Chrystal Marshall is taking a break from a weekend workshop given by Master Mantak Chia, who travels around the country teaching the Healing Tao, an offshoot of the ancient oriental philosophy of Taoism.
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One of Chrystal’s goals is to stop her menstrual cycle with the help of the Healing Tao. Master Chia’s followers say that menstruation fritters away energy that could be put to better use. “It’s a compelling thought to live and never have another [menstrual period],” she says. “Some women, in trying not to have negative feelings about menstruation, have embraced it so much they don’t want to let go. But it’s OK to let go. You don’t need it if you’re not going to have a baby. Now mine is shorter….Some women report anecdotally that they’ve stopped it completely with meditation.”
Chrystal says concentrated thought about the ovaries–and massage of the labia–circulates energy which eventually stops the menstrual cycle. “It pulls the energy from your ovaries into your Microcosmic Orbit. You end up having more energy for life. More joie de vivre.”
He draws a big round body on the board, with a navel in the center. The navel, according to Master Chia, is where the principal force is stored. He draws circles and lines around the navel on the board until it looks like a cross between a cobweb and a dart board.
Chrystal had already answered a battery of questions by new aficionados before she slipped out of the hotel for the break. She warned a timid, plain young woman about the danger of sending her own energy to other people rather than cosmic energy, which with concentration, practice, and “an opening up of the cosmic orbit” should become distinguishable from her own. Once new fans of the Healing Tao realize they have control over the energy both inside and outside of their bodies, they are afraid of picking up negative energy, Chrystal explains. They’re also afraid that their newfound ability to keep the energy circulating through their systems will falter and the energy will get “stuck in their necks.”
“Electromagnetic energy does something. Boom. Boom. Boom,” she says.
