Magic 401: The Healing Role
If there anything which is more often used to try and delay or put off spiritual growth or healing than expectations, I haven’t encountered it yet.
People will reject an opportunity because it doesn’t look like they think it should. The person is wrong—their clothing, demeanor, race, ethnicity, language is not quite right. The situation is wrong—the opportunity isn’t happening in the official venue, during the right party, you aren’t feeling prepared, etc. We aren’t in the mood. We don’t feel like it right now. We were expecting something different.
We have to use our common sense, right? Right?
We cannot use the word ‘discretion’ here. The facility being used to reject the opportunity to grow or elevate is not spiritual. It’s entirely rooted in consciousness and expectation. An opportunity is only offered by this kind of person. An opportunity is only offered during spiritual parties, etc. Common sense is entirely rooted in the consciousness and our perceptions and expectations of how we (and others) should act. Common sense is an important tool, but it is not useful by itself when confronted with opportunities for spiritual growth or healing. Because it is rooted in consciousness and expectation, it is both easy to manipulate by the mind and ego and often strongly influenced by cultures which are premised on the idea of limiting the divine to specific, authorized outlets (e.g. churches, mosques, or synagogues, etc, in that eons old intersection between civics and the religions of the book.)
Where things move in compliance with our expectations, they do not disrupt much in our consciousness. They do not ask much of our consciousness at all, let alone any sort of reconsideration or attention, which is exactly how the ego and mind like it to stay. Easy, inattentive, and if you manage to notice, quick to offer a comfortable interpretation which does not challenge us.
After all, if we’ve already dismissed the opportunity as fake, or false, or not worth paying attention to, or not right, it is not a challenge we have to respond to. And more than not meeting the challenge, we can get a sense for how much ego or the mind wants to avoid it by the response: if you feel the need to scorn, mock, or otherwise make it clear that you despise that opportunity (if you have a strong emotional response), ego and/or the mind want to make sure you don’t take that opportunity. The opportunity to grow or heal is a threat to them.
This presents a problem for the priest or spiritual worker trying to provide healing. To some degree, it is a challenge you can meet if you know the person you’re working on well enough to know what they expect so that you can avoid those expectations. Surprise becomes a tool, as does a willingness to be something that defies the person’s expectations: to take a role in which you can provide healing.
I’ve written about the discipline and personal work necessary to step into a variety of roles elsewhere in this series. You will need to do enough personal, spiritual work to remove the various handicaps that the mind and ego will put on your ability to express yourself. This is not a quick process, and while it can be magically facilitated (and made faster), it is grueling.
Surprise is a tool, and specifically a product of observation of the person. You will need, as a priest or spiritual worker, to understand what that person expects you to be, what they expect of healing, and something of where they do not understand themselves—what they are missing. This involves a mix of skills, and generally requires time spent with the person. This can be made much shorter by the lwa. Where the lwa want that healing for someone, they will chime in and make it easier to know what you need to know. Generally, if you are where the spirit needs you to be, the lwa will do what they can to facilitate healing. This includes advising the priest or spiritual worker directly, arranging circumstances, giving magical works to help the healing process, and possessing the priest or spiritual worker.
We say, of healing (and elevation), that it is an uncomfortable process. The healing role is the role of causing discomfort, whether just the discomfort of defied expectations or cognitive dissonance to the more gut-wrenching pain of an exposed wound. The person taking the healing role is a person who will deliberately use surprise and expectation to cause discomfort.
The parallel is that of a surgeon, who will cut you open to remove the things that harm you.
This is yet another skill that needs a teacher and specific capacities. It also requires, as is always true of the lwa, their permission.
