Barbara Brennan can trace her family lineage back 8 or 9 generations to before the mayflower landed, yet her upbringing was more austere than blue-blood on the Wisconsin farm where she was raised with an older brother and younger sister. She grew up in a home with no indoor plumbing where the sears catalog filled in for bathroom tissue and where peanut butter and jelly on the same sandwich, at the same time, was a luxury the family simply couldn't afford. Raised with the fabled "Midwestern work ethic" Brennan has transcended a difficult and at times very painful life to become world-renowned and to be considered one of the country's more prominent spiritual healers, teachers and authors. Having recently moved to Montauk Point with her husband, Barbara now lives a life she could only dream of those nights long ago as a child.

An avid interest in the Earth and everything on it was born of her early childhood. Without many friends nearby to play with, she spent many hours of her youth alone in the woods observing nature as well as the energy fields surrounding the animal and plants. This early childhood ability that seemed so natural at the time, was somehow abandoned and forgotten for many years as she grew and moved away from the family home. As an adult she expressed her interest in the physical world by studying and graduating from the University of Wisconsin with a Master's degree in 1964.

Though she never became an astronaut as she one time had dreamed, Brennan did get the chance to move to Washington and work as a Research Scientist and Atmospheric Physicist at the Goddard Space Flight Center of NASA in the late 60's. Shortly after her stint with NASA ended, those long dormant abilities to perceive energy fields reawakened as she trained and became a practicing Bioenergetic Counselor. Around the same time, while doing bioenergetic work with individual clients, Brennan discerned vague impressions or messages about her client that would eventually develop into her now full-fledged ability to channel. In addition, Brennan began to notice repetition of certain patterns in client energy fields, that seemed to correlate to psychological issues, problems or emotions the client was experiencing.

Though well educated academically, Brennan found her formal scientific background somewhat lacking when dealing with matters of psychology and spirituality that seemed to surface during client sessions. Wishing to act responsibly on behalf of her clients and in search of some spiritual guidance of her own, Brennan moved to the Catskills where she lived and studied for nine years at the Phoenicia Pathwork Center. The Pathwork's training program is based upon channeled information that connects psychology to spirituality. Through the study of over 250 individual lectures originally channeled by Eva Pierrakos, a student pursues a whole personal path of purification and transformation. It was at this time that she also studied Core Energetics with Eva's husband Dr. John Pierrakos at the Institute for Core Energetics in New York City. John remains a friend even today and serves as an advisor, as Consulting Psychiatrist, to The Barbara Brennan School in East Hampton. Throughout this period of time Brennan's own abilities to see energy fields and channel information from other beings continued to get stronger. When her vision became so acute as to be able to see into the body, she added healing as another aspect to her work.

Study at the Pathwork Center also allowed time for recreational. On a number of occasions, along with others from the center, Brennan would vacation on Long Island's East End. It was here that she decided to make her home. The allure of the beach, coupled with fond childhood memories sparked by the large undeveloped woodlands in the area made the choice to relocate easy. In 1982 she established her School of Healing where she taught others the skills and techniques that she had learned. Brennan integrated the best of her scientific, Core Energetics and Pathwork training together with new information she continued to receive from her own channeling sessions with her guide Heyoan. It is this unique combination of the analytical with the spiritual that makes Brennan so remarkable and her work so important. In a world where science reigns supreme and things are typically judged to be "normal" (vs. paranormal) only when they can be analyzed and reproduced in a laboratory setting, she helps to bridge that gap of disbelief by applying scientific principles and methodologies to a work otherwise considered outside the realm of "normalcy." While she admits that little scientific experimentation has been done in a lab to authenticate her aura and healing work or techniques, Brennan has applied another scientific method to support the validity of her work which is "observing phenomena to see if it is repeatable versus a miracle which would only be a one time thing."

In 1986, with private clients already scheduled a year in advance, Brennan made the very difficult decision to leave her private healing practice in New York City to dedicate herself to expanding the school. Today the Barbara Brennan School of Healing offers a four-year (part time) certification program in Professional Healing Science. Upon entering the school each student commits to embarking on a personal journey of self-awareness and transformation. As part of this journey and to "safeguard emotional health," it is a school policy that each student must be in personal therapy two times per month. In addition to the obvious courses in specific healing skills and techniques, the curriculum includes a variety of other classes aimed at graduating students that are both well rounded academically and well grounded in their own personal spirituality. Some of the training encourages creative expression as a means of personal development. Other course work focuses on the practical aspects of having a professional healing practice including such topics as ethics and professional practice development. This part of the program recognizes the necessity for Healers to earn adequate compensation for their services. Brennan believes "it's just as appropriate for healers and teachers to become prosperous as anyone else" for when a Healer can earn a living from helping people, the healing work will no longer need to take a back seat to another "real job."

Some critics have suggested that the school's program is too long and too costly. Brennan would counter that in order to have Healing recognized as an actual profession, it must be taught in a manner consistent with other professions, not just another two-day weekend workshop. It is also her desire to see Professional Healing Science a profession with certifications and accreditation's common to other "mainstream" health professions. On the issue of cost, it is true that many would view the annual tuition of $4,950 as pricey, particularly for a part-time program that meets five times per year for five days. For the more than 400 graduates and the more than 600 current enrollees, 150 of whom come from 22 countries outside the U.S., the cost was obviously not a barrier. The broad scope of the program courses coupled with the life transforming aspects of attending the school, would seem to make the tuition a relative bargain (at only $13.56 per day) when weighed against other more frivolous ways many of us find to spend our money. Part of Brennan's Midwestern philosophy, born of her own poor beginnings and the need to work to put herself through school, includes the belief that "If you have the mind-set, you can create something in your life if you want to-it's very healthy to pay for what you get." Many people would agree. Barbara Brennan has the largest, longest running healing school in the nation.

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