Interview with Rosalyn Bruyere: Neurological problems and energy healing

The autobiographies of healers and time spent in a neurological damage / recovery community have given me the impression that it is harder to do effective energy healing on neurological problems than on any other kind of ailment.  I recently asked the well-established healer Rosalyn Bruyere for her thoughts on this.

For the purposes of this essay, the term “energy healing” will be used broadly to include an array of healing methods that may use electromagnetic energy, other energy, consciousness, information, or some other mechanism as yet unidentified.

Rev. Rosalyn Bruyere is the author of “Wheels of light:  Chakras, auras, and the healing energy of the body.”  This is the most systematic and precise explanation of chakras and auras I have ever read.  She is an electrical engineer, healer, clairvoyant, and ordained minister, who was trained by healers from a variety of traditions and cultures.  She has been an active healer and teacher for several decades.

In an August 2011 interview with blogger and energy healer Adele Wang, Rev. Bruyere said that many healers have difficulty with neurological problems, and that she, herself, had been on a trajectory toward ever greater skill with neurological issues:

“I think it’s really important for healers to think in terms of what you like doing, and what you are compelled to do. So, I happen to like cancer patients – I always have. I’ve always had some trouble with some neurological diseases. But, I was also trained by 80 year old people in my youth, who always said that healing didn’t do much for neurological disease. Over the years, I’ve worked more and more with neurological disease and brain disorders, and I now understand why healers didn’t traditionally do well with them. It’s because their own nervous system energy is allowed to dissipate because they don’t maintain their own coordination. And I’ve learned through a lot of physical training myself, how to maintain my high energy level, that I’m better able to treat some neurological diseases than other healers. Because I trained for it.”

Last week, Rev. Bruyere graciously agreed to a phone interview with me to further explore the challenges of energy healing for neurological problems.  Her responses have been paraphrased, with her permission.

* * * * *

What has made it possible for you to have increasing success with healing neurological problems?

First of all, Bruyere has always had an easy time working with the neuropathy caused by chemo drugs.  The difference between this neurological damage and other neurological problems is that with chemo-induced neuropathy “there is no obstruction, just dirt.”  In other words, it is a less entrenched energy pattern.  Also, there has not been time for bad adaptations to accumulate.

Bruyere said that she has discovered the value of continuously improving her own nervous system.  She lifts weights – but, particularly in a way that challenges the nervous system, rather than purely for building strength.  In other words, she emphasizes improving coordination, balance, and cross-hemisphere collaboration.  She is also taking up tap dancing for the same reasons.

She also attributes her increasing skill to some spiritual developments that were private.  I mention this for reasons of scientific method – in studying this puzzle, it is important to remember that this may be a variable in a healer’s development.

Furthermore, she had a big insight at one point that made a difference in her work.  She realized we had been using the wrong metaphor in thinking of the nervous system as electrical wiring.  When electricity propagates along a copper wire, it travels through the wire, or inside it.  Free electrons move from one copper atom to the next. 

But, with the nervous system, she says the signal travels on the outside of the nerve.  This is the “Action Potential.”  Electrically-charged sodium and potassium ions trade places across the neuron membrane, and propagate an electrical impulse along the membrane.  She said “it’s like a wire, but inside out.  The signal travels outside the nerve, not inside.”

According to Bruyere, this means the energy of a neurological problem is “coming at you” and you have to “get behind it.”  With most ailments, a healer needs to “push” energy into the body.  But, with the energy of a neuro ailment, the healer needs to get behind the source of the energy and “come back at yourself.”

Another exception to the general rule of pushing energy into an ailing body is the case of pain and inflammation.  There, you want to “pull” energy out in order to relieve the symptoms.  Still, this pulling is different from getting behind an energy and regulating it as you move with it back toward yourself.

Dysautonomia (dysregulation of the autonomic nervous system):

For example, with a systemic neurological problem like dysautonomia from discontinuing SSRIs – where there are no lesions or gross tissue damage – she would go to the brain and re-regulate it.  She would do this by creating a kind of “tidal flow,” similar to what is done with craniosacral therapy, creating a constant, breathing, in-and-out kind of rhythm.  She blends her rhythm with that of the client, but hers is the “alpha aura” or guiding frequency.

In my case (dysautonomia from SSRIs), what she would do is go to the top of the brain stem, see what the frequency is there, and try to re-regulate it.

She is familiar with dysautonomia.  She has had it more than once.  Once it was secondary to a concussion, and it lasted for months.  And, another time it was when she had been putting out and taking in too much energy, doing healings.  She had healer burnout.  She needed help from other professionals to re-regulate herself.

What, if anything, is different in your internal experience when working with neurological injury / disorder vs. non-neurological ailments?

Bruyere said that there is a tactile difference.  She experiences neuro healing as more electrical within her.  There is more buzzing, more charge.  Her hands vibrate more.  She also experiences heightened senses – sight, taste, etc.  In other words, *her* nervous system is more stimulated.

What makes neurological problems less responsive to energy healing than other ailments?

Bruyere said that the nervous system is very paradoxical, more so than any other system in the body.  “It holds parts together that could in no way communicate without it.”

What does she recommend to healers for working with neuro problems?

Healing neuro problems requires more refined, subtle understanding of the energies you are reading from the client.  It requires the ability to do more than one thing as a healer. It requires more enlightenment, more work on yourself, more self-development.

She said that, in order to work with neuro problems, healers need to become more refined themselves, use less energy, become sensitive to the original energy rhythms of the client and strengthen them.  More precision is required.  Whereas a broader range of frequencies will be at least somewhat healing for other ailments, healers have to hit the right frequency more precisely and not waver from it when they are dealing with neuro ailments.

There are many different causes and forms of neurological disorder, but is there a chakra or energy dynamic they tend to have in common?

Whereas with non-neuro ailments, you might focus on just some of the chakras, neurological problems require you to focus on all the chakras.  You’re working on the brain and the entire length of the spine.  “This is the ultimate place where you have to say OK, the whole enchilada.  You *really* have to be holistic.”

To generalize, is there a frequency range that tends to work better for neurological problems (analogous to how she writes that raising the frequency in the area of the body that has the cancer slows cancer cell division)?

The ancient Asians and Egyptians agreed that what the nervous system needs to heal is the frequency of golden light.  Also, it needs energy that spins, which is “the way energy travels.”

You write in your book that rheumatoid arthritis requires healing in phases.  The first phase should use blue and green frequencies to counter inflammation, and the second phase should use red frequencies to regenerate tissue.  Do you see neurological problems as requiring a similar phased approach?

No.

You have said that genetic diseases also don’t respond well to energy healing (p. 203).  What, if anything, do genetic diseases and neuro disorders have in common?

Nothing.  They are different things.

Are neurological problems less amenable to distant healing than other ailments?

She prefers to work in person, but does do distant healing as well, and thinks neurological problems can be addressed by distant healing just as well as they can in person.

What can people with neurological problems do to help themselves?

Most people are not taking good physical care of their nervous system.  She recommends getting plenty of protein in a form that’s digestible for you.  In other words, amino acids.  

She also recommends challenging your coordination through sport or dance; focusing on bilateral symmetry; and making your muscles stronger in general, because they report to the nervous system more if they are stronger.  She recommends developing your speed.

In general, she suggests doing things differently from how you usually do them.  This creates new neural paths.

Observations about working with Kundalini risings.

A Kundalini rising is about the unification of the upper three chakras with the lower three.  If it’s a dramatic enough rising, people will start reacting very differently to you.  You’ll be emitting more energy than ever, and people will be drawn to you.

You can’t make any generalizations about working with people with difficulties with Kundalini rising.  They are all different. 

Often people get stuck at the third chakra due to intellectualization.

* * * * *

Some thoughts after the interview

Doing things differently to stimulate neuroplasticity

Bruyere’s recommendations jibed with what a neuropsychologist said to me several years ago – people seem to recover faster from neuro damage if they study / practice things that are different from what they usually do.  He mentioned a man who had taken up knitting, the Thai language, and the bagpipe.

Gold

The ancient insight that Bruyere mentioned about the value of the gold light frequency for neuro healing is thought-provoking.

Gold is the third best metal electrical conductor after silver and copper.  It has the advantage of being the least prone to corrosion.  This makes it more consistent and predictable over time, and minimizes signal change.  Gold is preferred for the transmission of low current signals.  It conducts heat well and is very malleable.  Because it’s a good conductor, you can use a very thin amount of it, which is helpful in small spaces.  For all these reasons, it is used in the electronics and aeronautics industries.  (kleinplating.com, avrev.com, thenakedscientists.com/forum)

A thin layer of gold is used in astronauts’ space suits to protect them from radiation and to reflect the heat of the sun.  It’s used in aeronautic circuitry for the above reasons, and to reflect radiation which increases as the atmosphere gets thinner and then disappears away from the Earth (mgsrefining.com).

The gleam of gold is produced by the jump of an electron from one orbital to another, and by the contraction of some orbitals towards others, which causes the absorption of blue light.  That leaves the remaining frequencies, which combine to look golden (fourmilab.ch, scienceforums.com).

The reason for the contraction of some orbitals is that gold is a heavy element ( a lot of protons in the nucleus), which causes great velocity of the electrons, which means the effective mass of the electron significantly exceeds its rest mass.  The speed of the electrons is so great – 58% of the speed of light -- that “relativistic effects” (special relativity) are operating that do not operate in the lighter elements (wikipedia.org/wiki/Relativistic_quantum_chemistry, chem1.com).

It’s provocative to find out that gold, itself, is so effective for transmitting signals (especially low current ones in small spaces), when the nervous system is fundamentally about transmitting signals, and when Bruyere says there is more than one ancient tradition that recommends the golden light frequency for neurological healing.  Likewise, it’s provocative to find out that gold color / light/ frequency has something to do with an unusual property of a precious element, when the nervous system is, according to Bruyere, unusual in its properties.

Spin

According to the radical physics scholar Nassim Haramein, the universe is driven, at all levels, by spin / angular momentum / torque / rotation / twisting.  He says this movement is fundamental to the structure and nature of spacetime (“The power of spin” video).  The exact nature of the movement varies somewhat, but electrons through planets through galaxies all have some variant of angular momentum.

In the interview, Bruyere said that spin on the healing energy was mentioned as important for neuro problems in some of the ancient traditions she has studied.  In her book, Bruyere doesn’t mention the importance of spin for any type of ailment per se.  However, she does talk about spin a lot in terms of how the chakras work.

Each chakra spins and produces its own electromagnetic field.  The fields of the different chakras combine to generate the aura or overall electromagnetic field of the individual (Bruyere, p. 61).  The color of each chakra is determined by the frequency of the energy created by the spinning (p. 63).

According to Bruyere, the healthy chakra spins clockwise (when you’re facing the person) north of the equator.  The healthy chakra spins counterclockwise south of the equator (p. 73).  She says both men and women have a 28-day regenerative cycle, during one phase of which, every other chakra is supposed to spin backwards, and that’s healthy (pp. 75 – 76). 

In her book, there is a drawing of the various dysfunctional shapes and directions chakras can take (p. 74).  It seems oddly reminiscent of the different functional shapes that atomic orbitals can take (Wiki).

To speculate, there may be a way for healers to use spin.  It might improve efficacy with all types of ailments, but be crucial for having an impact on neurological ailments.

Precision

This brings us to one of the overall impressions that emerged from the interview, which is that greater precision is required for healing neurological problems.

If we take James Carpenter’s First Sight model as a starting point, and add in what Bruyere is saying, we might hypothesize that daily, regular functioning is dependent on basic psi; energy healing requires advanced psi; and neurological energy healing requires even more advanced psi.

According to Bruyere, the healer must also have more precise coordination and focus in her / his own nervous system, and maintain this while doing neuro healing.

Neurological injury / disorder and psi

The main thesis of this blog is that some of the symptoms of neurological damage and recovery are actually misinterpretations of an abrupt psychic opening that was triggered by the neurological damage.

This kind of psychic opening is very discontinuous with the person’s previous way of being, and there is little or no preparation for it.  So, the individual is psychologically and neurologically not equipped to interpret accurately what is happening, and falls back on early training and primitive, emergency responding to make sense of the new access to more information.

In the interview, Bruyere commented that, in my case of SSRI-withdrawal-induced dysautonomia, she would go to the top of the brain stem and try to regulate the frequency there.  Clearly, this makes sense in that the brain stem is heavily involved in autonomic regulation.  But, it’s additionally interesting in that this is also the location of the pineal gland.  It may be that the pineal gland is strongly implicated in both neurological dysregulation and psychic opening.

In her book, Bruyere points out that when higher frequencies of energy move through us, we become less engaged in the physical, material self, and more involved with subtler aspects of self.  Also, it is through the higher frequencies that we operate in the esoteric world (p. 65).  You can see how an abrupt shift to higher frequencies than those to which you are accustomed might increase psi, but might also make you feel less physical, less grounded, more airy, more vibratory – and you can see how this would be anxiety-provoking.

I’m inclined to see all physical and mental illness as an attempt to correct being off track.  In this sense, they are all Kundalini risings or shamanic initiatory illnesses.  But, maybe neurological problems represent a specific sub-type of Kundalini rising / shamanic initiatory illness.

I’m also inclined to see psychic development as a universal potential available to everybody, but, anecdotally, one does hear more often of a link between neuro damage and psi opening, as opposed to say, cancer and psi opening.  Also, there are clearer parallels between Kundalini / shamanic illness and neurological disorder than there are between K. / shamanic and non-neuro ailments.  Kundalini and neuro are both very electrical, and involve the spine.  K. often has neuropathy and sensory disturbances.  Shamanic illnesses are infamous for having disordered cognition and emotion.

Why on Earth would energy healing work less well on an ailment which might be particularly connected to psi???

Who are you?

--- There is more than one self or self-part

Perhaps part of the answer lies in the fact that neurological problems may be more inextricably linked with self than other ailments are.  People tend to experience cancer as an alien invader.  Even with auto-immune disorders, I have not heard the people in those communities focus so much on the illness as, say, an attack by the self on itself.  But, being on the inside of a neurological injury or disorder is supremely confusing.  In this ailment community, we spend countless hours debating among ourselves what’s “us” and what’s “not us.”

Neurological injuries and illnesses tend to take your pre-existing psychological dynamics and then exaggerate them.  They also seem to temporarily undo years of psychotherapy or other psychological healing and maturation work, and return you to your early psychology.  Yet, there are also emotions that are common in all neurological ailments – such as rage and anxiety -- and these are truly not stemming only from your psychological history.

In short, in a neurological ailment, you can have thoughts, perceptions, or feelings that might be 10% psychological and 90% neurological; 90% psychological and 10% neurological; and everything in between.  And you never quite know which it is at any given moment!

In the interview, Bruyere said that the nervous system is very paradoxical, more so than any other system in the body.  “It holds parts together that could in no way communicate without it.”  This is an intriguing statement and it may apply to the physical level – say, helping different organs coordinate – and to the psychological level – the case of multiple personality may be the most extreme end of a spectrum which we all are on – and to the spiritual level – there may be many parts of the self – reincarnations, the personal conscious, the personal unconscious, the collective unconscious, the infinite self, etc.

It is very common both in neurological disorders and in Kundalini to feel that there are two selves – the more familiar self; and a newer, wilder, apparently dysfunctional, and certainly suffering self.

--- Need for stability

Even granted that consciousness exists throughout the body, in a field around the body, and non-locally, the neurological system is still the central seat of the self while we’re here on Earth.  So, the nervous system has good reason to resist change; its stability is important for a stable sense of self. 

--- Complexity

Neurological injuries and illnesses can be among the slowest to heal in the modern, Western medical paradigm as well.  One of the reasons is that the nervous system is vastly more complex than any other part of the body.  There are more “moving parts” to fix.

The brain has about 100 billion neurons.  A typical neuron has 1,000 to 10,000 synaptic connections to other neurons.  That’s an average of 100 trillion synapses (10 ^ 14) (Wiki).  By comparison, we each have more synapses than there are stars in our galaxy, or galaxies in the observable universe (decodethemind.wordpress.com).

Repairing a broken bone is much simpler.

Dysautonomia and energy healing

Here is another possible answer to why energy healing (psi) may be less effective on neurological problems even though psi and neuro seem to be particularly connected.  Maybe it’s *because* they’re so connected.

Bruyere said two things that may provide some clues to the relationship between energy healing and neurological problems.  She said that doing too much healing in general caused her to have dysautonomia.  And, she said that when she’s doing neurological healing in particular it stimulates her own nervous system in a way that working on non-neuro ailments does not (electrical charge, hands vibrating, hyperesthesia).

There are many different forms of neurological problem.  Not all involve dysautonomia by any means, but dysautonomia is a far more common component of many neurological conditions than has been realized.  It is dysregulation of the autonomic nervous system and can express itself in many different ways – heartbeat and blood pressure irregularities, vertigo, anxiety, derealization, visual disturbances, hyperesthesia, neuropathy, seizure, migraine, and more. 

Usually, we think of dysautonomia as being caused by some sort of neurological incident – toxic exposure, virus, blunt force, tumor, etc.  But, Bruyere, herself, gives us an example of someone who developed the syndrome from “overuse” of psi.  If someone with established psi ability can somehow overuse their psi and develop dysautonomia, then maybe a psi neophyte’s abrupt psychic opening could cause them to develop dysautonomia.

Perhaps there is a bi-directional relationship between the nervous system and psi – too much psi causes neurological problems, and neurological problems open a person to too much psi.

Some disassembly required

This leads us back to Bruyere’s observation that, with neurological problems in general, it is important for the healer not to just add energy – even well-intentioned – into the system, but rather to be respectful of the energy pattern that is going on and try to smooth it out.

Let us, for the sake of argument, accept the following propositions:  1) that all physical and mental illness is an attempt to correct being off track, 2) that neurological problems are more inextricably linked with self than other ailments are, and 3) that psi undergirds who we really are, with more advanced psi being even more who we really are.

If these premises are true, then what we may be looking at in the case of the resistance of neurological problems to energy (psi) healing is 1) an attempt – driven by the personal unconscious and / or the Tao and / other forces – to become *much* more truly one’s self.  But, 2) the existing self is afraid of being remodeled.  And, 3) healing is experienced as interfering with the nascent self.

It is a titanic struggle for an adult to go through a profound reconfiguring of the self.  There will be resistance, terror, and rage.  The existing self-structure has to be dismantled.  Both because of the dismantlement itself, and because of the inevitable resistance to it, there will be chaos.  Initially, the newly emerging self will seem wild and dysfunctional, and probably is in some ways, but maybe not as much as it appears.  A psi opening will be part of becoming more of who one is supposed to be, but it will initially be very threatening.

The juxtaposition between a highly stable, complex psychophysiological edifice and a cosmic shove to change in a big way = "Fasten your seat belts. It's going to be a bumpy [dark] night [of the soul]."

In a book on the Brahmanic roots of Buddhist meditation, the Buddhism scholar Alexander Wynne wrote something that might jibe with this thesis.  He said that ancient Indian meditation theory included a complex developmental model that instructed practitioners to slowly dismantle their identifications with aspects of physical and mental self, and approach stepwise the original state of the cosmos.  They reversed cosmogony.

Wynne wrote:  “Thus it seems that the most basic presupposition of the early Brahmanic passages on meditation is that the creation of the world must be reversed, through a series of meditative states, by the yogin who seeks the realization of the self” (Wynne, p. 36).

Now, in the case of neurological problems, the individual is not consciously, voluntarily, or slowly working toward transformation.  Instead, accident or injury seems to initiate a rather heartless, it’s-for-your-own-good transformation.  So, understandably, an individual is going to be more afraid and resistant.

On top of that, such an individual may also intuitively resist healing if it is or might be an imposition -- even well-intentioned -- of the healer’s self on the ailing person’s nascent, wild, emerging, confused self.  The nascent self may be currently chaotic and not usable, but there is something important there to be protected.  This may be part of what makes neurological problems a greater challenge for energy healers.  It’s analogous to the way that many psychotherapists can help many people, but fewer psychotherapists are able to help the more chaotic, deeply shaken people – including people in spiritual emergency -- who require greater precision.

A Summoning

We may be seeing more and more neurological damage, and we're going to have to stretch to develop healing methods for it. 

Traumatic brain injury is the signature injury of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and people are surviving it more; powerful, new drugs in many categories have neuro-toxic side effects; the increasing toxic load of the planet is contributing to developmental disorders in children and Parkinson’s in younger and younger people; the population is aging; etc.  An epidemic may be emerging.

Furthermore, Gaia or the Tao or the collective unconscious may be enlisting these neurological injuries in the service of more rapid evolution to solve our pressing planetary crisis.

Hopefully, energy healers, alternative health practitioners, and parapsychologists will take up the challenge of better understanding and healing neurological disorder and injury.

It may be possible to use insights from neurological recovery to help people open up psychically, and it may be possible to use insights from psi development to help people heal neurologically.

Sources:

Bruyere, R.  (1994).  Wheels of light:  Chakras, auras, and the healing energy of the body.  New York:  Simon & Schuster.

http://www.rosalynlbruyere.org/

Davidson, S. Interview with Rosalyn Bruyere.  http://www.saradavidson.com/articleA7.html

Haramein, N.  (2011).  The power of spin.  The Resonance Project.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tu62gxrZm0g&feature=channel&list=UL

Wang, A.  (2011).  Interview with Rosalyn Bruyere. 

http://blog.safehavenhealing.net/2011/08/adele-inteviews-rosalyn-bruyere-part-1.html

Wynne, A.  (2007).  The origin of Buddhist meditation.  Abingdon, Oxon:  Routledge.

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