Healing through the ages

Introduction

Healing has been exercised throughout the ages, irrespective of colour, nation or creed.
During the last 25 years I have studied a multitude of therapies as applied in the Western world. It has been and still is an amazing experience. Because of my personal interest and abilities the direction of energy healing is most prominent. It all started with Reflexology and through the years I have worked with crystals, Bach remedies, etheric oils, colour and of course my hands (magnetic healing and spiritual healing). My studies have taken me back to my roots, where I discovered the influences in my youth that have helped to make me the person I am today.

In the old days

It is often stated that healing was already performed in distant prehistoric times. This is because a.o cave paintings of healing practices have been found all over the world.

The best known examples of these paintings, tens of thousands years old, have been discovered in the South of France and in Spain. In a cave painting in Limeuil in the Dordogne (France) a magician from the Ice age is pictured, bent over to heal a sick person.

More than 20.000 pictures have been found in caves in the former Soviet Union, many of them showing the activities of shamans or mystics. These were seers claiming to have transcendent experiences in which they were in direct contact with the Divine Mind. In North America, South America, Australia and most probably all other parts of the world signs have been left behind of similar activities. Papyrus rolls from Egypt show a picture of a healer (reflexologist) working on a patient’s foot.

Before the advance of the scientific age, healing was commonly practiced or performed by the village witch or wizard, often called the wise woman or man. These people were often born having the gift of healing by touch, and many had knowledge of healing herbs being passed down through generations of their families. They diagnosed both human and animal ailments. This was because in the early history of humankind animals were very important to human survival. Even today practitioners still practice animal and plant healing because they consider all life as coming from the gods.

Different healing methods

Throughout history many healing methods have been practiced. These include prayer healing, diagnosing the patient’s urine, using prescribed charms which consisted of both Christian and pagan elements, casting spells and other folk-magic remedies such as requiring the patient to boil an egg and bury it in an anthill saying the disease or condition would disappear when the ants consumed the egg. 

Other remedies were more realistic such as using gems and semi-precious stones, which have a long history of medicinal value, to heal.

It is only logical to assume that in a world where life was experienced as magical and mysterious and where everything was considered to have divine or demonic power, all symptoms of healing and its practices were thought to be supernatural, by people all over the world.

This is as it should be because healing has played a dominant part in the evolution of all humankind and also because it was all so accessible and natural.


(Information and pictures gathered through the internet and by P. Vitebsky – The shaman)

May this post be of interest to you. 


With love,
Juliet Joan