in-depth picture of
the Johrei healer’s experience of healing. These themes represent core aspects of the
experience of being a Johrei healer.
INTERPRETATIVE THEMES
Nine key interpretative themes were identified:
 Johrei healers experience themselves as a channel for a healing energy that
is experienced as waves of warmth and light coming into and through their
hand as the light and warmth moves towards and into the client’s body
 Johrei healers experience a number of bodily sensations including
belching, yawning, running eyes and nose, prickly heat in the palms of
their hands, chemical tastes in the mouth which they see as part of the
process of facilitating the client to break down the emotional and physical
toxins accumulated in their body that are causing the disease.
 Healers experience communications with deceased persons related to the
client during the Johrei process and are given messages to give the client.
 Healers experience enhanced sensitivity and an ability to commune with
spiritual beings such as the Kuan Yin or Goddess of compassion and the
founder of this method of healing, Mokichi Okada..
 Johrei healers experience the ability to sense disease in client’s body
through their experience of intensified burning in the palms of their left
hand in particular over areas of pain and toxicity.
 Healers experience a cool breeze flowing through their hands while giving
Johrei to the client and sense the client’s ancestors coming to receive
healing as well.
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 Johrei healers experience vivid colour imagery swirling around and within
the human body within which there are black or grey parts that block the
free flow of the energy swirls and colours.
 Healers experience Johrei energy as universally abundant and do not feel
tired or drained after channeling it to the client but rather energized and
peaceful
 Healers experience the energetic power of Johrei as cleansing and clearing
personal, family, community and planetary impurities which block the
natural flow of energy needed to create a healthy and peaceful planet
Each interpretative theme will now be discussed in detail using statements drawn
from the interviews to illustrate in depth the phenomena of the experience of being a
Johrei healer.
Interpretative theme 1: Johrei healers experience themselves as a channel for a
healing energy that is experienced as waves of warmth, calm and light coming into
and through the hand as it moves towards and into the client’s body
Frequently occurring referents in the healer’s description of the Johrei energy
emanating form their hands were “heat” “warmth” and “light”. Karen describes this
process: “ I feel this beautiful warmth like warm honey coming into my body, sweet
and light and it flows into their body (the client)… then a sort of buzzing through my
hands as the light rushes through and a warm feeling all over. My breathing gets deep
and further apart than normal… After it enters the client I feel a softening around the
body and face. Then there is a melting effect as the energy enters the received. Then
a fountain springs up of colours that move around and through like a lava lump which
explodes out of the crown of the giver and the receiver and cascades down around
them enveloping them until the session comes to an end”.
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Johrei practitioners describe in detail the sensing of warmth in their own hands and
the client’s body: Jill details this: I sense temperatures around the body as my hand
scans the body. I don’t need to touch it. I can feel the radiant warmth around the
body. I know these are places I will find blockages that the body is trying to melt and
break down and I can speed up this process using Johrei. Lenita described the
process of administering Johrei as like a “ hot flush with the warmth spreading from
your hand slowly over the whole of the practitioners body … like fire energy
spreading out and into the client’s body and melting the physical, emotional and
mental toxins.”
Interpretative theme 2: Healers experience a number of bodily sensations including
belching, yawning, running eyes and nose, prickly heat in the palms of their hands,
chemical tastes in the mouth which they see as part of the process of facilitating the
client to breakdown the toxins accumulated in their body that are causing the disease.
All Johrei healers had strong bodily reactions during the Johrei administering process
particularly related to the face and hands. Jill describes her experience of bodily
sensations during the Johrei process: “My hands feel extreme heat, particularly my
left hand. Often my palms tingle too. I frequently get nausea as the toxins pass
through and are broken down by the light. I belch or yawn and my nose and eyes run
and get very watery. I get strong chemical tastes in my mouth sometimes as toxins
break down in the client and move through me and are dissipated. I can usually tell
by these signs how much of the illness is a result of chemical pollution and how much
is a result of mental/ emotional states of the client and other issues.”
Tara’s description captured in detail other bodily experiences of this nature: “My
hands often tingle and when I find a part of the body where the energy is very blocked
I feel like sharp prickles or darts are being drawn out of the person’s body by my
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hands. I have to shake my hands afterwards or otherwise I feel they are still somehow
attached to my hands. I often yawn and yawn and yawn especially when I sense that
dark blocked energy is breaking down and then I sense relief in the client’s body…
like it changes shape a bit and relaxes where before it was tense. “
Interpretative theme 3: Healers experience communications with deceased persons
related to the client during the Johrei process and are given messages to give the
client.
It was common for practitioners to report seeing deceased relatives or friends of the
client appearing during the Johrei session. There were two main themes as to the
rationale for this appearance. Toni captures the first theme where the deceased are
themselves in need of healing as well. She says: “ sometimes people come and speak
with me while I am Johreing like the deceased relatives come to speak to the client
through me and it is not just the person in front of you that is receiving healing but
anyone connected to that person that needs healing and is in the room even if they are
deceased. The second sub theme was where the deceased relatives were seen as
helpers in the Johrei process bringing additional light and information with them
rather than needing light and healing themselves. Karen says: “the deceased come to
help by bringing love and light with them for the client” and Jill adds “ I can see
ancestors of the person when I am working some time and I receive visual
information associated with the client’s life that I did not previously know from the
ancestors. I sense these people coming in and I can see them”. Several report that
they hear the deceased relatives giving them messages to pass to the client. Jill
explained: “when I was giving Johrei to a man a deceased person whom I did not
know gave me message to give to the client. I could hear them quite clearly and
reported them to my client who was clearly very pleased to hear these encouraging
messages.”
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Interpretative theme 4: Johrei Healers experience enhanced sensitivity and an ability
to commune with spiritual beings such as the Kuan Yin or Goddess of compassion
and the founder of this method of healing, Mokichi Okada.
Referents like “ great light”. “radiance’ and “ spiritual power” were used by Johrei
practitioners to describe their heightened sensitivity to spiritual consciousness.
Several saw this spiritual power manifesting through great beings of light. Tara
described her experience: “Mokichi Okada has appeared to me during Johrei and his
presence brings great healing energy into the session. He comes rarely and when he
appears it seems that this session is very important for the client. His whole body
radiates warmth, light and calm which encompasses my whole body and that of the
client.” Both Jack and Toni spoke about the appearance of the Kuan Yin, the
Goddess of compassion. She encompassed them during the time they were
administering Johrei to the client. They could see her vividly and they could sense
her presence as radiating golden light. Karen had vivid imagery of the appearance of
“omnipresent one”: “I experience Johrei energy as radiating form the omnipresent
one. I see it coming into a practitioner and I feel it. It is a golden white light “.
Interpretative theme 5: Healers experience the ability to sense disease in client’s
body through their experience of intensified burning in the palms of their left hand in
particular over areas of pain and toxicity
Like all of the healers, Toni describes this experience as a burning off of toxins by
bringing warmth and light to the places of darkness and disease: “fever is burning off
of inner rubbish. I don’t see it as a negative process it is a positive. A process of the
body cleansing to restore balance.” Jack regularly described the burning warmth he
could feel emanating from the client’s body when he held his hands above their body.
He described these burning and hot places as a “map of the client’s illness” and
projected the light from his hands particularly into these places.
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Interpretative theme 6: Healers experience a cool breeze flowing through their hands
while giving Johrei to the client and sense the client’s ancestors coming to receive
healing as well.
Toni repetitively described this sensation of cool air: “I feel light coming out of the
palms of my hands like cool air…a cooling sensation in my hands that I have never
felt before with other types of healing I have done… then the client’s ancestors arrive’
Jack confirmed this “cool air along my hands and then I know the ancestors are
arriving..” When asked to elaborate further on why the ancestors had arrived the
common replies were “ to help the client through a difficult time” or “ to participate
in the healing process”. The Japanese healer as well as some of the Australian healers
who have no Japanese cultural backgrounds experienced this attendance of the
ancestors to the Johrei healing process.
Interpretative theme 7: Johrei healers experience vivid colour imagery swirling
around and within the human body within which there are black or grey parts that
block the free flow of the energy swirls and colours.
Several of the healers not only sensed heat but saw very vivid colours as they
administered Johrei to the client. Toni experiences the capacity to see in colour
toxins interfering with the natural flow of healthy energy within and around the client:
“ I see blocked energy, implants.. I had a client whose drink had been poisoned at a
cocktail party and she was knocked out by it. I saw little spiky black balls in her body
and they were multiplying throughout her body… those were the toxins that I needed
to disperse.”
Karen describes this experience as follows: ‘I see beautiful colours around and in the
clients body all swirling and moving with grace and then as I move deeper into the
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colours I find grey spots like blocks in the flow. I unblock them by visualising their
body releasing the grey blocks and then moving out of the client’s body on the out
breath. I follow the colours and when I see a colour that does not make me feel good
then I check it out with them and usually that is a place of pain.”
Interpretative theme 8: Johrei Healers experience Johrei energy as universally
abundant and do not feel tired or drained after channeling it to the client but rather
energized and peaceful
All participants emphasized the re-energising nature of Johrei for the practitioner.
Common descriptors were: “lightness, calm, peace and joy”. Toni noted that after a
session “my own energy flows better and I feel much lighter.. it is like you are
opening yourself up to the light to flow more freely through you..” Karen
energetically conveyed this with enthusiastic gestures: I feel great after Johrei
because I’ve had all this amazing energy going through me…peace, happiness,
lightness, and I feel I can skip with joy afterwards”. Tara noted: I never feel tired or
exhausted after transmitting this abundant light to other people, rather my body feels
more alive and I want to celebrate this power.
Interpretative theme 9: Healers experience the energetic power of Johrei as
cleansing and clearing personal, family, community and planetary impurities that
block the natural flow of energy needed to create a healthy and peaceful planet
Karen saw the experience of being a Johrei healer as promoting connections: “people
start to nurture and care for others. It makes connections between the practitioner and
client, between body and spirit and gives everyone the feeling that miracles do
happen”. Jill experienced the process in her body as detoxifying both the client’s
body and the planetary pollution: “I clear many chemicals when I give Johrei. I can
taste the chemicals coming out of the person I am healing. Johrei gives us the
19

opportunity to shift big blocks in our bodies both emotional and mental but also from
the overload of chemical pollution in the environment. If enough of us do Johrei and
shift blocks in our bodies then it will impact on our families and communities and our
ability to function more effectively in relationships.”
Collective explicated description of the experience of Johrei
Johrei is experienced as an energetic movement of light and heat from the light
realms through the healer to the client. It breaks down blockages in the energetic
bodies of the client so as to release the blocked flow of energy that is manifesting as
pain or disease in the physical body. Johrei healers channelling the energy through
their raised hands experience it as coming from an abundant universal source of
health and light which produces warm sensations in their bodies and particularly their
left hand and which gives them the experience of being connected to a universal
source of healing energy that is limitless. Often during the process of administering
Johrei they will see colour patterns, which indicate where the blocks to health are, or
they may commune with ancestors of the clients who come to participate in the
healing either to benefit themselves, or to benefit the client and to convey messages to
the client. As the toxic blockages within the client are broken down the energy is
transmuted through the healers body through bodily processes of yawning, belching,
running nose and eyes or prickly sensation in the hands. Johrei healers do not feel
exhaustion after channelling the energy to clients and facilitating the breakdown of
the emotional, mental and chemical toxins causing the illness, but rather feel
reenergised and alive to the abundant energy. They experience a sense of spiritual
power to breakdown polluting toxins and to contribute to the healing of another
person. Johrei power is experienced as connecting them to the ultimate source of life
and healing, the centre of healing warmth and power that can transform back to health
individuals, families, communities and the planet.
20

CONCLUSION
This article has explored a phenomenology of energy healing as experienced by
Johrei healers. Like all radiant healers, Johrei practitioners act as a conduit to pass on
this universal free energy of the cosmos, especially in the form of light and love.
Whether looking outwards into the cosmos, inwards into the unconscious or
relationally into interpersonal, environmental and cosmic consciousness, ancient and
modern energy healers have discovered that the universe is powered by light that has
the power to connect each of us to each other and to produce heat and transform
darkness and dis-ease into well being and health. Modern physics simply informs us
that what energy healers have known since ancient times; that everything in the
universe is energy, manifest as heat and light in a movement of creation and
recreation, of building up and breaking down, the great dance of Shiva.
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Detailed references on Johrei: http://www.johrei.com/Resources.html
23

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