WHAT SOUTHERN AFRICAN WISDOMS HAVE TO OFFER THE WEST #9

Diseases or “Dis”-eases unknown to Allopathic Medicine and Psychotherapy

 

“This is the original truth the original medicine; it will never change – just like the law of gravity.” P.H. Mntshali (my sangoma mentor)

 

Diseases unknown to Western medicine or psychiatry are and were well known to many indigenous peoples. Those in Southern Africa could be described as follows. 

 

  Disease Just Happens 

  We really do not often know why some people get sick and others do not.

"Anyone who isn't confused here really does not understand what is going on." Unknown

Diseases of  Omission rather than Commission. 

   Our guides and ancestors turn away if we ignore them and we lose their protection. They can be our parachute in troubled times when we need to jump out of sticky situations. 

"The problem in the West is that you have forgotten your ancestors. If you pay them no attention they turn away and then you are unsupported in life from the other side - like papers blowing in the wind." P.H. Mntshali

 

“Thwasa” or the “Calling” Sickness

 This malady can be physical and somatic or psychological and can occur in a potential initiate, manifesting in many ways. It happens because of an energetic field around the initiate created by their guides that demands the sufferer's attention. This "dis"-ease can be disruptive and will defy an allopathic diagnosis. It has a spiritual origin and requires a spiritual solution. The person will need to initiate or at least dialogue as to why this is not possible at that time. The one chosen is being called to his/her destiny and delay may have karmic implications.

 

Spiritual Intrusions 

These hauntings arise from various conditions especially from earth-bound spirits or ancestors seeking forgiveness.

  

Earth Bound Spirits (E.B.S.)

These can be Involuntary or Voluntary.

The involuntary ones usually occur because of a sudden, traumatic or confused death. Here, the soul leaving the body may not see the light or hear the ancestors calling them home and hence becomes earth bound. 

It can be voluntary when the spirit wants to comfort and support a loved one left behind on the earth plane. When earth bound it is easier to appear in dreams or even "visit" in real time. After crossing the veil between the worlds this will become more difficult.

 There is nothing good about being haunted even if the spirit means no harm. It can interfere with one’s energy field and create a variety of symptoms including; headache, anxiety, depression, bad luck, trouble at work and in relationship ...

Intrusive Spirits or Shades.  

Usually these are blood related ancestors, mothers or fathers, grandfathers or grandmothers or other relatives which haunt the living because they had wronged them and are hoping to find forgiveness for their misdeeds - usually emotional, physical or sexual abuse. Forgiveness can release them specifically from the karmic implications of what they had done. The effects of the intrusions will be similar to those described above and often more severe.

Energetic or Ritual Pollution 

Be careful of what you taste and where you immerse -

 what you touch and what touches you.

Ritual impurity results from a negative energetic imprint due to many factors. Sangomas recognize a state of ritual impurity resulting from sex during menses, contact with a corpse, and eating a dead animal found in the bush or road kill. Many sangomas will purify themselves after officiating at funerals before doing any healing work. Objects may also be ritually impure such as war objects that have killed others, totems, talismans or masks etc. that have been used for dark purposes. To a sangoma, pollution is something that is spiritually “dirty.” I once questioned one of my mentors as to why it occurred from sex during menstruation. He advised; "a woman is too powerful for a man during her moon cycle." Pollution can also occur after a toxic journey or an illness.

 

One can also find references to many of these same ritual impurities in the Old Testament. 

In biblical times, anyone who had been in contact with a dead body, or who had eaten an animal that had not been killed in a kosher manner was not allowed back into the community until he or she had been purified. 

Religious Jewish women are not allowed to be in contact with their husbands during menstruation. 

Amongst religious Jews kosher killing and preparation of meat requires exsanguination of the animal and extraction of the remaining blood with the help of salt on the raw meat after the exsanguination.

Sangomas and Native Americans have similar beliefs around menstruation (a woman is not allowed to participate in a sweat lodge during this time.)

Blood carries the life force and is seen to have power. This is also true in Satanic cults where it is used for demonic purposes. 

In sangoma belief and in the Bible, land or places can be polluted or cursed. Sometimes fire is the only thing that can purify demonic evil and malevolence. 

 

“You shall tear down their altars and smash their sacred pillars and burn their Asherim with fire, and you shall cut down the engraved images of their gods and obliterate their name from that place.” Deuteronomy

 

Demonic worship is often practiced with such zealotry, determination and passion that its power has a lasting force for captivating and destroying. 

It is best that one not try to remove the rotten and decaying apples from the pile, but rather move the good apples far away. 

In some instances it may be appropriate for a cleansing, sterilizing and purifying to take place, but only by knowledgeable specialists in such matters.

 

Exorcisms may be required in some instances and fortunately are still practiced especially by highly selected Catholic priests. It is dangerous work that has been endorsed and supported by the Pope.

Places where demonic rituals have been performed especially where there is water (river, lake or even underground) are difficult to purify. Water has consciousness, memory and resonance and can hold on to both profane and sacred vibrations. 

 

WHAT SOUTHERN AFRICAN WISDOMS HAVE TO OFFER THE WEST #8

Just an aside for those who have an interest in rock art and altered states. Their importance also applies to Out of Body States of consciousness and Astral Projection seen in indigenous peoples.

David Lewis Williams was the first rock art expert who applied the three phases of the trance state to rock art. 

These three stages occur in advanced trance states and were depicted on the rock faces by many indigenous tribes. In the Americas the visions were often associated with the use of entheogens -  mind-altering plants used in sacred rituals. Similar images can be seen in the rock art of the San Bushmen in Southern Africa who did not use entheogens.

Entoptics: The first stage; dots, simple lines - wavy or straight, chevrons and lattices. 

Construals: In the second phase the entoptics take on more complex shapes that can resemble mandalas.

Both of these phases can be seen in this Chumash rock art in Santa Barbara county California below as well as elsewhere. 

 

Therianthropes: The third phase of trance showing shape shifting can be seen in the San Bushman rock paintings below as well as in Native American rock art.

The Music of the Spheres

The Zulu people refer to themselves as ‘the people of the heavens' - Star People and that they came from the stars.

 

"ˆWhen the stars of the morning sang together." Job

 

Pythagoras was said to be able to hear the music or singing of the spheres or the stars as did the ancient Chaldeans'. It is also described in the Zohar. 

 

We should thank the stars for their song. Their light emanates from their singing and when they sing they glow. That is how they reveal themselves.

The Zohar teaches when we pray in the morning it is a continuation of the singing of the stars.

 

The Druids called it the Oran Mo'r, the Great Song or the sacred tune of the universe. The Druids believed that the whole of creation arose out of this song (as did some other beliefs.) In other words there was the song and the word (intention) from the Infinite One during the Big Bang.

“Because we are stars we must walk the sky.” Song of the San Bushmen Lion Shamans

The San too talked about the singing of the stars. To hear the music or sounds of the spheres requires an exquisite purity (as was recognized by Pythagoras' peers who said that he alone could hear it.) It also requires an absence of ambient noise.

The Silence of the Stars
 
“When Laurens van der Post one night - in the Kalahari Desert told the Bushmen he couldn't hear the stars singing they didn't believe him. They looked at him, half-smiling. They examined his face to see whether he was joking or deceiving them…  
Then they led him away from the crackling thorn-scrub fire and stood with him under the night sky and listened. One of them whispered; Do you not hear them now? And van der Post listened, not wanting to disbelieve, but had to answer - No. They walked him slowly like a sick man to the small dim circle of firelight and told him they were terribly sorry.
And he felt even sorrier for himself and blamed his ancestors for their strange loss of hearing…” David Wagoner

Aldo Leopold - a wilderness adept also seemed to have heard something similar.

 

The sound of waters is audible to every ear, but there is other music in these hills, by no means audible to all.  To hear even a few notes of it you must first live here for a long time, and you must know the speech of hills and rivers.  Then on a still night, when the campfire is low and the Pleiades have climbed over rimrocks, sit quietly and listen for a wolf to howl, and think hard of everything you have seen and tried to understand.  Then you may hear it—a vast pulsing harmony—its score inscribed on a thousand hills, its notes the lives and deaths of plants and animals, its rhythms spanning the seconds and the centuries. Aldo Leopold

 

The chants and music of both Bantu and San were also no doubt influenced by the cacophony of nature’s sounds and the amazing animal and bird songs around them.

This blog is a bit shorter because I have a question to ask. 

Who among you readers would be interested in hearing some talks on Zoom around these topics? Typically it would be about an hour with time for questions in the chat box. There would be no charge, only a donation to our non profit Inward Bound, if one desired.

 

WHAT SOUTHERN AFRICAN WISDOMS HAVE TO OFFER THE WEST #7

More advanced levels of spiritual expertise and paranormal phenomena. 

This is also called PSI and refers to the unknown factors found in extrasensory experiences The term comes from the Greek letter ψ (psi), which is the first letter of the Greek word psyche, meaning "mind" or "soul".

 

The Oneness Experience or Unity Consciousness 

This occurs in Yoga when the 

Knower, the Known and the Experience of Knowing 

fuse and become one thing. You may be looking at a rainbow and the Knower - that's you, the rainbow - the Known - and in the process of the experience you become the rainbow. 

Also, when the dancer becomes the dance.

Maslow described this as a Peak Experience.

This is Bunnell's description of his experience on entering Yosemite valley. He was one of a party of Whites that were to first see the stunning beauty of the valley.

“Haze hung over the valley, light as gossamer and clouds partially dimmed the higher cliffs and mountains. This obscurity of vision increased the awe with which I beheld it and as I looked a peculiar exalted sensation seemed to fill my whole being and I found my eyes in tears with emotion.” Dr. L. Bunnell

These phenomena are not rare but brief and often trivialized,  rationalized or invalidated by ourselves or others. They are sacred and only to be shared with the right kind of person. They have the potential to change the way that we think.

 It is called Unity Consciousness or the Oneness Experience in Eastern traditions and Union or Unity with the Divine in Kabbalah. 

 

Telepathy.

Precognition. 

The three "Clairs" - Clair-voyance (seeing what seeing eyes cannot,) Clair-audience (hearing what hearing ears cannot hear,) Clair-sentience (feeling what the five senses cannot feel.) Many of us have 

clair-sentience which is our early warning system and should never be ignored.

Distant Viewing, Diagnosis and Healing.

Distant or Remote Viewing has been researched by both Stanford University and the C.I.A. and found to be evidential. There are numerous double blind trials that show Distant Healing or prayers for healing work. Placebo has been discounted because the healers do not know the patients they are healing and the patients do not know this process has been invoked.

If Distant Healing works it make sense that Distant Diagnosis does so too. There are many practitioners - shamans, psychics, medical intuitive etc. who have these abilities. 

It is sobering to realize that if distant healing works so also does distant hexing. The Field is democratic and value neutral.

Telekinesis.

This is the ability to move objects through intention, for instance a water-diviner. The diviner and the stick or instrument s/he uses has no power. The power is resident in the spirit force directing the object. The same is true for the divination bones (and may be for other divining techniques.) The diviner is the messenger who sets the specific intention with permission (because of the cosmic law of free will.) The message itself comes from spirit - the diviner is the messenger.

In all these PSI phenomena ancestors or guides are often the mediators in some mysterious way although there others who can directly "see."

Many scientists refuse to concede that such phenomena are real. Hence, they try and find names for something they cannot explain. Here are a few modern terms for these mystical occurrences. 

Medical Intuitive, Remote Viewing, Energy Medicine, Physiological Arousal, Cathartic Conversion Experience, Distant Mental Influence on biological systems… 

Similarly when the medical profession does not understand the cause of the disease they use the word Idiopathic. It also sounds profound but may be subtly saying we are idiots when it comes to trying to explaining this.

 

Shape Shifting and Animal Whispering

 

Shape shifting seems to be a far-fetched possibility even to those of us who know about the paranormal. It seems more likely that shape shifting can occur in deep trance in the mind's eye of the practitioner and possibly could also be induced in those who are doing the observing. 

Imagining a shaman transforming into a lion, however, is a bit of a stretch. I believe it can be real but have no personal evidence that this is so. I did once meet a San elder who was a lion shaman but he was dying of Tuberculosis and no longer shape-shifted. 

The Ancestors endorse that true shape shifting is possible, as did Malidoma Some' in a conversation I once had with him. 

The dark side of shape shifting also exists especially in Navaho tradition with the so called "Skin Walkers" and represents the antithesis of Navajo cultural values. They are seen as witches,  sorcerers and evil - performing harmful ceremonies and black magic - a perversion of the healing abilities of the medicine men and women who heal.

These teachings may support the possibility of shape shifting.. 

“All humans are endowed with the attributes of animals.” Cordova

We are all one though not the same.

We are all connected, some of all in each. All are spirit manifestations and exist in one another.

“Earth am I, air am I, water, fire and spirit am I. Earth are you, air are you, water, fire and spirit are you…"

 Celtic proverb

We are all made of the same elements and we will all return - dust to dust, ashes to ashes.

To experience the wild beings, you must dance with them.

On my many visits to the San, I did witness their incredible ability to mimic a particular animal's behavior which is key to shape shifting and "becoming" the animal.

I have seen a Bushman "put on animal mind" and  "dance," behave, imitate and move exactly like an ostrich. After a minute he seemed to become an ostrich but I still knew he was a human

 When they hunt they say;

"We put on animal mind and see how they are moving." 

Numerous rock art figures (rendered after the event) show the trance dancer beginning to attain an animal like form. This is called a Therianthrope - part animal - part human.  

In this figure the cord above the head is about the "rope" to God or the silver cord described by Solomon in Ecclesiastes that ensures that when the dancer leaves his body he can get back to it because of this cord.

 

It is likely the San could not have been such successful hunters when countering a huge animal with primitive weapons unless they had paranormal powers. The smaller animals were trapped. With larger animals (even a giraffe) they had small bows and unfeathered but perfectly balanced arrows tipped with poison and could get extremely close to the animal which required a profound zen like ability. 

If they had not had the trance dance to tell them where to hunt and the ability to put on animal mind to assist their unparalleled tracking abilities they probably could not have survived.

This short link to the movie The Great Dance done by the Fosters brothers (Craig Foster also did My Octopus teacher) is worth watching.

There is a longer version on You Tube which I highly recommend.

 For some it may not be appropriate and its best they do not watch the end of either. 

We should all remember that we all have Bushmen D.N.A. within us. This is video is a testament to who we once were. This hunt is not savage but an ancient sacred task, part of a people who were once pure made in the image of the Divine. They are trying to hang onto that purity in the face of the dark side of Western civilization but it is disappearing like it has for so many indigenous peoples. 

The force of the primal manifest as love is the glory of God.

Click on the link and have look at our past.

5:26

WHAT SOUTHERN AFRICAN WISDOMS HAVE TO OFFER THE WEST #6

It’s all very well looking at the extraordinary paranormal abilities of the San, the sangomas and other indigenous peoples but how can that apply to us? 

We all have our own distinct proclivities for the paranormal and it is essential for us to identify those strengths. We should not expect to be capable of duplicating the talents of others.

I wasted a lot of time in my earlier years trying to do this.

 Below are some of those that are more commonly described beginning with the simplest and most common.

Each of us may only have one or two of these depending on our inherent nature and potential. The Creator does not endorse a copy cat spiritual path. Our very own uniqueness for the paranormal is set as a default into the soul. 

 You are to find the one/s meant for you !

 

Synchronicity

We are all able to experience synchronicity especially when we are dedicate to some form or forms of spiritual practice. Synchronicity occurs when an outer event coincides with an inner event. It is not coincidental. 

For instance, you are thinking of a college friend that you have not seen or contacted in years and synchronously the phone rings and its him/her on the line. In some way, when this happens, you are picking up on the conscious intention for the call which is not localized in space and time. Hence, simultaneously you begin the think of that person.  The thought is connected with a mysterious energy arising from the Field. Consciousness is not confined to the brain. 

As our spiritual practice deepens these events may become more common and instructional such as...  You are thinking of finding a book on a mystical subject and you are looking through the possibilities in the book store when you bump into someone who turns to you and says; "this is an amazing book. I am going to buy it and read it again." When you look at the book it is exactly what you have been looking for.

 

Superfluidity

 

Superfluidity is a state of mind where things are flowing perfectly in accord with the universe. A musician has a faultless recital, a surgeon feels that some sort of divine intervention has intervened during a challenging surgical procedure which unfolds effortlessly. This is also called being in the zone  and is a state much sought out by athletes.  These phenomena may arise because of support from the "Field."

 

Power Animals

Having an encounter with a "power animal" may occur because your guides are manipulating an animal energetically to empower you or send you a message - say a humming bird that circles around your head and then hovers while facing you or a butterfly resting on your arm. Usually the animal concerned is not behaving normally. 

Sometimes, in addition, the metaphor that the animal represents might hold a message. Seeing a rattlesnake or a coyote on your path may be a warning to beware or be aware. These encounters are also not coincidental.

 

Coherence

This is commonly experienced in group meditations where the sum of the parts of the meditators is greater than the whole and the meditation for each individual is more profound than it would have been meditating on their own. 

The effect may spread beyond the meditators and even into the Field.  There are many other examples of coherence. 

Indigenous healing rituals usually occur when many people are present creating coherence and more power.

 

Dreams scripted by your guides to instruct or warn.

 

"Truth bumps" when truth that has been expounded that creates piloerection, sometimes also sending shivers up the spine. On occasion this can also cause one to tear up.

 

Music

 Experiencing a particular genre of music that makes you come alive. I believe this may be an indication of a past life that enhances the profound feeling. The music is familiar to your soul essence.

In the next blog we will describe more advanced levels of expertise.

 

WHAT SOUTHERN AFRICAN WISDOMS HAVE TO OFFER THE WEST #5

How does one integrate the intuitive - how does one learn it?
The thing about a shaman is that s/he is able to integrate left brain - right brain and have whole brain function and this comes out of initiation.
You cannot just "think" it for it to happen – it is a process that comes from the training.

 

Obtaining information from Spirit Guides.

 

Spirit guides are not subject to time and space. 

They are always around but not always to be known, always within call but not always to be heard, 

always present but not always to be sensed, 

always holding us, but not always to be felt.

Both the San and the Bantu tribes obtain non-local information from their guides or ancestors through three methods:

1. Directly through trance and spirit possession in the Bantu tribes 

or from astral travel and their guides in the Field in the case of the San.

2. Indirectly through Divination - a form of telekinesis where the spirit guide manipulates the Bones so that they fall in a distinctly readable, non-random fashion which depends not only on the objects orientation to itself but also to other objects and also to their orientation on the mat on which they fall.

3. Dreams which are frequently instructional, official and scripted to convey a message.

 

 The psychological orientation that explains dreams as scripted only by the subconscious makes dream interpretation quite limited.

A purely psychological interpretation of dreams discounts a guiding, Non-Local spirit source that can be nurtured and is personal.

 

Southern African indigenous peoples are connected to their ancestors and guides in the dream state and in real time. 

Some of the most expert San hunters did not need to follow the spoor of their prey, they just "knew" where to go. Their guides were telling them in one way or another during the hunt. 

 San Bushmen and women travelled out of body - astral travel - in the trance state to get information that told them where to find water or where to hunt the next day or who might be sick and where to find a lost child ... Their out of body state was enhanced by dancing rhythmically around the fire with rattles around their ankles. The women with their incredible chants and hand clapping, facilitated the trance state. The women also tranced with or separately from the men.

 

The Bantu healers of Southern Africa on the other hand get their information when "possessed." They trance from drumming and dancing and the guiding spirit enters their bodies, often speaking in an  the language required to convey the message to the seeker. The healer's ego steps aside and the spirit takes over and imparts information unconfined to the space-time continuum. The voice of the channel could change as might their facial appearance. They may  have asked for a drink of water or even a cigarette since they were sentient in the sangoma’s body. The sound of the drum calls the spirt to come. The word sangoma  comes from the word ngoma which means a drum.

Possession differs from trance channeling in the West in which case the spirit is giving the channel the information without totally taking over the body. Trance-channeling in the West where the spirit is giving information, is remote from the channel and less intense.

There are two forms of spirit possession, involuntary and voluntary. Involuntary possession is a serious condition requiring an exorcism. Voluntary possession, where the ego steps aside and a spirit takes over completely, is part of sangoma tradition. 

 

Both the San healers and the Bantu sangomas use divination “Bones” and dreams for diagnosing and healing. The sets are not all strictly bones but comprise various small animal bones but also other objects that are assigned a specific meaning. 

We in the West, on the other hand, use different methods such as; Tarot cards, Runes, a pendulum, a divining stick to find water etc. Telekinesis from an outside spirit source is usually part and parcel of the mechanism here as well.

Kabbalah has its own expression as to how this information is provided - mostly in dreams.

 

“The sages who have died are present in this world to a greater extent than when they were alive.” The Zohar

There is a story about a Kabbalist who on returning to his community after many years of study was asked; "what did you learn there?" To which he replied; "I leaned how to sleep."

 

“When a word is spoken in the name of its speaker his lips move in the grave. And the lips of him who utters the word move like those of the master who is dead. A sage cannot speak words of teaching unless he first links his soul to the soul of his dead teacher or to that of his teacher’s teacher.” Talmud

 

It’s all very well looking at the extraordinary paranormal abilities of the San, the sangomas and other indigenous peoples but how can that apply to us? 

This will be the topic of the future blog.

 

 

THE FORCE OF THE PRIMAL

WHAT SOUTHERN AFRICAN WISDOMS HAVE TO OFFER THE WEST #4

 

There are many paths to the mystery wisdom exuding from the growing things that surround us, from the color of the sky and from all the Beings of nature.

 

Spiritual Skills arising from the Primal.

The force of the primal manifest as love is the glory of God.

 

Contacting The Field

 

The Field is mostly Unknowable – more was made knowable to indigenous peoples who were the first yogis, sages and mystics.  

 

“Whatever being (Still, Growing, Wild or Talking) comes to be, be it motionless (Still Beings) or moving, derives its being from Field and Knower (The Creator) of the Field. Know this!” Bhagavad Gita

 

Information, knowledge, doubt, denial, disbelief, ego and judgment get in the way of our accessing the Field, our guides and the Divine.

 

God’s voice is heard in quietness and stillness. Beware the noises of ego which drown out the Divine Spirit.

 

"Blessed are the meek..." Jesus

The soft, silent, still voice of the Infinite one is heard when the ego is set aside and the heart is open. This requires purity and faith.

 

The indigenous mind was schooled by their experiences in nature. They have and had an almost "Quantum" like ability to access Non-Local information in the Field.

In the case of the San, wilderness was their Yoga and their Zen until civilization’s temptations intruded. Before that they were mindful mainly of needs, not wants. 

They enjoyed the magic of polarity balance and entrainment in the natural meditation offered by the wildness around them. Nature is a room with many doors and windows to spirit. Nature's power enabled them to find the middle way of the Buddha. They learned to coexist with the difficult, the life threatening, the dark, the negative and the profane with acceptance, realizing it was part of the necessary tension required for the magical to occur. 

 

Balance is achieved by harmonizing polarities. Dualities come into harmony by negotiating a third or middle path, a path not of assimilation but a path of coexistence.

 

The San Bushmen hunter-gatherers naturally adopted a profound connection to Gaia - their Earth Mother. Their spiritual practice of being immersed in nature gave them the the humility, the openness of heart, the purity and the vibration required to travel out of body into the Field during their healing trance dance.  In this way they obtained non-local information, critical for their survival as well as for the protection and healing of the clan. 

 

Magical Powers. The San Out of Body Spirit Trance Dance.

 

San dancers travels out of body to glean non-local information from the Field which can help the clan. The other dancers help those to come out of trance and back into their bodies. They heal when they come out of trance by putting "Num" into those ailing - the same magical energy that enabled them to trance (see last weeks video link.) 

The San are known not only for their hunting and tracking but also for their unique healing abilities. The dance can go on all night and is a profound example of Coherence facilitated by the clan - it takes a village.

With their trance dance and mastery of Num (or Kundalini,) the San Bushmen describe similar energetic phenomena mostly seen in advanced spiritual practitioners such as; heat rising up the spine, creeping sensations, tingling, vibrating, shaking, light experiences, inner sounds and smells, an empty mind ;“my thoughts were nothing in my head”), connection with Self; “I feel my-Self again, out of body experiences and astral travel, paranormal powers, spontaneous movements including adopting yoga-like postures, paralysis, falling and the mastery of fire.

Rock art left by them showed some of the visions they experienced in trance including shape shifting.

Beyond the veil they connected with their ancestors and some, even saw an anthropomorphic representation of the Great Spirit; "when I make myself very small," (San healers to Richard Katz in his book Boiling Energy.)

 

The Medicine Person or "Shaman"(The Seer") and Healing

 

“With our potions and charms we arouse in the sick one’s brain the will to be healthy. Without the strong will to be alive a human can be carried into the valleys of death by even the mildest sickness.” Credo Mutwa

 

 Credo Mutwa a Bantu, Zulu sangoma, or more accurately a sanusi or prophet, was profound in his spiritual teachings. He is talking here about the will to heal combined with the power of placebo and belief which is a love and not a fear vibration. It also occurs, although less so now days, with the old-fashioned Dr. - Patient Relationship and Bedside Manner.

“Some patients, though their condition is perilous, recover their health simply through their contentment with the goodness of the physician.” Hippocrates

"Only love can generate the healing fire,” Agnes Sanford

 

The San healers teach that in order to heal we must love everyone no matter what we think of them. All medicine men and women, shamans or similar, inspire hope through their charm, charisma, compassion and competence. With their magical divinations or rituals they enhance the power of placebo. 

Allopathic medicine, often unknowingly, does the opposite by invoking a nocebo response often with dismal prognoses or describing every detail of all the mishaps that could occur when obtaining the legally required informed consent for procedures. This may be regarded as a form of medical hex.

It is important to note that there are several basic mechanisms occurring  during diagnosis and healing. 

Diagnosis can be remote or "distant" coming through the Field through trance, divination and dreams.

Healing can arise through the direct affect of placebo on the Inner Healer which is mediated by love and belief.

Distant or remote healing which is separate from placebo comes directly to the Inner Healer through the Field. This Universal Healing Energy is just the Creator's love in disguise mediated through the San or other healers and especially powerful when empty of ego.

Distant healing has been found to be effective in double blind studies where placebo is discounted. It works whether one believes it or not or knows about it or not. 

Unfortunately the same is true for distant hexing. There can be no light without dark. The Field is democratic and value neutral. Both light and dark intentions can be propagated by the Field. 

Distant healing is enhanced by the power of placebo. 

Distant hexing is aggravated by nocebo and enhanced by guilt. For instance, if some one has been unskillful in their actions and feels guilty and knows they have been hexed (nocebo) and has been hexed (distant affect) they can be seriously harmed. 

Those who for religious, guilt reasons feel that because they have wronged God they do not deserve to be healed - most likely will not recover from a serious illness. They have hexed themselves through nocebo - the power of belief to hurt, harm or even kill. 

The Great Spirit, however, does not work this way. Everyone is capable of redemption.