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EVENING STANDARD LONDON, MONDAY, 20 APRIL, 1998
A LONDON WEEKEND
SEBASTIAN FAULKS ON ANTONI PRZECHRZTA'S HEALING WORKSHOPS
A hands-on experience that's all in the mind of a touchy-feely
Like everyone else, I thought Saturday evening must revolve around Spice Girls and keenly looked forward to Wembley and a chance to go over the old jokes-What do you call five dogs with no tail? Did you know which one they call Talented Spice? - but since no ticket could be had for love or, more surprisingly, money, I was forced to confront my feelings of inner rage and disappointment.
I therefore headed to a healing and self-healing introductory workshop. Of the many such places advertised in Time Out and elsewhere, the one I went to was the Life Centre in Edge Street, Kensington.
"Never trust a venture which requires you to remove your shoes", my Uncle Bernard used to say, happy to rule out trampolining, wife-swapping and world-wide Islam in one go. Or one which asks you to sit cross-legged, I might have added, as I strained to fold knees stiffened by 20 years of park football.
We were in a dance studio seated round a single candle. In addition to our teacher Antoni Przechrzta, there were five women and me sitting in a circle on green cushions. As we each introduced ourselves and said what we had come to find, it became clear that four of the five already had some experience of such matters.
The odd one out was a nonsense pragmatist. "I'm. a very physical person", she said. "I wanted to see if there was anything in it, or whether it was all in the mind." Antoni told us all about universal energy, the seven openings of the body and our individual auras. The Pragmatist nodded politely, but I think she really wanted a miracle right there, or her money back.
Then there was some deep, deep breathing, through the nose-hold it at the pit of the stomach, then out again. In came light and energy, ..I had a moment of panic out went irritation and negative thoughts. Bye-bye Sporty, Scary, Ginger...Then we had to picture a beautiful five-year old child: we were to hold this child to our bosom, tell it that we loved it and would look after it always. It was ourselves when young.
In through the nose, down to the diaphragm, hold it...I had a moment of panic: it was eight o'clock and I didn't know how the Hammers had fared at home to Blackburn Rovers. But I quickly breathed out the unworthy anxiety. Gone.
Then we opened our palms and forced out energy through out hands into a circle, where we willed it to love and comfort those in need. I pictured the various recipients suddenly feeling a jolt of healing force. I hoped they weren't draining boiled vegetables at the critical moment.
Then it was time for a little healing. We were first told to sense the energy flowing from our hands as we continued the deep breathing. Antoni came round and checked the flow. My hands came in for particular commendation. "Yes, you could do a lot of healing", he said, as he put his own hand close and sensed the heat that radiated from my calloused palms.
We then paired off for healing. A nice women knelt behind me and laid her hands on my shoulders. Under Antoni's instruction the healers willed energy through the various openings of the patient's body, through the head, the heart and so on, lightly touching where necessary.
I felt pleasantly relaxed in the gloom, though still a little worried about events at Upton Park. Then we swapped and it was my turn to heal. I knelt behind a rather personable young woman, who closed her eyes as I breathed in deeply and willed the energy through my fingers into her supple shoulders, then through the opening of her freshly shampooed head. "Now, through the heart", said Antoni. I didn't think I could risk the heart.
The last exercise in this rapid introduction was an attempt to see each other's aura. More deep breathing first, this time accompanied by a long, buzzing chant of "Ommmmmm". Next we were to gaze into the candle flame and then at the head of the person we had chosen.
My subject's head remained stubbornly unilluminated, though I stared as hard as I could. Two others reported that they had seen smudges of light about their chosen people and Antoni described what these might mean and how to see them better.
He had been looking at me. "You have a very powerful aura", he reported: "Very complex. It is all purple behind your head. Some powerful event has recently happened and you are struggling to be rid of it. But you cannot manage yet. Don't worry. There is plenty of healing in your spirit." Which was nice.
The most spiritually gifted healer, apparently, was Alex, the Standard photographer, who had joined in some what reluctantly. When his snapping days are over he would appear to have a big future in the old healing game.
Then we all went home. And The Pragmatist? Is there "something in it or is it all in the mind"? I couldn't say, but I'm. sure she's got the wrong question. If there is something to it, then it must be because it is all in the mind. Where else would it be?
Sebastian Faulks
Health and Healing by Hilary Heuler and Agnieszka Le Nart
The Warsaw Insider explores the realm of alternative medicine in Poland
Self help
Following a tip from a colleague, I went to visit Przechrzta, a spiritual healer trained in the UK and based in London and Warsaw. He teaches classes on spiritual healing, intuition, clairvoyance and astral travel - which consists of projecting your consciousness into other planes - and meditation, including training in how to enter "more subtle states of being," which are intended to make individuals more receptive to the spiritual and physical world around them.
One of the exercises that Przechrzta teaches involves trying to visualize an object in a closed box. Przechrzta says that people find it difficult at first, but by the end of the class 70% are getting it right. And as for looking into the future? "I can never be 100% sure about the signs I get about the future," he admits. But he does think the information he gets is there to prepare him somehow. "And once you practice, you get lots of signs, non-stop," he adds.
Sitting in a clairvoyance class one day, Antoni Przechrzta asked his students about the images they were seeing. That day they were bizarre, surreal - images of planes flying into tall buildings. "At the time, I didn't have enough experience with this, and I tried to stop them from making things up," Przechrzta says. That was 2001, and several days later, two planes exploded into the World Trade Centre in New York.
Przechrzta originally trained as a sculptor, and worked for years in London and Vienna. But, he says, "there was always a spiritual aspect to my work." 18 years ago he began practicing spiritual healing and clairvoyance. He found British techniques learnt in SAGB archaic and difficult to follow, and set out to create teaching methods that would make his lessons more accessible.
These days, Przechrzta runs licensed courses of Spiritual Healing for NFSH: National Federation of Spiritual Healing: The Healing Trust UK and heads up the Polish Association of Spiritual Healers (PSDU). People come to him seeking treatment for everything from kidney problems and nervous disorders to cancer. He told me he's managed to achieve some pretty spectacular
results - after a series of sessions, one woman claims to have had her breast cancer disappear completely. Przechrzta's classes are in Polish and English, but he also understands very well German. They generally run for two full days.
I breezed into one of these sessions late and left early because of an overload of work at the office, but found Przechrzta and his students a welcoming group. The meditation exercise was pleasant and I even found myself close to laughing out loud when urged to visualize a personal image of absolute happiness. Even the fast-track healing exercise left my aching neck suspiciously devoid of pain. In fact, as Przechrzta's hands hovered a few inches from my neck, a pesky thread of tension and discomfort seemed to magically escape and vanish into thin air. A pleasant vibrating energy accompanied all my limbs as I rushed back to the office, energized to the max.
The concept of spiritual healing may sound peculiar to some, but it's got quite a following. He says, people who pray
regularly are often better at things like spiritual healing than those who are less in-touch with the non-physical world. "Healing can be seen as a form of prayer to God" he adds.
So is there anything to it? I don't know, but I intend to attend a few more classes and check it out. If nothing else, these classes are a way for people to manage deep-rooted emotions and improve their lives - much like meditation.
And hey, if you learn to see the future as well, all the better!
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