Wounded Healer

Symbols and allegories.
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Nefastos
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Wounded Healer

Post by Nefastos »


In another recent thread soror O mentioned this important concept:

Soror O wrote: Tue Oct 26, 2021 10:41 amI have for years contemplated on the mythos of Chiron, the wounded healer. To heal, one must have the wound. But it is a special wound, not to be mixed with any other personal shortcoming or trauma.

"The Wounded Healer" is a very apt name for this important archetype, and the name of the Two of Staves (Wands, Batons) in the brotherhood Tarot's minor arcana.

It is also the name of Halifax's classic book of shamanism, because as every shamanist knows, there is a special illness that forces people into shamanhood. It is not a profession that could be chosen, but one becomes the medicine-man by getting seriously ill in a mystical way, penetrating the world's profane appearance, and returning to humanity to help others.

I have always considered lacking and even distasteful that this aspect of the magician's path, the one that actually makes it sacred and deep and terrible, is so often overlooked in most of the new occult schools. As far as I know the only one where it has been properly underlined is old theosophy, which placed so much stress on the "probationary path" which forces the neophyte into a terrible spiritual rebirth involving both ethical and overall mental turbulence.

This "special wound" can be seen in the brotherhood seal in the forehead of Satan. This fire-birthing wound is the third eye. I have seen a caricature of the said symbol where this wound was replaced by a vulva. Such a depiction is 100% accurate: that is exactly what this is about. And this also comes back to why the healer archetype is a feminine one (regardless whether the human healer themself is outwardly male or hermaphroditic, as often was the case in the old shaman institution).
Faust: "Lo contempla. / Ei muove in tortuosa spire / e s'avvicina lento alla nostra volta. / Oh! se non erro, / orme di foco imprime al suol!"
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Smaragd
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Re: Wounded Healer

Post by Smaragd »

Soror O wrote: Tue Oct 26, 2021 10:41 am So one must find herself "sick" over and over again - to really be able to heal. In this sphere of manifestation, we can never be wholly wholesome and "cured". The fabric of the reality torns the particles apart, and torns the flesh of our being.
It fascinates me to think how one would go about making the powers that ”tear our flesh apart” as servants for the magician within. In the topic where we came upon this archetype, there was a discussion of the importance of time as an instrument of healing, and that seems to me the closest clue on how one might go about working with the powers of Saturn. Chiron was infact a descendant of Kronos, who had taken the form of a horse and impregnated the nymph Philyra. Using time as an instrument ofcourse wouldn’t be something like throwing one’s hands in the air and leaving things on its own, but rather an active conscious choice to integrate these aspects to the work as a whole.
Nefastos wrote: Tue Oct 26, 2021 11:34 am
I have always considered lacking and even distasteful that this aspect of the magician's path, the one that actually makes it sacred and deep and terrible, is so often overlooked in most of the new occult schools. As far as I know the only one where it has been properly underlined is old theosophy, which placed so much stress on the "probationary path" which forces the neophyte into a terrible spiritual rebirth involving both ethical and overall mental turbulence.
This is very keen observation of the archetypes presence on the problem. I was also reminded of the Dweller on the Threshold on ’Zanoni’. In the book Zanoni is an adept of the occult arts, and coming to the crossroads of transcendentally and immanently emphasised paths, he chooses the latter. This choise has an indirect consequence of loosing one’s power over the terrible figure dwelling on the ”threshold”. Fear of death now dominates Zanoni while in the past the dweller was a servant of his. This is another look to the bone freezing archetype behind the facet of the Wounded Healer. I guess the archetype puts on its healer mask when the aspirants wielding of the powers of the archetype reaches subtle/nuanced enough stage.

I’ve understood some shamanistic traditions to have a similar idea of threshold quite central to their practice. The place/state/portal of Lovi for example conjures up this idea of really intense state, as if one has to be sucked through a gate that is so narrow, it will stretch one’s being in to a stressful state. One is sucked in to the wound of the world, a state that might at young age strike the yet unconscious aspirant with astral visions, or ”sensory attacks” mentioned in the topic linked in the beginning of this thread (if I interpreted them right, that is). Now, Lovi is usually taken to have the sole meaning of shamanistic trance techniques. Might it be as big of an error as thinking the healer’s disease to be a mere trauma or personal shortcoming? I mean if I look upon the archetype on my own magicians path, the upkeep of this disease has been sort of a constant thing and related to the magical side of ethical striving embarked (or forced to find relation towards through the sense of great the shadow in the world) on from an early age. This intensity, which surely had part in the leaking of different astral visions during childhood, can ofcourse be further intensified with trance techniques, but it is a constant thing never-the-less (the recent topic on Fear of God is definitely a related phenomena). This is also part of the reason why I was greatly annoyed by parts of David Gordon White’s Kiss of the Yogini, where he seemed to overlook high hindu tantra and Abhinavagupta for ”semanticising” tantric practises. The ”semantication” I take to be actually a more nuanced view to the truly occult reality. While it is a window to the meanings behind manifestation and onward action, it also actually takes more subtle manifesting things in to consideration like we see here in the above interpretative example of Lovi.
"Would to God that all the Lord's people were Prophets”, Numbers 11:29 as echoed by William Blake
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Re: Wounded Healer

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Smaragd wrote: Tue Oct 26, 2021 5:26 pmIt fascinates me to think how one would go about making the powers that ”tear our flesh apart” as servants for the magician within.

Here we have the way of closing, and therefore grounding, a cycle of dangerous forces. For like readers of the tales of old conjurers (like Marlowe's original Faust story) know, they are the summoned entities that have served us that will finally tear our flesh apart, when the time is up and the cycle turns from outside to inside phase.

Goethe on the other hand spares his sinning magician, and supports the pervert theme of Christian "mercy," which is actually mercilessness towards everyone except the protagonist. Christian mercy is a pinnacle of extreme naïvety, a child's wish that one may go about breaking other's toys and nothing bad will come out of it. But it already has come, and only a solipsist can't see that. Goethe's Faust echoes these solipsist thoughts where saintly Margareta is seduced and raped by Faust, who then is redeemed in hallelujah because he had such a noble inventive genius. Except all these last words should be in parentheses, because he didn't accomplish anything by himself.

As you can see, I see that the modern idea of a magician who doesn't pay his bills, so to say, wrong to the core, and such a topos started already with the idea of Enlightenment. (I mean the historical age which started to worship rationality and in so doing maimed badly the idea of balance in nature.)

Smaragd wrote: Tue Oct 26, 2021 5:26 pmI was also reminded of the Dweller on the Threshold on ’Zanoni’.

Well noticed. Dweller on the Threshold was exactly such a vengeance-seeking spirit, familiar from the upper mentioned Marlowe's Faust & similar stories. A true disciple would have confronted that, but in Zanoni, the selfish wannabe adept (Glyndon) first demands the magical powers and then refuses to confront this shadow side of their being.

Smaragd wrote: Tue Oct 26, 2021 5:26 pmMight it be as big of an error as thinking the healer’s disease to be a mere trauma or personal shortcoming? I mean if I look upon the archetype on my own magicians path, the upkeep of this disease has been sort of a constant thing and related to the magical side of ethical striving embarked (or forced to find relation towards through the sense of great the shadow in the world) on from an early age.

And this is where the modern dichotomy of "pathology vs. technique" errs, stressing either that (a) the shaman is somehow abnormal or (b) that he uses those forces by choice. But this whole approach to the question is wrong, and stems from the upper mentioned "enlightenment" idea which fails to grasp that actual spiritual living is merging oneself with the oneness of the whole. So it is neither disease or strength, or it is both, because we are here dealing with one's immersion with the actual being that transcends such things as strictly personal empowerment. At the point where one reaches the elemental powers of nature consciously (has struck the deal with the demons, so to say, and is now their co-worker) the idea of the self as it was must have been already transcended, and the human being no longer identifies with the personal kâma manas but with the buddhi-manas of shared individualities.
Faust: "Lo contempla. / Ei muove in tortuosa spire / e s'avvicina lento alla nostra volta. / Oh! se non erro, / orme di foco imprime al suol!"
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Re: Wounded Healer

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Nefastos wrote: Wed Oct 27, 2021 7:36 am
But this whole approach to the question is wrong, and stems from the upper mentioned "enlightenment" idea which fails to grasp that actual spiritual living is merging oneself with the oneness of the whole.
From this perspective, we might make an interpretation that the Wounded Healer archetype could be seen activating in an individual who hears the call of the true middleground amidst the more time bound voices of different spirits – the Enligtenment being one example of one sort of a turbulent spirit, the mask of which is worn by the Zeitgeist. Of course the call does not come from a voice solely representing the middleground but by the dynamic opposite which offers the individual the possibility to mark ones own ground beyond these opposing forces which tear the wound, pictured on the brotherhood’s seal, open. Many are called… but few are able to choose to go beyond the different time bound entities and their thirsty and seductive currents.
Nefastos wrote: Wed Oct 27, 2021 7:36 am So it is neither disease or strength, or it is both, because we are here dealing with one's immersion with the actual being that transcends such things as strictly personal empowerment.
It’s like the sacrifices for personal empowerment is done on almost completely different level altogether, similarly to the caricature of a hatha yogi gaining strenght in form rather than the magic power being trained with vaster purpose in the mind of the Master, and thus meaningful to the dharma of the student. Looking at this from the particular perspective of the Wounded Healer, the disease side is missing and thus the power is not coming through the portal of the wound drawn open as an eye, but from the ignorance of the wound. Such powers are coming from the masters of the lateral or the downward path. In order not to inflame peoples relation towards caricature-like hatha yogic practices, it is a curious thing how outwardly the same thing can be serving as an instrument on a wholly different path.

If the individual’s capability to perceive the wound in the mirror, that is the outer world, would be seen only as a disease, we would be talking about oversensitivity, which is like the mirror image of the first problem. Giving too much emphasis to the archetype of the Wounded Healer, or having somewhat distorted views towards its ideal, easily creates problems with oversensitivity. It’s like the Healer part would be missing if the strenght is missing.
"Would to God that all the Lord's people were Prophets”, Numbers 11:29 as echoed by William Blake
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Re: Wounded Healer

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This topic of healing has been on my mind and I'd like to share some of my personal notions on the subject as I have contemplated it further.

The wound initself doesn't enable any healing - rather it is the dynamic awareness of the wound. (Like Nefastos stated, the wound is not merely some personal attribute.) The wound is ofcourse a spiraling fractal, including all the societal, individual and whatever "layers" of so called suffering. Being aware of the wound in a dynamic ie. flowing manner allows the healer to overcome the wound (the limitations, the suffering) and to export "pure consciousness" ie. wholeness through a human vessel. Healing therefore is not an act of doing - rather it is a creating of space.

Chiron - according to the myth - wasn't able to heal himself. I interpret this as a presentation of the manyfold nature of healing: first, there is the healer's ever present and dynamic awareness of the fractal, eternally expanding wound. By this awareness, the healer sort of removes himself from the equation - this is not to be mixed with lazy neutrality of the healthwork professionals. Secondly, and paradoxically, this dynamic awareness of the wound leads to the notion of "no-wound"... This consciousness then shines through the vessel of the healer.

Not being able to heal then stands for the fractal nature of the wound and also for the notion that there is no wound. How can one heal anyone, when there is no wound to heal? You heal by the notion that there is nothing to heal.

This is a subject which I'm experimenting in practic. Working with traumatized people, I experiment how my own state of consciousness relates to their being. If I'm consciously or subconsciously trying to fix something in them, I tend to get poor results - however valid, textbook correct and reasonable my "healing actions" may seem on the surface. If I'm just being present and allowing they tend to start healing themselves. This is how it appears to be, in my perspective.
If you want to reborn, let yourself die.
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Re: Wounded Healer

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Soror O wrote: Sat Nov 13, 2021 10:07 amWorking with traumatized people, I experiment how my own state of consciousness relates to their being. If I'm consciously or subconsciously trying to fix something in them, I tend to get poor results - however valid, textbook correct and reasonable my "healing actions" may seem on the surface. If I'm just being present and allowing they tend to start healing themselves. This is how it appears to be, in my perspective.

This is a both delicate and important topic.

I think that one is not able (nor asked) to remain neutral. Whatever we are, we are also in the other people's aura of being, so to say. And thus it is not only that we are either trying to fix someone, or we are only there as a catalyst or instrument for their self-help. Rather, I believe in meetings between individuals. (Individuals in the wide sense of the word: also different non-individualized entities, including the very common non- or semi-individualized human beings, that we perhaps all are.) Whenever two beings meet, and there is an attempt at openness at least from one part, the third is born. Even though our meetings so seldom work out as we would have liked them to, meetings are always fruitful for those who have strived for openness. By being actually present for the other. This is equally true in all the different encounters, even in encounters between enemies. For there is a certain kind of openness that can be reached in a certain kind of hostility.

A delicate topic, like I said. And yet, in the very focus of the SoA idea of making the differences and even opposites able to meet.

The "third eye," which is the wound-eye, can only be opened when the two eyes form a more than two-dimensional picture together. Similarly, sushumna is ignited only by the different electric currents of idâ and pingalâ working in unison. Another body is embraced only when both arms are used to hold it at the same time; otherwise, it's a grasp.
Faust: "Lo contempla. / Ei muove in tortuosa spire / e s'avvicina lento alla nostra volta. / Oh! se non erro, / orme di foco imprime al suol!"
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Re: Wounded Healer

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Nefastos wrote: Sat Nov 13, 2021 4:51 pm
I think that one is not able (nor asked) to remain neutral. Whatever we are, we are also in the other people's aura of being, so to say. And thus it is not only that we are either trying to fix someone, or we are only there as a catalyte or instrument for their self-help.
I meant that "neutrality" and "removing oneself from the equation" is achieved by fully owning one's particle nature (limits, persona, suffering, karma). The lower triad "individual" then dissolves to the extent that it is no longer functioning as a matrix for consciousness. Ofcourse this is a rather abstract and, like you said, a delicate subject, which relates to the subject of enlightenment. During our lives here we don't seize being ordinary folks, humans, apes, personas. But our truest nature is beyond, and that's what I regard real in the deepest meaning of the world. We work with our personas, we heal with our personas: people often heal themselves through us, using our personal attributes as catalysts for their own self-realizations. But to really heal with one's persona, to really be one's own persona one must be able to reside beyond it.

This is my personal insight on the subject at hand, I don't have any objective take on this.
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Re: Wounded Healer

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Nefastos wrote: Sat Nov 13, 2021 4:51 pm
Soror O wrote: Sat Nov 13, 2021 10:07 amWorking with traumatized people, I experiment how my own state of consciousness relates to their being. If I'm consciously or subconsciously trying to fix something in them, I tend to get poor results - however valid, textbook correct and reasonable my "healing actions" may seem on the surface. If I'm just being present and allowing they tend to start healing themselves. This is how it appears to be, in my perspective.

This is a both delicate and important topic.

I think that one is not able (nor asked) to remain neutral. Whatever we are, we are also in the other people's aura of being, so to say. And thus it is not only that we are either trying to fix someone, or we are only there as a catalyst or instrument for their self-help. Rather, I believe in meetings between individuals. (Individuals in the wide sense of the word: also different non-individualized entities, including the very common non- or semi-individualized human beings, that we perhaps all are.) Whenever two beings meet, and there is an attempt at openness at least from one part, the third is born. Even though our meetings so seldom work out as we would have liked them to, meetings are always fruitful for those who have strived for openness. By being actually present for the other. This is equally true in all the different encounters, even in encounters between enemies. For there is a certain kind of openness that can be reached in a certain kind of hostility.
Soror O wrote: Sat Nov 13, 2021 9:38 pm But to really heal with one's persona, to really be one's own persona one must be able to reside beyond it.
It seems like the intimacy that is shared between a healer and a traumatized person makes the two of them so close to the wound, or operating within the shock state of the wound, that there might be not much at all space for neutral (balanced) individual-to-individual interaction. The interaction has to happen in more subtle levels and the healer has to remain in sort of distanced, therapist, seemingly passive, listener mode when the traumatized person remains in the birth canal with their yet to be individualized parts.

When two more wholly individualized persons converse about difficult questions, the intimacy is closer to fraternal relationship. They operate on the open field, like eagles flying in the open sky, and such state could be seen defining fraternal intimacy with all the highest ideals of the Master’s pupils inner circle, supracarnal & suprasexual* by nature (supra- as in going beyond these concepts), while intimacy in patient relationships or even romantic relationships usually tend to operate within the shock state of the wound, which in a poetic fashion seems to define carnal existence.

In a patient relationship, although being near the shock of the carnal i.e. the red flow of the wound, the healer is perhaps still flying in the sky like an eagle, but doing so in a sort of hidden way, that is not pouring out all the information (”help”) the perspective allows, eventhough it might seems helpful at first glance. It is really hard to see how much one can say and at what point it is allowed to be received. To think of how the Master allows the droplets to fall on the pupils forehead, or when they are withhold!

*For the duration one is able to balance oneself within this inner circle, the sexual powers has been sublimated to a universal state of Love which seeks no emphasis through expression of sexuality, as the meaning of the word is known in our day-to-day lingo, and thus sexually charged carnal magnetism holds not much value at all. Magnetic working is still happening but it focuses on different poles than in a sexual relationship, meaning that the guiding pole is beyond the sensory world and the dynamic focus is on the vertixal axis, rather than horizontal dynamism of carnal sexuality. I'm pointing to sexuality here because it seems to mark this carnal wounded state at large (think of the colour red), yet curiously vanishing from the healers vertical point of view.

As a warning, I must say that my point of view might be somewhat coloured by relatively strict relation to sexuality, so I'm not entirely sure if these views translate well enough to people with different ways to look at things.
"Would to God that all the Lord's people were Prophets”, Numbers 11:29 as echoed by William Blake
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