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

Perils and Risks
Healing and Healers

Healing is a challenge. And this is not only true for the patient but also for the healer. If healers lack the ability to set boundaries or don’t take enough time for their own regeneration, this is a risk.

In the old days this was known as the “jumping over” of an illness. This meant that if a healer didn’t protect himself or set boundaries (for example, with symbolic cleanings the healer keeps a certain inner distance from the patient) he ran the risk of developing the same disease as the patient.

This is not just a fairytale or fable, as I’ve found while working on this book. A friend of mine had a persistent rash on her hands and would not let up, asking me, “Can’t we try one of these spells you are collecting for your new book?” I refused at first, for after all, I’m a witch, not a professional healer. But she insisted that it couldn’t hurt to try, so why not? She doesn’t live near me (we will talk more about distance healing later in the book, as it was also practiced by our ancestors for several reasons), so I spoke the spells over a cell phone photo of her hands (you have to go with the times, right?). Because we are close friends, I never thought about setting boundaries.

The cure worked wonderfully, but a week later I had a red dot on my wrist and some days later it had grown to the size of a five-cent coin that looked exactly like the rash of my friend. I was laughing because it was too funny; a witch like me forgot to protect herself. I then told the rash to rush away, and everything turned out fine.

This is also an important point. Say what you want, but don’t exaggerate anything. Trust yourself and your body to do its job.

Overwork is also a reason for illnesses to “jump over.” Some of the famous Mexican folk healers (who are sometimes venerated like saints, so we know many stories of their lives) didn’t even reach the age of thirty because they exhausted themselves in their work.

Every healer is different and so everyone must know his or her own limits—and respect them. I heard of a north German healer who has to rest after each patient for at least two hours. If someone comes along during this time for a healing session, they have to wait until the two hours are up.

Most healers treat at maximum five or six patients a day. Of course, there are exceptions; some people can treat twenty or more persons per day and feel great. Others treat only one or two patients, and there is nothing wrong with that. This is completely individual and the only thing that is important is to be true to oneself about it.

Someone who can see twenty patients per day is not “stronger” or “better” than someone else. This person is just built differently in the way their inner path of energy flows.

Of course, the topic of protection is not only relevant to traditional healers. Doctors and therapists are also well advised to take care of themselves and to find their own rituals or habits to create a healthy distance, so the illnesses of their patients don’t jump over to them or undercut their strength. It’s old knowledge that being in contact with illnesses every day can’t be healthy—unless one protects oneself well.

To cite doctor Martina Bühring and her study again:

Classical doctors’ traditional protection is a starched white coat.⁴ But if this protection was sufficient, why do so many family doctors die from heart attacks quite early and why do so many psychiatrists commit suicide?There are many examples of somatic transfer. For example, many people start scratching when someone next to them reveals an itching skin disease. An example of psychological transfer is depressive patients who lower the vigor of the people around them.

What does this mean for the healer? He has to be able to empathize with the symptoms of the patient, to let the signals “come in.” But he also has to be able to process these signals in a way that evokes no disease manifestation in him. This must be a dynamic process which enables the healer to keep his own body healthy.

Interestingly, certain healers can handle and “process” certain illnesses, while sending other illnesses on to other colleagues. This phenomenon can also be observed in hospitals, where certain doctors, consciously or unconsciously, provide help for a certain clientele by acting as contact persons.⁵

In the old days most healers worked more as specialists and not so much as general practitioners. Some took off pain, others worked as herbalists, some healed burns, and others stanched blood. One was able to talk off warts, others “the Rose” (skin infections and rashes). No one was surprised that healers were specialists who did not treat other illnesses because they knew their limits well.

Today healers are often expected to be able to treat any illness and many healers expect this from themselves too.

The way of our ancestors can be very inspiring in that matter. Being a specialist not only can prevent exhaustion, but it also helps to get a real deep knowledge of your area of expertise.

Creating routines helps to develop a healer’s individual system, step by step. (We will cover this later in more detail, because healing should be embedded in a system in some ways.) Healers who know well their spiritual guides, their helpers (stones, plants, gestures, spells, etc.), and their abilities—but also their limits—won’t be knocked off their feet easily.

But if someone is uncertain, has no overall context for the healing work, or tries out new systems all the time, they won’t be able to raise sufficient healing power for the longer term, gradually leeching themselves out over time. If they also neglects their protection or simply work too much, this might even lead to damage.

In traditional societies shamans often learn to heal themselves first during their so-called initiatory illness (also called shamanic crisis or shamanic illness; it’s often a near-death experience or life-threatening illness that grants them special knowledge). This always comes first before they learn to heal anyone else.

Of course, there is no perfect human being anywhere—someone who has no problems and is always perfectly balanced. That’s not what this is about. But one must at least be stable and powerful enough to be able to absorb the energies of the ill person during the healing procedure.

Being first able to heal oneself is like a safety net for the healer, so they can trust in their own ability to quickly get rid of an illness that jumps over.

Methods of Protection

The most important tool to prevent the jumping over or transference of illnesses is a healthy inner distance during the healing. Some people need no aids at all for this because they already have a healthy inner border that can be only shattered when they overwork.

But not everyone is this lucky and not without reason. A lot of the ability to heal comes from the ability to let in and literally empathize with the other who feels ill (empathy comes from the Greek word empátheia, which means “feeling into somebody,” so naturally it blurs the boundaries between healer and patient).

Imagine the energy of the healer as a white cloud. During the healing procedure it wanders to the patient, intermixes with his or her energy and goes back to the healer, who reads out the information gained during the encounter. In practice this can happen quite quickly. Some healers see in split seconds what’s wrong with the patient.

Healers with a mediumistic nature often even know who will show up next at their door with which problem. There are many true stories about healers that greeted their surprised incoming patients at the door with the appropriate herbal remedy for their illness.

To return to the cloud analogy above, their energy system is so sensitive that they feel what is in the air and know what weather front is approaching (this often merges with the ability of second sight).

Due to this sensitiveness healers can face two problems. The first one is that if he doesn’t retrieve his cloud completely from the patient, he loses energy that leeches out. The patient gets a short energy boost from this but later returns to their previous energy level because this was just energy gained from the healer, not an impulse to generate new energy oneself.

This aspect is especially important for inexperienced healers, because this first improvement of the patient through catching the energy of the healer can start an unhealthy cycle between them. The healer gives his own energy and the patient takes it and feels a short-term improvement of his situation. But a real change does not happen, because a real change would mean an impulse to activate the self-healing forces in a patient to open his own sources of energy again. Healers that exhaust their energy in this way won’t have enough for themselves one day.

Because of this, one of the most important principles of spiritual healing is to never work with your own energy, always let the healing forces of nature work through you. In fact, healing is the task of an intermediary. The healer gets in touch with a source of healing (through prayer, herbal knowledge, letting the energy flow through his hands, working with power animals or whatever is practiced in their culture) and lets the energy of this source flow to the patient. He’s like a connecting cable, but he never is the source of this energy.

The second issue is letting go of the information and energies that were received by the patient after the treatment. If a healer neglects the inner cleansing—not cleaning up the exploratory cloud used to feel what’s going on in the patient—he will eventually carry all the sorrows and hardships of his patients in an unfiltered way and his pure white cloud will become dirty and disheveled.

Of course, this applies not only to traditional healers, but also to doctors, therapists, nurses, healing practitioners, and spiritual consultants in general. All of them will benefit from observing those two things: taking their own energy back to themselves consciously, and cleansing it before incorporating (this is meant literally; in corpus means “into the body”) it again.

Restoring the Energy

In many cases visualization is the best tool to bring the energy back to its original state after it was used to detect what’s wrong with the patient. When the treatment is over, visualize taking back your energy cloud through your solar plexus and sealing it there.

The solar plexus plays an important role in many healing traditions worldwide. Of course, it’s called many different names, but it’s always that same spot in the body, about a hand’s breadth under the heart. It is one of the most important plexuses in the human body; a hard strike to this region can lead to reflexogenic cardiac arrest.

If one prefers to work with more metaphorical visualizations, one can also imagine a little washing machine at the height of the solar plexus, pulling in and cleansing the small cloud thoroughly until it’s clean and fresh again. One does not have to use stilted pictures or symbols for that; what works, works!

After difficult cases or when you are not fit as a fiddle it can be very helpful to frame the restoring of energy more tangibly—for example, with the help of a stone. The many varieties of quartz crystals are favored healing stones all over the world: agate, rock crystal, onyx, jasper, aventurine, rose quartz, carnelian, tiger’s eye, citrine, amethyst, smoky quartz, or chalcedony. They can be wonderful helpers and are easy to use. Lay a quartz crystal on your solar plexus, and imagine your little cloud coming back to you filtered through the stone.

For special cleansing energies, you can add a very grounding stone like hematite. Use it like a second filter after the quartz crystal and imagine the energy moving through it as though it is a carbon filter straining out anything unwanted or draining.

For all of this you don’t need a special or esoteric setting. Look for a suitable stone that appeals to you. Many people tend to think every agate is like any other and a rock crystal is simply a rock crystal. This is not true. They are like one family, but not every family member is the same. So, do a bit of soul-searching before buying a stone, focusing on whether the exemplar before you is a good one for using for your intended purpose.

Maybe you already have a good stone-fellow in your collection that would love to support you in your healing work. But if you want to use a new stone for this, carry it with you for a period of time and become familiar with it first. Try to feel if you would make a good team and take some time for it. No need to rush.

When people try to rush in spiritual matters they most often pay for it with later delays because things were not thought out. If you remember the old story of the tortoise and the hare you are on the right track.

If you feel that you would be a good team, speak with the stone about everything, and start to work together.

By the way, forget everything you’ve ever heard about “programming crystals.” A stone is not a computer, and this is not all about “work,” it’s about a spiritual friendship. On occasion put your stones in the warm light of the sun, give them incense, or rinse them with cool water. After a while they will tell you what they want from you naturally, because it’s important for the stone to cleanse its energy and regenerate, too.

If someone sees many patients each day, this ritual probably can’t be done after every one of them. In this case it should be done in a concentrated form after the working day is through. As so often is the case, routine is key; when doing it on a regular basis, it becomes customary and works quite fast.

Of course, rituals like this can’t balance out permanent overworking, as faced by so many doctors in hospitals, for example. We must be frank about that. They are made for the regeneration of one’s own power, nothing more—but also nothing less.

Cleaning the Energy

As we are all different, not everyone is the kind of person who enjoys visualizations. There are many practical and hands-on approaches to help oneself, too. For example, some healers prefer to wear jewelry made from healing stones during their work and use it like a filter for the incoming energies of their patients. Tried and true stones for protection during healing are turquoise and hematite.

Necklaces and small body chains of healing stones can be used. Chains around the waist can help very much to “keep the energy together.” In some African countries, waist beads, often made from colorful glass, are worn especially by women as more than just jewelry—to protect their personal energy field. In this spiritual area, embellishment and protection go hand in hand.

To put it briefly, protective jewelry should in some way enclose or encircle the core or trunk of the body (neck, chest, belly—at least one of them) and can optionally also be worn on the wrists or the ankles, as one prefers.

One thing also has to be mentioned here: it’s not the end of the world if one has absorbed negative energies. This happens to us every day and is part of normal living. I want to place emphasis on that because some people live in constant fear of negativity. It’s part of our life, and it won’t harm us in the long run if we keep on cleansing in appropriate ways.

Spiritual baths have a long tradition for doing this job all over the world. There are some rules for it to work well. All baths are taken without any further bath additives (like soap, shower gel, bubble bath and so on). If you prefer to shower before the bath, go ahead, but the bath should be sacred, and one should take it in a calm and undisturbed atmosphere.

If you don’t have a bathtub, don’t worry. Make an infusion of the ingredients and once it’s cooled enough, massage it all over your body for several minutes and shower it off afterward.

The Sage Bath

Pour one to two quarts of boiling water over a half cup of dried sage. Let it soak for about ten minutes. Strain it into the bathwater and enjoy for at least fifteen minutes. After the bath, dry off with a fresh towel and put on fresh clothes.

This one is an oldie but a goodie. Today many people look for things that are new and fancy. There’s nothing wrong with that, but we should not make the mistake of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Tradition is important, especially in our fast-changing world today, so hold on to it.

The Sea Salt Bath

This is also true for the sea salt bath. It’s a classic and for a good reason; all life comes from the sea. The ocean is our big mother. All ancient myths reflect this. There’s not one creation story without the power of the waters, and even science has confirmed that all living beings evolved from the ocean.

This is not just our metaphorical mother, and this bath is far more than just a cleansing bath (as it is often labeled). This bath means returning to the motherly source of life as we know it. It is about cleansing, but it’s also about deep regeneration and renewal at this ancient source.

Use one cup pure sea salt for the bath, and proceed as stated above for the sage bath.

The Coconut Bath

This bath comes from African and Afro-Caribbean traditions, but Indian and Asian traditions also make much use of the coconut. All of them consider it to be a rejuvenating, cooling, and nourishing cleanser.

It’s also a symbol of the head. If one faces stress—the kind of inner overheating that confuses the mind and makes one feel that they are not acting from their true self—then coconut is a good support, just as cooling of the mind benefits the body. Of course, the coconut is not native to European traditions, but this bath is simply too good to be left out and we can always be thankful when we are able to learn helpful things from others.

Put one to two cups of coconut milk into your bath. Alternatively, you can pour hot water over coconut flakes, let it brew for fifteen minutes, and strain it in the bath water. Coconut is a wonderful two-in-one cleanser, for it not only cleanses but also nourishes.

Mint Oil

The permeating scent of mint is a strong cleanser but also very refreshing for body and mind. It convenes the spirits of life in a person (the Lebensgeister, as we call them in German) and clears the mind.

It’s quick to make: mix a few drops of essential mint oil into a carrier oil such as sunflower oil, almond oil, or jojoba oil. You can add more if you want more (for your temples against stress and headaches, for example). You can add less if it’s for aromatherapy massage oil, which can help the whole body.

The rule of thumb is to start with a little. People’s sensitivity toward essential oils is very different. Mint oil is a safe oil (but please don’t use it on babies and small children), it’s even edible, but when working with plants, more is not better—quite the opposite. If it’s too much for you, your senses will be displeased instead of refreshed.

Spit It Out

Another method of cleansing that was practiced by healers quite often in the past is spitting after the patient had gone to prevent the jumping over of an illness. This way of cleansing was also used if someone had said something bad about a person, and it’s also helpful against the evil eye (the powerful energy field of envy and malevolence that can hurt people).

Today this can be done discreetly by going to the bathroom. People working in a hectic hospital or who are very busy as healers can also do this while on break or after working hours.

Protecting Healthy Boundaries in General

Maybe you know the feeling of wavering boundaries. This can be the case if for example the moods and vibes of other people affect you as if they were your own, especially if it occurs with people you are not particularly close to. Taking things too much to heart is also a typical sign of weak boundaries.

But this can have many manifestations in real life. Some people tend to have a ravenous appetite for sweets, others drink too much coffee or get headaches or stiff necks. These are just some examples to show that this is not just a spiritual or emotional thing, it can affect the body as well. Observe yourself and listen to your inner voice—you know yourself best.

Our ancestors also knew about these problems and they loved to use red stones against this loss of power as well as for dealing with one’s own life energy in a healthy way. Red corals and carnelians were especially popular for this. Red stones heighten one’s vigor, give strength, and help to develop a good sense of self. Often people who need it the most shy away from the very thought (“oh, red is such a bold color, that doesn’t fit me well”) because they are so used to being exhausted by others. So, if you find yourself thinking that, think again.

If you decide to wear a red stone, it’s best you use a chain or cord that is long enough to wear the stone over the solar plexus area. Some people experience feelings of being angry or churned up when starting to work with red stones. Nothing is without reason, there will be good reasons behind it, so it’s good to investigate them.

If this happens to you and it’s unpleasant for you (although a thunderstorm can clean the air at times), take off the stone, but stick with the issue it has brought up for you. Anger is never there for no reason, and ignoring it won’t solve the problem. During your work with these feelings, wear the stone from time to time for a day to see how you progress. You can use it as a “mood thermometer.”

When thinking about healthy boundaries it’s also very inspiring to remember the healers of the past. Often they were real characters and off-the-wall originals. They had their principles in life and they stuck to them.

This is a huge difference to today, where many healing traditions try to be something for everyone. The old healers knew their possibilities but also their limitations and let no one walk all over them.

Besides the red stones, jet (also known as gagate) is highly recommended for people who face a lot of tension, as healers often do. In the old days jet was often used as a protection stone against the evil eye. But it also helps against envy, negative projections and burdensome tensions. It was customary to adorn it with a red bead (glass or stone) to make it even more powerful (more on this stone in the chapter about stones).

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4. In German the word “starched” is the same word as “strengthened.” This is deliberate wordplay.

5. Bühring, S., 53