Book summary “The Women's Book of Healing”: summary

Introduction

You live in a culture that separates you from your innate capacity to heal. Modern allopathic medicine denies the human energy field, while historical patriarchy systematically suppressed women healers, branding them as witches and stripping them of their ancient healing rights. You are left dependent on external authorities for wellness.

Women can reclaim their ancient right to heal by mastering the four energy bodies, chakras, creative visualization, laying on of hands, and gemstones.

Diane Stein presents a comprehensive guide in The Women's Book of Healing to help you restore this lost power. You learn to work with auras, chakras, meditation, psychic techniques, pranic touch, clear quartz crystals, and colored gemstones.

How do you sense and clear blockages in your aura? How do you channel healing energy through your hands? How do you use crystals and gemstones to restore physical and emotional balance?

1. Body, Emotion, Mind, and Spirit: The Aura

The human aura consists of four main energy bodies divided into seven major layers and a total of forty-npy levels, surrounding the dense physical form.

The Four Energy Bodies

Your physical form is surrounded by an invisible energy field. This field contains seven major aura layers corresponding to the seven major chakras.

• The etheric double is the first layer where health and dis-ease first manifest.
• The emotional or astral body forms the second layer.
• The mental body contains lower rational and higher intuitive thought levels.
• The spiritual body consists of three layers representing the soul.

At a women's music concert, Diane Stein visually perceived clear light auras around the performers' heads. She noted specific colors like blue/green, rose, silvery blue, golden yellow, and violet associated with each musician.

Scientific Basis of Energy

Healer and science writer George Meek notes that solid human flesh is 75 to 80 percent water and 99+ percent void space between atoms. Physical cells regenerate at a massive rate, meaning the body is entirely renewed every six months.

If an atom in the body were the size of an apple, the next closest atom would be one to two thousand miles away. The physical body contains 60,000,000,000,000 cells, with 5,700,000 cells dying and being replaced per second.

Dr. W. J. Kilner successfully used lenses coated with dicyanine and carmine dyes in 1911 to make the etheric double visible. He could diagnose physical and emotional dis-ease, track pregnancy, and differentiate auras by age and sex.

2. The Rainbow of the Chakras

The etheric double contains seven major rainbow energy centers that connect the physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual bodies.

Each chakra vibrates at a higher energy and color rate, corresponding to a particular musical note, chanting sound syllable, complementary color, and specific range of gemstones. The chakras appear as revolving wheels or lotuses strung from the crown to the root, and their sizes and brightness reflect health and emotional stress.

Prana is the life force drawn from sunlight and air into the solar plexus, acting as a distribution hub that maintains health or creates disease when blocked. Prana enters the four bodies through the solar plexus as a seven-atom vitality globule, which then separate and travel to nourish their respective chakras. Balanced prana flow ensures good health, whereas too much or too little flow through a center causes disharmony and physical dis-ease.

Kundalini is powerful dormant feminine energy located at the base of the spine that rises through the chakras to the brain to achieve total spiritual-physical integration. Also known as Shakti, this serpent energy ascends through the spinal column when activated by extended meditation or pranayama breathing, ultimately uniting with Shiva in the brain. Because this intense power can cause psychological aberrations or physical pain if chakras are blocked, it must be properly prepared for and safely grounded or restrained if triggered prematurely.

Chakra System Overview

A systematic deep relaxation and rhythmic breathing meditation using clear light allows a woman to open, visualize, and balance her chakras from crown to feet. You can perform this practice using these specific steps:

• Sit or lie comfortably with arms and legs straight and never crossed.
• Take several deep breaths, slowing normal breathing into a rhythmic pattern.
• Clench and relax each part of the body step-by-step, starting from the toes and moving upward through ankles, calves, knees, thighs, and genitals.
• Continue clenching and relaxing the abdomen, lower back, diaphragm, middle back, chest, shoulders, fingers, hands, wrists, forearms, biceps, neck, jaw, cheeks, eyes, forehead, and scalp.
• Imagine air turning to clear light entering through the top of the head and leaving at the feet.
• Breathe light into the crown, forehead, throat, heart, solar plexus, belly, root, hands, and feet in descending order.
• Breathe color into each chakra sequentially, starting from ruby red at the root up to clear violet at the crown and rainbow light beyond.

Root and Belly Centers

The root chakra is located at the genitals and coccyx, vibrating at the lowest frequency and governing survival, physical vitality, stability, and adaptation. Associated with clear red light, the C major musical note, the Ooo chant syllable, and four petals, this center handles survival fears and instincts. Over-activation produces ungrounded panic, while depletion causes lethargy and coldness; both extremes can be managed by adjusting its aperture or using black grounding stones.

You can visualize scarlet red light while intoning the syllable Ooo. Bring the color through your feet and up to the base of your spine. Let the red light swirl in a figure-eight spiral slowly up through your body until it spouts through the top of your head like a fountain and flows down to your sides into Earth again.

The belly chakra is located in the lower abdomen and governs emotional flow, sexuality, subconscious impressions, and clairsentience. Corresponding to clear orange light, the musical tone D, the Oh sound syllable, and six petals, this center regulates passion and desires. Proper balance allows free emotional flow, whereas blockage leads to repression, arthritis, or sexual dysfunction, and over-activation causes uncomfortable clairsentience.

See in your mind a glorious October carpet of newly fallen foliage with warm russet, copper, crimson, orange, and red leaves. Observe golden, orange, red, and green maple and oak leaves thrown down in wonderful patterns of warm colors.

Solar Plexus and Heart Centers

The solar plexus chakra is located just above the navel and serves as the center for ego, power-within, mental concentration, and the distribution of prana. Associated with clear yellow light, the musical tone E, the Aw chanting syllable, and ten spokes, this center balances emotion and intellect while acting as a psychic energy pump. Excess yellow causes nervousness and digestive disruption, while depletion leads to lethargy and apathy.

Sit on a yellow rug, mat, or towel and perform deep relaxation to enter the meditative state. Place the sun card from a tarot deck in front, several clear crystals, and hold a topaz or citrine in the left hand. Draw yellow through the stone and into the body, breathing yellow in and out through the solar plexus and up through all centers before exiting through the root or feet.

The heart chakra bridges the lower and upper bodies at the breastbone, governing love, compassion, self-love, and healing through green and rose light. Corresponding to F major, the chanting syllable Ah, twelve petals, and the thymus gland, this center integrates the head and body. Too much energy can produce a savior complex, while too little causes a loss of connection and empathy with others.

Picture mentally the refreshing greenness of a meadow of young grass after a shower of rain gleaming like emerald velvet. Imagine a perfect pink rose, create and appreciate it, watch it turn into rose-colored light, and breathe the love and peace into an aura surrounding you.

Throat, Brow, and Crown Centers

The throat chakra is located at the base of the neck and governs all forms of creativity, speech, communication, and clairaudience. Associated with clear light blue, G to G sharp musical notes, the Eh chant syllable, sixteen petals, and the thyroid gland, this center allows the expression of inner truth. A blocked throat chakra results in unexpressed words, sore throats, and laryngitis, whereas opening it unleashes artistic and vocal creativity.

The brow chakra, or third eye, is located between the eyes and serves as the center for clairvoyance, intuition, and spiritual knowing. Connected to clear indigo blue, musical tone A, the Ih chanting syllable, ninety-six petals, and the pituitary gland, this center merges conscious and unconscious knowledge. It requires heart chakra balance to avoid being cold, and its activation aids creative visualization and aura-seeing.

Picture mentally the earth lying veiled in the mystic sleep of night wrapped in a silver floating mist under an indigo sky jeweled with scintillating stars. Reach out in the meditation to connect with others and feel their hands touching yours.

The crown chakra is located at the top of the head and connects the individual directly to the Goddess, pure intuition, and ultimate well-being. Associated with clear violet, musical note B, the Eee chanting syllable, the pineal gland, and 960 outer petals with a 12-petal inner ring, this highest physical center channels divine wisdom. Meditation with this center uses amethyst and violet light to evoke inner peace and spiritual transcendence.

Enter the meditative state holding an amethyst in the left hand. Cast a violet aura of peace and protection all around you, invoking the Goddess and asking to know. Create Her image within the violet light, see the connection between your Be-ing and Her essence, and draw Her into your heart or crown chakra.

The transpersonal point sits inches above the crown and connects to the universal source, while systematic psychic flushing purges negative energy down into the Earth. Using clear white or rainbow light and the universal Om mantra, you can perform the complete chakra flushing exercise where lower stagnant energies are grounded into the Earth and upper blockages are expelled through the crown.

3. Basic Healing Skills: Meditation and Color Work

Women's healing is divided into pranic, psychic, and spiritual types operating through meditation, thought forms, and color work.

Pranic healing or laying on of hands occurs at the etheric double level using vital force. Psychic or mental healing utilizes creative visualization and thought forms on the mental level. Spiritual healing connects the individual directly with the Goddess across the three spiritual aura levels to effect profound wellness changes.

Over 70 percent of all dis-ease is caused by a mental or emotional thought factor. Thoughts are electrical energy forms that transmit from mental levels through the emotional body and etheric double to the physical plane. Changing negative thought patterns directly reverses these conditions.

Cloning has been done successfully with amphibians since the 1950s and with plants since the 1930s. Each cell in an organ, bone, or blood vessel holds the complete aspect of the body's Be-ing and responds to thought forms.

Meditation and Pranayama

Meditation creates an altered state of consciousness through stillness, breath control, and focus to channel inner changes and healing. Entering the alpha brain wave state allows you to consciously access the connected oneness of your bodies and direct healing energy by will.

To prepare for meditation, follow these steps:

• Find a quiet, uninterrupted spot that feels safe and comfortable, such as in front of an altar, and disconnect the phone.
• Wear loose, comfortable clothing or skyclad after a shower or bath, several hours after a meal.
• Arrange candles and crystals in front and in sight, holding a gemstone in each hand or the left hand.
• Sit with arms and legs uncrossed in a straight-backed chair or on the floor.
• Focus concentration on the candle flame until the image remains with closed eyes.
• Take several full, deep breaths and clear the mind of concerns using a violet or indigo bag visualization to store worries.
• Start rhythmic pranayama breathing: breathe in for six heartbeats, hold for three, breathe out for six, and hold for three.
• Physically relax each part of the body step-by-step from toes to crown while continuing rhythmic breathing.
• Perform color work or visualization exercises, ending by grounding excess energy into the Earth.

Creative Visualization and Color Work

Creative visualization requires positive, present-tense imaging because the nonconscious mind and unseen bodies do not understand negative words. Thought forms move downward from conscious mental levels to the physical plane. Using words like not only registers the negative image itself in the emotional body and etheric double, manifesting the exact condition you wish to avoid.

Through visualization and power-within choice, you can avoid four out of five minor and major illnesses without medication. While visualization cannot substitute for good nutrition, hygiene, rest, and avoiding toxic substances, mastering the meditative state and thought forms prevents sickness and reverses negative patterns.

Colors correspond to chakra vibration rates and can be utilized through light, candles, or gemstones to stimulate or depress specific conditions. Warm colors like red, orange, and yellow stimulate life force, circulation, and warmth, while cool colors like green, blue, indigo, and violet soothe, cool, relieve pain, and reduce inflammation.

Luisah Teish provides an account of She Who Whispers as an example of working with spirit guides. You connect with healing sources through animism by looking within and connecting with the Goddess, or spiritism through spirit guides.

4. Psychic Healing

Psychic healing uses aura assessment, graphic visualization, and tinker-woman metaphors to correct cellular malfunctions.

Aura assessment is the foundational first step of psychic and mental healing, performed in a meditative state to evaluate unseen energy bodies. Healthy auras are typically egg-shaped with the narrow end at the feet. Instead of rational intellectual analysis, healing requires opening the heart and brow centers wide to serve as a detached channel for the Goddess-within.

• Sit before an altar, hold a clear quartz crystal in each hand, cast a circle, and ask for the Goddess’s presence to heal.
• Perform rhythmic breathing, deep body relaxation, and enter the meditative state.
• Run a grounding cord from the root chakra into the Earth, and cast a circle of light and protection around the self.
• Focus attention on the self or the woman asking for healing, first visualizing her silhouette and then her unseen energy bodies or aura.
• Check the aura for colors, gaps, breaks, discolorations, and asymmetry, noting pain areas and chakra sizes.

Healers are ethically bound to respect a woman's free will, requiring explicit permission on the physical or astral plane before performing any healing work. Healing is power-within rather than power-over, meaning a woman has the right to refuse healing due to personal or emotional reasons.

• Ask the woman directly if she wants healing and go ahead only if she agrees.
• If the woman is not present physically, ask her permission on the astral or unseen plane during meditation.
• If using the mental telephone technique, dial her number mentally, ask if she wants healing, and withdraw respectfully if she says no.

Tinker-Woman Style Healing

The tinker-woman style of psychic healing uses graphic, mundane visual metaphors to give the higher mind precise instructions for cellular repair.

Eighty-five percent of women's illnesses are stress-related, and specific physical ailments reflect emotional conflicts or negative self-images bred by patriarchy.

The author used a tinker-woman visualization to pull up a wart like a gumband, snip it off, and fill the hole with Goddess paint; the wart sloughed off within a week.

• Contact the inner mind of the subject and observe the true nature of the injury or malfunction.
• Use mental pictures and mundane symbols like zippers, needles, or sandpaper to show the subject's inner mind how to correct the issue.
• Supply healing energy through colors, crystals, or gemstones and instruct the subject's inner mind how to sustain the healing.
• See the subject perfectly healed, program repeat intervals if necessary, then break contact gently.

5. Laying on of Hands: Pranic Healing

Laying on of hands is a physical, direct form of energy healing that transmits prana through the etheric body.

Pranic healing is 15,000 years old, as shown in cave paintings in the Pyrenees. Written records appear in the Nei Ching in China from 5,000 years old. Unlike distant psychic healing, you do this work through cooperation between two women or as self-healing. Energy emits primarily from your palm chakras, lips, eyes, and fingertips.

Before you begin, you must ground and center yourself and physically raise energy in your hands. Grounding creates a stable energetic connection with the Earth. This stops you from becoming drained or absorbing the symptoms of the person you heal.

• From a seated position, place hands comfortably in the lap, palms open and up, and begin rhythmic breathing.
• Slowly move your body one to two inches from side to side two or three times until the spine feels in postural alignment.
• Tilt your body back about one to two inches so vertebrae are aligned to carry body weight.
• With eyes closed, continue rhythmic breathing, tense and release any tension areas, and run a grounding cord from the root chakra into the Earth.
• Lift the hands, rub them briskly together until hot, and hold palms facing about three inches apart without touching the body or each other.

Polarity and Energy Flow

The flow of pranic energy relies on complementary polarities. Your left hand receives energy and your right hand sends it. Both negative and positive poles are required to complete the energy cycle.

• Place the left hand over, but not touching, the right palm of the partner after raising energy to observe the sense of magnetism and energy flow.
• For a headache, place the right palm over the forehead and the left at the back of the neck.
• For menstrual cramps, back pain, or abdominal pain, place hands side by side or one on each side of the area.

Aura Assessment and Conductors

You can assess a partner's aura by detecting energy variations. Move your hands three to six inches away from the recipient's body from head to foot to find cold spots, holes, or rough patches.

• Stroke the aura from head to foot without touching the physical body, using slow movements to sedate and quicker movements to energize.
• Hold hands still over the highest spot of different energy until the energy fades in the hands.
• Shake the hands in the air to flick off absorbed energy after treating each spot.
• Use fingers as combs to rake through stubborn areas, sending color, light, or temperature until the spot merges with the rest of the aura.

Pranic energy can also be stored and transmitted through inanimate conductors like water and cotton pads. You can hold a cotton pad on your open left palm with your right palm positioned over it for two to three minutes to magnetize it. Then place the pad face down on the wound or forehead. Energy lasts for 24 hours in water stored in a closed bottle.

Scientific experiments confirm that laying on of hands causes measurable chemical, biological, and electrical changes. Olga Worrall treated cupric chloride solutions and seedlings, resulting in chemical changes and faster growth after two days. Sister Justa Smith discovered that pranic healing significantly activates the trypsin enzyme. Dolores Krieger used electroencephalographs to show alpha brain wave states and increased blood hemoglobin oxygen levels.

6. Clear Quartz Crystal

Clear quartz crystal is a natural, highly structured molecule that vibrates in tune with Earth and human energies to amplify healing.

Chemically designated as SiO2, natural clear quartz is formed over ten thousand years under heat and pressure. More than a third of planet Earth is composed of quartz. It exhibits a piezoelectric effect, vibrating in tune with the Earth's core magnetic energy, allowing it to absorb, store, transform, and transmit prana and aura magnetism.

Crystal Properties and Sourcing

Choosing a healing crystal relies on touch, visual attraction, and aura resonance rather than surface perfection. You should select stones that feel cold, vibrant, and alive when held against the left palm chakra. Good crystals of two or three inches in length cost between three and twenty dollars.

• Sensing and feeling the stone firsthand by handling and holding it against the chakra of the left palm.
• Waiting a few moments for resonance to happen to find the stone that feels cold and alive.
• For mail order, write the order by hand, state the crystal is for healing, and visualize receiving the perfect crystal.

Clearing, Consecration, and Biofeedback

New and used crystals must be cleared of past energies and dedicated to healing before use. Clearing removes negative programming or accumulated dis-ease using agents like sea salt, running water, soil, sunlight, or herbs. Consecration and programming dedicate the stone to the Goddess and specific healing intents through elemental representation.

• Place a new crystal in a bowl of dry sea salt overnight or in a sea salt and water solution.
• Point the crystal downward toward the drain under cool tap water while visualizing negativity washing away.
• Bury the stone in soil or a cupful of dry herbs like dried rose petals, sage, or frankincense.
• Blow the breath sharply through the crystal from base to point.
• Sprinkle chalice water on the stone and state aloud what the quartz is for to program it.

Bonding a crystal requires keeping it in your aura over time so your vibration rates synchronize. About a month of constant presence is required for this mutual teaching process.

• Carry the crystal by day in a left-hand pocket or wear it in a drawstring bag around the neck next to the skin.
• Place the crystal under the pillow, hold it in the left hand while sleeping, or put it on the altar at night.
• Hold the crystal in the left hand to receive energy from it or in the right hand to send impressions.

Crystals facilitate biofeedback by utilizing polarity magnetic flow to alter moods, temperature, and pain. You can draw energy or specific colors in through the left side or crystal and release them through the right side.

• To get warm, draw red in through the crystal, circulate it through the body, and release it to the Earth or sky.
• For cooling, draw in blue or green through the left hand while placing the crystal on the right to release heat.
• For pain, visualize blue or green entering through the left side and crystal, traveling to the pain area, and sweeping away fragments through the right side.
• For insomnia, draw in violet or rose sleepiness through the crystal, circulate it, and release excess through the crown chakra.

7. Beginning Gemstones: The Root Chakra

Colored gemstones are more specific in healing than clear quartz because they bond to particular chakra frequencies rather than the entire aura.

Beginning Gemstones Overview

While clear quartz sends all colors and can be programmed for any purpose, colored gemstones come with set programming and target specific dis-eases. Healers must analyze auras and chakras to choose the correct gem energy. Healing gemstones are categorized into crystalline, matrix, and nonmineral organic forms, and they do not need to be jewelry quality to be effective.

Raw rubies and emeralds in tiny chips sell for as low as two dollars, and most uncut stones sell for under ten. A necklace string of rose quartz or aventurine beads or chips costs a maximum of twenty-five dollars, while a tumbled single piece costs twenty cents and up.

Root Chakra Stones

The root chakra corresponds to survival and utilizes both black and red stones, which serve complementary calming and energizing functions.

Red stones are hot and stimulating, increasing blood circulation, metabolism, and life force energy. Black stones cool, calm, absorb negativity, and help with pain, grounding, and karmic issues. Volatile or angry individuals should use black or green stones instead of red ones.

Smoky quartz rates 7 on the Mohs scale of hardness. Mellie Uyldert says that carried unneeded, smoky quartz stimulates gloominess.

• Send the stone your pain through the right hand
• draw its energies into your aura through the left hand
• wear it, hold it, or carry it in a pocket

Black tourmaline measures 7 to 7 and a half in hardness. The Dutch who first imported tourmaline from Africa used its magnetism to draw ash from smoking pipes.

• Hold a black tourmaline rod over a blocked chakra
• rotate it counterclockwise to open the blocks

Black obsidian is a volcanic glass that acts as a psychic mirror, bringing hidden inner truths, weaknesses, and karmic issues to light. Katrina Raphaell calls black obsidian one of the most important teachers of all the New Age stones.

• Use obsidian only for short periods
• pair it with clear quartz to help process insights

Black onyx has been used in engravings and cameos for 5,000 years, and jet has a hardness range of 2 and a half to 4. In Pueblo silver work, particularly Zuni, jet is the material used to symbolize the Earth element, the body, the womb, and the pre-emergence underworld.

Hematite has a hardness range of 5 and a half to 6, and bloodstone ranges from 6 and a half to 7. Mellie Uyldert dips a bloodstone in cold water and places it on the spot to stop bleeding.

• Hold hematite in the right hand to focus energy patterns and emotions for better balance
• dip a bloodstone in cold water and place it on a wound to stop bleeding

Ruby rates 9 on the Mohs scale, while diamond rates 10. Mellie Uyldert uses ruby to prevent miscarriages, and notes that widows in Italy wear garnet to attract love.

10 Key Ideas

1. The human aura consists of four main energy bodies divided into seven major layers and a total of forty-nine levels, surrounding the dense physical form.
2. The etheric double contains seven major rainbow energy centers that connect the physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual bodies.
3. Prana is the life force drawn from sunlight and air into the solar plexus, acting as a distribution hub that maintains health or creates disease when blocked.
4. Over 70 percent of all dis-ease is caused by a mental or emotional thought factor that transmits from mental levels through the emotional body and etheric double to the physical plane.
5. Healers are ethically bound to respect a woman's free will, requiring explicit permission on the physical or astral plane before performing any healing work.
6. The flow of pranic energy relies on complementary polarities where the left hand receives energy and the right hand sends it.
7. New and used crystals must be cleared of past energies using agents like sea salt, running water, soil, sunlight, or herbs, and dedicated to healing before use.
8. The root chakra corresponds to survival and utilizes both black and red stones, which serve complementary calming and energizing functions.
9. The spiritual body consists of three layers representing the soul, connecting the individual directly to the Goddess, pure intuition, and ultimate well-being.
10. The three-way healing agreement requires cooperation between the Goddess-within, the healer acting as a detached channel, and the explicit consent of the woman receiving the work.