What Is Spiritual Healing?
Definition and Description of Spiritual Healing
What to expect in healing treatments
What conditions respond to healing
Who is a healer?
How do you find a good healer?
Wholistic spiritual healing
Definition and Description of Spiritual Healing
Lest there be confusion in terminology, let me share my personal definition of spiritual healing:
Spiritual healing is a systematic, purposeful intervention by one or more persons aiming to help another living being (person, animal, plant or other living system) to improve their condition by means of focused intention, hand contact, or movements of their hands near the body. Spiritual healing is brought about without the use of conventional energetic, mechanical, or chemical interventions.
Some healers attribute spiritual healing to God, Christ, other "higher powers," spirits, universal or cosmic forces or energies; biological healing energies or forces residing in the healer; psychokinesis (mind over matter); or self-healing powers or energies latent in the healee. Psychological interventions are inevitably part of healing, but spiritual healing adds many dimensions to interpersonal factors.
From Benor, D.J. Healing Research, Vol. I, Scientific Validation of a Healing Revolution - Bellmawr, NJ: Wholistic Healing Publications 2007 (Orig. 2001).
I take the term spiritual healing from common usage in the UK, where I lived for ten years. Other names for this include psychic, psi, mental (used for many years in the Index Medicus), faith, and paranormal healing, biological psychokinesis (Bio-PK), and distant mental influence on living systems (DMILS), to mention only a few. I often refer to this simply as healing, but want to be clear that I am not merely discussing healing on physical and psychological levels. I prefer spiritual healing because I find that involvement in healing has opened me and many others to a personal spiritual awareness.
My belief is that healing occurs on many levels, including body, emotions, mind, relationships, and spirit. I am not promoting a religious belief, nor do I feel my views are the only way of understanding healing. I respect the rights of others to their own explanations of healing.
Click here for a discussion on wholistic healing
What to expect in healing treatments
There are two broad categories of healing. In the first, prayers or meditation for the ill person's return to health are conducted either by an individual or a group. The healer(s) may be at the side of the healee or may be many miles away.
The second form of healing involves some variation of a laying-on of hands. Healers place their hands either on or near the body and may move them slowly or in sweeping fashion around the body. No massage or manipulation of the body is given in most types of healing, although healing can be a part of massage and other therapies.
All healing is much more effective when you participate fully in your own healing. You can do this through lifestyle changes (eating properly, avoiding toxins, exercising), as well as through healing practices (relaxation, meditation, engaging in spiritual practices, and developing your own healing gifts).
Treatments are usually at intervals of a week, but may be more frequent in acute problems or less frequent as treatment progresses. You can usually expect gradual improvements in physical and psychological conditions, over a period of weeks or months.
It is unfortunate that the media have focused on instantaneous, "miracle" cures that occur only rarely in isolated individuals. This has set up unrealistic expectations, and some who might have benefitted from healing have quit after a single treatment that did not produce immediate cure.
The reverse may also occur. Improvement may be so rapid that it is unsettling. For instance, although you may want to be free of a chronic pain, you may have gotten used to having that pain as a companion that gives you excuses to avoid something unpleasant, or a way of asking for attention from those around you.
These are some of the reasons that counseling may be helpful along with healing.
What conditions respond to healing
Almost any physical and emotional condition can be helped to some degree with healing. Pain of any source (such as tension headaches, migraines, backaches, chronic herpes, diabetic neuropathy) may respond rapidly.
In some instances there is an initial brief increase in pain. This is generally a positive sign, as it seems to signify a shifting of the body's energies before the pain is released.
Anxiety responds readily to healing, and many people find healing treatments very relaxing. Common illnesses that respond well to healing include arthritis, hypertension, burns, cancer (pain, malaise, side effects of radio- and chemotherapy), early and/or complicated labor, fractures, irritable bowel syndrome, asthma, chronic fatigue syndrome (ME), multiple sclerosis, and more. Diabetes mellitus may respond so quickly that insulin requirements are rapidly lessened.
Healing works well as a complement to most other therapies and may, in fact, be a part of many therapists' interventions even without their awareness.
Who is a healer?
Almost everyone has some measure of healing gift. A mother kissing away a child's hurt is a healer. However, it is much like playing the piano. Some are born gifted and do it well with little or no training or effort. Some become good at it with practice. Others, even with good intentions and diligent studies, remain mediocre.
There are numbers of training courses and schools of healing, annotated in Healing Research, Volume I.
Some religious groups claim that healing is only good when done in their way or under their religion or beliefs, and that if done outside of these it may be the work of the devil. They may actively discourage or even try to obstruct healers practicing outside of their religion. I find it sad that within such frameworks there is no respect for the Bill of Rights that guarantees freedom of religious practice.
How do you find a good healer?
You are best off following the recommendations of satisfied customers, as with choosing a doctor or any other health care professional.
Helpful questions to ask:
How long have you been practicing healing?
What sort of healing do you give?
(See Healing Research, Volume I, Chapter 1 for descriptions of many healing methods.)
What sorts of problems have you been able to help?
Have you had success with [my specific] problem?
Different healers may have great success or no success with a given type of illness. I have had numerous healers tell me that diabetes or emotional difficulties (as well as other problems) do not respond, while other healers say that they have great results with these same problems.
What do you charge?
Fees vary regionally, with the type of healing, duration of treatments, and individual practitioner. Fees commonly range between $50-100 per hour in the US. Some healers work without charge. This is particularly true of prayer healing circles. Many, however, will welcome donations.
Beware of healers who charge very high fees, or who use scare tactics, telling you that you must have their treatment or something bad will happen.
I am unfortunately unable to handle recommendations for specific healers. Please click on links for details of healing organizations in the US and UK that can provide local referrals. I cannot endorse individual healers within these organizations and can take no responsibility for their treatments. In the future I will have web links with some of these organizations. . . .
Click here for
lists of specific SPIRITUAL HEALING RESOURCES
Wholistic Spiritual Healing
Wholistic spiritual healing addresses the whole person, including body, emotions, mind, relationships, and spirit. Each of these levels of being is interlinked with all of the others, and the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
Click here for a detailed discussion of Wholistic healing
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