"A Tale of Two Springs" 

There are no better examples of these forces than episodes found in the narrative of the New Testament. In the case of the woman who could not stop bleeding, healing energy is dramatically illustrated. Jesus is in a throng, and many people are pressing against his garment. Yet when the bleeding woman touched his hem (coming "in the press behind"), Jesus felt that particular touch ripple like the rings from a pebble tossed into a calm pond. In all the crowd, Jesus knew someone had touched him prayerfully - in effect touching, not his garment, but the vivifying and healing energy flowing within it and through it. And it was she, not the scores of others, who was healed.

It literally is a tale of two springs - one, the spring of blood that would not quench, representing the material world which is forever incomplete; and the other representing the energy of Jesus, which encircles and completes, propagated through his robe - an energy the woman was able to connect with because, presumably, she touched it with the right intent: "Woman, thy faith has made thee whole."

Spiritual Infertility - and the Cure

From this viewpoint, then, it becomes much more apparent how New Age Christians (yes, they exist) could believe that healing vortices are founded in holy text. A vortex (not all "earth energies" are equal) is an outflow of force related, in however diluted a form, to the energy of the Christ. A paradigm for vortices was established by Jesus through the blessing he bestowed upon the woman who had bled for 12 years (in Mark 5:25-34). This woman is emblematic of all humanity. Her malady is not only real, it is also a metaphor. That is, the metaphorical interpretation does not exclude or conflict with the literal interpretation - it completes and illuminates the literal one. The hemorrhaging is a reference to perpetual menstruation. Obviously, a woman who is continually bleeding cannot conceive a child. Thus esoterically Mark 5:25-34 refers to spiritual infertility - our collective inability to receive and host the "seed" of divine knowledge. We have ears, but we do not hear; or we hear, but we do not heed

The number of years the woman had bled, twelve, is of course a number symbolic of the whole physical dimension and of the Church. Twelve disciples, twelve tribes, twelve zodiacal signs. To say that the woman had bled for 12 years means that she had "run the gamut" - exhausted all remedies. (Image: Stoney Creek.)

Thus Mark 5 shows how in healing the woman who bled, Jesus established the possibility of spiritual fertility (salvation) for all humanity; at least that is the mystical interpretation of the event. The blessing, once given by Jesus, is now invoked at all points and places where grace is outpouring spontaneously in response to the presence of the faithful - just like the womb receives the seed and hosts it in the process of human conception. The energy is an outflow of grace and energy vortices can be holy places. Whether the Basye - Orkney vortices have such quickening properties remains to be seen . . .

25 And a certain woman, which had an issue of blood twelve years,

26 And had suffered many things of many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was nothing bettered, but rather grew worse,

27 When she had heard of Jesus, came in the press behind, and touched his garment.

28 For she said, If I may touch but his clothes, I shall be whole.

29 And straightway the fountain of her blood was dried up; and she felt in her body that she was healed of that plague.

30 And Jesus, immediately knowing in himself that virtue had gone out of him, turned him about in the press, and said, Who touched my clothes?

31 And his disciples said unto him, Thou seest the multitude thronging thee, and sayest thou, Who touched me?

32 And he looked round about to see her that had done this thing.

33 But the woman fearing and trembling, knowing what was done in her, came and fell down before him, and told him all the truth.

34 And he said unto her, Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace, and be whole of thy plague.