- Spiritual Healing - Introduction
- What is spiritual healing?
- New Age and The Dawning of a New Era
- Spirituality vs. Religion
- Specific Benefits of Developing Your Spirituality
- Outside Help: Healing Practitioners, Intercessory Prayers, etc.
- Which problems can Spiritual Healing help?
- What Can You Do To Develop Your Spiritual Life
- God Heals
- God-Talk About Healing
- Healing Thyself
- Quotes
Spirituality involves the recognition and acceptance of a God beyond our own intelligence and with whom we can have a relationship. This God can provide an experience of inspiration, joy, security, peace of mind, and guidance that goes beyond what is possible in the absence of the conviction that such a power exists.
Spiritual healing is when energy is transmitted to the person who needs it. The treatment works on the body, mind and spirit, which are seen as one unit that must harmonize for good health. If a separate healer is involved, the healer will place the hand on the person being treated to channel the energy from the Higher Source. The spiritual healing can help mental and emotional problems and physical conditions such as a frozen shoulder.
The channeling of healing energy from its spiritual source to someone who needs it is called spiritual healing. The channel is usually a person, whom we call a healer, and the healing energy is usually transferred to the patient through the healer's hands. The healing does not come from the healer, but through him. On the other hand, you don’t need a healer to take advantage of spiritual healing. You can pray. A full treatmnet of prayer and healing is found elsewhere.
The word "spiritual" refers to the divine nature of the energy, which healers agree comes from one external, invisible intelligent source. The healing energy from this source is available to all.
Healers see the body mind and spirit as one interdependent unit and believe all three must work in harmony to maintain positive health. Any problem - be it a broken leg or depression needs the power of healing to restore the balance of the whole person. It is felt that sickness often starts in the mind, or at the deeper level of the spirit, and it is often here that healing begins.
New Age and The Dawning of a New Era
New Age is a loose term that includes everything from self improvement programs to awareness of mind-body connections. The movement is growing by leaps and bounds.
Time magazine reported that in 1996, about 44 million Americans identified with the healing movement. It is estimated that Americans alone spend about $1.5 billion annually on books about spirituality and religion. About 42 percent of Americans have sought out alternative health care. So, there is no doubt that the movement is catching on.
"There is a hunger for being connected with a divine force. The hunger is not just for philosophy, but for experience," says James Redfield, author of ‘Celestial Prophecy’.
"The consciousness I am describing – the perception of synchronisticity, mysterious coincidences – represent great opportunities to grow. That process works whether you are a brain surgeon or sacking groceries. Consciousness has the ability to break cycles of poverty."
Spirituality can be seen as being distinct from religion. Different world religions have proposed various doctrines and belief systems about the nature of a God and humanity's relationship with it. Spirituality, on the other hand, refers to the common experience behind these various points of view. It is an experience involving an awareness of and relationship with something that transcends your personal self as well as the human order of things. This "something" has been given various names ("God" being the most popular in Western Society) and defined in ways that are too numerous to count. We call it simply as the God. You can choose to define what that means for yourself in whatever way feels most appropriate. Your own sense of a God can be as abstract as "cosmic consciousness" or as down-to-earth as the beauty of the ocean or mountains. Even if you regard yourself an agnostic or atheist, you may get a sense of inspiration from taking a walk in the forest or contemplating a beautiful sunset. Or a small child's smile may give you a special sense of joy.
Dr. Herbert Benson of Harvard University and author of ‘Relaxation Response’ conducted scientific experiments to determine efficacy of prayer or mantra. Benson believed that there is no magic to the mantra. He taught people to meditate using the word one or any other phrase they felt comfortable. He studied Christians and Jews who pray regularly. He asked Catholics to use their mantra phrases such as, "Hail Mary, full of grace" or use the Jesus Prayer. Jews used the peace greeting, "Shalom" or "Echad," meaning one. Protestants used the first line of the Lord’s Prayer, "Our father, who art in heaven," or "Lord is my shepherd," the opening of the twenty-third psalm. Initially, all these mantras worked equally well in invoking the relaxation response and stimulating the healthful physiological changes in the body as a result of it. But Benson also found that those who used the word one or similar simple phrases that had no particular spiritual meaning did not stick with the program whereas those who used prayers continued because of their belief. It has also been scientifically shown that to be effective, the person using the prayer of mantra has to have an unqualified faith that it will work. This is described by the scientists as intrinsic belief, characterized by profound spiritual commitment, devotion and quest for a truly transformed life. Thus, religious component in the spirituality is certainly very useful, and in fact may be needed, before the full benefits of spiritual healing can be realized.
There is much healing and benefit to be obtained by cultivating your spiritual life. A personal spiritual commitment is the most important ingredient. Spiritual awareness and growth can effect a transformation in your whole being. It can help you to develop a basic trust and faith that is unshakable. Scientists call this intrinsic belief.
Many have experienced major turnarounds in their condition as a result of cultivating their spirituality. They feel that developing a relationship with their God provided the moral support, courage, hope, and faith for them to follow through with their personal recovery program. It provided them with a sense that they are not alone in the universe, and that there is a source of guidance and support that is available at times of confusion and discouragement.
Specific Benefits of Developing Your Spirituality
Edmund Bourne, author of ‘The Anxiety and Phobia Workbook,’ has described a number of benefits to spirituality as it applies to healing emotional problems. Dr. Burke has personal experience of his patients benefiting from a deep spirituality. He has listed a number of benefits that are gained through spirituality. These are:
Security and Safety
Through developing a connection with God, you gain security through the conviction that you are not all alone in the universe, even at those times when you feel temporarily separated from other people. You feel increasingly safe as you come to believe that there is a source you can always turn to in times of difficulty. As the twenty third psalm says, "God is my shepherd," he will take care of me and won’t let me get into trouble if I trust him. There is much security to be gained through the understanding that there is no problem or difficulty that cannot be resolved through the help of God.
Peace of Mind
Peace of mind is the result of feeling a deep, abiding sense of security and safety. The more reliance and trust you develop in God, the easier it becomes to deal without fear or worry with the inevitable challenges life brings. It is not that you give up your self or your will to such a power; rather you simply learn that you can "let go" and turn to God when you feel stuck with a problem in living and don't know how to proceed. Learning how to let go when solutions to problems aren't immediately apparent can go a long way toward reducing worry and anxiety in your life. Peace of mind is what develops in the absence of such anxiety.
Self-Confidence
As you develop a relationship with God, you come to realize that he has created you and hence he has found something good in you. You are part of the universe. You're good, lovable, and worthy of respect just by virtue of the fact that you're God’s creation. This realization can improve the way you look at yourself and will help you to improve your ego and what you think of yourself. You are still inherently good and worthwhile. Your own judgments of yourself, however negative, do not ultimately count if you are a creation of the universe as much as everything else. As one person put it: "God doesn't make junk."
The Capacity To Give and Receive Unconditional Love
The most fundamental characteristic of God is that it offers you an experience of unconditional love. This is a kind of love which differs from romantic love or even ordinary friendship. It entails an absolute caring for the welfare of another without any preconditions. That is, no matter how another person appears or acts, you have compassion and care for them without judgment. As you develop a deeper connection with God, you come to experience greater degrees of unconditional love in your life. You feel your heart opening more easily to people and their concerns. You feel freer of judgment toward them or of making comparisons among them. Unconditional love shows up both in your increased capacity to give love to others and to experience more of it coming into your life. You begin to experience less fear and more joy in your life and help to inspire others to experience their own capacity for unconditional love. This kind of love also manifests itself through the experience of having everything you need in your life to get on with what you want to do.
Guidance
Developing a relationship with God will provide you with guidance for making decisions and solving problems. God has a universal wisdom that goes beyond what you can accomplish through your own intellect. In traditional religions this has been referred to as the "divine intelligence." Through connecting with God, you can draw upon this greater wisdom to help you resolve all kinds of difficulties. By learning to ask God for guidance, you'll be surprised to find that every sincere request sooner or later is answered. And the quality of that answer generally exceeds what you could have figured out through your own conscious intellect or will. Here, God is like your co-pilot. God is always available in the instant of need to those who have made a habit of waiting quietly before Him for insight and guidance.
Follow these guidelines for an effective relationship with God:
- Be quiet, patient, and open before God
- Be confident that he will communicate his wishes and help you execute them.
- Do not tempt God or make terms with Him. Gandhi said, "Not until we have reduced ourselves to nothingness, can we conquer the evil in us. God demands nothing less than complete self-surrender as the price for the only real freedom that is worth having. And when a man thus loses himself, he immediately finds himself in the service of all that lives. It becomes his delight and his recreation."
- Be willing to accept what God provides. He knows best. "Thy will, not mine, be done." Have full trust in the wisdom of God.
- Ask for God’s help. Do not instruct him on what to do.
- Let God speak to you through his Word. Read spiritual and religious books such as the Bible and learn about the rules of victorious living.
These are some of the characteristics that define a close relationship with God. All of them can significantly contribute to your personal healing process. The extent and sincerity of your commitment will determine the degree of personal healing you experience.
Outside Help: Healing Practitioners, Intercessory Prayers, etc.
Healers:
Healers believe that everyone has a healing mechanism that flows as an energy force around the body, mind and spirit to keep them in perfect order. Unfortunately, stress, an inadequate diet, a negative attitude and other adverse factors can block our healing mechanism so that it cannot function correctly and we get ill. Spiritual healing provides the energy needed to crank our own healing mechanism back into action. When a healer lays his hand on you, he acts as a conductor or channel for the healing energy which he believes has the "intelligence" to go where it is needed.
Healers say that all of us have the power to heal, if we choose to develop it. However, some do seem to have a healing gift.
Healing does not always work at a physical level; the illness may remain but the ability to cope with it improves. Sometimes it does not work at all. This may be because the sick person "blocks" the healing forces - some people subconsciously prefer to be ill. It may also be because we "need" to remain ill.
Healing is not just about living well, but also dying well. People healed when they are dying may die more peacefully.
Typically, to begin the treatment the healer will attune with the healing energy. Then he may scan your body, with his hands hovering just above you. This scanning is to take a reading of your body's energy levels and to locate areas of low or blocked energy where healing is needed. How long the healer spends on each area is determined by your body's needs. Generally, the session lasts about an hour. All healers work in this way, but some employ additional healing tools such as visualization, past lives therapy, aura healing or they may concentrate on using the "chakras" the seven main energy centers of the body.
During the treatment you may feel heat coming from the healer's hands, although some people feel a draught, a tingling sensation, pins and needles, or a feeling of fight-headedness. Afterwards, most people say they feel relaxed and peaceful, although you might feel thirsty or sleepy. Leave a few days or a week between sessions to give the healing time to workIntercessory Prayers:Many Christians ask saints and others to intercede on their behalf. People pray for others. Your chance of healing can be improved substantially if you can get others to pray for you. The scientific evidence for the efficacy of such prayers is described elsewhere.Which problems can Spiritual Healing help?Spiritual healing can help with any problem, mental, physical or emotional. Healers are especially effective for musculo-skeletal problems. such as frozen shoulders, stiff necks and bad knees.The medical problems which were healed by prayer are described elsewhere.What Can You Do To Develop Your Spiritual LifeYou can deepen your commitment to spirituality through any of the following means:
- Regular participation in church or your preferred spiritually based organization.
- Regular reading of inspirational literature of your preference. It's good to do this at least once per day, either upon awakening, during your lunch break, or before retiring.
- Regular practice of meditation.
- Regular practice of prayer or spiritual affirmations.
- Get help from others (Healing practitioners, intercessory prayer, etc.)
- Join a prayer group or get involved in a 12-step program that is relevant to your needs. (The 12-step programs offer many people a well-conceived and effective approach for healing addictions. Although they began with Alcoholics Anonymous 50 years ago, they now include a wide range of programs such as Emotions Anonymous, Co-Dependents Anonymous, and so on. Consult your local chapter of the National Council on Alcoholism for a list of 12-step groups in your area.)
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reach out and offer health, and we are all patients in constant need of help."
| All healing is, in some way, divine healing. We can speak of 'natural' processes for healing, but who created nature? Who set its rules, gave it its direction? God, of course. So when body tissue repairs itself and the immune system works, it is doing what God intended it to do. We can also speak of 'medical' healing. But medicine is rooted in the understanding of how nature works. It gives a boost to the systems for healing that we already have within us, clearing away roadblocks to restoring health, and does some things that nature does not have the ability to do on its own. Medicine itself has no ultimate healing power. All medicine can do at its very best is to delay death's inevitable arrival. Even medicine's ability to delay death is a great gift from God. The Holy Spirit is, according to the Nicene Creed, the Giver of life. The Spirit is also the sustainer of life, the breath which we keep taking in as long as we are alive. Just as the Spirit can heal our souls, the Spirit can work within us to heal our bodies. |
The kind of healing that the Bible talks about also takes place today in our day and time. It is real. It's in the toolbox that the Spirit has given Christ's followers. As we do with many of those tools, we try to be in control, to manipulate using healing (like Simon Magus may have done), or to fake it in order to become famous. The real gift may be hard to find because so many are claiming to do it.
In today's world, many people turn to healing ministries and faith healers for many of the same reasons they use for turning to alternative medicine, unusual therapies, and New Age healing:
- spiritual hunger;
- meaning in life;
- direction for life.
It's best to address these needs without letting them overwhelm the healing task at hand. A congregational healing ministry is not a shrink's couch or a medical practice or a weekend with a guru. It has a different task. It must not try to imitate them.
Faith healing is not there to replace medicine or the body's healing processes. But Western civilization has gotten even many Christians to look to medical science as their only source of healing. When the Bible speaks of healing, it is speaking of God's stepping in to bring about healing by divine power rather than mere medicine. The natural processes obey God's command rather than operate as they normally do. Miracles show who's really in charge. Thus, the Christian's prayer is not just that the ill be comforted, but that they may be healed. When healing occurs, we are not to ask what we did right, but to ask what God is up to.
From a church bulletin :
"Due to the Rector's illness, Wednesday's healing services will be discontinued until further notice."
Healing is a divine mystery. God does not provide the same things to everyone, nor the same thing all the time to any one person. The gifts are measured according to the Kingdom's standards, not our standards, and are given entirely for God's purposes. It's not a 'health and wealth' thing where one presses a prayer button marked 'gimme' and out pops a new Mercedes or a miracle healing. The idea of automatic blessing is presumption, not faith. Yet, charismatic Christians take issue with the church in general for not seriously believing that God will lead, heal, or empower. They believe that God can and DOES step into our lives. They trust that God will do right by them when they are ill (Matthew 6:19-33).
However, there's a serious problem among some churches. It's especially severe among fundamentalists and fringe Pentecostals, but the problem can be found in members of just about any church. The problem starts with a simple idea : that unconfessed sin can cause illness. The Bible teaches that. Life experience teaches that. I myself have gone through serious physical distress because of what an unconfessed sin did to me from inside, twisting me into such knots that I developed itchings and sores and headaches and bodily weakness.
The problem is that many Christian churches teach this backward: if you're ill and it doesn't go away with prayer, then it must be caused by unconfessed sin or the absence of faith. Baloney! It usually isn't caused by unconfessed sin. Illness is made possible by the sinfulness which comes with being a part of this created world -- the sort of sin which Christians mean when saying that all human beings are 'fallen'. This 'fallenness' (sometimes called 'original sin') has put us all out of kilter and made us un-whole. That's why we all break down and eventually die. Our state of sin is what makes it possible for us to become ill. But all the confession in the world has never once gotten rid of that state of sin within earthly life. It's with us till the Kingdom comes. Specific sins are usually not what gives a specific person their specific illness at a particular time. That's usually a matter of germs or conditions or bad genes or accident, the result of this world's 'fallen' disorder.
Yet
I can tell you of dozens of people I have met (and hundreds I have heard about)
who were scolded, berated, shunned, shamed, and labeled as a grave sinner just
because they happened to be ill and it didn't go away when they were prayed over.
I've seen this happen with my own eyes more times than I care to recount. Most
Pentecostalists I know of are aware of this, and say that they don't believe that
the failure to be healed is always from unrepented sin. Yet, even for those people,
old habits die hard. Often, the first thing that even those believers will do
when someone isn't healed is to start interrogating the unhealed person about
the parts of their life that personal sins are most expected to be found -- usually
involving sex. Tens of thousands of people every year are driven away from
the church by this belief. They flee because instead of being loving people who
gave grace to someone in need, the church was an angry, superstitious, bitter,
legalistic, elite clique which showed no real love at all, and indeed showed exactly
the opposite of love. Such is not the way of Christ. Christ made contact with
the ill, Christ treated them as persons, Christ healed them, Christ showed them
love. If your church doesn't do that, either change churches, or if possible,
cause the church to change. It is a matter of the Gospel.
a letter on
not being healed
People report that they go through strange things when they are miraculously healed:
- -- shaking or shivering hands;
- -- heat where a healer and heal-ee make contact;
- -- a gift of being led as to what to pray for;
- -- the feeling of being 'bathed in prayer', a sense of peace and assurance that there are people really actively praying for the person's wellness, and that God is giving a positive response to their prayers.
- -- a 'parting of the fog', a sudden clarity of mind or return of awareness during illnesses or treatments that produce dizziness, extreme weakness, headache, or disorientation.
There's a lot of dispute as to whether the gift of healing is given to a 'healer' (so said Oral Roberts) or to the 'healed' (so said David DuPlessis). There's reason to suspect that the Spirit is giving matching gifts to both. There are some people who just seem to be able to bring healing with them wherever they go. They act as great catalysts for healing. Yet in order to do the healing, the Spirit must also be operating inside of the ill person to make the change happen, with or without someone else healing them. The dominant gift, I would think, would be the one to the 'healed' person, as they are the beneficiaries; however, that's by no means clear. Whatever the case, one of the joyful rewards of being in a healing ministry is when you see the Lord bring healing in a way you didn't expect, especially when God gave you a part in what was done.
Someone can talk a lot about healing, share methods of healing, use anointing oils and liturgies at the scene, discover that they may have a healing touch, teach about intercessory prayer, and learn how to conduct healing services. That's all good, all important, and all part of a valid healing ministry.
But, unless many actual healings come from that work, that person has less of an actual healing ministry than any of the tens of thousands who take part in prayer chains and hospital visitations for their congregations. Or for that matter, no more of a ministry than the countless Christians who are doctors, EMTs, nurses, psychologists and counselors. These unsung heroes of the Christian faith look illness, insanity, human frailty and even death right in the eyes every day. Yet, how rare is it that we write books or feature TV shows about them, or stage big church events to whip up a frenzy over them, even after what they did on 9/11? How many Christian congregations fail to even acknowledge such ministries? These people are taking part in what is best seen as a 'Body' gift of healing -- the kind of gift not focused in a single person or moment, but given to Christ's followers as a group as well as to those within it who take on these tasks.
While the Church has its part in healings, so does the sick person. For instance, you can take preventative measures -- proper diet, physical conditioning, and quitting smoking. Gluttony and laziness are sin, not because they make you ill, but because they undermine our sense of spiritual (and bodily !) proportion about ourselves and show a lack of inner discipline. If your body is a temple for the Spirit, and is made to be that way by dint of God's creative hand, then it is an insult to God for you to lay waste to it.
Then, there is our own devotional life. When we turn our attention to God, and open ourselves up ever more to the inner work of the Spirit, it helps us in every aspect of our lives. Devotional disciplines like daily prayer, quiet time, and journaling help keep us in tune with God and help us to turn over more of our life to God. If our illness is caused by a sin we're still holding onto, as it sometimes is, the disciplines help us find the sin, where its roots are, and how it can be ended. Also, the Spirit might bring to us the gift of healing ourselves -- making us both the healer and the healed.
If this should happen to you, give praise and thanks to the God who made it possible. Let yourself go in the praise of God! It's fun, and it's right!
It's not the illness, the healers, or even the sick person that merits our greatest attention; it is Jesus the Healer who merits it. This is true even if health is not restored.
Your
touch has still its ancient power,
No word from You can fruitless fall;
Hear, in this solemn evening hour,
And in Your mercy heal us all.
----- "At Even, Ere The Sun Was Set", last verse, by Henry Twells
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