by Greg Rowe March 26, 2022
It is perfectly natural for humans to exchange energy sympathetically, or empathically. We do it all the time, whether the phone rings just when you were thinking about the caller or whether you are ‘pulled’ to ask if a friend has a headache, when he or she said nothing about having one, nor outwardly exhibited it. These are normal human faculties.
In most religious traditions it is a normal activity to pray for someone who is ill or undergoing a mental or emotional disturbance. The cultural assumption is that one is pooling energy, positive though energy with many others, and, by thinking of the one on need, helping that person. As such, it should not seem weird or strange or paranormal to any of us to imagine that, since we all have this capability to one degree or the other, some of us could intentionally develop it and become able to project improved bodily conditions onto others who are in disturbance or imbalance.
Returning to the earlier mention of prayer, there is also, universally, the notion that we can call upon and enlist help from transcendental Being(s) from other dimensions in potentiating or doing Themselves that healing. In this vein, working as both godi and tietaja, I have met healers who worked without consciously calling out to Higher beings for help with their healing work. Some turned off the stream of videos, did some serious reading, and learned their spiritual heritage, whether Nordic, Finnish, Celtic, or with a bit of overlap. When they did, the ability to heal was greatly boosted, even though they were not then calling on a “group consciousness” as might be enlisted from a large church congregation. Their focal point is, of course, common belief in a unifying force and/or entity, their God. For us as Pagan Polytheists, it is a bit different, as we commune with many Higher intelligences from other realms.
In some instances, and this came to light recently, they assume that they can do anything they ever saw me do, even without specific or in-depth training in how to do it.
This it was that a well-established healer made contact with the Gods and Goddesses and felt that he could face any challenge. In Working with a client on an unrelated matter, he became aware that the client was “occupied” by a Reptilian. He thought he banished it, but, instead, became occupied by it. He called a friend and associate, who, remotely, then went on to expel it from the healer and the client.
I trained in the Scandinavian tradition of Tietajar, but I have found, when I’ve met and spoken at length with a Kichwa shaman, a Shinto healing priest, and a Hindi traditional healer, that there are some constants, even across cultures that were isolated from one another by geography until the past few centuries. There was no “instant healer.” There were no 90 day wonders (an old military term some of you will understand). There was, instead, a careful and systematic process of teaching, initiation, trials, and acquisition of skills. In my case, it was seven years of study, followed by three years of supervised practice before I began seeing patients or clients on my own. In meeting with a Peruvian colleague a few years ago, he likewise spent seven years in study before he began doing the Work, and he as already a very learned man, a tenured university professor.
I remember being taken, with the help of a friendly psychiatrist who was close to one of my teachers and put before inmates several times who were profoundly disturbed. I was taught the difference between whether what we saw was an internal mental process or the result of a draugr (it doesn’t make this any more compelling to use another language- this means something akin to the Japanese term for ‘hungry ghosts’ (praeta), Reptoids, Insectoids, or spider beings. Any of these can latch onto a person as a parasite or predator and wreak havoc physically and/or psychically. Before I ever got to practice, under supervision, with a patient where such a situation presented itself, I had been prepared. So. when it did happen, I was prepared. There were no shortcuts; there was no instant-guru mix of charisma and beauty or good looks: there was simply confidence born of practice, of being well prepared and harshly tested. When a draugr tried to seize me, I was shielded from it and able to expel it easily without calling anyone else in.
This is not to say that anyone in energetic healing can ever be fully prepared for every contingency. That is not possible, but it is possible to do one’s best to continually train, learn, and stand in an old and competent tradition.
Our guy in the example above, our healer, assumed that being connected, and he really is, with the Higher realm of consciousness and benevolence that is the Gods and Goddesses meant that he can handle everything.
This is an interesting assumption because, if simply knowing Them meant that one were invincible as a healer, anyone of faith would automatically be working daily miracles of healing. No systems of training, of passing on techniques, knowledge, and a whole world view that potentiates the healing enterprise and has done so for thousands of years, would have emerged.
Why did these different traditions emerge all over the world? If all I needed in order to be a great acrobat was to see an acrobat jump off the gymnastics horse and land on his feet, I would probably injure myself. If a undertrained, underprepared healer works with a client, the latter may be the one harmed.
To answer that we must consider our relationship to the Gods and Goddesses. I was taught to view Them with piety and humility. I feel honored when one of Them speaks to me and chooses to focus Her power on a chronically ill patient. Yet I have often seen the ‘instant’ healer type speak to Them as if whistling for a trained dog, just calling for help with no context and no piety. When I pray, often silently, for a patient’s improvement, I speak to Them what I know of that person that is good, true, and noble and ask that through the healing more of this be brought into the world.
In a case last week, I was Working on a teacher and married mother of teenagers. I sensed that her husband was hostile to the idea of her even being here- if he didn’t know about it or he didn’t invent it, it must be wicked.
I Saw that she is a great mom and had overcome a lot of trauma, much of which her soul, not her lips, spoke to me of. She had overcome much adversity and was holding the space for her family and being fully functional despite it. She had a 1/4-3/8″ depression running across her temple and forehead almost four inches long from a childhood accident. The accident had resulted in seizures, sick headaches, and lapses of consciousness. I prayed that it be removed so that she would understand the benevolent Power which They focused on her and it happened. She repeatedly ran her hand over her head, looking for the deep scar that had been removed. They, not I, did this, but it was my training which helped me to serve as the interface for this Work.
The Shining Ones are busy. They have many worlds to help with and they have been immersed in a long struggle against the Reptoids and their ilk, fighting to uplift and reduce the suffering of humanity. I cannot just summon Them whenever I want and expect results. Priests and priestesses acted, and act, instead, as carriers of Their power. If you carry it, really carry it, a Reptoid cannot occupy nor overpower one, as the Light is far stronger than the darkness and the higher love that expresses a concern for the uplifting of humanity is far stronger than the forces of entropy, predation, or parasitism that work against that evolutionary upward spiral.
So that is why we need inspiration, Them within us, as we go out to do our Work, but also we must be trained, differently, to be sure, from physicians, but also differently from most priests, as we seek to shape the Divine toward easing the suffering of sentient beings here in Middle Earth. While we may not heal ‘masses’ or cause miracles in the sky, perhaps the humble tietaja or berend whom you pass, unknowingly in the store, is healing and emancipating her peers one life at a time. That is the Great Work. That is the anthem that is sung at the Sumbl fire and echoes over the wells and glens of Taman Joki, the World Tree.
The Shining Ones distribute Their power to heal through those of us who can channel it and project it into those who need it. It is a sacred partership. To put it into modern terms, They view our suffering from the 37000 meter view and See it close up, but They depend upon us to focus and shape the Power at the 2 meter level, Working with each patient. We must be inspired by Them, but we must learn from a long line of others who have applied this technology and stand in that wisdom tradition, rather than thinking that, after brief exposure, we can just go do for ourselves what we have seen done. It is this tempering process which produces the durable, the resilient spiritual healer.
The ones who best do this Work of the Shining Ones clad themselves as the Gods Dressed for Battle (Gambanreidi). We also stand IN tradition, taking on and passing forward, connecting a long bridge of human consciousness, of healers across countless generations, learning under mentors and tutors, our Teachers. After decades of practice, we become mentors ourselves, so that we may play an humble and small part in that Great Work.