Spiritual healing

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Spiritual healing (also: spiritual healing , spiritual healing , paranormal healing ; English: spiritual healing ) is an umbrella term for a variety of alternative medicine , esoteric , religious or magical treatment methods that have a spiritual or religious or psychological influence healing effect on the sick and which cannot be classified in scientific medicine or classical psychotherapy .

history

Religious-magical ideas about the healing effects of divine or other supernatural powers can be traced back to the early days of medical history . Classic examples from Western culture are the Asklepios cult among the Greeks and the cult of saints and exorcism in Christianity. In Jak 5,14-15  EU illness is brought close to sin, so that the "elders of the congregation" are responsible for healing. Spirit healers are also addressed in 1 Cor 12.9  EU .

In many cultures where the tradition of spiritual healing has survived, spiritual healers are consulted even when conventional medical care is available. Among the Indians of the Navajo Nation , 72% of the residents surveyed reported such consultations. One gave the reason: “ The doctor give me pills for my body, the medicine man give me songs for my spirit. ”(German:“ The doctor gives me pills for my body, the medicine man gives me songs for my soul. ”) Even immigrants from traditional cultures that are integrated into the western world often resort to traditional healing methods from their homeland in the event of illness back. In 55 psychiatric patients of Turkish origin who were interviewed by Assion et al. (1999) in Germany, ⅔ of the persons stated that they had contact with one or more hocas (religious healers).

etymology

The term spiritual healing is spread mainly from 1960 through the translated works of Harry Edwards (1893–1976). At that time appeared with spiritual healing the written by Eberhard Maria grains translation of the work Spirit Healing (1960), Bauer Verlag in Freiburg i. Br. 1963 then appeared with ways to spiritual healing, written by Emma Busse of the work A Guide to Spirit Healing (1950) written with the collaboration of Olive Burton . A book published in 1963 then bore the name The power of spiritual healing and a 1973 published A guide to the understanding and practice of spiritual healing . The term became more widespread especially from the early 1970s. The less widely used term spiritual healing ( spiritual healing ) shows up at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. Among other things, in connection with Christian Science and with Ralph Waldo Emerson , who during his lifetime "had declared in many of his lectures that illness is the result of mental imperfection, the inadequate ability to think healthily and to give the mind control over the body."

The term spiritual healing has been used in Christian scriptures for a long time, at the latest since the 18th century. The term paranormal healing has also been around since at least the early 1960s.

Treatment methods

Treatment methods that can be assigned to spiritual healing are, for example: prayer healing , laying on of hands , Ho'oponopono , Huna , mediumistic healing, animal communication, Prana , Reiki , shamanism , Therapeutic Touch , partly also kinesiology .

The Radionics is considered by some as a "device-based spiritual healing" (term coined in the 1980s by Hans Otfried Dittmer ) seen as the mental use of the therapist - consciously or unconsciously - plays in their view a major role in radio engineering methods, even if they should do more than "cure". Reincarnation therapy is also sometimes included. Parts of Ayurveda can be seen as spiritual healing from a western perspective through the use of Atmashakti, the inner power.

Touch and Distant Healing

Examples of treatment methods of spiritual healing with direct contact are the laying on of hands , therapeutic touch , pilgrimages for the sick, magnetopathy, healing energetics, prana healing . Partly personal contact, for example , requires shamanism , Reiki , kinesiology and exorcism . However, a long-distance effect is ascribed to them. In any case, a distance healing is awarded for discussion and prayer for health. Animal communication should also have a long-distance effect, although an animal communicator who, according to her own statements, can feel the animals' discomfort at a distance, could not successfully pass a test in a contribution to the program Kassensturz of Swiss television.

Neo-Charismatic Movement

A community hall of the Brazilian sect Deus é Amor in a former cinema in Montevideo , Uruguay. The empty wheelchairs are supposed to suggest that the paralyzed have learned to walk again through faith alone.

Alleged "miraculous healings" are also an active part of the worship services of the so-called neo-charismatic movement , a rapidly growing, fundamentalist school of thought of evangelical Christianity. Alleged miracle healers are at work, especially in Latin America and Africa, who often pay for their work well. Sects such as Deus é Amor or Edir Macedos Igreja Universal do Reino de Deus advertise that they can heal the sick and in Nigeria there are pentecostal TV preachers such as Chris Oyakhilome and TB Joshua and others. a. before, Aids to heal alone with faith.

There were several reports in German-language evangelical media about alleged miracle healings at events of the Gospel Forum . At the end of his talk at Holy Spirit Night in October 2012, guest speaker Daniel Kolenda, an American missionary , told the 6,000 visitors that someone was in the hall about to have a heart transplant. This is no longer needed because God created a new heart for him.

When asked about the alleged cancer cures of the Word and Spirit group , the doctor Karin Freund from the Nuremberg Health Department responded with the words: “What nonsense! You can lay your hands on for as long as you want - the cancer won't go away ”and asks the“ healers ”to provide scientific evidence of their methods. Thomas Rigl says: “People are promised things that will not be redeemed. Health, success and a carefree life - all empty promises. "

Legal Status

According to a court ruling, miracle healers in Germany do not need a permit under the Heilpraktikergesetz . In Austria, the federal government wants to punish miracle healers who pose as an alternative to traditional doctors in medically serious cases more severely.

In a broadcast on Deutschlandfunk, a Swiss doctor and alternative medicine practitioner is quoted as saying that conventional doctors and spiritual healers work together in Great Britain. For every 22,000 resident doctors there would be 14,000 registered healers. The UK health service would cover the cost of energetic healing if a doctor ordered it. Spiritism has a long tradition in Great Britain, but services in return for money - as required in the entire EU - must be able to provide evidence that the claimed effect is effective. This applies in particular to promises of cure ("... is able to cure illnesses, dysfunction or malformations").

literature

  • Markus Binder, Barbara Wolf-Braun: Spiritual healing in Germany. Part I: Results of a survey on the self-image and working method of spiritual healers in Germany. In: Journal for Parapsychology and Frontier Areas of Psychology. 37, 3/4 (1995), pp. 145-177.
  • Markus Binder, Barbara Wolf-Braun: Spiritual healing in Germany. Part II. Participant observation of two healers and questioning of their patients. In: Journal for Parapsychology and Frontier Areas of Psychology. 39 (1997), pp. 183-218.
  • Robert Jütte : History of Alternative Medicine. From folk medicine to today's unconventional therapies. C. H. Beck, Munich 1996, ISBN = 3-406-40495-2, pp. 66-114 ( religious and magical medicine ), in particular pp. 103 ff. ( Mesmerism and spiritual healing ).
  • Bruno Rösch: The position of empirical practitioners from a constitutional and administrative point of view. Shown using the example of those who heal spiritually. Helbing & Lichtenhahn, 1994, ISBN 3-7190-1318-9 .
  • Schott: Forms of Spiritual Healing in Past and Present. In: A. Resch (Ed.): Paranormology and Religion. Innsbruck 1997, pp. 323-341.

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Mariacarla Gadebusch Bondio: Spiritual healing. In: Werner E. Gerabek , Bernhard D. Haage, Gundolf Keil , Wolfgang Wegner (eds.): Enzyklopädie Medizingeschichte. De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2005, ISBN 3-11-015714-4 , p. 467.
  2. ^ A b Manfred Stöhr: Doctors, healers, charlatans: conventional medicine and alternative healing methods on the test bench. Springer 2002, ISBN 3-7985-1305-8 , p. 179 f.
  3. ^ Deutsche Bibliothek (Frankfurt am Main): German Bibliography: Half-Year Directory, Volume 1, Part 1. Booksellers Association, 1961, p. 128.
  4. ^ Federal Association of Interpreters and Translators: Living Languages, Vol. 7-9. Langenscheidt, 1962, p. 158.
  5. ^ AJ Wells (Ed.): The British National Bibliography 1950. The Council of the British National Bibliography, 1950, ( online version )
  6. ^ Herald of Christian Science. Vol. 3, Christian Science Pub. Society, 1905, p. 502.
  7. ↑ Albert Weidner: The poor devil. Volume 1-3. 1902. (Reprint: Topos Ruggell, 1982, ISBN 3-289-00270-5 )
  8. ↑ Hans Otfried Dittmer : Radionics and Bioresonance for Practitioners: Supplement to the D-Method: Biocybernetics, Bioresonance, Electronic Homeopathy, Orgone and Radionics. Books on Demand, 2004, ISBN 3-8334-1479-0 , p. 7.
  9. ↑ Manuel Zielke: Return to the past, future and the big toe. Books on Demand, 2009, ISBN 978-3-8391-2840-4 , pp. 11, 119.
  10. ↑ Vinod Verma: Ayurveda: The way of the healthy life. Vinod Verma, 2005, ISBN 81-901722-3-9 , p. 150.
  11. ↑ Peter Basler: Paranormal Test 2: Die Tierkommunikatorin , "Kassensturz", Swiss television, October 9, 2012.
  12. ^ Dean Sherman: Spiritual Warfare - How Christians Live Victorious . Wuppertal 1991.
  13. ↑ Holy Spirit Night: Divine service with a controversial message In: Stuttgarter Nachrichten , October 8, 2012. Retrieved October 9, 2012
  14. ↑ Alexander Brock: Psycho community is expanding - health department warns of “miracle healers” - ecstasy service in the cinema (Nürnberger Nachrichten of March 18, 2009, local section, page 9); a copy can still be read online on the page of the Feuchter newspaper Der Bote
  15. ↑ Nürnberger Nachrichten (online portal): Word and Spirit: "It's all about power and money" - people who drop out of the psycho group tell - "Leader of the Nation"
  16. ↑ Judgment protects faith healers. Doctors newspaper online, August 6, 2014
  17. ↑ Government wants to punish faith healers in future. The standard October 23, 2018.
  18. ↑ Burkhard Reinartz: A long night about illness, healing and health - findings and sensitivities. Find Germany, April 22, 2017, accessed on November 14, 2019 (German).
  19. ↑ BBC - Religions - Spiritualism: History of Modern Spiritualism. Retrieved October 28, 2009, November 14, 2019 (UK English).
  20. ^ Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (Ed.): Consumer protection from unfair trading . (www.theswa.org.uk/docs/consumer-protection.pdf [PDF]).