The Spiritual Family: The Healer/Shaman

Healers are driven to help others to lead healthy lives. They use their powers of intuition, observation, and higher consciousness to restore mind, body and spirit. Often a Healer does the same work as a Shaman, who uses religious ecstasy and encounters with the spirit-world to help others. As friends and family members, they are more empathic than dogmatic.

Cultures around the world have healers in life and legend, whether they are Native American medicine men, Zulu “Sangoma” witch doctors or Hygeia, a mythological Kundalini Hindu goddess. In addition to entering supernatural realms and ecstatic states, the Healer and the Shaman use prayers and botanical potions. Some, such as Germany’s Mother Meera, are said to heal by their presence.

Encounters with this archetype are often profound. In the United States, several spiritual healers attracted great followings over the last hundred years. Aimee Semple MacPherson was a Christian Evangelical faith healer in the early 1920s. In the latter half of the century, Louise Hay, author of You Can Heal Your Life, led popular mass healing circles for people with AIDS and H.I.V.

Then there is Mata Amritanandamayi, otherwise known as Amma, the hugging saint. She has hugged millions of pilgrims who flock to her around the world for comfort, uplift and healing. “God’s power is not outside,” she says. “It is within us. We need to awaken that power.”

Other Examples
Carlos Castaneda, John of God, Oral Roberts

Strengths
Healers are knowledgeable articulate and informative. They are comfortable in their chosen spiritual arenas and also very intuitive because their focus is always on others, not themselves.

Weaknesses
Healers have ideas that some find hard to accept and they can be too forceful in trying to make themselves understood. A strong spiritual aspect can be alienating to the more practical and literal-minded.

Passions
Ethnobotany, traditional cultures, chanting, praying, alternative medicine, religious studies

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