Leaves Of Life - - - Botanicals

Leaves of Life offers a holistic perspective on the time tested use of medicinal plants as practiced by Obeah healers and spiritualists, the renowned group of African centered, skilled healers and herbalists in Guyana.  Leaves of Life reveals the age old tradition of administering hundreds of medicinal plants to cure the sick.  Some ridicule them for their astrological beliefs such as insisting on harvesting their herbs at a certain time of day or a certain period of the moon.  But about eighty percent of the rural population in Guyana still depends on traditional healers such as the Obeah men and women for their knowledge of herbs.  Most of these herbal remedies sold in the local markets to people in search of cures, are nature's equivalent of aspirin, penicillin, quinine and others still yet to be discovered by modern medicine.  In applying myrtle leaves to a sore tooth, the Obeah healers are doing the same as a dentist applying eugenol oil to a sore tooth. In both cases, the toothache immediately disappears, writes Duke.[1]  It took a long time to learn the bitter principle from quinine bark can cure malaria and it would take even longer for medical research to show that the calcium consumed with coca leaves in Bolivia, or with betel in Burma might prevent or alleviate osteoporosis.

Brekhman in his book, Man and Biologically Active Substances, claims that ginseng and Siberian ginseng have broad-spectrum adaptogenic, prophylactic and therapeutic actions.[2] Ginseng and Siberian ginseng contain ingredients found in the human body. These herbal substances are consistent tonics because they can raise levels of physiological adaptation and prevention activities within the body. Brekhman believes this is because the herbs arc able to accelerate (biosynthesis of proteins and nucleic acids).  The general tonic restorative remedies listed in Chapters 5 and 6 are typical, naturally occurring, biologically active substances for prevention. 

Many medicinal herbs appear to impact homeostatic control mechanisms. They are called "dual activities," because they aid in the normalization or balancing many of the body's processes. For example, to combat hypertension, ginseng root will have a calming effect.  To combat hypostate, or feeling of tiredness, the same herb will have an energizing tonic effect on the body’s system, all much to the bafflement of conventional Western pharmacologists.[3]   

The Obeah healers treat diseases which the local population view as an adversity imposed upon them by outside forces they do not comprehend and are expected to perform rites, ritual and magic to aid in physical and mental illness. They understood the importance of a holistic approach to illness long before this received attention in modern medicine. They deliver a more integrated approach to medicine and emphasize the prevention, as well as the cure, to diseases.  Their role is closely aligned to mystic practices and magic and is often more concerned with the spirit than with the body.  The Obeah men and women argue that it is the spirit that governs the body and to take care of the spirit is to take care of the body.  It can be further argued that all herbs address some emotional component.  Ra Un Nefer Amen reiterates this point when he writes, “the key to healing resides in the divine spirit of man.”[4] 

It is common for the Obeah men and women to say that they chose a plant possessing a spirit stronger than the disease spirit, and the soul of the medicine is not manifested before the Obeah men and women have chanted certain hekau[5] or words of power over the plant.  Among the compendium of herbs is a category where certain barks are used to drive away evil. Before removal of the bark, however, the offering of gifts must propitiate the spirit of the tree.  The key to deciphering what these gifts are is embedded in the Kamitic cosmology.  The Kamitic sages outline this aspect of gift giving or sacrifice as the rendering up of a negative conditioning.  This is the equivalent of saying leave a gift on the altar, or in the case at the base of the tree. In other words, it is again saying give it up to God.    Healing is in the spirit. Ra Un Nefer Amen cites that “the Ancient Egyptians, and the other by the Taoist Sages of China put this approach in place. For many reasons, the great contributions of these people to the advancement of knowledge and the wellbeing of the world have gone largely unnoticed in the case of the Ancient Egyptians and unappreciated and minimally understood in the case of the Taoist Sages.[6]

[1] Duke, James A. CRC Handbook of Medicinal Herbs. Boca Raton, FL: CRC, 1985; 98.
[2] Ibid., 98.
[3] Ibid., 98.
[4] Amen, Ra Un Nefer. Healing is in the Spirit. Brooklyn: Khamit Media Trans Vision, Inc.  2010; 7.
[5] Ibid., 7.
[6] Ibid., 10.

Tweet