In an emotional YouTube video, Aimee Benefield, a mother of six and owner of Warrior Events, publicly renounced the practice of energy healing and will no longer be selling any of her products.
Warrior Events was a personal development mentoring company which offered various resources and programs to assist people in strengthening themselves mentally, emotionally and spiritually.
However, after deep reflection, and in part due to Elder M. Russell Ballard’s General Conference address in October of 2017, Aimee decided that she needed to be fully aligned with the brethren of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Elder Ballard specifically warned church members in his address:
In some places, too many of our people are looking beyond the mark and seeking secret knowledge in expensive and questionable practices to provide healing and support.
An official Church statement, issued one year ago, states: “We urge Church members to be cautious about participating in any group that promises—in exchange for money—miraculous healings or that claims to have special methods for accessing healing power outside of properly ordained priesthood holders.”11
The Church Handbook counsels: “Members should not use medical or health practices that are ethically or legally questionable. Local leaders should advise members who have health problems to consult with competent professional practitioners who are licensed in the countries where they practice.”12
Brothers and sisters, be wise and aware that such practices may be emotionally appealing but may ultimately prove to be spiritually and physically harmful.
While acknowledging that much of what energy healing teaches is truth, Benefield gives many reasons for her change of heart – the strain it placed on family relationships, that some elements of energy healing were “just plain evil”, and the truth that God invites all to come and be healed without money.
Part of Benefield’s statement on her website reads:
I stand with the leaders of my church and as such I am no longer selling any of my programs/products. I have also chosen not to listen to or recommend the following resources anymore: Julie Rowe, John Pontius, Mike Stroud, Kirk Duncan, Tammy Ward, all those associated with the world’s version of energy/faith work/healing, muscle testing etc. Reiki, My Perfection Healing, Wendi Jensen, Quantum Touch, Emotion Code and Body Code by Dr. Bradley Nelson.
You will have to get your own answers on what needs to change for you. But this is where I am at right now. Anyone who is using The Healer Of Light Program I ask that you please delete it and please don’t share it with others.
I am grateful for the wake-up call and I understand if others no longer trust me or want to follow what I share. My plan is to weed out of my life anything that goes counter to the pure doctrine of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. I hope that by sharing my story it might help others who have strayed, to course correct.
Aimee Benefield’s full story can be watched in the YouTube video above. She explains what she has encountered over the last three years and how she ultimately came to the realization that she had been ignoring red flags all along the way.
Benefield mentions many times that much of what she was teaching was good, and she never hoped to deceive anyone. She truly thought she was on the Lord’s errand. In retrospect, she can now see that some things she taught were distractions.
My plan is to weed out of my life anything that goes counter to the pure doctrine of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
Her courage and determination to follow the counsel of a living prophet is admirable and will hopefully be a blessing to others who are looking to outside sources for the hope and healing that only comes through the pure doctrine of Jesus Christ as taught by the apostles and prophets in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
For another take on energy healing, you can hear one woman’s experience with energy healing and her takeaways > click here.
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Doug Johnson
Saturday 10th of July 2021
I normally don't like to comment on things, and I can not speak on Aimee's experience. I have learned that God's truth and light is shed forth among all of his children and people. I think apart of our purpose is to learn and experience life. When we can see truths and ground ourselves in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, we can enrich our worship and discipleship of Jesus Christ. We learn to separate that which detracts from our relationship with Christ and the Holy Spirit and come to higher connections with Deity. I am not familiar with what she was working with, but I also have witnessed people who were struggling so much that connecting with God was very challenging. Practices like mindfulness and trauma work have been helpful in honoring the power of the body to help create the calm and serenity that the body and mind needs to be able to sense God and the Holy Ghost. This is definitely an individual journey and I am not criticizing or challenging anyone here. My invitation would be to seek Heavenly Father's inspiration on connecting with the atonement where true and lasting healing comes from and how your practice may help connect with that. If you so desire.
Kat
Saturday 19th of December 2020
The LDS church has massive investments in Big Pharma. Their investments include a corporation creating a synthetic marijuana. Seems to me that they have no problems supporting the creation of synthetic versions of what God created or accepting the 'exchange of money" for said synthetics. You need only look to the opioid crisis and the fact that Utah is amongst the highest consumers of antidepressants and anti-anxiety medications.
Annalisa
Sunday 19th of July 2020
Please forgive me for essentially calling out the writer of this blog 😓 (who I know meant well), but I feel this is very important to mention. They have stated that the church spoke out "specifically against energy healing." They did not. Nowhere in their statement did they use the words "energy healing." We must be careful when sharing our leaders statements that we do not put words in their mouths. When our church leaders want to give explicit instructions they do so without reserve. They have told us specially on many occasions not to "smoke," "drink," "engage in premarital sex" and so on. If they want to tell us specifically not to engage in energy healing they will do so with as much readiness as they ever have about other things.
As a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints any one of us should know that you do not engage in anything that can be referred to in any way as "evil." If this woman was into some kind of "energy healing" that had such aspects, I am grateful to hear that she got away from it. The scriptures as well as modern day church leaders have spoken very plainly about those sorts of things-they are evil, not of God and we should stay away from them.
But I want to express my concern over the blanket term "energy healing" because it creates mass confusion about two things that are very, very different from each other. I want to explain each of them for anyone who needs clarification, and I hope that a new term can be created to separate the two.
"Energy healing" has often referred to the "dark mystics" and "magical" workings that draw upon powers opposite of God for the so-called purpose of healing. This kind of "energy healing" is usually associated with those who practice witchcraft, necromancy and the like. Obviously this work is not and cannot be of God.
But "energy healing" in more recent years has also come to refer to something purely scientific and in no way associated with the "dark mystics" whatsoever. I am personally very familiar with Quantum Touch and the Emotion Code by Dr Bradley Nelson and I can personally testify that both of these modalities are built entirely on scientific research and evidence that proves that what they do can both positively impact and help the body to heal itself. Neither Dr Nelson or Richard Gordon of Quantum Touch take credit for the healings that take place in their modalities and both teach their students the same principles: God has planted within each of our bodies the innate knowledge to heal themselves and even know what they need to heal. Through proper diet, exercise, positive thinking, positive lifestyle choices, and focusing energy in a scientific manner to where it is needed in our bodies or the body of another person we can assist our/their bodies in recovering or even healing from illnesses and ailments. Hence none of us are healers when working on another person, it is the sick person who is healing themselves, we are just helping them to do so by aiding them with helpful energy.
The church has always been a supporter of science. If something can be proven with science, they have respect for it. Since both of these modalities are first of all in no way connected with evil (and even insist that we beware of modalities that are and/or promote negative ideas or take credit for the healing), and second of all are actually provable with science, and third of all give complete credit to God and the person healing themselves through proper practices (some even similar to following the word of wisdom), I cannot find any reason to discredit them, call them evil or disuade anyone from studying them.
As someone else mentioned, God tells us "By their fruits ye shall know them." I have never seen or heard anything in over decade of being familiar with these two modalities that is evil, encourages us towards evil or is harmful in any way.
On another important note, the church has discouraged us from engaging in "healing practices" that claim to offer "secret knowledge." There is nothing secretive about either of these modalities. The Quantum Touch book is offered in its entirety as a free download on the Quantum Touch website, and the Emotion Code book is easy to find at libraries and online stores such as amazon. If anyone is curious about them, I would encourage you to study them out for yourselves, pray and consider the scientific evidence presented for them.
Jennifer
Friday 2nd of June 2023
@Brandi J Walton, I know this is more than 2 years later, but I'm going to comment anyway... I'd encourage you to read, re-read, and read again the statement put into the handbook, by the spokesperson for the Church that included the term energy healing. Then, if you feelthat it means the Church has denounced "energy healing" as a whole, ask Heavenly Father to help you discern it. Because they haven't.
clinamuteamaral@gmail.com
Sunday 24th of April 2022
@Brandi J Walton, Please can you help me? Where can i find an oficial church declaration against energy healing pratices?
John
Sunday 20th of June 2021
@Annalisa, YES! This needed to be said. Thank you!
Julie
Monday 28th of December 2020
@Brandi J Walton, it says that people need to seek help from professionals. I personally consider my naturopath to be a professional (he has his doctorate in the practice and is also LDS) and among other things he does energy work. He does not promise miracle healing, which is what the handbook warns against. To me, it seems they are warning us to stay away from groups or individuals that are extremists and promise to heal you if you give them $1,000 or something. There are people that will place their hand on your head and chant with a promise to heal, zero scientific proof. The bottom line though, is that every word that comes from a church leader's mouth or pen needs to be pondered and prayed upon by each individual member. Personally, I don't feel any evil when seeing my naturopath or doing energy code sessions with my friend that is a practitioner. Quite the opposite, those appointments, in addition to traditional therapy, have been incredibly helpful in my emotional healing and progression.
Brandi J Walton
Wednesday 23rd of December 2020
@Annalisa, now that the church has officially come out and said "energy healing," have your thoughts or feelings changed since July?
Jennifer
Thursday 12th of December 2019
Will she be sending refunds to everyone who paid for her services?
David Ralstin
Wednesday 11th of December 2019
I have read three of the authors mention. I enjoyed reading them all. I have a science background and I have a natural hunger for information. I also have healthy skepticism. I will read just about anything because I know that I am not necessarily reading "truth" with a capital T. I am reading other people's truth and I get to see new information and new perspectives. I use my life experiences and knowledge to test things that are new and choose portions of other people's experiences that ring true to me. Not every thing I read from those authors I agreed with or I accepted. Never the less there was a lot of good material worthy of pondering. I am hesitant to discount peoples experiences and with a broad brush nd label them right or wrong. I see a lot of that in the the comments of others. I thought this hour long "confession" was heart felt along worthy of my attention.