Other Previous Newsletters

ClifNotes 7

– it’s not really a newsletter – just random notes and feedback from IA (Intention In Action) practitioners.

Most of us have had at least one strange happening in our lives. Usually we dismiss these things as not true or too odd to share with others. Think about it for a moment. Isn’t it so?

Well, I’ve got a library of these events!

In 1981 I’d just moved from Perth, Western Australia to Sydney. New to the city and the suburb, I urgently needed to see a dentist and naturally I started out by strolling along the nearby shops. I found three dentists there but of course I had no idea which would be the best or which I should choose so I picked the one nearest home. It was already Friday afternoon so I was surprised and happy that he could see me first thing Monday morning. All I knew he’d see me, I didn’t even check his name!

You can imagine I was again surprised when I arrived Monday morning to find he wasn’t expecting me. He had a puzzled look as he said, “But your wife rang yesterday, Sunday, and told my wife that you wouldn’t be able to keep the appointment.” At that time I didn’t have a partner let alone a wife! How could I have known his private phone, where he lived or even his name. I chose another dentist after that!

How would you feel if one day you found that you lived almost ‘next door’ to David Helfgott – the legendary Australian pianist whose life was made famous by “Shine”? He and his wife Gillian live in the “Promised Land”, a beautiful property 35 minutes away from us. Coming to his concert we felt as if we were part of that movie ourselves. Everything was awesome about his concert. Awesome feeling being touched by David Helfgott when you sit in the aisle waiting for his concert to begin. Unexpectedly he ran his hands through my hair (I didn’t know he was coming) and I felt a powerful surge of energy coming from him.

The enormous heat in the village community hall with not the slightest movement of the huge fans clipped to the wall - the public and pianist sweating together. The passion and build up of energy in the music. The furious, complicated and demanding “Sabre Dance” by Khatchaturian which we both love and every time we hear it we want to dance.

And then there is something else about Helfgott, at first not clear, but so familiar – of course, it is his constant muttering, whispering, nodding, having a conversation with somebody who isn’t visible. Both of us looked at each other and asked at the same time, “Do you think that there is somebody else around him?”

It’s as though he is not with you at all, something else moves his hands along the keys. Each time he finishes a piece, he leaps up and finds people to kiss or hug or shake hands with as though desperately looking for reciprocal love. As though knowing he will never find that ‘something’ he lost through the trauma of his childhood. What a mystery this person is, what a mystery he could’ve become if only being liberated from those “other people around him”?

From Martin Wessels, IH practitioner in Holland: For several weeks my daughter was waking up 5 to 6 times a night because her teeth were coming through.

Then for the last several days I have just put my hands on her shoulders for a few minutes just before her bedtime, for the last 5 nights she has slept right through from 8 p.m. till 8 a.m.!

Every morning we climb to the top of a coastal headland overlooking the sea with three islands catching the bright dawning sun. On our left, to the north, we look down into a bay where dolphins mate with delightful exuberance; you can see them leaping up into the air, tails flicking around the foaming water. To the south is a 10 km deserted beach. Here they gather to give birth. But the most amazing sight we have ever seen is watching a six-foot (two meter) kangaroo surfing! We watched from our eagle’s perch as he would catch wave after wave. Leaping further and further into deeper water as the waves came at him! He’d float back in with a wave, then go out again and again! A surfing kangaroo for goodness sakes!

From Karina: By the way, I have also a little success story to tell. A couple of weeks ago I gave a hands on only healing session (i.e. no massage etc), and as always remembered what you taught about what one could think about, like the shopping list etc, which I did. The next day I noticed that my arm which had been very sore for over 3 months to the point I could hardly lift up my little boy, didn’t hurt at all anymore and still does not.

We (mostly Galina) prepared the following paper for a presentation and I think it describes IH as clearly as it has ever been explained:

Hello,
My name is Clif Sanderson and I would like to introduce myself and to share some ideas with you. I am looking forward to hearing about your experiences and hope that we’ll have an open and productive discussion which could be mutually beneficial.

I was born in New Zealand in the family of a Methodist minister and a nurse. I was the 4th child among 6 siblings. I was in advertising and film-making until the moment I realised that there was more to life than promoting new models of washing machines! I then traveled the world learning healing techniques from Polynesian, Filipino, American Indian, Brazilian and Siberian healers and from my fellow countrymen.

In 1990 life presented me with the unique opportunity to be involved with the victims of the Chernobyl disaster. I was invited by a Belorussian film director - Galina Lascova - to work In the Minsk Haematological Children’s hospital.

You can call it synchronicity or destiny, but while we were working together in the hospital wards, we fell in love. Together we witnessed the despair of the mothers whose children were dying from leukemia, but at the same time we were able to bring hope and a strong chance of survival for the many of them.

We got married and moved to the United States, but we couldn’t forget the suffering of the people we’d met and shortly after that formed an international charity organisation which took us back to Belarus and Russia every year for seven years. We provided computers and medical supplies and we conducted scientific research into bio-energetic methods of treating radiation-related illnesses. But what was equally important, was that we taught doctors and nurses to have a different approach to illness and our work contributed to the acceptance of bio-energetic techniques as an equal part of the Russian medical system. As a result of this work I was awarded the Albert Schweitzer Prize for Humanitarian Service to Medicine and the Russian Ministry of Health Prize for contribution to medical science.

The data obtained during the research allowed me to write a thesis on the efficacy of Intentional Healing (IH) which won me a doctorate in Natural Medicine from the Open International University in 1992.

I am a full member of the Medical and Scientific Network (UK) and a member of the British Association of Spirit Release.

I was invited to deliver a keynote speech at two International Conferences on Cancer Research in Sydney (1994-5) and have spoken to a group of special interest people at the United Nations in New York.
Considered to be in the forefront of investigations into the use of psychoneuroimmunology, my lectures attract both medical interest and lay person’s understanding.

In public talks my subjects range from the phenomena of distant healing through ancient energy systems such as Qigong (I am a recognised teacher) to the most modern approaches to stress relief, chronic pain and mental illness.

Personal sessions have shown dramatic improvements for many people in various cultures and belief structures.

I have published three books: Two non-fiction - Dancers in the Fields and Making Outrageous Claims the results of medical research in the ex Soviet Union, and recently a spiritual/philosophical adventure novel, Earth Bound. I am also the editor of the Qigong Newsletter and the author of Clif Sanderson’s Feng Shui Home Study Course, having taught and professionally practised the art/science for more than 20 years in Hongkong, Singapore, London, Norway, etc. etc.

My articles have appeared in such magazines and periodicals as:
Townsend Letter For Doctors (USA)
Australian Wellbeing
Touch (Pittsburgh USA)
Numerous Russian publications
Holistic Medical Journal (U.K.)
etc.

I have been a presenter on Melbourne’s Golden Age radio with a weekly segment titled Science and Health.
It is exciting to talk about new approaches to health based on intention, non-attachment, letting go of the ego and the mind.

Dr. Larry Dossey, who is a prominent advocate of the use of intention and prayer in medicine, calls it Era III. Dr. J. Achterberg, a leading researcher in this field, calls it transpersonal medicine because it’s effects extend beyond the individual.

Known in medical circles as psychoneuroimmunology, Intentional Healing is based on the concept of non-local mind, meaning that there is an interconnectedness of all things in the world and myself.

Healing has been linked to spectacular recoveries which cannot be explained by medical science. It is a well-known word and unfortunately in many cases has been misused and misrepresented. I don’t like to call myself a healer; I rather prefer to see myself as my patient’s partner in the process of dealing with sickness.

A well-known concept has developed in quantum physics – whereby a practitioner’s mind/intention is understood to have a definite effect on the result of his/her experiment. In my case it means that my patient and I are not separate at any given time of being and therefore we can affect each other even at a distance.

This idea is supported by the work of Dr. Giuseppe Calligaris – who saw people as live batteries or electromagnetic generators. According to him, with our own magnetism we can feel or influence another magnetic system (human) and from that, influence the magnetic field and cell-chemistry of that organism.

Love, compassion, empathy — is often connected with a sense of oneness and unity between healer and patient. LeShan observes that, for healing to happen, “It is essential that there be a deeply intense caring and a viewing of the healee and oneself as one, as being united in a universe…in which this unity is possible.” Cambridge biologist Rupert Sheldrake proposes immaterial “morphogenetic fields” that are unbounded in space and time. Once something happens, in his view, it is more likely to be repeated in the future.

‘Intention’ is a less discovered domain and therefore needs to be explained more clearly.

Era I medicine was based completely on the usage of drugs and physical procedures; Era II became known as mind-body medicine since it implied the use of one’s conscience as a means of changing the physiological state. Era III is the domain of non-attachment, of letting go of the mind. As numerous studies show, in Era III one recognises the possibility of influencing other, distant persons. This can be done through forming an intention of being useful to others, prayer or simple creative imagery.

Eras I, II and III can peacefully co-exist. This observation is important because of the widespread tendency to compare these therapies and take uncompromising positions about which type of therapy is best. If somebody suffers from acute appendicitis the treatment of choice would be an appendectomy, an Era I therapy. But one could ask for a healing (a non-local, Era III intervention) at the same time. Surgery may have the highest success rate in managing life-threatening problems. But studies show also that prayer and intentions increase the healing rate of a surgical wound.

The New Age statement “I create my own reality” and therefore “I am responsible for my own health” comes into collision with the idea of non-duality - there is no separate consciousness and no separate, external world upon which it could operate.

Intention is an energy that has the power to manifest what you want to have happen. This occurs through consciousness by focusing on a specific purpose.

The paradox is that this is accomplished without conscious control and without effort.

The most powerful example of intent we can find is in the Bible: God said, "Let there be light," and so it was.
The energy of intention is always available to us, but we need to understand how it’s mechanism works. It functions in the field of uncertainty where there are no guarantees. The Bhagavad-Gita, the ancient Hindu epic tells us that you have to detach from the outcome of your action. The process is more important than the destination. There is a letting-go of expectation or attaining results even though the intention remains and the focus of energy stays on the present. You give up control, are willing to function in the field of uncertainty, and your concentration is on whatever you are doing in the moment. Focus and clarity arise from an insight, dream, idea, or vision of wanting something to happen. They were unanticipated and unplanned, yet they were integral to the fulfilment of the intention.

I will allow myself again to quote Dr. Larry Dossey. Dossey asks the question – “could the consciousness and loving intent of the therapist play a major role in any therapeutic modality whether it is orthodox or alternative? Or do both the consciousness of the practitioner and the tools of the particular method he uses, play a role? Do the needles of the acupuncturist or the highly diluted remedies of the homoeopath play a major role on their own, or could they mainly be props that legitimise the healing intent of the therapist?”
He describes the case of a Japanese acupuncturist who found that he could elicit anaesthesia not by actually inserting the needles into his patient, but by merely placing them on the bed alongside the body. This does not mean, of course, that acupuncture needles don’t work when they’re inserted, but that some of the effect may be attributable to the healing intentions of the acupuncturist. Further he concludes: “There may be no therapies, including pills and surgery, that are not influenced to some degree by these factors.”

And later: “Alternative therapists, like orthodox physicians, often ignore these effects. There is always the temptation to cheer on the technique itself, and to dismiss or denigrate the non-local powers of the therapist’s own mind. Perhaps we could learn something valuable from the world-class healers who throughout history have employed no paraphernalia whatever. Their experience suggests that we should try to maximise the power of healing intent in all therapies, orthodox and alternative, because of the plain fact that it is powerful, and that we should train therapists, nurses, and physicians to consciously employ it. If alternative therapists lose sight of these effects, alternative therapies risk becoming the “new penicillin” or the latest surgical fad — utilitarian tools that are inherently no different from purely physical methods.” End of quote.

I have seen that many of my patients come to me because they can’t find answers or why they are ill or what to do next. My approach to finding the cause of an illness is based on the idea that nobody can say exactly why anyone is ill. The cause could be complex and multi-layered. There could be contributing factors such as genetics, incorrect metabolism, negative thinking patterns, environmental factors, emotional disarray or spiritual confusion or a combination of all of these. And the list goes on.

We simply don’t know. And because of this not-knowing - instead of talking about a reason - it is better to create a personal experience - which has been proven to be quick and effective.

If you came to an Intentional Healing Session, what could you expect?

When you come and lie down, I would put my hands on your shoulders and the next moment you find you are relaxed. The music – ‘Mind Music’ - occupies your attention, your breathing slows down, your body becomes warm and calm, and your mind is also calm. It stops running like a crazy monkey.

This is the most natural way of being. As we know, very often it is difficult to stop it in the middle of our busy lives. Sometimes we simply forget how it is to be relaxed and happy, and we need another person who can help us. During the session your energy, or chi, is flowing smoothly to the places it’s needed mostly. Your nervous system activates the appropriate response and your immune system switches on.

From the physiological point of view, at this moment your brain goes into Alpha state, which is known as the most beneficial, healing and creative pattern. Through the day we usually operate in Beta state, but when we go to sleep or just wake up, we operate in Alpha.

Every person is unique and that’s why different things happen to different people during the healing session. The outcome or results are unpredictable.

Changes can be very subtle and happen in different areas of life. Perhaps not only the pain disappeared, but your sleep and mood improved, or you suddenly made a very important decision, or you started a dialog with your children or partner which was not easy before, or you find more pleasure in the work you are doing. Or perhaps you started seeing yourself as a more positive and powerful person and the whole meaning of life opened up for you.

The healing effect may not appear immediately, but after some time - weeks or even months.
Very often we want to be in control and think we know what changes have to happen in order for us to be healthy and happy. But do we really know? Our body, or better say, our energy, knows better than our mind. So it flows in the way which is the most appropriate, the most beneficial for us. We just need to agree that whatever happens as a result of healing, is right.

Other Previous Newsletters