Faith-generated Healing Forces

When doctors try a new drug they generally divide the trial group into two sections. About half
the subjects get the new drug and half get sugar pills (made to look like the hopefully-effective
product). These inactive tablets arecalled "placebos".

They do this because patients often experience relief when a doctor or institution in whom they
have confidence prescribes anything new and different. Inone study of a medication being tried
for arthritis, for instance, 40% of thepatients who were taking totally ineffective placebo pills
experienced substantial relief. Many of them had objective improvement increased range of
motion, decreased swelling etc., not just diminished discomfort and pain.

What has actually happened in these cases? The best explanation seems to be that the patients
have developed faith in the "medication" (because it was prescribed by someone in whom they
had faith) and mobilized confidence-generatedhealing forces. No one really understands exactly
what those forces are. Wejust don't know whether improvement from placebos has the same
basis as thatgenerated by religion-based faith healers, medicine men in primitive tribes,(and
perhaps some physicians incidental to their applications of science).

Actually, similar forces also seems sometimes able to keep you from getting sick in the first
place. A few years ago a team of researchers in Michigan developed a promising cold vaccine.
They arranged a substantial trial, dividingtheir subjects into three groups. One group got the
vaccine, one got shots ofdistilled water (which they were told was vaccine), the third got nothing.
Compared with the untreated group those receiving the vaccine got only one-third as many colds
in the next season. But the researchers also found that thepeople who got the distilled water did
just as well!

Sometimes similar forces seem even to add to the effect of potent medicines or treatments. Many
drug companies today hire people to seek out treatments used by shamans and witch doctors in
primitive areas. Often they find that theherbs, barks and other remedies discovered by trial and
error over many generations have effective chemicals in them. In many instances the effective
chemical can be isolated and manufactured as a drug. But that drug almost never proves quite as
effective when administered without ritual as it had been whenaccompanied by the dances,
laying on of hands, or other healer routines.

Religion's Place in Faith Healing

From ancient times, long before medical science achieved substantial cures, most healing efforts
were associated with religion. Primitive cultures, for example, generally relied on medicine men,
or witch doctors, to pray to the spirits for healing. The ancient Greeks and Romans also prayed to
various gods to cure their illnesses and repair the body. For example, infertile couples who
wanted to conceive a child would pray for intervention at the temple of Imhotep (ca. 2700 BC),
who was a vizier to the Egyptian King Djoser and achieveddivine status after his death.

Healing by priests or shamans persists in many of the world's current cultures. From Navaho
dances to Tibetan prayer-wheels, the variety of healing efforts based on various non-Christian
religions is huge. This subject is too extensive for coverage here. If you are interested in healing
efforts within any particular ethnic or religious group, you will need to seek information underits
title.

One of the largest institutions practicing religion-based faith healing is the Christian Scientist
organization. This organization was founded by Mary Baker Eddy, a dynamic leader who had
experienced an unusual health phenomenon. Believing herself to be pregnant, she had all the
usual bodily signs thereof.She ceased to have menstrual periods. She suffered morning sickness
for the first two or three months. Her abdomen swelled substantially. But no fetus waspresent,
and after nine months her body resumed its normal non-pregnant state.

Perhaps this proof of the extent to which belief could alter body function had something to do
with the lady's later career. She became convinced that prayer and bible reading could resolve
illnesses. She founded an organization which still has thousands of branches throughout the
world, with healing through prayer and faith as its mainstay.

Although scientists have made phenomenal advances during the twentieth century in
understanding and curing sickness and disease, faith healing associatedwith religion continues to
flourish in modern society. Other examples are theevangelists who claim to heal through prayer
and touch. While many believe that these evangelists "stage" their miraculous cures, the debate
continues torage over the effectiveness of faith healing. However, the line of demarcation
between "believers" and "non-believers" is not clear cut. A 1997 survey ofphysicians at a
meeting of the Academy of Family Physicians found that 99% of them believed that religious
faith plays a role in patients' recoveries. Not all of these physicians believed in divine
intervention but rather that belief can reduce stress and have other psychological effects that help
to improve patients' immune system and the ability to fight disease.

More than 200 scientific studies have focused on the role of faith and religion in health. One of
the most noted studies took place at the San Francisco General Medical Center in 1982 and 1983.
The researchers found that the 192 heart patients who were prayed for were five times less likely
to develop further complications than the 201 who were not. In this study and others, patients
were picked at random and not according to their religious beliefs, and they did not know
whether or not others were praying them for them.

In 1998, researchers at Duke University also studied 4,000 people over the age of 65. They found
that those who participated in religious activities were40% less likely to have high blood
pressure and showed faster recoveries fromphysical illnesses and depression. Scientific
explanations for statisticallysignificant better health and faster recoveries in religious people
includehealthier lifestyles and a stronger social support that bolsters mental wellbeing However,
none of these studies have proved that an individual "faith healer" has the ability to cure disease.

Distinguishing True Healers from Charlatans and Frauds

If any substantial number of people believe someone has healing power, that person has open
access to the public purse. This attracts many unscrupulous people to the less selective healing
professions. (There are still many more applicants for medical schools than can be admitted.
Admission committees try to consider character as well as talent. They may not screen out every
knave,but they certainly reduce the number.) Many faith healers and members of thesubsidiary
health professions are sincerely dedicated to the patient's welfare. But a substantial minority are
primarily interested in making money without regard to that welfare.

There is no doubt that charlatans of all sorts occasionally achieve relief ofsymptoms or even cure
of disease. Some of that relief may stem from the patient's faith in the healer or in the measures
he uses (like massage or manipulation).

In many instances it is hard to believe that the practitioners themselves canswallow the purported
mechanism of action of their approach. Medical fraud investigators have found devices with
flashing lights of various colors, various meters and gauges, elaborate means of attachment to the
patient and absolutely no possible means of action. The fact that patients paid heavily for useof
these machines might be thought mere evidence of public gullibility, buta more reasonable
explanation is that, when accompanied by a convincing explanation of the machine's purported
effects, the device mobilizes enough credence-generated healing force to make patients feel
better. That keeps them coming back, recommending the process to others, and enriching the
charlatans.

However many healers mobilize the healing forces generated by faith without any medications,
massage or machinery. Faith healers and Christian Science Practitioners have a big advantage
here: Most of them have deep and sincere belief in what they are doing, which conveys itself to
their patients. Practitioners in many other health cults would seem to need either fabulous talent
forself-deception or great acting skill. Just examine the tenets upon which theyare based
objectively and you will realize that their "revolutionary ideas"are unbelievable malarkey.

To take one example, a member of one of the non-medical healing "professions"opened a

"Cancer Clinic". His advertisements featured testimonials from patients who had been found to
have no trace of cancer after a series of treatments with a machine of his devising. After people
had paid him a great deal ofmoney for such care he absconded. His magic machine was found to
have no possible healing effect. Investigation showed that the testimonials were from actual
patients, but the complaints for which they had been treated seemed mostunlikely to have been
cancerous.

This points up the fact that more than the public purse is involved in inappropriate "healing". The
benefits of healing efforts which are not aimed at thecause of disease are often temporary. The
"placebo effect" wears off after afew weeks. Relief stemming from faith in the healer often
follows the same course. Meanwhile the disease process may be extending itself. Infections
canbe spreading. Cancers can be reaching the incurable stage. Diabetes can be doing irreversible
damage to the patient's eyes or kidneys. An infected appendix can burst.

Because of these substantial potential risks, the medical community has strongly opposed forms
of healing not clearly based on scientific knowledge. Thatopposition makes it lean over
backwards to assure that any treatment it recommends has a scientific basis. Since no one has
identified the mechanism by which faith generates healing forces, people who legitimately
invoke it have often been lumped with the charlatans and frauds.
As an example, a Maryland physician studied the various folk remedies for warts rubbing with
the cut edge of a potato in a graveyard at midnight, for instance. He felt that this was a variety of
faith healing faith in the ritual doing the job. So he developed a ritual of his own to see if it
would work:

 He wrapped a red string several times around the wart, saying that it would cut off
circulation.
 He covered the area with a bulky bandage. (Aheavy bandage always makes a wart
accumulate moisture and turn white.)
 "Leave the bandage on for 24 hours," he would say. "Then take it off. If the wart has
turned white you'll know we've got it licked. But come back in three weeks, I want to see
if it leaves any scar when it drops off."

Almost all of the warts were gone before the return visit! His cure rate wasalmost exactly as high
as that of doctors who burned or froze off warts, withno pain and no risk of complications. But
he never reported his findings inany medical journal.

"They would run me out of town on a rail," he said. "Brand me a quack. Even if I could find any
journal that would accept the idea."

Warts which disappear after being wrapped with red string are just as fully cured as those burned
or frozen off. Yet medical science spurns such results instead of seeking to understand the
healing force involved.

This seems a harmful over-reaction. But scientific medicine needs your faith,too. At least part of
its healing power presumably stems from that faith. And your willingness to use its other
services--to take the medicine your doctor prescribes, have the operation he deems necessary
etc.--depends on the confidence you have in him. In him individually and in his profession as a
whole.Is that just an excuse or a real justification? What do you think?

Science vs. Faith: Must It Be Either/Or?

A few decades ago it might have been reasonable to surrender the rather sparse benefits of
medical science for the credence-generated healing force mobilized by faith healers or
charlatans. If you read about the care George Washington had during his last illness you
conclude that he would have lived much longer if he had depended on the power of prayer. His
doctors cut into veins toextract pint after pint of blood. They forbid fluid intake and made liquid
pour from his bowel with purgatives. Practically every measure they prescribedwas opposite to
what we now know should have been done.

Near the turn of the century the great physician Sir William Osler stated that medicine's main
weapons were morphine, Epsom salts and pats on the back. The "pats on the back" were the
reassurances and confidence-building measures we might call the ART of medicine. Those
"pats" presumably mobilized the faith-generated healing forces we've been discussing, and they
really were effective. By contrast, medical science at that time had no antibiotics, no hormones,
no antihistamines, no specific cures for any disease whatever.
In that framework, a patient didn't give up huge benefits by choosing a faithhealer (or even a
charlatan) rather than a physician. Today the benefits ofscience have greatly increased. It seems
most unwise to surrender the advantages which have almost doubled life expectancy for
credence-generated healingforce. But you can at least try to eat your cake and have it too: To
pray that your doctors find the way to cure you instead of praying for the cure itself. To find
physicians in whom you have enough the healing forces generated bythat faith works in
conjunction with scientific care.

Unfortunately, you will find few doctors who deliberately generate and use this force. Most still
deprecate it as "placebo effect" instead of trying to understand and mobilize it. But many doctors
help patients with their "bedsidemanner" without doing so deliberately. They mobilize healing
forces through their interaction with patients whom they are treating as people. They
inspireconfidence by bearing and manner. You can enjoy some of these benefits if you choose a
doctor in whom you have total faith.

Many physicians and lay people believe that religion-based faith healing hasa role in modern day
treatment of illnesses and disease. A 1996 survey of thegeneral population by Time magazine
found that 82% of the respondentsbelieved in the healing power of personal prayer. At the same
time, only 28%believed in the ability of "faith healers" to make people well. If there isany
scientific consensus on the matter, it is one of caution.

Perhaps that is why one of the most intense efforts to wed faith with sciencein medical care has
been a dubious success. Oral Roberts, the TV evangelistwho founded a university in Tulsa, OK,
made joint religious and scientific care the goal of his medical center. Many top medical
scientists, even those ofdeep personal faith, have seemed reluctant to link their careers with that
concept. This has been a barrier which even abundant funding has had trouble overcoming. But
the project continues to develop, and may yet accomplish its goal.

While many physicians and scientists agree that faith can play a role in healing, most concur that
relying on faith healing to the exclusion of modern medicine can be dangerous. A University of
California, San Diego, School of Medicine study looked at 172 pediatric patients who had died
over a ten year period. They found that 140 of the of these children would have had survival
rates of more than 90% if they had received medical care for their illnesses, which included
appendicitis, pneumonia, and diabetes. In some cases, parents whohave relied on faith healing
alone to cure their sick child have been convicted of involuntary manslaughter due to medical
neglect when a child died.

It seems a shame that such incidents occur. After all, medical scientists didn't create the remedies
they use, or (if you believe in a Creator) their ownintelligence and talent. Can't one pray that his
doctors will know and use the remedies God created? Can't one let faith in God and faith in
medical science (which He also created) coexist? Does one really have to choose between the
healing power of faith and that of science, rather than benefit from both?
Read more: Faith healing, Information about Faith healing
http://www.faqs.org/health/topics/62/Faith-healing.html#ixzz16ZLBfmCt

If faith was essential, then we should see only those people who have "faith" get well. I have
found that small children and even babies respond more readily than grown-ups. One reason for
this is that the very young have no inhibitions or fears, and it may also be that their young and
growing bodies are easily receptive to the healing influences – but they are too young to possess
any "faith".

How often we are asked to direct spiritual healing to a patient who is not a believer in it, and
indeed may be opposed to receiving this help from us on religious grounds! Yet he responds to
the healing without knowing anything about it. A similar situation arises with those patients who
are too ill, and in too much pain to have faith, or maybe they must not even be told the nature of
their disease. Again there are those who are healed who believe strongly in quite different
religions to our own, Hindus, Mohammedans, and so on. Lastly, there are those fewer people
who say they are agnostics and have no faith at all in anything spiritual, yet they respond just the
same.

I recall the case of a young man who, accompanied by a lady, was brought to me for faith
healing. He was in great pain and eaten-up with arthritis. As the healing proceeded, so his pains
left him, and his joints began to loosen and become free. When I had finished treating him, it was
a real delight to see how wonderfully glad he was to be able to use his legs, feet, arms and hands
again... and then he told me: "When I came here, I was convinced no one could help me, and I
came only to please my Aunt, who brought me."

While spiritual healing is superior to what the patient may think, it is obviously good and helpful
if he or she has the faith that they can be healed. Indeed, some doctors say that whereas patients
go to them for "treatment," they go to the spiritual healer to "get well" – and there is a lot of truth
in this.

Generally speaking, When the national press refer to us, we are called "Faith Healers," and
while, naturally, we have a great faith in the ability of spiritual forces to heal the sick, We are not
"faith healers" relying on a patient’s faith to get well. Spiritual healing comes from Spirit – it is
an exact science, a planned effort, requiring intelligent administration of healing forces to bring
about a happy change by removing the cause of the trouble. Religion plays no part in spiritual
healing. We have never asked any one of the many scores of thousands of people we have been
privileged to help about their religious beliefs. The recognition of our healing work is based upon
success – the wide world over. People of all colours, races and creeds respond to healing equally
– thus we come to the conclusion that the personal opinion of the patient has no bearing on the
result. We hold that the source of spiritual healing comes from God, Who is the Father of all
mankind, whatever race or religion it belongs to. We believe it is administered, intelligently, by
God’s ministers in Spirit within the laws of creation. By this, I mean that spiritual healing is not
superior to the laws of life. If one has a limb cut off, we do not expect that we can grow another
one. Healing cannot keep us indefinitely in the earthly life, though it is able to sustain life, often
when there is no medical hope for it to continue.

While we give contact healing in The Sanctuary, the great majority of those who seek our aid are
helped by the means of Absent (or distant) Healing, when we never see the patient at all,
especially with those who live abroad. I know this is hard to believe on the surface but it is fact.
It seems to those who do not know, that it is fantastic to expect a disease to be overcome simply
by writing to us in the first place for Absent Healing.

I will try to explain just how this takes place. First of all, we must remember that healing comes
from another dimension in which the physical limitations of our way of life do not exist. For
example, distance is no obstacle. Contact with another person the other side of the world can be
more quickly made through a thought process than it takes a person to walk over a bridge. It
brings the distant person closer to us than our next-door neighbour. Sometimes patients write and
tell me just where their house is, and in what room they sleep, and on what floor it is. This is
quite unnecessary. In the past, when seeking absent healing for a sick one, I have found myself in
the room where the patient is. It may only be for a few fleeting moments, but the picture of the
patient and her surroundings is indelibly printed on my mind. Whenever I have written seeking
confirmation of what I have seen, it has been verified every time. When these experiences occur
I have no sense of travelling – I am just there. I mention these experiences to show that if a "part
of me," probably my spirit self, can go so easily to a person in a distant place in no time at all,
then how much more easily can the spirit doctors, who are God’s ministers, single out someone
who writes to us for healing help.

To understand the way of Absent Healing it needs to be recognised that spiritual healers, like
ourselves, have developed a condition of attunement with the spirit people. This means that we
can communicate with them – as they are able to communicate with us. The means of this
communication is by thought, thus, when we receive a letter from a person seeking spiritual
healing and (in a state of attunement) we read the letter, so is the healing need made known to
the spirit people who are "listening-in." That is why we like just the essential detail in the letter
to give a "picture" of the affliction, and reports afterwards to show what is taking place. So is the
spirit doctor made aware of the healing request. He is able to contact the sufferer, as I have
already indicated – there are other considerations in connection with this "linking-up" that are a
little more involved, and which I need not dwell upon here. When the spirit doctor has contacted
the patient and possessing the information that is given to him, he makes his own diagnosis of
the cause of the trouble. We know that our spirit-selves are on the same plane of life as the spirit
doctors are, and therefore they are able to make a true diagnosis, probably far more correctly
than our medical men can do. Then comes the spirit task of firstly removing the cause of the
trouble, and secondly the taking away of the ill-effects or symptoms, giving strengthening and
vitalising power as well as soothing and calming the nervous tensions. It may well be that when
the physical ill-effects are deep-rooted as with chronic arthritis, it will need a little time to induce
the progressively good changes.

Briefly, that is how Absent Healing works. It may seem beyond our understanding, but the proof
of it is in the good results that we see especially with those who are beyond further medical
treatment. The numbers of sufferers who have been helped back to good health by this means are
now uncountable – they are legion. Of course, there are many factors that can either help or
retard a healing – an easy, contemplative, contented outlook, carrying out ordinary laws of health
is a great help, whereas on the other hand, if the cause of the trouble is persisted in, then this will
hamper the recovery. For example, if we are asked to help failing eyesight, and the cause of this
is in the daily employment that demands very close eye-work with strain, then we cannot expect
the vision to be restored if the per- son continues to stress and strain the eyes every day.

As many of our human ills are the direct product of mind upset, worries, anxieties and
frustrations which can be soothed and calmed by spirit influencing and guidance, so we see the
causes of disease overcome, and the restoration of bodily health is a simple follow on.

http://www.spiritual.com.au/articles/healing/faith-healing-spiritual-healing.html

You can CURE MANY ILLS IN JUST A FEW DAYS!

HOW DO I KNOW? Well, I was able to dissolve an acorn sized fibrosis of the breast in just two
days and a nasty spider bite overnight with faith healing!

There is nothing odd ball or quackery about faith healing! It is very simply having enough faith
to convince your body to speed up healing!

I always thought it was some voodoo, mystical mumbo jumbo until I read a little book which
clearly explained how we heal ourselves.

Quite simple put, all living things heal themselves on a daily basis! You grow new hair, nails and
skin don't you, without a trip to the doctor for a special prescription? Less obvious repairs are
new blood cells, new bone, new nerves, etc. In fact, the average person grows about a half cubic
inch of new parts daily and tears down and disposes of about the same amount of damaged, dead
or broken cells. Nothing magic, just normal day to day repairs!

Now comes the 'miracle' part - WHAT IF YOU COULD TELL YOUR BRAIN:

" Just forget about making new hair and nails and skin today - lets put all our effort on
repairing the infection, dissolving the cancer lump, (or whatever)."

That is faith healing, the deep concentration by you or others to tell the right side of your brain to
concentrate on and put more effort into healing a specific problem. Nothing new, just a chat with
your brain to place more effort on a particular repair!

It has to go it alone most of the time and quite well at that! Just how often do you tell your brain
what to repair next? Well, it can accept input and be directed, if you just keep the faith that you
do have some control over what happens.

I got interested in faith healing in 1978 when a friend of mine wrote a book entitled:

"HEALERS and The Healing Process" by George Meeks,

a report on ten years research by 14 world experts, in paranormal healing. It was very interesting
and revealing but did not convince me that I could heal. He referred to 'special' people with gifts,
etc. The self confidence that I could heal came when I read the above basics about the everyday
healing our bodies carry on.

As if a test, I got bitten by some nasty spider a few days later and in 24 hours had a rapidly
spreading purple circle on my ankle the size of a silver dollar. It was obviously planning to rot
my foot off so at bedtime I decided to use some faith healing with the the laying on of hands, to
heal myself, as explained in the books.

I pulled my leg up, so I could comfortably hold it (to help concentrate on the injury) as I fell to
sleep, and repeated over and over to my brain - "break down this infection and repair it, instead
of doing non-essential repairs". I don't recall how long it was before I fell asleep but when I
awoke, I had truly healed myself, having only a tiny red spot where the bite was. I became a faith
healer!

The bigger test came a few months later when we noticed a small lump in my wife's breast. She
went to the doctor and he suggested we monitor it for a few weeks, as it may be transient, then
come back for a biopsy if needed. Well fear of cancer prompted us to immediately try faith
healing. For two nights we both held the affected area and fell asleep repeating to our selves the
need for her brain to breakdown and carry away the damaged tissue. Sure enough, in two days it
was gone and a trip to the doctor and an x-ray confirmed it! Again, the concentration by both of
us was enough to get the brain to act on what WE wanted repaired! The ability of the body to
"dissolve" tissue and carry it away is a normal every day program - it only has to identify what is
to be broken down!

Faith healing, keeping the faith, the laying on of hands and other approaches to communicating
with your master control system (brain) is being accepted more by doctors, as they find that the
self confidence of patients improves recovery times and often brings these spontaneous
recoveries. The important lesson to learn here is that you do have control over your health and
well being, you just have to sometimes make a firm resolution to get the job done. After all, you
are the master of your own brain and do not have to let it take a casual approach to healing or
doing repairs.

Need more proof you can modify your brains functions? Read how you can reprogram your
brain to cure most back and back related problems.

If this has been helpful, I would appreciate you telling some friends that may gain from it. You
may also wish to check our other health tips that work!

http://health2us.com/faith.htm

In many religious traditions, the concept of believers being healed through a combination of
prayer and the administration of some sort of rites is a common tenet. Generally, there is some
sort of structure to the ritual that seeks to bring about spiritual healing. Often, the rite is
administered by one or more people who are authorized to officiate in the essential ordinances of
the particular religion, and may include both touching the person on the head or shoulders, as
well as the use of some sort of liquid, such as oil or water. In some cases, the rite or ritual will
have proscribed words that are to be used, while other approaches may have a traditional form,
but leave the exact verbiage up to the person or persons who are administering the rite.

In other instances, faith healing is said to take place without any other person functioning as a
conduit or intermediary between the ill individual and the source of the healing. These sorts of
methods may include periods of meditation, vocal or silent prayer, and the use of objects that are
understood to function as channels to the divine. For example, some people believe in the
healing properties of various types of natural objects, such as rocks. An individual who is
seeking a healing may choose to meditate while holding a type of rock that the person feels
contains healing energy.

Another approach is healing that takes place among a group of persons. While this approach does
not call for the designation of persons to administer a rite, the understanding is that the combined
pooling of the positive energy or prayers of everyone present will help to effect a healing for
someone in their midst. As with the use of rocks and other natural elements, this type of
metaphysical healing often focuses on channeling greater powers so that a person may be
relieved of the malady, as well as remove any negative forces or energy that led to the illness in
the first place.

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-faith-healing.htm

“My People Perish for their Lack of Understanding.” Today, so many people are being taken advantage
of by greedy men and women who claim to have the power of God. The internet has been flooded
recently with all of these “revival” claims, minister after minister stating that people are being healed in
their services. They claim the blind, deaf, lame, diseased, and even the dead are brought back to perfect
health at their “churches” or “crusades”. But the days of these Charlatans are coming to an end. People
will see that they are empty, vain, fear mongering, biased, prejudice, thieves that care very little for your
TRUE HEALING, which is the Healing of the Heart. Watching so many people fall victim to the lies of
these so-called profits has truly saddened me. This video is not to claim that miracles do not exist. I
myself know God can heal, but I also know that illness has a part to play in our salvation as well. Faith
comes by hearing, not by sight. God cares more for the healing of the inward man (Christ/You) then he
does for the outward man (the Flesh/Carnal body). Being miraculously healed does not save you,
knowing the TRUTH, which is CHRIST, which your is your LIFE does. Please test the spirits (words) to see
if they are of God or not, if the focus is on the OUTWARD MAN then it is not the TRUTH. If the focus is
on the INWARD MAN, and the works of the Spirit, and love, then you know Christ IS COME (revealed) in
the Flesh.

http://jacobisrael71.wordpress.com/category/faith-healing/