What Witches Do by Stewart Farrar

Author:Stewart Farrar [Farrar, Stewart]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
ISBN: 978-1-4463-5812-2
Publisher: David & Charles
Published: 2012-06-15T00:00:00+00:00

11.

Healing

Healing is a major part of the work of a witch, both within the coven Circle and alone. Many different methods and principles are involved, some of which are ‘pure’ witchcraft, and some magical in the sense I explained in the last chapter. Within these categories, too, there are subdivisions.

‘Pure’ witchcraft healing can be roughly divided into herbalism, the sympathetic magic of charms and spells, and what may be called the ‘unaided’ direction of will; only roughly, because the three overlap and shade into each other. For example, directed will enters into herbalism and charms; and ‘unaided’ will usually involves at least some simple aid to concentration, such as the cords.

Herbalism is a subject on its own, too complex to be gone into in this book, but I have already given a couple of examples of it on page 63. The point to be borne in mind is that Wiccan herbalism concerns more than the purely medicinal properties of certain plants, which are acknowledged by the most dogmatic materialist. It also involves (a) the occult significance of the herbs themselves1 and of their methods of preparation and use, and (b) the concept of the impregnation of the material means with the healing wish. I have already described in Chapter 5 the technique of the ‘genie in the bottle’ by which, in effect, a part of the healer’s own mental being is given temporarily independent existence and consciousness and sent to carry out a specific task. A witch who gives a patient a herbal remedy does the same thing on a more limited scale, loading the remedy with a strongly impressed healing wish that is also, in a sense, a detached and independently acting part of himself.

The same is true of charms and talismans. They are appropriately chosen and made according to the system of correspondences—or, if you prefer, of psychic resonance—and charged with the healing wish.

Methods of group working for healing purposes vary from coven to coven. In Alex’s, cord magic as described in Chapter 5 is the basic system, and is carried out at most of the coven meetings. The wax image or the human stand-in are also used within the Circle for diagnosis and healing. Such spells as the candle-and-needle spell can of course be executed alone, but there is a lot to be said for consecrating and preparing the objects as a coven, with the added solemnity of group ritual, even if those objects are to be used later and elsewhere. It depends on the human material. A healer confident of his powers may feel happier working alone if the coven lacks experience, but on the other hand a coven which is used to working together, and is aware of past successes, can ‘charge’ objects with more power than most individual witches are capable of raising. After all, that is what a coven is for.

Diagnosis is essentially a clairvoyant art, and the wax image or the stand-in is a focus and stimulant for that clairvoyance in the

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