Introduction

For over twenty years The Gentle Wind Project has been researching and developing a healing technology that alleviates mental and emotional distress in most people.

Even before we began The Gentle Wind Project, as clinical social workers with a wide variety of clients, we came to see that people who made special efforts to become healthy and whole were still essentially wounded. It seemed to us that after a year or more of what we believed to be compassionate and goal-oriented therapy, most people were, in essence, still emotionally harmed. Most clients were coping a little better with their lives but they were still wounded people trying to cope with life, and they were still living their lives from a weakened place.

People who meditated were wounded people meditating. When clients ate well and took vitamins, they were wounded people eating well. People who went to AA as recovering alcoholics were still wounded after 20 or more years of being clean and sober.

We also noticed that when wounded people faced some of life’s normal emotional rough patches, they had no resources, no inner reservoir on which to draw in order to meet life’s challenges. The common expression, “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger!” has very little basis in reality. What doesn’t kill most people permanently weakens them and diminishes their resources. An example of this can be found in parents who lose their children. When a parent loses a child, he or she becomes more vulnerable to divorce, heart disease, diabetes, and migraine headaches - all because the loss of a child has such a weakening effect on the parent’s system.

We began searching for something that would change the course of a person’s life. We were looking for something that would take a wounded person who was living his or her life from a weakened place, and shift them out of that place to a better place of strength and inner wellbeing. We were looking for something that would alleviate and maybe eliminate mental and emotional suffering rather than just provide support for coping with that suffering.

Please note that we are in no way against psychotherapy. Psychotherapy can be supportive and comforting to people, and there are times when all of us could use a little support and comfort.

The Gentle Wind Project has now grown to an international, non-profit organization staffed with former social workers, engineers and educators. The healing technology comes in the form of Healing Instruments that can be held in a person’s hand. To date, the Project has reached more than six million people in over 100 countries around the world, providing a free mental and emotional healing to each person.


The healing technology

In the late 1970s, one person in our group who was both a social worker and an engineer began to receive telepathic impressions from what we have come to call the Spirit World. These telepathic impressions came in the form of engineering blueprints for the Healing Instruments. He built the Instruments and asked several of us in the field of mental health to test the Instruments on various populations.

The Healing Instruments were small enough to be held in a person’s hand and were used for just five minutes. Using some very complex mathematics and chemistry, the Instruments were designed to work on each person’s nonphysical energetic structure, the non-physical field that surrounds the human body. It is within this field that the hurts and wounds of life are literally stored. These damaged areas collect a kind of energetic debris that has a magnetic quality, causing people to pull or attract to themselves people and situations with similar kinds of harm. This helps to account for why so many people leave one painful relationship only to find themselves in another, equally painful relationship. The harm in one person is drawn to the harm in another person and the result is a relationship built on what is wrong with each other rather than what is right with each other.

If it were visible to the human eye, an individual’s energy field that surrounds his or her body would appear as sub-atomic, energetic netting that runs 32 layers deep. Each time a person is harmed mentally, emotionally or physically, this field is damaged. The Healing Instruments are designed to repair the damaged areas and rebuild the structure.

The Healing Instruments are based on the science of radiational paraphysics, the study of how something physical gives off an energy field that exists beyond its physical boundaries. We know, for example, that human beings give off a non-physical energy field which can be photographed and measured with proper equipment. Plants give off an energy field outside of their physical boundaries, as you well know if you have plants in and around your home.

The Healing Instruments utilize many of the principles of homeopathy, acupuncture and acupressure medicine and use colors in specific shapes, along with herbs, minerals, cell salts, precious stones, and metals such as copper and aluminum - all for their energetic properties. These substances come together in exactly the right proportions so that when a person uses an Instrument, he or she pulls in the energetic forces required to repair and restore his or her nonphysical field. The designs and herbal formulas come as very specific telepathic blueprints. Originally, the information came to just one person in the group, but in a short time all six of us began to receive the same impressions.


Investigating the instruments

While the idea of telepathic impressions from the Spirit World was interesting, we had no interest in supporting another untested new age gadget. And, while the Instruments were designed to work on a person’s non-physical structure, that meant nothing unless there were identifiable improvements in the person’s functioning. Would the Instruments allow people to feel calmer, stronger and more in control of their lives? Could the Healing Instruments alleviate and eliminate observable emotional suffering in a consistent and lasting way? Would the Healing Instruments take a wounded, weakened person whose life was based on coping with the past, to a place of strength and inner well-being?

We began to field test the Instruments in various settings. The Healing Instruments were introduced to several hundred people. These included a group of grieving parents in an obvious state of emotional anguish. Preliminary results showed that parents who used the Instruments were sleeping better at night, had more energy, felt less depressed, were more able to care for remaining children, and experienced a reduction in marital conflict that had increased after the death of their child. The Instruments were introduced in other settings, such as schools with children in distress, with similarly positive effects.

With promising preliminary results, we then had to study the effects of the Healing Instruments on a large group of people representing a wide variety of human conditions and problems over a long period of time. Some of us had been involved in long-term human behavior studies before we began The Gentle Wind Project. We knew that whenever you introduce any new treatment, you must account for the placebo effect – the results of the hope of the doctor and the hope of the patient – regardless of the treatment intervention. You must account for the power of suggestion, which could in this case result simply from the expectation that, “If you hold my crystal ball, you will be healed of past hurts and wounds.” We knew that placebo effects are generally short-lived and would not be enough to permanently overcome serious, long-term mental and emotional distress.

In order to study the effects of the Healing Instruments and to develop new Instruments, we needed substantial funding. We couldn’t go to the National Institute of Mental Health seeking a million dollar grant and say we are receiving telepathic information from the Spirit World for a new healing technology with promising preliminary results! So we sold our homes and our cars, and cashed in our retirement accounts. We pooled our financial resources and moved into a large house so that we could study the long-term effects of the Healing Instruments.

We deliberately sought groups of people who were in obvious states of emotional distress and who would know if the distress was lessened or eliminated with the use of the Instruments. We introduced the Instruments to women in abusive relationships. As former family therapists, we knew that abusive patterns were very difficult to break; often we saw women leave one abusive relationship and go right back into another equally abusive relationship. After using the Healing Instruments just one time, the majority of the women were able to change or break out of their abusive relationships.

Following up on these women five and ten years later, we found that most of them stayed out of abusive relationships. In other words, they did not go back to their old pattern. Many had made better choices in their relationships with men and were taking better care of their children.

Over the years, the Project was able to introduce the healing technology into a variety of settings including a woman’s prison, half-way houses for recovering alcoholics and drug addicts, veterans of various wars with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), incest survivors, and children diagnosed as mentally and emotionally challenged. In all groups, some improvement was noted. We relied on reports from subjects, family members, and caregivers as well as staff members of various facilities to identify change or lack of change in subjects’ functioning.

In an informal study, we explored the effects of the Healing Instruments on 30 prison inmates, self-selected out of several hundred Those who used Instruments were observed during the same time period as those who did not. The Instrument was held in each participating inmate’s hand for 5 minutes. It was introduced as something that might reduce stress.

Improvements were assessed by records tracking inmates' behaviors before and after use, supplemented by interviews (counseling sessions) with inmates. Most of the 30 women we observed stated that they felt calmer and had a feeling of control over their lives. Staff logs supported this, in that women who had been disruptive and even violent at times within the prison setting stopped being disruptive and began to build more positive lives for themselves in prison, within a brief time of using the Instruments.

Among war veterans, we identified ongoing nightmares as one indicator of PTSD. Most veterans reported that the nightmares stopped after using the Instruments; for some it was the very day the Instrument was used.

Gloria Hostetler, RN used a Healing Instrument in a medical–surgical ward and wrote the following in Nursing Spectrum Magazine in the November 2001, New England issue:

It is important to note we are not claiming that people who use the Healing Instruments go on to have blissful, problem-free lives. Problem-free living is not possible on this planet. You could say that someone who is having a positive life has a new problem every day. When a person has the same problem every day, such as the same argument with a spouse, the same hurt and depression over the loss of a loved one, the same despair over being ill, the same anger at an unappreciative boss, the same abusive interactions with an alcoholic spouse, or the same hurt over being a school failure, that person’s life is frozen. Forward movement is not possible because the resources required to make changes for the better are consumed in surviving and coping with the unsolved problems.

The best we can hope for here is to have the inner strength and resources to solve the problems that come our way. We can hope that our problems will be small ones like traffic jams, burnt toast and slow computer hard drives. But inevitably, we will have to face challenges such as illnesses, accidents, loss of a job, or loss of loved ones. The purpose of the Healing Instruments is to help alleviate enough of the past hurts and wounds for people to carry on positive lives based on good will and well-being.

To better understand the goals of The Gentle Wind Project, we would like to introduce several reports on people who have used the Healing Instrument.


The story of “Victor”

Victor was trying to lead a normal life but was coming from a wounded, weakened place, protecting himself from past hurts. After using the Healing Instruments, he began to live his life from good will and well-being. He obtained his own Instrument and shared it with others in distress.

Victor is a World War II veteran who is 74 years old. He is a retired store clerk with four children and five grandchildren. Prior to the war, Victor’s life was already difficult. His mother was depressed and physically ill most of the time. She had contempt and disdain for her children, and did almost nothing to care for them. His father worked long hours and Victor saw very little of him. But when he did see his father, he found the relationship positive. When Victor was a teenager, his father died suddenly from an infection. Victor quit school to support his mother and sister.

A few years later, when the US entered World War II, Victor joined the army. Three months into his tour of duty in Germany, he was shot in the leg. After many days of physical suffering on the battlefield, he was evacuated to a medical facility for treatment and then flown back to the United States. By his own admission, Victor was already wounded before he went to war. He had received very little support from his parents. His teachers in school were very strict Jesuit priests who were too overwhelmed with students to provide an emotionally supportive environment. In short, Victor had had no inner resources to draw upon when he went off to war and nothing to help him on his long road to recovery.

When Victor returned from the war, he spent over three years in Veterans’ Hospitals. He underwent surgeries and skin grafts to repair his leg. He was also very depressed and unable to speak for months at a time. He later said that he thought he would never be well enough to leave the Hospital. With psychiatric care and occupational therapy, Victor was finally able to be discharged. He went out into the world, married and had children. Victor never spoke a word of his wartime experiences to anyone.

For years afterwards, Victor continued to require surgeries. He had and still has osteomyelitis, an inflammation of the bone marrow caused by a pathogenic organism in his leg, that recurs from time to time. His surgeries required long hospitalizations without pay, relying solely on his veteran’s benefits to feed and house his children. It was an unspoken law in the family not to mention the war around Victor. If the subject did come up at a family gathering, Victor would leave and go off by himself.

In 1989, Victor used a Gentle Wind Project Healing Instrument designed to relieve PTSD. He actually wasn’t looking for anything to happen. He held the Instrument to humor his daughter, and he is always quick to say that he had expected nothing to change for him. Victor was one of several veterans involved in the initial, preliminary study with this Instrument.

A week later, his oldest grandson came to visit. Victor told his grandson that after using the Healing Instrument, he had gone back and thought about his life. He told his grandson about his wartime experiences, his years in the hospitals, and his anguish at watching other men suffer and die around him. The next day Victor and his grandson had another round of talks about the post- war days.

His grandson called his mother, the one who had shared the Instrument with Victor, to tell her what had happened. Victor was talking about these events of the past that were once unspeakable and he was doing so without anguish or suffering. His family noticed that he was happier. He was sleeping better at night and had more energy to play with his grandchildren. Many problems have come his way since then, including a 35 year-old son who developed terminal cancer. Victor has risen to every occasion with inner strength and stability. Today, Victor is the chat room manager on an Internet support group for combat veterans who share their war-related experiences and provide support to one another. Clearly, Victor was able to leave the pain of the past behind.


A Healing Instrument report

My name is Doris Kovalik. I am a former hypnotherapist, nurse’s assistant and now a grandmother. I have 10 children, 16 grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren and live in Arizona with my husband.

In May 2002, I attended my granddaughter’s wedding. My daughter, a psychologist, brought a Gentle Wind Project Healing Instrument to the wedding for all of us to use. Everyone laughed and said “Okay.” Little did we know how our lives would change. The change was very gentle but in each person it was as if our inner strengths and who we really are came through and began to reshape each of our lives.

My husband and I recognized changes in all of us and felt that we wanted an Advanced Instrument of our own. I have shared the Instrument with all of my children and grandchildren, as well as many other relatives and friends. Some of my children were having difficulty in their lives at the time and I was probably responsible for some of those problems. After using the Instrument, they have each turned a corner and are headed in a positive direction. This is something that I think all parents want for their children.

One of my daughters was in a bad marriage situation. She knew that it wasn’t good, but she just couldn’t do anything about it. She would try to make it work but never was able to do so. After using the Instrument, she gained the inner strength she needed to walk away. Her life is so much better.

Some of my grandchildren are grown-up and they just couldn’t get their lives going in a positive direction. My granddaughter, whose wedding we were attending, was a police dispatcher. After using the Healing Instrument, she began to feel stronger and better about herself. This summer she applied to Nursing School and was accepted. She was too emotionally bogged down before using the Instrument to be able to take this positive step.

Another grandson is a trained scuba diver. He wanted to work in this field but just couldn’t get going. He took a job driving a moving van but did not like it and felt bad about where his life was going. After using the Healing Instrument he said he felt like a different person. He went back and reapplied for a job on an offshore drilling rig as a diver and was hired. Within a month, he got a promotion. He told me “Gram, I know my life changed from the Gentle Wind.”

I have many other stories about my family and friends. My favorite is about my 88 year old Aunt Ethel. She is a retired parks and recreation director. In her early 80s she was still robust and full of life. I hadn’t seen her for a few years. This time she was a weak little lady who might pass away at any time. She had been in an auto accident that almost killed her. Then, she suffered a stroke that debilitated her left side and she developed Parkinson’s disease.

Aunt Ethel used my Instrument 3 times over 2 weeks. She began to get some of her strength back. I know that other people who have used my Instrument who had experienced physical traumas like a car accident felt they improved after using the Instrument. Today Ethel can go out in the yard for a couple of hours at a time to water her garden. She is able to keep up her house and she tries to have dinner ready every night when her daughter comes home from work. The best of all is the laughter is back in her voice and the twinkle in her eyes.

I would like to thank The Gentle Wind Project for all the help that my family has received!


The Gentle Wind Project in mainstream medicine

We must emphasize here that the Instruments are not being used in an attempt to cure cancer or any other illness. They are being used for emotional support and stability. When almost anyone is diagnosed with an illness such as cancer, the person goes out of balance mentally and emotionally. People naturally feel frightened and worried about the future. Treatments for cancer can be harsh and invasive. Family members and friends are also emotionally jarred. The Healing Instruments are being used in the spirit of complementary medicine to help provide emotional balance and support. A person who is emotionally balanced and stable has much more energy to use for recovery than someone who is anxious or depressed.

The Healing Instruments are being used in integrated medicine programs for emotional support in times of physical distress. The late Dr. Aldrich Chu-Fong utilized the Instruments in his practice as an oncologist at the New York Methodist Hospital. He reported, “I have been using the Instruments as an adjunct to my treatments and protocols. Feedback from my patients is that the Instruments ‘let me cope with my problems,’ ‘help me to relax’ and ‘are comforting.’ ”

Nurse Practitioner Cynthia Knorr-Mulder conducted an independent study of the Healing Instrument in a health care setting with seriously ill patients. She writes the following:

The Gentle Wind Project around the world

From 1983 to 1995 we relied on our personal resources to fund the Project along with an occasional donation from someone who was helped. Our commitment from the beginning was to offer the use of the Healing Instruments free of charge to anyone seeking help. Until 1995 we gave the Healing Instruments free to anyone who would agree to let others use them without cost. Our hope was that we would receive enough donations from those who were helped to keep the Project alive. While we have file cabinets full of letters and reports from people around the world expressing gratitude for the help they received, very few people gave financial support.

As one man said, “Dear Gentle Wind, I do not know how to thank you for the help that I received through your Instruments. My girlfriend has agreed to marry me. She says that since using your Instruments, I am finally the kind of guy she can live with. I would love to send you a donation but I can’t right now because I am saving for my new Lexus.”

By 1995 our personal resources ran out and we began to ask for specific donation amounts for the Healing Instruments. The healings themselves however are still free of charge. Since 1983 The Gentle Wind Project has made its way around the world. We now have an International Directory of Instrument Keepers. These are people around the world who have their own Instruments and who volunteer to share those Instruments with anyone seeking help. The Instruments can be found in cities throughout the United States and Canada as well as in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, China, England, France, Germany, Greece, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Mauritius, New Zealand, North Ireland, Poland, South Africa, Scotland, Singapore, Sweden, Switzerland, The Netherlands, and Wales. Last year, the Project received funding to open our first “storefront” in Rajkot, India, called the Gentle Wind Healing Centre. The reports that we have received from India support the research done in other societies. Well over 6,000 people received the healing at the Centre by the end of September, 2002. “Our Healing Programme is attended by about 60 persons every day. I have found the healing technology very effective.”

Knowledge of the Healing Instruments has spread mostly by word of mouth. Prior to 1996 there were no significant media reports about the technology. By that time, we had reached over three million people on five continents as a result of friends telling friends that the use of the Healing Instruments improved the quality of their lives.

Today, The Gentle Wind Project is still a grass roots effort for the most part. We receive hundreds of calls, letters and e-mails everyday from people around the world seeking help because of the recommendation of a friend. Even with blind and double-blind studies and independent health care practitioners duplicating this research, we have come to see that perhaps the best scientific evidence of the efficacy of The Gentle Wind Project Healing Instruments lies in the fact that the Instruments have a life of their own and are being used in homes, small businesses, hospitals, clinics and private practices throughout the world.


The Gentle Wind Project®
“Science and Engineering for the Human Spirit”
|A Non-Profit World Healing Organization
P.O. Box 29
Kittery, Maine 03904 USA
207-439-7639, fax 207-439-2092
http://www.gentlewindproject.org/
info@gentlewindproject.org


BIBILOGRAPHY

Gerber, Richard, MD, Vibrational Medicine: New Choices for Healing Ourselves. Santa Fe, NM: Bear and Company 1988.

Hostetler, Gloria, RN, Effective emotional relief for patients, Nursing Spectrum 2001 Vol. 5 No. 22NE. p. 9. http://www.nursingspectrum.com/

Kubler-Ross, Elisabeth, MD, Death – The Final Stage of Growth. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall 1975.

Panuthos, Claudia; and Romeo, Catherine; Ended Beginnings: Healing Pregnancy Loss, Westport, CT: Bergin and Garvey of Greenwood Publishing Group 1984.


HEALING INSTRUMENT EFFECTS

Gloria Hostetler RN

From 1998 to the present (spring 2001), I have been a medical–surgical nurse in a communitybased hospital serving patients from early childhood through later life. During this time I have shared my Healing Instrument with 608 patients and 304 of their family members. I have two Gentle Wind Project Healing Instruments: a Puck and a Super Puck.

My patients were admitted to the hospital for surgeries, trauma, cardiac problems, cancer, diabetes, kidney, lung, and liver disease. Most of them used a Healing Instrument just one time. The method of reporting included the nurses’ notes from all shifts, patients’ reports, reports from family members, my own observations, and reports from other hospital staff including respiratory, physical and occupational therapists.

Indicators Used:

1. Length of hospital stay
2. Acuity of illness
3. Level of involvement and ability to make clear healthcare decisions
4. Level of involvement in recovery process
5, Overall level of anxiety and fear
6. Assessment of vital signs, i.e., blood pressure, heart rate and rhythm, respiratory rate and quality, and lung capacity and condition
7. Level of mobility
8. Level of pain (quality and duration)
9. Ability to sleep
10. Number of re-admissions


Results

The majority of our patients are elderly with multiple physical complications. They are overwhelmed, anxiety-ridden and so fearful of the outcome of their hospitalization that they cannot make reasoned decisions about their care. They are often passive and sometimes withdrawn or disinterested, even with family. At least 95% of the time, I saw patients who used my Instrument shift into involvement in their healthcare. They resolved to take care of business, talk to their doctor, ask for options, and even tackle the necessary physical therapy. They went from feeling overwhelmed and depressed to taking control of their own illness. The exceptions were patients who were so old or so severely ill that they were unable to respond in this way — those patients did, however, rest better and their general well-being was markedly improved.

My patients’ vital signs improved in every case—100%. This is documented and noted by the nurses on the other shifts and by other staff as well. The respiratory therapist noted that the patients no longer hyperventilated; respiration was more regular and even. Nurses documented lowered blood pressures and heart rates with less irregularity.

Patients who had needed morphine every 2 hours around the clock for pain were reported by the night staff as sleeping through the night, with no medication—either for pain or sleep. Hip replacement and stroke patients who had resisted therapy, or been so fearful they were not willing to try, suddenly underwent a change of attitude. The physical therapists documented their patients’ new participation and rapid progress as being ahead of schedule in their treatment. In 90 - 95% of this patient population, their pain decreased and mobility increased after using the Instrument.

The most frequent comment I get from patients who have held my Instrument is “I haven’t slept like this in years.” Improved sleep was noted in 98% of these patients. For example, the night nurses reported that no sleeping pill was requested by patients who had asked for sleeping medication every previous night of their hospital stay.

Many of our elderly patients are “regulars”, in and out of admissions sometimes weekly. Once they hold my Instrument, this changes. The next time we see them is when they drop by to say hello.

The changes noted were apparent within 24 hours of holding the Instrument, a dramatic improvement.

This is a typical case study: Colon surgery, cancer, late stage; 77 year old male, third surgery in 6 months; wound not healing well. This man suffered from major depression, keeping his head turned away from visitors or staff, always looking out the window. His family was very distraught at his withdrawal from them. They would speak to me outside of his room and tell me that they were so sad that they could not reach him, “We have always been a close family.” He had no interest in food or drink, even though his family brought in his favorite foods for him. One night after evening care, I shared the Puck with him. He went to sleep with it in his hand.

The next day when I went into his room he was sitting up in a chair with a tray table full of food that his family had brought in for him, and he was eating it with great interest. He was talking with them and smiling. His family was delighted and amazed. He spoke up and said, “This is the girl that worked a miracle on me. I feel like there is light at the end of the tunnel. I woke up this

This patient’s surgery had not taken. The doctors felt there was nothing more they could do for him; the prognosis was death. Instead, his wound healed and he started to eat again. When I came back to work four days later, he had been discharged.

He came into the hospital two weeks later, looking so healthy, with good coloring and a big smile on his face. He gave me a big hug and said he was doing very well now, having a wonderful time playing with his grandson. He thanked me for sharing my Puck with him and his family. He felt it “brought me back to life.” He said, “I have a lot more energy now and I am sleeping very good every night. All the worry has just gone away.” More than a year has gone by and this patient has not been readmitted.

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Blessings

Dan