On Magical Healing

Julia Kostsova, Ivan Kupala Night Fortune Telling

I am lifting a palmful of water
In the holy name of the Gods,
In the holy name of the Spirits,
In the holy name of the Ancestors,
In the holy name of An Tri Naomh – the Sacred Thre
Everlasting, kindly, wise.
Certain that They will do to me
The thing that it becomes me to ask,
The thing that accords with Their mind,
The thing that is causing pain,
The thing that is worthy to be done,
Of the Sacred Three kindly and just.

I whisper these opening words in the trembling candlelight, standing at the altar, my right hand steady, lifted. Drops of holy water rain from the center of my palm, where the water pools briefly, to the chalice underneath it. Thus is my pledge before my healing ritual, to place myself and my actions under the protection and tutelage of the powers that be, accepting to become, albeit temporarily, an instrument or conduit of dé ocus andé’s goodwill. 

My attention is drawn to the simple implements of my craft. At its very core, the menstruum is made by using spring or well water, silvered or gilded with a piece of metal or jewelry, to which variants can be added. Every morning as I recite my daily prayers, I make a renewed supply of holy water by dropping a piece of raw quartz into filtered water, adding my gold ring, and blessing it with a charm. But I have variously incorporated the occasional splash of vervain infusion, dried juniper berries, sea salt, and even lit matches. What matters to the sacred components of the menstruum is what the water comes into contact with, and for what reason. I have run the water in my mouth and poured it on the afflicted parts of the body, because the practitioner brings their own toradh to the matter at hand – it is no use being grossed out, for magic has its own way, and healing is hard. 

I was taught that there is spirit in all things, and all things in spirit. Illness / sickness, of any kind really, is much like a physical thing. It has a density. And it has a purpose. And that agency, or purpose, is to do whatever it intends to do – fever burns, a curse gnaws at one’s vitality or life force, and so on. There is no fundamental difference between a physical, emotional, and spiritual wound. Charming an illness is charming the spirit of it. Bribing it, even. Molesting it, sometimes. For illnesses seek hosts. Healing magic has much to do with the principle of transference. Such techniques as rubbing an egg and cracking it open to absorb the malevolent spell, pinning a snail on a thorn, swallowing the sickness-spirit and spitting it in the fire, drowning it in running water, or putting it into a stone and heat it on the stove – they share the same basis. Likewise, diagnosis has to do with reading into how the spirit / illness expresses itself. In working with such spirits, your hands, your chest, your mouth, your eyes, your ears, your genitals and feet deserve special treatment, because not only are they useful implements in their own rights – they are also the doors and entrances of the body and they need to be paid particular attention to. The preparation and aftercare of the practitioner is fundamentally important as one prepares to become so pure it cannot be touched by the sickness-demon – or one risks wounding their client even deeper, burning oneself up, or taking the illness in. I know of powerful practitioners of my lineage who bless or cure with just one chant, harm with just one look, compell with just one gesture, charm with just one touch, heal with just one word. One cannot do clean work with dirty hands – much like a surgeon – and the truth is, it goes both ways. In, and out. There are secret ways we can barter or threaten the illness, but a lot of things must be sweet-talked to, and appeased. I would say that I deem essential to know how to heal if one is to know how to harm. Before my initiation into fairy doctoring I took black magic and curses much more lightly than I do now, for I now have seen that a poorly done healing can do more damage than a curse, and a well-placed blast can kill the spreading venom in a body. In talking about this with my friend Sfinga, she remarked how, just as illnesses are spirits, so too is our vitality, and how it can be disordered or harmed : I found that very wise. Here is indeed the why and the how of many cunning and witchcraft traditions (including the fairy seership ones I am familiar with), and the vitality of the witch is a thing familiar with many poisons.

In approaching magical healing in the context of the particular cunning craft tradition that I am a part of, I have slowly come to understand that, when it comes to performing any kind of what is essentially an act of service, it is first and foremost a matter of permissions – one does not produce miracles without understanding what is right, which does not mean « good » per se, but rather, what is proper, just, allowed, owed, true. The prospective student has sufficiently been marked and armed, and been given the powers and the tools – now they must wield them. The opening incantation is a reminder of such laws: I recite it humbly to draw attention to what I am preparing myself to do, and to ask for my spirits to assist me. But even before coming into such depths, before even deciding to take on responsibility for a client, timing must be examined, omens must be read, and answers must be sought in visions or divined. Insofar as for a diagnosis to be established, for the knowledge of the affliction and its remedy to be imparted, for the potential roads to be laid out, various circumstances must converge. The knowing of what is right – of what is proper, just, allowed, owed, true – comes with time and experience of course, and I am but at the beginning of this learning curve. Part of the healing is not just a question of cultivating competent practical skills, but of refining some subtler ones, harder to define, difficult to employ, impossible to replicate. The strengths and weaknesses of a healer amount to little in the face of such permissions. Smelling sickness and feeling disturbances in the body or soul is one thing, knowing if, when, and how to act, quite another.

In my record of practiced healing services, I have found myself turning down potential clients simply because the time wasn’t right, nor the plea any good. I have also found myself trying to defy the odds when it was not proper – and suffered for it. And I have found myself at times fighting against the same odds and shifting the weight of what was waiting to become manifest, in a silent but conscious bargain that tipped the scales into a client’s favour, rearranging and perhaps negotiating what must be given and what must be taken. Yes, I have been told that even though I could cure certain afflictions, I shouldn’t – embarrassingly enough, sometimes after I took it upon myself to try and help. Sometimes, I am told I simply cannot act – that it is not correct nor virtuous to – and this is still the hardest to accept. And I of course have refused clients, because of the way I was approached, because of how I was asked, because of what I was asked, and other entirely arbitrary and subjective criteria I cannot always explain. What, then, of the workings I consent to conduct, of the diverse ailments I have been able to solve, ranging from curing ovarian cysts to tying an aneurysm, from cooling the burn in the throat to putting blood to blood and sinew to sinew until broken bones were mended, from alleviating the Eye to knotting the hip pain of a first fibromyalgia symptom coming after unexpressed, unacknowledged, unprocessed grief? Sometimes, then, things just align, and you have the time-and-space needed to act, and you know what needs to be done, and it is shown in flashes of purposes instantly recognized. Sometimes, the hands truly are guided by some greater force to which one is but an embassy, and then it can be really quick : you are given approval, licence, consent – the implements and the power flow, in accordance to what not only can, but must be done.

In the art and craft that is mine, I believe and was taught that there is spirit in all things, and all things in spirit. In my world view, rife with animism, and which informs the way I work, there is fundamentally no clear-cut distinction between mind, body, and spirit – to separate these “realms”, so to speak, makes no real sense practically speaking, nor does identifying where each starts and ends. Approaching a mental, physical, or spiritual wound, and finding the root of an illness, means to dig deep into every aspect of a patient’s life to see what sticks out – thus a good healer will make you talk, provide the confidence and reassurance needed to unravel, and will pay just as much attention to what you do say as to what you don’t. The healer must also be asked to intervene by the recipient directly. To try to find an equilibrium, to articulate the care and the cure, the healer must operate on every level at once, in effect minding to treat the cause and not just the symptoms. A physical sickness is mental is emotional is spiritual. One can work in closing wounds, cooling burns, and staunching blood – it is about mending, and tending, and stitching. One can work in curing ailments and dispersing infections, cleansing the soul and purifying the body – it is about washing away what is not supposed to be here, purifying and clearing what has been soiled and hurt, showing justice and doing mercy, unbecoming the blemish. And one can work in healing defects such as curses, mental illnesses, afflictions of the psyche, soul, and body – the wounded healer is a truth, and so are the cold hands and the warm heart. Ultimately it is all about applying spirit into matter, matter into spirit, matter into matter and spirit into spirit : this is the task of the healer, of the cunning wise-woman or soothsayer.

And it is all about balance. 

The thing that it becomes me to ask,
The thing that accords with Their mind,
The thing that is worthy to be done.

An Liuthail – A Lustration Ritual

As a counterpoint to this reflection, I propose a lustration ritual I designed for my own personal use.

On a cosmological level, fire and water share complex creative and destructive qualities, making them worthy of adoration and reverence. Brought together in the concept of « fire-in-water », both are revered for their sacred cleansing, healing, and purifying qualities, making it judicious to incorporate their alchemical combination in what is essentially a shortened version of a saining ritual. Much like the hearth is the center of the home on top of which food is cooked in a cauldron, providing sustenance, warmth, and light; the cult of holy wells in which votive offerings, sometimes set on fire, are placed, hold great resonance. Many healing gods and goddesses came to be associated with both fire and water, and in particular, for this is where my heart lies, Brighid Herself. Over the course of my relationship with the Goddess, I have been prompted to reflect deeply on the profound meaning and symbolism of the sacred duality thereof – on how to embrace opposites, and master seemingly incompatible elements, finding truth in balance -, on the virtue of temperance. The same sort of truth and inner purpose was laid out to me by the Sea-God and Lord of the Waves, Manannán Mac Lir, Son of the Sea. In revealing Himself to me one summer day spent hiking in the hills of the Seven Sisters, blinded by the bluest sky under the scorching sun, and facing the boundless sea atop the chalk cliffs, watching powerful waves crash at the bottom as the tide ebbed and flowed, He invited me to ponder the codependence and essential cosmological significance of the Three Realms together – Land, Sea, and Sky. As my group and I took a break from walking and exploring the stunning landscape, I held onto a hagstone I stumbled upon in the grass and dozed off, flying through the hole. I derived such transformative knowledge from the experience (and of course a sunburn) that only a brisk swim in the cool dark salt water later on could somewhat soothe the burn of it, and help me process, as well as connect, the deeper implications in presence. The waves had been calling to me to seal the understanding, and as I plunged, immerging myself fully and opening my eyes wide to the opaque depths, I was shocked to discover that I was the only one there, the only one to whom the temperature of the water felt gracious enough to bathe – my friends stood prudently on the shore, watching me, skin brushed by goosebumps.

I owe to Brighid and Manannán a lot in my ever changing comprehension of the concept of balance. Fire and water came to be closely tied together for me to heal and cleanse : it is only fair to include them both, and honour Those from Whom my knowledge is derived, in a practice meant to ritually purify the self and bestow protection and blessing on a daily basis.

* * *

Begin by preparing a bowl of holy water by adding some sea salt and a piece of gold or silver to some fresh spring water that has been poured through the hole of a fairy stone. Failing that, water touched by a quartz pebble will do. 

Take some time to calm and center yourself. Make silence, and let there be a holy quiet.

Sain your body with juniper smoke, taking care to move the bundle of leaves or the incense burner close to the face and in particular the eyes, ears, nose, and mouth, ideally until tears and coughing take over. Insist then on the hands, the chest, the armpits, and the genitalia too – I find that tangled threads of residual magical gunk or miasma tend to nest in such areas, which seem more openly vulnerable, and thus deserving of your special attention. You may want to perform this part of the ritual naked, perhaps just after a shower, to strip the body of its bound and reach to the core. 

Dip your hands in the bowl of water and gently touch your face. Say :

I am bathing my hands and face
In blessed water and the mild rays of the Sun
As Brighid bathed Hers
In the rich milk of the red-eared white cow
And in the beams of sweet honey.

Dip two fingers in the water and touch your lips. Say :

Sweetness be in my mouth,
Wisdom be in my speech.
The strength the Son of the Sea gave me,
Be in the heart of all flesh for me.

Dip two fingers in the water and touch your chest. Say :

The love of Brighid in my chest, 
The form of Manannán protecting me,
There is naught on land, nor sky, nor sea
That can overcome the shelter of me.

Dip your hands one last time and touch your face again. Say :

The hand of Brighid about my neck,
The hand of Manannán about my breast,
The hand of Brighid laving me,
The hand of Manannán saving me.

[Optional] Close the ritual with the ‘Bathing Prayer’ :

The palmful of the Sacred Three,
For mine age,
For my growth,
For my throat,
A flood for my appetite,
For my share of the produce,
For my share of the taking,
Honey and warm milk,
For my share of the supping,
For my share of the soil,
For my share of the preparation,
For my share of the treat,
My treasure and my joy,
For my share of the feast,
With gifts and tributes
For my share of the treasure,
Pulset of my love
For my share of the chase,
For my chase of the hunting
And the ruling over hosts
For my share of palaces
In the court of kings
For my share of Tir na nÓg
And of the Isle of Apples
With its goodness and peace. 
The three palmfuls
Of the Sacred Three
To preserve me
From every envy,
From evil eye and death.
The palmful of Life,
The palmful of Love,
The palmful of Peace
Triune
Of Grace
From the crown of my head to the sole of my feet.

You are now cleansed, befit to approach the gods, and to work in earnest and righteousness.