Spiritual Healing
What is it, why do it, why pay for it, & more
By Sammi Boring
After looking for a new place to get a haircut, Erin Anderson, a Minneapolis-based energy healer, found herself drawn to the Gem Salon in St. Paul. The pastel colors and modern decor touch drew her in. While getting her haircut, Anderson’s stylist mentioned that Gem would be doing a “re-open” house to welcome new customers after the salon had rebranded. Anderson asked if Molly Black, the owner of the salon, would be interested in having mini energy readings, such as gemstone healing, a process which involves placing gemstones on the body to draw out negative energy, at the event. After Anderson gave readings at the 2017 event, Black and Anderson agreed to have full services at the salon on a regular basis.
After taking over the former 526 salon and rebranding it to Gem, Black was excited to have a personalized experience for clients. She envisioned clients receiving these healings while waiting for hair color to set in or nails to dry.
“It was slow to take off,” said Black. The spiritual offerings were not booked consistently. At that same time, Anderson began to collaborate with the George Wellbeing Center in downtown Minneapolis. After Anderson’s focus started to shift towards her new collaboration, she approached Black about discontinuing her services at Gem. They both mutually decided it would be best that they still collaborate at events but that Anderson would no longer be a daily part of Gem.
That was Anderson’s start at Gem from February 2018 to December 2018, but her journey with spiritual healing was one forged long before Gem. It has taken years for Anderson just to be able to do energy healings at Gem, George Wellbeing in downtown Minneapolis, and Healing Elements in St. Paul, Minnesota. After starting her six years and counting of rigorous training in 2014, Anderson continues to go experience every offering she learns for herself, so she can continue to learn more about various energy healing practices and use them for her clients.
Anderson regularly travels to places like Toronto and London as a part of her ongoing training. While traveling, she learns different parts of the oral lineage handed down for thousands of years from King Salomon and continued by energy healers.
“I was searching for something that I could connect with,” Anderson said.
Now as a “clairvoyant” and “metaphysician,” Anderson helps people find their “natural energy reserves.” In doing so, she has helped people deal with different types of stress, trauma, and other problems that they face. “Emotional cord cutting” is one of the King Salomon offerings Anderson provides. Black recieved this offering to reframe a relationship, or, as Anderson described, to release a connection with a single person. “It does not have to be anyone's fault,” said Anderson. It does not need to be a toxic thing is a person’s life. Black said it really helped her “let go of her past” and restart a part of her life. This is something that is not guaranteed from the offering—it is all in how a person is looking to release.
While working with these healings, she found a mentor at the Holistic Chamber of Minnesota, a collective of people practicing a variety of healing methods. This mentor guided her as she began the Lineage of King Salomon. The King Salomon lineage comes from 30 years of work done by Salomon and other healers where they found energy healings could help people the most
The King Salomon offerings are ceremonial according to Anderson. For these “deep sessions,” Anderson begins with ritual, prayer, and meditation an hour before the client arrives to prepare herself for the offering. When the person receives the healing, it often involves a “choreography” of standing, moving, and turning around. Anderson uses a number of sacred tools including wands, gemstones, and symbols, each one with a meaning and a specific type of energy necessary for the healing. She uses these tools and her energetic preparation to create a “container of energy” that allows the healing to happen.
Anderson is learning new things about her energies everyday and sees a lot of hard work ahead of her. She meditates every day to make sure she is energetically clear and will make only a “positive energetic impact” on others. “Learning energetic responsibility has been really freeing,” Anderson said. To her, the ability to continue working on her journey is a gift; “I am doing the best I can to show up in the world in a way that it is integrous and as responsible as I can,” Anderson said.
The prices for Anderson’s services vary based on the duration of the session and the depth of the healing. Given the tens of thousands of dollars, hundreds of hours of training, and experience, Anderson sometimes considers charging more for her services. But she knows there is a sweet spot between what she has invested and what she feels a client will be able to pay. “We are quite used to paying for things that don’t bring us any value in the long run,” Anderson said. “Society has not learned to value things that help us spiritually.”
“This market or part of the country is only just waking up to some of this stuff. If I was in California, I would be charging twice as much,” Anderson said.
Anderson believes the coasts are “always on the bleeding edge of innovation in personal growth.” At her 2017 residency in northern California, she was surprised to meet so many people who would request multiple spiritual sessions. They considered spiritual healing as a part of self-growth, similar to therapy, and they were willing to pay for it.
Many of Anderson’s teachings, she says, focus on things that can affect college students every day. Anderson shared that she believes spiritual healing would have helped her so much when she was in college. Anderson felt that if she could have processed her life in a different way and learned how to meditate on her issues in college, she would have done it. Even now, she has taken her time in therapy and combined it with her meditation and spiritual offerings, which she says, has helped her tremendously.
While these teachings have taken years to learn, and there will still be plenty of more offerings to learn, for Anderson, these teachings have brought her closer to understanding energy, whether it be her own or her clients. Anderson has been able to take these learnings and help people searching for clarity in life. She continues to make her energetic impact in other parts of the Twin Cities and influence the community around her.
For other on-campus resources:
Center for Spirituality and Healing