CIA-RDP96-00792R000400140002-7

September/December 1984
PSI RESEARCH
1
examined, and defined, but it can be done. However, when
someone commits a crime that gets that person in prison, and
they are placed in prison with other people who have similar
weaknesses of personality or ideology, whatever it might be,
then it is for the good of all the public, and should be
considered a very reasonable approach. Noy only to maintain
peace in prisons so that we don't have riots, but to attempt
to rehabilitate these people so that when they come back in
the streets we don't have the high level of recidivism that
we have. I would like to take three or four prisms and run
these programs for a period of time.
I would verify what
kind of percentages we are getting compared to what they
usually get in the general prison population. I think it
would be very revealing and positive to do this and I am
hoping to get a program started soon. My wife (she is part
Iroquois, part Algonquin and I are very concerned about
alcoholism among the American Indians on the reservations.
I think that we can put tribal music over the subliminal
message not to drink so much, and help the Indians.
(LV: Maybe you are right, although I am still fascinated
with your activities in criminology and a bit skeptical and
.careful regarding your subliminal message program. I
believe those who are interested in either or in both, can
contact you directly: Ron Nolan, P.O. Box 750, Clayton, CA
294517. Thank you very much for your time.
Approved For Release 2000/08/11 : CIA-RDP96-00792R000400140002-7
Note:
Ron Nolan's attempts at using psi in criminology
were also discussed by Dr. Jeffrey Mishlove im his paper,
"Psionics:
The Practical Application of Psi," presented at
the Thirty-Third Annual International Conference of the
Parapsychology Foundation (New Orleans, Louisiana, August
(1984). Proceedings of the conference, entitled Current
Trends i Psi Research, are planned to be published in the
LLfall of 1985. An edited version of Dr. Mishlove's paper has
Calso been published in the Fall 1984 issue of Applied Psi
(2046 Clement Street, San Francisco, CA 94121).
130
September/December 1984
PSI RESEARCH
VARIETIES OF HEALING EXPERIENCE
Since we have received many questions concerning
"psychic" (mental) healing and other alternative healing
techniques, we have decided to present a cross-cultural
review of folk healing around the world. The intervie
below answer at least some of these questions. - Ed.
Folk Healers in Italy
Interview with Dr. Paola Giovetti
Modena, Italy
During my extensive travels in Italy I have met a
number of contemporary "psychic" (mental) healers
who often call themselves "pranotherapists."
Their practice usually includes known elements of
laying-on of hands, "bioenergy influence," and
color healing. After becoming acquainted with
these practices, I became deeply interested in
Italian folk healing traditions and approached the
well known Italian researcher Dr. Paola Giovetti
with the following questions. - Ed.
Are folk healing traditions still alive in Italy?
During the past 3 years I inquired about our so-called
"country healers" on a journey through rural Italy lookis
for old magic-religious traditions. When I started the
journey I did not hope to find much material, but in ever
region I easily encountered several healers, meaning that
these traditions have not disappeared, but are still ali
and active.
In other words, these rituals and faiths do not survive
only in the memory of a few people, but on the contrary the
are still important, even if their present value
different from the past. Formerly these practices wek
often the only medicine, because, at least in the country
other medicines did not exist. Today the sanitary situati
is very different, but people still go to the county
healers, even to an increasing degree.
131
Approved For Release 2000/08/11 : CIA-RDP96-00792R000400140002-7

1
September/December 1984
PSI RESEARCH
The reasons for this increase are several:
first of
all, the dissatisfaction with official medicine, which led
people to turn to alternatives; second, a need for the-
sacred and magical which modern society feels more and more
and is substantially the necessity to believe in something;
and finally, the growing necessity for open, warm, and
generous encounters, with human participation and cor-
diality. The "magical" country healers satisfy all these
necessities with their evocative rituals, which act deeply
at a psychosomatic level, so that it is not absurd to think
that the study of popular medicine could provide useful
stimulations for official treatments.
Approved For Release 2000/08/11 : CIA-RDP96-00792R000400140002-7
What is popular medicine and who are country healers?
The question must be answered at both historical and
social levels: popular medicine refers to a stratified
society, wherein the country people adopted health defenses
different from those used by other social classes. Popular
medicine has nothing, or nearly nothing, to do with official
medicine, first of all because its basic principles are
magical and ritualistic. Popular medicine locates the
causes of illnesses in elements which are external to the
sick person (possession, evil eye, witchcraft, even inter-
vention by the devil), so that in order to regain harmony
one must use adequate, i.e., magic/religious, rituals.
Magic is also present in the numerous preventive
therapies of popular medicine: amulets, remedies against
the evil eye or witchcraft, etc. For both diagnosis and
therapy we must consider the intervention of probable para-
normal effects produced by the healer, who often, without
knowing it, is a psychic and pranotherapist. The use of
herbalistic methods, which are again appreciated, must also
be mentioned.
When I began this research, I thought I would find the
phenomenon much more widespread in the South than in the
North of Italy, but the situation I found was not like that:
healers are numerous in every part of Italy, and they have
many "clients." Moreover, the rituals are fundamentally
similar throughout Italy, in spite of the great differences
between the regions where they are working.
132
September/December 1984
PSI RESEARCH
What methods and rituals do folk healers use?
The magic rituals and techniques still surviving in
Italy are surely very old: our country healer is not very
different from the shaman of the so-called primitive
populations of Asia and Africa, who is both priest and
healer. This is true because nobody thinks that to
therapeutic function could be separated from the religios,
i.e., from the contact with a Supreme Being, who is able to
free us from illness and possession.
The therapeutic rituals I have found in our country
very old and probably date back to pagan times, with a later
superimposition of Christian names and rituals. County
healers, in fact, use magic gestures while at the same time
invoking Catholic saints and using the sign of the croos.
The cross is a typical, recurrent peculiarity of thetr
therapeutic action. All of these healers "sign" the stek
part with the cross, repeating it at least 3 times (3 isoa
magic number which appears again and again). Moreover, the
healers use particular rituals, which are quite varied. De
materials they use are common: flowers, rice, wheat, water
and salt, wine, tree branches, bread-leaven, oil, and so On
- normal, every-day ingredients which receive a special
meaning through the ritual.
The intervention is substantially magical. Near Naples
the old healer Maria Servita, in order to heal a swollen
spleen, cuts off a piece from the bark of a walnut tree
corresponding to the form of the feet of the sick person.
When she then lets it dry up near the fire, without knowing
it, she does a typical ritual of magic. She is truly
convinced that while the rind dries and wrinkles up, the
swollen spleen gets smaller and smaller until it becomes
normal again.
Approved For Release 2060108/11 : CIARE
Or we can consider the numerous therapies against warts
I have found everywhere:
a healer of Sardinia, Palmeco
Roi, takes a reed, ties the same number of knots as the
person has warts, makes his crosses, prays, and then burges
it. He is convinced, together with his "patient," that
while the reed decays, the warts disappear as well.
whole operation takes about 40 days.
Again in Sardinia I have found the same kind of magic
ritual against sciatica:
the healer Angelina transmits,
133
0792R000400140002
.
...

September/December 1984
PSI RESEARCH
Approved For Release 2000/08/11 : CIA-RDP96-00792R000400140002-7
with a special ritual, the sciatica of her patients to a
branch of wild fig tree and then she burns it - burning the
sciatica together with the branch. She can do her ritual
only during the waning moon, which lets illnesses recede,
not with the waxing moon, which causes them to increase.
Nearly all healers sign the "evil eye," which is
believed to be responsible for many different diseases and
misfortunes. The most common ritual is this one: in a dish
with some fresh water, the healer places a few drops of
olive oil. If the drops desintegrate when falling into the
water instead of remaining round, it means that the person
is a victim of the "evil eye." In this case, after many
prayers and signs, the ritual must be repeated until the
drops remain round.
How does a person becomes a healer?
Fundamentally in two ways: one can be born a healer,
or he/she can be given this capacity. In the first case one
must be born "with the shirt," i.e., having the amniotic sac
on. This "being born dressed" is considered a particularly
lucky circumstance, which makes the baby able to become a
healer. Also the seventh is destined to become a healer:
the 7th of seven sisters or the 7th of seven brothers.
And
in some regions, even a premature child of seven months.
In most cases the capacity for healing is given by an
old healer to a person who is considered suitable. The
initiation ritual always happens on Christmas Eve (24 to 25
December), the magic night, and consists in the transmission
of rituals, words, and signs. The new healer must have
certain peculiarities: he (or she) must believe in this
kind of healing, and must be generous and wish to follow the
tradition. He (or she) must keep the words which are to be
said during the ritual a secret; as a matter of fact, these
words must not be revealed to anybody lest they lose their
power.
Not one of these healers asks for money: they may
eventually accept some little gifts, but they are happy with
nothing. Healing people is not usually their job, and they
have another vocation. They heal if they are asked to and
they cannot refuse to heal.
134
September/December 1984
PSI RESEARCH
An important aspect is the faith: all healers think it
is very important to really believe in what they do. They
generally are very religious persons and think it is
important that the patient also believes in the possibility
of becoming healthy and prays during the treatment.
Of
course, this faith has great importance.
What kind of illness do the folk healers heal?
They are "specialized" and heal some little
bert
annoying diseases: warts, St. Anthony's fire (erysipelag),
sties, sprains, burns, vermination, sciatica, rheumatic
pains. One of the most typical cases is St. Anthony's fic,
a very painful illness which resists medication.
In Be
country I have often found medical doctors who send their
patients to the healers to "sign" the fire, because Be
fire, without this ritual, would go on spreading.
It is impossible to discuss all the practices of
Italian country healers in a brief interview. With the
material from this research, I wrote a book I guaritorindi
campagna (Rome: Edizione Mediterranee, 1984), where me
practices and rituals are described in detail.
I'd like to emphasize some general aspects. A typical
feature of all these healers is their optimism, their
generosity and force. They are certainly individuals with a
special charisma, who can help people in many ways:
their rituals and by encouraging them, cheering them cop,
infusing them with hope and confidence. I am convinced Rat
many of them are psychics possessing psychokinegic
abilities.
This sense of life, this human warmth, this capacity, to
reach deep emotional levels, is what today many medi@al
doctors are missing. These aspects also recommend the study
of this phenomenon to the experts. The study of popudar
medicine, in addition to its historical, social, Cand
anthropological interest, can be helpful for the med@al
profession and can help medical science to make further
qualitative leaps.
Approved For Release 2000(08/
Via Archirola 33
Modena 41100, Italy
135
IA-RDP96-00792R00