‘Stories of wounded healers go back as far as we know. Mythology and history go hand in hand here.’

Clement Jewitt reflects on the wounded healer in the 'Thought for the week'

I was once in a Meeting for Worship when a Friend stood to ask for our mindfulness in her struggles at work. She was coping with some difficult mental patients. In response, another Friend mentioned the ‘wounded healer’ concept.

The phrase started me thinking, and I was almost ready to stand and deliver when another ministry occurred, followed after an interval by another. And then the hour was up.

The thoughts and feelings that came to me on the matter remained with me for the rest of the day, so that evening I set them down in my journal. Perhaps inevitably what would have been a verbal ministry answered to the necessities of literature.

More recently, those thoughts return, and may be useful amid the difficulties in our present world.

The wounded healer is one of the oldest concepts we know of. It is central to what is probably the world’s oldest religion – known by some as Shamanism. Shamans are typically recognised by their community, maybe first by an older shaman, following a deep, often life-threatening affliction. The belief is that it is not possible to fully travel to the inner or other worlds for healing purposes unless you have experienced, and anchored, the worst that can befall those of your culture, whom you represent as psychopomp as well as healer.

Stories – legends – of wounded healers go back as far as we know. Mythology and history go hand in hand here. The same stories, whether ‘true’ or not, convey the same message. Thus Chiron the centaur, with an incurable wounded knee, is possibly the best known: he was able to heal Prometheus by taking his place shackled to a rock. Odin is another, losing an eye and hanging upside down on the World Tree for nine days in order to obtain the wisdom of the sacred runes – a central part of ancient Northern European lore. And Jesus on the cross, with nails through his feet and wrists, and a wound in his side, is held to have redeemed – healed – the world as a consequence of that suffering. Many more such teachings can be found in the world’s literature, legends and theologies.

Essentially this is a matter of experience, of understanding the meaningfulness of these stories underneath a cognitive level, as a foundation for empathy. The wounding also implies, and even demands, the necessity to work on one’s own healing – another way of saying ‘personal development’, ‘spiritual growth’ or ‘inner work’.

Empathy – the ability to imaginatively stand in another’s shoes – is the first step to compassion. If we can feel another’s suffering as our own then we may make our way back to something important, like Arthurian Sir Percival to the Grail castle (a symbol of our inner expansion and (re)connection to the divine). We will be able to ask the wounded Fisher King ‘What ails Thee?’ and so release the needed healing energies – imprisoned formerly by our undeveloped insights – into ourselves, and into others.

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