Theos-Talk Archives (March 2002 Message tt00072)

In shamanistic societys, if health is restored, then the method,
however unconventional, is acknowledged as valld. After all these 
cultures before didn't have anything else. And in the case of the dozens 
of poor villages in the Philippines I visited people do not have the money 
to pay for a conventional Dr. And expecially not for the expensife 
medicines this Dr. Will mostly as a result prescribe.
The earliest reference to the therapeutic use of sleight-of-hand in
the Philippines that I read where in an old book by a certain Pedro
Chirino of 1565.

Chirino wrote how the shaman (sorcerer) placed one end of a hollow 
bamboo upon the affected part while through the other end he sucked 
up the air (not unlike the description I gave about Don Jose whom I 
talked to about his methods in California USA ) then, he let fall
some pebbies from his mouth pretending that they had been extracted 
from the affected spot

Another early reference to the therapeutic use of sleight-of-hand in the 
Philippines that I found was recorded by an English explorer named 
Cavendish. In a book of 1588 he wrote how the priests of these tribes 
were known as Catalona in the north, and Babailan in the Visayas.
They were the sorcerers or medicine men, and rude beyond measure 
was their art in curing", consisting generally of the imagiginary
extraction of pebbles, leaves, or pieces of cane from the aflicted part.
My own conclusion was that also expectations shape physiological 
response the patiens of the shamans, and current psychic
surgeons" are often exposed to the testimonies of other people. 

Group size also affects placebo response. In the Philippines and 
elsewhere, healers generally perform their work among crowds. In 
group situations, the expectations that shape physiological response
are signlficantly amplifled and, as a result, are reaiized far more often
than In one to one situations.

This reffering Lary also to what you mentioned in yor recent posting


This also counts for faith healings" done by TV evangelists
and in front of large congregations, its the same shamanistic trick Leon is
reffering to.
Shamanic Spiritists explain what happens from the perspective of the 
intervention of spirits who possess and manifest the same intent as
the human beings they influence.

As a side note to Paul, American indian shamans do similar, yet they 
also use at times a direct sucking and then spitting out saliva to
show they sucked out the evil spirit alias disease.

Blavatsky grew partly up with her mother in Astrakan near the 
mongolian Kalmyk's that whas a shamanistic culture.

Indeed very revealing is a letter Blavatsky wrote just previous to
her moving to India to the person who would head the first 
Theosophical lodge she wanted to start, about her background in oriental
philosophy.

One would expect if she was connected to or had in depth knowledge 
of, Indian or Tibetan sources, she would have mentioned them, as 
certainly it was important after the TS in New York had met with
failure. 
For a lenght of time no meetings where held anymore and all activitys
of the TS had ceased.

Instead of mentian of "Mahatmas", Indian or Tibetan gteachers, she 
wrote in her letter in 1878 three years after the founding of the TS,
to Hurrychund Chintamon in India referring to her occult knowledge not 
about any, debt to India or Tibet but the fact that she "had acquired 
some occult knowledge from some wandering Siberian Shamans." (J.P. 
Deveney "Theosophical History Occasional Papers," Vol.VI, p. 2. )

Also the use of messages as a means of communication between 
mortals and spirits was a characteristic of the jajan and kudais 
shamanistic communities general area (mongols) were said to have 
received replies to their correspondence from a hole in the ceiling
or the yurt- in much the same way as Blavatky's Masters where on 
severral occasions letters simple dropped from the ceiling. 

Bri.