Healer

“ All those who were halt, sick, or blind, cried out, "A healer! a healer!" Wherever we went, there was no talk but of the coming deliverance. As I approached one group of men I heard them say, "When will it be? When will he give the sign? Will it be before or after the feast?" "Nay," said one of the crowd, a burly blacksmith he, "what day for the deliverance but the Passover day? But be it when it may, let him give the sign, and I shall be ready."
"And prove a new Maccabee," said one in the crowd, referring to his hammer, whereat a grim laugh arose. ”

“ It has been my fortune to see something of the practice of the art of healing under widely different conditions, and I know none who better represents the most humane and most exacting of all professions than yourself. The good doctor of this story—the born surgeon and healer, the ever young and alert, the self-forgetful, the faithful friend, gifted with "that exquisite charity which can forgive all things"—is studied from you. ”

“ When the potentialities of mental and spiritual treatment are more fully realized, the healing art will be transformed and ennobled and its efficacy immeasurably increased. And when this new knowledge and power in the healer are combined with lively faith and hope on the part of the patient, wonderful results may be looked for.
In God must be our trust. There is no God but Him, the Healer, the Knower, the Helper.... Nothing in earth or heaven is outside the grasp of God. ”

“ But the profession of medicine never could reach its full development until it became entirely separated from that of divinity. The spiritual guide, the consoler in affliction, the confessor who is admitted into the secrets of our souls, has his own noble sphere of duties; but the healer of men must confine himself solely to the revelations of God in nature, as he sees their miracles with his own eyes. ”

“ Whether the disease be light or severe, whether there be a contact of bodies or not, whether a personal connection be established between the sick person and the healer or not, this healing takes place through the power of the Holy Spirit. ”

“ The only difference between the healer and the patient is that the healer has learnt how to control the less self-conscious modes of the spirit by the more self-conscious mode, while the patient has not yet attained to this knowledge; and what the healer does is to substitute his own objective or conscious mentality, which is will joined to intellect, for that of the patient, and in this way to find entrance to his sub-conscious mind and impress upon it the suggestion of perfect health. ”

“ Do you believe, then, that your soul is receiving healing at Christ’s hand from the eternal wounds which with men are incurable, the wounds of the passions of sin, for the sake of which healing the Lord also came hither, that He might now cure the souls of the faithful of those incurable wounds, and cleanse them from the foulness of the leprosy of evil,—He, the only true physician and healer? ”

“ Now the action which takes place between healer and patient depends on this principle. The patient is asked by the healer to put himself in a receptive mental attitude, which means that he is to exercise his volition for the purpose of removing the barrier of his own objective personality and thus affording entrance to the mental power of the healer. ”

“ That woman surely brought me my death—Physicians, since ancient times, have sought their death by means of poison—I from the former freeholder, just a physician is left once more . . . must remain true to my calling. (Raises the vial, walking to the light to examine it.) Yes, this is the universal healer, the medicine that cures all ills, all that we have fought against in vain; the shortest formula of philosophy, the dropstone of wisdom, and the key which unlocks the other world. ”

“ Be guided only by the healer of the sick, the raiser of the dead, the friend of all who were afflicted and forlorn, the patient Master who shed tears of compassion for our infirmities. We cannot but be right if we put all the rest away, and do everything in remembrance of Him. There is no vengeance and no infliction of suffering in His life, I am sure. There can be no confusion in following Him, and seeking for no other footsteps, I am certain.’ ”

“ The power does not lie in the personality of the healer, nor in the exercise of his will-power. Neither hypnotism nor mesmeric control are elements in true mind-healing. The healer, in reality, is but an interpreter and teacher. The divine recuperative forces which exist, but are latent, are awakened and called into action. The patient is like a discordant instrument containing great capabilities, only waiting to respond in unison to active harmony. ”

“ Many a healer has actually, and literally, pumped his life force and etheric substance into the body of his patient, when the latter was sinking into the weakness which precedes death, and has by so doing been able to bring him back to strength and life. ”

“ Without faith in our wholeness we are not, and cannot be, whole. Without faith in the healing power of Divine chemistry no healing is possible either by patient or healer. The patient may not always have a conscious faith, but the healer has, and a similar faith is aroused in the patient later, as he begins to feel the divine healing power operating and working like a leaven in his nature. ”

“ The healer [says this author] simply holds in mind with great tenacity, for perhaps ten or fifteen minutes, an image of the patient as he should be. This image, by the process known as 'thought transference' is impressed upon the sick man's mind as a possibility, when his own strong desire, seizing it, is able to reproduce it as an actuality. He may be quite unconscious that he has done anything for himself, and when he finds himself well, gives all the credit to the man who, as he thinks, has 'healed' him. ”

“ That anyone should prefer to this the services of some unqualified, inexperienced ‘healer,’ who bids his patient trust in prayer, unction, or whatever his method is, telling him that if his faith is sufficient the largest sinus will be cleared up and the most distressing ankylosis broken down, simply strikes me with amazement. If the ‘healers’ really wish us to believe their claims, let them produce a properly codified list of cases which can be thoroughly investigated. ”

“ The healer is the man who can inspire faith. The tongue may speak to human ears, but souls are reached by souls that speak to souls.
15. He is the forceful man whose soul is large, and who can enter into souls, inspiring hope in those who have no hope, and faith in those who have no faith in God, in nature, nor in man. ”

“ The healer's constant affirmation that there can be no sickness, no disease in God's image in man, is a powerful suggestion which tends to weaken the grip of error in his patient's body. The very shutting out of all fear, of the terror of disease and death, is a great step towards a cure, because these things are depressing to all the bodily functions. ”

“ He brightens with hope, and submits to the treatment, full of the faith that he is to be healed without faith. It is superfluous to add that by this stroke of policy the healer has inspired the patient with all the faith required, namely, the faith of his subjective mind. I will not animadvert upon the propriety of this course, though I cannot help but contrast it with that of the Great Healer, who never descended to falsehood, even to the end that good might come. He always told his followers frankly that faith was essential ”

“ Case II. “At the urgent request of friends, and with no faith and hardly any hope (possibly owing to a previous unsuccessful experience with a Christian Scientist) , our little daughter was placed under the care of a healer, and cured of a trouble about which the physician had been very discouraging in his diagnosis. This interested me, and I began studying earnestly the method and philosophy of this method of healing. Gradually an inner peace and tranquillity came to me in so positive a way that my manner changed greatly. ”

“ The power of the healer was sometimes associated with his official station in the Church, sometimes due to his saintly character and often enough only to a personal influence, the fact of which is well enough established, though there can be in the nature of things no finality in the estimate of his real efficacy. ”

“ The physician must first discover the nature of the possessing spirit, and then attack it. Powerful magic was the weapon used, and the healer must be an expert in reciting incantations and skilful in making amulets. ”

“ This mutual removal of the external mental barrier between healer and patient is what is termed establishing a rapport between them, and here we find one most valuable practical application of the principle laid down earlier in this book, that pure spirit is present in its entirety at every point simultaneously. ”

“ The patient is absent, and often knows nothing, objectively, of what is being done for him. The healer sits alone and becomes passive; or, in other words, becomes partially self-hypnotized, and addresses the patient mentally, and proceeds to argue the question with him. ”

“ The healer who undertakes to direct fasts against the wishes of the patient's friends and relatives, who have more influence than he has, injures himself professionally and throws doubt upon the valuable therapeutic measure he advocates. ”

“ Some few healers there are, who toil not in the light, and whose earnest lives are devoted to their work. Blessings on them, and on every heart that dictates benevolent remedy, even although it can only reach a few out of the many suffering! ”

“ The Christian nurse, while administering treatment for the restoration of health, will pleasantly and successfully draw the mind of the patient to Christ, the healer of the soul as well as of the body. The thoughts presented, here a little and there a little, will have their influence. The older nurses should lose no favorable opportunity of calling the attention of the sick to Christ. They should be ever ready to blend spiritual healing with physical healing. ”

“ To prove that there is need of a great and thorough reform, both in the habits of society generally, and in the practice of the healing art, I will bring forward some facts, which have occurred in my own experience as a healer of the sick during the past seven years. ”

“ Blood had condescended to debate the matter with these ladies, he might have urged that having had his fill of wandering and adventuring, he was now embarked upon the career for which he had been originally intended and for which his studies had equipped him; that he was a man of medicine and not of war; a healer, not a slayer. ”

“ Medicine, guarded too by preliminary impediments, and frightful medusa-heads of quackery, which deter many generous souls from entering, is of the half-articulate professions, and does not much invite the ardent kinds of ambition. The intellect required for medicine might be wholly human, and indeed should by all rules be,—the profession of the Human Healer being radically a sacred one and connected with the highest priesthoods, or rather being itself the outcome and acme of all priesthoods, and divinest conquests of intellect here below. ”

“ If the cure fails, I do not want a cent; if it works—but we will talk of the pay later.”
“Queer fellow that,” said the old man to himself as the healer left the house. “He’s different from all the other magnetic healers I’ve heard of before. ”

“ Section 27 Again, the healers of our bodies will have their labours and vigils and cares, of which we are aware; and will reap a harvest of pain for themselves from the distresses of others, as one of their wise men said ”

“ The more conservative and honest workers felt the bad effects of these extreme methods, and in the Journal of June, 1892, one healer writes:
All healers have some instantaneous cures, but if we mention only these, does it not imply that we have no lingering cases? I call to mind a lady Scientist who wanted to make an impression in a new field where she hoped to get business. After talking of the many wonderful cures which she had effected, she added that she herself was cured in three treatments of a lifelong malady. ”

“ O Death the Healer, scorn thou not, I pray,
To come to me: of cureless ills thou art
The one physician. Pain lays not its touch
Upon a corpse. ”

“ It is a question to-day, whether the ancient inspired healers understood the Science of Christian healing, or whether they caught its sweet tones, as the natural musician catches the tones of harmony, without being Ancient healers able to explain them. ”

“ There seems to have been a great development of mental healing during the nineteenth century. The healing by shrines, relics, and charms diminished in the latter part of the century on account of the lessening of superstition and the better understanding of mental laws, but additional work has thereby been laid upon the healers. ”

“ In the sacred book of the Parsis it is said: “If several healers offer themselves together, namely, one who heals with the knife, one who heals with herbs, and one who heals with the Holy Word, it is this one who will best drive away sickness from the body of the faithful.” [405] In another place the “Holy Word” is pronounced “the best healing of all remedies.” [406] Evidently, one might resort to other means, if he chose. And here I may remark, that in the practices of Æsculapius there was precisely the same threefold means of cure, as will be seen by referring to the chapter on the god. ”

“ These healers simply supply a form of Suggestion which is acceptable to the patient because of his temperament, training, etc., and the healing process operates along the lines of the “faith cure.”
The fact that healers of entirely opposite theories and doctrines manage to make cures in about the same proportion and in about the same time, would seem to prove that the theories or dogmas have but little to do with the real work of healing. Whatever form of Suggestion is most acceptable to the patient, will best perform the healing work in that particular case. ”