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RITUAL HEALING Vicki Noble When I met Marija Gimbutas in 1988, 1 was director of the Motherpeace School in Oakland, California. I was training women healers. At the time, Marija was suffering a recurrence of the lymphoma, she had conquered eight years earlier, and I invited her to visit my school. There, a small group of feminist women sat on the floor, singing and chanting, and laying on hands to help this remarkable archaeologist survive. Marija relaxed completely into the intuitive female form of faith healing that we created in her honor. When we finished, she sat up, beaming and radiant, and announced that she could -die now, because she had experienced the Goddess directly! Marija didn't die for many years after that. She availed herself of alternative and traditional medical approaches to her cancer, and she bounced back from chemotherapy and walked away from death many times during the next six years. She had important work to finish—her two monumental books, The Language of the Goddess and The Civilization of the Goddess, and she lived long enough to do so. Twice more between 1988 and 1991 she came to my school to receive healing from circles of women. She died on Candlemas morning, February 2nd, 1994. The Transformational Healing Ritual format that I developed during those years, and which I now teach internationally, came out of those first simple, spontaneous offerings of healing energy for this beloved mentor. A group of women gathers together with drums and holds a simple chant for at least an hour, keeping a steady rhythm and a focus on healing. Some women put their hands on those from the community who suffer from life -threatening illness—cancer, immune system failure, and degenerative diseases like MS and arthritis. Other women drum, rattle, and hold the focus. If someone wants to dance or move around the room, she does so. During the course of the hour, our body temperatures seem to rise, hands get hot, and many women sweat profusely. Together we enter a state of consciousness associated with physical changes such as a slower heart rate; if measured, perhaps even our brain waves would show changes. I think of the Transformational Healing Ritual as a kind of "tribal experience," bringing us together in a trance-like state, transporting us—shape shifting—to another level of reality. Nearly everyone who participates feels better after the ritual. Some women actually get well; that is, they are cured of their physical illness. How this happens is unclear, but it does happen, regularly and without much fanfare. I am now beginning an inquiry using traditional scientific methods as to how and why the "heat that heals" does its work. Several years ago, a woman came to an East Coast workshop I gave. She had a malignant tumor in her brain, involving her pituitary gland, and compressing her optic nerve. She was going blind. Doctors recommended surgery, but she refused. She took herbs, and she came to my Tranformational Healing Ritual. We laid our hands on her, drumming and singing, and soon she leapt up and announced that she was "on fire," and that she knew she would be well. When she returned home after the three day workshop, her tumor was smaller by half. A year later, she went back to her physician for tests before coming back to my workshop. There was no trace of the tumor. She now comes to study healing with me whenever I teach on the East Coast, and she integrates the practices into her career as a social worker in the New York system. There are many other amazing stories. A young woman with Lupus came to a healing circle and went into remission. A woman in Philadelphia found her MS symptoms reduced by 70% after two healing circles. Occasionally there has been what I would call an influx of kundalini energy into the collective body of the healing circle, and the entire group is quickened by the presence of the higher-voltage energy. Sometimes it happens through a client who suddenly begins laughing or crying, shaking, trembling, bursting with an unknown energy or force. She might hyperventilate or appear to stop breathing altogether, while a radiant smile bespeaks the ecstasy she is experiencing. When this happens, generally everyone within a radius of several yards experiences a heightened energy state, and sometimes other women in the room end up crying or laughing from the contact. The Western mind is so powerfully conditioned to doubt that much of the educational work of "energy medicine" is devoted to trying to convince us that such healing is possible! Early this year, a woman with an ovarian cyst participated in the healing circle I facilitated at the California Institute for Integral Studies as part of my "women healers" course. Receiving the hands-on work, she had a profound physical experience; two weeks later, her doctors could find no trace of the cyst, and cancelled the surgery. This was cause for celebration for me and my students. Yet, in a short time, the woman, a former nurse, became convinced the cyst was still there, since she felt pain. Doctors performed exploratory surgery, but no cyst was found. Those who participate in the Transformational Healing Ritual feel the effects of the work powerfully. Some speak of it as "the Mother," or as being held in the arms of the Universe. While many people are willing to acknowledge the nurturing capacity of this kind of energy work, they find it more difficult to believe that it can transform tissue and drive out disease. I am hopeful that our research will enable us to understand with our "rational" minds how it is that such healing can cure a cancer or revitalize a damaged immune system. Perhaps we can show how boosting immunity by way of healing ritual can complement—even replace—the many toxic therapies most AIDS patients now endure.
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