Shaking Medicine

Book excerpt: A revolutionary call to reawaken our bodies and minds to powerful healing through ecstatic movement • Shows how shaking medicine is one of the oldest healing modalities--practiced by Quakers, Shakers, Bushmen, Japanese, and others • Teaches readers how to shake for physical as well as spiritual therapeutic benefit • Includes a link to 40 minutes of ecstatic drumming audio tracks to use while shaking Shaking Medicine reintroduces the oldest medicine on earth--the ecstatic shaking of the human body. Most people’s worst fear is losing control--of their circumstances, of their emotions, and especially of their bodies. Yet in order to achieve the transcendent state necessary to experience deep healing, we must surrender control. Examining cultural traditions from around the world where shaking has been used as a form of healing--from the Shakers and Quakers of New England to the shaking medicine of Japan, India, the Caribbean, the Kalahari, and the Indian Shakers of the Pacific Northwest--Bradford Keeney shows how shaking can bring forth profound therapeutic benefits. Keeney investigates the full spectrum of the healing cycle that occurs when moving from ecstatic arousal to deep trance relaxation. He explains how the alternating movement produced while shaking brings all the body’s energetic systems into balance. He includes practical exercises in how to shake for physical therapeutic benefit, and he shows how these techniques lead ultimately to the shaking medicine that both enables and enhances spiritual attunement. The book also includes a link to 40 minutes of ecstatic drumming audio tracks to use while shaking.