Faith healing: Encyclopedia - Faith healing

Faith healing

Faith healing, or divine healing, is the use of solely spiritual means in treating disease, sometimes accompanied with the refusal of modern medical techniques. Another term for this is spiritual healing. Faith healing is a form of alternative medicine.

Faith healing - Christian faith healing

The term is sometimes used in reference to the belief of some Christians who hold that God heals people through the power of the Holy Spirit, often involving the "laying on of hands". Those who hold to this belief do not usually use the term "faith healing" in reference to the practice; that expression is more often used descriptively by commentators outside of the faith movement in reference to the belief and practice.

Pentecostals and Charismatics who believe in supernatural healing generally do not condone the practice of withholding medical treatment in those cases when physicians determine that the withholding of such treatment would be detrimental to the patient's health.

The term "faith healing" is occasionally used in connection with Christian Science, though its adherents maintain its practice of healing is methodical and does not rest on faith alone, but also on an intimate understanding of God's law.

Some practitioners such as William Baldwin and Ken Page incorporated methods that were Christian in origin with Shamanic tools for work on clients regardless of their spiritual beliefs or backgrounds.

Faith healing - Proposed sociobiological basis

Some argue that faith healing may have a basis in sociobiology where evolution conferred survival advantage over the several million years of human pre-history to those tribes that had shamans who were thought to possess powers of healing by virtue of having undergone a neurological transformation whose symptoms are similar to kundalini. The argument posits that humans have an innate capacity to respond to shamanistic type ministrations, perhaps entirely via the placebo response, or perhaps via other as yet unknown physiological processes.

Faith healing - Criticism

Some would point out that faith healing has not scientifically been proven effective, since its practitioners can only cite anecdotal evidence of cases where it has been successful. Skeptics point out that proponents of faith healing ignore the far more numerous cases where the patient dies despite the efforts of faith healing. Doctors often ascribe any success to the placebo effect or to spontaneous remission: some people will heal with or without treatment, and it is generally natural to credit the most recent treatment for the cure (this form of reasoning is called post hoc ergo propter hoc).

Prominent 1980's-era faith healer and televangelist Peter Popoff was publicly exposed by noted skeptic James Randi working together with popular TV host Johnny Carson, when it was discovered that the apparent healing miracles and prophetic acts performed by Popoff were in fact part of an elaborately stage-managed setup including planting of audience members and broadcasts to an in-ear radio receiver. Other faith healers such as Benny Hinn have also been hit by reports of fraudulent activity.

Many people who resort to faith healing do so in cases of otherwise incurable disease. However, there are groups that believe in faith healing as the sole remedy for any health problem.

Faith healing - Ethical issues when conventional treatment is refused

Faith healing can pose serious ethical problems for medical professionals when parents decline or refuse traditional medical care for their children. In some countries, parents argue that constitutional guarantees of religious freedom include the right to rely on alternative healing to the exclusion of medical care. Advocates of conventional medicine argue studies have shown faith healing no more effective than a placebo, making it unethical to rely on, though advocates of spiritual healing argue there exist methodical and bias issues. Doctors as a rule consider it their duty to do everything that they can in the interests of the patient. In consequence, where they judge medical treatment necessary to save an individual's life or health, and balancing the question with legal and privacy concerns, they may act contrary to the patient's or parental wishes. In 2000 in Britain, a government ruling allowed a child, against much protest from the parents, to be treated by doctors.

See also

• Carnivàle
• category: Faith Healers
• Homeopathy
• Muraqaba
• Psychic surgery
• Reiki
• Scientology
• Shamanism
• Therapeutic Touch

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Faith healing", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki