Enough With The Healing, Already!

by L. J. Williamson

Pervasive in New Age circles, I find, is discussion of "healing." And New Age spirituality seems to differ from other belief systems in its emphasis on healing and the many ways to approach it. Most religions have something to say about the body and its frailties now and again, but talk of healing doesn't seem to come up quite as often as it does over at the local metaphysical bookstore.

This makes me wonder -- are New Age people just more damaged? I mean, I respect the whole openness to different points of view, the interest in avoiding dogmatic thinking, and so forth, but why all the massaging, the ear coning, the purification rituals, the chakra alignment, the crystals, the homeopathics, the high colonics? What's the connection?

At a New Age conference in 2004, Caroline Myss upset a lot of people by getting up on the podium and saying, “I used to think we create our own reality, that our illness is only the result of our negativity. But we cannot control the whims of God. Now I believe that real negativity is the need to think in such private, personal, ridiculous terms.

“New Agers are convinced that life is a therapy experience, that you have to be fully healed before you can be courageous. Most people don't want to be fully healed or fully courageous. We're afraid of our own lives and resentful of others' lives. Don't tell yourself you're wounded—get over it! You have to develop a backbone, not a wishbone." Myss continues, “It's more of a risk to be powerful than it is to be vulnerable. The real risk is not to sabotage yourself.”

Myss hits the nail on the head for me, about what I mistrust about those who seem to be on a never-ending quest for healing. I'd like to ask these people, "Let's pretend that you were completely healed. What would you do then? And why can't you start doing it today?"

| 01/27/07 | Beliefs