The Witch as Healer

The doctors, who are in an even more true sense his [Satan s] lawful sons, who sprung from the popular empiricism known as Witchcraft, these his chosen heirs, to whom he left his noblest patrimony, are far too ready to forget the fact. They are basely ungrateful to the Witches who paved their way for them. They do more. . . they supply the mockers with some cruel weapons to use against him.. . . Satan, it would seem from them, is simply a form of disease I 

The modern psychiatric view of the witch as a mentally ill person is not merely a false interpretation of the historical record it is a perverse denial of the true role of the witch as benefactor or therapist as well as malefactor or troublemaker. Because psychiatric interpretations of the witch-hunts consistently neglect the figure of the good witch—also called the white witch (in contrast to the black one), or the wiseman or wisewoman—these accounts must be seen for what they are psychiatric propaganda, not medieval historiography. 

To understand the role of the witch as healer, we must remember that in the Middle Ages medicine, like other branches of learning, was in a state of arrest, dormant. With the exception of Arab or Jewish physicians, hired at great cost by the rich, medical treatment was unknown—the people could only crowd to the church doors for aspersion with holy water. Moreover, because of the religious 

In short, the poor and powerless were utterly deserted priest and Church curried favor with the feudal lord the physician was the servant of princes and counts. Where could the wretched serf and his abused wife seek relief from their misery Not within the fold of their faith, or from the court of their master, but only in magic, superstition, and sorcery. Hence, they turn to the magician, the sorceress, and the witch. 

Because of the nature of the human bond between suffering peasant and trusted sorceress, the good witch becomes endowed 

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It is ironic, indeed, that despite the historical record summarized above, no male psychiatrist, no modern male psychiatric historian, acknowledges the witch as healer and therapist, the true mother of the modem, privately practicing physician and psychotherapist. Instead, as we have seen, Man (the Masculine Physician) robs Woman (the White Witch) of her discovery he declares her mad, and himself the enlightened healer. This process is repeated over and over in the history of medicine. Semmelweis, protector of the parturient woman from the disease-producing hand of the physician, is likewise declared mad, and imprisoned in an insane asylum. Anna O., Joseph Breuer s immortal patient, teaches her physician... 

Further up in the painting we see a great master of yoga with his mind made blank as sensory powers perform a mental cleansing in order to be able to attract occult powers or forces. There is also an ancient priest of Vishnu and Shiva who is very skilled in cures of the mind and body. Beside him we see an Incan Ayar, a priest and prince of all the witch doctors, healers, and sorcerers, with his shining... 

There is a new realization that many of the people who were persecuted as witches and sorcerers in the European Middle Ages were, in fact, innocent midwives and healers, and some of their so-called magical remedies had certifiable efficacy. They recommended analgesic clove oil for toothache, vitamin-containing herbal teas for pregnant women and listless children, and calcined egg shell for upset stomach, a source of calcium carbonate, a main ingredient in antacids prescribed today. 

There is, of course, method in all this The poor must not only be oppressed they must also be kept in perpetual helplessness and dependence upon their masters. This explains the need to deny them their own indigenous healers, a process clearly discernible as early as the Middle Ages and, despite disclaimers to the contrary, in full sway today. Instead of allowing them access to their own helpers, the poor are supplied with physicians employed by the State. Insane asylums, public health facilities, and charity care in municipal teaching hospitals thus displaced the white witches who, though... 

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