CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, NORTHRIDGE

KARMU AS WOUNDED HEALER

A thesis submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in

Education, Educational Psychology,

Counseling and Guidance

by

Janet Z. Gile1..

June, 1981 The Thesis of Janet Z. Giler is approved:

California State University, Northridge

ii Copyright by Janet Z. Gi1er - 1981 This work is dedicated to the memory of my mother who died of cancer sixteen years ago, and represents everything I would have wanted to say to her except thank you for loving very special flowers.

iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The list of people who have helped me define and execute this project are numerous. The ones who stand out most prominently are my committee, teachers, friends and family. I would like to thank the following, while acknowledging their contributions:

Margaret Thompson, my chairperson, who took me seriously and debated with me about the nature of healing;

John Cogswell, Luis Rubalcava, Joe McNair and Dorothy Doyle, who have taught me and allowed me to grow;

John Hubacher, who shared his years of research in parapsychology;

Sam White, who showed me how to observe without interpreting;

Alan Ruskin, who spent years helping me clarify many of the concepts;

Debbie Johnson, who helped keep me sane and grounded;

Joann Culbert-Koehn, who helped me sort through my own experiences; and

Michael Shoob, who showed me the difference between the written and spoken word.

Lastly, I would lH:e to thank my family for providing an environment whieh taught me to question, and KF-trmu, who allowed me to see that reality was greater than I had percei vecl.

1v TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

DEDICATION . . . iii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS iv

ABSTRACT .... vii

CHAPTER

I. INTRODUCTION ...... ]_

The Medical Model and the Denial of Death ...... 3

Healing: An Old or New Paradigm? 5

II. LITERATURE REVIEW 8

Between Psyche and Soma 8

Soma Rules Psyche 9 Between Psyche and Soma; A Systems Approach 14

The Archetype of the Wounded Healer 17

The Shamanic Tradition of Healing 20 The World View of the Shaman 23 The Divirte Healer 26 The Alchemist as Healer 29

III. METHODOLOGY 32

The Gathering of Data 33

How to Introduce Ka.rmu? 36 Page

IV. A HEALER Nk~ED KAR~ru 38

Section One: Karmu as Person; Karmu as Shaman 38

"Just an Ordinary Cat" . . . 38 Witches, Voodoo and Other Teachers 41 The Misplaced Shaman . . . . 47

Section Two: Snake's Root and Other Elixirs 50

First Night Impressions 50 Levels of Healing 54 Being Touched by Magic . 60 If You've Got the Proper Mind 61

Section Three: How Healing Occurs 63

From the Psyche . . . . 64 The Bioenergetic Body 69 The Energetic Force-Field 71

Section Four: Karmu as Wounded Healer 76

Karmu as Shaman 77 Karmu as Alchemist 81

Section Five: The Song of the Shaman 86

V. SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS AND RESEARCH RECOMMENDATIONS 100

REFERENCE NOTES 103

REFERENCES 110

APPENDICES 117

vi ABSTRACT

KARMU AS WOUNDED HEALER

by

Janet Z. Giler

Master of Arts in Education, Educational

Psychology, Counseling and Guidance

This thesis explores the definition of wholeness,

for healing involves attaining the experience of the whole.

As psychotherapy is defined as healing the psyche, psyche

is defined and the relationship of psyche to the whole

is discussed. Two paradigms are presented: the medical model which offers an inadequate model to explain how the psyche and the soma are interrelated, and an older system of healing defined in terms of the archetype of wounded healer. The meaning of wholeness within the archetype of the wounded healer is discussed in terms of three sub-models: the shaman, the alchemist, and the divine healer.

vii In moving from the general to the specific, a healer named Karmu is described in depth through my obser­ vations arid knowledge learned as an observer, participant and student. The literary descriptions are intended to appeal to both the readers' intuitive and rational pro­ cesses, so as to enable them to personally assess Karmu and how he functions. Explanations as to how healing occurs are offered, and the paradigm of the wounded healer is described through Karmu and how he practices as a shaman and an alchemist.

In conclusion, the paradigm of wholeness is further explored and some suggestions for further research are made.

viii CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

Healing is defined as a return to a state of wholeness, the "restoration through mending of a breach."

Wholeness is defined as "not broken off, defective, dam­ aged, injured; or intact; a complete organizatiol'! of the parts, a unity or an entirety.'~ In most healing systems throughout history, wholeness involved a dynamic inter- relationship between body, mind and soul. It has only been in the last four centuries that our current paradigm has changed the concept of the whole. The current medical model relies on an etiological approach which excludes soul, gives partial recognition to the psyche, and concen­ trates mostly on the body and its physiological and bio­ chemical mechanisms. The body has been thought to be sus­ ceptible to invasions by foreign bodies such as germs or antigens. Physicians have adopted an ameliorative stance.

Their goal has been to repair the damages rather than pre­ vent the imbalances which cause the body to be susceptible to invasions.

The term !!psychotherapy" literally combines the

G::ceek word "therapeuein" which means nto heal n with

1 2

"psyche," which was origin::tlly defined as "soul and later

came to refer to "mind." The issue of varying definitions of "psyche" is addressed throughout this work. The omis-

sion of the notion of "soul from the 1:erm "psyche'' caused

a fundamental breach by divorcing the individual from the collective aspects of consciousness. Koestler aptly de-

fined the dual character of all parts and wholes:

Every organ has the dual character of being a sub­ ordinate part and at the same time an autonomous whole. . . . The individual ... is an organic whole but at the same time, a part of a family or tribe. Parts and wholes in an absolute sense do not exist anywhere. (1972, p. 111)

Sjmilarly, Jung believed in the psyche's dual nature. He called it a relatively closed system because it describes the potential for consciousness within a

specific individual who functions as a discreet system.

Yet, the psyche is a partially open system because it

is also part of a whole, which is defined as the collec- tive aspects of the unconscious. (Jung's contribution to psychology was to classify the aspects of this shared domain through the use of archetypes which are a priori potentials for the coalescing of psychic energy around

specific themes. They differ in cultural contexts but

are not reducible to cultural determination. Ulanov, 1971)

The concept of the psyche, offered by Jung as both indivi- dual and collective, resembles what the ancients called

the "soul." 3

Not only has the current medical paradigm removed

the soul leaving only the mind, but healing has come to

refer primarily to the body. A "doctor" is a clear refer­

ence to a specialist concerned with the body while a

"therapist" refers to a specialist of the mind or psyche

(depending on their orientation). The notion of "healer"

is even more ambiguous because the healer's paradigm neither splits mind from soul, nor psyche from body. The

schisms have developed over the last four centuries. They

have been attributed to Cartesian logic and Newtonian

physics which have emphasized the-observable,. the defin­

able, and more specifically, the measurable. Through the

discoveries over the last thirty years of quarks, subatomic

particles and postulated unified field theories, the ruling

paradigm has been challenged. The need for a paradigm shift, which is actually a revolution in ideas and usually

is completed by the ascent of a new ruler to the throne

(Kuhn, 1962), is indicated by the emerging perspective that the mind and body are indeed an interrelated system.

Although the new theories are diverse, what is apparent is that healing belongs to both the body and the mind.

The Medical Model and the Denial of Death

Kenneth Pelletier (1979) made the observation that the ratio of illness to health within civilizations seems 1 to remain constant, differing mostly in etiology. Though 4 the medical model has refined techniques of observation and diagnosis, and many older afflictions have been success- fully cured, modern equivalents have replaced them. The philosophy of amelioration of the diseased condition needs to be questioned.

Lewis Thomas (quoted by Pelletier), comments on our obsessive preoccupation with health:

The general belief these days seems to be that the body is fundrunentally flawed, subject to disintegra­ tion at any moment, always on the verge of mortal disease, always in need of continual monitoring and support of· health-care professionals. There is a public preoccupation with disease that is assuming the dimensions of a national obsession. (1979, p. 4)

One of the reasons for our obsession with health, our desire to rid ourselves of illness, is a fear of death

(Becker, 1973). Guggenbuhl-Craig (1980) points out the constructive aspects of what he defines as the archetype of the invalid:

Invalidism is . an on-going confrontation with physical and psychic limitations. It allows no eseape into fantasies of health or away from an awareness of death. It promotes patience and curbs obsessional doing. Because the archetype . emphasizes human dependence, because it forces acceptance of our mutual need of and for others, it is an important factor in relationships. We are haunted today by a psychological fata morgana-­ the illusion of the Independent Person. . . . Knowl­ edge of our own deficiencies and weaknesses, of our own invalidism, helps us to realize our eternal dependence on someone or something. (1980, p. 19)

The obsession with parts has caused us to lose sight of the whole and bow it functions. 5

Healing: An Old or New Paradigm?

The prevailing notion that the state of health is equivalent to wholeness is being questioned as a cultural bias. Guggenbiihl-Craig (1979) has pointed out that "whole­ ness" is an archetypal notion and, as such health and invalidity can be viewed as polar opposites. To identify either end as "wholeness" is a mistake. To seek one end, such as health, at the exclusion of invalidity only leads to an increase in the shadow or unconscious content of inval.idity.

Wholeness might more aptly be conceived as a dynamic process which emerges through the synthesis of opposites: invalidity and health. It describes a trans­ cendent experience and, as such, does not belong to time and state functions.

In most healing systems, the notion is that the whole is restored through a balancing of opposing forces.

The notion that disease is caused by a disturbance of the flow of vital energies prevails throughout the history of medicine (Stein, 1976). If we view the mind-body system to be maintaining a homeostatic balance between the con­ structive, syntropic (Szent-Gyoergyi, 1974) or negentropic

(Schwartz, 1970) functions, and the destructive, or entropic functions, disease can be seen to occur when the forces of destruction prevail. Healing becomes a restoration toward· order. 6

Stein believes disease occurs when the balance of the forces of disharmony and obstruction "persist(s) beyond the soul's capacity to endure the blockage" (1976, p. 78).

The role of the healer requires that he address the notion of balance of forces within his view of the whole.

Because every culture throughout the acknowledged history of mankind has had to deal with illness and death, the issue of healing has been addressed. Most cultures have had their version of the medicine man, the one who has been invested with the power to heal whether by divine election or through an educative initiation into an exist­ ing healing tradition. Although generations of medicine have differed stylistically, the dynamics between healer and patient seem to suggest an archetypal relationship is constellated in healing. The archetype of the wounded healer, perhaps best defined by Groesbeck (1975), suggests that the healer acquires his knowledge through his own experience of woundedness. He must synthesize both poles of the archetype. He is both the wounded and the healed.

As such, he has learned to master the terrain and be a guide for others. In this work, we discuss three models within the arehetype of the wounded healer: the shaman, the divine healer, and the alchemist.

As a specific example of a. wounded healer, we consider a man who calls himself Karmu. I met him in 1971 and have continued to learn his healing framework over a 7 period of ten years. Not only does he offer a graphic image of the wounded healer, he also explains how healings occur. Both enable us to define the parameters of this new (and old) paradigm. It is through Karmu's eyes and through his connection to both the shamanic tradition and a more contemporary alchemical model that the nature of wholeness can be understood. CHAPTER II

LITERATURE REVIEW

Between Psyche and Soma

Throughout most of history a tribal perspective, an integrated view of the relationship between mind-body and soul prevailed. The modern duality between mind and body is thought to be of recent vintage, frequently attributed to the 17th Century philosopher and mathe- matician,Descartes.

Descartes considered the mind to be indivisible and nonmaterial and the body to be divisible and material. The mind was subject to reason and God; the body to mechanical laws. The two were separate, each respon­ sible for its own functions, yet interacting in a purely machine-like fashion. Although Descartes' arguments for separation of the mind from the body appear somewhat dated, no one since has completely succeeded in rejecting the concept that the mind and the body are quite distinct. (Benson, 1979, p. 21)

A further duality was created in the psyche when the soul was separated from the mind. The realm of psyche was limited to the observable material of the brain. Charles

Tart defined some of the assumptions on which the current medical model and many of the psychological theories rest:

Each man is isolated from all others, locked within his nervous system.

Psychic energy is completely derived from physical

8 p '

9

energy as expressed in the physiological processes of the body.

Consciousness is produced by the activity of the brain and therefore the activity of consciousness is identical with the activity of the brain.

Emotions are electrical and chemical shifts within the nervous system. (1975, pp. 74-75)

Despite the efforts of some transpersonal psychologists,

the overriding emphasis in psychiatry and psychology con-

tinues tobe based on these assumptions. In fact, the trend

in psychiatry is not only to limit consciousness to the

mind, but to relegate the psyche to an inferior position

by believing that emotions can be controlled by biochemi-

cal shifts.

Soma Rules Psyche

The relationship between psyche and soma has been

debated widely in psychology and medicine. The view most widely adopted is that soma rules psyche. When something

troubles us, we look first to the body and secondarily to

the mind. Although there are those psychologists who would argue for reversing the relationship, the prevailing medical model stands. When the field of psychosomatic medicine addresses this interrelationship, most problems

in this category are treated as "unreal" or imaginary or

inferior. The truth is that no one really knows how

psyche and soma are related. 10

Current. psychiatry suggests that by altering the

biochemistry of the body, the psychological predisposition

of the patient will be altered as well. Therefore, there

has been an increase in the use of mood-altering drugs.

The range of conditions thought to be treatable by drugs

has increased. Not only psychosis and anxiety disorders

treated by drugs in the fifties and sixties, but now cyclic

and general depressions are also treated by lithium, elavil

and other mood-altering compounds. Schizophrenia, which

was thought to be a behavioral disorder arising from envi-

ronmental conditions, is now thought to be governed by

genetic predisposition (Gottesman & Shields, 1979).

Psychological factors are believed to affect physical cures

but are referred to mostly as placebos.

In conservative medical practice, the term

"placebos" has been used to include any non-specific treat-

ment leading to healing. Arthur Shapiro (1960) states

that until recently, most cures were placebos. Quoting

Houston (1938), he describes the doctor as the "thera-

peutic agent."

In the early history of medicine the relationship between docto~ and patient comprised all that the doctor had to offer the patient. Their thera·­ peutic procedures whether they were inert or whether they were dangerous, were placebos, symbols by which their patient's faith and their own was sustained. (p. 113)

Placebos can include enthusiasm, faith, belief, empathy,

power of imagination, expectant attention, faith in 11 authority, rapport between the doctor and patient. A doctor's conviction alone can have a placebo effect

(Shapiro, 1960, p. 116). Shapiro defines the term most broad] y as:

Any treatment (or any part of a treatment) which does not have a specific action on the patient's symptoms or disease but which nonetheless may have an effect upon the patient.

Placebos are known to account for at least thirty percent of all medical cures. Even the most conservative of physicians have noted the significance of belief and faith, observing that in their absence patients have died overnight. Still the medical establishment seems to ignore the implications of this statistic. Their paradigm has not altered. Kuhn ( 1962) points out that when a para- digm is challenged,. the facts are ignored until the weight of contradiction becomes unbearable. Belief, faith, and the will to live are three categories of placebo which have defied the medical perspective to contain them.

Belief has been implicated in voodoo death accord- ing to Walter Cannon (1949). If belief has the power to kill, does it also have the power to heal? Jerome D.

Frank (1974) thinks so. He argues that the patient's belief in a shaman's abilities might be one of the keys to success in tribal healings.

The healing power of these procedures probably lies in the patient's expectation of help, based on his perception of the shaman as possessing special healing 12

powers, derived from his ability to communicate with the spirit world. (Frank, 1974, p. 58)

He concludes:

The review of nonmedical healing of bodily illness highlights the profound influence of emotions on health and suggests that anxiety and despair can be lethal; confidence and hope, lifegiving. The current assumptive world of Western society, which includes mind-body dualism, incorporates this obvious fact with difficulty and, therefore, tends to underestimate its importance. (p. 76)

The mind-body interaction is most readily observed, though less well-tested, in the immune system. Stephen

Black (1969) performed an hypnosis experiment in which an

allergic reaction was inhibited by ·direct suggestion.

Although the mechanisms by which the unconsious inhibition of the immune systems takes place are not known, different theories have been offered. Correlations between emotional

·states and immune system response have been noted (Jaffe,

1980; Holmes & Masuda, 1973). It is generally accepted that certain emotions create the stress response which in turn can inhibit the

irr@une systerr1's response. Since 1956 when Hans Selye pub-

lished the Stress of Life in which he identified the physiological stress response in the body, correlations between stress and resistence to disease have pervaded our culture. Holmes and Masuda (1973) developed a_ "life- change" scale, identifying major stressors which required

adaptation. When an individual accumulates a certain 13

amount of "life change" points, the correlations show that major illnesses tend to follow within six months. LeShan

(1977) has postulated a personality type whd is more sus­ ceptible to cancer. He identifies the person as being depression-prone and develops cancer after the loss of a significant other or situation which was extremely grati­

fying.

Solomon (1964) has focused on autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis to illustrate the potential relationship between emotions, immunity and disease. It is not known why the body's own immune response destroys some of the body's own vital processes. Solomon hypothe­ sizes that emotions play an important role in the self­ destructive process.

The biofeedback research of the past fifteen years

(Pelletier, 1977) suggests that not only is the stress response learned, but that it can be replaced by an anti­ thetical relaxation response, in this way mitigating a variety of psychosomatic and anxiety disorders. The emerging hypothesis proposes that there is a state within the body in which optimal self-healing occurs (Benson,

1979; Jaffe, 1980). Schultz and Luthe (1969) call this the "autogenic" state, referring to the body's capacity to self-regulate. Their research has documented many cases of healings which occurred when this state was achieved.

Schultz specifically distinguishes this state as different 14

from the hypnotic state which seems questionable.

Although the concept of the autogenic state was

developed by a physician in Germany, the idea is at odds with the prevailing "soma rules psyche" medical model. If

the role of hypnotic suggestion or autogenic state is

given credence, psyche can influence soma. Although there

is some movement within the medical community to enlarge

the concept of psychosomatic disease and to further inves­

tigate the relationship between psyche and soma, most

physicians discount "psychosomatic" problems. The patient

isn't really ill. The symptoms are in "thei~r head."

Physicians remain skeptical and reluctant to refer their

patients to psychologists and do so only as a last resort.

Between Psyche and Soma; A Systems Approach

Although the medical paradigm shows a clear bias

in favor of soma ruling psyche, the emerging paradigm seeks

to define a new interrelationship. The elusiveness of the mind-body connection is a stumbling block. While the body

is thought to be within our grasp, Heisenberg's uncertainty

principle suggests that by entering the field as an ob­

server, we alter what we are observing. If we at least have some physical reference points through which to

describe the body, the impact of the psyche is much more

difficult to measure as Jung observes: 15

Herein lies the unavoidable limitation of psycho­ logical observation: its validity is contingent upon the personal equation of the observer.

The psyche is not known, as is the body, through direct observation. It is known, instead, through interpreta- tions of its acts or through its visual language of symbols. To borrow the model of split brain research

(Galin, 1974), the body is apprehended more by the linear left brain where logic prevails, while the psyche is understood more in terms of the gestalt symbology of the right brain.

Jung believed that there is within the psyche an autonomous function which seeks to consciously know it- self. He called it 11 individuation. 11

There is in the psyche a process that seeks its own goal independently of external factors, and which freed me from the worrying feeling that I myself might be the sole cause of an unreal--and perhaps unnatural-­ process in the psyche of the patient.

Not only did Jung believe that the psyche possessed a transcendent function which the ancient Greeks thought of as soul, but he postulated that the connection between psyche and soma was the area from which symptoms of dis- ease emerged 2 (Jung, 1968, Vol. 12; pp. 278-279; Lockhart,

1976, p. 14).

The relationship between psyche and soma is not a new idea. Plato, Plctinus, and more recently theorists 16 such as Meier (1963) suggest that psyche and soma meet in

an energetic field which the Greeks called the "teritum body" and others the "astral body." The concept of an energetic body, connecting psyche and soma appears as well throughout the religious texts of India, as well as in the 3 writings of Paracelsus and occult philosophers such as

Alice Bailey (1953). The theory is that the energy field interpenetrates both the physical body and the psyche. If the theory is validated, the energy field may represent a common matrix out of which symptoms and symbols can be formed (Meier, 1963; Lockhart, 1976).

Plotinus in the fourth Century declared that

"pathos," the suffering which a person experienced, belonged neither to the body nor the mind but to a

"synamphoteron," a combination of body and soul. Whereas the body and mind are viewed as antagonists, symbols con- structively unite the two, while symptoms unite them in a destructive fashion. Fordham (1974) (who was highly critical of Meier's acausal and synchronous explanations of how psyche and soma come together) said the following about symbols:

Psyche and soma are opposites like spirit and instinct, and the conflict between them can only be resolved by discovering a symbol that unites them. (p. 172)

The status of the causal relationship of psyche and soma remains controversial and beyond resolution at 17 this time. The theory of an energetic body which unites psyche and soma seems plausible and consistent within a unified field theory paradigm, and may indicate that the relationship is not one of "cause and effect." It seems clear that some kind of uniting between psyche and soma appear both in the disease and the healing process.

The Archetype of the Wounded Healer

The archetype of the wounded healer addresses the dynamics of the healing relationship and includes both ends of the spectrum of healing. Although our current paradigm has focused on the healing pole at the exclusion of invalidity, throughout most of history the healer became a healer through his abilities to mend his own wounds. Their trials with invalidity enabled the healers to know the terrain and be guides for others. The degree to which the healers needed to be conscious of their own woundedness varied according to each healing system. The three versions of this archetypal relationship to be dis­ cussed are the shaman, the alchemist and the divine physician.

In archetypal psychology, the healer and the patient are viewed as two aspects of the same thing; the healer represents healthiness while the patient represents invalidity. The dynamics between the healer and the patient act out in the external world what needs to 18

occur in the internal world. The healer and patient

switch poles.

The predominant dynamics between patient and

healer involve projection and transference. The healer

accepts the patient's projection that he is indeed the

healer. This projection is usually conscious on the part

of the patient, for he consciously identifies with the

opposite pole of invalidity. Guggenbuhl-Craig (1978)

points out that the act of seeking an external healer

simultaneously activates the patient's internal healer,

since both poles are contained within both individuals.

If one pole of an archetype is constellated in the outside world, the inner and opposite pole is con­ stellated as well. (p. 89)

The splitting of the archetype, through projection

into healer and patient, outer and inner, unconscious and conscious, has the effect of creating the opposite func-

tions within both individuals. The problem often caused by keeping the dynamic on an unconscious level and having

the healer and patient consciously identify with one pole,

is that the created split seeks resolution. In our cul- ture it seems to be resolved through power.

The doctor is no longer able to see his own wounds; his own potential for illness; he sees sickness only in the other. He objectifies illness, distances him­ self from his own weakness, elevates himself and degrades the patient. He becomes powerful through strength. One pole of the archetype is repressed, then projected, then reunited through power. (Guggenbuhl-Craig, 1978, pp. 94-95) 19

So the physician tries to reunite the split archetype through power and the patient through acknowledgment of this power, through his subjection or childish dependence. (Guggenbuhl-Craig, 1978, p. 95)

The consequence is that the patient remains perennially a

patient. He never learns that the healing potential is

within himself. The responsibility for getting well also

remains projected, leaving the patient waiting for a new

pill or diagnostic technique. The failure to heal is

attributed to external factors, not to the insufficient

activation of the internal healer.

Another version of this dynamic involves the reso-

lution of transference. In this dynamic, as Groesbeck

(1975) suggests, the healer is sufficiently aware of his

own woundedness. He doesn't identify with the patient's

projection. He knows that healing involves an archetypal

dimension. He is a facilitator, not the source of healing.

Disengagement from the projection allows both patient and

healer to experience both dimensions of healing and wound-

edness consciously. This is the sense in which Groesbeck

defines transference in the relationship:

Not only must there be the withdrawal of projections between the participants, for healing to occur, but there must be contact by the patient, at a deep level, of the archetype of the wounded healer. For if the patient is to experience fully this archetypal image in a dynamic way, the analyst must show him the way. And this can happen only if the analyst first has the courage to experience these powerful arche­ typal contents. 20

The analyst "takes on" the patient's illness or wounds, and also begins to experience more fully the wounded aspect of the archetypal image. (p. 132)

The transference is described archetypally as the switch- ing of poles between patient and healer. The patient begins to experience the healthy pole.

The patient "takes on" the healing strengths of the analyst and also begins to experience the "healer" contents of the archetypal image. This in turn activates his own personal powers of healing and strengths. . . He starts to participate in the cure himself. He is energized in relation to the wounded contents . and the experience of whole- ness is constellated. (p. 136)

In the archetypal sense, the resolution of trans- ference is accomplished through a third process, usually defined as the archetypal experience itself. It seems to appear between participants or as a shared experience and is described in all the healing traditions. In the sha- manic and divine tradition it is called "the gods" or

"god." In the alchemical tradition, it is the archetypal experience of "the divine opus," or "philosopher's stone," representing the transformation as a concrete form.

4 The Shamanic Tradition of Healing

Since most cultures throughout man's history have been tribal, it is appropriate to begin our discussion of healing with the shaman. Eliade (1964) and others have found the beginnings of shamanism in Siberia although the term is applicable to most hunting and gathering tribes 21 which have existed since prehistoric times (Halifax, 1980).

Anthropologists have identified shamanism in South and

North American Indian cultures and in some areas of Asia and Africa.

Eliade defined the shaman as a purveyor of the techniques of "ecstasy." The word "ecstasy" comes from the Greek "ekstasis," meaning a "being put out of its place by distraction, astonishment or trance." The shaman mediates between the spirits of life and death through his ability to enter ecstatic, or trance-like states. From the altered state, he brings back knowledge with which he is able to effect change. Fire, heat and light are promi- nent themes in shamanic cultures, implying movement or alteration -on a physical level.

Shamans the world over have special relation to fire, heat and light. The Vedic term sram means "to heat oneself," and the shaman is one who is not only the supreme master of fire but also the embodiment of a heat so fierce that its spiritual luminescence is associated both with purity and with knowledge. An Eskimo shaman explained this to KnueRasmussen. "Every real shaman has to feel an illumination in his body, in the inside of his head or in his brain, something that gleams like fire, that give him the power to see with closed eyes into the darkness, into the hidden things or into the future, or into the secrets of another man. . . " (Halifax quoting Andreas Lommel, 1980, p. 14)

Culturally speaking, the shaman plays many roles: priest, healer, psychological counselor, politician, mystic and seer. The shaman comes into extraordinary powers in ritualistic ways. All of them include the reception of a 22 vision defining their relationship to their future work.

It comes to them while they are in an altered state of consciousness, achieved either through ritualistic fasting

(as in a vision quest) or through drea~s which may occur during a prolonged illness.

We have seen that the future shaman's vocation can be precipitated--in dreams, ecstasy, or during an ill­ ness--by a chance encounter with a semidivine being, the soul of an ancestor or of an animal, or as the result of some extraordinary event (lightning, mortal accident, etc.). Usually such an encounter begins a "familiarity" between the future shaman and the "spirit" that has determined his career .. (Eliade, 1964, p. 81)

The initiation of the shaman seems to be a peak experience of the polarity between life and death, the human and the divine. It is through the shaman's own encounter with sickness, suffering, dying, death, and the spirit world, which validates his belief that he can be a guide for others (Halifax, 1980). For many shamans, their encounter with the divine involves pain and suffering which they learn to incorporate:

A Siberian shaman Kam (shaman) Kyzlasov from the Sagav village of Kyzlan was very old when he gave this account of the fierce experiences that plagued him during his initiatory illness many years. before. He granted the Hungarian ethnologist Vilmos Di6szegi the rare privilege of this knowledge in spite of the usual reluctance among Siberian shamans to disclose the details of their initiatory trials.

"I had been sick and I had been dreaming. In my dreams I had been taken to the ancestor and cut into pieces on a black table. They chopped me up and then threw me into the kettle and I was boiled. There were some men there: two black and two fair ones. Their 23

chieftain was there too. He issued the orders con­ cerning me. I saw all this. While the pieces of my body were boiled, they found a bone around the ribs, which had a hole in the middle. This was the excess­ bone. This brought about my becoming a sh&~an. Because, only those men can become shamans in whose body such a bone can be found. One looks across the hole of this bone and begins to see all, to know all and, that is when one becomes a shaman ... When I came to from this state, I woke up. This meant that my soul had returned. Then the shamans declared, 'You are the short of man who may become a shaman. You should become a shaman, you must shamanize. '" ( p. 50)

The World View of the Shaman

The shaman describes the interrelationship between man and the world in terms of their mutual possession of spirit and soul. In most systems, the distinction (or lack thereof) between spirit and soul isn't clear. It appears that soul refers more to the transcendent function within the person or object, while spirit is more elusive.

In the ancient texts, man was conceived to be a triune of body, soul and spirit. The physical body contained the soul while the soul contained the spirit (Fodor, 1966).

It isn't clear that the distinction was made in many of the shamanic cultures and the terms seem to be used inter­ changeably.5

Rolling Thunder, a contemporary shaman and spokes- man for the Cherokee and Shoshone tribes, describes the interrelationship between man and the cosmos very simply:

I can tell you that understanding begins with love and respect. It begins with respect for the Great 24

Spirit, and the Great Spirit is the life that is in all things. . . . All things--and I mean all things-­ have their own will and their own way and their own purpose; this is what is to be respected. (Boyd, 1974, pp. 51-52)

It was acknowledged by most cultures that every living thing and even inorganic matter had a soul. Some systems of thought even differentiate and distinguish types of soul. The Haitians who believed in Voodoo (which can be considered a shamanic cult particularly as originally practiced in Africa) viewed the human connection to soul as twofold:

According to the teaching of Voodoo, every person carries two vital forces, sometimes called souls, within him or herself. The petit bon ange (little good angel) can be compared to what Christians call the spirit. It is the divine animating power which gives the body life. The gros bon ange (big good angel) can be thought of as the shadow, or double, of a person. When possession takes place, the gros bon ange leaves the body. (Kristos, 1976, p. 34)

Possession is a controversial subject in the West, though most tribal cultures believe the invasion of foreign entities into the human body to be the primary cause of disease. Frequently, this is referred to as "loss of one's soul" (Oesterreich, 1966).

Two contemporary cultures which focus explicitly on exorcism rituals as cures. for pbssession are the Indian cultures of South America and the Voodoo cults of Haiti.

Possession of one's soul by a foreign entity can result from a spell or hex cast by a feuding clansman, by in- stances of disrespect for a spirit of the dead, or from 25 a karmic condition of unspecified origin (Harner, 1980;

Krippner, 1976; Met raux, 1972).

The rituals which the shaman or priest use to exorcise "demons" are peculiar to their individual cul- tures, although they usually involve cleansing rituals, prayer, fasting, confession, and tribal participation in the bealing ritual. The shaman must restore the soul and, thereby, restore the balance with the divine forces which maintain order within both the human being and the commu- nity.

A significant and overlooked aspect of the shamanic tradition is the interrelationship between the tribe and the sick person. When the individual is sick, the whole tribe is affected, and the whole tribe must participate in the healing ritual. It has been thought by anthro- pologists that this tribal support augments the healer's powers (Deren, 1970; Harner, 1980). Needleman (1978) points out that disease in tribal cultures is not viewed as an individual phenomenon, but as an affair which affects the whole tribe:

It is rather clear, in what we call "primitive" medicine (for example, among the American Indians) that disease is very often regarded as a phenomenon of society. Thus, the healing methods for certain specific diseases intimately involved the participa­ tion of the tribe, which I think anthropologists wrongly interpret and explain solely in terms of the psychological "support" offered by the tribe to the sick person. There are certain diseases which are understood in terms of the whole community's failure 26

to attend to the higher level in its ways and act ions . ( p . 44)

The shaman, the wounded healer, gains his position because of his experiences with various levels of con-

sciousness. Most healing rituals are designed to elicit

altered states of consciousness in the shaman (Harner,

1980). He accepts the tribe's projection of extraordinary powers and usually draws the "third force" into the heal-

ing relationship. It isn't the healer's powers which heal, but his ascent toward the sky or descent into the under- world (where he contacts spirits, allies, or power animals) which guide him in the healing ritual. Archetypally, the transference occurs through the "third force."

The Divine Healer

Health and sickness are granted by God; nothing comes from man. (Paracelsus)

The notion of the "divine physician" has its origins in the Greek myth of Aesculapius. In this model, h~aling occurs through grace rather than through the efforts of any mortal man. Neither the person seeking healing, nor the priests viewed as attendants and facili- tators of the healing ritual, are responsible for the cure.

The third force responsible for healing is activated by

invocation of a god through a healing dream.

Aesculapius was born half-god, half-mortal. He was the son of the god Apollo and his mortal wife Coronis. As 27 a mortal man, he becomes a highly successful physician, achieving his standing as a god through a series of inci- dents which transcend the barriers of life and death.

Apollo, learning of his wife's infidelity, has her slain.

He spares his son. Zeus, however, has him killed upon the advice of Hades. Then, realizing his mistake in accepting

Hade'B will, Zeus has Aesculapius raised from the dead and placed among the immortals. He becomes the original

"divine, wounded healer." Sanford (1979) describes the wounded healer:

They live and work close to death, and they them­ selves ... are people who have felt the hot breath of death or illness and have narrowly escaped destruc­ tion. (p. 43)

In Greek and Roman times, many scientifically- trained physicians diagnosed disease, performed various kinds of surgeries, and dispensed herbs and medicines. If they failed to cure, the patient was forced to go directly to the source of healing itself. A meeting occurred only after a journey to one of the many temples of Aesculapius.

The rituals involved were very specific. The priests had a therapeutic function but were not in them- selves therapists. They only helped to determine if

Aesculapius himself had summoned the patient. (The invi- tation occurred mostly through dreams.) Once it had been determined that an invitation had indeed been extended, the priests performed purification rites which included 28 confession. The actual healing was thought to occur when patients entered the abaton, a place where they were left alone in hope that they would receive a healing vision or dream from the god. It was felt that direct communication with the god through dream was the healing force.

Lourdes in France parallels the Aesculapian temples in symbol and function. Two French doctors, E'rancois

Leuret and Henri Bon (1957), have documented the cures there. The French Catholic church has set up a bureau in which physicians replace the priests of Greek times. The physicians take a thorough medical history and~examine the patients. Then the patients are led to the baths where they are immersed for 15 seconds. The water is 48° F. The

National Medical Commission has examined the scientific facts, and it appears that miraculous cures do occur.

Some diseases which have remitted unexpectedly are blind­ ness, tuberculosis, meningitis, and cancer. The doctors attribute the healing not only to God, but to the patient's belief in God, to the placebo effects of taking the jour­ ney, etc., a modern equivalent of the third force.

Although few references to healing are mentioned in the Old Testament, the New Testament is full. of healings involving Jesus Christ (Meeks, 1977, pp. 246-280). Aver­ sion of this model is seen in many of the contemporary

Christian healers. Ruth Carter Stapleton, Olga Worrall 29

and others are examples. These healers believe that they merely channel God's healing powers and that God is the source of all healings.

The Alchemist as Healer

Nature is a gigantic living organism. Everything in Nature--from ores and stones to plants, animals and man--is the result of an insemination followed by germination and growth. But the temporal rhythms differ from one mode of existence to another. The maturation of minerals requires thousands and thou­ sands of years while plants grow, bear fruit and wither within a few months. To master Time means to be able to control its different rhythms, that is to say, to be able to change one temporal cycle into another.

For the Alchemist, man is seen as creative: he redeems Nature, masters Time, in sum, perfects God's Creation. (Eliade, 1978, pp. 13, 20)

The alchemist's model of transformation can be used as a model to describe psychological growth (Jung,

Vol. 12; Edinger, 1978, 1980; Von Franz, 1979). There is a "massa confusa" which surrounds popular understanding of alchemy, a fact attributable mostly to the metaphorical content of the art, the obscurity of the texts ( Giler,

1971), and to Jung's notion that the alchemist is unaware that in seeking transformation in material objects, he is also projecting and seeking resolution of his unconscious 6 material.

It is clear to most investigators of alchemy that the primary goal is the mastery of matter through the acceleration of the rate of transformation of substances. 30

The unconscious aspect seeking integration is not under­ stood.7

Alchemy breaks the transformation of matter into

stages depending on the initial state of the "prima 8 materia." Most systems define four major stages which correspond either to colors or to the elements. Other systems describe them in terms of the planets or constel­

lations. Heraclitus' stages are melanosis (blackening),

leukosis (whitening), xanthosis (yellowing), and isosis

(reddening). The alchemist is supposed to mediate the transformation of matter through its various elemental stages. First the "prima materia," the undeveloped poten- tial in matter, needs to be purified, then divested of

its current form through a dissolution process, which could then be allowed to coagulate into a new form (Jabir

ibn Hayyan, in Jung). Edinger (1978, 1980) refers to these stages as "calcinatio, solutio, coagulatio, subli- matio," adding of course, his psychological interpretation: calcinatio is the intense heating of a solid to volatize

and purify the substance; solutio is the return to the undifferentiated state sometimes symbolized as a solid turning into a liquid; coagulatio is the emergence of a new form, psychologically defined as the new state out of which the ego emerges from its original oneness with the objective psyche; and sublimatio is the elevating process through which one sees objectively, a kind of revelation. 31

The chemical processes take place in a hermetically-sealed vessel, adding the concept of containment for the trans­

formative process to occur.

What is being sought in most cases is the internal essence of the form, the pure substance. It is to become manifest as an outer reality. This always involves the resolution of opposing forces such as the dark half of the psyche (Jung's "shadow") which seeks to be united with the conscious aspect of the psyche.

From the alchemical psychological point of view, what is being sought is the prima materia of the Self within the person. The healing experience becomes, not some outward religious ritual, but what Von Franz (1979) calls "a genuine personal inner experience. Everybody can extract the healing experience from himself" (p. 51).

The healer becomes the means by which the person can project, then identify and finally reunite with the inner process. The healer enters the internal dialectic by seeking to separate the various poles, archetypes and complexes, divesting the prima materia of its initial form so that it is free to seek a new one. The process of extraction of the healing experience from within the patient is the essence of alchemical healing. CHAPTER III

METHODOLOGY

Having introduced the relevance of healing, defined

some·versions of healers, we now discuss a specific healer

and how he heals. The objective is a greater understanding

of the parameters which need to be included in constructing ' a new paradigm.

I met Karmu in March, 1971, the first night of my

intended three-month stay in Cambridge, Massachusetts. My

initial reaction both to Karmu and the com~unity which

surrounded him was at once skeptical and curious. I went

over a few nights a week to observe and have a good time.

There was a three-month span of time between when I left

Cambridge and left the role of the observer and returned

to become a participant and a student intern. During the

later period, which covered the better part of two years,

I was a daily visitor and observed Karmu's "healing" tech- niques, learned to duplicate his massage and to make his medicines. Included in this time were countless hours of

dialogue, both individually and in groups.

I was a good student, learning mostly through imi-

tation. He sometimes called me "little Karmu." I pursued

32 33

the role avidly. Finally, I made a trip to New York to heal a young woman. I realized then that this was no game with which to play. I altered my goal to explaining what

I had observed. This has proven to be the more difficult part and has taken me through seven years of research in physiology, psychology, and psychosomatic health care.

The Gathering of Data

My first task was to access Karmu's efficacy. He claimed to be 98% effective in most of his cases. Allow­ ing for exaggerations, was he effective in 60% of his cases? Given that he did not keep records of the people he reports healing, or do follow-up visits, was there any way of judging his efficacy? I went through Karmu's phone books, and tried to put the names with all the stories I had heard. I ended up with 30 names. I made phone calls all over the country, wrote letters even to

Canada and Mexico. Half of them responded.

Most of them had something good to say. One woman told me that her asthmatic, seven-year-old son was better, but not because Karmu cured the boy, but because he cured her. Another woman who recovered from Bell's Palsy told me she felt Karmu cured her; but since there is a known recidivism rate in regard to that disease, is her opinion and current recovered state a significant or documentable cure? Another woman who had a leaking heart valve angrily 34 told me that she wasn't about to "go have surgery" to prove

Karmu healed her. Then there were cases of cancer. The people are now deceased. Healing in their case meant a reduction in pain. It meant coming to terms with their disease process and their dying.

Out of the initial calls, I chose four cases in an attempt to document cures. One man was a twenty-five­ year old, juvenile-onset-diabetic. I was able to obtain medical records which impressed at least one medically conservative internist at U.C.L.A. The woman who had cancer is now deceased. The other man who had diabetes and scoliosis only temporarily improved. For six months he was able to reduce his insulin intake in half and his scoliosis was much improved according to his chiropractor.

However, after six months, the stress in his life increased and so did his need for insulin. The case which surprised me the most was a young woman who had seen Karmu seven years previously for muscular dystrophy. I had personally observed Karmu treat her, her sister, and her mother on several occasions throughout the course of their treat­ ments. I was convinced at the time that they had improved.

Seven years later I went to interview her.

She was 22 years old at the time of the interview and over the preceding two years had really begun to expe­ rience the effects of her disease. Although she had been 35 diagnosed in her pre-teen years, at fourteen when her mother brought her to see Karmu her disease was not a problem for her. She describes her reason for going to see him:

I think I probably went along for the ride. It was all such new input. I don't think I went in because I was going to see a faith healer and get healed or something.

As she talked and I listened, what seemed clear was that

I needed to question what Karmu meant by a recovery.

A difficulty in assessing Karmu's efficacy is the difference in criteria between his notions of wellness and those of traditional medicine. Karmu is a "holistic" healer who so completely experiences the human being as an interrelated system of mind, body and soul, that if any part of the system improves, he considers it a success.

If he doesn't hear to the contrary, he assumes that the person remains better. He doesn't consider the homeo- static tendencies of the system.

I came to accept that Karmu is most effective with persons whose symptoms might more traditionally be classi- fied as anxiety disorders, somatoform disorders, chronic pain, auto-immune diseases (including rheumatoid arthritis and allergies), and diseases which have natural cycles of remissions in their course (multiple sclerosis, Bell's

Palsy, and cancer). There is still the unverified case of a man at Massachusetts General Hospital in 1974 36

whose brain tumor reduced 25% the night after his visit with Karmu. There is the case of the man who was paralyzed

from a gunshot wound in Vietnam. He got up and walked.

What are their real names? Where are they? I haven't

been able to find the answers.

Karmu was the subject of at least one scientific

investigation by graduate students in psychology at Harvard

University. They attempted to measure whether he could

affect antibody formation. The first year's study showed

a significant increase in antibody formation, while the

second year's findings did not reliably verify the first

year's conclusion.

Karmu has also given lectures at some of the local medical schools, participated in a conference at Esalen

Institute in Big Sur in 1979, and appeared on local radio

stations. He collaborates with at least three physicians

in his area on their more difficult cases.

How to Introduce Karmu?

I decided to describe him through my initial

impressions and to relate the story of his life as he himself portrays it to the people around him. Section

One has three parts: "Just an Ordinary Cat" describes my

first impressions of him; "Witches, Voodoo and Other

Teachers" addresses his personal life; and "Misplaced 37

Shaman" discusses the interrelationship between the person and the shaman. Section Two, "Snake's Root and Other

Elixirs," describes how he heals. To do this, I use my observations and interactions with him. Section Three,

"How Healing Occurs," addresses three perspectives he used to explain how healings occur. Section Four, "Karmu as

Wounded Healer," integrates my experience of Karmu with the framework of the wounded healer archetype previously described. Karmu's relationship to alchemy and shamanism is discussed. Section Five, "The Song of the Shaman," allows Karmu to speak for himself through the use of photo­ graphs and transcribed quotes.

In realizing that Karmu's form and content are inextricably connected, I chose to write about him in a creative style, taking full liberties with "poetic license." The reader may find phrases which are grammat­ ically improper. My intention is to use the language which he speaks.

The scene is a run-down two-story apartment house in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Charlie Armstrong is heard wailing through a set of old phonograph speakers. The person is called Karmu, although his real name is Edgar H.

Warner. It is March 1971. That is where this story begins. CHAPTER IV

A HEALER NAMED KARMU

Section One: Karmu as Person; Karmu as Shaman

11 Just an Ordinary Cat" "I'm just an ordinary cat, just like you--foul, nasty, mean .. " His place looked like it hadn't been cleaned realiy well in years. Nothing was new. The whole setting was out of a different culture or time period. It was

1930's with big flowers. Old and makeshift. I thought to myself, he's into repair--cars, people and 11 Who struck

john." That was one of his phrases.

Karmu certainly talked a good line. He was con- stantly telling us stories about people he had cured of various ailments: cancer, arthritis, paralysis, diabetes, tumors, sexual problems, drug addictions. You had to take his successes on faith. Karmu wasn't concerned about documentations and you couldn't see those he cured before or after treatments. He did "marital adjustments, 11 or so he called his marital counseling. He said that he used to clean up venereal disease among the prostitutes. He claimed never to have been legally harassed because he had

38 39 a reputation for helping people to stop taking drugs. He was known to Harvard judges and to welfare recipients.

A typical day for Karmu started at 6 a.m. He saw more serious cases early in the morning when no one else was around and his energy was stronger. People usually came to see him as a last resort, after they had been through all the conventional medical treatments and the doctors had given up all hope for their recovery. Every evening he had elaborate stories to tell about what had transpired in his morning sessions which were one to two hours long. By nine or ten, he left to go to his auto­ body shop where he spent most of his day fixing old cars.

The garage had the same character as his house. He heated it by keeping a fire going in an old oil drum.

By five or six he would return home, change into his jeans, and heat up some soup. He always had a pot of soup on the stove. He said his mother did the same thing-­ feed people. The soup was made with a variety of vege­ tables and a meat base, to which he added oatmeal for sub­ stance and lots of onions and garlic. If you ever tried to help with the cooking, Karmu still wanted to supervise the seasoning. Curiously, he always added apples, apple cider vinegar and mustard. He said that vinegar extracted the calcium from the soup bones. The taste of the food, like the aura of his place, was strange. It grew on you. 40

By seven or eight o'clock more people started to arrive and by ten-thirty, the place was usually filled.

Karmu was good at keeping everyone entertained. He could talk to one person and still include everyone else either by talking in parables, adding asides and small gestures.

Have some of this one. (Giving someone a glass) Oh this is a goodie. What's your name, young man? You look like a cousin to the mad monk Rasputin. Have some of our food (to another man) Are you the high grade citizen who's a little eccentric? What do you do for a living?

More food and drink was passed around, and soon everyone in the room was acknowledged. Karmu often greeted people by claiming he had known them or their ancestors in a past life. He was incredibly accurate in guessing national- ities, backgrounds or professions. In fact, a pastime was to describe the life histories of television characters.

His stories usually differed from the image they presented.

His stories seemed like entertainment until I dis- covered that what seemed like an innocently funny story was actually a pointed interaction between him and someone else in the room. He would tell me the details later.

One night he told stories about his career as a boxer, addressing the tales to a young, timid fellow:

I'd like to see you open up your lungs--let everything out. Then have someone hit you with a savage clout to the mid-section and punch at the teeth--back of the head--that makes you feel good too.

Later, I learned that the dialogue was not intended for the young man at all. It was aimed at a couple who were 41 fighting in a silent, icy manner.

Most of his stories were about people he healed.

The bravado would cease and Karmu, the humble servant, would emerge.

A man was dying in Somerville. Against the wishes of his peers, the son-in-law brought me to his father who had no use . . he couldn't control his saliva, couldn't control his dung, couldn't control his wet­ ness, couldn't control him period. He had lost the use of his mobility, all he could do is move his eyelids. Once in a while a feeble voice would come out.

The man is still alive. This is six months ago. Now what happened. They think I'm God. I'm not God. I just touched him and I concentrated that a greater power might penetrate his physical being and his spiritual being and give him the will to live again . . . and caress the failing muscles and the sagging being and the physical decay will be repaired.

And the guy is repaired. I didn't do it. I just called upon the God within him, the God spirit within us all.

So every so often a miracle like that happens and I have to be the instrument that made it happen so people say I'm the one of all that happens here. And as you know I'm just an ordinary cat, foul, nasty, mean. She kicks me, throws me down, calls me all kinds of names . . snarls, growls, but, there's a pact been made. A pact between the devil and God and he's probably sent some of both kinds of spirits. And I have to change them both. Some are devils. Some are good. Doesn't make any difference.

Witches, Voodoo and Other Teachers

Any time Karmu talked about witchcraft, voodoo, or nightly visitations by animals or disincarnated spirits, I tried to disregard what he was saying or dismiss it as 42

trivia. His connection to primitive archetypes of the

unconscious scared me. I wanted to see halos and white

lights, not black figures of witches making up clandestine

brews. Years later, I finally understood that neither

image has very much to do with witchcraft. Witchdoctors

are shamans, and what you fear most can appear as a witch and ·haunt you.

Karmu frequently talked about witchcraft during my first year there, pointing out various women he knew

to be witches while describing their powers. He referred

to himself as a retired warlock and joked about the time

during his early twenties when a powerful witch had put a

spell on him. He said that he had been impotent for three weeks and had hidden in bed under the covers. I was

amused, not understanding how she had been able to put a

spell on him. I didn't take any of the witchcraft too

seriously until I had a fight with a strong woman who

Karmu told me was a witch from California. I was haunted

for three or four nights with dreams of this "witch"

trying to kill me. Finally a voice intervened, declaring with authority "your innocence protects you.'' The witch's

influence and the haunting dreams never returned. But witchcraft was only a small part of Karmu's larger theo­ retical framework. According to Karmu, voodoo had been practiced by his ancestors for generations. 43

Karrnu always spoke of his father as an exceptional man of many talents:

My father was a colorful cat. He was a rogue and a lover. He carried his money in his balls. He was a C.C. (Colorful cat). Ouuu, kids remembered him. He died at 128 years of age with thousands saying, "there goes a great cat," as he went to the great beyond. He carne right back. He's back right now. Didn't lose any time. V.C.C. Very Colorful Citizen.

("Where is he now?")

Karrnu: I suspect he's running through the desert watering the daisies, doing a little purgatory. He was known as the Rabbi Shaboo, the black jew, colorful cat . . called himself father of the jewish race. Mr. Cohen, Mr. Goldsmith, Mr. Sylvester, Mr. Einstein, all paid homage because he could speak in 19 different languages. A smart man. I was the dumbest cat in the class, didn't have it. He was so smart that he could read, he could do anything. He could read you a sermon . . . he could do the seder and he could bring tears to your eyes. . . Believe me he could do it. He was the original jew . You cats are only Johnny come latelys. pretenders to the throne I rest my case.

As Karrnu was talking, during the interview in 1978,

I started to wonder if Karrnu's father had been a witch- doctor. I asked Karrnu. He hesitated, and replied very slowly:

Well he made herbal compounds. People always carne to him for advice. He made strange signals and signs, and burned things. That's the voodoo.

The stories I had heard about his father came back to me. I had assumed him to have been merely an eccentric old man. Karrnu was saying that he had practiced voodoo. 44

I continued my line of questioning. "Which parent rein- forced your healing ability in your early life?"

K: Well that was done by the elders, the elders predicted I'd be a healer.

JZG: What elders?

K: All tribes have elders.

JZG: What tribe? K: The tribe would be from Ethiopia. I don't know the name.

JZG: So your dad knew when you were born . knew you were a healer because of what you

K: The elders had told him so. Before I was born they knew it.

There was something about his intonation that left no room for doubt. Whether true or false, it has become a part of Karmu's personal mythology. Was Karmu's father a witchdoctor'? I am still unsure. What did his father teach him? I had heard stories about his father being an herbalist and a psychic, but a witchdoctor was a shaman.

What does seem clear is that both of his parents believed in and supported Karmu' s belief 'in the prophecy that he was destined to be a healer. Karmu claims that those of his mother's friends who held him as an infant were healed.

Karmu's parents certainly believed this to be a sign.

By the age of 7, Karmu was aware that he was dif- ferent from other children. He knew that he had an ability to predict events before they occurred. He accepted his 45

gift as natural and wasn't surprised when his parents'

friends came to ask him for advice. They would ask

which horse would win the next day's race, what would

happen to their marriages, how was the health of those

close to them. Karmu learned very quickly the drawbacks

of the gift of prophecy. Often his parents' friends

would hold him responsible for events he predicted as if

he had the power to put a hex or spell on them. To this

day, Karmu is very cautious about predicting the future. He will do so only in the most general terms.

More bizarre are the stories of teachers who found

him on the streets while he was playing ball with his

friends. One man was an Indian or Pakistani, dressed in

flowing robes, who found Karmu when he was eight or nine.

Karmu says the man gave him instructions about how to use

his healing gift. This man appeared periodically for two

years. Karmu refuses to discuss what he was told. There were others. Both a West Indian and a South American

healer came to see him at his parents' house, instructing

him in the use of various herbs and chemicals. But the

teacher about whom Karmu speaks most often is Dr. Arlene.

Karmu says that Dr. Arlene was a West Indian

psychiatrist. Karmu was seventeen at the time. Karmu

fixed his car, and the two continued a friendship for over

twenty years, seeing each other two or three times a week. 46

Karmu says that Dr. Arlene taught him many things, the most important of which was how to penetrate an indi­ vidual's subconscious. Dr. Arlene contacted Karmu through thought projections. Karmu says that he would be working with someone when a message would appear on his mental screen. Dr. Arlene would tell him what part of the per­ son ,.s body to work on or what herbs to use. Karmu says that these communications took place over distances of up to one hundred miles.

Karmu' s adolescence seems to have been filled with unusual events. While most other kids were planning their careers, Karmu was being told by school authorities th~t he was not sma:vt enough to go on to college. Because he was black, he was told to investigate a trade. On the other hand, his black subculture and his parents were telling him that he was extraordinary and possessed exceptional abilities. The messages were contradictory.

Perhaps it is the need to reconcile them which catalyzes his extraordinary need for recognition.

When Karmu was seventeen years old, a two hundred pound man fell on top of him from a scaffolding, knocking him unconscious. Karmu was taken to a hospital where the doctors pronounced him legally dead. Karmu describes looking down ·upon his body in the hospital bed and realiz­ ing that it was not time for him to die. Two hours later 47 he "came back to life" much to the amazement of the 8 doctors. However, Karmu does not view this death or near death experience as a turning point in his career as a healer as do other shamanic healers. He prefers to view his abilities as a skill he has possessed since birth.

He refers to this experience to fuel the image of himself as an extraordinary person with unusual powers.

Though Karmu loves to share stories from his back- ground which indicate his special calling, he is much more reticent to discuss the range of his powers. Whenever I have asked him directly about his psychic skills or about the nature of voodoo, he has been elusive. I once asked him why he was so indirect:

A lot of people are scared enough as it is. They won't come near me. They feel like they have been dwarfed. They feel as though they have been put against something they can't cope with, that they don't understand.

The Misplaced Shaman

Most people feel uncomfortable when they are unable to place Karmu into their usual categories. When they try, they later recognize that he doesn't fit. He is black. He is an auto mechanic. He is relatively poor.

Some people see a strong, black man who can make you laugh.

They do not see his deeper connection with the unconscious.

It appears very strongly through the archetypes of the wise old man, the nurturing mother, the trickster, the healer. 48

I have often wondered which was harder for people to accept; the fact that Karmu was black or the fact that he was poor. Whenever I have told anyone about Karmu, invariably someone will say, "If he's so good, how come he is poor?" or "How come he works as an auto mechanic?"

Having been a communist in the 1930's, he maintains a disdain for money. He used to carry his money around in a sock, a practice he picked up from his father. Whenever someone cleaned his house, they usually found socks with ten to fifty dollars in them. About money he said:

Money is a thing made by man to give products of the earth to each other. You can't buy love. You might attract love. You might attract a person because you have . . economic stability, which money will do, but money won't stabilize your spirit, it won't stabilize your soul. It won't give you grace. It won't make you beautiful. It tends to do the other thing. Money makes you evil. To have money contaminates your soul. It's the way of the world. All my life I've given money away without thj_nking and as the witch of Nottingham said, "All your life you gave, now you shall receive."

My mother gave a beggar $2 or 509 and we (he and his siblings when they were children) almost died 'cause she was going to buy some bananas ... And she said, "God loves a cheerful giver and cast thy bread upon the waters. God sent him to me because he was in need. I gave something which God gave me to one of God's creatures and God shall bless me for it. We couldn't see. We hol­ lered and screamed. Wanted to kill the cat dead-­ tear out his toenails, cut out his two testicles, you know--throw him in the wind. The guy nearly fled. You know five or six little black kids-­ before the day was over, somebody gave her $5 or $10 .. 49

It was almost a song, yet the reality is that

Karmu at seventy exists by donations. His relationship to money as a means of cultural validation remains pre- carious. Poor people pay him well for his services. Rich people pay him little or nothing at all. I used to puzzle over this for hours. There was something about paying him for his time which meant acceptance of the healing rela- tionship. Were his wealthier clients more reluctant to pay because he was poor or black or both? The lack of monetary support would cause his wounds over racism to fester. He always said that white people would never recognize a black man.

If you're black, you're wrong. You can't have anything and that's what was happening. If you are caught learning something, they burn your house down. If they catch you learning something, they beat you up; you're not supposed to learn, you're supposed to be dumb.

When Karmu starts talking about racism, he becomes obsessed. His feelings are painfully charged. It is hard to tell whether racism is a real obstacle for him, or whether the obstacles are self-created. (He points to his black friends with Ph.D.s who are unable to get good jobs or to the riots in Roxbury over busing as existing signs that our culture is still highly racist.) Still, he takes on white clients in good faith, perhaps even naively, and is frequently hurt when they refuse to acknowledge what he has done for them. He dismisses the 50 ~ . insults, claiming that recognition isn't important, that white people will never recognize a black man. Then he reverses himself, insisting in an oblique way that the white culture acknowledge him. It is ironic for he could far more easily be assimilated into the black conwunity where healers and shamans have been recognized for centuries.

He maintains himself as a cultural iconoclast, using the issues of racism and recognition to constantly activate his wounds and remind him of the poor, the down- trodden and the needy. So, he opens his door, offering them food and drink and a diversion from their daily activities and thoughts.

11 Laughter, joy, an escape from sudden tears. 11

Section Two Snake's Root and Other Elixirs

First Night ImpresSions

I had just arrived in town and was planning to stay for three months while I finished my thesis project on C. G. Jung and alchemy. It was March, 1971. My friend was eating some soup and telling me about this healer named Karmu who had cooked it. She thought it was holy food. I thought she was crazy but since I was her guest,

I didn't say so. She suggested I come with her to meet him that evening. 51

It was gently snowing as we walked down Green

Street toward his home. My reluctance increased as we approached an apartment building and started to climb the dark stairwell. "You'll love him," she encouraged me, leading the way into his brightly-lighted kitchen.

The room was filled with people who were leaning against the stove, the sink or were seated in chairs. I stayed close to the door, hidden behind some of the people.

"What do you say, lass?" Karmu said to my friend as she went over to give him a hug.

He wasn't exactly what I had expected. He was sitting at the kitchen table in a polo shirt and old blue jeans. My friend introduced me. He nodded and said,

"Try some of our food. Two spoonfuls is all you need.

You'll never get fat and you'll live to be a hundred and three." I took some in a cup and retreated to my spot next to the door and watched him as he started to "do" someone. That's what he called his massage, "Doing."

"I'm feeling good tonight. I took two capsules yesterday and I feel like I could fly. Come here, oukou­ doukus," he said, gesturing to a woman. "Give me your head."

The young ~Noman leaned over Karmu who was still seated at the kitchen table. He started to rub her head above the temples, slowly and then progressively faster. 52

Gradually, he moved to hold the back of her neck and her forehead, applying pressure. Then he returned to holding both sides of her head above her ears. "Take a deep breath. . . Now let it out. . Do it again. now make a sound. " As the woman exhaled, he held her shoulders in a firm grip. "Exhale again and make a sound." The woman seemed to relax as he continued to hold her shoulders. She breathed out a sigh. ''That's right,'' he said continuing to focus on her shoulders. He seated her on his knee and started to rub her back, along both sides of her spine. He poked what seemed to be random spots. The woman folded over her knees, and Karmu lifted her back toward him. He held her head against his chest.

He gently rocked her head back and forth, holding the area over each ear. Then, abruptly, he thumped her shoulders,

"How do you feel lass? You'll feel like a million dollars tomorrow. Take three spoonfuls of our food."

As abruptly as he had started to "do" the young woman, he changed his mood. He resumed joking with his guests, picking up right where he left off, and everyone seemed to be completely at ease. This seemed to be his normal behavior. "Oh yeah!" he exclaimed. He was address­ ing this slight young man who was making dancing gestures in a rather miniaturized fashion. "That's right, cat.

Do it like me." With that he was up in the middle of the 53

kitchen, dancing to an old record of Charlie Armstrong.

I had to laugh, although I stifled my mirth into a smile when I noticed everyone else was watching him rather som-

berly. I later found out that this was his way of teaching

"African dancing."

"Emote my friend. Scream, holler, and do your

thing!" That's what he kept saying to the timid, thin guy who was doing the miniature dance gestures in the corner.

The man's gestures got a bit bigger, but he still stayed

in the corner. A few people got up to dance with Karmu.

His dancing didn't look like anything I had ever seen. He kept pointing his bare foot and shaking it, saying, "Reach for the earth," and then he would stretch out his hand and reach for the ceiling commanding "Reach for heaven." "He sure had a lot of energy," I thought to myself.

We must have stayed there for three hours. I knew it was eleven o'clock because he was about to watch the evening news. He really hadn't talked to me at all that night, but as we left, he took my hand and gave it two kisses and bit my fingers. Then he waved us off saying,

Friends of the oppressed, lover of truth. Come back and see us sometime. Let the holy one do you. You'll never get sick and you'll make a million dollars. Levels of Healing

I don't remember driving the one hundred miles into Cambridge. Pain was foremost on my mind. I do recall sitting on Karmu's steps as the afternoon sun began to descend, waiting for him to return from his shop. It was mid-August and I had been living on a farm in Western Massachusetts for several months. A few days before I had an unfortunate encounter with a hive of wasps. My whole body seemed to be swollen, and one eye was nearly closed. When Karmu arrived, he took one look at me and said, "My word. My word. What do we have here?" He gestured for me to follow him up the stairs. I thought

I might be intruding as I wasn't expected. But, his response let me know that I was welcome.

He had me cutting up onions and cooking soup for at least an hour before doing anything for my face. He gave me some "black medicine" to drink and a bowl of "blue medicine" to soak compresses in. I put the compresses on my face.

I had thought of Karmu as an alchemist. He was always making up strange potions and brews. He called all of his combinations ''medicines," saying that they were special; many other people had tried to duplicate his

"recipes" without achieving the same results. His medi­ cines were a combination of folk medicine and herbology 55

and were named for their color: black, red, blue, green

and white.

"Black medicine" was a brew made from an herbal mixture of at least five different herbs, depending on what was available. He would take a spoonful of the

herbal mixture and put it into a gallon jug of water and

put the jug in a pot of water and let it brew double­

boiler fashion for about an hour. The resulting "black medicine" was dark and bitter. Its blackness depended on

the herbs and concentrations used. Sometimes "black medicine" was drunk by itself. But, more often, because of its bitter taste, he combined it with a red fruit wine punch which he gave to everyone who walked into his door.

The red punch was called "red medicine."

Red medicine was about one-third black medicine, one-third fruit juice and one-third port wine or a sweet white wine. The kind of fruit juice he added determined the color. It was orange when he added apricot juice, red when he added Hawaiian punch or berry juice, and purple when he added grape juice. The optional ingredients were raisins, onions, orange rind, and sometimes apples or peppermint candies. Karmu always kept a few gallons hidden under his bed, in the closet, or in the pantry.

Sometimes they fermented for weeks before they were

rediscovered. 56

Karmu also put this herbal mixture into capsules.

His use of capsules varied depending on the ailment. For most people he would recommend one capsule a week. But, some people would take one capsule a day, and sometimes, though very rarely, he would recommend up to six capsules a day. You knew someone was very sick when Karmu had them taking a number of capsules. The herbs used in black medicine, red medicine, and the capsules included Aloes,

Valerian, Goldenseal, Snake's Root, Everlasting Life,

Ginseng and Yellow Dock.

The major ingredients were two types of Aloes:

Brown Aloes was Curacao (or Barbadoes Aloes); Black Aloes

(species unknown) was the stronger of the two. Aloes in its dry, powdered form is listed as a strong purgative and cathartic substance acting mostly on the large intes­ tine (Tyler et al., 1976). In the folk medicine of the

West Indies, aloes is used as an emmenagogue (to induce menses) as well as an abortifacent (Thompson, 1976).

Although the use of aloes as an abortifacent is highly disputed, Karmu says that he has used massive doses of capsules to induce spontaneous abortions. Aloes is also considered to be an anthelmintic; it kills or ejects intesti:nal worms (Wren, 1972).

The other ingredients were used in smaller propor­ tions. Valerian, when used in small doses, is thought to be an antispasmodic agent, a nervine, and an andoyne 57

(substance which relieves or lessens pain). In large

doses it is said to excite the cerebro-spinal system

(Wood, Bache, 1894). Snake's root (rauwolfia serpentaria)

is listed as a stimulating tonic, diuretic and diaphoretic.

Because of its hypotensive qualities, reserpine, the active

ingredient in the herb, has been pharmacologically ex­

tracted and is used to treat hypertension (Tyler et al.,

1976, p. 271). Goldenseal (Hydrastis) is used as a tonic,

laxative, alternative detergent, and for decreasing mucous

flow to inflammed mucous passages (Thompson, 1976). Phar­ macologically, the Hydrastis alkaloids are extracted and

used as astringents in inflammations of the mucous mem­

branes (Tyler et al., 1976). The other herbs were used on

a less regular basis. Some of them were referred to by

names not found in any herb books. Karmu believed that his herbal mixtures would rid the body of infections,

toxins, excess mucous, while cleaning the blood, lungs

and gastro-intestinal tract.

Karmu used two major chemical compounds for treat­

ing external parts of the body: "blue medicine" and "white medicine." "Blue medicine" is an extremely dilute solution of potassium permanganate and water. He used this solution for bathing and soaking, occasionally for gargling or douching. "Blue medicine" seemed to reduce swelling, and assist in the healing of wounds and minor infections. 58

Potassium permanganate was used extensively in World War II for purifying water and for treating some bacterial infec­ tions (Goodman & Gilman, 1980). It was commonly used for snake bite wounds, and in folk medicine as a spermicide after sexual relations. Karmu has used "blue medicine" as a treatment for veneral diseases.

"White medicine" is used as a liniment. It has a strong odor due to its major ingredients: camphor, turpen­ tine, eucalyptus oil, and peppermint oil in a lard base.

The recipe resembles commercial preparations like Ben-Gay widely used for pain relief. Karmu would use "white medi­ cine" frequently in his massages, rubbing it on the neck, shoulders, back, chest, or legs. Like Ben-Gay, it has a tingling, warming, penetrating effect which lasts for a few hours.

I sat there soaking my face with "blue medicine" while sipping bitter "black medicine." I wanted instant relief. Instead, I was distracted by the people who began to arrive. Before I knew it, it was time to leave. As

I said good-bye, he told me to come by early the next morning.

I went over early, hoping again that he would do something to alleviate my pain. I didn't know what I wanted him to do. He asked me if I wanted some tea. We sat at the kitchen table drinking Lipton tea with sugar, 59 and I listened as he spoke of the people he had been healing of cancer. We must have talked for an hour. He got a phone call. When he returned, he asked me if I would help him move a car. I said I would, and we left.

I had always thought Karmu cured primarily through touch. I had spent many hours watching him massage. His tempo varied from the slow, gentle holding of a particular spot to a deep kneading of the muscles or connective tis­ sues, to a vigorous pounding. Sometimes, he simply told the person to hold him.

A typical treatment began when he rubbed the fore­ head with "white medicine." He held the forehead in one hand and the back of the neck in the other_. His left hand was placed at the back of the neck while his right index, middle finger, and thumb simultaneously rubbed the area above the temples while moving toward the nose bridge.

After a few minutes of alternating pressures, he moved slowly to the shoulders and back. He thumped, gently pounded, and rubbed from side to side. Sometimes he poked random spots along both sides of the spine. Then he moved over the right shoulder blade and held some muscle and skin. He rocked the body and then let it lay still for a while. Sometimes he stopped there. Other times he asked them to turn over so he could put some 11 Whi te medi­ cinen on their chest, neck, or stomach. Lastly, he pinched 60

spots on their legs and arms, ending with a playful bite

on one hand and adding as a final touch some instructions

on self-care.

I suppose he thought I didn't need a treatment.

He just kept me busy running errands, cooking, and even

gardening. I must have forgotten my face because I don't

remember it ever getting better. I do remember gardening

in the back of Karmu's shop. That is when I met him on

another level.

Being Touched by Magic

I had felt most comfortable relating to Karmu when

I focused on him as a person with his working-class back­ ground and earthy knowledge of people. The magical part

of him was beyond my comprehension. Then, on the fourth

day of this visit my understanding was changed.

It was an ordinary summer day, hot and rather dry

for August. I was planting a garden behind Karmu's shop.

I had cleared away the auto parts strewn everywhere, and

turned over the overgrown remains of a garden planted a

few seasons before. I had pulled up weeds for hours and was totally immersed in dirt. Karmu came to see what I was doing.

I can still see him as he stood on a ledge not more than one hundred feet from me. He was a powerful

presence, and I recall that, for an instant, I saw nothing 61 but an enormous ball of light. I thought it was an optical illusion. The sun must have just come out from behind the clouds. I was scanning the sky, trying to reconcile the fact that there were no clouds in sight. His words brought me out of my thoughts. I had an eerie feeling that something out of the ordinary was about to take place.

There was a fairy tale quality about his voice.

It was as though he was more spirit than person. I was transfixed. Everything was crystal clear and electrically- charged. I listened to the story he told. It was about me and my life and why I was there for what seemed at once an eternity and a timeless moment. When he finished, he just walked back to the front of the shop and resumed his work on cars. I was stupefied.

The years have faded the details of what he told me. Yet my impression of him as a ball of light remains totally clear. I believe the meeting drastically changed my relationship to him and to healing. My skepticism no longer mattered. I was ready to learn. I moved back to

Cambridge within a month, and my real internship began.

If You've Got the Proper Mind

If you have got the proper mind, you can do anything you want to do in life. . You can live in a whale's belly for many years and get away with it. Just like Jonah, well, Jonah didn't live that long (he laughs). You can do anything you want to do in 62

life. You can have cars fall on you, get shot and you won't bleed, stabbed and you don't die. It's all in the mihd. Your mind controls the universe.

No matter how much I tried to discount belief as a crucial part of the healing interaction, it became resoundingly clear that Karmu's belief in himself was intrinsic to the healing ritual. While some of his tech- niques were more subtle, the barrage of lists of his healing accomplishments struck the newcomer in a blatant if not overbearing fashion:

Like the lady I just cured of cancer . . . or the man who just came here, he couldn't walk, he couldn't talk . . or the dog who had tumors--3 days and he was healed ..

His listing of successful cases appeared as sheer bravado, but a recently deceased anthropologist who knew Karmu saw it differently. In tribal cultures, the shaman's flight or descent into the spirit world is assisted by the tribe's incantations (Harner, 1980). In the absence of a tribe, she reasoned, Karmu sang his "praise song" himself.

Karmu's "praise song" ritual was in evidence throughout the healing process. He lapsed into poetry to dramatize his prowess, flattered his patient, finally attributed his gift to God. A student of ethnopoetics at

Boston University summarized Karmu's linguistics:

The pattern of the whole piece is clear; the shaman is moving verbally back and forth between himself and his "patient." The questions in parentheses (referring to an earlier quote) represent the voice of the ritual participant in the ceremony: an 63

accepting echo or a foolish question as a foil for the shaman to spin off of. First he constructs hyperbolic stories about his prowess: thousands of cures, hundreds of disciples. His spirit can be in thousands of places at once; he's a great dancer, a champion prize fighter, an actor, a clown. He was found in the desert singing and dancing. He'll live to be 150. Then suddenly he switches into fan­ tastic flattery of his patient: so beautiful, so young, so immortal, such good vibes, etc. Back and forth through the whole poem until at the end he takes off on the song about people and Georgie and the professor and God. (Ryerson, 1972)

Between his verbal performance and his physical

techniques, he asked the patient to leaf through his scrap- book of testimonials, all of which supported his claims of cures for depression, infertility, cancer, asthma, and diabetes. To further substantiate his successes, he pointed to people around him:

Look at this one. She used to be crazy. Look at her now. She's worth a million dollars.

Section Three How Healing Occurs

Most healers do not attempt to explain how healing occurs. If they do, the explanations use religious models.

"I'm a channel for God's healing power" or "I prayed for her" are phrases often heard. Karmu uses various analogies to describe what occurs between himself and a client. All of them relate to the notion that disease is the result of imbalance or obstruction of an energy flow and that Karmu is the catalyst who restores the flow of energy to its 64

~quilibrium position. In trying to describe his philoso- phy, I have chosen to analyze the interaction from the perspective of the psyche, the body, and the energy field.

In each section I try to point out how Karmu views himself as the catalyst.

From the Psyche

Laughter, joy, "an escape from sudden tears," are the themes which Karmu presents in his messages to his clients. His appreciation of humor as a healing device is apparent in his own jovial attitude and in his discussions of the healing power of humor. He has often said, "If you can get someone to laugh, that's half the battle."

Laughter is one of his primary vehicles for creat- ing an attitudinal change. Karmu can be quite a comedian.

He will go to great lengths to entertain his visitors.

His repertoire of stories is full of humor, drama, sus- pense, and exaggeration. He usually pokes fun at himself and the trials of life, comfortably assuming the role of the fool.

I think the good Lord wants us to raise a little hell, be a little mean and nasty now and then, because life is no fun if you live too good. I like to hit a cat in the teeth--knock him down-­ choke him--tumble him, and. have him knock me down--tumble me. . . It makes your blood run fast and hot in your veins, and you feel good.

I like to make love half way up a mountain for about eight hours--cut it down to four, I'm getting old. 65

You know fun is the thing. Fun, fun, fun. Holler, scream and do your thing.

Not only does he encourage us to have fun, make love, enjoy life, but he also expresses an acceptance of anger and negative feelings. Because Karmu has, as he says, "heard and seen it all ... nothing shocks me," people feel comfortable sharing themselves with him.

Stories of his and other people's lives always include scenes of anger, jealousy and rage, as well as joy and love. The message is that you will be accepted and lis- tened to uncritically.

People feel his acceptance and respond to it.

Karmu becomes a close friend, and a mutual bond is formed.

Tonight she found love here, and love is what is called the ancient and God-given healer. Love can cure anything.

I call her a totally good person and I've only seen her six times in my life. I was able to reach inside of her soul last time she was here. She ·came in early, and there was nobody else around. I was able to concentrate on her.

She said, "Karmu, I completely trust you." I said, "I trust you too. It makes it even now."

So we had a good time. She cooked, laughed and talked. We had dinner.

But through it all she found someone who'd love her. Someone who would place her high in the hopes of men. Someone who'll place her high on the mountainside ... someone who'll love her for herself . . someone who'll give her warmth and simplicity, courage, strength, and fulfillment. What more can we ask. The gods are pleased. They gave her the sign and set the sun out, and the 6·6

sun, showing that men were pleased and the gods were pleased and everything would be all right.

Many of Karmu's clients come to see him after they

have been through the entire ·spectrum of what the medical

community has to offer. He sees them after the doctors

have painted a bleak picture. The isolation and fear they experience is tremendous.

Karmu enters where others fear to tread with

astounding positivity. Rather than dwelling on physical

problems, he enters with his gusto for life. He takes an eighty-year-old woman's hand. She is lying in a hospital dying of cancer. He tells her how beautiful· she is. He

caresses her eyeballs and toenails. He bites her on the hand, telling her how he wishes he were young again so that he could take her to a mountain top and make love to her

for hours. She laughs. They touch on a level beyond pain

and despair. Hope is rekindled. The will to live is reborn.

Karmu influences a change of attitude by moving beyond the cognitive, verbal interchange. People hear his compliments, experience his touch. Yet, the level on which

they connect with Karmu is non-rational and emotional. He

touches people at their core.

Probably because he can affect people so deeply, he is also able to influence them hypnotically. Karmu does 67

not engage in conventional hypnosis. He has no pendulums,

nor does he use a trance. He makes constant positive sug­

gestions. He frequently says, "I will you to get better.

I invade your subconscious through the power of partial

hypnosis and will you to get well." Hypnotic suggesti­

bility is correlated with relaxation and trust (Spiegel,

1978). If clients are comfortable with Karmu, they are more likely to respond to his positive, verbal suggestions.

Karmu also influences attitude through the use of

ritualistic herbal compounds and creams. He has often mentioned their placebo effects. It is w~ll recognized

by the medical community that placebos account for at

least thirty percent of the cures in modern times. Karmu

recognizes very clearly how important it is for clients to

feel that he is doing something for them. The rituals he

uses include exercises, baths, creams and lotions, herbal

drinks and capsules. Karmu's use of rituals varies accord­

ing to the needs of the person and his individuation of

treatment modality has the same effect as a doctor's pre­

scriptions. This is not to imply that Karmu's rituals do

not have some therapeutic effect. They function to vali­

date the healing relationship. (I once asked Karmu why he

didn't use herbs as much now and he replied, "I use me.

I 'm a herb. ")

Karmu's first level of approach involves the belief

structure. He tries to create positive attitudinal changes. 6B

Sometimes the patients are negative and stay negative.

He usually fails to help these people, a fact which he

glosses over quickly, declaring that you can't help every-

one. There are always failures. Karmu dwells on his

successes.

Well, some people have been ailing for a long, long time and they become very, very negative. And you put your hands on them and they feel energy go through them and they seem to pick up. They have such a definite amount of negativity in them. They have failed so many times that there is a fatalistic thing about it (their ability to recover). They just feel that they are going to die. There are cases like that every so often. They don't improve much.

The role attitude plays in his healing is still

undefined. Karmu straddles two points of view. On the

one hand, he acknowledges attitude to be a significant

factor in a client's ability to recover. On the other

hand, he argues that attitude doesn't matter because he works on a subliminal level. Similarly, he refuses to

associate success with a capacity to effect attitudinal

change. He is unwilling to say that he can't help someone who is negative and resistant to treatment. His focus is positive.

The.conservative psychological approach would

argu:e that all Karmu does is create an attitudinal change

by rekindling a fire of hope. Karmu feels that he does more than just change an attitude. He cites those who

have recovered from comas, his healings of small children, 69 cats, and dogs. None of them are based on influencing the subject's belief system.

The Bioenergetic Body

Karmu has described himself as a catalyst in a second way, using the bioenergetic mode of mind-body connection developed by Wilheim Reich and popularized by

Alexander Lowen and others. The concept suggests that emotions have an energetic force which is expressed through the various systems of the body. The mind and body inter­ relate. Whenever we have a feeling, we experience the energy of that feeling in our bodies. When an emotion is repressed, the consequences are experienced not only on the level of the psyche, but on the level of the physical body as well.

People block or repress feelings by constricting the musculature. When emotional energy is held back repeatedly, "body armor," a characteristic constriction of various muscle groups, keeps the feelings from emerging

(Reich, 1974). Karmu's massage achieves the same results bioenergetic therapists do, but his style is much less structured.

Karmu maintains that he is able to locate a prob­ lem because he feels it first in his own body. Sensing blockages of energy, he attempts to release the flow. The purpose of his vigorous massage is to "free the person up." 70

Using analogies from auto mechanics, he talks of clients

having "frozen engines." By "freeing them up" he gives

"free mental association and balance." By reducing the

constrictions, more energy is available for self-healing.

When Karmu works, his hands with all their

strength roam freely, pinching, holding, grasping, rubbing.

The more rigid the person, the harder Karmu has to work.

It is as though he literally pounds away tension. Very

often his massages lead into intense therapy sessions.

Painful or angry emotions which have been repressed for

years are re-experienced.

Wilhelm Reich (1974) speaks of sexual inhibition

as the result of emotional and muscular rigidities. He

defines orgasm as the capacity to experience a stream of

energy throughout the body. He equates orgasm capacity with an ability to experience libidinal energy. Karmu

frequently focuses on sexual problems, although usually

in a joking way. He frequently announces that he runs a

sex school: "I teach the oukinoukou twist to music.

(Singing) You know--three to one side, to the left.

Tremellow ungandaddeo." It sounds like a joke but Karmu

is serious. He counsels numerous couples on sexual prob­

lems and is emphatic about the importance of healthy sexuality. He says "Orgasms are like watering a bed of

flowers. They (the flowers and analogously the cells of 71 the body) need water to grow." Conversely, the lack of healthy sexuality is viewed as a causal factor in some illnesses.

I'm working on something now that's going to shock everybody. I'm going to live until I'm 150 years of age. My father lived 'til 128, made love two days before he died. That's the motivating force of life. I've got an eighty year old man making love. (I) have to teach them the tech- nique . and they'll give you anything. They promise you the sun, moon and the stars ...

Both through healthy sexual functioning and through the expression of emotions and the subsequent relaxation of the musculature, a natural healing process occurs in the body. The energy used to repress feelings and tighten the musculature is also released, providing more energy on both a physical and psychological level.

The Energetic Force-Field

In addition to breaking up energy blocks, Karmu speaks of his capacity to give a necessary "shove" to those deficient in energy. His "shove" catalyzes the person's body to begin its own repair process. He believes he does this through an energetic force-field.

Well, you give them a certain amount--its called force-field energy. Force-field energy. Like you take a regulator and a generator--a generator builds up the energy and a force-field allows it to either expand or go back which is the regulator. So I act as a regulator in a lot of people. They don't have enough energy. I give them a force-field which is a super charge of energy. 72

It's like a battery coil and a generator. You take the energy (meaning he takes it--as the generator), you put it in the person. They take it and they give it back to you. Everybody gets well.

Karmu believes he is able to place himself at a

higher energy state than the person he is attempting to

heal. He accomplishes this by assuming an "altered state

of consciousness." According to the laws of thermal- dynamics, energy from a body at a higher energy state naturally flows to a body at a lower energy state. Karmu

is presumably at a higher energy state and able to trans-

fer his energy. The energy catalyzes the individual's

natural healing processes. The model of an endothermic reaction applies here. The energy of activation must be supplied to the system before it can proceed on its own.

Karmu functions as a catalyst supplying an "energetic shove" which enables the person's self-repair processes

to engage.

When Karmu is "sending" energy, he feels an "elec- trical, tingling sensation." It starts in the middle of his back and travels down into his hands. The sensation comes only when he is concentrating on healing someone:

Karmu: Everytime I do someone, I feel my fingers start burning. Just like that--my right hand. Strange. I can feel it going through this part of my hand--a burning feeling. In other words, I must take something from the air, out of the cosmic arena. It comes in me and starts to burn. It's a burning, vibrating sensation. I can put it right into people, 73

but right now it's gone, but I can feel it most of the time. It just left. I wasn't concentrating. It's a healing vibration. It's a tangible, intan­ gible thing that comes and goes ... it goes through my whole arm on the right side of my body and crosses over. I can feel it very lightly now.

JZG: Does it start any place?

Karmu: Yes it starts up around my shoulder in the middle of my spine and spreads over and whoever I'm doing can feel it.

Most clients experience his touch as a penetrating warmth.

A glowing sensation stays with them for up to twenty-four hours after one of Karmu's treatments.

Karmu is clearer about how he sends energy than where it goes in the body. The implication is that the range of places is as diversified as the various problems.

He spends the most time focusing on the head, then the back, neck, and shoulders, and lastly the arms and legs.

Karmu states that he sends energy to a particular part of the body, and to the energy center which regulates that body part. The head center is particularly significant in this regard.

Karmu believes he can heal if he can open up the chakras or energy centers. (He refers to the Indian chakra system which posits that all physical processes occur first on an energetic level. The chakras are the point at which the energy field and the body interface.

These energy centers are also thought to regulate the major endocrine glands.) How this process occurs has not been 74

described in detail although the implication is that it happens through something akin to a psychokinetic trans- 10 ference in which energy is aimed at the center. When healing occurs, the center opens up. Energy centers can also close down soon after they are opened.

. . If an energy center is closed for a long time and you open it up, sometimes it closes. Why it closes, that's a good question. It could be psychological--because they have been subjected to frustration, hurt, poverty, sadness, whatever. It causes the center to close right down.

That's why some (people) have to come back. They're incapable of carrying the ball. You give them some­ thing and they lose it. They come back for are­ charge. Some people come back three or four times before they're healed.

Some people come back three times a week for three months before they are healed. Others only need to see him once.

This transference of energy seems to be a passive phenomenon on his part. It occurs when he is in a medita- tive or altered state of consciousness (Harner, 1980).

Yet, the severity of the client's condition may cause

Karmu's session to be mildly or very draining. He seems to give the person not only positive energy, but to absorb their negative energy as well. For example, when working with a woman with severe pain in her ovaries, he felt severe pain in generally the same area of his own body.

The process by which he rids himself of this nega- tive energy he calls "grounding." In electronics, the

"ground" by definition is the neutralization point for the 75

flow of all electrons. Karmu says "I become the earth. I

visualize myself being part of the earth." He places him-

self in a neutral frame of mind. He visualizes himself as

part of the earth. In this manner, whatever negative or

harmful energies he has acquired are absorbed and neutral-

ized by the ground.

Over the past eight years, Karmu's explanations of

the process of transference have varied, but the concept

that he adds a new energy remains the same.

Karmu: I can attune energy to their minds by a specialized source and this causes their minds to operate. I work on their heads. I work on their brain centers.

JZG: And that organizes everything else?

Karmu: That's exactly how it works. Everything else is propaganda and incidental.

All Karmu's explanations return to his ability to

reach inside of someone. Whether this occurs on an energy

level, an emotional level, a physical level, or on all

levels simultaneously, is open to question. In any case,

it is apparent that by "becoming one with the person," he

is able to mobilize their own healing process.

These explanations of healing are as far as Karmu will go. Though he believes that he gives his clients an

energy, he can only define its origins as the "cosmic

arena." This is where Karmu's views on healing merge with

those of the shamans who have practiced healing throughout 76 the ages:

JZG: What are some of your religious ideas? You're not part of any recognized church. You do have religious ideas, don't you?

Karmu: No question about it. There is a destiny that guides--there is a power that guides the destiny of men. Everything is foretold. All knowledge is in the cosmic arena. There is a thing called karma, that if you do wrong, it will come back to you. What goes up, must come down. There is a way of life to be maintained. There is something that maintains us.

I agree there is a power which you can appeal to who answers. Some call it Jesus, some call it God, some call it Mohammed, some call it Confucius.

JZG: And what do you call it?

Karmu: I say the guiding light.

Section Four Karmu as Wounded Healer

In Section Two, the archetype of the wounded healer was discussed and identified as the synthesis of the polarity between health and invalidity which occurs between healer and patient. The healer encompasses both extremes, whether consciously or not and calls upon a third force to reconcile opposing forces. This enables healing to occur. There are cultural variations of this archetypal relationship. Two images of the wounded healer, the shaman and the alchemist, describe how Karmu functions. 77

Karmu as Shaman

Tribal cultures have personified their need for a father figure, the wise old manjwoman who can perform miracles as the shaman. Throughout history the shamans have fulfilled this role, functioning as sage, healer, and politician. Mediating between the human and the divine, they have been revered by members of the tribe. Most cultures have created a distinction between the healer or shaman and the tribe. The separation increases the numi­ nosity or "extraordinary" quality of their position.

Within our culture, combining the human and the divine within one person is to risk credibility. Whenever

I have told anyone that Karmu is both a healer and an auto mechanic, the invariable response has been disbelief. How could anyone with God-like powers be a laborer? If he is as good as he claims, why isn't he wealthier? And if he is to be holy, he must castigate himself before God and live as a humble servant in a state of total egolessness.

Karmu certainly doesn't fit into this version of the wise old man.

Everyone who knows Karmu would say that he is attached to his ego identity: He needs to be a healer.

It gives his life meaning. To have suffered as he has done, without the glory and satisfaction this role offers, would make his pain unbearable. Does his humanity, his 78

personal shadow, mean that he does not simultaneously enter the world of the spirits and speak with the Gods?

Karmu's uniqueness comes of his living at both extremes. He is just as "foul, nasty, and mean" as the next person and as giving, caring, and knowing as anyone

I have ever met. His life is a balance of these two forces. The human being and the healer blend, emerging in alternating moments. His woundedness connects him to the archetype. He travels into the spirit world, returning to become Karmu, the person.

The shamanic tradition might be the oldest and 11 most basic religious experience. It differs from our model of the alchemist as healer because spirit and matter were never seen as separate. Within all objects there was a soul. It did not have to be grown from "prima materia."

Spirits connected the material and inanimate worlds. It was the role of the shaman to know how to talk to them.

He entered an altered state, communicated with the spirit world and finally, returned to the tribe to impart the new visions he had acquired.

It was clearer to me ten years ago that Karmu fit this model. At that time, he was surrounded by a very friendly tribe. His ventures into the spirit world were told to us as stories, parables, or fragments of dreams.

He talked with the spirits of all kinds of "holy men," 79

psychics, and other deceased people. Animal spirits were

even mentioned as guides to healing. Animal spirits, a

cat in particular, would announce the arrival of guests,

usually witches. By the time they arrived, Karmu expected

them.

A more specific reference to the shamanic model is made·when Karmu maintains that he leaves his body in

twenty-five to thirty percent of his cases. He describes

leaving his body and going to the "cosmic arena." It is

in this space that he receives messages from his spirit

guides and a "super charge of energy" which he is, in turn,

able to pass on.

He once mentioned that he had a greater tendency

to leave his body if the case were more severe. He said:

It depends on the negativity or positivity of the person you are working on. You can sense it. The more negative, you leave and stay longer. You come back refreshed to heal them.

The shamanic world was filled with souls, both

alive and disincarnated which survived as spirits. When

the balance between psyche, soma, and soul was altered

(as occurs in disease), the weakest part needed restora-

tion. The vehicle for this was the soul. Disease was

rarely ever viewed as a discreet event. Human beings had

a relationship to illness, even if it was thought to be

their karma. Only in possession was the disease caused 80

by a separate entity. Even in this case, the person was predisposed toward accepting the entity. The shaman understood how to communicate with the spirits and the souls.

The role of karma is recognized in the shamanic model. Karma, originally a Buddhist and a Hindu notion, comes from Sanskrit and has been interpreted to mean

"deeds or actions." The concept is similar to the Newton- ian notion that "for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction." In the karmic framework, the ledger sheets are maintained throughout the life of the soul.

This can include many lifetimes on earth. Good deeds are balanced by bad deeds. Karma is the fate by which our current experiences arise. In this framework, disease is seen as retribution for previous acts whether in this life- time or an earlier one. Karmu and I discussed this at length in 1978. A woman had died six years earlier:

JZG: Let's talk about disease and karma. You used to say you wouldn't deal with her because--

Karmu: She wasn't going to make it.

JZG: You told me it was because she had done a lot of bad things to other people--that she had bad karma and she was unwilling to acknowledge where she was coming from and until she had at least felt remorse, you wouldn't even go near her.

Karmu: That's right.

JZG: Do you make a distinction with people? Some people have their disease because of what they have 81

done in their life and you won't help them or you can't help them?

Karmu: If you know something in advance you don't (he cut off). I sent my people to help her, to comfort her. It's like the horse is dead. It's been dead for a long time. There's no sense in you lifting him up. He's still dead isn't he? When I saw the woman, I felt the angel, the angel of death. I knew she was dying so why waste my time.

JZG: So there are some people you know are going to die?

Karmu: Oh sure.

JZG: You can't help them at all? (he nods in agreement) Would you say that's because of their karma? Why are some people going to die and some people aren't?

Karmu: It's destiny to be fulfilled.

The shaman understands cosmic law. All things have their time and their purpose:

It's destiny to be fulfilled. Time has allowed for it--space has called for it--and the gods from the heights and the depths have allowed it to occur.

The shaman functions, in the most modest sense, as the tribal priest who has been touched by the divine ordering of the cosmos. His duty is to communicate to the tribe the vision he has received.

Karmu as Alchemist

The alchemical tradition is a later system. Its origins can be traced to Hellenistic culture though the first records of alchemy were found on Egyptian papyrus dated approximately 500 B.C. Alchemy's roots and functions 82

seemed to stay in the shadows of the unconscious as the alchemist sought to transform matter and his own soul simultaneously. Alchemy, as a healing dynamic differs from the shamanic model. It speaks to a world where a split exists between spirit and matter which was not true for the shamans.

Alchemy wanted a connection to the physical world. . . . When they were talking about turning lead into gold, they also meant it literally. So, it didn't take place only in the spirit world; there was some attempt made to reconcile spirit and matter which I don't think is true for shamanism. I don't think there's a split. I don't think there's a need for a reconciliation between spirit and matter--it's still unified, but I think in alchemy--it is already split.

The alchemical process is to take place on two levels at the same time. Matter itself is to be raised and transformed-- (Ruskin)l2

Where the shaman contacts the spirit world to fortify the soul, the ~lchemist helps to grow the soul.

The body is thought to have within it the "prima materia." Karmu's job is to alter the rate of the trans- formative process. Like the alchemists of old, he endeav- ors to put spirit back into matter. For those being healed finding or restoring the soul speaks to the heart of the process.

There are many notions in alchemy which aptly describe how Karmu heals. The first is the idea of the vessel containing the "prima materia" and the whole 83

transformative process. In Karmu's system, the vessel is the body, and the "prima materia" is the soul.

Among the processes which the alchemists use to obtain gold, the first process is through "nigredo," the blackness. Interestingly, Karmu usually heals in the dark.

His home is poorly lighted. Frequently the only light comes from the television set or from one of the uncovered windows. In this environment he massages, gives herbs, counsels, and holds his healing sessions. He always told me stories about the demons which were dredged up. He became the hated mother, the Prosecutor, then the Judge.

In one case Karmu accepted projections of a family of demons. Sometimes, people saw him as an animal. Through­ out the darkness, Karmu remained the omniscient observer.

Another and perhaps more obvious way in which

Karmu functions as an alchemist is through his liberal use of compounds. He emphasizes that his medicines are more than just a combination of chemicals. He refers to a magical ingredient which he adds to them along the way.

His compounds are thought to cleanse the body and trans­ form it in some way.

The alchemist tries to accomplish transformation on two levels at once. The soma needs to be altered (in

Karmu' s case, it's energetically regula ted and cleansed), 84 and the psyche must be freed of its patterns in order to discover its soul. The transformative process occurs, perhaps through the energy field, as Karmu claims, or possibly through the fortification of the soul.

The second major stage in alchemy is symbolized by the alchemical marriage, the uroboros. Karmu claims to supply what the client lacks. If the person is de- pressed, he is humorous. If the person is emotionally and sexually repressed, Karmu is ribald, emotional and sexual. If the person is compulsively stuck on meticulous details, Karmu constantly-forgets facts, claiming to be

"dumb, retarded, with no brains." From trickster to fool, from wise man to mother, he supplies what is deficient in a person's life allowing the experience of wholeness to occur. Through the marriage or union phase, Karmu would say "I became you. You became me."

You have to be the other person--that's all. You have to put yourself in their shoes and be them. And if you're them--you can reach them because they're talking to themselves. If you can grow to the part--you get good results. ' She and I are the same person-- We're the same people in a lot of senses. She's a half of me and I'm a half of her.

Unconscious projection, used by the alchemists of old, is also used by Karmu. As the healer, he accepts the individual's projection on an unconscious level and some- times on a conscious one. He takes the illness into his 85

own body and integrates the client's woundedness into his

own experience of wholeness. He believes that an energy

link forms. The transformation within him enables a

transformation to occur within the client. As the alchem-

ist Hermes put it, "As above, so below. To accomplish

the miracles of the one thing."

The third force activated in the shamanic model

differs only in focus from the alchemical third force.

Karmu, as shaman, travels to the world of the spirits.

Wholeness comes from his knowledge of the gods, spirits,

souls, and destiny. As alchemist, the transformation

comes from years of practice. He has altered the "prima materia" within himself so many times that he knows inti- mately the laws of the transformation process between

spirit and matter. He partakes of both worlds, alternat-

ing between the primal role of the shaman and the more modern version, the alchemist. He maintains his belief

that the healing force is the "prima materia" within us.

It merely needs a chance to be awakened, fortified, and

given room to grow. The archetype of the wounded healer

is regularly evoked. Countless people have been touched

by the experience of Karmu.

I touched him and I concentrated that a greater power might penetrate his subconscious and penetrate his physical being and give him the will to live. That the god within him may come out alive again--and the guy was repaired. I didn't do it. I just called upon the god within him--the god within us all--survival kit. 86

Section Five The Song of the Shaman

.•

' . ·' ... \

/ I I - ... . . ,' I F : ; · / . ! r . i j _I _. ' 87

Did you read about this little chick--

58 pounds, no hair--no teeth?

No hair--no teeth--down to a skeleton.

(What did you do?

Beat her--kicked her--stomped her. Promised to

make love to her. She got better--

that love gets them everytime, see.

Never fails. 88

Karmu enters as the jovial, passionate spirit, modeling his love for life. He and a woman named Ann went to heal a woman who was in a wheelchair:

We had a woman who hadn't walked in six months. Ann did the bottom, I did the top. I did the top, she did the bottom. We played music. I did the woman. She got up danced, walked and she wanted me to make love with her. I said I'd take a rain check on it. It happened. The woman's walking today. I saw her the other day. Six months she hadn't walked .

. The woman's in a wheelchair. And and I go in there and say "What do ya say chick? Tired of sitting down? We'll make you walk." I go in there and bite her on the ear, you know. "Let's make mad love. Let's go up to the mountain and make love for four or five hours." One half hour to fortv minutes later she was healed. Gets up, walked and danced. 89

A man came here last night. He wants to learn the technique of love. He's all alone in the middle of the multitude. He's seeking out. Life has no meaning for him. I've seen men like that put a gun to their head and blow their brains out. They conquer the world economically, socially and otherwise, but he didn't have any spiritual--they live in a spiritual vacuum. My job was to supply something in the vacuum. Manifest a spiritual being. What this being imparted to both of us-­ your giving of yourself--my giving of myself-­ money cannot buy. But happiness. 90

. '1' ,- I l'\ ~ I f ., . I ·I 4 fr~:..~ •\ lt • ~ ~ t I) · .. ' 'f. ~ . r . \ l

- ~ .,. ... - ·" C:l - ~ . '·. \ if~ " -r \ .. . \ -· . ' .... -......

My father was a colorful cat. 91

Everybody has got sad faces. No laughter. We're funny cats over here. That's right. You've got to laugh. You've got to be funny. Never take yourself serious. That's the whole thing. 92

Sometimes I wonder about you. Are you grown? Have you experienced the highlights of life? Have your toenails been smashed in the ground? Have your ears been bent? Have your fingernails been on fire? Have your eyes grown dim? Can you bite sharply with your teeth? Ah Right on ... then you've lived my friend. 93

You grow more beautiful everyday, stronger everyday. It's what your soul needs. Your soul needs to be supplemented, to be complimented. Your soul needs to be buoyed up--given the truth--your soul will recognize the truth. .

Karmu profusely and lavishly compliments everyone who walks in his door. He always has something good to say.

You two fellas are very friendly. I like what I see. A couple of high grade citizens. Look at this one. Isn't he beautiful? Look at these teeth! (gesturing) What's your name, sir?

(The man answers)

Beautiful vibrations. You don't belong with us ordinary people you know. (To the other man) What's your name young man? You don't belong with us ordi­ nary cats. You belong with the gods. You're really two beautiful cats.

I've got 15 beautiful women who are looking for fellas like you. I'd like you to leave your names, addresses, phone numbers. How many toes you got on each foot? 94

I touched him and concentrated that a greater power might penetrate his subconscious and penetrate his physical being and give him the will to live. 95 96

by the same token you're here for a reason and the gods agree that you should come and be here . . .

circumstance has fulfilled it time has allowed for it space has called for it and the gods of the heights and depths have made it possible and a book shall be written and a song shall be sung and the legends shall be remembered when the years have gone by

for upon that day--a long time ago-- a witch, a demon, a prophet, a god, a god-like creature all came together and a new world was made there, my friend and there was destiny there and the gods frowned and growled at different times they smiled there were heights and depths and the winds were still and they blew

Life's the same way there are certain things which intrigue the people that hold them in a grip of a large influence they are tossed by the winds on the wave, to the mountains and the deserts and they grow.

Many people sacrifice themselves sometimes to serve a greater purpose

The roads of the world, my friend Life's the small beneath the great

You serve a purpose. 97

A man told me forty years ago that one day I would gain wisdom . I didn't know what he was talking about, but now it's clear. 98

The world has to purge itself-­ Neither high nor low, nor good nor bad can be spared when the time comes. When the world needs to be purged-- and all the land masses sink neath the earth-­ and all those that are there perish-- their so-called human bodies are gone-- all form of life if gone--but it is renewed because all life is eternal and once you know this, what can hurt you? 99

Ah--you little sunflower-­ you paragon of virtue friend of the oppressed lover of truth Keep things together

Peace brothers peace Howls (into the night as the folks leave) Yah begatos .. CHAPTER V

SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS AND RESEARCH RECOMMENDATIONS

In examining models of healing and using Karmu as a specific example of a practicing healer, my purpose is to make clear some of the parameters which need to be understood in a new, healing paradigm. Attention has been paid to the meaning of the "wholistic" approach to healing, to the archetype of the wounded healer, and to the weak­ ness of the traditional medical model. Finally, the work of one healer has been looked at in depth to extract valid criteria by which to assess healing.

Essential to the development of the new paradigm is a new image of the "whole." It has been seen to be an interrelated system in which parts have an intrinsic need to be related to the whole, and the whole, in turn, has the same need to be related to its parts.

The archetype of the wounded healer has been dis­ cussed as an archetypal relationship both between the healer and patient as a system and within each as indi­ viduals. The shaman, the divine healer, and the alchemist were discussed as cultural and historical variations of

100 101

this archetypal relationship. Karmu was used to further elucidate how a contemporary shaman or alchemist might operate.

To critically assess Karmu as a healer, the differ­ ence in criteria for healing between the paradigms needs to be addressed. The medical model views healing in terms of r~mission of the diseased state. This is usually measured by standardized tests. In this new paradigm, healing is the restoration of the homeostatic balance between the parts. The whole is the interrelationship of body, mind and soul. Achieving the balance within the system is as yet a subjective occurrence until techniques are developed to measure the dynamics of the system.

Healing as assessed by the medical model, may not occur for two reasons: Restoring the balance may be impossible due to the inequalities between the parts; the person may keep their symptoms and merely establish a new relation­ ship with them. Healing in this model does not necessarily mean that the person "gets better" as measured in the medical paradigm. Yet it is evident by the criteria of either paradigm that Karmu is not as successful as he suggests. Since there is only one controlled study of his work, I would recommend that some animal studies be performed. 102

Most research to this date has questioned the validity of such healings, wondering whether they actually occur. It would seem appropriate to suggest that further research concentrate instead on how they occur. Is healing an energy interaction within an energy field as

Karmu suggests? Can this transmission be duplicated by other people or by machines? Is belief as strong a factor in healing as researchers seem to suggest? If a healer can heal a patient in coma, does consciousness operate as a filtering system? Is it able to aid or inhibit the healer's influences? Is the relationship between healer and patient a crucial variable in the healing interaction?

Karmu shows us another alternative to the prevail­ ing medical model. He finds wholeness not only within the individual but also between members of the tribe.

The issue, implicit in this notion, of the intra-psychic nature of the tribe (Needleman, 1978) needs to be con­ sidered as an important source of disease. Cancer, a disease which speaks to autonomy taken to its extreme, is our most feared enemy. It is during this period of history, when the pace of life has led to a break- down of traditional, sociological roles, that more people have been alienated from the group than ever before.

If disease calls us deeper into our collective psyche to integrate its meaning, do cells proliferating at random speak to the cultural necessity for more interrelatedness? REFERENCE NOTES

103 REFERENCE NOTES

l. Kenneth Pelletier (1979) believes that disease has been altered only in etiology, essentially remaining at a constant within the general population:

As the threat of infectious disease receded, however, there appeared to be a commensurate increase in the Hafflictions of civilization," including cardiovascu­ lar disease; cancer, arthritis; respiratory disorders, including emphasema and bronchitis; and the pervasive incidence of depression. These psychosomatic of stress-related disorders ( ... have not declined) . the causes of these disorders appear to reside in genetic predisposition, environmental contamination and especially lifestyle. (p. 4)

2. "Symptom comes from the root syn- meaning together and pitein, meaning to fall. A symptom then refers to two or more things which have fallen together. For Meier, it is body and psyche that "fall together" in "symptoms" (Lockhart, 1976, p. ll). Lockhart distinguishes between symbol and symptom in terms of their derivatives in language, symbol being where the images come together in an active process while symptoms refer to a passive coming together. Disease describes invalidity within the medical model while symptoms speak to the interrelation­ ship described in the healing paradigm. Symptoms may have more bearing on the disintegrative process. Symbols speak to the integration which is sought.

3. Philosophers have theorized the relationship of psyche and soma: Plotinus ... says that pathe belongs neither to the soul nor to the inanimate body, but to a synamphoteron of soul and body. Proclus speaks of the same entity as a body that does not consist of the four elements but of a fifth. This body is spherical, viz. its eidos (= form or image) is spherical. What Plotinus ... says of a circular course applies also to anything spherical: circular movement is the most perfect (cf. stars). Something of that is also present in our bodies, and this is connected with the soma pneumatikon as tertium quid. We may here remember the opus circu­ lare, the rota of the alchemists, or the circular

104 105

course of light in Taoism. This soma pneumatikon has many names: it is also called pneuma somatikon, astroeides soma, augoeides soma (=ray-like), or in Proclus (Comm. in Plato Tim. 343B) augoeides ochema (= radiant vehicle) or .astroeides ochema. Synesius has the synonym phantastikon pneum which, in accordance with what was said above, may go back to Poseidonius. Generally, the astroeides soma (or its synonyms) after death is transformed into the eidolon, the imago, the simulacrum, or the shade. (p. 111) In Paracelsus (von Wyss, 1955) we meet the same notion again, for he speaks of a "second, invisible body that forges the bodily symptoms." Here we have to consider what a "symptom" really is by recalling its etymological history: symptoma is the coincidence into one, or the convergence, of at least two distinct mag­ nitudes, also the point of intersection of two curves. If Paracelsus is right, then it is this second body, the tertium between soma and psyche, which is respon­ sible for symptom formation. Thus he would be very close to Plato's interpretation of soma= sema (Phaedrus 250 C. ) . ( p. 112) The reader may have guessed that all these ideas lead up and belong to the theory of the "subtle body," the notion of a subtle vehicle of the soul as the tertium quid, standing midway between the animal soul and the body. The work of G. R. S. Mead (1919) informs us of the development of these ideas in late antiquity and in Christianity. With the theory of the subtle body we have appar­ ently found the symbol which avoids the difficulties of the psycho-physical relation, but for the time being, it has landed us beyond the reach of experiment and verification. (Meier, 1963, p. 112)

4. "Generally speaking, he becomes a woman with the appearance of a man. . . " Halifax ( 1980) defines a third state of initiation in which most shamans experience the androgynous nature of their sexuality. Although more has been written about the male shamans, it is recognized that women fulfill this role in many cultures.

The transformative process can also involve an actual change in sex role.

Androgyny as union of the opposites is also found among the Ngadja Dyak. These people refer to the class of shamans as "basir" (unable to procreate, impotent). The "basir" dress in female garb and assume a female social role. Mircea Eliade believes 106

that the bisexuality and impotence of the "basir" arise because these priest-shamans are regarded as the intermediaries between two cosmological planes, earth and sky, and because they combine in their own person the feminine element (earth) and the masculine element (sky). (p. 24)

5. Hillman (1975) describes the difference between soul and spirit, believing the soul to be feminine and the spirit masculine representations of transcendent functions of the Self:

Here we need to remember that the ways of the soul and those of the spirit only sometimes coincide. (p. 67)

Soul sticks to the realm of experience and to reflec­ tions within experiences.· It moves indirectly in circular reasoning . . . giving metaphorical sense to life through such words as close, near, slow, deep. It is the "patient" part of us. Soul is vulnerable and suffers. It is water to the spirit's fire. (p. 69)

Spirit on the other hand is fast, vertical and ascending.

It is masculine, the active principle, making forms, order and clear distinctions. Although there are many spirits, and many kinds of spirit, more and more the notion of "spirit" has come to be carried by~the Apollonic archetype. . (p. 69)

They inter-relate occasionally. Yet pathology is the realm of the soul. "There is no 'pneumopathology' ," Hillman reminds. (p. 69)

6. "In order to explain the mystery of matter, he (the alchemist) projects yet another mystery--his own unknown psychic background--into what was to be explained" (C. G. Jung, Vol. 12, paragraph 345).

. I am therefore inclined to assume that the real root of alchemy is to be sought less in philosophical doctrines than in the projections of individual inves­ tigators. I mean by this that certain psychic expe­ riences which appeared to him as the particular behavior of the chemical process. Since it was a question of projection, he was naturally unconscious of the fact the experience had nothing to do with matter itself .... He experienced his projection 107

as a property of matter; but what he was in reality experiencing was his own unconscious. In this way, he recapitulated the whole history of man's knowledge of nature. As we know, science began with the stars, and mankind discovered in them the dominants of the unconscious, the "god," as well as the curious psycho­ logical qualities of the zodiac: a complete projected theory of human character. . . Such projections repeat themselves whenever man tries to explore an empty darkness and involuntarily fills it with living form. (Paragraph 346)

7. Jung believed that alchemy functioned to represent the collective shadow which Christianity excluded from consciousness.

Had the alchemist suceeded in forming any concrete ideas of his unconscious contents, he would have been obliged to recognize that he had taken the place of Christ--or that he, to be more exact, had taken over the work of redeeming not only man but God. He would then have had to recognize himself as the equivalent of Christ, but Christ as a symbol of the Self. What seems like a monstrous presumption to the Christ­ ian would have been self-evident to the spirit of the Upanishads. (C. G. Jung, Vol. 12, paragraph 355)

8. From C. G. Jung, Vol. 12, paragraph 333:

The nigredo or blackness is the initial state, either present from the beginning as 'a quality of the prima materia, the chaos or massa confusa, or else produced by the separation (solutio, separatio, divisio, putre­ factio) of the elements. If the separated condition is assumed at the start, as sometimes happens, then a union of opposites is performed under the likeness of a union of male and female (called the coniugium, matrimonium, coniunctio, coitus) followed by the death of the product of the union (mortificatio, calcinatio, putrefactio) and a corresponding nigredo. From this the washing (ablutio, baptisma) either leads directly to the whitening (albedo), or else the soul·released at the "death" is reunited with the dead body and brings about its resurrection .. 108

9. In Life After Life (1975), Dr. Raymond Moody classified a number of experiences common to people who had had death or near death experiences. The sensation of hovering over their bodies and hearing or sensing that they had to come back, was an experience shared by many of the people whom Dr. Moody interviewed.

10. Although most psychokinesis experiments have been performed to test a person's ability to influence metals, objects, or magnets at a distance, or to influence the magnetic field within a cloud chamber, parapsycholo­ gists have also done experiments on living systems (Krippner, 1977). At UCLA, John Hubacher performed weekly experiments with healer Jack Gray and healing subjects to see if the Kirlian photographs of healer and subject were altered during healing experiments. It was consistently found that the field around the fingertips of the healer weakened as the field around the fingertips of the subject grew stronger. This experiment has been confirmed by other laboratories (see Appendix A for photographs).

Another group of experiments indicate that healing may be a process on an energy level. Dr. Grad (1961) at McGill University School of Medicine has studied wound healing in rats. He finds that a healer, by just placing his hand on the cages of the animals two times a day for fifteen minutes at each setting for six weeks was able to effectuate 75% more healing than in both control groups. Another controlled study done with animals shows that the same healer was able to slow down goiter development in a tested group placed on low iodine diets and given the drug thioracil, which induces goiter development (Grad, 1967). On a biochemical level, it has been shown that healers can alter enzyme activity in vitro (Smith, 1972) and change hemoglobin values in sick people (Kreiger, 1976). In a more traditional research setting, Robert 0. Becker and colleagues have shown that by altering the electromagnetic field (by implanting a tiny electrode which produced a steady tiny DC flow into an amputated frog and then rat's limb) they were able to achieve sub­ stantial regeneration (Becker et al., 1972; Becker, 1974). The implications for this research seem to support eastern notions that the energy field plays a significant role in healing.

11. Transcribed dialogue with Dr. Alan Ruskin on the differences between shamanism and alchemy, April 15, 1981, Los Angeles, California. 109

12. Transcribed dialogue with Dr. Alan Ruskin on the nature of healing, December 11, 1980, Los Angeles, California.

13. All quotes are transcribed from seven taping sessions which were recorded: February to May, 1972, Cambridge, Massachusetts; May, 1973, Cambridge, Massachu­ setts; May ll-13, 1977, Cambridge, Massachusetts; and June 16, 1979, Fairfax, California. . '

REFERENCES

110 REFERENCES

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APPENDICES

117 118

... If ... ·-~__,., ...... ~·----

Kirlian Photographs of before and after healing with healer, Jack Gray.

Top: Before, feet Bottom: After, feet 119 #

Kirlian Photographs of healer Olga Worrall's hand during a healing session.

Left: Before Right: During session