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Physician, Heal Thyself

15:12 / 10.09.02

I've had one recurring health problem over the last couple of years that's recently been linked to a possible intrusion. Now, in a shamanic ontology, a practising shaman sucks out the intrusion, solving the problem for the patient. Finding a shaman that I trust enough to do the work isn't exactly going to be easy where I live (although there are a couple of options open to me), so I did a journey to establish whether it's possible to take a DIY approach to intrusion removal. The response I got was definitely negative: that there was no way around the fact that I need external shamanic help on this one (this was confirmed twice in the same journey). Moreover, in some of the literature I've read, the chances of healing being successful increase considerably when a community is actively part of the process.

Now, I don't want this thread to be about me, so I've left things deliberately sketchy concerning my situation. I'm just interested in physical healing in general, why it so often seems to be a community activity as opposed to something done in isolation, by oneself. All the healings I've known (and that's a lot, having come from a Charismatic Christian background) have happened when the community has been present in one form or another (either the healing has occured in a public meeting, or the seeds that led to a gradual healing over time seem to have been planted in such a meeting). Now, some answers to why this is are blindingly obvious, but there have to be a huge number of complex factors at work, more than just weight of numbers behind the intent. I'd like to discuss the range of those factors.

So: have people experienced personal healing experiences that were outside a community context? Was it a spontaneous occurence, or the result of a working that you'd performed? What has been people's experience in general? Does anyone have any self-healing techniques that they'd like to share? Finally, what ways can be suggested to find a suitable community lifestyle within which one can experience healing, bearing in mind the dangers of some of the groups that offer these services (cult membership, etc)? Should there be some form of code in place to safeguard the people seeking help?

23:04 / 10.09.02

Well, this might be of interest for me, too. My... "quest", for all the time I have been in this business, has been to cure myself (and it has slowly become less prioritary, but the problem is still there).

So, any info?

20:41 / 12.09.02

I'm pretty active with local neo-pagans, so I know lots of healers. Of course, sniffing out the competent from the herd is always a chore, but I've found its not so hard anymore. Like calls to like, and all that. A group of magickians like the sort I hang with makes for a rather strong gravity well, attracting competent folks from the oddest of places sometimes.

From my experience, healing can be done by one's self, but it is better to have someone else do it. Its more... real that way. Its kind of like this: You know how you can't tickle yourself because you know its coming, but someone else can really get you? Healing is like that sometimes. Meditation and energy circulation can go a long way to keeping yourself healthy, but sometimes you just need an outside perspective to give up the controls enough for it to work.

While one on one is good, and I certainly do enough of that myself, a group is better. The reasons are pretty much the obvious ones of more power and more support for the magickal reality necessary to conduct the work. If you expand that as taking place during a community suported ceremony, you have further support yet.

As a great example, I know some folks who use tattos, piercings, scarification etc as a form of magick for healing and self transformation. Its powerful stuff. They work at festivals, so there are lots of people that can help out with drumming and energy work while they do their thing. Every piece is a ritual. Tattoos are also powerful mojo when it comes to self transformation, especially when done in a ritual setting. So, that is one possible thing to look into for healing as well.

19:03 / 05.07.06

After my recent nasty brush with near amputation I've been looking at healing practices quite differently. Been reading the reiki threads as well.

Are the reiki folk the most active healers on here or are other people using other traditions?

*

21:13 / 05.07.06

I used to use projective chi gung. From what little I know of reiki, they seem to be pretty similar. I perceive the chi gung healing to be a little more impersonal and a little less spiritual in emphasis; it wants to portray itself as a technology rather than an art. I don't heal much anymore, because I didn't have the discipline to keep the exercises up.

21:28 / 05.07.06

I'm quite into bodywork and martial arts - I see these both as pro-active health postive disciplines. Happy to discuss, though it's not healing per se - actually, I suppose bodywork could be seen this way if one's get into it long term, though it's this kind of stuff is normally seen as as pysche rather than soma.

Unconditional Love

22:23 / 05.07.06

I have to say its a bit of both, psychosomatic perhaps, i spoke to my therapist this afternoon and spoke about things id kept to myself all my life, i finally got the trust to tell somebody, and it felt so good to actually say this stuff and realise by talking to him that its common to people in my circumstance to go through what i have been dealing with.

If that wasnt enough, i felt charged with energy as if a huge weight had been lifted, i went to bagua and we practiced outside around a tree, and i had so much heat in me by the end of an hour i was shaking in minutia and high as a kite, i think people could tell, i spoke to a few strangers on my way home and an old old aquaintance, i am usually abit of a loner, but for some reason i became approachable.

Not being percieved as a threat in itself is healing, and feeling like i am making adjustments to age old garbage and integrating that into my practice is really helping me along. alittle lightness in my day shows me how i could be living without thinking it safer to firmly squease my head up my arse and pretend the worlds an illusion.

Thou i think i have to pay more attention to my snake step, do you practice lion or snake step?

13:33 / 06.07.06

I'm quite into bodywork and martial arts - I see these both as pro-active health postive disciplines.

I agree as I find yoga and belly dance to be essential in the basic integration of conscious awareness of the bodily experience. They break down the illusion of the body as being separate from the mind/self.

I'm hoping to learn more energy manipulation as I'd like to eventually learn the healing dances wherein the dancer shares energy with the audience. I've only found one mention of someone combining reiki with bellydance but it seems fairly kick ass.

I suspect that only when you are in charge of your own health and energetic resources can you really be in a position to help others.

02:01 / 11.07.06

cusm, what type of festivals do your friends work at? i've been wanting to get ritually tattooed for a while but haven't come across the opportunity.

also, i've researched and dabbled in a lot of different healing traditions. i'm kind of obsessed, really-- reiki, massage therapy, yoga, ayurveda, homeopathy (which is basically magical considering that most remedies are so dilute as to contain not a single molecule of the actual substance), fasting, sweating, herbalism and guided visualization. i'm pretty convinced that moderate to long fasts can help heal serious physical conditions, and probably so can guided visualization (which is basically a shamanic exercise-- you put yourself into a trance, then talk to your guides about the nature of the problem and visualize it being healed. this can also be done as a guided process, which i'm really curious about, but unfortunately it's much easier to get information about how to do it as a personal practice). i would also really love to be in a place with a working experimental healing group, but unfortunately i'm not.

i could talk more about any of these traditions, or recommend further reading, if anyone is interested.

12:22 / 11.07.06

I gyre,

I have heard of some proffessional tat artists that I believe are in NJ who do ritual skin art. I've emailed the person who knows them to get more info for you. There are gatherings in Western Mass as well that I'm asking for details for you.

12:36 / 11.07.06

While there is a fasting thread here, in the context of magical work I find using a fast helps me remove myself from everyday perceptions. For healing, as mentioned in the other thread, it allows the body to attend to the regenerative work.

I'm curious about fasting as a tool to prepare the healer for working with others?

I've noticed it softens my ego and allows me to operate from my intuition on an increased level. However I was taught one should respect the process of the body and not seek to over extend energetically. How do folks use it to work with other people?

15:18 / 13.07.06

here's the folks I know of through friends that do ritual body mod in the US

Sacred Marks Sanctuary

00:28 / 28.07.06

oops, i hadn't looked at this thread for a wihle, but thanks!