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Spiritual Healing in Search of an Identity: Analysis of Spiritual Healers’ Own Accounts of Healing in Britain from 1900 to 1965

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Spiritual Healing in Search of an Identity: Analysis of Spiritual Healers’ Own Accounts of Healing in Britain from 1900 to 1965 Spiritual healing in search of an identity: analysis of spiritual healers’ own accounts of healing in Britain from 1900 to 1965 Teresa Smith Supervised by: Professor Bettina Schmidt Submitted in partial fulfilment for the award of the degree of Master of Research University of Wales Trinity Saint David 2018 Declaration This work has not previously been accepted in substance for any degree and is not being concurrently submitted in candidature for any degree. Signed ...Teresa Smith.......................................... (student) Date .......15/10/2018.............................................. STATEMENT 1 This thesis is the result of my own investigations, except where otherwise stated. Where correction services have been used the extent and nature of the correction is clearly marked in a footnote(s). Other sources are acknowledged by footnotes giving explicit references. A bibliography is appended. Signed ...Teresa Smith.......................................... (student) Date .......15/10/2018.............................................. STATEMENT 2 I hereby give consent for my thesis, if accepted, to be available for photocopying and for inter-library loan, and for the title and summary to be made available to outside organisations. Signed ...Teresa Smith.......................................... (student) Date .......15/10/2018.............................................. STATEMENT 3 I hereby give consent for my thesis, if accepted, to be available for deposit in the University’s digital repository. Signed ...Teresa Smith.......................................... (student) Date ........15/10/2018............................................. ii Abstract Contemporary literature on spiritual healing, both academic and popular, often assumes that all spiritual healing is essentially the same and that there has been a gradual and developmental progression through time, from early religious and traditional healing, through the Holistic Health movement of the 1970s and 80s, to the ‘holistic milieu’ healing model described by Paul Heelas and Linda Woodhead (2005) as an integral part of New Age ‘spiritualities of life’. This research questions these assumptions and explores the background to contemporary presentations of spiritual healing by looking at the diverse range of spiritual healing modalities which were being practised in Britain between 1900 and 1965. By focusing on the spiritual healers themselves and their own personal written accounts of healing, it is possible to gain an ‘insider’ view of what was considered at the time to be a non-standard activity and, in the majority of cases, a direct threat to orthodox medical and religious authorities of the period. The healers’ accounts represent examples of the major strands of spiritual healing practised between 1900 and 1965, and are analysed in terms of selected criteria, the results of which are displayed in table format in order to facilitate comparative analysis. What emerges from this research is that there were two distinct types of spiritual healer: i) individuals recognised by their communities as having an innate ability to heal and often effecting remarkable cures; ii) those who become healers through theoretical study, embracing new worldviews, and learning techniques, with cures not being essential. Also notable was the extent to which all of the spiritual healers understood and interpreted their healing in terms of the specific social, cultural, religious and intellectual currents of their era, and how all sought to explain their healing using terms of reference compatible with the principal orthodox sources of authority of the period, namely science, psychology, medicine and Christianity. These findings would suggest the need for further research to explore how far these earlier healer types are still represented in contemporary spiritual healing in Britain or whether the holistic milieu model has, effectively, replaced all previous forms of spiritual healing. iii Acknowledgements I am especially grateful to my supervisor Professor Bettina Schmidt for her constant support and guidance during the research and writing of this dissertation, and for having helped me to find a way to approach what seemed to be an impenetrably complex subject. iv Table of Contents Declaration ............................................................................................................................ ii Abstract ................................................................................................................................ iii Acknowledgements .............................................................................................................. iv List of Tables........................................................................................................................ vi Chapter 1 Introduction .......................................................................................................... 1 1.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................. 1 1.2 Methodology ............................................................................................................... 5 Chapter 2 Literature review .................................................................................................. 8 2.1 Spiritual healing .......................................................................................................... 8 2.2 Holistic milieu healing .............................................................................................. 16 Chapter 3 Background to period 1900-1965 ....................................................................... 23 Chapter 4 Healers’ accounts................................................................................................ 36 4.1 Overview of healers’ accounts .................................................................................. 36 4.2 Summary of healers’ accounts .................................................................................. 59 Chapter 5 Spiritual healers and society ............................................................................... 78 5.1 Influence of society on the spiritual healers .............................................................. 78 5.2 Influence of spiritual healers on society .................................................................... 89 Chapter 6 Conclusion .......................................................................................................... 98 Bibliography ....................................................................................................................... 104 v List of Tables Table 4.1 Spiritual healing and holistic milieu healing compared…….60 Table 4.2 James Moore Hickson (Christian healer)………………….61 Table 4.3 Dorothy Kerin (Christian healer)…………………………..62 Table 4.4 John Maillard (Christian healer)…………………….……..63 Table 4.5 Eileen Garrett (Spiritualist healer)………………………....64 Table 4.6 Harry Edwards (Spiritualist healer)…………………….….65 Table 4.7 Ursula Roberts (Spiritualist healer)…………………….…..66 Table 4.8 Charles Fillmore (New Thought healer)………………..…...67 Table 4.9 Emmet Fox (New Thought healer)……………………….....68 Table 4.10 Ernest Holmes (New Thought healer)…………………..…69 Table 4.11 Mary Baker Eddy (Christian Science healer)……….…….70 Table 4.12 Alice Bailey (Esoteric healer)………………………….....71 Table 4.13 Christopher Woodard (Independent healer)……………....72 Table 4.14 Gordon Turner (Independent healer)……………………...73 Table 4.15 Analysis of healing attributes by healer/healer type…....….74 vi Chapter 1 Introduction 1.1 Introduction Although the terms ‘disease’, ‘illness’, and ‘sickness’ have traditionally been used to signify the medical, personal, and social aspects (respectively) of human lack of health or well-being, and the concepts of ‘curing’ or ‘healing’ have been used to refer either to the eradication of measurable symptoms (curing) or to some more general betterment or return to functional well-being (healing), all of these terms, when applied to spiritual healing, can seem to take on much more fluid and interchangeable meanings depending on the specific context. Indeed, when approaching the subject of spiritual healing in contemporary Britain, one immediately encounters what Heelas and Woodhead (2005) identify as the ‘holistic milieu’, the culmination of developments which began with the Holistic Health movement of the 1970s and 80s and the New Age, and is now most visibly identifiable as an array of approaches to personal well-being which emphasise spirituality, or subjective-life forms of the sacred, in contrast to traditional religious, or life-as forms of the sacred. The healing therapies which Heelas and Woodhead associate with the holistic milieu have in common as their focus concepts such as energy, subtle energy or inner life force (Heelas and Woodhead, 2005: 25). Wouter Hanegraaff (1998: 43-46) similarly proposes that the healing therapies associated with the Holistic Health to New Age progression of movements should be considered as essentially a religious phenomenon, and more specifically as Western esotericism in a secularising context, concerned with religious meaning rather than curing disease. Also relating spiritual healing to a religious context, George Chryssides suggests that what distinguishes contemporary presentations of healing from older style traditional spiritual healing is that they do not ‘presuppose or seek to impose any particular
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