Magical Healing: Folk Healing Techniques from the Old World - Hexe Claire 2018

Appendix: Sympathy, Antipathy, and Magnetism

Sympathy used to be and still is simply another word for magic in many rural areas. This is where terms like sympathy and black sympathy originated (we would call it white or black magic today).

The belief in sympathy makes the basic assumption that everything has a soul or a kind of energy vibration. Therefore, some things are sympathetic or familiar to each other based on their similar vibration. A warming plant like ginger, for example, has an excellent effect on feverish colds because it fights fire with fire.

Antipathy is considered healing through opposites in folk medicine. In this case cooling plants like mint and eucalyptus are used to combat colds accompanied by fever. The neutralization that occurs when two separate influences act on each other and create equilibrium is key here. Hot and cold create lukewarm.

Folk magic utilized both principles equally. No strict blanket formulas exist about which variation to use when. In general, the healing art of the common people rarely contains blanket statements such as, “In order to fight illness A, you must use treatments a, b, or c.”

Some readers may look for a strict formula or prescription in this book, so they can follow a recipe exactly. I have to disappoint you there because blanket formulas simply do not exist in the science of folk healing.

Mechanistic thinking like this appeared much later. Old medicine views the human being as a whole, but also as a unique entity. As a result, it is clear that experience and the ability to be sensitive are of utmost importance in finding the right healing remedy. Both can be acquired—sometimes quickly, sometimes a little more slowly. Ultimately this is still true in the modern healing sciences, except that people tend to experiment more instead of using their intuition. If a patient does not respond to one type of medicine, he will receive another until something (hopefully) fits.

Magnetism is the healing power that rests within each person. In folk healing this term has nothing to do with either the physical phenomenon of magnetism or magnetic bracelets or any of those things. Today we’d call it energy or aura. Magnetism does not only describe healing power (exactly like our term for energy today), but also the basic energy of a person, meaning his or her strength, charisma and centeredness in their own power.

Magnetism further covers the topic of techniques that include laying on of hands and all other applications that allow healing energy to flow into the body of a patient. We call this energy “work” today. Only the terms have changed.

The terms used in folk traditions often display a shift in meaning. If we want to express it simply, sympathy and antipathy refer to healing through magic, plants, stones, and spells while magnetism requires an energy flow from the healer to the patient. Both are often applied at the same time. Of course, even a strictly herbal healer will also speak to her patients, which automatically triggers an exchange of energies between two people.