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

Who Can Heal?
Healing and Healers

Does everyone possess the inner ability to heal? Or does one need to be chosen, endowed with special powers, or have a certain personality? Sooner or later everyone interested in spiritual healing will stumble across this question.

What would the healers of the olden days have said to this? As to be expected, opinions differed a lot. But one essential credo was always the same: everyone who has a firm belief in healing and truly wants to can heal. This has a little catch: the proper form of wanting must be mastered first. So, what did our forbearers mean by “wanting”?

They were not referring to a blindfolded will that says, “This simply has to work out!” Most healers were (and are) very spiritual persons who knew that the final say is up to the spiritual forces of life. No traditional healer would have claimed to have this healing power. The traditional healer does not heal on their own. A healer in the old sense is a medium for the forces of life that can restore balance to the ill person. This is a very important point. Real healers have no hubris.

Of course, healers also have different temperaments. Some have an open and chatty manner, some are very calm, while others can be rather abrupt and direct in their behavior. And more than a few of them tend to enjoy little pranks. As different as they may be, they all know that the powers that be are the true source of power when healing comes about.

This means one not only needs the powerful desire to heal but also a deep trust in the powers of good, or more precisely, the powers of balance.

Traditional healing systems all over the world see illnesses as a kind of falling out of balance. Illness is a disequilibrium that can be cured when balance is restored. Healers need an imperturbable belief that healing is possible (and this means possible, for no human is almighty).

The people seeking advice or treatment are often not so sure whether it will really help, but this is not a necessary requirement in traditional healing. An old prayer healer put it this way: “When they come to me they already believe, otherwise they would not be here.”

For modern people, it can seem quite archaic to distinguish so clearly between good versus evil as our ancestors did. I use these terms because they are common in our native healing tradition. People in those days did not vacillate as much as we do. A spade was called a spade, as all shamanic cultures still call it. Today we might instead speak of harmony versus blockages. The healers of the old days also knew that the illness is not evil, per se, but it is evil when it’s in the body of someone, harming this person; therefore, it must be taken out—making no bones about it.

When you start to embrace the old knowledge please feel free to experiment with it and adapt it. We live today, and not everything that was suitable in the past is appropriate now. Nevertheless, I have to insist that the old clear and direct way of speaking about illnesses has a power of its own.

If one says frankly “this is bad—it has to go away,” one develops a whole different attitude than would be the case if first discussing it at length and losing oneself in looping thoughts. The power has to be bundled, kept together, and used purposefully; that’s how magic worked and still works.

Of course, that’s not to say one shouldn’t think about an illness, consider their own role in it and the possibility they have to change things (like lifestyle habits, for example). But the outstanding effectiveness of the old healing spells has its roots in a clear definition of negative and positive, and knowing without a doubt what was to be achieved. When it is time to get down to business and looping thoughts are left behind, the focus concentrates solely on the restoration of balance.

But let’s get back to the question of who is able to heal. Today we often think of healers as people who were somehow different or special, maybe a lovable eccentric, a grumpy old lady, or even a dynamic healer with powerful charisma.

Although there were some lovable eccentrics for sure, most healers were ordinary people next door. They had their day job or farm, and everybody in the village knew, for example, that neighbor Mr. Müller can cure this, and Mrs. Meier at the other end of the village knows how to get rid of that. If an illness caught you, you went to Mr. Müller or Mrs. Meier and were helped. Healing took place in the neighborhood, where people knew each other personally and everyone knew that he or she has this special gift, but apart from that is a normal person just like everyone else.

Today this has changed a lot. Of course, there still are the hidden working healers in small communities that outsiders won’t ever hear of. But instead of them, most people interested in traditional healing will see more showy and self-promoting people at esoteric fairs and healing conferences. One needs a lot of luck to find a true healer at places like this. I know a couple of people who spend respectable sums on the stars of this media-friendly arranged healing scene without any bettering of their situation. This was also an impetus for this book because it would be wonderful if people would learn again to treat each other with mutual love and respect, without show-off healers, simply from human being to human being.

If you want to find out which healing abilities were given to you, there has to first be the opportunity to try it out. There has to be room to meet others without the pressure to succeed. There will be some trial and error but that’s the way it is: experiences can only be made; they cannot be learned.

Of course, financial interests should not be the driving force for this. With traditional healers it’s customary even nowadays to give them money in a small bowl in their home—unsolicited and as much as one wants to pay. Since everyone knows each other in small communities, no one will take advantage of the healer, and some thankful people leave even bigger sums.

This is a whole different situation compared to someone who tries out his or her healing abilities only to make money. In the old days most healers had their regular income not in the healing field but on their farm or their job. They did not depend on the healing financially.

This is an important point because it can be a drawback. If one wants to make a living from healing, one gets into a dependent situation. No errors are allowed anymore (and even the best doctors make errors) because it could damage their reputation and compromise their income. This leads to pressure, and pressure hinders the ease that is essential to spiritual healing.

Doing things with ease is the key to awakening the healing powers within. Some time ago a friend of mine and her partner treated each other. He had a persistent cough, and she had a rash. For the fun of it, both performed “magical” actions they invented spontaneously. He blew on her rash and symbolically swept it away with his hands. She made a gesture as if extracting his cough and threw it out of the window. Although (or because?) they did not take this seriously, it worked wonderfully for both of them.

We can learn something important from this couple. Everyone is able to heal when the energy is allowed to flow freely. Some can heal more easily than others (as we are all differently equipped with talents in different areas), but everyone has at least a spark of it.

Because my friend and her partner acted just for fun, both were free of expectations and blockages. They did not ask themselves, “Is it possible? Am I capable of doing this? Will I make a fool of myself? Will I look silly if it shows no effect?”

If one takes a playful approach toward spiritual healing, then there is nothing to lose and much to win.

This was not different in the old days. Many healers discovered their healing abilities by accident. Of course, there also were traditional healer families that passed on their knowledge (and not incidentally, the confidence to heal) from one generation to another. And often healers searched at the end of their lives for a student to pass on their knowledge to. But in the end it was not important how one started rather how well it worked.

In the healing context there is also the question: Do I need a healer? Can’t I heal myself? Is this not true personal responsibility?

Yes and no. It’s definitely a good choice to take responsibility for oneself, care for oneself, and get information while not putting it all on a healer. Many people unfortunately develop a passive dependency toward doctors or miracle healers.

On the other hand, one sometimes needs an impulse from the outside to get the ball rolling. There is a West African saying that says you can’t give yourself the advice that helps you. With support from others there is more helpful energy and impetus for healing, which can make it a lot easier. One has a companion for the journey and doesn’t have to figure out everything on one’s own. This helps to save energy for the actual healing.

Most people visiting traditional healers don’t expect miracles (at least in rural areas; in towns this can be different). This attitude also helps the healer, because healers have to be convinced of their abilities, yet at the same time they also know that they are not all-powerful. One has to meet each other simply as human beings without unrealistic expectations on the part of the patient but also without healers that glorify themselves.

Second Sight and Healing

In the past, healers were often credited with having second sight and being able to perceive spirits. This seems to mirror ancient shamanic ideas; if an illness is thought of as a harmful spiritual intruder, then a healer needs to be able to spot them to expel the illness. In other words, she or he has to have second sight.

There are these negative, consumptive spirits, but there are also helpful forces that are perceived by the traditional healer and with whom she or he works together, just as indigenous shamans do with their helping spirits (in fact, the expression “helping spirit” doesn’t do justice to the power of these beings).

Many legends remind us to this day of this sacred bond between humans and spirits. This old knowledge might be encoded in myth and fairytales, but it still gleams and can be found. For example, there are many legends about healers who received their gift to heal from a fairy or an otherworldly encounter. Our ancestors believed that in spiritual healing many things happen in the energetic plane, the world of instinct and helpful forces.

The traditional Romany healer Hartiss put it this way: “You have to know that true healers can’t learn any methods. A healer is like a painter, a sculptor or a musician. You know him by the work he performs.” ²

But the gift alone is not enough. One has to learn, and one has to work wholeheartedly. Even if someone has a natural sensitivity for healing, this person is still just a diamond in the rough.

Second sight, intuition, or however one wants to call it can’t be learned, it is a gift. But the individual portion that was given to every one of us can be whetted and polished. To take the metaphor further, a big but unpolished diamond won’t ever sparkle and shine as brightly as a small one that’s been perfectly cut.

A spiritual gift is no blank check. All traditional cultures consider those gifts as a disposition. With practice and training, this disposition can blossom, but it can also slumber if we choose not to use it.

Basically, every person has at least a little spark of healing power. Persons with a bigger amount of it are able to heal to a larger extent. Or, put simply, not everyone will be good at math, but everyone can put two and two together.

[contents]

2. Derlon, Heiler und Hexer (Healers and Warlocks), 24