Healings and healers - placebo or real?

Thank you for reading my previous post “My most unbelievable healing experience in the jungle” if you have and all the many comments and reactions.

In the jungle I had plenty of time so I studied more the Tarot of Alejandro Jodorowsky (highly recommend his deck -precisely this one- with The Way of Tarot book). It’s a whole language if you study it, I am learning daily.

I kept drawing this card, Justice, here are some interpretations (sorry for the full of crapy ads link will do better next time).

Among its many messages, the card’s message for me has been that of a warning to keep balance at all times as well as discipline. Always look for the opposite point of view whenever I get excited or discover something. Keep calm.

I received many healings and met many mind blowing healers in the jungle, the most impressive was definitely Saku, the “uncontacted” pagé I talk about in my previous post who is not uncontacted anymore. He will leave Brazil for the first time ever and was invited by the Yawanawà to join and perform healings at the “Colibri festival” in Corfu in September, see him on the line-up. This festival is the first held by my friend Constantin Bisanz who is -like me- a former entrepreneur who joined me in a one month dieta in the forest and now created a very special retreat and consciousness events place in Corfu, Greece. I will be there in September please join us if you feel like and want to experiment a healing from Saku and the Yawanawà.

I met a friend a few days ago who told me about another healer, “John of God”. You should really watch the Netflix series about him, it’s quite entertaining, sometimes scary and full of learnings.

I am not drawing any comparisons with my teachers in the forest as “John of God” was found to be a convicted sex offender after having “healed” thousands of people in Brazil.

I received his story as a synchronicity to provide me with balance and see both sides of the healers story.

As with everything in life, there is a light and a dark side, there are good and not so good business people, there are spiritual people and clubs in Ibiza etc. There are obviously “good” and “dangerous” healers. There are also good DJs and some that are said to be rapists as it just happened a few days ago with a very famous one…

I want to write about the role of the healer and its effects. I wrote about it already but here are some more thoughts.

Admitting that any healer “heals” anything on you is admitting that you do not have the power to heal it yourself.

Could the role of a healer just be to enable you to heal yourself? Many people call it “placebo”, like a pill with nothing active in it (John of God sold those) that actually does something for you but it’s in your head.

I believe more and more that most illnesses are generated from one’s own mind.

It’s pretty obvious that permanent stress, fear, guilt or hyper-activity can lead to serious issues, such as developing some form of cancer, mostly unexplained by modern medicine.

If most illnesses result from our own mind turning into physical issues in our body, then this same mind can stop creating them and reverse the process.

If you convince yourself that this back pain you have is healed and will go away it just might… I have experienced this many times.

Perhaps the role of the healer is just to help you convince yourself that it’s now gone, the “show” or moves the healer performs matter only on helping you get convinced.

One of the non indigenous healers told me once:

“I feel I am just performing theatre each time, but I was impressed myself that the person fixed his or her issue soon after, so who cares really if it’s placebo or not?”.

The same Jodorowsky who created this special Tarot deck has a brilliant book and movie about it, “psychomagic”, have a look. You can find many youtube videos too.

I am still wondering what’s real or not, of course.

I keep the “Justice” tarot card in mind and my rational mind. If you have read my healing story there is no theatre there, no public, no show, we were just a few people in an empty hut in the middle of the forest. Saku had no hidden bag or tools. I wasn’t asked to give any form of payment for the performance. I did not tell him if I had any illness nor did I know my liver would have any issue. Of course it is pretty obvious any middle-aged white man has likely drank alcohol in the past so that was a safe bet, but then I have seen him perform each time different healings for different illnesses he found.

The most troubling part is when Saku sucked blood and alcohol out of my liver with his mouth, through my skin, without any marks after the healing. He spit a glass of mixed alcohol and blood. I saw him do that and the stinky liquid did not come from anywhere else than his mouth. He blew before so it could not have been in his mouth before. For the non believer it would be a very advanced trick. For the believer it was pure magic. I am still thinking about it a lot and I cannot explain it in any rational way.

Science doesn’t explain either how consciousness comes to a baby in the womb, nor does it explain how the universe started (see “Biocentrism”).

We know very little about what our body and brains can do.

All my work in the forest got me to “see” much more all the time. We were all conditioned by our western education that we can’t see much or that many things are impossible. The indigenous kids grow opposite, they don’t read books and grow-up without questioning what to believe, they just experience everything they see and stay with their curious and open mind all their lives. We kill curiosities and close the potential of our minds.

I believe that what I see anyone can see, it’s just a question of re-activating it. Some people I know, mostly women, “see” all the time naturally and without the need of any external medicine or helper. For me it’s obvious that meditation is the only way to discover what our brains can do long term, but it takes time, there are other faster ways, but they don’t last for long, only meditation can make them permanent.

Back to the healers.

I have seen how they train. It takes ten or more years. It is mastery. It is harder than most western education or professional careers. It is really, really hard. I have the highest respect for the indigenous who taught me some of their knowledge. They are not liars or tricking anyone. For almost a year in several trips I have experimented myself their teachings, it is the hardest I have ever done in my life. Before doing my latest “dieta” I asked about how it is like and they would never answer.

“It can’t be told or taught, one has to experiment it”.

With close to no food for months I fell on the floor, fainted a few times. They told me “now you know what is a dieta and that you cannot really tell how it feels to anyone because words can’t describe it”.

Telling those stories here feels like a must for me (I always loved sharing) but is really impossible. I watch my ego thinking about the Justice Tarot card constantly. It might look like I am showing-off to many of you. I try not to, I just try to write as an explorer of my own mind.

I have no special powers or abilities. We all have them, we just don’t know how to reveal them.

I went through some vipassana meditation retreats. The monks just meditate, they don’t heal anyone, or they do but without showing it.

I went to say thanks and good-bye to our teacher at the end of the silent 10 days and he did not even establish eye contact with me and left. I only wanted to tell him my gratitude for the experience.

The buddhist tradition is exemplary in this way, no ego, no payment, no requests, everything is free. There is no theatre I have seen.

Yet, both indigenous and buddhist teachings were very important for me, to find balance. I am deeply grateful for the healings of the indigenous and the barebones experience of vipassana, there is truth and healings in both. I might have been able to remove the alcohol from my liver by myself at one point. Or I was and did not know.

It is definitely much more interesting to think anyone can heal themselves without surrendering one’s power to a healer. Yet I am so happy those true masters exist in our world and I hope instead of burning them and prosecuting them we celebrate their knowledge and protect them in the future.

Please share your experiences and thoughts about healers and healings in the comments below.

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