The Reconnection: Heal Others, Heal Yourself [Paperback]

Whether you're a sceptic about healing or a believer, take a closer look at "The Reconnection". I'd even say, since this book crossed your path, you might consider that it has a message for you. It certainly had one for me! I've always been a bit sceptical about New Age stuff, and healing? - well, I thought, you had to be born with a gift or something. Then I stumbled over "The Reconnection", ordered it without knowing why and read it straight through. Eric Pearls style is direct, easy and very down-to-earth. The latter is what makes it so refreshing to read. Eric Pearl throws all your limitating thoughts about the "right technique", the "right attitude" and other do's and dont's over board. Thanks to an adventurous soul here in Norway, a friend who attended all three Reconnection courses, I was lucky to receive several Reconnective healings and the Reconnection itself. The energy or life force Eric Pearl is talking about is for real and accessible to anyone - and although it grew stronger with each step, it actually started with reading the book! So go ahead - take a leap of faith and order it!

I agree entirely with the author's belief that we all have healing abilities and need to tune into them.

My confusion stems from an apparent contradiction: on the one hand, the author warms many times about the danger of allowing ego to interfere with the healing energies. On the other hand, a lot of the book comes over as being an go trip, in particular the way in which he so roundly criticises and dismisses other forms of healing. Perhaps this is just a reflection of the difference between US and UK styles of communication.

If you want an insight into one person's approach to healing, and his personal journey, this is a good read; however, I found some of it problematic. A much more rounded book is Doreen Virtue's 'The Lightworkers Way'.

I am interested in all types of healing and have investigated dozens, maybe hundreds, over the last 25 years. The first part of the book emphasises how very special the author is. Almost one-third of the book repeats this. He is not just special; he is very special.

So much for the first part of the book, the personality. The second half of the book is entirely different. It contains many nuggets. He provides many guidelines and pearls (please forgive the unintended pun) that can be invaluable for anyone seriously interested in this path.

The author's advice on dealing with clients, length of time, follow-up visits, mind states of the practitioner, and beliefs associated with such work are spot on. It takes many years to learn much of this on your own. On the other hand, the book (and the presentation I attended) had a marked lack of respect for the ways of other healing practices. Much of it is well deserved as so much of "new age" beliefs are rank superstition but Pearl's casual dismissal of all other time-tested healing modalities as passe and low-rent is suspicious: apparently only his newly discovered system has any value.

Shortly after reading the book, two years ago, I attended an introductory presentation by Pearl, who is intelligent and amusing, and who demonstrated his method. Whilst it did not seem very different from other spiritual/energy healing methods, it did appear to be worth pursuing.

The Reconnection website has a section marked "take your practice and prosperity to the next level". I have no objection to prosperity and am myself not on the breadline, as so many "new age" people seem to be. What put me off Reconnection is the cost to be "connected" (or "activated" or maybe it should be "anointed"?). What none of the gushing reviewers here seem willing to tell you is the cost of a session for The Reconnection®: 333.00 Euros (and, you are assured, "The price of the Reconnection® has been set by Dr Eric Pearl, so the amount charged is the same for all practitioners worldwide.").

One "practitioner's" website states "The healings occur outside of the constraints of time and space, so more time is not better." Despite this, it goes on: "The Reconnection® consists of two sessions, generally 40-50 mins in length, and ideally on consecutive or alternate days." Anyone else notice the contradiction here?

Just one month later I met a couple (we were all at a different weekend workshop) who were into this Reconnection lark and who advised that payment is considered part of the healing! The man (an unskilled manual worker) had been "activated" first, via the seminars (not cheap - $900 in Europe/$550 in the US for "level I/II" weekend and $750 in the US/$1250 in Europe for "level III" weekend), and his girlfriend (a virtually unemployed single mother) had actually paid him the full "Reconnection" charge to "activate" her! It seems that Pearl "sells" life force energy...and basically uses a pyramid scheme to market it at his seminars.

What became clear, having then contacted several other "practitioners" of Reconnection, was that they were all unskilled (at least the ones I was able to get in touch with) and would have trouble getting any job paying more than minimum wage. (While this is not PC, it is reality.) So, how does just taking two 2-day workshops and an "activation" enable anyone to start charging 150 Euros per hour? Nice work, if you can get it.

You need not attend any class, seminar or even read any book to heal. You are a healer whether you consciously know this or not. Your hands are already activated. You need not seek out anyone to activate them. There is no right or wrong way but, if you want to learn more about energy healing, the most genuine group would seem to be the The Healing Trust (the new working name of NFSH).