A couple weeks ago I was chatting with a few people – a girl from GE, a guy from TI, two foreigners, and myself from NE. At some point we ended up talking about “The Secret”. The guy from TI was looking at me as if I had gone completely mad, while the GE girl knew about it. Made me wonder if this is uniquely from Romandie or not.

[The secret-makers](https://houseofswitzerland.org/swissstories/society/mystery-faiseurs-de-secret) are people who say they can heal you. Heal a burn, a wart, chronic pain, etc. Often only one specialty at a time. They can heal you remotely by phone, often not asking for any sort of payment whatsoever. Some have “the secret” to locate lost items or locate a water source.

It’s very common to hear people, mostly elderly, who have at some point interacted with secret-makers or know someone who did. Sometimes it doesn’t work, sometimes it inexplicably works. Doctors and hospitals keep contact with secret-makers, sometimes calling for their services…

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Am I talking absolute nonsense to you or did you know about this?

If you do – have you had any experiences or stories with this?

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_secret_practice

25 comments

  1. From Zurich/ generally from the german speaking part. Heard of it from someone near Yverdon..

    Are there more infos about this?

  2. Never heard of this.

    > They can heal you remotely by phone,

    Ah, so a «secret» scam.

    > sometimes it inexplicably works.

    That’s just playing the odds.

  4. These people also exist in the german speaking part, I know multiple people from my region. One of them helped healing my sister’s warts and he also located something similar to a water source (I think it’s called water vein). Another couple I know, she can locate lost items, and together they can sometimes heal emotional pain, and they also do it over the phone if they’ve already met you.
    I don’t think they have a specific name though, my mom just sometimes calls the “people who are able to do more” (direct translation from german, I hope this makes sense). For people I know who don’t believe in these things, all of that sounds quite bizarre though, which I think is understandable.

  5. I burned myself with extremely hot coffee and was at work (gas station) and a man that came by did it on me and took all the pain away in a few seconds

  6. it’s crazy to me that people never heard about that i live in Wallis and i know that in some very bad cases of burns the hospital will call a secret maker because what harm could they do and sometimes it works
    i think that everyone around knows what a secret maker is
    the mindset here is that since they don’t ask for money it’s cool to call them because like i said if it works great and if it didn’t well you just lost 5 mins on the phone with someone

  7. Yeah, I know a guy who can make warts go away, a guy who sees fraction of the future and I know a guy who literally sees the soul of people after they died.

    Unfortunately, such “secret” gifts are absolutely useless. The guy who can make warts go away finds it just disgusting to touch warts and tells everyone to see a doctor instead. The guy seeing the future sees only pointless conversation with no outcome. And the guy who sees dead people says they usually just say shallow things and leave.

    There are a few people who just overblow the importance of it. Secret gifts just are incredibly pointless. I mean, you can’t even investigate it scientifically. Or try to prove the pointless fraction of a conversation you foresaw happened somewhere in a few weeks. There is not a real secret behind. Most people have some of such gifts. But as said, they are useless and pointless.

  9. Indirectly related – this is something that was all over Ireland. I think it’s still about but was going strong up until the early 90s. Sometimes it involved visit an old woman who’d spit on you and essentially talk in weird speak. Others interestingly involved sacred wells. These were used to get rid of superficial ailments and people would tie a piece of clothing to a tree above the water source.

    Weirdly trees are used for wishes too in these areas and tend to have coins nailed into them – much like a fountain.

    Thanks for sharing this!

  11. While I have trouble believing in magic, “the secret” is a thing. Retirement homes and even university hospitals have a phonebook with the numbers of these people who can with prayers or by contact relieve the pain of a specific type, burning, joint inflammation and some can stop a bleeding wound. Although these were probably from pagan roots, these practices survived Christianity and the inquisition. Usually these Christian folks transmit the power through generation and rarely ask for money in return.

    As long as they don’t make a business out of it like evangelicals, that suits me fine. I believe more that this is some sort of placebo effect from believing someone can through prayers relieve the pain. But the fact that it is specific to a handful of people tells me it’s different from hypnosis or something like that.

    Edit:lost items, missing person and mediums are not secret folk. To me they are still a scam but that’s just my opinion

  12. it is also known in france. there is a list of who to call in some emergency departments in case of need.

  14. People believing this bullshit somehow aligns with the lowest vaccination rate in Western Europe and high acceptance for homeopathy.

    Also doctors and hospitals calling for their service is another level of BS. Doesn’t medical integrity mean anything in Switzerland?

  15. Maybe it was more known of few years ago even in other parts of Switzerland since it was in the first pages of the phone book next to the police, ambulance and such

    Also while I never used their service I know plenty of people who did, especially *coupeurs de feu*

  16. I live in Vaud and although I doubted it, it worked for me and every person I know. I had a weird wart on my nose for over a year, used several products to eliminate it but it would always grow back. A week after I contacted a “secret maker” it was gone. So I recommended him to my sister who had several on her arms and it worked for her as well. I am an overly rational person and very skeptikal but since it was free I thought I had nothing to lose anyway and at the end of the day I’m glad I did. I know that some hospitals contact them as well in some critical cases. Placebo or not I think we sometimes should admit that some things simply can’t be explained with simple science.

  17. Lots of cartesians in this feed (I didn’t read through all of it). My understanding is that it is something very traditional, more countryside, and disappearing with the younger generations. As far as I know, it is very present elsewhere in Switzerland (especially in the German-speaking part and in the Grisons), but also elsewhere in traditional areas of Europe (especially in France and Italy, although German friends have told me of similar forms of healing).

    So I’d say your Ticinese friend not knowing about it is probably more anecdotical (and tendencially aligned, with young urban people moving away from these traditions) than a marker of this sort of belief not existing there.

    On the “scam” side of it… it is not. Switzerland is noticeably lax in its regulations of all sorts of alternative medicines, so it’s definitely legal. They’re also extremely careful about how they present themselves, and they usually won’t claim to treat you or to be some sort of Doctor.
    What they do is usually additional and typically for all sorts of chronic ailments that Western medicine has trouble treating, or for which people don’t really see themselves bothering a Doctor.
    My opinion to this (as a stone-cold Cartesian) is if it works in the sense that it alleviates people’s pain and symptoms, and it doesn’t stop them from going to the Doctor’s when necessary, and it doesn’t affect the cost of my insurance [too much], then where’s the harm?
    And it’s a colourful, kind of sympathetic, tradition.

  18. Yeah I’ve heard of this, I don’t believe much in It but I experienced it… somehow… I burn my fingers while cooking in class and the teacher asked her colleague do to the « secret »… I didn’t fell anything at first but I have been told after that compared to what I’ve done, the damaged were quiet small.
    I honestly don’t care if this is real or not, as long as it helps people feeling better for free, I won’t complain…

  19. I’m still astonished by how many people in the health sector believe this crap, my ex who worked as a nurse did and apparently many of her collegues too…

  20. It’s quite the common practice in several other countries too — Ukraine, Romania, to name a few. The real issue with all of these “healers” is that they only work because of the mentality that favours them (i.e., if the issue gets solved, it must be their craft, if it doesn’t, well, no harm, no foul, maybe the “patient” was not virtuous enough, etc.). In practice, nobody was ever able to show that any such “arts” work any better than a placebo in a controlled environment.

    On the surface, one might say “what’s the harm?” having some people give hope to their more downtrodden brethren. But there are cases where this practice is detrimental — whether because in some cases payment may be required if the person is “healed” (not sure if this applies in Switzerland, though), but also because sometimes people defer getting actual useful medical help in lieu of visiting a healer.

  21. My brother in law has the secret for burns. Placebo or not, it works. Doesn’t heal the burn, though, just stops the pain. He also advises people he helps to seek medical attention for serious burns.

    My grandfather has the secret for pain and my mother told me he used it on her for her contractions when she was about to give birth to me. She said it did relieve her quite a bit.

    I live in Vaud, btw.

  22. Around Freiburg it’s very common to hear about it. Never had one called for me as far as I can recall, and I personaly struggle to believe that kind of things, although I could see how “The Secret” could act as a powerful placebo because it is anchored strongly in our culture.

    I’ve also heard of medics calling the secret keepers although I never had confirmation from someone working in the medical field.

    When reading the comments I saw some people calling it a scam, which I disagree about. There is no money involved and they ask for nothing in exchange. I like to think of it as a very special tradition or “folklore” if we could use that word.

  23. I hadn’t heard about that. But just seems like folk magic to me, so it doesn’t surprise me that it exists. I suppose they are a type of “cunning folk” which used to be very widespread back in the days.

  24. I’m sure there are a lot of scams.

    BUT Becker, a professor of biology nominated for the Nobel Prize in medicine for his research on the body’s electric fields, unequivocally said that he had met such people, healers, and could, in fact sometimes measure weird electrical phenomena in their bodies. One such healer could make light bulbs glow according to Becker.

    Moreover Chinese medicine, which sometimes gets excellent results, quite specifically believes that acupuncturists channel chi or energy into their patients. And if you acquire the instrument they can measure it you will find that the acupuncture points where they put their needles in have unusual magnetic and electrical properties. Biology is more complicated than we think.

    Those who doubt this or are interested in it can buy and read his book “crosscurrents.“

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