Charleston-based energy healer Christian McClellan uses Reiki, sound baths, and spiritual community events to help people clear energy blocks and tensions in their bodies.
“It doesn’t matter what we’re looking for, whether it’s healing, peace, creativity, love, finding what’s missing there,” he said. “It’s about removing layers of judgment, fear, and anxiety. It’s a game of subtraction, not addition.”
Energetic healing work is a holistic practice that is said to activate the body’s subtle energy systems and remove blockages. By breaking through these energy blocks, the body’s innate self-healing ability is stimulated.
People have been studying the body’s energy centers for thousands of years. His seven chakras, the energy transmission centers of the body, were first described in ancient Hindu texts.
Recognizing the power of internal energy, many ancient cultures have used various methods (Reiki, sound healing, acupuncture) to stimulate the body’s natural healing powers. Energy healing is based on the principle that matter is made up of molecules, and even solid substances are constantly vibrating. The theory is that we, as humans, also vibrate.
These are the principles McClellan employs at his practice, called Sacred Soma, a downtown studio where he works one-on-one with clients to clear energy blockages and promote healing. It also hosts community events. Many clients first discover McClellan’s work through his sound baths, which he regularly performs at the Redux Contemporary Art Center. This sound bath often coincides with a new or full moon, inducing a deep meditative experience.
McClellan, a certified Reiki Master himself, says a Reiki Master is “not someone who has mastered Reiki, but someone who has mastered Reiki,” alluding to his own energetic healing journey.
build a spiritual path
McClellan took his first meditation class as a sophomore in college in 2003, but his spiritual journey began in earnest a decade later and continues to evolve. After graduating from university, he worked as a lawyer in Washington, D.C., and then in San Francisco, during which time he experienced many internal turmoil.
“I had a problem with alcohol and a lot of emotional stuff, and I used to self-medicate to distract myself or look away. I stopped drinking in December 2012. , immediately after, I felt an overwhelming sense of emptiness, a longing to connect with something bigger than myself.”
He was experiencing a “stuckness” which he now recognizes as what is called “Vairagya” in the Hindu scriptures. This is a general dissatisfaction with material things and a sense of the need to find a calling to something greater – the spiritual. This was the beginning of a period of spiritual exploration that led McClellan to teachers who would change his life.
“There’s an old saying that when the student is ready, the teacher appears,” McClellan said. He found his first teacher, Swami Kekarnatha Nataji, on his Google search and discovered that his studio was just six blocks from his McClellan home. “He opened my heart and gave it to God,” McClellan said.
“But the great thing about these processes, as far as I know, is that it is an awakening that starts from within us. And before we are consciously aware of it, the awakening energy that is within us is , pulling in all the nutrition and all the resources it needs.”
He spent the next ten years investing in learning Kundalini meditation, Reiki, and sound healing. He said there are many routes to seeking energetic healing, but it is often found through suffering.
But there are other ways to find this awakening, he said. “There is a genuine curiosity. There is an artist’s way of wanting to connect with deeper creativity.” It starts with letting go.
“The ego starts when you open your eyes at birth. All of our senses are saying, ‘I’m separate, I need help,’ and that’s natural for a child, but… That separatist mindset locks us into adulthood,” McClellan said. “My job is to unravel things like that.
“And it’s so gratifying to see this unravel and to see these things start to awaken in my clients. This has been such an amazing gift…and I want to share it. ”
Access his work or learn more through Redux’s donation-based sound bath
on Instagram @sacred.soma.chs or holysomaspace.com.
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