Human Development
Spiritual healing
Description:
In general this refers to healing of disease through psychic powers or supernatural agencies. The practitioner (whether medicine man, witch doctor, shaman, faith healer, or one who works through the laying on of hands or through prayer) may be a medium who goes into a deep trance and through whom the healing spirit is said to work.Traditional healing has evolved through working out of cultural patterns over centuries and may use the motivation behind the cause of the illness as the means of cure. Its tools may be; surgery; herbal or pharmacological; prayer or incantation. Where disease is interpreted as of religious or magic origin, then clearly the method of healing will also involve religion or magic. This may require the propitiation of a dead person, exorcism of a supernatural agency, or confession and penance for wrongdoing. In traditional society, the healer will be one who knows the hidden powers of nature and can apply them, such ability being handed on from one healer to another, often within a family. It may be that such powers are divinely derived, perhaps from shaman-like visitation to other worlds. While in a trance state, a shaman may challenge or willingly be taken over by the spirit causing the disease and, in overcoming this spirit, cure the diseased person - usually of a mental or psychosomatic disorder.
In the Church, spiritual healing is primarily and originally intended as relief from suffering caused by emotional or internal hurts and the saving of the soul, but is also concerned with the healing of the physical body. Depending on the particular problem, different methods are used; but prayer in conjunction with the laying on of hands, and possibly anointing the forehead with oil, is typical. When an emotional factor is involved, such as resentment or bitterness, then some form of repentance precedes the ceremony. Simple physical cure is said to be incomplete as healing goes, the question being whether the previously sick person has been helped to a recovery which allows growth in love and service both of God and of his fellow men. The exercise of the spiritual gift of healing does not imply a guaranteed cure for all who benefit from the ministry - simply trust in God's care whatever the result.
The gift of spiritual healing is distinguished from faith healing - spiritual healing does not seem to depend on particularly strong faith on the part of the sick person, whereas faith healing and healing by miracles depend on belief of the person practising the cure or on the faith of the patient in the practitioner. This is particularly true in the case of so-called [affirmative] or [mental healing], when the individual is healed through fixing attention on positive virtues and thus excluding negative thoughts which inhibit capacity for good health, perhaps through repeating daily a group of words signifying good health. This latter technique may work by inculcating a change in beliefs which bring conscious and subconscious in line with bodily health, by autosuggestion, or by consciously telling the body cells of the area that requires their healing. The power to heal may thus be within the sufferer, having to be activated by the action of the healer. [Mental self healing] uses the mental healing technique to cure the person exercising the technique. Many individuals within and outside the Church have the ability to effect cures by "faith, piety and prayer". Some religious people put forward the caveat that physical healing which does not change the spiritual state of the sufferer may even in the long run be harmful and may be the result of evil forces. Spiritualism asserts that healing ability is dependent on acceptance of the knowledge that all are fragments of the universal whole and can be controlled in accordance with divine will.
Broader:
Holistic medicine