One area from the metaphysics and alternative healing fields that is receiving greater recognition and is valuable for us to take note of, is energy healing. Our world today has grown in leaps and bounds to become more open-minded to alternative healing modalities and the book The Energy Cure illustrates the amazing potential of this field. With the plethora of research presented, we no should not be missing out on what can be one of the most powerful and natural healing methods for any condition out there.
Energy healing is a completely non-invasive, natural healing modality that works with the natural composition of the body. It comes without side-effects or interactions. It is based on the quantum physics foundation that we are energy at our essence (all matter is vibrational energy). Hence, when our energy becomes depleted or unbalanced, manifesting as various physical, mental or emotional imbalances, this is where energy healing may offer great help.
My personal interest in energy healing goes back to my teen years. I heard about it here and there, and it always stayed in my awareness, but at the back of my mind. I experimented with my own energy field a few times, but it was really only in the past few years, where my dedicated interest in this field blossomed. This is why I was very eager to read and review The Energy Cure: Unraveling the Mystery of Hands-On Healing.
About the Author
The Energy Cure: Unraveling the Mystery of Hands-On Healing is written by Dr. William Bengston and was newly released in the fall of 2010. It was written in collaboration with Sylvia Fraser.
Bengston has a PhD in sociology and is a professor of sociology at St.Joseph’s College in New York. He comes to the field of energy healing, not from the background of a medical professional or New Age junkie, but as a researcher. William has over 35 years of experience with energy healing, through laboratory, clinical and anecdotal research.
Bengston has become one of today’s leading researchers into the mystery and power of energy medicine. Bengston has publications in the Journal of Scientific Exploration, the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, and Explore. In addition, he has lectured widely throughout the United States and Europe.
For more information on William Bengston and his work, please visit his site Bengston Research.
About the Format
The Energy Cure: Unraveling the Mystery of Hands-On Healing is over 280 pages. It is composed of an introduction, 18 chapters, two appendix sections and research notes. The chapters are as follows:
- Chapter 1 – A Remarkable Encounter
- Chapter 2 – Maid to Order
- Chapter 3 – Breakthrough
- Chapter 4 – The Healings
- Chapter 5 – The Sorcerer’s Apprentice
- Chapter 6 – Crossroads
- Chapter 7 – Of Mice and Men
- Chapter 8 – Too Good to Be True
- Chapter 9 – Enigmas
- Chapter 10 – Time Out
- Chapter 11 – More Moonlighting with Mice
- Chapter 12 – From the Casebook
- Chapter 13 – Eureka!
- Chapter 14 – Talking to Machines
- Chapter 15 – “Why Haven’t You Won a Nobel Prize?”
- Chapter 16 – Farewell
- Chapter 17 – Looking Back, Looking Forward
- Chapter 18 – Touching the Source
The first appendix includes a well laid out section on “How to apply hands-on healing.” The second appendix includes a very informative research guide.
Book Content & Personal Commentary
The Energy Cure is a book written as part memoir and part the sharing of scientific research methods in the fields of energy healing. Aside from being science based, it reminded me very much in style and content, of Walking Through Walls, by Philip Smith, featuring the remarkable work of his father, Lew Smith.
It is not a book that one cannot put down while reading, but a book that one does not want to put down. The storyline weaves through very coherently and captivates the reader to want to continue on. And even though the book has quite a bit of science weaved into it, it is still a very easy and enjoyable read. It is easy to read it in one sitting, within the span of 1 day.
Both tribal and Eastern healers traditionally diagnose disease as an imbalance in a person’s mind/body/spirit, or in that person’s relationship to his or her society and environment.
William Bengston, The Energy Cure
The book starts off with William going back to his early 20’s, explaining where and how his interest in the field of energy healing came about. In fact the first third of the book is dedicated to the initial journey, which is very entertaining to read. This is where the reader gets to meet Bennett Mayrick, a quirky man with an exceptional talent in both the telepathic and energy healing areas, who greatly changed the course of William’s life.
The next two thirds of the book are quite elaborate explanations of William’s personal journey and research with energy healing. This includes countless experiments that William had the opportunity to run in controlled laboratory settings, using the scientific method. William’s laboratory experiments were all conducted on lab mice injected with lethal cancers. The results William discovered are nothing short of astonishing! With not only an almost 100% success healing rate taking place, putting the mice into full remission, but also a future immunity to cancer.
Alongside the success and celebrations, William also shares his struggles and challenges as his story unfolds. One may think that people who need any kind of healing would be lining up, tripping over each other to be healed or not have to go the invasive traditional route, but that was hardly the case. In fact the biggest shock for William and myself alike, came in William’s explanations of the hostility, or anger people who became healed exhibited. Bennet Mayrick perfectly summed up his own healing work, which also became a prophecy for William’s work, in the following lines:
“The truth is, a lot sick people don’t really want to get better, despite what they say. They enjoy the attention their illness gives them, or maybe they just want an excuse to get out of their responsibilities. The people I treat successfully will resent me, the medical profession will scorn me, and I’ll be regarded as a freak.”
Likewise, the scorn, resentfulness, ridicule and spite of the scientific and medical community were not in short demand either. As William recounts his story, he shares numerous examples of doctors or researchers impeding further research or healing, especially once they saw the promising results. Some going as far as forcing their patients into radiation or surgery, even though all tests showed the patient was cancer free.
Why would professionals, devoted to easing the suffering of their patients, reject a method so effective, so inexpensive, and so free of damaging side effects?
William Bengston, The Energy Cure
Throughout the book, William constantly reminds us that from the first day to this very day, 35 years later, he has been and remained a skeptic. All his personal, clinical and laboratory work shows energy healing through the laying-on of hands works, but how it works is still a great mystery even to William. In fact today, 35 years later, he has more questions, than answers.
To date, William himself has had tremendous success healing cancer, most specifically the most aggressive cancers. He has healed all sorts of cancers, aches, pains and other diseases. His limitations, for reasons unknown to him at this time, lie with conditions like diabetes or arthritis, where he is able to improve the condition for the patient, but not heal it completely.
Other fascinating areas the book explores are distance energy healing and charging objects like cotton or water to contain healing properties. The only part of the book I personally did not agree with or would not want to see come to fruition, is the making of a literal vaccine from the immunity built up by the cancer healed mice, as I feel those are causing enough problems in our world to date. I know there are other factors to consider, and other ways people can be helped or healed, without ever going the vaccine route and making the drug companies interested in taking this into their own hands.
Finally, one of the author’s greatest intentions is to be able to teach the laying-on of hands healing method to others, and enable them to be able to heal as well. While he provides a small foundation for this in an appendix at the back of the book, he also provides a CD course. Readers whose interest was peaked or are serious about trying energy healing themselves can also take advantage of a 6 CD course that William has made available. You can read my review of William’s Hands-On Healing Course here.
Conclusion
The book is no doubt exciting to read, as our minds open up just a little bit more into all that is possible. It is full of hope and promise, as this field has the potential to completely transform the entire medical system, and hence how we view health and disease. However, the book is also very realistic, sharing the disappointments and challenges our modern world presents, in resisting this field from almost every angle.
To read this book, you do not have to know about energy healing, have faith or belief in it or even like it. You just have to be open minded and ready for a science infused story. In fact the author himself explains that it is always best to stay an open minded skeptic. He advises that it is best to not be a believer or disbeliever, as both of those can limit our personal potential and that of this field.
All things being equal, the less people believed, the faster the healings happened.
William Bengston, The Energy Cure
Thus I feel, the book will appeal most to anyone who is open minded and/or skeptical about the field of energy healing. Whether you are very familiar with energy healing, or want to learn more about it, if you would like the topic approached from a critical analysis and scientific view, this is very much the book for you.
I think it will appeal the least to any New Age audiences who are only captivated by spiritual experiences, or anecdotal evidence, without any interest in concrete research or science. As well, people who are very closed minded, or have their sense of identify too vested in the current medical system, will most likely not resonate with this book either.
In conclusion, I applaud William for the amazing dedication and work he has done over the past 35 years. It has been a pleasure to share his latest work with you, and I myself am excited to continue my personal exploration of this field further.
One general truth I have learned through hands-on healing is how out of touch many people are with their bodies.
William Bengston, The Energy Cure
The Energy Cure is easily available from online book stores, such as Amazon.com (below).