Embodiment · “Being Precedes Having”
Quantum-Touch Energy Running
Combine a specific breathing pattern with a sweep of body-awareness to build a strong felt sensation, then hold light touch on yourself or another with the intent that this ‘energy’ flows out through the hands.
Energy Running in 5 lines: Sweep your attention slowly up through the body, noticing sensation. Add a paced breath (e.g. inhale 4 sweeping up, exhale 4 pouring it into your hands). Build the “charged” feeling in the hands. Place them lightly on the area with the intent that energy flow — “energy follows thought.” The relaxation and calming touch are real; the “raised vibration” and quantum claims are not — and it never replaces medical care.
What it is
Energy Running is the core of Quantum-Touch, the modality founded by Richard Gordon. The practitioner uses a specific breathing pattern combined with a sweep of body-awareness (moving attention through the body) to build up a strong felt sensation — described as vibration, heat, or tingling — and then places the hands lightly on themselves or another person with the intent that this “energy” flow out through the hands to “raise the vibration” of the area being touched.
Gordon’s slogan for the directing step is “energy follows thought.” State it plainly up front: although Quantum-Touch is framed in the language of “life-force energy” and “vibration,” the technique is best understood as a structured combination of paced breathing, focused attention, relaxation, light touch, and expectancy — not a literal transmission of a measurable healing energy (see Why It Works and empirical status).
The Method
As Gordon teaches it in Quantum-Touch: The Power to Heal, the sequence is roughly:
- Set the body-awareness “sweep.” Bring attention to your feet and sweep it slowly up through the body to the crown, noticing any sensation — tingling, warmth, “buzz” — as fully as you can. This running of attention through the body is the felt foundation.
- Add the breath. Coordinate the sweep with a paced breath (commonly a 4-4: inhale to a count of four while sweeping awareness up the body, exhale to a count of four while concentrating the sensation into the hands). The breath ratio is the amplifier.
- Concentrate the sensation into the hands. On the exhale, pour all awareness into the hands until they feel “charged.”
- Light touch / “running energy.” Place the hands gently on or near the area (on yourself or another), often with hands on both sides so the area is “sandwiched.” For small areas Gordon teaches a “tripod” finger position (thumb plus first two fingers brought together).
- Direct with intention. Hold the gentle intent that the energy flow and the area “entrain” to a higher vibration — “energy follows thought.” Keep the touch light; do not press or massage.
- Maintain and observe. Keep the breath-and-sweep going for several minutes, staying relaxed, and notice any change in sensation, warmth, or how the recipient feels. (This is a faithful summary of the method as taught, not a reproduction of copyrighted training material.)
Source & Lineage
Richard Gordon built Quantum-Touch out of his 1970s training in therapeutic massage and polarity therapy and a transformative late-1970s apprenticeship with Robert (“Bob”) Rasmussen, taking over and systematising the work when Rasmussen retired.
He codified it in Quantum-Touch: The Power to Heal (1999; expanded 2006), and it has since spread through an international instructor network. Energy Running shares an obvious family resemblance with other light-touch, intention-led modalities in this library — Bartlett’s Matrix Energetics, Kinslow’s Quantum Entrainment, and Reiki — but its signature is the explicit breath-ratio + body-sweep recipe used to build the sensation first.
Common refinements
Pressing or massaging. The touch is meant to be light; turning it into bodywork changes the practice (and confuses what is actually doing the work — the relaxation, not the pressure).
- Over-breathing. The faster patterns can cause light-headedness; if you feel dizzy, stop and breathe normally (see Safety).
- Treating the felt “buzz” as proof. Tingling and warmth are normal products of attention and slow breathing — not evidence that energy was transmitted or physics altered.
- Making medical claims. Keep claims modest. If you use it, treat it as a calming attention-and-touch practice and keep all medical care in place.