There are many natural and safe methods of healing ourselves. Some are more effective than others. One of the oldest of these healing modalities is visualization or mental imagery.

Although the idea that the mind can exert a strong influence on the body is an ancient one, only in the last 40 years has science found the mechanism that explains how this happens.

Medical researchers and practitioners have used mental imagery or visualization to heal the body of various illnesses. However, mainstream science has not yet accepted it as a legitimate method of therapy. It still belongs to the fringes of medical practice.

A psychiatrist, Dr. Gerald Epstein, uses visualization or mental imagery the way an ordinary doctor prescribes a pill or drug to treat an illness.

In his informative book, “When the Mind Meets the Body,” author Harris Dienstfrey writes: “For Epstein, the imagery is the program. The prescriptions he writes are imagery exercises, and he writes them for all physical disorders. In his medicine, the primary and most important method of healing the body is the mind applying images.”

Although Epstein is not against prescribing the usual medications or even surgery, “He maintains that under most conditions, the mind, using imagery, can heal all ills.”

In 1989, Dr. Epstein published a book, “Healing Visualizations.”

Technique

In my Inner Mind Development Seminar, I teach participants how to use mental imagery or visualization to heal themselves. But it is somewhat different from Dr. Epstein’s method.

As Dienstfrey explains it, “Epstein’s basic technique of treating a physical disorder is simple, however elaborate the imagery. A person visualizes (or creates an image of the disorder or problem). And then, still in imagination, applies a treatment that restores the troubled area to health.

“The person does this several times a day (usually three times) for a certain member of days or until the disorder disappears. Every exercise is performed with eyes closed (while the patient is seated comfortably on a chair) and a short breathing exercise.

“The person then inwardly states the purpose of the imagery exercise. Epstein calls the purpose the ‘intention,’ whose aim is to set an inner direction. In Healing Visualizations, he lists an intention for each exercise.”

‘Reverse Face’

Let me give you a concrete example of the Epstein method for removing warts through visualization. He calls the exercise “Reverse Face”:

“Close your eyes. Breathe out three times, and find yourself at a cool, crystal clear, fresh-flowing mountain stream (or any healing body of water). See your face there (or the part with the warts) and then remove it, turn it inside out, and wash it thoroughly in the stream.

“See all the waste products as black or gray strands being carried away in the fast-flowing stream with its spiral currents. After your face (or other body part) is thoroughly washed, leave it out to dry in the sun. See it healing from the inside, looking like other healthy tissue around it. Then turn the face right side out and put it back in place, seeing that the warts have disappeared. Then open your eyes.”

The exercise is to be performed four times a day, for one to three minutes for three weeks. If warts do not clear up in that time, stop doing the exercise for a week, and then start again for another three-week period.

I have prepared a CD for my students called “Healing Yourself Through Visualization,” which is quite different from the Epstein method cited above. In our self-healing program, we do not ask the person to deliberately create an image, but merely wait for an image, coming from his subconscious mind, to appear. With this method, which was taken from various sources and summarized for easy application, we have seen individuals healed of such health conditions as sinusitis, myoma, back pain, severe headaches and migraines, skin problems, kidney stones, etc.

Healing through the use of mental imagery may not work all the time, but if a healing modality works more than 50 percent of the time, it is worth trying. The worst that could happen is that nothing happens.

The next Soulmates, Karma and Reincarnation seminar is on Jan. 26. E-mail [email protected]; tel. 0998-9886292, 8107245.