It’s a truism that today’s medicine directs its attention primarily to the physical aspects of healing. Examples would include such conventional treatments as drugs and therapy, diagnostic tests and surgery, as well as emerging technologies such as the controlled manipulation of cell-specific MicroRNAs. These treatments are all based on the seemingly common-sense notion that because an injury or illness represents a physical abnormality, any treatment directed in response must also be physically based.
Primitive medicine made no such assumption. The ancient Shamans believed in the efficacy of retrieving a lost spiritual presence to recapture health. “The sick woman suffers because she has lost her spiritual double or, more correctly, one of the specific doubles which together constitute her vital strength…The shaman, assisted by his tutelary spirits, undertakes a journey to the supernatural world in order to snatch the double from the malevolent spirit who has captured it; by restoring it to the owner, he achieves the cure.” Claude Levi Strauss, Structural Anthropology, pg. 188 (Basic Books 1963).
There’s something to be said for this notion of taking a “journey” to the “supernatural world” to “snatch” one’s “spiritual double” from the “malevolent spirit” who has “captured” it and “restoring” it to its rightful “owner.”
The Departure. The courage and willingness to take a long and arduous journey to a faraway place is often the first step toward recovery. This journey will entail walking, running, and climbing over deserted and dangerous ground. There’s no road map to guide the way. And the journey and its many hardships must often be faced alone.
The Battle. The malevolent spirit will at some point need to be faced. There’s no escaping this. For many this battle will literally be a matter of life or death. It will be an all-out struggle for survival, by far the most grueling clash one has encountered. And of course the malevolent spirit will not necessarily play by any rules. It will use deception, duplicity, and other forms of trickery to achieve its ends.
The Return. Once the battle has been won, then there’s the journey home. Many dangers lie in wait along the way. The spiritual double of good health must be closely guarded—and can be lost with even a moment’s inattentiveness. This is a key step to recovery, one at times neglected due to the lingering aftereffects of what has come before.
The Restoration. When the spiritual double is at last restored to its rightful owner, good health once again is restored. There is no mistaking this last step. Once achieved, it can be recognized immediately, instinctually. Good health thus represents a completion, a return to oneness, to wholeness.
While today’s medicine does not explicitly endorse these notions, for many this kind of analogy is just as explanatory as any medically-based description. And in some respects this type of analogy provides a better pathway to understanding than mere visual description. No matter if clothed in the garb of modern-day scientific language, the process of recovery has remained essentially the same.
