Hazel McCully – Holistic Therapist – 17 September 2019

The members’ meeting room smelt much sweeter than usual last Tuesday. The reason became apparent after the meal when vice-president Hazel McCully revealed her therapy table which contained all manner of intriguing lotions and potions. Those of us closest to it had thought that that we had inadvertently come to the wrong sort of hotel.

Hazel was keen to tell us all about her job as an holistic therapist – a title that was as mysterious to many of the members as the variously coloured “medicine” bottles on the table. She is a qualified Reiki practitioner and for those of you still uncertain, Reiki is a Japanese technique for stress reduction and relaxation that also promotes healing. It is administered by “laying on hands” and is based on the idea that an unseen “life force energy” flows through us and is what causes us to “be alive”.

Not content with her therapist qualification, Hazel also studied herbalism and this enabled her to become expert not just in administering her therapies but also in preparing her own oils, waxes, burners, massage oils and much more besides. She is undoubtedly green-fingered since the successful growing in Ayrshire of the range of herbs required is, itself, no mean feat.

Hazel conceded that there was much scepticism over the medical authenticity of these therapeutic methods and her own husband admitted that it is “weird sh**” but it works”. Hazel herself had on occasion been called a witch. However, her methods had the strong backing of retired GP Neil Beattie who in his summing up acknowledged that the various placebo and other tests which had been carried out by a number of respected organisations had been unable to discredit such techniques. He also acknowledged that Hazel had to meet stringent registration and regulation standards. Hazel concluded by saying that there were many things we humans didn’t understand but this didn’t necessarily render them implausible.

Hugh Millar in his vote of thanks complimented Hazel on her acquired knowledge and her desire to help people overcome their various maladies through her own “controlled energies”.

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