The spine has so much to do, it’s a wonder it doesn’t shatter into a million pieces by the time we’ve graduated college. Most people take their strong, healthy spines completely for granted – until the pain begins for any reason. As long as the human race has had a spine, they’ve had some sort of lower back pain. For millennia, this has produced a variety of lower back pain remedies in the form of folk magic and spirit petitioning. These spells are in no way intended to substitute for medical treatment, although they certainly won’t hurt you.

Pain Sponge Folk Magic

In many cultures, the village healer would attempt to draw out the pain and place it into something else, then throw that something else away, thereby “getting rid of” the pain. Traditional items that acted as a pain sponge for lower back pain remedies were eggs, potatoes, rocks and even pieces of meat. A Feng Shui lower back pain remedy is to place a bamboo flute in between your box spring and mattress, and you continue sleeping on the mattress as usual.

The Wax Doll Or Poppet

It’s not just practitioners of hoodoo, more commonly known as voodoo, that make their magic happen with small dolls. Although we are all familiar with the image of sticking pins into a wax doll, the dolls were originally used for healing, including use as a lower back pain remedy. The doll would be made with a piece of the patient (hair, fingernails, whatever) and named after the patient. The doll would be stood straight up and told not to have any back pain. Then, the doll would be kept in a very safe place.

Petitioning Saints Or Spirits

The most common healing spells used as lower back pain remedies today are petitions to saints of area churches, hot springs or holy shrines. Thousands of years ago, spirits were given such petitions, given gifts in exchange for release of the pain. These gifts included flowers, incense, food, drink, tobacco and even small sculptures of backs. Today, numerous saints are daily prayed to by Catholics as hope the prayers will act as lower back pain remedies. There are numerous wishing trees and wells in Europe, where a wish is spoken to a pretty ribbon or flag and tied to a tree or over a well known for granting wishes. Even today, prayer flags are still used by Tibetans.