FAITH HEALING

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 120, 23 May 1930, Page 14

FAITH HEALING

DOCTORS CO-OPERATE

CHURCH AND SCIENCE

THE MEDICAL 'PEOBLEM

(From "The Post's" Representative.) NEW YOKE, 15th April. A demonstration centre is about to be established in this city where clergy and medical practitioners will combine in the scientific and roligious treatment of the sick. Tho work will be conducted trader the joint auspices of the American Academy of Medicine and the Federal Council of Churches. For the past three years the academy, through its committee on religion and health, has been exhibiting interest in various phases of faith healing, and has been making an intensive study or. the subject. "Ever since James Mooro Hickson, the most noted of English faith healers, came here in 191!), on his way round the world, prayer and tho laying on of hands, preceded by a short sermon, has earned a widening adherence. Healing movements now affect 10,000,000 persons, of whom 1,500,000 are Christian Scientists and 3,000,000 to 5,000,000 New Thought. MEDICAL OUTLOOK. The medical outlook toward the projected "merger" of research is expressed in a report of tho committee of the Academy of Medicine. "To-day, medicine, freed from the Church, appears," it says, "to have left this much-disputed soul of ' man to the care of theology, which, on its part, has made little of the body. Tho Church however, has gone through, radical changes.- There are thpso who believe that even now it is experiencing a sort of continuous and gradual revolution, destined to emerge with a reversal of its former attitude towards science. Instead of looking on it as a rival, the Church is beginning to regard science as an ally, and is seeking its aid in solving the problems, that confront organised religion to-day. Science, on the other hand, is said to be. becoming less material, less convinced that the, universe can be ultimately explained in terms of matter, andmore ready to enter into speculative fields. At a later stage , in. its, report, the medical committee says: "It. cannot be over-estimated,' that the physician should'take account Of whatever influence there may be between mind and body. A broad appreciation .of .-'the situation would admit that ."perhaps, no one method, whether religion 'or .Otherwise, can be expected.to reach all types. It may very well,b,&,;however,';that.the religious appeal, based; on* the function of an instinctive' mechanism, is calculated to affect the largest number of persons, and that ; it. may. afford the soundest basis 'for the' expectation of lasting results. ..: [;:,'■. ~ r- x !',. SPIRITUAL THERAPY. The report * points out that where spiritual thefapy.vhas been attempted under, medical control, the results seem to indicate that.'tiieurotie patients, alcohol, and drug addicts and their kind are sometimes improved *by the treatment, and that the morale and comfort of a patient with organic diseases may be improved while the disease continues to run its course. . . . "The medical problem," the report states, "is to discover the underlying facts and principles and to inculcate those which are sound in a well-ground-ed system of practice, which will recognise tho.true function of the mental and spiritual, as well as the material' •in the alleviation of human ills. Only in this way will ; dt be possible to confine the practice of these methods to those who can be depended on to use them with the unselfish motives characteristic of the best types of religious and medical practice."