Touch-the Basic Sense. If forced to save but one sense, would it be... Sight? Sound? Touch? Taste? Scent? Which sense is the first to develop in the embryo? Which would you have greatest difficulty living without?

Skin-Adjunct of Nervous System. The skin is related to the same layer of cells as the nervous system and acts as its external adjunct, registering and responding to a wide range of signals.

Touch-Neglected Sense? If touch is key among senses, do you regularly practice your non-sexual tactile abilities with others, to enhance and share quality of life?

Hands as Communicators. Throughout history, people have used their hands to impart warmth and contact. Touch may convey the message that..."you are not alone," "I care about you," "I want you to feel good."

Hands as Healers. With practice, you can develop your sense of touch into a talent for creative healing. Gentle holding, stroking and tender touch support healing physical and psychological change.

The Holistic Perspective: Each person comprises a unified, holistic system. Applying touch to any part of the body affects other parts. After blocks to free-flowing energy are released inside the body, touching one place is felt elsewhere. Example: A head massage creates tingling sensations down the spine. Ultimately, massage of any part of the body is felt everywhere. An awesome way to get high naturally!

Rat's Response. Frederick Hammett, Philadelphia anatomist, investigated the effects of touch on rats in the 1920s. Some were consistently handled and stroked, others were not. Rats touched regularly grew faster, had better immunity to disease and were more fertile. They were less subject to stress.

And Infants. It is well known that infants need tender touch. Drs. Chapin and Knox and J. Brennemann studied American babies in institutions between 1910 and 1935. They found that many babies became disturbed - and their physical and emotional development was slow when they received little tactile stimulation.

Physiologically, touch supports the flow of blood and lymph. Touch can decrease blood pressure and heart rate. Touch can soothe nerves and enhance relaxation. Massage may aid the production of endorphins -- brain chemicals that kill pain naturally. Enkephalin, an endorphin, produces euphoria while reducing pain.

Psychologically, healing touch affirms self-esteem, creates trust and openness, and may catalyze the release of blocked emotions as tense muscles relax. Touch can help us feel valued, peaceful, and more aware of our body and being. Important therapy in an age of frenetic change, when apprehension stalks our land (and hearts)!

Pleasure! There is pleasure in giving, as receiving, bodywork. Pleasure deriving from physical contact. Pleasure in feeling body contours as you sense muscles, bones and other tissues. Pleasure in being aware of the body's varying tensions and energies. Pleasure in helping others. Pleasure in feeling another's muscles relax. Pleasure in knowing that your sensitive touch can help stimulate the healing process -- in a receiver as in yourself. Pleasure in experiencing a meditative state that you may share with a receiver.

No Unpleasant After-Effects! Unlike alcohol and drugs, bodywork involves no pricy hang-overs or energy drains. Its pleasurable effects last for hours and sometimes days!

Spirit, Energy, Mind, Emotions, Body. Healing touch treats more than the physical body. It also affects the energy field, or aura, in and around the body. By balancing energy in the body and its aura, bodywork helps integrate wholeness among all facets of one's being -- mind, body, and emotions. A spiritual peak experience, feeling connected to limitless universal energy, may follow.

Self-Help Health. Two times many people are motivated to become involved in self-help health practices such as therapeutic touch are during youth and when ill. Giving and receiving bodywork balance energy in giver and receiver. Touch enhances relaxation. Release of tension invariably accompanies.

What Feels Good Is Good! Pleasure is the body's way of saying "right on!" What feels good is good...for mind, body and spirit. Both giver and receiver experience increasing awareness of pain and pleasure. An Objective: To become aware of pain as early as possible, and to work with it in natural ways.

'Find the Pain and Press.' A valuable principle of self-help health is to find painful trigger points that accompany all muscle spasms...and apply firm, continuous pressure for seven to 10 seconds -- or perhaps longer, until the pain disappears. This wipes out the trigger point and causes the spasm to relax. Perhaps 90 per cent of physical pain is caused by muscle spasms. Practicing trigger pointing, also known also as myotherapy (read Bonnie Pruden's Pain Erasure the Bonnie Pruden Way) is one key to living pain-free.

Advanced Bodywork: Might bodywork also lead to more valuable, lasting benefits, such as release of deep-tissue tension... healing of "incurable" illness... therapeutic catharsis of mental/emotional difficulty?

Deep-Tissue Tension Release. With thousands (and soon, perhaps, millions) of people practicing therapeutic bodywork, powerful new forms evolve. Example: One practitioner helps clients quickly release their tension by allowing it to come into his body. It produces a succession of "spas-like" sounds" as the kinetic energy releases. After a 90-minute session -- perhaps less -- even an "uptight" client feels significantly relaxed.

Therapeutic Principle: Pain or weakness in the body reflects a suppressed thought, word, and/or feeling pattern. When a person is ready to really feel and fully express the suppressed emotional feeling, while the corresponding calcifications are dissolved with point-holding (see next paragraph), s/he may be freed of a physical problem, together with its related mental and emotional problems.

Advanced Healing Thru Body Electronics. Many have overcome "incurable" disease by applying Body Electronics principles, developed by John Whitman Ray, N.D.: 1) Saturation of the body with essential nutrients, including enzymes; chelated, colloidal minerals, natural vitamins, essential amino acids, and essential fatty acids. 2) Point Holding. An advanced approach to "find the pain and press," it involves having one or more persons hold crystalized, calcified points, with tolerable pain, until the crystal(s) dissolve and free-flowing energy is restored to the associated energy pathway. 3) Therapeutic Aspects. Reminiscent of Freudian insight, with a new feature: The pain associated with dissolving calcified crystals catalyzes return of the memory associated with a suppressed through, word and feeling pattern. The person may then choose to get in touch with all dimensions (spiritual, energetic, mental, emotional, and physical) of it -- and release it to become free!

In Summary. Each person has an impressive ability to heal, when the proper psychological, nutritional, and physical conditions are present. Applied intelligently, bodywork feels good and is good! Advanced applications suggest a path to pursuing "perfect" health and happiness!