Living in San Francisco for 12 years did introduce me to something you may not have come in contact with where you live. The “healer.” Not much better than the sanctimonious televangelists that populate sunday morning TV, healers (anyone who consideres themselves one) are everywhere in the Bay area.
Well here on Maui, you can’t turn over a rock without some yahoo calling him or herself a healer. I have a few friends here who are massage therapists and they call themselves “healers.” Trained in the art of massage therapy in an area here on Maui called “up country” that is essentially the Haight/Ashbury of the Pacific Rim. I put healer in quotes because, lets face it… all of them are full of shit.
All that metaphysical hooha is really disturbing to me… not because there are people who look to profit from the gullibility of others, but because there are people dumb enough to actually believe that horseshit. Crystals? Crapstals. Feng Shui? Feng Shit. New Age? Outrage.
There are things you can believe in because they have been proven by the scientific community to be worthwhile. And even then, modern medicine is still pretty much a black art practiced by men and women with god complexes. When someone is troubled physically, emotionally, or mentally, seeking the help of a healer is pretty damn ignorant. There are no such things as miracle cures despite what that turban wearing goofball is telling you. He/she can’t possibly cure your back problems with a few crystals and a constant chant. Your pancreatic cancer isn’t going away if only you’d align your chakra with your oprah. Your life will not improve if you just rearrange your furniture. Its all horseshit and if you believe in any of it, you’re a dumbass.
Now, the red queen would tell me to lighten up and let people believe whatever they want to believe in if it helps them get from point A to point B. And she’s right. But whenever I’m feeling down, I can just look up from the black hole and see one of these fucktards stealing money from a hapless tourist and it makes whatever seems to be bothering me evaporate. I look at these foundering souls looking for the easy way out and say, “There but for the grace of god and an IQ above 48 go I.”
Remember the massage therapists? Well, one of them is one of the most unstable, ridiculously angry, bitter women I have ever met in all my years on this godforsaken rock. Yet. She calls herself a healer. She rambles on about helping people find their center, healing them, because, well… she’s a healer. Only, she can’t even find her own center and her anger gets in the way all the time. Yet. People trust her to help them feel better. Its a sham that is equal to the white man buying Manhattan for $16 in shiny beads. In fact, all “healers” are the same in this respect. They are usually the most fucked up beings within a given environment, yet they are the ones who pretend to have all the answers.
Maybe I should become a healer. I can cure you of rickets, the plague, depression, or any of thousands of other imaginative maladies. Operators are standing by.
I definitely think there are people who have a “healing touch”, just a comforting way of taking care of another person who is in pain. My CMT is amazing, not a know-it-all, just a person who can work out knots and release cramped muscles, and my chiropractor is magic, managing to really help my lower back (generalized crushing pain) even in my current condition. I still love my doctors who are brilliant and methodical and not above a vicodin if necessary. But there is something to be said about healing touch. Do I think all these people are “healers”? no fucking way, I’m with you on that one. I can’t imagine being touched on my sore back if I’ve thrown a rib out lifting bags of soil while gardening by a cranky bitch from hell who hates people. That’s masachism, and there’s a difference between me and the masochists of the planet.
I once, in Dubai and at my (ex) wife’s insistence, saw a therapist.
My wife, a doctor, thought I was becoming a looney tune or something.
So of I trundle to see this Brazilian woman. Who doesnt speak any recognised variant of english. After 2 sessions she announces that I am suffering from post traumatic stress syndrome coz of some nonsense in Afghanistan and that I should give up my career. At which point I quit therapy.
Three weeks later, and I am not fucking with you, I got an email from her saying that she found our conversations fascinating and could I get her a job….in Afghanistan…..
You have my full agreement.
There are exceptions to every rule Amelie. And I’m sure there are people who can actually help people through whatever ministrations they practice. Only… those people are not only few and far between, they rarely ever call themselves healers. In other words, they practice, they don’t preach.
And Limey, sounds like your ex-therapist was just like many therapists I’ve encountered… just as lost as the people they are trying to help. By the way, could you get me a job in Afghanistan?
The country is recovering from a Soviet invasion, civil war, a US/UK invasion….Im not sure they are quite ready for you yet….