Ellochka Shchukina and a savage from the Mumbo-Yumbo tribe have a similar vocabulary and a love for shiny objects. The clients of the healers and the savage from the Mumbo-Yumbo tribe have one religion. Why do people continue to believe in healers in the 21st century? How can psychics help? Can they at all, and how do they do it?
Shaman, Healer and Seraphim
Sarovsky Let's start from afar: in the beginning there was a word. And it belonged to none other than the most famous "pervert" of all times and peoples - Sigmund Freud. His book "Totem and Taboo" belongs to the category of those who changed the world. In it, the founding father of psychoanalysis proves the origin of all modern world religions from the institution of totemism, the deification of the animal, which flourishes among some wild tribes to this day. But we will not dwell on Freud's conclusions today. Let us briefly recall only the scheme of evolution of any monotheistic religion, which Freud puts forward as the main hypothesis of his book.
As is known, our primitive ancestors lived in patriarchal communities under the leadership of a leader. Only he alone had the right to all the women of his tribe, and only from him could these women bear children. For claims to love any of the women (who could be mothers and sisters to each other), the father punished the recalcitrant (often his own sons) in two ways: castration or expulsion from the community. Unable to withstand the arbitrariness, one fine day the sons killed their father, and then ate it in order to "feed" his power: in the literal, childlike, magical thinking of savages, power can be obtained only by directly absorbing it.
It is worth saying that all this looks wild only for you and me. In a primitive environment, sexual relations between family members and cannibalism are simple and straightforward things. This, of course, is not about an isolated case of parricide. Such a revolt, most likely, occurred periodically, over the centuries, or thousands of years. After the successful outcome of the struggle for "free love", conscience knocked on the dark hearts of the sons (after all, their father was killed). Since then, in order to drown out her incessant voice, the savages invented the Ritual. The deified totem animal became the symbol of the murdered father. It was forbidden to kill and eat him on pain of death on all days of the year … except one.
When the savages gathered together (an important point - precisely and only together), they killed the unfortunate totem animal and ate it in order to cleanse themselves of filth and taste its holiness. Later, the monotheistic "son of God" became the symbol of the totem: Christ, Muhammad, etc. (on reflections on the symbolism of the sacred sacrament of Easter with eating the "body of Christ" and drinking "His blood", as well as on Great Lent before that, as well as We will keep silent about the holiday of Eid al-Adha, leaving it to the readers themselves).
But between the totem (and also the spirits of Nature and the murdered totem itself, which later turned into pagan gods) there must be guides. They were shamans: they healed, predicted, corrupted, bewitched and purified. Millennia later, some shamans appear to have become healers. Even later, saints. In Russia they were called “God's people” and “elders” who healed and performed miracles. Then they also disappeared (in Russia, as you know, this happened, as they say, "within the framework of the five-year plan" - violently and acceleratedly, with the advent of Soviet power), giving way to … completely skeptical health officials - doctors.
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This is probably why, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, in the disgraced 1990s, a "tsunami" burst into our country not of holy elders, but of the caste of healers that preceded them. 75 years of eradicating Orthodoxy and other religions more developed than paganism, nevertheless, did their job. But the tsunami tends to subside. The one and a half hour broadcasts on the central channels of Kashpirovsky and Chumak, which were watched by the whole country, were replaced by modest, albeit numerous, ads in newspapers (and now on the Internet) about healers and healers of all stripes.
But if the nature of the origin and revival of healing in our country is clear, then who visits them, believing in their higher power? Or maybe they really have it?
Unhappy people-savages
“When a person is in a stressful, oppressed state, regression to infantile states of the psyche often occurs,” says Lyubov Zaeva, a member of the European Confederation of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy. - For example, in an adult, protective magical thinking can be activated (remember the magical thinking of savages - NS) when anxiety is reduced by a certain ritual.
Children often come up with ritual-based games that save them from fears. “If I jump from this tree to the house on one leg, then my mother will never die”, “If I count 50 black cars, I’ll write the test well” (obsession rituals common among children - NS). Turning to healers and sorcerers is also, to some extent, a manifestation of magical thinking. The psyche needs rituals, rituals are to some extent able to structure mental processes, and a person finds a space where the psyche receives a resource through ritual actions.
Ideally, a person is a self-regulating system, and the psyche always strives for self-healing. By any means. Sometimes quite intricate. For example, if the archetypal (given to us at the gene and neural levels) "file" of the Self-Healer is violated in the psyche, then the compensation mechanism is activated. A person is looking for a figure that would be dellegated by such a function of salvation. For some, this figure can be a loved one, friend, mother. For others (if there are some violations in the deep sphere of trust in loved ones), such a compensatory figure should become a stranger - the Other, but capable of creating an emotional field of acceptance.
The witch doctor will always make it clear that the client is a desirable figure, that he will be understood and accepted. The witch doctor is the accepting Other, the alien, but at the same time the new Close, admitted to the innermost, body and soul. In the perception of the client, the healer is powerful and fearless, which means that fantasy, through communication with him, you can introject, absorb a part of his strength, as if you yourself become stronger. In fact, patients often come to the healer as if for some kind of permission to be strong (obtaining "permission" occurs unconsciously, on a non-verbal level - NS). "Can I not get sick?" - "You can."
They also come to the healer for an exchange, which is impossible in the usual space, when it is possible for someone, as it were, to leave their fears, their weakness, and the object (the healer - NS) will not be destroyed (will not get sick, will not die, will not be upset, in contrast, say, from a loved one - NS), since it has protective magical powers.
Neurotics and psychotics
“Psychoanalysis and healing are not competitors today, so I don’t support the“witch hunt”that some colleagues are leading,” says Dmitry Olshansky, a well-known St. Petersburg psychotherapist and psychoanalyst. - As a rule (although there are exceptions), psychoanalysts are visited by highly educated, cultured people, often with a university education, capable of reflection. People who are unlikely to believe in fortune telling by hand, removing the celibacy crown, socionic types, Ayurveda, reality transurfing, Hellinger constellations and invoking spirits.
I don't think that such fun as Christmas fortune telling, obsession rituals (here again we are talking about the role of rituals for a certain category of people - NS) or astrological horoscopes can cause any serious harm to the psyche. They do not bring any benefit or harm, but exist at the level of entertainment.
On the contrary, they are able to stabilize many neurotics and create digestible delusions for psychotics that help them interact with the world. For example, someone's psyche cannot accept the idea that all people are fundamentally different, and each is unique; such thoughts can drive a person to insanity. Then some newfangled pseudo-psychological doctrine comes to his aid and says that there are only 14 socionic types, and you can build relationships with each according to a ready-made program. That is, it is not necessary to perceive each person as an individual with his own inner world, he can be treated as one of 14 types of mechanisms, each of which is accompanied by instructions. For many psychotics, this makes life easier and protects them from falling into psychosis. Some of these teachings come up with quite interesting "reality control programs" from which the psychotic can create his own individual delusions.
If we talk about real danger, then it can be represented by various esoteric teachings and magical practices, in which psychological techniques of influencing consciousness are used. Such practices not only impose on people a certain magical worldview that is contrary to science, but often also a system of values, "what is good and what is bad," and also impose a certain discipline on the body and even impose dietary restrictions. All this can harm not only physical, but also mental health.
Magic plate
- In order to understand how much healers, healers, magicians and other sorcerers are able to help a person, for a start it is important to learn elementary things: for what purpose are all the above citizens engaged in healing; whether they themselves believe in their supernatural abilities; how mentally healthy they are; whether they want to enrich themselves through their activities and so on, - says the psychoanalyst, director of the Institute for the Development of Psychoanalysis (Kiev), President of the Ukrainian League of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapies Lyudmila Uskova. - Depending on this, the process of interaction with the patient will be built. It is no secret that there are many charlatans among the aforementioned contingent. But it is possible that their units possess some kind of supernatural energetic force, which we have not yet known. However, the preponderance in percentage terms is still ratheron the side of charlatans. Do not discount the fact that they may have general concepts about anatomy, physiology and medicine, as a result of which it is easy to provide assistance for minor diseases.
The suffering is a separate topic. Initially, referring to a healer, a person already endows him in his fantasies with incredible strength and a desire to feel it for himself. All this is supported by enthusiastic stories through third acquaintances who allegedly have examples of healing. In such an interaction, several factors may be present that "help" the patient: suggestion, the gift of persuasion, charisma, faith in healing, the patient's willingness to accept their health (a similar phenomenon was mentioned above - "permission" to be healthy - NS), unwillingness to know the true reason diseases and more.
For the most part, people need a magic pill that will relieve them of suffering, and they don't want to know the reasons why this suffering occurs. And even more so, they are not ready to work on their problems for a long time in order to establish their own lives. There is a certain illusion that there are "higher powers" capable of solving all their problems at once. Most often this happens in the absence of a mature position, that is, with infantilization.
Let's take this example. A young man has a violation of the autonomic function, which doctors often call vegetative-vascular dystonia in the absence of an accurate diagnosis. They cannot cure it, because the problem is not in the body, but in the psyche. Medication can relieve symptoms, but not normalize the condition. Failure to heal causes anxiety and fear in the young man. After a couple of years of visiting doctors, he is exhausted and ready for any measures. And then he was authoritatively informed that 550 kilometers away, in some wilderness, lives a true wizard, magician and sorcerer, who heals from everything in one or two sessions! How not to believe? Our young man goes a long way to his happiness and … it cannot but happen! His faith in the coming healing was so great that he accepted it! Another question is for how long. The symptom in the form of VSD was extremely necessary for him, since there were some experiences, events, secondary benefits, in the end (“secondary benefit” in psychology is called an unconsciously motivated desire to benefit from neurotic symptoms or illness; the primary benefit is then why the disease occurs, secondary - another unconscious "plus" from the disease - NS). Having selected the symptom, the "magician" exposed the problem areas. In this case, after some time, the symptom will return, or another will appear.secondary - another unconscious "plus" from the disease - NS). Having selected the symptom, the "magician" exposed the problem areas. In this case, after some time, the symptom will return, or another will appear.secondary - another unconscious "plus" from the disease - NS). Having selected the symptom, the "magician" exposed the problem areas. In this case, after some time, the symptom will return, or another will appear.
In such situations, healers may not do much harm. But there are examples when, when diagnosed with cancer, people turn to psychics and healers for help, instead of undergoing chemotherapy. The outcome is known to be much sadder here.
Disturbed people
“We recently conducted a study on identifying the personal characteristics of people who seek help from psychics,” says Daniel Rakhmatulin, a psychoanalytic psychologist and teacher at the Department of Psychology at the Academy of State Service under the President of the Russian Federation. - I will speak only about our conclusions. Our research has shown that healers, magicians and similar healers are approached by people prone to mystical thinking. It was also found that people who are inclined to seek help from psychics have such protective mechanisms as denial, regression, projection, and substitution. In addition, their self-image is also disturbed, they tend to waste emotions, they tend to show both positive and negative emotions to the maximum, which often leads to disturbances in the field of emotional responsiveness,undermining trust in interpersonal relationships. They tend to fantasize, which can be accompanied by sharp changes in attitude to the development of the situation, to the consequences of their actions.
A connection was revealed between the frequency of referrals to psychics and the reproduction of negative experiences, which indicates a tendency to refer to the supernatural forces of people who retain impressions about their experiences for a long time, mainly negative experiences.
A connection was also found between the frequency of calls to psychics and such a feature of subjective control as the internality of failures. This means that these people tend to attribute the responsibility for unpleasant events to other people or, for example, to "bad luck", damage or the evil eye. As a result, in our research, we concluded that people who seek help from a psychic are characterized by the features of the so-called "borderline" personality. This means that these people may be impaired in terms of psychological health.
Closeness to the unconscious
So can psychics, healers and healers help? Maybe. Especially if you believe it. Believers, as you know, see what they want, and often - and feel what they want, moreover, at the physiological level. Psychological science has long known the fact of curing the most terrible diseases only by a "psychological" way, as well as by their diseases through the same channel - only through the psyche. It is known, for example, that autistic people often get practically no sickness: neither colds nor flu. Their psychological world does not admit anyone: not even bacteria and viruses. Unbelievable, but it is a fact.
Nobody canceled the placebo effect either. But the main thing is that no one has canceled the deep psychological mechanisms of interaction that take place between the “believing” client and his healer. It is always a bunch of two people, between whom "something" happens. Someone will attribute this to a miracle, and someone - to the most ordinary psychotherapy. Although it is often completely useless, and sometimes harmful, since the vector of "treatment" is directed in the wrong direction.
But what about the predictions of psychics, which sometimes come true? This is also possible. Some people are known to have such strong intuition that they can actually predict or see right through people. But this is not a miracle either. A phenomenally developed intuition is probably nothing more than a very strong closeness of a person to his unconscious, which is able to very accurately read and feel the current situation and, accordingly, be able to predict its outcome in the future: from political events to the actions of a specific person. All this in the mind of a psychic happens completely unconsciously, which is why he attributes this ability to a gift from above. But, alas, such closeness to one's unconscious often speaks, it seems, of a severe disturbance of a person who can often be a potential patient in a mental hospital. Although talented.