Health and Healing Across Culture

Placebos prove how powerful the mind truly is. If a sugar pill can trick a person into believing they are healed, then how else can we assist our minds in working in tandem with our bodies? Shamans and Native Americans believe in the power of words and the voice when doing rituals, the intention creates the experience. Witches use "spells" to cast in order to manifest something into the physical world, a spell is done with words, phrases, natural substances and intention. I always thought it was interesting that the route word of "spell" is in "spelling" maybe words are more powerful than we think? I am an avid reader of esoteric self help books like "The Secret", "The Power of Now" and even the "Man and His Symbols" which is written by Psychologist Carl Jung. Teachings and theories from "The Secret" show that like attract likes and believing in a positive world and changing your thought patterns to be better can certainly yield positive results. The cross cultural layers between magic, psychology and culture is beyond interesting. The dreams represent the subconscious mind and according to Jungian and Freudian psychology dreams have hidden symbols for the dreamer to unpack. Any person who can tell you the hidden meaning of your dream and decode it for you is mistaken, the dreamer dreams, only they can find their meaning. The shaman delves into the unconscious of the collective consciousness and returns with knowledge of healing from the spirit world. This is no easy task, often shamans come out from a trip to the spirit world and lose their minds. Shamanism is arduous and ancestral, too many steal these healing systems because they admire them without understanding the hard work it takes to truly be called a 'shaman'. But If the mind can carry all these hidden symbols and meanings, then doesn't the mind determine our perception of the world and how we view symbols externally? Isn't our perception created by the society in which we live in? Indeed there are ailments and disorders unique to the culture from which they came. For example, anorexia is a Western mental health condition. We create our own reality as the mind can convince us a pill is healing us when it is filled with nothing, belief alone supplies the healing. If you live in the reality that witchcraft is evil then it is evil. If you live in the reality that shamanism is a gift than shamanism will be an inherited practiced gift rather than a neurosis (as spiritual experiences are often misdiagnosed as psychosis). An excerpt I once read says:"sorcerers and witches differ from shamans and mediums according to their philosophies. Sorcerers, shamans and mediums all seek to enlist the aid of spirit beings in their enterprises. They differ in their goals. Shamans and mediums use the aid of spirits in healing; sorcerers enlist the aid of spirits to cause harm to others." I do not believe this to be true. People who believe in the supernatural and power of the self know they can use their god given abilities for good or evil, we all make a choice. The label or the group you belong to does not define if you are a good person, your choices do. When we put each other in boxes we are making each other out to be far more separate rather than equals, but this disparity is founded by our collective unconscious at this point in time. This is abstract, but if your thought are echoed into the void then they will find their way back to you and also they will be heard by somebody across the world. We may not share a mind but all of humanity shares an unconscious set of beliefs whether they subscribe to them or not. If you believe something to be true, so it is. This is both a danger and a super power to have belief. Remember though, what you believe to be true shapes the outside world in a grand way.