I know that putting tea in my eyes sounds odd or maybe a little bit gross, but it's actually a very effective and soothing folk remedy, which my great-uncle taught me about that when I visited him in Ireland a few years ago. My uncle is a healer- now in his 80s, he is more or less retired, but he is able to cure many ailments. Some of the things he practices- like tea for eyes (or apples for warts, his son's specialty- many members of the family have healing talents)- could easily have a component that could probably be understood by modern medicine, others less so. He is a diviner- using his pendulum, he diagnoses allergies, finds underground water sources, and even finds missing people.
Very often the things religion is concerned with (immortal souls or such) seem very remote and distant from our lives on the average day. Other things (such as faith-healing or unexplainable powers) are much more directly intertwined with day-to-day life.
What a cool thing -- one of my parent's friends is a healer and the powers they have absolutely amaze me.
ReplyDeleteI also love the two sentence paragraph at the end -- I feel like that says so much how our society functions as a factor of our day to day lives ... what is at hand tends to reign over what an individual decides to do/believe/etc..
this is a really intriguing idea. I totally believe in the power of alternative healing and medicine. both my parents are doctors and my mom my whole life has worked with alternative medicine and energy healing techniques, yet she has a PhD in nursing and fully capable and qualified in western medicine, so i see where you're coming from with this thought. I realize your actual discussion is slightly off from what i'm relating it to with "energy healing" and your concept is centered more around a certain individual being able to "cure" illnesses. But i think they're almost the same thing just being approached from different angles. I feel as though its not exactly the certain individual who has the healing essence around them, but the idea that they can transfer and move energy around. so in a sense, certain pain could be interpreted as a negative cluster of energy in a certain region of the body.
ReplyDeleteidk something to think about....