©Kuba Kaminski

What started as a simple perusal of a bad photograph and its accompanying article in a tabloid magazine, led Kuba Kaminski on a five-year mission to pursue a fascinating documentary project just 150 kilometers east of Warsaw on the eastern border of Poland and Belorussia.  The subject of the tabloid article and photo was the healing and mystical powers of a little-known group of primarily women in the border area of Podlasie, Poland, known as “The Whisperers”.  This was enough of a teaser for Kaminski to utilize his extensive journalistic investigative talents to embark on a photographic exploration of people who believe they possess a gift from God, giving them the power to heal all kinds of diseases and physical pain.  Knowing that he needed assistance in establishing an element of trust as he began his exploration of these “healers”, he teamed up with a local anthropologist who had been raised in one of the villages in the region where they practice.

©Kuba Kaminski

Kaminski’s initial forays into the villages were eye opening as he gradually realized that these women were not just “healers” but professed being able to throw spells and charms and free people from evil possession.  The origin of the name, “Whisperers” is not definitive but stems from the process by which they profess to heal their believers by whispering prayers in their subjects’ ears.  As Kaminski gradually built trust among some of the Whisperers over time, he was able to personally clarify his intentions with the project:

 “This whole body of work is a purely documentary effort.  I never constructed any of the images artificially in any way.  What was most important to me in this story was to observe the invisible force between the Whisperer who fully believed in her power to heal or cast spells and the people who actually were completely convinced by her ability to do so.  People came with cancer and would ask her if they should take their prescribed medications…if she had said not to take the medicine, they would not have.  I was looking for those connections of belief and invisible powers that connected the healer with those who truly believed in the treatment.  Occasionally, people would come on a lark to test the healer, but those situations were not of interest to me. People ask if I ever experienced an actual healing by a Whisperer and my response was that I never needed that kind of help and I never fully believed in such powers.  Had I done so, I would have felt like a hypocrite in pursuing the project…or maybe, I would have just been disappointed…so I only observed what went on.”

©Kuba Kaminski

Kaminski did not limit his investigation and inquiry to the few Whisperers he found in Poland since he also learned that there were even more healers on the Belorussian side of the border.  As a result, he made three trips to far western Belorussia and discovered twice as many healers as on the Polish side in small villages in the region.  Ironically, the Belorussian Whisperers were more open to discuss and share their practices and had more varied rituals than their Polish counterparts.

©Kuba Kaminski

Certain images in the project clearly illustrate some of the varied techniques employed by the healers.  In one image the Whisperer steps over the body of a man lying on the floor of her treatment room and walks out the door to remove the offending spirit.  In another, the elderly Whisperer licks the head of the man being treated absorbing his evil spirits in order to rid him of his affliction.  In two other images, the healer chants a prayer and sets fire to a small piece of flax cloth that quickly burns over the head of the “patient” sending ashes flying above.  The Whisperer then grabs as many ashes as she is able and steps on them to eradicate the evil spirits that the ashes represent.

©Kuba Kaminski

One irony discovered by Kaminski is that the Whisperers in both Poland and Belorussia are more closely aligned with the Eastern Orthodox Church than with the Catholic Church prevalent in Poland.  While the Catholics took a severe stance historically against pagan beliefs in Poland and elsewhere, the Eastern Orthodox Church had a more lenient view of these practices which allowed them to continue, albeit without the church’s approval.  Most of the Whisperers attend religious services regularly, but when spotted by an Orthodox priest, they are often evicted from the church.  Yet, Kaminski also met a priest who told him that his mother was a Whisperer.  He discovered that there is a fine line between the realm of the church and the rites and prayers of the healers who often modify church prayers to suit their purposes.

©Kuba Kaminski

Kaminski also found that healing was not the only service provided by Whisperers as one client requested the death of her neighbor by means of a curse.  The Whisperer told the client that she could do so, but if the neighbor was a good person, the client would die.  She then used an Eastern Orthodox prayer to pray for the death of the neighbor.  A few months afterward, the client died in a tractor accident during the harvest season.  According to Kaminski, “People are afraid of the Whisperers and they are respected for what they do…sometimes there are lines of people waiting to see them…I have seen up to twenty people in line for a consultation and they come from all over, not just the immediate region, including clients from nearby countries.”

©Kuba Kaminski

Certain images in the project clearly illustrate some of the varied techniques employed by the healers.  In one image the Whisperer steps over the body of a man lying on the floor of her treatment room and walks out the door to remove the offending spirit.  In another, the elderly Whisperer licks the head of the man being treated absorbing his evil spirits in order to rid him of his affliction.  In two other images, the healer chants a prayer and sets fire to a small piece of flax cloth that quickly burns over the head of the “patient” sending ashes flying above.  The Whisperer then grabs as many ashes as she is able and steps on them to eradicate the evil spirits that the ashes represent.

©Kuba Kaminski, Whisperer Anna enters a young woman into a trance on the special stone where Holy Mary was seen by two small girls sixty years ago. Anna heals this woman from infertility while her husband holds her hand and prays.

In viewing the images that Kaminski created during his five years of exploration of this unusual circle of healers, one is transported to another time and space.  Old crones hovering, setting fires, whispering and praying, allow the viewer to step back to a time long past.  Shamanistic images, black cats, and religious icons intermingle in a mystical ambiance that has an air of the sinister, or at a minimum, of the darker arts.  One is left to ponder that innocent flock of sheep with a hint of hesitation.

©Kuba Kaminski

Kuba Kaminski is a documentary photographer and photo-journalist born in Warsaw, Poland.  He holds a degree in photography from the Łodz Film School and has worked as a photo journalist since 2004 for a variety of national publications and photo agencies.  His assignments have taken him throughout Europe, Asia, Africa, the United States and Latin America. His personal photographic practice focusses on themes of social consciousness and ritual.  He plans to expand his current documentary filmaking efforts into the realm of feature films in the near future. IG@instkaminkski

©Kuba Kaminski

©Kuba Kaminski

©Kuba Kaminski

©Kuba Kaminski

©Kuba Kaminski

©Kuba Kaminski