Volume 11, Issue 4, page 6

The Psychology of
"Faith Healing"
By JACK FELTS
I T WAS recently reported that a group
of arthritis sufferers, upon being
fed sugar pills, showed a remarkably
favorable response -- some 60 per cent
of them said they were relieved of pain
(Science Research, Washington, D. C.).
Contemporary encyclopedias speak of "faith
healing" as tho they accept its effectiveness, and modern medicine always takes the
mentality of the patient into consideration, even tho the ailment is ostensibly
physical. It is generally accepted that
the devices used by faith healers -- into
which category are to be classed pills
and big words -- are techniques for infiltrating the unconscious mind of the patient, and influencing it favorably.

In personality development, the uses of religious rites, myths, fables, and the like are
used (or were used originally) to give human
personality a fundament and a direction, as
well as a uniform mass psyche thru which beneficent leaders could commune with the subconscious mind of the people. Metaphysics,
which covers a wide area of thought by an
equally wide variety of people and types of
people. can be used in reaching the unconscious mind thru rationalization, and the study
of the Occult can, thru the expansion of perception and a stimulation of the emotions, be
a short-cut in penetrating the unconscious.

Often a clearly-expressed idea in which an
aspect of reality that previously has been
nebulous is suddenly brought into a clearer
focus, can stimulate the unconscious mind and
_condition it. An example is the enlightenment
r of Yoga Ram Bashida regarding faith healing.
He points out that we each have an unconscious
mechanism which performs in a predictable man,` ner. When we have an ailing body, our unconscious mechanism sets in motion a series of
= actions and reactions which have as their goal
rectifying the error, or healing the ailing
part. If the ailment be of a common kind, such
as a minor wound, we know that without medicine or treatment (that is. without the assistance of the conscious, rational mind) the
body, directed by its automatic mechanism, will
suture the wound, coagulate the blood, regraft
the skin. In normal healing, this can be more
or less predicted -- it will take a certain number of planetary revolutions to accomplish. In
a faith healing, the same processes occur --
the wound is sutured, the blood coagulated,
the skin regrafted. Therefore faith healing is
not unnatural healing but merely an accelerated normal functioning of the body. Evidence of
successful faith healing indicates that it is
possible to accelerate this normal, natural
healing function which is directed by the hidden mind,
This, of course, takes faith healing out of
the magic category and places it squarely before us as a problem in psychology.

In seeking to effect a faith healing of a
person of limited rational intelligence, a
symbol or dramatic portrayal of a highly emotional nature often penetrates the unconscious,
stimulates it and releases the energy which
accelerates the normal healing function. In a
person of higher intelligence, who has replaced his faith in dogma with an intellectual
regard for linguistic rationalization, it is
necessary to reach into his unconscious mind
thru the manipulation of words and ideas.
Whether the individual is a full believer in a
dogmatic religion, or a person of liberal religious views, the unconscious functioning remains static. The liver of an atheist works
about the same as the liver of a Roman Catholic, and both are subject to ailments, which
the unconscious mind will seek to heal. The
problem of the faith healer is in penetrating
the unconscious mind of the patient, and accelerating the normal energies.

Most faith healers believe that it is easier
to perform their work by use of commonly accepted symbols and well-known totems than to
ED. NOTE -- The person highly susceptible to
"faith healing" usually is just as prone to
"faith illness". It is no secret that most of
what ails us is self-induced, willingly or unconsciously (allegedly), and is one reason why
these campaigns to fight cancer, polio, heart
disease, etc., ad infinitum, are so profitable
to the practicing medico -- even tho fund-raising
may be the apparent only intention. Epidemics in
the main are highly sympathetic (emotional).