Connections to Health - Killed by Fairies

THE ISHTA HOLISTIC HEALTH CENTRE

CONNECTIONS to HEALTH

Killed by Fairies

For most of human history roads, towns and villages became different worlds after sundown. In that dark world strange, dangerous creatures arose. As professor Roger Ekirch writes in Smithsonian magazine:

For our ancestors, night meant fear of demons, witches and nighthags. An incubus or succubus might waft into your bed... 'in one English parish, Lamplugh, out of 52 premature deaths from 1650 to 1663, four people were "frighted to death by fairies," seven were "bewitched," and one was "led into a horse pond by a will of the wisp."' (1)

"What nonsense," we say. And yet, don't those creatures have their counterparts today? How many are dragged off by that dreaded beast, the osteosarcoma? Killed by its insatiable relative, the astrocytoma? Or ruined by the cruel schizophrenia? Today's monsters may have scientific sounding names yet they are as mysterious as a "will of the wisp" or a "nighthag."

That fear continues as people walk into their well-lit doctor's office with the same dread the dark streets and forests forebode in the past. "Will he find a mysterious creature growing inside of me?" "Is something terrible slowly descending upon me?"

These creatures often strike us unawares just as the nighthag of yesteryear. By the time cancer, stroke or a sudden heart attack strikes us down the "victim" has been deteriorating for many years under regular medical care. The time to deal with these dangers is before they become serious. That's why chiropractors, nutritionists, homeopaths, naturopaths, acupuncturists and other natural healers are becoming so popular. The scary things arising from within us can often be prevented by correcting the imbalances in our physiology in the early stages - rather than waiting for The Big One to drag us away in the night.

1 [Wolkomir R and Wolkomir J. When bandogs howle & spirits walk. Smithsonian. 2001;3(10):39-44.]