Deprivation alone, I discovered, was much too severe, at least for those in our own society, for it tended to call upon more punishing or masochistic ideals in modern civilized individuals, an approach which has its roots in the early Christian period when monks and the more devout fasted to thrash the animal out of themselves - both because of the animal’s strong associations with primitive tendencies, and also because animals were held by primitive people in great esteem, above human beings. So I could soon see that what we needed was to reverse this process by encouraging rather than repressing the animal within in order to lessen the intense sense of discipline which we had inherited from civilized forms of living.
Although we could not fully return to expressing the natural wild self as we had done long ago, it nevertheless became important to help people acclimatize to the idea of a wild self by talking openly about how they saw this ancient part of themselves. They also learned to understand its place in our history and to express it where they could, with the help of Romani song and dance, which has always allowed for more wild, colourful and passionate expression.
But I did not send my participants out into the wilderness to sit for long periods alone with their thoughts, for it was evident that they were doing this much of the time in their everyday lives! Most, if not all in the civilized world, live in a kind of desolate wilderness within, which is nobody’s fault, but people desperately need to reconnect with others of like mind in order to feel that they belong. If we restore this sense of belonging, then we ultimately restore our relationship with the whole of life. Only then can we begin to take ourselves out into a wilderness, because then we will be able to contrast the outer wilderness with what we have inside. Tribal people who have lived in the natural way and who have ‘belonged’ have a very different way of relating to the wilderness, and indeed to their own inner selves.
It was most important to put over to participants that natural wilderness wasn’t a bolt hole, nor was nature something upon which one could project one’s personal ideas about life and the self. The Earth had her own exalted ancient being and also her own sacred language, but this was a language very different from that of modern human beings. Nature was, like the trees, commanding, and full of mischief and great surprises, and you needed to learn how to approach her and how to be polite with her at all times before you could ever dream of taking yourself out into the wilderness. Otherwise, she was liable to lead you in circles, test you to the hilt or else just laugh at you - and that was something few modern individuals could understand.
Many found the healing they needed on the Devlesko Dikkiben programmes and when I could talk openly about the ancient healing methods I was using it was naturally all the better. Some participants stand out in my mind as making quite remarkable recoveries, including my ex-partner who had quite a serious health problem. Apart from feeling that she had a great lack of direction in her life, she had not menstruated for nearly 10 years, having been told by doctors that she had a growth on her pituitary gland. Following a scan she was also told by doctors that she had no ovaries, something which shocked and depressed her and took away a good deal of her self-confidence. Medication was prescribed, but she remained miserable. I suggested she try the Romani Dikkiben healing programmes, which included an individually tailored fast, and all the rituals that are normally used within such a transformational process. Within a month she had started to menstruate again and soon began improving in confidence.
On the reverse side of the coin there was a man who came to me with a very bad chest complaint. Coughing blood, he had been diagnosed with possible tuberculosis. After going through one of the Dikkiben programmes, he returned home feeling a good deal better and planned to visit me again at another time to continue recovery. I had neglected to tell this man who and what I was, though, and when he finally asked to return again I thought I could trust him, telling him openly that I was a Romani Chovihano, using ancient Romani methods, only to find that he refused to have anything more to do with me, on the grounds that I was now ‘preaching’ something he didn’t want to know.
This gives an illustration of the reputation Romani gypsies have tolerated over the centuries, even though they have been excellent healers. Once I have admitted that I am a gypsy, many have - although I can’t honestly think why - seen me as ‘religious’, as if I belong to some strange cult, as did the man above. Others have developed an immediate distrust of me, while yet others think that I am some kind of hippy! In the old days I needed to work undercover for my own good. Sadly, what many of the participants on my training programmes didn’t realize was that if it were not for my gypsy culture and for the elders and ancestors, and indeed Jack Lee, who so devotedly passed these ways down to me, no participant would ever have experienced healing in this very effective way.
I have been labelled a ‘communist’ for being a Romani gypsy, and also a ‘fascist’ for being a Romani gypsy. It is unbelievable how many accusations have been received, and also unbelievable that one can receive so many unjust labels simply for belonging to a race of people who have survived civilization - surely a phenomenon to be applauded rather than frowned upon.
Now I am able to be far more open, for more people are only too pleased to learn about and support these ancient traditions, which have been practised on the doorsteps of Europe for many hundreds of years. And I am also, with the support of people like my dear wife, Anni, able to feel much stronger about making a stand for who we are and how our ancient primitive culture has survived up to these times. If people are now ready to understand magic and the reading of omens and the physical phenomena, which may sometimes occur as a result of a healing ritual, they have a head start where the healing of their souls is concerned. We are now at a time, with the dawning of a new age heralded by 2012, where the wheat will be sorted from the chaff in our psyche and where, if we are courageous enough, we can move on to much healthier and happier times if we choose not to be so separated from the wild.
I once gave a very battered rook’s feather to a lady, a feather I had used quite a lot during ritual sessions, and at the end of this session the feather was as good as new again, quite as if it had just been plucked from the wild bird. This was a clear message to the lady that she was being healed by the Spirit of the Wild, the spirit of the bird whose feather I had borrowed for my ritual.
The physical phenomena, which occur during this kind of healing often happen as a result of all the spirits of nature - and sometimes even the spirits of objects - taking part in the healing process. Occasionally, breakages will occur during healing sessions or rituals. I have had ceilings caving in, plates cracking and glasses shattering. I have known plants and animals to behave strangely, while machines have either broken down or repaired themselves. It has been commonplace in my life for machines at fairs and exhibitions to cease functioning when I am near them, and cars have reacted by threatening to break down when I am in them - or have even decided to go back on the road when they have been off it for some time. Once an empty jug someone was holding had the bottom fall out of it suddenly, even though it contained no water. Also, like Jack Lee, I have listened to raps at the front door when there was clearly no one waiting to come in. Always one can read omens in these things and can look for the spirits within such things and hear them talking.
Once I learned that an acquaintance’s telephone had been wiped clean of numbers that had up until that time been stored in the phone’s memory. This occurred at a time when I had just held a rather powerful ritual. The incident gave a clear message to me that the lady was having difficulty communicating with me and accepting what I was doing regarding my healing practices and I soon ‘lost communication’ with her, so we could say that the spirit of the telephone knew about this before I and the acquaintance did, and was ready to reflect what we were experiencing.
I used to run what I call PATs, or Parava Atchin Tans, which basically means ‘life-changing stopping-places’, and there were many times when I would te
ll someone that something was changing in their personal life only to find their car or their telephone or some object in their personal life was acting that change out. I once told a lady who was a vicar that she should move forward now in her life and not backward, only to find that her car would not go into reverse and had to be towed back home. Equally I could read from people’s objects, particularly their cars, what kind of participant they would be on a PAT. A man who left his car parked out of line with the other cars, and who left his window open in the pouring rain told me in no uncertain terms that he was trying to step ahead of other participants whilst also being subjected to an uncomfortable avalanche of emotion, which saw him running back home ahead of time.
If people can accept omens when they occur, and read from what their cars and things around them are trying to tell them, they will see the signs that are beginning to speak to them from the Otherworld, and will be able to open their eyes to Otherworld magic in a big way and communicate once again with the spirits of all things, which is certainly not abnormal or unusual, in ancient terms. It isn’t weird; it is extremely natural and normal for us all to do this.
Sadly, the time came when I realized that I was probably the last remaining indigenous Chovihano to be practising in Britain, and possibly in the whole of western Europe. I was the very last link in a chain of original Chovihanos that easily stretched behind me for thousands of years. My transformational healing work in the gaujo world has therefore become more rare these days, but when it is required, it is certainly an adventurous experience for both myself and for the person I’m working with.
Before the first edition of We Borrow the Earth had been published, I had a series of powerful visions, which were healing in themselves, for they revealed to me that I would soon be on centre stage with my culture and that this would be rescued from near extinction. I would meet many people who would clearly benefit from this culture and these people would learn from me, first-hand.
This was no exaggeration, for in 1998 I found myself sitting in a conference room at Newcastle University in front of a bunch of academics and eminent people, all looking for information on shamans and indigenous healers, all looking at me and waiting for what I had to say. This came about when I got to know a literary agent who suggested I write a book. She also suggested I attend the conference on shamanism.
I talked nervously but openly at the conference, perhaps more openly than I had ever talked before, though I had never given a paper at a university before - in fact, until the day before this event I hadn’t even known what a paper was!
So began a journey with academics, with students, with people across the world who were keen to know about the Romani gypsy culture and its hidden mysterious traditions. I travelled to the USA where I did a tour of the East and West coasts, I visited Canada, and I had people travelling to me from as far afield as Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and South Africa, and many other places, to take part in Develesko Dikkiben programmes, the PATs, and to hear what the Chovihano was all about.
From the Chovihano who sat in the early forests preparing for his transformational healing rituals to the Chovihano that I have been in more recent times, who has given workshops on his craft in universities, colleges and in numerous groups, there may seem to be a wide gap, but this gap is not all it seems. I believe that the old ways hold the key to the loss of something natural, which once helped us all and I still believe that a natural ancient way is the only way forward, even though it seems now as though there is little room for this in our world.
The ancient Chovihano from the earliest times and I have both looked out at the modern gaujo world and we have both seen it mirroring a spiritless life. We have smiled at each other across the barriers of time, as only Romani gypsy ancestors and their children can, when they know that their ancient spirit, despite everything in this difficult modern world, is still intact.
Chapter Seven
THE ROMANI OTHERWORLD
The Hidden and the Mysterious Worlds Within
Someone, some years ago, said to me, ‘Whereabouts is the Otherworld located?’
I had to think about this for some time. I had never been asked such a question before, but understood it nevertheless. Since everything about the material world had ‘place’, and everything ‘belonged’ somewhere, the Otherworld should surely have a ‘place’ and ‘belong’ too?
The only answer I could give to this man was, ‘Whereabouts do you find a dream?’ I was repeating something I heard my ancestor say, that dreams, and indeed the imagination itself, were all from the Otherworld, because they were seemingly intangible things, but really the most enduring and well-established of all; they did not exactly reside in a geographical place. In all Otherworldly matters, ‘how’ and ‘why’ were always more important than ‘where’. This significant factor has always been at the very heart of all issues concerning the Otherworld - questions about which I knew I would be required to answer on many future occasions.
For the Chovihano, perhaps one of the hardest tasks is to describe the Otherworld and yet this is very much a part of his job. In times past, it was the Chovihano’s task to keep members of the gypsy tribe not only linked to the Otherworld but also educated in its workings. He could be consulted on all matters in which the Otherworld played an active part and he knew a good many of the answers, being a traveller to its many realms on his many different journeys and initiations.
The Romani Otherworld, being composed of three separate worlds: the dramatic and sometimes ecstatic Upperworld, the often more dependable Middleworld and the distinctly formidable Lowerworld, can overlap or blend into one another, much as the colours of a rainbow can overlap and blend and have no distinct dividing lines separating one colour from the next. Each ‘world’ also has three realms, totalling nine realms in all, and the realms themselves act in an upper, middle and lower capacity in whichever world they happen to be. For instance, in the physical world we are considered to be in the middle realm of the Middleworld’s three realms. This would seem to suggest that the physical realm is indeed a place where balance is found, because we are slap bang in the middle of all the worlds. This is almost like being in the middle of a see-saw. This is how the Middleworld and indeed the make-up of the world itself was perceived by Romani gypsies in earlier times.
Within the Otherworld the devlesko spirits relate to the sky, or what is above the Earth - which could be considered to be Heaven - while the bengesko spirits relate to the Earth and what is below the Earth, which could be considered to be Hell. These upper and lower regions are not as straightforward as the Heaven and Hell we have been accustomed to in more religious times. These two ‘levels’ seem so remote to the vast majority of us; they tend to mean more to us in name than anything else. We cannot visit either of them until death occurs, then we will have permission to remove ourselves to just one of them and are usually obliged to remain in that place forever more. This, for the old gypsies, never allowed enough space for freedom and personal development in what we might call an ‘afterlife’, or even in the physical life, throughout which ‘spirit travlin’ (Jack Lee’s term) to the Otherworld took place.
Some students I have worked with find it extremely difficult to find the Otherworld and also to relate to it; others can find it and relate to it very easily. Travelling with the spirit or mind rather than with the body will give us methods and techniques for reaching the Otherworld, but the Otherworld itself provides us with the necessary backdrop against which we can experiment and learn, along with the tools that make that happen.
When first visiting the Otherworld, a student is taken on a relaxing visualization journey, because it is important to lessen or shut down, if possible, those parts of our brains that we tend to use in everyday physical life in favour of using those other ‘hidden’ parts.
I ask students to visualize a river within a peaceful natural setting and this gives them an opportunity to leave one world and to access another, via the imagination, which th
ey can apply during the guided journey. They visualize a small boat and are asked to step into it and to allow it to carry them down the river, at a slow pace, during which time they are asked to use their senses to make contact with the Otherworld, to look at, listen to, touch, taste and smell all that is going on around them. They can drape a hand in the water if they wish, reach out and touch the reeds on the bank perhaps, listen to any birdsong, sniff the air and generally stretch their minds to accommodate such a scene in a more physical kind of fashion - except this is not a physical influence doing all these things. And yet a reality prevails and will begin to colour these journeys as they experiment with such imagery.
I remember an interesting experience with water in the Otherworld when I went on a journey some years ago. I put my hand in a pool in the lower realm of the Middleworld and when I pulled it out again it dried instantly, as if it hadn’t become wet at all. This naturally caused me to dip my hand in several times more in order to test out this strange effect, and each time my hand dried as soon as I had removed it from the pool. Successive ‘dippings’ revealed that it never became wet at all.
We Borrow the Earth: An Intimate Portrait of the Gypsy Folk Tradition and Culture Page 16
