Barbara Brennan's 1987 system of energy anatomy and hands-on healing — Brennan was a NASA atmospheric physicist before founding the Barbara Brennan School of Healing in 1982. The book documents her seven-layer model of the human energy field, the chakra system as she observed it in clinical practice, and the healing techniques she developed over fifteen years working with thousands of clients.
Drawing on her scientific background and fifteen years of clinical case material, Brennan presents specific techniques for seeing and interpreting auras, chakra diagnosis, and full-spectrum healing. The book's combination of NASA-physicist provenance and detailed energy-field empiricism distinguished it from competing 1980s-era energy-healing texts, and it remains the standard reference for the energy-healing professional community worldwide.
First lines
During my years of practice as a healer, I have had the privilege of working with many delightful people. Here are a few of them, and their stories, who make the day in the life of a healer so fulfilling.
Contents
The Healing Experience
How to Use This Book
A Note on Training and the Development of Guidance
Parallels Between How We See Ourselves and Reality and Western Scientific Views
History of Scientific Investigation into the Human Energy Field
The Universal Energy Field
The Human Energy Field or Human Aura
Human Growth and Development in the Aura
Psychological Function of the Seven Major Chakras
Chakra or Energy Center Diagnosis
Observations of Auras in Therapy Sessions
Energy Blocks and Defense Systems in the Aura
Aura and Chakra Patterns of the Major Character Structures
The Separation of Reality
From Energy Block to Physical Disease
The Process of Healing, an Overview
Direct Access of Information
Internal Vision
High Auditory Perception and Communication with Spiritual Teachers
Heyoan's Metaphor of Reality
Preparation for Healing
Full Spectrum Healing
Healing with Color and Sound
Healing Transtemporal Traumas
The Face of the New Medicine: Patient Becomes Healer
Health, a Challenge to Be Yourself
The Development of a Healer
Reception
Foundational to the contemporary energy-healing field as a clinical practice — the Brennan School trains practitioners worldwide and the four-year curriculum has produced a substantial professional community. The book's combination of NASA-scientist provenance and detailed energy-field empiricism distinguished it from competing 1980s-era energy-healing books. Mainstream medicine treats the underlying claims as unfalsified rather than confirmed; the energy field as Brennan describes it is not detected by instruments outside the practitioner community. Within energy-healing professional circles Hands of Light is the standard reference text and Brennan herself is treated with corresponding seriousness.
Frequently asked
What is Hands of Light about?
It is Barbara Brennan's system of energy anatomy and hands-on healing, documenting her seven-layer model of the human energy field, the chakra system as she observed it in clinical practice, and the healing techniques she developed over fifteen years working with thousands of clients.
Who was Barbara Brennan?
An American physicist and healer (1939–2022), Brennan received a master's degree in atmospheric physics from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and worked at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center before founding the Barbara Brennan School of Healing in 1982, which trained practitioners worldwide in a four-year curriculum.
How does the book relate energy fields to physical illness?
Brennan's central claim is that disturbances in the human energy field precede physical disease — that what happens in the aura happens in the body first. The book presents this through medically documented case studies alongside her model of the seven auric layers and their relation to the chakra system.