Why Magick Is Medicine

Last updated on: June 5, 2015 at 9:01 am by Lilith Dorsey

Why Magick Is Medicine 2015-06-05T09:01:03-05:00 Lilith Dorsey

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Magick has rules. Everything has rules. Life has rules. Death has rules. Magick most certainly has rules. In my spiritual practice I do a lot of psychic readings and consultations for people. People come to me for help finding love, money, joy, connection, peace and lots more. One of my clients asked me recently if her relationship would be successful… the short answer was yes, if she took her spiritual medicine. By that I mean her reading had given her an extensive list of instructions she needed to carry out for her spiritual health and the spiritual health of the situation. She could choose to follow these or not, the same way you can choose to follow a doctors orders or not. Will some people miraculously heal on their own from physical or spiritual crisis ? Yes, but in my experience these are the minority. Will most people get worse if they don’t take positive steps to improve in all areas of their life? Again the answer is a resounding yes.

This past holiday weekend I participated in a discussion about Race in the Pagan Community on the Green Egg Radio show on Blogtalk Radio. The conversation drifted into a discussion about how racism is a boil and without further degenerating into a pus filled analogy… some medicine must be applied. But what kind of medicine? What truly is appropriate ? Some of us have been scarred by racism and these wounds are not easily healed. To again invoke the medicine metaphor, some peoples lives are saved by antibiotics, others are deathly allergic. In my post about Azalea Banks: Outrageous Racist or Magickal Vigilante I wrote about this pop artists call to use magick and witchcraft against racism and unfair oppression. She has made a few other extreme claims over the years and most of what she said went unnoticed. The real question is however, where and when is it appropriate to use magick as a defense ? Ultimately this is something we have to answer individually for ourselves.

In South Africa the Shamans refer to their system as Mutti, which literally translates as medicine. All problems and solutions are thought to be healing ones. Healing is an analogy I also use when talking about animal sacrifice, many would feel justified in using a medicine made or tested on animals but not using them as part of a spiritual prescription. Just something to consider. Where are your own limits and for what reasons ? There are faulty spiritual doctors just as there are faulty medical doctors. In my experience however, if your approach a difficult situation with proper care and appropriate solutions, about almost anything is possible. Even modern medicine has been known to turn to folk magick and proven the benefits of things like bee stings and leeches.

I’ve been writing a lot lately about snakes and their role in spirituality. I find it interesting and highly apprpriate that in the Haitian Vodou pantheon the Lwa Damballa Wedo and Aida Wedo are responsible for healing. Their symbol is one of intertwined serpents, just like modern medicine’s caduceus.

I don’t very often write opinion pieces on this blog, my opinions are loud and large so I don’t let them out all the time. Why magick operates as medicine is a concept I find myself explaining over and over, my teachers taught me there was no difference between the two and if something was amiss you need to be healed. Sometimes that takes traditional methods and sometimes not.

This post obviously raises many more questions than it answers, but as always I would love to hear your thoughts on this difficult and important subject. And don’t foget to share the medicine.

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