Once I understood that principle, my education seemed to move in another direction. Whereas my previous readings had focused on assessing an individual’s physical and emotional chronology, I suddenly began to perceive images that had no apparent connection to the person. In reading a woman who wanted to understand her neck pain, for instance, I got the image of a pirate in her energy field. She was a housewife from the Midwest, so this information meant absolutely nothing to her. Yet while subsequently undergoing relaxation and visualization exercises with a hypnotherapist, she also sensed the pirate energy in her field. She “saw” him slashing her throat with his sword. Curiously, she also felt more positive associations, including wild lawlessness and liberated sexuality. These conflicting impressions of the pirate energy indicated to her that she was being choked or controlled by her life circumstances while yearning for a freedom that she could not consciously voice.

Reading another woman a short time later, who complained of severe arthritis in her hands, I kept seeing the image of an artist. When I mentioned this, however, she was baffled, insisting that she had no artistic talent whatever. Nonetheless I suggested that she take up pottery as therapy for her arthritis. She began by making simple clay vases and in time flowered into a gifted potter who now produces artistically sophisticated pieces.

Finally, while reading an Australian salesman named Jimmy who had been seriously depressed for several years, I saw a strong actor in his energy field. But Jimmy had never done any acting even though he did want to, because, he said, he was still “in the closet” and was afraid that if he acted, it would “come out” that he was gay. He was, in fact, already acting—as if he were straight—but the blocking of his talent and identity had made him implode emotionally. A few years later I was thankful to hear from Jimmy that he had pulled out of his depression and now acts in summer stock. He takes his stage work seriously, and he is no longer hiding his sexuality.