I’m sure you’ve seen it. Someone posts that they’re sick and suddenly a landslide of people start commenting stating that they’re sending healing or reiki or prayers. “Sending healing vibes, prayers and magick!” I had recently discussed the ethics of psychic readings so I thought it would be the perfect time to discuss the ethics of healing real quick. I recently had to reschedule an upcoming workshop because I was sick but I didn’t announce it on my social media like people often do.

Almost all of these people are well meaning, but often I see these responses without the person asking for healing. So why would distant healing energy or magick without permission be a problem without their consent? I’m sure we’ve all come across those Christians who state that they’ll pray for us because they feel we’re going down the wrong path. They may even convince themselves that they’re doing this out of concern or love when really they’re doing it from a place of judgement and as a way of trying to restrict our own freewill. Likewise, sometimes healing energy comes from a place of pity or sadness, which I honestly do believe effects the energy that’s being sent.

When you decide to override someone’s free will you are psychically attacking them. Period. Let me say that one more time for the people in the back. When you decide to override someone’s free will you are psychically attacking them. You are sending them energy that is out of alignment with their own sovereignty and right to choose what is best for them. This goes for healing too, just because you’d assume they’d want healing doesn’t mean that they do.

There are several reasons to consider in regards to why someone might not want your healing. One is that they simply may not have confidence in your healing ability or magick. There are a lot of sloppy magicians and healers out there. I have also known magickal practitioners that will do a cursing or a binding and not do any formal purifications and cleansings afterwards! This is like dipping your hands in poison and then offering to give someone a massage.

There’s also a lot of people who honestly believe their ability is greater than it is or may have a misunderstanding of energy itself. For example, in most Reiki training it’s taught that Reiki can never harm. What is taught in most Reiki training is that Reiki comes from Source, so it’s always good. But wait, I’m not so sure about this, in Reiki isn’t all energy from Source? Isn’t radiation from Source? Radiation can heal by sometimes killing cancer, but you also don’t want to be constantly blasted with high doses of it, especially if you don’t need it.

I’m not trying to bash Reiki. I myself am a certified and trained Reiki Master among other energy healing modalities. I do value receiving a good Reiki healing session from a practitioner that I trust. As such, I understand that even if Reiki was purely positive energy we do sometimes see side effects because it can remove blockages and those blockages aren’t always fun to have removed. People’s temperature can change. People can have an emotional breakdown or a mental breakdown. I have also witnessed healing energy have the effect of weakening medication.

Reiki can also be hard to control when it comes to the amount of energy that’s being sent once the symbols are activated and the energy is flowing. That’s because there’s essentially an on-switch and off-switch for specific types of healing and a distance symbol. The inability to have full control of Reiki energy can cause an overload of energy which can be particularly bad if the person is going through magickal impact.

Magickal impact is when for whatever reason a person has been working with energy levels too strong for them to handle, regardless of if they’re grounding energy properly or not. Through initiations and attunements (both from other people and personal ones from Spirit) we gain an ability to handle energy differently. I have had magickal impact in the past from overloading my body with magickal workings that are too strong. Essentially it’s a mix of feel electrocuted, like you’ve been whiplashed in a bad car accident and having flu symptoms all at once. It’s not a fun feeling and luckily I have a mentor who knew exactly how to handle this. Trust me, it’s not a fun experience though.

The last thing someone wants when going through magickal impact is more energy. You never know what the person is going through in regards to their interaction with energy. The person may also be pregnant. While I have obviously never been pregnant, I have heard from many women who have been and their logic makes sense. The developing fetus can be very sensitive to energy. If full grown adults can be overloaded by energy and impacted in a negatively way – that tolerance is much lower for a fetus that is still dependent upon their mother. A fantastic book that deals with magickal impact and how to deal with it is Magical Healing: A Health Survival Guide for Magicians and Healers by Josephine McCarthy. I really think every occultist should have this book in their library, and it should be required reading for any occultist.Sometimes illness is a lesson or a message. For example, this time getting sick was definitely a message from not listening to my body. I was pushing myself too hard and neglecting sleep and other self care. Then I passed out suddenly and slept for about 3 hours. I had a dream that I had to keep going and someone kept telling me to slow down and sleep. When I woke up, I had scolded myself for my laziness and went back to going full speed mode. The next day I got sick. My body was literally forcing me to stop and slow down because I was hurting myself. If I had received healing for this sickness, the short term damage would’ve been alleviated but the long term damage may have been worse.

Other reasons one might decline your healing is that they already have magick or healing in the works and they don’t want the energy of others interfering with the work that they’re doing. The person may also be under the constant threat of psychic attack, such as those who are publicly known witches. This means that their shields and boundaries are in place and are constantly being bombarded by energy. Throwing more energy at them, even when it’s well intentioned could overwhelm them and also cause confusion regarding their discernment of what energy is what that they feel coming at them.

We may also not want the person who’s sick or injured to pass away. We may not be ready for that emotionally or come to terms with the idea. That doesn’t mean that they haven’t or that it isn’t their time. You may even be keeping them alive but sick or in pain when they’re in this state. Your non-consensual energy healing, while you may believe it’s coming from a good place, may in fact be rooted in selfishness if we were to really reflect upon it.

Some people say that if they don’t have permission they’ll send it to the Higher Self of the person to decide. I’m not really sure where I stand on this. The only reasons you’d be unable to get permission from the person would be if they were unconscious or in a coma. So those cases are extreme and still a bit ethically ambiguous. My point isn’t to tell you not to do healing work or receive healing work. My point is to have you reconsider the idea of consent when it comes to automatically sending distant healing and the reasons why healing energy may not be wanted or desired by the individual.

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