by Eunice J Minford MA FRCS Ed. Consultant General Surgeon, N.Ireland
Let’s be honest, what are your first thoughts when you hear or read the words “Esoteric Breast Massage?” Disbelief? Shock? Revulsion? Laughter? Desire to ridicule? Think it must be dodgy? Quackery? Woo-woo medicine? Something sexual? And a ‘no way I would have that done!’ How many of you ladies, on first hearing the words ‘esoteric breast massage’ without knowing what it is, think – ‘Oh yes I must have one of those!’?? In my experience, many women (and men) have some form of reaction like those described when first hearing those words and before knowing and understanding what it is really about. I know I did. So you’re not alone!
Breast Massage – it must be sexual, right?
It’s interesting isn’t it, how the insertion of one word can significantly alter our perception and approach to massage. There is no issue with saying back massage, leg massage, head massage, foot massage, hand massage – there is no laughter, ridicule, guffawing, innuendo – we pretty much accept that all these areas can be and are massaged and can have a beneficial effect on the body – but as soon as we mention the word ‘breasts’ – the shutters come down, we back off and perhaps think ‘no way’, ‘not on my body’ or those of a different gender endeavour to sexualise it, make jokes, innuendo comments & ridicule – showing they haven’t really moved past the schoolboy age of ten where breasts are concerned; titillation (pun intended) being the order of the day. Yet, given we can have beneficial effects from massage on many other parts of the body, surely it’s also possible that esoteric breast massage can assist us with our healing and self-caring approach to our health?
Even though there is absolutely NOTHING sexual about an Esoteric Breast Massage (EBM), the media and others, including conventional doctors, immediately assume there is, or must be and that anyone promoting or partaking in such a modality must be dodgy, perverted, into quackery, on a ruse or have a few screws loose. Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine have been vilified and ridiculed by the media and castigated by those who are ignorant about the technique, how it works energetically and its energetic benefits. Although Serge Benhayon initiated the modality and trained practitioners through simulation, he has never performed an EBM on any client or practitioner, and it is a technique that is only performed by women on women.
In fact we have a situation where so called ‘experts’ give opinions on a technique they do not even have a rudimentary understanding of, never mind being an expert on the subject. It’s like asking someone who is a Professor of English to speak and translate Japanese or Arabic even though they have never studied either language. Yes, they are expert in the language of English but a complete novice and uneducated in the languages of Arabic and Japanese and hence cannot be considered experts on those subjects. A conventional medical doctor may be an expert on the body as they know and understand it, but they have not been trained in understanding the body esoterically and energetically and are thus ignorant of the underlying philosophy and science including the energetic anatomy and physiology, unless they have undertaken personal study or training in the subjects or have a deep soulful connection that provides them with such wisdom. As such they cannot provide a valid or credible ‘expert’ opinion on Esoteric Breast Massage – having neither studied it, trained in it, experienced it, lived it or understood the science and philosophy behind it. How non-sensical can we get – that it is accepted an ‘expert’ can be somebody who is actually completely ignorant of the subject they are providing an ‘expert opinion’ on!?
Of course, some will say the difference between head, leg, back, foot, hand massage, and breast massage is that the breasts are used for sexual pleasure and the other areas are not. There speaks someone who is missing out on other erogenous zones of the body in their private life! Of course, this is not part of the professional massage technique for these other areas, but it is naive to think that only the breasts are zones of arousal or sexual pleasure. Not only that, but the quality that a practitioner (be it a doctor, nurse or physio) lives, comes with them to a session. So someone who lives with a high degree of personal responsibility and integrity will bring those qualities to the session. And someone who, for example, does a lot of porn carries that energy with them to the session. So your everyday masseuse giving you a back massage can lace you with sexual energy if they do a lot of porn without going near any sexual organ or zone! The practitioners of Esoteric Breast Massage all abide by a Code of Ethics that calls for a high degree of personal responsibility and integrity that excludes porn and many other harming substances from one’s life – so that a lived quality is brought to the session void of harm. When one is able to discern energy clearly, it is possible to feel the difference in quality in those that live a life of integrity and responsibility consistently.
Sexual Preference of the Practitioner
The vagina is also utilised in sex, but people do not think their gynaecologist is going to get off on performing vaginal examinations; it is accepted as a necessary part of looking after one’s body to have regular smears and vaginal examination when needed to investigate symptoms. Whether a doctor is a lesbian, or heterosexual male or not is irrelevant, as it is a professional examination and very much distinguished from one’s personal life and any crossing of that boundary instigates disciplinary procedures. Similarly, a urologist may need to examine the testicles, prostate and penis, but he/she does not need to declare his/her sexual preference beforehand. Being a gay man or heterosexual woman does not exclude them from being a urologist – and quite rightly so.
Likewise, those performing Esoteric Breast Massage do not get off on breast massage – and again whether they are a lesbian or a heterosexual woman does not matter, as it is a non-sexual technique performed professionally and definitely not for any self-gratification, sexual or otherwise. So clearly, as is well established in the practice of medicine, a practitioner of medicine or Esoteric Breast Massage does not need to declare their sexual preference. The technique is definitely not about sexual pleasure for the practitioner or the recipient. One only has to experience the technique from a Universal Medicine trained practitioner to know this to be so. That said, it is a technique performed by women only, because of the nature and sensitivity of the technique, respect for the client and the depth of healing that can be attained by a woman who has cleared similar issues and reconnected to her sacredness and can offer that same depth of healing to her client.
What is Esoteric Breast Massage about – quackery and titillation or healing?
So what is Esoteric Breast Massage about? Is it all quackery and titillation as some would like to make out or is something more going on? Of course for those determined to restrict their view to the narrow lens of, ‘life and medicine is what I know it to be now and there is nothing more’ then no explanation will suffice. But for those who are open to considering there is more to understand about life, the way we live it, the human body and how illness and disease are manifest, then there is certainly more to unpack and consider. Some key principles are as follows:
- We are energetic beings – there is energy flowing through us all the time and we get affected by our daily experiences, life events and traumas.
- Our bodies reflect the choices we have made over our whole life, as well as the hurts and traumas we have experienced.
- Massage is a technique that can help to clear issues from the body energetically and can assist with our reconnection back to our essence.
- Our essence is a place of love, harmony, joy, stillness and truth – by reconnecting with it we can be empowered to make more healthy lifestyle choices.
Although the breasts are most often thought of either as sexual organs or organs to nurture and feed babies, they are in fact firstly the organs that assist a woman with nurturing herself. A woman’s relationship with her breasts is important and yet it is one that is often unexplored, hidden, or buried in shame. Many women have a relationship with their breasts that is more based on critique than love and appreciation. Too small, too big, too droopy, too saggy, too nodular, too soft – the complaints are many and varied – but it seems like few women truly appreciate, care for and look after their breasts (or indeed themselves) in a way that is truly caring and nurturing. The thing is that having these buried beliefs and thoughts about ourselves and our breasts as some version of ‘not good enough-ness’ feeds into our behaviours – how we feel about ourselves, impacts the choices we make about food, exercise, alcohol, drugs, smoking, relationships and more. We also know that most breast cancer is lifestyle related rather than primarily genetic – so it makes sense that if we address how we feel about ourselves deep within, this will help us to live in a way that is more healthy as we will feel worth looking after and make choices accordingly.
So the EBM is not about curing cancer or healing cancer or any other condition for that matter. If any such benefit were to arise as a consequence of the technique, it is predominantly a secondary effect and not the primary one. Although there are anecdotal reports of people observing beneficial changes in their health conditions as a consequence of having EBM’s, these benefits are actually secondary. The EBM is a multi-dimensional healing technique that works in a number of ways and at different levels and it is far too simplistic to consider only what is occurring at the physical level or its impact on physical illness and disease alone.
Having EBMs is quite often a journey of deepening in one’s connection with oneself and the true womanly qualities that reside within, but which many of us have been keeping well covered up! Let’s face it, many women today think that in order to be successful they have to be as tough and hard as the men, or even more so – and I certainly fell into that bracket! I thought being that way was being strong, proving myself to be no pushover, and that I could take on or withstand anyone or anything. Walls of steel ensured people didn’t get too close, keeping me protected, or so I thought. I now see the falsity of such beliefs and ways and that whilst it may lead one to be successful in having a heart attack or some other condition, they certainly don’t result in a successful healthy body and way of life.
Developing a Nurturing Relationship
By having EBMs the layers of hardness and protection begin to fall away, and we can connect with the fact that underneath that tough, hard persona there is a sweetness (a word that I used to have a negative visceral reaction to and one of the last things I wanted to be seen as!!) and a quality of gentleness that we can choose to live from. But this is only touching the surface. There is so much more to be uncovered and revealed. We come to realise that we are in fact deeply precious, deliciously delicate, and that underneath all the chaos and mayhem, tension and strife, there is a divine beauty and a profound stillness that melts and dissolves all that is not true. The more we surrender to that stillness, to know that is who we are, the more we are able to live and make choices that are truly healthy. We deeply feel that we are worth caring for, worth nurturing and looking after to the nth degree.
If we truly take this on board, we begin to make choices that we know and can feel are more healthy and the old harming ways start to fall away – we no longer wish to poison and intoxicate our precious vehicle. The depth to which we can develop a nurturing relationship with ourselves and our bodies is unending – we never get to a point and say: ‘that’s it – I’m all nurtured up and nothing more for me to do!’ Which is great as there is always more for us to deepen in our love, appreciation, care and nurturing for ourselves. It is the quality of this nurturing relationship with ourselves that is the primary benefit of the EBM, a quality that when truly lived impacts our lifestyle choices, and thus the potential benefit that has been reported by some anecdotally on lifestyle related conditions.
It makes sense that if our lifestyle is the cause of many conditions, then addressing the root cause of why we have an ill lifestyle and healing that, such that we develop a way of living that is truly healthy should, in theory, have a beneficial effect on lifestyle induced conditions – a theory that some have felt to be true in practice by their own lived experience. And so, many women have personally experienced the EBM as a transformational healing modality – one that deepens and enriches their relationship with themselves and their bodies. A journey that can go through many different stages: initially there can be hesitancy, embarrassment, shame, doubt, hardness, protection, fear, anxiety, emotional discomfort, apprehension, nervousness etc. – and whatever is there is not judged but met only with love and acceptance. This in itself is healing. The EBM over time helps us to let these reactions go and to reconnect to the deeper truth of who we are…. Such that we begin to feel and know that we are none of those emotions and that we can surrender to that which is within and always has been – the true essence of the woman – in all her sacred beauty, glory and preciousness, just waiting to be revealed and lived.
So go ahead and make your jokes, guffaw, laugh and ridicule if you like – for none of that can detract, hide, obscure or take away from the truth that is felt and known within the body and soul of one who lives the essence of the true woman and who has experienced the transformational power of the EBM to facilitate that reconnection, reawakening and reunification with the sacredness within – a profound depth of stillness that knows no bounds. Any improvement to physical health conditions is a welcome secondary benefit that provides tangible evidence on a different level of the effect of EBM but in no way usurps the true healing proffered. Quackery and titillation, or transformational healing modality – you decide; those who know, know.
DISCLAIMER: Esoteric breast massage is a complementary therapy and is not part of conventional ‘evidence based medicine’. No claims are made as to its efficacy on physical health conditions. The author writes from personal experience combined with an understanding of Esoteric healing, Esoteric philosophy and energy. It is for the reader to discern whether Esoteric Breast Massage is, or could possibly be, of benefit to a woman’s wellbeing. Any concerns regarding your breasts or your health should be discussed with your doctor.
Read more:
- What do you mean, do I have a relationship with my breasts?
- The Power of Esoteric Breast Massage: A tender and unimposing touch
- Learning to love myself through my breasts – discovering the Esoteric Breast Massage