Traditional healer

“ In the early days of the Church, religious were called by a name which signifies healers. Oh! my daughter, be truly your own healer, and pay no heed to what self-love may whisper to the contrary. Say to yourself, since I do not wish to die spiritually, I will be healed, and in order to be healed I will submit to treatment and correction, and I will entreat the doctors to spare me nothing which may be required to effect my cure. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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? ”

“ Again, in Europe and America, particularly in the latter country, we find many persons who have picked up a smattering of occult knowledge by means of some of the many healing cults and organizations which teach the power of thought over physical diseases. In the instruction along the lines of distant mental healing, the student is taught to visualize the patient as strongly and clearly as possible, and to then proceed to make statements of health and strength. The mind of the patient, and that of the healer, cooperate and in many cases work wonderful cures. ”

“ For lo! in human hearts unseen
The Healer dwelleth still,
And they who make His temples clean
The best subserve His will.
The holiest task by Heaven decreed,
An errand all divine,
The burden of our common need
To render less is thine. ”

“ One mode of faith-healing in modern days, which passes under the remarkable name of Christian Science, is probably nothing more than mental suggestion under another name. “The patient is told to be calm, and is assured that all will go well; that he must try to aid the healer by believing that what is told him is true. The healer then, quietly but firmly, asserts and reiterates that there is no pain, no suffering, that it is disappearing, that relief will come, that the patient is getting well.” ”

“ In the most ordinary cases of such healing you will find that the healers simply take advantage of the naturally healthy state of the human body. An allopath comes and treats cholera patients, and gives them his medicines. The homoeopath comes and gives his medicines, and cures perhaps more than the allopath does, because the homoeopath does not disturb his patients, but allows nature to deal with them. The Faith-healer cures more still, because he brings the strength of his mind to bear, and rouses, through faith, the dormant Prana of the patient. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Clergymen of the future will do much toward eliminating poverty from among their people by instructing them to turn their backs on it and to face toward prosperity. They will teach them how to draw to themselves the sunlight of prosperity.
The cure of physical disease is effected by arousing the curative, restorative forces within the individual. These are brought into operation largely through faith in the physician, in the remedy, in the healer. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The true natural healer makes use of air, water, food, exercise, mental training—in fact, all the means nature has put at his disposal. He realizes that the best treatment is education of the patient. In many cases a cure can be greatly hastened by proper local treatment. ”

“ When he has succeeded in establishing in the mind of his patient the vigorous conviction that health is the everlasting principle, the great fundamental inviolable fact, the healer has gone far toward establishing a scientific consciousness of health, and has laid a most important health foundation.
After a little practice a sick person can do wonderful things for himself through the vitalizing force of auto-suggestion. He can be his own physician. He can recover health and keep it by applying to himself the same principles that the healer applies to his patient. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ When I lay hands on the sick, I expect the healing power and influence of God to pass through me to the patient, and the disease to give way. I do not say that I heal everybody I lay hands on; but many have been healed under my administration. ”

“ 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. ”

“ McPherson, of another Protestant denomination, in different places in Canada and the United States—have largely dispelled that idea, and thousands of intellectual people of different nationalities and of different creeds are to-day firmly convinced that the healer has an almost supernatural Divine power which is exercised for the benefit of suffering humanity. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Curative medicine would therefore be more adapted to them than surgery. And herbs, those beautiful healing herbs which stand on the hill-tops, and amid the fields, like beneficent angels beckoning in the summer winds, may be borne by the hands of the female physician into the dwellings of the sufferers, and, by means of miraculous powers called forth by love and art, may promulgate the Evangile of health more and more over the earth, and change, as much as is possible, even the so frequently terrible work of death into a peaceful transition state. ”

“ The healer is the sower, and the patient’s unconscious mind is the soil. Often rubbish must be cleared away before any fertile spot is found. The cure must come from within. Sometimes the patient is cherishing some secret sin, or giving place to trains of thought colored with envy, jealousy, avarice, or selfishness. These are all positive obstacles to both mental and physical improvement, for thoughts are real things. The patient must actively co-operate with the healer, and make himself transparent to the truth. ”

“ The very touch sent forth healing efficacy. So now healing still continues to go out from His body—His touch still works a curative influence. That glorious body on the right hand of the Father still gives forth a power to repair, a health and life-giving energy, a healing influence, to weak and wretched men. ”