Page 17 - final working of the ultimate healer

The Medicine Man.

In every indigenous tribal system there has always been a
medicine man. The medicine man appeared to have magical mystical
powers. He had the power to heal the sick, initiate the young into adult
hood, perform the last rites for the dead, communicate with the Great
Spirit, or whatever title they chose to give to God. Such also had the
power to train and initiate others into these mysteries.
There has been a tendency to ignore the fact that in the ancient
cultures of the western world the medicine man also existed. There are
myths surviving about these great people. We hear about the Druids.
We read in mythology of the wise men who had strange powers to
heal the hero of the stories. Unfortunately these myths are tarnished
by the label of paganism that has been attached to them. With the
advent of Christianity the practice of healing became the sole right of
the church and even then was allowed to fall from use.
In rural areas the local healer still practiced their ability
though in a very much hidden way. During the witch hunts many
healers were wrongly accused of associations with the negative
powers because they healed where no churchman had managed to
heal. The traditional herbalists suffered similar fates as the
establishment sought to keep the right to heal firmly in their grasp.
Spiritual healing - or healing by the intervention of Divine power -
was certainly not acceptable to authority as it threatened it's power.
Yet the tradition did not totally die.
The medicine man exists to-day not only in the Native