Snake venom and frog medicine: Alternative healing in Howell
HOWELL — Terrestrial Magick owners Melanie Keyser-Hopper and Jeff Hopper became healing practitioners after their own health journeys left them seeking alternative medicine.
Hopper suffers from anxiety and depression, in part due to sexual abuse in his childhood. As he grew older, and realized what happened, doctors prescribed him Xanax and Zoloft.
"It really wasn't doing anything for me," Hopper said. "It was just masking the problem and not really taking care of it."
He sought spiritual truth through alternative medicine, something he felt he wasn't receiving from his doctor. For the last 12 years, he's worked full-time as a robotics/simulation programmer. In college, he received his EMT certification.
He has a background in crystals and Reiki healing.
"You're going from robot coding to basically DNA programming," Hopper said.
Keyser-Hopper, meanwhile, was diagnosed with thyroid cancer in January 2020. In the span of two months, her thyroid was removed, she underwent radiation therapy, and was told she'd have to take a specific medication for the rest of her life.
"It's been a journey trying to get healthy again," Keyser-Hopper said. "After having ... your thyroid out. It's such a small organ, but it does so much.
"I feel better probably than I did even before all those surgeries. I feel awesome."
Keyser-Hopper found kambo (frog medicine) was most helpful in correcting her metabolism and temperature regulation, increasing her appetite and relieving nausea, among other things.
"For me, specifically, it started with food," Keyser-Hopper said. "I became certified as a holistic nutritionist because I realized the food you're eating is killing you. There's so much stress put on people's bodies just from their diet and that stress is what lets in diseases or lets in different pathogens.
"You're not going to get healed if your body is full of toxins."
Keyser-Hopper has a background in herbalism and has worked in medical insurance for 15 years.
Four months ago, the couple was given an opportunity to learn from community elder Baba Kilindi Lyi, who died in 2020, and Sincere Seven, who runs Psychonaut Academy of Detroit, which focuses on sacred animal medicines.
"I didn't know that much about it," Keyser-Hopper said. "Jeff had a bit of experience with kambo medicine and so we both got into it, took the class and it's been really cool so far."
They get snake venom from their teacher, who synthesizes a homeopathic dose used to treat different illnesses. Keyser-Hopper said some use it to treat cancer, knee pain, gut health, depression and anxiety.
"Getting certified as these animal medicine practitioners and starting our business is an outcropping of our own search for real, true, lasting healing," Keyser-Hopper said.
According to the couple, when they're working with a client, they assess needs, medical conditions and medications, then find specific peptides and proteins within snake venom to address them.
"We can work both as an alternative to western medicine and complementary to western medicine," Keyser-Hopper said. "There's a lot of people who've been badly burned by western medicine and want an alternative."
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The duo offers a healing consultation, snake venom therapy, kambo (frog medicine) therapy, Reiki sessions, sound therapy, nutrition counseling, a crystal magic kit, cooking lessons, wellness garden planning, herbal therapy and a wellness plan. The couple currently works out of their home, but would like to someday have a brick-and-mortar space.
"We're trying to present ourselves as legitimate healers," Keyser-Hopper said.
For more information, visit terrestrialenergyhealing.com
— Contact reporter Patricia Alvord at palvord@livingstondaily.com.
This article originally appeared on Livingston Daily: Snake venom and frog medicine: Alternative healing in Howell
