Faith healing

Do you have to believe in it for it to work?

I don't believe in it per se. I believe it is a natural occurance that is activated by thought, by love, by touch.

Hokums on television banging on folks forheads....charlatans...seen too many specials on all the hucksters to think otherwise.
 
I don't honestly know how it works on the TV stuff, but I tend to find it similarly distasteful.

I believe that it could happen, but to me with the real stuff I'd think that believing in God would be more key than belief in the healing. Thank you for posting your thoughts on the matter.

In Buddhism is there anything comparable?

That would be something interesting to know. I wonder now about comparable acts of healing in all religions. Great, now I've got myself a study project. :rolleyes:

The main reason for this is that a woman I know claims to do this, and meets with a group that does this often, I guess. She even claims to have brought people back to life. So I got curious about it and what other people thought of it or had had experiences with it. It's all very... yeah, I don't know what to think.... :confused:

Thanx!
 
yes Ive seen it happen Ive experienced it personally and both of my children have also my mother and my husband. Its not like what you see in the television. Its praying in faith for Gods healing touch. sometimes its immediate and sometimes it takes awhile. God works in miracles to His glory. Its not a joke and its not a sideshow. Its faith at work.
 
immortalitylost said:
In Buddhism is there anything comparable?
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One of the Karmapa Lamas (the 6th, I think?) travelled Tibet during an outbreak of bubonic plague, touching the afflicted and taking their sickness upon himself. He died of the plague, but the outbreak ceased.
 
There is a well known international esoteric Christian Mystic from Cyprus that died in 1995. He was known as a healer, 100s of people claim to have been cured of various different illnesses and injurys and never charged for his service. Considered a heretic by the Greek Orthodoxy chruch for esoteric Christian views and believed to have been a reincarnation of a previous Cypriot Orthodxy Saint. He was interviewed by Operas people and an article was writen about him in her Magazine and has had quite abit of public attension. http://researchersoftruth.org/
 
Healing is not uncommon in Greek culture, there has been many reports of healing even from pre-Christian religions.. This is the only outlook that separates Greece from the rest of Europe. Greek culture is very passive compared to the rest of Europe. We have many many Saints that have had this ability and there is vast amount of reports that can be found of people having some kind of mystical Christian expereince.
 
Thank you all for the input. :)

17th Angel said:
Faith healing; another one of Religions ugly sides.
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I don't believe faith healing to be bad, per se. I believe that saying that you can heal people, even though you can't, and never have, and taking sick folks money and giving them false hope, or having them thinking that they're cured and so they stop taking their medications, and die or get terribly worse.... I think that's bad. I think that's evil.

But the real thing. Divine healing by god through a conduit. Healing where there is no doubt in anyone's mind that the person really is healed. Healing without the exchange of money, for no other reason than the act of good it will achieve....

That's a different story altogether.

That's a miracle.

Has anyone had experiences with that?
 
immortalitylost said:
But the real thing. Divine healing by god through a conduit. Healing where there is no doubt in anyone's mind that the person really is healed. Healing without the exchange of money, for no other reason than the act of good it will achieve....

That's a different story altogether.

That's a miracle.

Has anyone had experiences with that?
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Namaste iil,

imo there are no miracles and it is all a miracle.

Now I'm about to misspell a bunch of stuff my computer can't spell....but having traveled for years in natural healing circles (I wouldn't call it faith healing) I've seen and participated in a lot of healing with and without money involved. Reiki, Jho Rei, Tweina, Kigong, various hands on hands off healing methods. I remember distinctly Mark Victor Hansen telling me about this once, and while I respected the guy, at the time I thought he was nuts. But not a month later I ran into a former Asst Surgeon General who taught me a healing system he swears he learned in his sleep, in dreams from Jesus. He was an agnostic at the time and now over a dozen years later he's a Methodist. I say taught me, but it was like teaching me typing, he taught me to feel or be aware of what was already all around us.

Now I firmly believe it is all the same energy, and it is divine, however not a miracle...just natural stuff our science has yet to explain.
 
immortalitylost said:
I don't honestly know how it works on the TV stuff, but I tend to find it similarly distastfull
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BA's (bs artists like Benn Hinn) have people specially selected to sit in the audience and the staff know who they are. So when Hinn calls for "sick" people to come up and be healed, the "chosen ones" come up.

It's all Show Business. Anyone see the Steve Martin movie "Leap of Faith"?
 
Wil, my mom does reiki. She's a massage therapist, and got into it through that.

She gives. Wonderful. Massages.

I think I think I know what your saying with the miracles. I don't really believe in miracles as traditionally presented either. I think that everything is miraculous. But some things are extra miraculous. Some things just cant be labled as anything but "miracle". It's a label for me. It's well recognized, so I use the term.

Eccles, Benn Hinn is who this lady I mentioned traveled with. I didn't know that much about him. At least they aren't choosing people who are really sick and tricking them into thinking that they're miraculously healed. At least that's good.
 
I believe there are a lot of things that can be called faith healing, and they are different things.

One can learn various systems of energy healing, as Wil talks about- Reiki, etc. It is pretty easy to do things like making a headache go away or reduce inflammation. I have seen regular energy work extend lifespan and slow illness. I don't consider this stuff supernatural- it's just learning to be aware of and work with the natural energetic flows of living beings, to assist in the healing that nature already does. Life itself, with its capacity for regeneration and healing, is miraculous, and through our intent and will, we can augment this or thwart it, as we choose. Positive thinking and determination go a long way, as does others' positive intent and focus on our behalf.

I am not sure if prayers are "answered" in the sense of faith healing, or if it is more that positive intent, very focused will toward healing by a group of people, could affect healing in an individual. That is, is prayer healing people in a different way than Reiki? Is it how someone prays that differentiates it?

Being both Christian and Druid, I am very careful about intercessory prayer. It is too much like doing magic to me- too much like focusing my own intent and will on an outcome. I am not against this, but I don't see that as prayer, either. Prayer to me is giving up my own will, giving things over to God to do with them what It/He/She will. Prayer is very much modeled after Jesus' example of the Lord's Prayer, and in my experience intercessory prayer is more like asking for something repeatedly- for a healing to occur, for example. If I am praying, I am more apt to ask for God's will to be done, for the most harmonious path to be taken, and for the person involved to have peace, comfort, strength, and love on his/her journey. When I am healing, I do this energetically and with my own intent as a doctor would treat a patient with his/her training. It is an action I own myself, and my prayer as I offer healing is always that God's will is done- that I can only be effective if that is the most harmonious path. I never want to do something that feels like I am imposing my desires or will on God.

So... I have seen energetic healing work. Nothing spectacular like raising the dead, but I've seen it work and even extend the lifespan of animals and people given short terminal diagnoses. I've done some healing work that had good results on a small scale.

I have seen spontaneous healing and talked with people who had NDEs with spontaneous healing that was what would be considered miraculous. I have seen people with inoperable, incurable, and terminal illnesses go into remission due to alternative medicine.

So I believe in energetic healing and I believe in what many would say are miracles of healing. I don't think healing gifts are given by God in a strictly Christian sense, since people from many religions can heal others. I don't think it is wrong to make a basic living off healing people, either. Everyone has to eat and have shelter, and if that's your job and gift, I fail to see how you're different from a doctor. But I think taking more than you need is wrong, and failing to heal people if you can if they can't pay for it is also wrong. I think this is true of any kind of healing, including how our own medical system doesn't treat those who can't pay. I think acting like a fraud (which many "healers" do) is really wrong, and it's also wrong to act like you can do more than you actually can. If someone is seriously ill or injured and your capacity to heal is, like mine, at the level of relieving pain and inflammation and perhaps extending lifespan on terminal patients (but not curing them) then they need a doctor, not you. I am deeply concerned when I see groups that encourage faith healing instead of medicine. God gave us multiple ways to heal others because it's a team effort- we are to use logic, nature (herbs, pharmaceuticals, etc.), surgery, energy work, prayer- not as competing methods, but as complementary ones.
 
Thank you for your post. It was very informative. And I commend you on your efforts to heal.

What you say about prayer, I believe to be very true. When most people pray, it's to ask god for favors. I don't really consider that prayer. But the mind over matter thing you mention seems about right for that. Only if God wills it.

I believe that it's fine for people who can actually heal to make a living off of it as well. It's when people say that they can do something that they can not, false pretenses and all that, and take sick people's money, I dislike that.

So I'm basically agreeing with you. :)

Again, thanks for posting.
 
Yep, I entirely agree.

I do think sometimes we can force things to be a certain way when that is not the best, most harmonious path (that is, what some Christians call God's will). I think energy work, or the capacity of humans to affect things with their intent and focus (which some would call magic), can be done without God's will. This is really no different from other human action, like someone shooting someone else. Not necessarily God's will, but it happens. :(

This is why I am very careful about prayer being submitting to God. I think it is important to spend time giving oneself over to God, and then other time in meditation listening. This helps to reveal to oneself what is one's own desire, or even reasons one might have for actions or thoughts that are not right. For example, the Gospels talk about praying or fasting with the wrong intent and how this is not OK. God wants our motivations to be pure along with our doing the right actions. So it is important for one to figure out what is one's own desires and motivations, and if these are aligned with Christ's teachings. For example, a person could do many wonderful healings and not even charge for them, but if that person is motivated by pride in his/her own abilities and desires people to give fame or glory, then it is still not acting with the right intent, which would be to be as Christ- to be selfless, a reflection of God's grace and not himself.

I think that one of the real dangers in doing anything, whether it is healing or running a business or being a soldier or whatever, is that humans tend to start puffing themselves up and forgetting to reflect critically on their motivations.

In my case, I do what I can to heal everything I can, including myself, both mentally and physically. This includes places (through environmental action), animals, people, relationships. I was just born wanting to heal. It's not my profession, though, not directly. I guess you could say I study people and social systems to try to fix them, which is a kind of healing. But professionally, I am an anthropologist. In terms of energy healing, it is something I do when I feel compelled and feel I can help in some way, and I don't usually tell someone I am doing it. It's just something I offer. At the very least, I figure I am observing suffering and giving it my attention and love.
 
immortalitylost said:
In Buddhism is there anything comparable?
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The more esosteric / folk traditions probably do. Maybe depends on how narrow or liberal the definition of faith healing is? Mind and body are considered as one, so it's not even "right" to say there must be a connection since there is nothing to separate (and hence have a connection between) in the first place. :)

That would be something interesting to know. I wonder now about comparable acts of healing in all religions. Great, now I've got myself a study project. :rolleyes:
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It would. I look forward to reading it.

s.
 
path_of_one said:
Yep, I entirely agree.

I do think sometimes we can force things to be a certain way when that is not the best, most harmonious path (that is, what some Christians call God's will). I think energy work, or the capacity of humans to affect things with their intent and focus (which some would call magic), can be done without God's will. This is really no different from other human action, like someone shooting someone else. Not necessarily God's will, but it happens. :(

This is why I am very careful about prayer being submitting to God. I think it is important to spend time giving oneself over to God, and then other time in meditation listening. This helps to reveal to oneself what is one's own desire, or even reasons one might have for actions or thoughts that are not right. For example, the Gospels talk about praying or fasting with the wrong intent and how this is not OK. God wants our motivations to be pure along with our doing the right actions. So it is important for one to figure out what is one's own desires and motivations, and if these are aligned with Christ's teachings. For example, a person could do many wonderful healings and not even charge for them, but if that person is motivated by pride in his/her own abilities and desires people to give fame or glory, then it is still not acting with the right intent, which would be to be as Christ- to be selfless, a reflection of God's grace and not himself.

I think that one of the real dangers in doing anything, whether it is healing or running a business or being a soldier or whatever, is that humans tend to start puffing themselves up and forgetting to reflect critically on their motivations.

In my case, I do what I can to heal everything I can, including myself, both mentally and physically. This includes places (through environmental action), animals, people, relationships. I was just born wanting to heal. It's not my profession, though, not directly. I guess you could say I study people and social systems to try to fix them, which is a kind of healing. But professionally, I am an anthropologist. In terms of energy healing, it is something I do when I feel compelled and feel I can help in some way, and I don't usually tell someone I am doing it. It's just something I offer. At the very least, I figure I am observing suffering and giving it my attention and love.
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Do you think its a gift you are born with? Or can you develop it?
 
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