Review of talk on Theta Healing with Jacqueline McGinn, Tuesday July 12th, 2016
Jacqueline gave us a description of Theta Healing and its philosophy including a short video from its founder, Vianna Stibal. She also shared her story of how she came to study Theta Healing while working in Japan, and how it has helped her to live more authentically.
In the second half of the evening, Jacqueline worked with a volunteer from the participants. We witnessed a good and helpful connection between Jacqueline and her client where Jacqueline established rapport and worked intuitively to “channel” or “down-load” a new perception or “programme” into her client’s unconscious.
Personally I admired Jacqueline’s enthusiasm and frankness, and the feedback from participants was generally positive, appreciating the clarity of the presentation, the way the speaker kept us interested and involved, and the value of the practical demonstration.
The map of the world and the psyche that Theta Healing offers can be described as firmly in the New Age camp and as such has attracted some hostility from the medical and psychological establishment, especially for its claims to be able to cure cancer and its lack of scientific rigour in making these claims. Also the training required is very short, a matter of a few days. How safe are its practitioners?
The Theta Healing map of the psyche and of spiritual dimensions is held, it seems, to be the truth (on the say so of Theta Healing’s founder) in the same way as shamans talk assuredly about the three worlds, Hindus about the seven chakras, and native Americans or Chinese with their maps of the elements. For such maps to be used as helpful metaphors is one thing. For them to be presented as the absolute and undeniable truth is another. Where most of us can agree is that there seems to be a place of insight, even healing, beyond everyday consciousness. For some this is the unconscious or the imagination, for others a transpersonal dimension. Perhaps a mixture of the two!
This evening reminded me of an HACP evening delivered some time ago by a shaman. With both the shaman and with Jacqueline we saw a confident and in many ways skilful practitioner offering a way of working that a client might well find helpful. As for the map of the world offered supporting the work, in my view both are highly doubtful, foreign to the western mind, and perhaps requiring the acquiescence, even credulity, of the client to work. I also worry about such work if it is done with particularly vulnerable clients, for example the borderline psychotic.
You can find out more about Theta Healing on www.thetahealing.com and about Jacqueline and her work on www.jacquimcginn.com
Thank you Jacqueline for an interesting and thought-provoking evening.
David Brown