Barbara Brennan School of Healing

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Barbara Brennan School of Healing

The Barbara Brennan School of Healing was founded in 1982 by Barbara Brennan, a former associate of trance channel Eva Pierrakos (1915-1979) and her husband, psychiatrist John C. Pierrakos (1921-). Eva Pierrakos had founded a system for self-transformation called the Pathwork. Her husband, who had begun his long career working with Wilhelm Reich, had been one of the founders of bioenergetics, a system of body-work, and later founded the Institute of Core Energetics. During the 1970s, Brennan worked with the couple and became an accomplished practitioner of both the Pathwork and core energetics. She developed her own private healing practice and then began to teach others.

Brennan had begun her adult life as a physicist. She earned a master's degree in atmospheric physics and worked for a time at the Goddard Space Flight Center near Washington, D.C. She became a leader in the Pathwork and one of the first graduates of the Institute of Core Energetics. Through the 1980s she developed her own synthesis of spiritual healing which was embodied in her 1989 volume, Hands of Light, New Age bestselling title. It was followed by two additional books, Light Emerging: The Journey of Personal Healing (1993) and more recently, Seeds of the Spirit (1999), poetry channeled from Heyoan, Brennan's spiritual guide.

The school is designed to train professional healers. The curriculum is built around four areas: healing science, awakening (self-exploration and awareness), creativity, and professionalism. Students not only learn a broad perspective on healing, drawing deeply from the Pierrakoses' work, but are introduced to a broad range of psychic practices from meditation to channeling. In the 1999-2000 school year, the school introduced a graduate program open to the previous graduates of the school. It teaches the most advanced concepts and techniques developed by Brennan and involves the students in a program of research. It is designed to enhance the student's status as a professional.

The Barbara Brennan School of Healing is headquartered at P.O. Box 2005, East Hampton, NY 11937-0903. It has an Internet page at http://www.barbarabrennan.com/.