5 real secrets of Russian village healers

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

The healers of Russian villages in the USSR were treated exclusively as carriers of superstition, and after its collapse - as the owners of secret magical knowledge. In fact, those of the healers who were not just imitators were even less superstitious than the peasants, and behind their "magic" were techniques that were actively used by official medicine. Over time, ethnographers were able to "unravel" the secrets of healers and refute both stereotypes about these village medicines.

Healers learned the properties of plants before pharmacists

Pharmaceuticals recognize and recognize the medicinal properties of individual plants - that is, the presence of active chemicals in them that can be used as medicines. Pharmaceuticals has always been attentive to the form in which these plants should be given to the patient. But here are some things known to healers for a long time were considered superstitions.

We are talking about beliefs at what time a particular medicinal plant should be harvested, up to one o'clock in the afternoon, and not just the season. They are adjoined by beliefs where it is worth collecting plants, and where not. But already by our time it is known about the daily and annual cycles of flowers and herbs, and indeed, the amount of active chemicals depends on the week of the year (or even better, the number of days from the beginning of flowering or swelling of the buds), and the ease of extraction of these substances from the plant - from the time of day at which it was plucked. Also, plants can accumulate not very pleasant foreign substances in themselves if they grow where there are too many of them.

It turns out that "superstitions" were only the result of multi-generational experiments and observations - not as systematic as it happens in the scientific world, but with the same final effect.

What prayer to whisper over the decoction of the herb was really important

There were no clocks or stopwatches in the villages. The time was determined very approximately. Nevertheless, when a peasant woman was preparing a medicinal decoction according to the recipe given to her, it was important to somehow make her understand how long this decoction should be prepared so that the active substances become available due to the destruction of plant cells, but they themselves do not collapse.

Prayer was a wonderful way to mark a time period. They usually prayed at the same speed as at the service every Sunday - the general speed familiar to everyone. So this or that prayer could be used as a fairly accurate timer. There was also a psychological side effect. The manipulations with the broths always inspired thoughts of potions, which made the clients tense up - but with prayer, could it be possible to do something anti-Christian? Thus, the clients more calmly turned to the healers for help in time, and did not delay with such a terrible matter to the last.

Oddly enough, the peasant women liked to be treated more than it is customary to tell in the literature. Another question is that they were not satisfied with the medical advice that required a break from work - the peasant women simply could not afford it. But they could not afford and become seriously ill, so they tried to take timely measures available to them against colds, developing abscesses, and so on. It was women who also took measures to treat her husband.

Healers used the placebo effect with might and main

The simpler a person is, the more suggestible he is - and the more the placebo effect will work on him. This is one of the reasons why it was quite effective to heal a peasant through suggestion and persuasion. The second is the lack of medical supplies. In its conditions, representatives of completely traditional medicine try to reinforce the treatment they give with psychological influence. This is an approved method, it has been shown to be effective more than once. The genius Soviet psychiatrist Grunya Sukhareva especially loved to use it in the twenties (and where in the twenties was she to find enough effective pills for those suffering from mental disorders?)

The secret to using the placebo effect effectively was not only to promise that it would be good, but to set additional conditions that would require the person to concentrate when performing them, and describe the exact signs of improvement. That is, giving, for example, a "pill" of sugar (an expensive component that in itself makes the medicine important in the eyes of the peasant) and some herbal mass with a weak effect, the healer instructed each time, taking the pill, for example, to cross three times and mumble the name of Christ and added that the next day bile would begin to come out, and after that the stomach would hurt less and less, and the fever would subside. Then she could only hope that she was not mistaken with the definition of the disease and that the patient would believe in his words so much that his body would begin to work in the right direction on its own.

Knowing nothing about psychotherapy, healers managed to resort to it too

Peasant life was full of anxiety, and anxiety often poured into the belief that a person had been corrupted - with corresponding psychosomatic symptoms. There was only one way to overcome something so much in the conditions of a village: to force a person to do something no less frightening, so that he felt that he had overcome. At the same time, he overcame his fear, but he was sure that it was damage. So, the healer could send the "spoiled" one to go around the grave at night with some special words. The peasants were terrified of the dead, and, having coped with the task, reached, so to speak, catharsis.

In addition, healers could resort to simple psychological tricks to solve problems with a psychological background: stuttering and tics in children, constant quarrels between husband and wife. The tale of how a husband and wife now and then fill their mouths with spellbound water when they want to say something harsh to each other, this is exactly what. In addition to restrictions, the healer could recommend some simple manifestation of affection and care, for example, scratching each other at night with some kind of sentence or condition.

Healers used the House method

One of the complaints about traditional medicine was that sometimes healers used several remedies at a time, randomly. In fact, in the absence of a laboratory for analyzing blood and urine, healers simply resorted to diagnostics through chemical exposure, as in the TV series about Dr. House. They gave medicine, which would make it worse with one disease, and easier with another, and, without leaving the patient, watched the effect. Depending on the result, conclusions were drawn and the medicine was changed or a new one was added. It really might look like a disorderly operation, but in practical field conditions it was difficult to find a more effective diagnostic method.

Thanks to ethnographers, we also know how our ancestors were treated 200 years ago: Smoking, spitting and more tea.