Here I put together some experience I collected during a couple of years with some “curanderos“ in the Dominican Republic. A lot of curanderos are into “Santeria”, which was invented as an alternative to Voodoo. Voodoo and Santeria mainly use the same set of spirits but with different names. For not being in conflict with the catholic church they used the names of catholic saints. But they can’t be the same saints, right?
There are shops called “botanica” which sell a lot of things that are supposed to have magical effects. A part of the curanderos work is to prescribe what you should buy in the botanica shop and how to apply it and for how long. For example they sell candles of all colours and shapes with different meanings. The have a lot of essences and powders. You can find essences like “Glue him” that is supposed to bind a man with a woman. They also sell magic objects, pictures of saints and more stuff. Essences and powders are mainly used for “ba?os“ (baths) and “despojos“ (throw out) for body and house. The pictures and other stuff is for curanderos and for the small altars that many housewives have.
Tuesdays and Fridays are supposed to have more magic than the other weekdays. If you visit a curandero on one of these days you might find there more people than on the other days of the week.
Some curanderos seem to have an ability (or a spirit) to tell you very precise things about you. You might be impressed. With the time I noticed, that they only tell things I already knew about myself. They never told me anything I didn’t know yet, but what I wished to find out. I feel what they do is read my mind. It’s impressive but it doesn’t help me.
Most curanderos offer a “trabajo”. That’s the magic work they will do for you in the next week(s). This work can be the most expensive part of the healing. Most commonly you will be offered an instant healing work, that might consist of some ritual work, some prayers etc. Then he might give you a prescription of things you should buy in a botanica. And he will offer you a trabajo. Curanderos which don’t have a crowd every morning, might offer a work
in your house, to clean your ambient of negative energies and spirits.
Many curanderos build up an altar. They love to collect magic objects, pictures of saints no matter what religion and other stuff, the more the better. The biggest altar I saw had more than 30 feet of length. Many people, especially women, have a small altar in their house and do a little magic by themselves.
Curanderos usually don’t give you an appointment. If they are well known there might be a lot of people early in the morning. So don’t be too late - or wait.
There are mainly three categories of curanderos. There are those which want to heal only. There are others which heal but also send back bad energies to neighbours, which are supposed to have made a magic attack. And there are masters which heal and are able to make a lot of damage. They kill people by magic. This is no nonsense. I’ll talk about that later.
The reason why I visited some curanderos was a couple of strange symptoms of my wife. These symptoms have no medical reasons and no doctor and no psychic healer in Germany, where we lived before, could do anything about it. As I am psychic myself I could find out that it had to do with some real strange and intensive attacks from somewhere. None of the curanderos could help, but it is to consider that no one else could ever help with this problem. So I don’t criticize any curandero therefore.
My wife and I are used to psychic work. For us the psychic energies are essential for life, health and everything. Being in the Dominican Republic we thought there might be healers with great clairvoyant- and healing abilities that could help us, even if they use rituals we might not like. We tried to be tolerant and accepted weird procedures. Our conclusion after a lot of experiences is, that the native way of healing on the island doesn’t have a lot to do with healing. They don’t look for fears, for traumas and so on and release them. There can’t be seen much personal advance. They might rid you of some physical symptoms but they will possibly bind you to a spirit, who is supposed to be a good one, of course. (There might be readers, who don’t believe in spirits. They should better not read this thread)
Now some experiences:
(The numbers are just randomly)
#1
Moreno is a curandero in Cabarete, callejon de la loma. He did not work with Santeria and did not give prescriptions. He works with his Christian faith – for me this was too single sided religious. For some people he collected herbs from his very small garden. The choice was not too big, you can imagine. This guy can be trusted but I don’t know how good his healing is. At least there were always people in the waiting line. He must have some success. And he just takes what you give him (that was some five years ago).
At the end of a day’s work he performs a worship session. Some people stay for that. People sing and we saw two women falling unconscious. This is something people like, because they think a wonderful spirit is healing them now. This is something we don’t like at all. We don’t trust spirits anymore. There are too many fake saints around.
#2
She was a self-declared witch in Cabarete, very proud to be the legitimate spiritual daughter of one of the Santeria main saints (at least she believes that). She said my wife has to be baptised into Santeria. This we would never do. She wanted to order a sword from the United States which would be her sword for the future. This sword would have cost a couple of hundreds of dollars. We did not accept this baptism.
Unfortunately we allowed her to make a work in our house to liberate the house from any negative influence. The work cost 5000 pesos. I should better have kept the money. For example, for her ceremony she lit up some black candles and said: “bad spirits can’t sustain black candles”. Well I think, if it were that easy, the planet would be a lot better right now.
#3
Five o’clock in the morning we went to a place near Salcedo. There is a guy they call “el Ni?o”. We arrived early, but some six people were earlier. At least it was a nice area for waiting. He was mainly religious and offered some prescriptions of that Santeria stuff, but only if you wished so. He seemed to be in a slight trance-like state, spoke very loud, put his hand on your shoulder for a while, told you something about your problems (like: you have a pressure in your chest…) and then said a couple of prayers. He could not help us but other people report successful healings. In fact, successfully healed people gave him the place he could work and they even gave him a car.
#4
Hector works between Boca Chica and San Pedro de Macoris. We would never have gone there if not a politician we knew offered us a free trip and guaranteed a free healing session with this famous healer. We have been told that presidents and important politicians go there. The first thing we saw was his Jaguar in front of his lot. The lot was about ten thousand square feet and all designed for the healing work and spaces for waiting. Some Leonel posters were there too. The main room he made the rituals in, had the 30 feet altar I mentioned above. It was overcrowded with all kind of stuff.
There were other people having sessions before us. Some we saw coming out of that room, going to a tree, walking seven times around the tree and go back inside. After my wife walked inside he told her a lot of astonishing precise things from her life and her actual psychic state. She was impressed. But, as I told already, she knew all that but was surprised to hear it from somebody else. A little later I joined the session. He did some ritual stuff and told some things which were correct, but what we already knew. He cracked a crude egg over my wife’s head and smeared it into her hair. That was supposed to be a very important healing act. Then he threw some water over her hair. At the end she was all wet. And finally he bound some coloured ribbons in her hair. Those ribbons were supposed to remain there for the rest of the day. Later he gave me a plate and I should collect some dirt outside; his assistant showed me where exactly. Then my wife should go to the bathroom and add some urine to the plate. He took the plate with the dirt and the urine and some red colour appeared. He said: “this is bad blood (mala sangre) that now came out after the healing session”. He did not know, that we Europeans do not believe in “mala sangre” and that we immediately would know that it was a trick.
Later he talked to me from man to man and said something of 1500 Dollars. I said, I was not prepared for that, as I was told it would be a free session, and I could just offer him 1500 pesos. It finally was ok for him.
The crazy thing was, that we had to get back to our political friend in Santo Domingo. He was in that moment at the funeral of Nelson Medina’s Mother and we had to find him there. Now you imagine my wife wet and with colourful ribbons I her hair at an highly official funeral.
To be continued . . .
There are shops called “botanica” which sell a lot of things that are supposed to have magical effects. A part of the curanderos work is to prescribe what you should buy in the botanica shop and how to apply it and for how long. For example they sell candles of all colours and shapes with different meanings. The have a lot of essences and powders. You can find essences like “Glue him” that is supposed to bind a man with a woman. They also sell magic objects, pictures of saints and more stuff. Essences and powders are mainly used for “ba?os“ (baths) and “despojos“ (throw out) for body and house. The pictures and other stuff is for curanderos and for the small altars that many housewives have.
Tuesdays and Fridays are supposed to have more magic than the other weekdays. If you visit a curandero on one of these days you might find there more people than on the other days of the week.
Some curanderos seem to have an ability (or a spirit) to tell you very precise things about you. You might be impressed. With the time I noticed, that they only tell things I already knew about myself. They never told me anything I didn’t know yet, but what I wished to find out. I feel what they do is read my mind. It’s impressive but it doesn’t help me.
Most curanderos offer a “trabajo”. That’s the magic work they will do for you in the next week(s). This work can be the most expensive part of the healing. Most commonly you will be offered an instant healing work, that might consist of some ritual work, some prayers etc. Then he might give you a prescription of things you should buy in a botanica. And he will offer you a trabajo. Curanderos which don’t have a crowd every morning, might offer a work
in your house, to clean your ambient of negative energies and spirits.
Many curanderos build up an altar. They love to collect magic objects, pictures of saints no matter what religion and other stuff, the more the better. The biggest altar I saw had more than 30 feet of length. Many people, especially women, have a small altar in their house and do a little magic by themselves.
Curanderos usually don’t give you an appointment. If they are well known there might be a lot of people early in the morning. So don’t be too late - or wait.
There are mainly three categories of curanderos. There are those which want to heal only. There are others which heal but also send back bad energies to neighbours, which are supposed to have made a magic attack. And there are masters which heal and are able to make a lot of damage. They kill people by magic. This is no nonsense. I’ll talk about that later.
The reason why I visited some curanderos was a couple of strange symptoms of my wife. These symptoms have no medical reasons and no doctor and no psychic healer in Germany, where we lived before, could do anything about it. As I am psychic myself I could find out that it had to do with some real strange and intensive attacks from somewhere. None of the curanderos could help, but it is to consider that no one else could ever help with this problem. So I don’t criticize any curandero therefore.
My wife and I are used to psychic work. For us the psychic energies are essential for life, health and everything. Being in the Dominican Republic we thought there might be healers with great clairvoyant- and healing abilities that could help us, even if they use rituals we might not like. We tried to be tolerant and accepted weird procedures. Our conclusion after a lot of experiences is, that the native way of healing on the island doesn’t have a lot to do with healing. They don’t look for fears, for traumas and so on and release them. There can’t be seen much personal advance. They might rid you of some physical symptoms but they will possibly bind you to a spirit, who is supposed to be a good one, of course. (There might be readers, who don’t believe in spirits. They should better not read this thread)
Now some experiences:
(The numbers are just randomly)
#1
Moreno is a curandero in Cabarete, callejon de la loma. He did not work with Santeria and did not give prescriptions. He works with his Christian faith – for me this was too single sided religious. For some people he collected herbs from his very small garden. The choice was not too big, you can imagine. This guy can be trusted but I don’t know how good his healing is. At least there were always people in the waiting line. He must have some success. And he just takes what you give him (that was some five years ago).
At the end of a day’s work he performs a worship session. Some people stay for that. People sing and we saw two women falling unconscious. This is something people like, because they think a wonderful spirit is healing them now. This is something we don’t like at all. We don’t trust spirits anymore. There are too many fake saints around.
#2
She was a self-declared witch in Cabarete, very proud to be the legitimate spiritual daughter of one of the Santeria main saints (at least she believes that). She said my wife has to be baptised into Santeria. This we would never do. She wanted to order a sword from the United States which would be her sword for the future. This sword would have cost a couple of hundreds of dollars. We did not accept this baptism.
Unfortunately we allowed her to make a work in our house to liberate the house from any negative influence. The work cost 5000 pesos. I should better have kept the money. For example, for her ceremony she lit up some black candles and said: “bad spirits can’t sustain black candles”. Well I think, if it were that easy, the planet would be a lot better right now.
#3
Five o’clock in the morning we went to a place near Salcedo. There is a guy they call “el Ni?o”. We arrived early, but some six people were earlier. At least it was a nice area for waiting. He was mainly religious and offered some prescriptions of that Santeria stuff, but only if you wished so. He seemed to be in a slight trance-like state, spoke very loud, put his hand on your shoulder for a while, told you something about your problems (like: you have a pressure in your chest…) and then said a couple of prayers. He could not help us but other people report successful healings. In fact, successfully healed people gave him the place he could work and they even gave him a car.
#4
Hector works between Boca Chica and San Pedro de Macoris. We would never have gone there if not a politician we knew offered us a free trip and guaranteed a free healing session with this famous healer. We have been told that presidents and important politicians go there. The first thing we saw was his Jaguar in front of his lot. The lot was about ten thousand square feet and all designed for the healing work and spaces for waiting. Some Leonel posters were there too. The main room he made the rituals in, had the 30 feet altar I mentioned above. It was overcrowded with all kind of stuff.
There were other people having sessions before us. Some we saw coming out of that room, going to a tree, walking seven times around the tree and go back inside. After my wife walked inside he told her a lot of astonishing precise things from her life and her actual psychic state. She was impressed. But, as I told already, she knew all that but was surprised to hear it from somebody else. A little later I joined the session. He did some ritual stuff and told some things which were correct, but what we already knew. He cracked a crude egg over my wife’s head and smeared it into her hair. That was supposed to be a very important healing act. Then he threw some water over her hair. At the end she was all wet. And finally he bound some coloured ribbons in her hair. Those ribbons were supposed to remain there for the rest of the day. Later he gave me a plate and I should collect some dirt outside; his assistant showed me where exactly. Then my wife should go to the bathroom and add some urine to the plate. He took the plate with the dirt and the urine and some red colour appeared. He said: “this is bad blood (mala sangre) that now came out after the healing session”. He did not know, that we Europeans do not believe in “mala sangre” and that we immediately would know that it was a trick.
Later he talked to me from man to man and said something of 1500 Dollars. I said, I was not prepared for that, as I was told it would be a free session, and I could just offer him 1500 pesos. It finally was ok for him.
The crazy thing was, that we had to get back to our political friend in Santo Domingo. He was in that moment at the funeral of Nelson Medina’s Mother and we had to find him there. Now you imagine my wife wet and with colourful ribbons I her hair at an highly official funeral.
To be continued . . .