Definition of Faith Healing
A process through which a person is restored to physical, mental, or spiritual health by what is believed to be the direct intervention of divine power.
Definition of Faith Healing
It is founded on the belief that certain people or places have the ability to cure and heal—that someone or something can eliminate disease or heal injuries through a close connection to a higher power.
Introduction
Healer and patient believe in the healing power of spirits; the healer consciously or unconsciously manipulates the patient into believing he or she has cured the patient's ailment by prayer or hand movements; and the patient validates the healing by giving signs that the healing has worked.
Historical Background
It was known among the ancient Greeks and Romans, who believed that Asclepius, the god of medicine, might appear in the dreams of sick people who slept in the temples devoted to his worship, and that the god then cured them or prescribed a regimen of treatment for them to follow.
Historical Background
Jesus- The Greatest Miracle Healer
He cure physical ailments well outside the capacity of first century medicine. The healing in the gospels is referred to as a sign to prove His divinity and to foster belief in Himself as the Christ
Jesus- The Greatest Miracle Healer
Jesus has entrusted the healing ministry to His Church. The first apostles healed the sick and so did a large group of disciples. Jesus encouraged all believers to lay hands on the sick for healing. And there will be some in the churches whom the Holy Spirit will endow with specific “gifts of healing.”
Philippines- The International Mecca for Faith Healing
Barehanded psychic surgery is found only in the Philippines. However, a similar phenomenon appeared in Brazil in the late 60’s in the person of Jose “Ze” Arigo although he used a dull knife (butter knife) to perform an operation. Filipino faith healers, on the other hand, use only their bare hands when operating a patient.
First Filipino Psychic Surgeon
Eleuterio Terte began performing psychic surgery in the 1940’s with the use of a knife. Then in 1945, the spirit, according to him, gave him the power to perform operations without the aid of a knife Thus began the process of barehanded operations known as psychic surgery.
Tony Agpaoa
He used no anesthetic or scalpel, yet appeared to make an incision in which there was a liberal flow of blood. He appeared to insert his hands into the body and remove pathological tissue. He then moved his hand over the incision, which seemed to close instantaneously, leaving no scar.
Reasons Why Faith Healers Thrive in the Philippines
Filipinos are spiritual in nature even before the Spaniards came in 1521. They already believed in the existence of spirits called “anitos” and “encantos” or nature spirits.
It is therefore very easy for Filipinos to be in communion with unseen or spiritual forces which is necessary for healing. Because the Filipino’s view of the world is not limited to the five senses his intellect is able to accept concepts beyond the purely rational.
Reasons Why Faith Healers Thrive in the Philippines
It is believed that the Philippines was once an integral part of Lemuria, the legendary continent of advanced civilization which sank to the bottom of the sea hundreds of thousands of years before Atlantis. It is said that Lemuria was in the Pacific and Atlantis in the Atlantic Ocean. There are even claims that Pangasinan was the center of Lemurian civilization. According to this view, Filipinos are descendants of ancient Lemurians who had advanced psychic powers and perceptions.
Reasons Why Faith Healers Thrive in the Philippines
Filipinos are close to nature. They know how to enjoy the simple gifts of life. As a result, their vibrations are higher and they are able to reach a heightened state of awareness faster and more easily than the other people.
Reasons Why Faith Healers Thrive in the Philippines
the existence locally of a religious group, the Union Espiritista Christiana de Filipinas which practices and teaches members the art of mediumistic healing. This religious group has been in existence since the beginning of the 20th century and is directly influenced by the work of Allan Karde who wrote the Book of Mediums.
Other Titles
Psychic Surgery Spiritual Healing Divine Healing, Healing Prayer, Laying on of Hands, Miracle Cures, Barehanded Operations, Mediumistic Healing
Types of Faith Healing
Unorthodox- forms of healing which are not necessarily recognized by the medical schools or by the government
A. Medicinal Healing- application of medicinal plants or herbs
Types of Faith Healing
B. Psychological Healing- Adrenaline and seratonin can play a role in making people feel better, even in thinking they are healed when they aren't. People are pronounced healed by Biblical Divine Healing who have merely been manipulated to the point where adrenaline or seratonin are released
Types of Faith Healing
Paranormal/Demonic Healing has been in existence in the world practically since the creation. It is a lying wonder and opens the door to demonic influence, demonization, even possession. A lying wonder is a miracle claimed to be from God but whose source is really from the devil.
Types of Faith Healers
Faith healers help inspire others to have abiding faith in God’s healing powers that they may be cured of their illnesses.
1. Herb doctors or herbolarios or albularyo- most common; heal by the application of medicinal plants
2. Bone-setters or manghihilot- align broken bones and manipulate nerves and ligaments
Types of Faith Healers
3. Charismatic Healers- heal by prayers and meditations up to a religious fervor or emotional state whereupon the power of the spirit descends them. They make magnetic passes over affected areas of the body or by simply putting their outstretched hands on the heads of the patients who then collapse at the slightest touch of the healers
Types of Faith Healers
4. Psychic healers- heal usually at a distance by means of projecting their healing thoughts towards the patients, sometimes with the aid of pictures of the patients
5. Psychic surgeon- uses the barehanded operation, the surgery-like intervention into the human body, the removal of diseased tissues or tumors or growths and the closing of the incision leaving hardly any trace of operation at all
Types of Faith Healers
6. Magnetic healers- use a minimum of ritual; simply concentrate and pray and then wait for the energy or prana to come. When they feel the power coming to them, they begin to pass their hands above the affected area
7. Mystical healers- use white witchcraft
Types of Faith Healers
8. Those who heal by saliva, and by blowing or whispering on affected areas
9. Those who cure illnesses through the intervention of saints, the child Jesus, the Blessed Virgin Mother, etc. They get their power according to them, through visions.
Healing Process
When people are faced with a serious or debilitating illness, they often consider supernatural healing or faith healing as the final option. Our expectations for divine healing are often placed in a variety of sources which present themselves as the only hope for a miraculous recovery.
Healing Process
By means of concentration, meditation and fervent prayer, the healer disregard his intellectual mind and attune himself to his spiritual mind and in such state of attunement, God’s healing powers envelop the healer; his fingers magnetized or electrified, so to speak, by divine healing rays, which, when performing surgery, separate the cells; remove the cells causing illness or resuscitate them to life; or arrange the cells in their proper places.
Healing Process Psychokinetic phenomena observed during the healing activity: 1.utilizes no anesthesia 2. do not use scalpel, razor blades, or other instruments to open the body 3.requires usually one to ten minutes to be performed 4. with no special precautions to maintain sterile conditions 5. cause little, if any, discomfort to the patients 6. leave the patient without operative shock
Healing Process
Dematerialization, materialization, ectoplasmic formations and psychokinesis appear to be the key elements involved in psychic surgery. Dematerialization is the dissolution of organic matter, which probably turns into a fundamentally new state od energy beyond the four states of the material world- solid, liquid, gas and plasma.
Healing Process
Rematerialization or simply materialization refers to the “return or transfer of bioplasma to normal material condition. Ectoplasm refers to the formation or the appearance of basic biological substance from the body cells of mediums during trance states. Psychokinesis refers to the power of the mind to influence or move material objects without the use of physical force or energy.
Advantages
extend the word of God through teaching and studying the Bible liberate all those who are still in darkness increases faith, therefore being close to God usually is free from charge cohesive, comforting set of beliefs and participation in sacred rituals may endow a sense of meaning, purpose, & hope enhanced prevention and treatment of mental disorders (e.g. depression, suicide, and anxiety), medical and surgical illness, and addiction, reduced pain and disability; and prolonged survival
Disadvantages
○ people who seek help through faith healing and are not cured can develop feelings of hopelessness, failure, guilt, worthlessness, and depression
○ avoid or delay in conventional medical treatment
○ post hoc fallacy- patient usually credits the improvement to the healer
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Disadvantages
the person may be told that her or his faith was not strong enough. The healer and others may hold the person responsible for the failure of their healing
faith healers use fraud as a way to get others to believe in their methods; often solicited large donations or charged money for their healing sessions
Disadvantages
○ when a person has a strong belief that a healer can create a cure, a "placebo effect" can occur which makes the person feel better
○ death, disability, and other unwanted outcomes occur when faith healing is elected instead of medical care for serious injuries or illnesses
Disadvantages
○ Christians who believe in faith-healing may also develop the mind-set that God is some sort of genie that will grant our every whim.
○ belief that these faith healers are the real healers forgetting that God is the real source of cure and that these healers are mere mediums
○ encourage acceptance of magical and irrational thinking
Role of Faith
Although the faith of a believer is generally regarded as the channel of cure, Christian theology insists that the actual agent in healing is God’s Spirit. Thus, faith, in the sense of trust and expectancy—rather than in the sense of subscription to orthodox doctrine—is the prerequisite to healing.
Problems Encountered
Inefficacy and Alternative Explanation Skeptics of faith healing offer primarily two explanations for anecdotes of cures or improvements, relieving any need to appeal to the supernatural.
The first is post hoc ergo propter hoc, meaning that a genuine improvement or spontaneous remission may have been experienced coincidental with but independent from anything the faith healer or patient did or said. These patients would have improved just as well even had they done nothing.
Problems Encountered
The second is the placebo effect, through which a person may experience genuine pain relief and other symptomatic alleviation. In this case, the patient genuinely has been helped by the faith healer or faith-based remedy, not through any mysterious or numinous function, but by the power of their own belief that they would be healed. Both cases, however, are strictly limited to the body's natural abilities.
Problems Encountered
Negative Impact on Public Health
Reliance on faith healing to the exclusion of other forms of treatment can have a public health impact when it reduces or eliminates access to modern medical techniques. This is evident in both higher mortality rates for children and in reduced life expectancy for adults. Critics have also made note of serious injury that has resulted from falsely labelled "healings", where patients erroneously consider themselves cured and cease or withdraw from treatment.
Problems Encountered
The problem with the medical profession is that it cannot admit that faith healing can really effect a cure. It believes that only medicine can.
Problems Encountered
When a cure through faith healing is demonstrated, the doctors invariably attribute the cure to any or a combination of the following causes:
spontaneous remission of illness- the disease would have cured itself even if nothing was done psychosomatic in origin- it is all in the patient’s mind wrong diagnosis- doctor made a mistake in diagnosing a patient
Problems Encountered
Nevertheless, both schools of thought, spiritual healing and orthodox medicine, should both acknowledge that they need each other, that each form of therapy has something of value to contribute to the other and is not in conflict with the other.
Problems Encountered
The medical doctors, on the other hand, should realize that man is not made up of mere matter, that diseases can have purely spiritual causes requiring spiritual forms of healing. That is why medicines are of no help at all for certain types of illness. Medical doctors can learn a great deal from spiritual healers about the workings of the invisible or subtle energy fields of man which affect his health and also about the spiritual principles governing the higher constitutions of man
Problems Encountered
The spiritual healers should realize that man is not made up only of the spirit and not all diseases are caused by spiritual imbalance or disharmony, and that some diseases are best treated by orthodox medicine. There is much that spiritual healers can learn from their medical brothers, for instance, the physical functioning of the human body and its internal organs.
Problems Encountered
Fraud in Faith Healing Skeptics of faith healers point to fraudulent practices either in the healings themselves (such as plants in the audience with fake illnesses), or concurrent with the healing work supposedly taking place and claim that faith healing is a quack practice in which the "healers" use well known non-supernatural illusions to exploit credulous people in order to obtain their gratitude, confidence and money. Principle of Faith Healing
Christian healing does not take place by the exclusive use of some medicinal substance or by sole reliance on some obscure impersonal energy but through a personal encounter with and experience of Jesus, our Saviour, Healer and
Deliverer. It is not something we get hold of but Someone we hold on to. It does not result from some sort of emotional faith but from one's unshakable trust in the Lord, in his love by dying for us and in the power of his resurrection (Phil
3:10). It is the full Gospel in action, proclaiming God's love and bringing peace to man, giving glory to God and destroying the work of Satan. Principles of Faith Healing
The basis of all authentic healing rests in God’s merciful, unconditional (agape) love. Wherever God’s love exists, healing power is present. God loves all He has created. Therefore, God’s love (healing power) is present in all creation whether consciously recognized by us or not. In fact, daily we receive much healing from God without our awareness of it.
Stand of the Philippine Medical Profession on Faith Healing
The Philippine Medical Association has officially taken the stand that faith healing is mere trickery and does not recognize it as a legitimate form of therapy. It also denies the validity or genuineness of psychic surgery based on investigations it claimed it made on faith healers.
Stand of the Philippine Medical Profession on Faith Healing
Dr. Ernesto Ferreol stated that “the PGMA Council does not believe in the matter of treatment done by faith healers or spiritual healers as they claim and that serious effort should be exerted to determine the validity of treatment done by them.” The council defined a faith healer as one who allegedly practices the art of healing through deceptive methods contrary to law or medical procedures and capitalizes on the faith of their subjects.
Stand of the Philippine Government on Faith Healing
The Philippine Government does not recognize faith healing as a legitimate profession and in fact, in the late 60’s and early 70’s even waged a campaign to prosecute and put these healers to jail. Several of them were in fact jailed on charges of practicing medicine without license.
Stand of the Catholic Church on Faith Healing
The early church considered prayer healing and laying on of hands as part of its mission. However, they strongly object the practice of faith healers who are masquerading as true men of God and violating the church doctrine.
Healing Obligation of the Church
Spiritual healing is the obligation of any established church, their parish priests or ministers for spiritual healing. Without it, a religion has no reason to exist.