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15 Dec 2007 Alpha Course: Week 8
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'Does God heal today?' That's the question of this week's session. Whether it's physical, mental or spiritual The Holy Spirit is able to heal whatever ales you. Or maybe there is something else that's going on behind the scenes.
This weeks speaker was not the usual minister, but in fact was a Christian healer, a person who claims that she heals people with the power of prayer (i.e. asking God to make the person better). A Christian healer? This caught my attention. I pondered that maybe it's similar to other kinds of spiritual healing, like reiki.
The majority of the time was spent flicking through many different bible verses to try and show that this kind of healing is real “cos it sez so in da bible” (my words, not theirs). She gave a quick explanation of what she does exactly to heal, which roughly consisted of positioning her hand in the area of aliment and praying to God to make it right. This was not limited to physical aliments. If you had mental illness or are spiritually unwell then potentially these problems she can heal.
Truth be told I felt the most value of this week was not through the talk, but actually through the discussion group.
Because there was a strong theme to prayer the people in my group spoke of similar stories they mentioned before in prevois discussions, namely they prayed to God to heal them and it worked, if it didn't work then they'd get more people to pray until it did work (an over-simplified example but that was the general idea behind it). As expected there were discussions about whether there was another explanation for this kind of 'unexplained healing', including other forms of alternative healing, the placebo effect and so on. Then we tried something completely different.
We were encouraged to try and do some prayer healing within the group. Two people volunteered themselves to be healed (I considered asking to be healed, but the only thing wrong with me at the time was I had bad gas. Hardly worth bothering the Holy Spirit I thought).
The first person told the story of her friend that was going through a rough patch in his life. He apparantly dabbled in some Satanic stuff and she was worries that he would slip back into it. So she asked us to pray for him. We all gathered round this girl in a circle, placed our hands on her and we all started to pray for her whilst the minister leading the group spoke some words of prayer. I joined in with the standing and touching in the appropriate way. But I didn't pray because it's something I don't believe in, at least not in the Christian way. So I concentrated on my breathing and imagine myself channelling my energies into the girl.
Channelling my energies into the girl?? Sounds like a silly thing for a sceptic person to do. But hey, you gotta try these things out, right?
After the prayer the girl in the middle was happy and you could see on her face she was emotionally moved by the experience.
The second person said that she was having some headaches and asked to be healed. So same again, we all circled her, placed our hands on her and started to pray. Afterwards she said that she felt much better and she also described a warm sensation on her shoulder where a guy placed his hand, possibly right on the source of her pain. Could it be I witnessed a mini miracle healing right in front of my eyes? Did that man channels his energies into healing the woman? Or could it be that she believed it so much that it healed itself through the power of the human mind and body?
Maybe it stopped hurting when she stopped thinking about it.
The evening drew to a close but there was one more thing that I wished to do. I wanted to talk to this Christian Healer. I approached her with a eager smile and starting asking her questions. I got the impression that she acted like a counciler as well as a physical healer. She would be somebody that people can unload their problems onto. And she would know when to say the right things at the right time. So for example she would not tell somebody that she sensed that they have a serious anger problem if they are not willing to listen and saying so would upset them. Interestingly she state that it was all God's doing, she took no credit for her work. It was like she was saying “Right, thank you for telling me your problem but I'm not going to do anything about it. Instead I'm gonna ask God to see if I can palm it off to Him so that He can sort it out.”
Lastly I asked her what she thought about other kinds of non-conventional healing like reflexology, acupuncture, reiki, etc. Her answer was “It was all a load of tosh”. Such a strong claim took me a bit by surprize. I asked her why she made such a bold statement, to which she replied “Because none of the other forms of healing are written in the scriptures” (I presume she meant the bible). It would be interesting to see how much exposure of these other forms of healing she has, if any at all, but it was time for me to go at that point.
So did this week session convince me that God can heal? I think that scientific means of healing do work. I think that the human body is capable of feats far greater than we fully understand, to the point of the body performing miraculous healing. I like to believe that the power of prayer (or positive thinking) is capable of healing the human body, mind and soul. I like to believe in alternative means of healing, partly because of the fantasy appeal and, well, it's rather cool. As for God doing all this, I'm yet to be convinced.
If it was possible for the human body to do such amazing things, why should God have to worry about us? Are we not capable of looking after ourselves?
Posted at: 20:45 PM
Your Thoughts
ELYSE said on Saturday 29th of December 2007 at 10:32:16 PM
Before I even delved into the meat of this entry, the first thought that came to my mind was a psychosomatic form of healing. There have been many studies done by psychologists and psychiatrists that show there is some truth to mind over matter. But there is much more to her "healing" than just a placebo effect. In fact, the man who invented geometry, Pythagoras, was highly successful in helping people through talk therapy. Just unloading their problems on to this man or the men who were available helped to relieve a great many people of their psychological problems. This type of "getting it off the chest" therapy is still highly successful today. Evidence? *points to self* Sure, it might not help with physical problems, but a great part of pain happens in the brain. If I were to think, "Man! My back is killing me," my back pain will increase. Some cultures practice not showing pain. Women who endure childbirth in these cultures do so alone, but they do not experience the pain that we women in Western societies do. There was a study that showed an increase in pain when a person allowed the pain to contort their face. The people who did not show the pain on their face experienced less pain. Interesting, eh? YAY for Psych101!