[Curing power, or the restoring myth (author's transl)]. 1981

R Jarret

Nowadays, occidental or traditional healers are gaining more attention. The author aimed at demonstrate that the healer can be classified between the physician and the soothsayer. Six manners of healing are described through examples: -- operating allurement (Quesalid); -- trip in the unconscious to subdue its forces (the Chaman); -- domination of Powers under hallucinogen substance(s) (Peytol); -- symbolic efficacity of words (Mûu); -- cathartic confession and trance through reintegration into a mythic structure. In every historical technique, a personage is found whose "doing" and "saying" express an exceptional experience, constituting a magical and therapeutic area, facilitating the inscription in a mythical structure, which provides a sense. Several kinds of healers are shortly described, as well as their personality and their patients. The border lines of their power are contiguous to the Sacred and the Religious (which mythical fragments are many "power-allurements") as well as articulated with credulity and belief, and finally built on the pattern of magical thoughts and acts. Healer and/or quack? Healer and/or physician? What are the analogies or differences according to the pattern of the relation "physician-patient"? It is not a "restoring-myth", universal, whose actuality is spotted every time for each act of healing (by a healer)? -- even if this myth is not clearly definite or legible. The power of the healer articulates itself on the pregnancy of this myth which guides the sufferer towards this personage whose power is nothing else but the power the sufferer hopes the healer possesses. It is this hope which the "restoring-myth" contains.

UI MeSH Term Description Entries
D008519 Medicine, Traditional Systems of medicine based on cultural beliefs and practices handed down from generation to generation. The concept includes mystical and magical rituals (SPIRITUAL THERAPIES); PHYTOTHERAPY; and other treatments which may not be explained by modern medicine. Ethnomedicine,Folk Medicine,Folk Remedies,Home Remedies,Medicine, Folk,Medicine, Indigenous,Medicine, Primitive,Indigenous Medicine,Primitive Medicine,Traditional Medicine,Folk Remedy,Home Remedy,Remedies, Folk,Remedies, Home,Remedy, Folk,Remedy, Home
D010551 Personality Behavior-response patterns that characterize the individual. Personalities
D010817 Physician-Patient Relations The interactions between physician and patient. Doctor-Patient Relations,Doctor Patient Relations,Physician Patient Relations,Physician Patient Relationship,Doctor Patient Relation,Doctor-Patient Relation,Physician Patient Relation,Physician Patient Relationships,Physician-Patient Relation,Relation, Doctor Patient,Relation, Doctor-Patient,Relation, Physician Patient,Relation, Physician-Patient,Relations, Doctor Patient,Relations, Doctor-Patient,Relations, Physician Patient,Relations, Physician-Patient,Relationship, Physician Patient,Relationships, Physician Patient
D003466 Cultural Characteristics Those aspects or characteristics which identify a culture. Ethnic Boundary Maintenance,Boundary Maintenance, Ethnic,Boundary Maintenances, Ethnic,Characteristic, Cultural,Characteristics, Cultural,Cultural Characteristic,Ethnic Boundary Maintenances,Maintenance, Ethnic Boundary,Maintenances, Ethnic Boundary
D006801 Humans Members of the species Homo sapiens. Homo sapiens,Man (Taxonomy),Human,Man, Modern,Modern Man
D000349 Africa The continent south of EUROPE, east of the ATLANTIC OCEAN and west of the INDIAN OCEAN.
D013140 Spiritualism Religious philosophy expressing the fundamental belief that departed spirits may be contacted by the living through a medium.

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