Healing Therapies: Divine Intervention & Magical Rejuvenation
(This is an excerpt from a University Of Metaphysical Sciences course at www.umsonline.org, please feel free to visit the school website)
Like
the ancient Greeks who coined the original word for psychotherapy, other
cultures of Classical Times also had special healers or “priests” who
would help patients overcome spiritual ailments. In striking contrast to
modern medical theories, ancient healers believed that physical diseases
had a supernatural or “demonic” origin. Mike & Nancy Samuels
in Seeing With The Mind’s Eye (1990) inform us, “In
Babylonia and Assyria people believed illness was caused by evil spirits.
Treatment constituted an appeal to the deities to exorcise a demon from
the patient. Special priests acted as diagnosticians and interpreted signs
and omens from the sun and storm gods.” Modern healing therapists
would do well to follow the example of these ancient priests by calling
on the advice and assistance of the divine forces and/or deities with which
they are most familiar.
Such practices
were also well known to the ancient Egyptians, as we learn from Mike & Nancy
Samuels in Seeing With The Mind’s Eye (1990): “Like
the Babylonians, the ancient Egyptians believed that supernatural
beings and demons caused disease. Healing consisted of magical and
religious rites. The Egyptians had a well-developed system of magic,
which it was said could control the weather, bring people back to
life, and divine the future. In a healing ceremony, the magician-priest
would perform incantations and prayers, and also use herbs and devices
invested with magic. In extreme cases, dream divination was used.
The priests’ incantations
were both prayers and visualizations.”
Healing chants, magical items, appeals to higher powers, and visualizations
can be used in modern times just as the ancients used these methods to
heal the people of their own time. Tarot cards, crystal wands, and invocations
can also be used as tools of the trade practiced by modern healing therapists.
Though we may have forgotten how to resurrect people in the intervening
centuries between Classical Times and today, the recent resurgence of interest
in ancient magical practices makes the present time ideal for us to rediscover
this kind of time-tested healing technique.
The
Greeks of antiquity, like their Egyptian counterparts, believed in
supernatural healing as well. As we read from Mike & Nancy Samuels in Seeing
With The Mind’s Eye (1990), “The Greeks also ascribed
disease to superhuman agents. And they likewise invoked the power of the
gods for healing. The Greeks healed both by direct means—through
the laying on of hands or the application of herbs to the patient—and,
more commonly, by indirect means—that is, through dreams and visions.
A dream might be responsible for effecting an immediate healing, or the
dream might contain regimens or remedies for the patient to use in effecting
a cure.” Lucid dreaming as understood by today’s metaphysicians
might prove to be a very effective healing method for the troubled
souls of our time.
A special place for such healing dreams to take place might be found or
constructed in order to recreate the environment in which these magical
dreams manifested in ancient times. A description of the healing temples
used by the ancient Greeks can be found in Seeing With The Mind’s
Eye (1990) by Mike & Nancy Samuels: “The Greeks were famous
for their healing temples, which contained shrines for the healing gods,
dormitories where patients stayed, gymnasiums, libraries, stadiums, theaters,
and beautiful surrounding grounds. Patients came to a temple, often from
great distances. Their first step in seeking a cure was to take a purifying
bath. Then they were put on a special diet or a fast. Later they were taken
to visit one of the shrines, where they made an offering of food and touched
the affected part of their bodies to the image of a healing god. In the
evening they were dressed in white and went to a special room to sleep.
During the night, priests dressed in the costumes of gods entered the room,
touched patients diseased parts and sometimes talked to the patients. Patients,
being asleep or in a hypnagogic state, experienced divine dreams. The next
morning, patients were either healed or began to carry out the instructions
given them in their dreams.” If the psychiatric hospitals of today
were designed on the model of these ancient Greek temples, we might have
saner, healthier people living in our society, and fewer social problems
as well. People with mental, emotional, and spiritual problems would receive
the love that they need in order to heal and recover. Since we must be
realistic and practical, perhaps a better idea would be for religious organizations
to obtain grant money for the building and establishment of modern “healing
temples” like those described above.
No
healing temple would be complete without healers, however, so we
must make ourselves worthy vessels for the divine forces and supernatural
powers that can effect the miraculous cures that the ancients achieved.
The key to making ourselves into divine links lies in the power of
visualization, as we infer from the following passage found in Seeing
With The Mind’s
Eye (1990) by Mike & Nancy Samuels: “In the healing process
we’ve mentioned thus far, disease, visualized in the image
of a demon, was exorcized by a figure of authority, a physician-priest.
And that figure derived his authority from his ability to visualize
an infinitely higher authority, a spirit or god. Therefore the god
was believed to heal through the priests.”
Though
it hasn’t been mentioned until this point in our course, healers
must begin by healing themselves, of course. Such healing recovery can
be effected, once again, through the power of vision or visualization.
In order to heal ourselves and face the task of healing others, we must
seek and find our “spiritual center” by dedicating our
time and love to the cultivation of our inner vision and our own
healing.