Positive Health Online

An extract from the book

The 'White Witch Doctor' of Constantia

My own personal interest in radionics started in 1967 when I was lucky enough to be living under the granite gaze of the great Table Mountain in the beautiful Cape of Good Hope in South Africa (having emigrated from England in the early 1960s). In Cape Town I began my classical homeopathic and naturopathic training and eventually established a healing practice, working from my home situated amongst the leafy glades and vineyards of Constantia. I had never heard of radionics, even when studying classical homeopathy, until my first son Richard was diagnosed with chronic asthma when he was eighteen months old. Conventional and even homeopathic medicine could do no more than relieve the symptoms, but then my African gardener suggested I see a lady he affectionately called, the 'white witch doctor' of Constantia.

Initially I took little notice of his advice and relied totally upon orthodox medical opinion, drug treatment and continual steaming to aid Richard's breathing, which he of course found most distressing as a little boy. Richard deteriorated considerably, conventional medicine could do no more, and so I finally searched out the white witch doctor named Sheila Toms that my gardener had recommended.

For the initial consultation I took Richard on my own. We were invited into Sheila's elegant and beautiful home and then taken into a room where the walls were festooned with shelf upon shelf of little bottles containing tiny white tablets. Other, more substantial shelves held ominous black instruments displaying rows of numbered dials. The room resembled that of a ham radio operator who indulged in chemistry as a hobby! As I gazed around the room, I was suddenly aware that silence had descended; Sheila was waiting for my reply to a question she had asked. I apologised for my vagueness and began explaining Richard's case in some detail and our lack of success in using orthodox medicine to treat him.

I watched doubtfully as Sheila took Richard from me, held him in one arm and walked around the room, touching little bottles with her other hand from which dangled a string or cord with something on the end. This 'something' (which resembled a small builder's plumb line) would oscillate, then suddenly become still, then swing violently in another direction, then stop. I was totally confused when she took a small bottle of tiny pillules off a shelf, placed them on a metal plate on one of the radio-like instruments, and proceeded to twiddle a few of the numbered dials.

Then, to my astonishment, she sat Richard down, took a pair of scissors, removed a small snippet of hair from the nape of his neck, and placed the hair between two sticky labels. This she placed next to the little bottle, then she twiddled some of the numbered dials again whilst 'the something' in her hand swung around violently, before settling into a rhythmic swing.

Satisfied, she gave Richard back to me, along with the little bottle of pillules and said, 'Give him a dose of three little pills night and morning and I will treat him every day for a month.'

'What time tomorrow then?' I asked.

'I need only see him in a month's time,' said Sheila.

Still in my vague state, Richard and I left, after placing a little something in the donation plate by the door on our way out. I was now even more confused and bewildered. What on earth had she meant when she said, 'I will treat him every day, but bring him back in a month's time'? Perplexed, I drove home with Richard, and placed the pills she had given me in a little-used drawer.

The next day Richard's breathing deteriorated yet again, the doctor came, and a hospital admission was arranged for the following day. I was becoming very alarmed. That evening I opened the forgotten drawer and looked apprehensively at the mysterious little bottle. What should I do? What was there to lose? That evening I placed three of the tiny pillules inside Richard's mouth. The night passed without the usual bedside steaming to assist his breathing. The morning dawned with Richard asking for something to eat and after he had a little food I gave him three more pills from the bottle. By lunchtime his breathing was deeper and less laboured. Just twenty-four hours after our visit to the white witch doctor, something was changing.

I cancelled the hospital admission, much to the doctor's consternation, and after one week of little magic pills I called Sheila to give a report on Richard's progress. Before I could say anything much she informed me that the readings for the respiration had improved dramatically and 'the activity of the inherent miasmic trait' (whatever that was supposed to mean) was less, and she was so pleased Richard was improving. I found her comments baffling, but of course she was right. Richard was improving, yet she had not laid eyes on him since our initial meeting a week before.

She said she had been treating him daily via his hair sample, and the Arsenicum Album pills were working, and this treatment should be continued to the end of the month. This was done and, by the end of two months and two more consultations, Richard was becoming an active and healthy little boy.