We all know of the stories of the apprentice of the wizard who overheard the ‘magic word’ the wizard used to achieve some great result and then tried it out himself with less than satisfactory results.

I will explain why this happens and how you can use the principle to make up your own magic words that actually do work... on you.

If you ever saw the Kirk Douglas movie The Vikings, or the more recent fantasy adventure The 13th Warrior, you will remember that at a point in each story when nobody knew what to do, an old female shaman of the tribe was asked to throw the runes, or the bones. She threw a handful of things with marks on them on the ground, picked up those that landed in a certain way, and told the puzzled warriors exactly what had to be done. And she was obeyed implicitly. She had used the sacred language of the runes to access the mysteries of the immediate future, the wisdom of Odin.

One of my many correspondents asked if there were any principles that could be applied to all healing modalities like Reiki, Dar’ Shem, Quantum Touch etc., that come under the heading of energy work. This is the gist of the letter I sent in reply, with matters personal to the correspondent deleted. I hope it will be of interest, though it only skims the surface of an immensely deep subject. There is a child's prayer that lots of people used.