Jim Gilkeson

Award-winning author and energy healer Jim Gilkeson was born in Wichita, Kansas. He left college at the University of Kansas to join an order of mystics and lived throughout the U.S., Germany, and The Netherlands. After leaving the order, he became a student of energetic healing in Northern Europe, among others. In 1989, he returned to U.S., eventually becoming a member of the Health Services staff at Harbin Hot Springs, a retreat center in Northern California. After Harbin burned in the Valley Fire of 2015, he moved to Ashland, Oregon.

He now teaches at the Massage Therapy Institute in Davis, CA, and travels for workshops. He practices and writes in Lawrence, Kansas, where he now lives with his partner Diane Tegtmeier. Gilkeson's books are Three Lost Worlds: A Memoir of Life Among Mystics, Healers, and Life-Artists, The Eleven Directions of Kansas, A Pilgrim in Your Body, and Energy Healing: A Pathway to Inner Growth (Hachette). His stories and articles have appeared in The Memoirist Quarterly, Invisible City, The Meadowlark 105 Reader, Massage and Bodywork Magazine, and The Heart of Healing, edited by Dawson Church.