The Dark Sorcerer vs. The Wounded Healer
Leadership Archetypes & The Psychedelic Guide: Part II
Attention dearest reader! I have some exciting news. I’ve just found out that my book is available for pre-order, as of today!
If you are just salivating to get your hands on a copy of Psychedelics and the Soul: A Mythic Guide to Psychedelic Healing, Depth Psychology, and Cultural Repair, now is the time.
You can get it wherever books are sold, or through this link.
This article is the continuation of a three-part series focusing on archetypes of the psychedelic guide, adapted from chapter 7 of my book. As more and more people flock to the field of psychedelics, I hope discussions like this continue to refine the dialog around how we hold leadership, integrity, and authenticity in this work.
In the Amazon, I’ve heard it said that every shaman who has the power to heal also has the power to kill. There is a fine line between the two. Just as the dose is the difference between a medicine and a poison, somewhere on that same spectrum dances the archetype of the Dark Sorcerer and the Wounded Healer.
The Dark Sorcerer is an archetype that occupies and perpetuates disconnection. The Dark Sorcerer represents the lofty intellect disconnected from the embodied heart, raw power disconnected from relational responsibility, and alluring appearances disconnected from the unpolished truth.
No one sets out to become a sorcerer. It’s not an archetype we consciously walk into. People find themselves unconsciously consumed by this destructive energy because bad things happened to them: abuse, betrayals, loss, grief—in a word, trauma. The Dark Sorcerer is a healer whose wounds have been ignored for so long that they begin to fester, and the only thing they can do is wound others, reproducing their trauma. When this archetype finds power, gasoline pours onto an already uncontrollable fire.
The Dark Sorcerer archetype is what enables someone to rationalize abuse in ceremonial or therapeutic spaces. Especially in instances of sexual abuse, the Dark Sorcerer is so possessed by their power that they rationalize the abuse itself by believing it will bring healing, that it was somehow what the client was needing or asking for all along. The Dark Sorcerer cannot take accountability because the power they possess is bolstered by the hierarchical disconnection they create within their community.
Taking real accountability would render the Dark Sorcerer powerless; therefore, they avoid it at all costs.
In many Indigenous cultures, a person deemed a sorcerer by the community would often be subject to exile or even death. During my time with the Shipibo and other Indigenous cultures, the topic of sorcery was always right around the corner. My teachers would speak of “attacks” coming from other shamans, often hundreds of miles away. Sickness and bad luck was usually chalked up to brujeria, which a bitter rival might send their way. While black magic and sorcery seems to be a ubiquitous part of the Indigenous shamanic world (at least in every tradition I’ve encountered), the brujeria situation in Peru was clearly exacerbated by the exploding market of ayahuasca tourism.
We could easily decry this apparent despoilment of what we might otherwise see as a “pure” Indigenous cultural sphere, but this is a colonial lens. Without asking the Shipibo, this perspective insists that they, and indeed all Indigenous peoples, should exist in some kind of suspended animation that conforms to a European notion of who Indigenous people should be: poor, living in a hut, and disconnected from the “outside” world. This lens also robs the Shipibo and other Indigenous people of their right to profit from a tradition and medicine that is rightfully theirs.
It should also be mentioned that many of these traditions can weaponize the label of sorcerer as a way to explain the unexplainable, placing blame on a human being for what those in the Western world might see as simply a matter of health or bad luck. It has happened that successful people have been labeled sorcerers out of jealousy or personal rivalry. The consequences can be immense. In the context of this book, I am speaking from an archetypal and metaphorical perspective, not a literal one.
The Dark Sorcerer archetype heals by being brought back into community. In a famous story from the Haudenosaunee peoples of what is now upstate New York, an evil sorcerer named Tadodaho was finally healed when the clan mothers brought him into their village and combed out the snakes from his hair. The community, especially the feminine, was the medicine this sorcerer needed in order to finally make peace.
Only when surrounded by loving people can our minds—our mental serpents that only care about themselves—be massaged into something more relational, more empathetic, and more dedicated to healing. This story eventually ends with the people forging what came to be known as the Great Law of Peace, which was the precursor to American democracy and the powerful Iroquois Confederacy.
The Wounded Healer archetype is painfully aware of their own wounds and the wounds of the world around them. Where the Dark Sorcerer seeks to smooth over these wounds with illusion and manipulation, the Wounded Healer understands that their soul’s vulnerability is what often facilitates the healing itself. Where there is no wound, there can be no healing. As Rumi said, “The cure to the pain is in the pain”
The Wounded Healer is no stranger to suffering. In fact, you could say that it is their very relationship to suffering that creates this capacity to heal through the wound itself. This is a primary reason why suffering is such a ubiquitous element of initiation rites across the world. Sometimes this process can take years. But in time, the wound becomes a channel for whatever precise medicine is required by the circumstances of their client or community. The Wounded Healer dutifully tends to the depths of their own wound, their own sadness, their own grief, and the space it occupies.
All of this directs us towards the soul. This is not to say that the Wounded Healer lopes around bleeding all over the place. They don’t parade their wounds for people to gawk at, nor do they need someone to rescue them from their pain. But they don’t hide it either. The most powerful healers I’ve met walk with a limp, literally or metaphorically, and often refuse to be called healers in the first place. They are honest about their incompleteness. They can laugh at themselves, and weep just as easily.
The Wounded Healer works to heal themselves first, even if they must learn to live with a wound that will never completely mend.
Once again, my book is now available for pre-order through this link. If you enjoyed this post, please subscribe, comment, and share this Substack! It means the world to me.
Pre ordered!! Mozel Tov, Sibaba!!
Thank you so much for writing about this. It is something I have been witnessing in these vulnerable spaces. I appreciate the clarity your words bring to this abuse of power. 🙏🏽