Nordic Magic Healing

Abstract

Galdr is a song or howling by which a poem written in runes is "made active". Anthropological texts will often describe a healing ritual where the healer has been seen to mutter some indistinct words over the patient. This book gives these 'mutterings' back their true meaning and importance. It will also explain their rational value by clearly stating the root causes of the sickness, and explore their religious meaning. The poetry and creativity of these chants combine to form a very effective healing technique, albeit a very difficult one.

Many will be familiar with karate's 'scream that kills', that came to us from the East. We will explore the 'scream (or song) that heals' called galdr by the Norse. In this book, galdr will be explored in two ways: by looking at a new interpretation of the famous Finish epic, Kalevala; and by considering pagan charms from various parts of the world, including two unexpected sources, those from Lithuania (not yet published) and those from Hildegard von Bingen (a German Christian visionary of the early twelfth century, whose charms were not considered to be Pagan).

The Kalevala teaches us the twelve steps for physical healing, and the nine steps for healing mental illness.

Old charms are used as a model for buidling new ones

About the Author

Yves Kodratoff is a "director of research" at the French National Center for Scientific Research. Aside of his purely scientific studies on the machines that learn, he has devoted a large amount of his time to the study of non classical medicine. In particular, his book on the shiatsu meridians is becoming a kind of basic for shiatsu practitioners in Germany and France.

His approach does not reject at all modern medicine but it shows its incompleteness as compared to the Nordic one that kept a better balance between the rational and the irrational.