LoveCasting is a term I first heard in 1976 when I visited a Colorado ranch with my film crew to interview the man Ian Fleming modeled his James Bond stories on. Conrad O’Brien-ffrench was a spy Fleming met while skiing. Ffrench was captured, taught himself to paint in prison and, after his release, became a respected artist. He had retired to Colorado and I interviewed him on his chalet deck overlooking the beautiful Eden Valley near Loveland.
Conrad introduced me to George Shears, a retired chiropractor from Missouri who developed a form of remote healing he called Love Casting. George had been a pitcher with the New York Highlanders in 1912 and he was over 80 when I met him, physically frail but incredibly enthused about what he had discovered.
LoveCasting, he explained with infectious excitement, was a simple technique for sending healing energy to anyone, anywhere. One evening I went to visit George and his wife told me that he was in bed, quite ill. A woman arrived at the same time I did, hoping to receive a healing session. Naomi invited her to sit in a nearby chair in George’s room. I joined them, in silence, and the room quickly filled with warm, comforting energy. After about 30 minutes George signaled the session was over. The woman thanked him profusely and left. I was stunned. How many people would help someone else when they needed help themselves. That was George!
George taught me how to do LoveCasting and inspired me to study energy healing. I did, and opened my own energy healing center in Victoria, BC in 1982. My assistant and I developed a long list of names, people all over the world who requested healing. We focused on them every Monday morning and occasionally got a few thank you letters, telling us how the sessions felt.
I moved on to other pursuits after about six years but I’ve never forgotten LoveCasting. I started doing it again recently because I think it’s more needed than ever. I’m amazed at the people traffic running through my head on any given day. I probably think of at least a hundred different people. And, to be honest, not all those thoughts are positive!
It’s easy to get sucked into blame and to direct anger towards others who believe, talk, or act differently than we do. Of course, it’s easy to justify this when we target an officially “bad” person. But George was adamant that everyone is connected. It’s impossible, he said, to love this person and hate that person and not have the one you love also be affected by the hate.
I practice LoveCasting every day now, casting loving thoughts towards anyone who comes to mind. Frankly, it’s not easy with some people, especially when I’m watching the news and witnessing some heinous act. But I’ve learned that there are many kinds of love and each person is asking for a different kind. Some need compassion. Some are silently asking for forgiveness. Others are like children, begging for someone more mature than they are to enforce some boundaries and teach them about acting appropriately. I send them a jolt of warrior strength.
I’ve learned so much about myself since I resumed LoveCasting, about my programming, my judgments, my preferences, and my unconscious biases. It’s pretty humbling, actually, because I’m someone who is dedicated to increasing peace on the planet. Of course, that’s a lofty goal, it’s theoretical. The reality is how I think and speak and act. Sometimes I shudder to recall that comment from comedian Tom Lehrer: “There are some people who do not love their fellow man … and I hate people like that!”
Ouch! That’s me sometimes. Well, awareness is the beginning of change, if we choose to. These days, I’m choosing LoveCasting as a daily habit, sending silent prayers to anyone I think of, wishing them well, being an anonymous peacemaker. I often don’t feel nearly “pure” enough to do this but then I remember George. If he could do it, and he sure could, even when he was sick, then maybe I can, maybe you can too, and if enough of us do it, it might just make a difference in the world.
