Welcome to safe + sound , i-D’s fortnightly column exploring the lengths people take to find a little spiritual wellbeing in this manic world. From womb rituals to shamanic healing, beauty editor Shannon Peter will chart the growth of these New Age therapies and trial them for herself to uncover the crux of their allure. This week, Shannon learns more about her future self than she bargained for.
My spiritual quest has so far seen me succumb to the call of the sound bath, and I’ve learned how to breathe myself into an emotional high. This week, I decided to take things up a notch, and booked in with spiritual healer, crystal expert, modern clairvoyant and all-round poster girl of the New Age, Emma Lucy Knowles. Quite frankly, if she can’t help me graduate to a higher vibe state of being, nobody can.
Emma’s treatments are like a full spiritual MOT. She calls her work ‘spiritual healing with a reading’ but to the uninitiated that’s a total undersell. She combines crystal therapy with energy healing (reiki) and psychic reading, like a mystical triple threat.
As well as a residency at the west London Bamford spa, Emma carries out her treatments at her west London home, and her clients span people from the fashion industry to bankers, children to people struggling to shake off past traumas. Her home treatment room is insane. The floor is covered in crystals and candles, and you even have to dodge a shrine to make it onto the treatment bed.
At the start of my treatment, Emma handed me a bag of crystals and told me to select the ones I felt most drawn to. “I find that when I give people the choice, it automatically makes them feel more comfortable,” she explains. “But we’re intuitively drawn to the crystals we need, whether you know what each of them are for or not.” If you reach for something green like malachite, it could be that you’re heading into a period of growth, whereas blue crystals tend to be about better communication. With a crystal in the palm of each hand, Emma then guided me through a few breathing exercises to help me relax, before she started the in-depth healing and reading. My eyes were shut the entire time, but afterwards I asked Emma what it was she was doing. “I hover my hands over the body, and move from the crown right down to the base of the feet, moving energy in and out using touch therapy, but also through channeling the energy with my mind. I also spend this time reading the spirit,” she says. Emma says she sees ‘videos’ of her client’s life, past, present and future, but thankfully, as she’s really nice, the thought of her digging into the darkest parts of your psyche doesn’t feel so intimidating. I felt ridiculously relaxed, and as though my body was getting lighter, but the sensation varies for everyone. “Lots of people hit this deep meditative state, where they feel super relaxed, and some do actually fall asleep, but mainly, you’ll feel a pulsing or vibration through the body,” she says. “Some people start to feel really hot, others feel really cold. Some people laugh, some cry. The treatment just releases emotions that have become trapped.” The key, however, is to just let go. “You can feel pretty stoned after if you’re not willing to let go, because you spend the session trying to fight it, and it can make you feel really exhausted.”
After the hour session, Emma talks through what she saw throughout the treatment. My reading was unnervingly specific, and touched upon fears, concerns and memories I’d never even told a soul. She gave me some pretty profound advice for shifts to come in my life and also told me my boyfriend would one day propose with some kind of friendship bracelet. In all honesty, it sounds like something he would do.
Vital to Emma’s work is the distance healing that follows the treatment. For the next three days, we set a time in which I would lie down and she would ‘tune in’ from wherever she was and send her healing energy my way. I used this as a chance to listen back to the reading that she recorded for me, and focussed on new nugget of intel every time. Okay, so I can’t say that I’ve now finally reached peak enlightenment, but as Emma herself points out, healing work takes time: “You’ve got to apply patience. It’s not about worrying about getting to this set destination, but rather surrendering to where you are now.” I definitely do feel emotionally rebooted though, and a lighter sense of spirit. And if any shit situations do come my way, I have her intel and advice stored on my iPhone voice notes.