HEALING BY SUGGESTION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18748, 29 December 1922, Page 7

HEALING BY SUGGESTION

DOCTORS AND SPIRITUAL HEALING. DISCUSSION' IN CHRISTCHURCH. (From Our Own Correspondent.) CHRISTCHURCH, December 28. . I lie relation between healing by suggestion as practised by M. ('one and the, spiritual healing to lie carried on by Mr Hickson, who is to conduct; a mission in , \ v about six months hence, was dealt with in a paper read to the dominion conference of the Church of England Men's Society to-day by Archdeacon Ensor. In the course of his remarks Archdeacon Ensor said that what was known as suggestive therapeutics, or healing by suggestion, had become recognised as a, perfectly scientific method of healing, for it was recognised as a proved fact of the sub-conscious mind in man controlling all the automatic, powers of the body, but yet influenced itself by the conscious or reasoning mind. Healing by suggestion was, really healing by inhibiting. The minds' of all people were stored with racial habits and fears, including that of inherited disease. Some people eagerly read quack advertisements, talked of their ailments, and literally enjoyed bad health, forgetting that all the time they did to' the sub-conscious mind, following the lead of the conscious, was unable to do its function for health, but was obliged to do (he exact opposite. The ■sneaker Went on to refer to his own invest!. gallons of mental healing in 1909 with the sanction of the diocesan authorities and the help of several doctors. He related one case of a young woman who was cured of warts, on the hands in a few weeks under hypnotic suggestion, which brought back metabolism of (he body to normal and removed the cause of the warts. It; was a fair conclusion that suggestive therapeutics had their limitations, because their sphere of action was in the material plane; in other words, they acted upon what was already the power of the human body. Spiritual healing occupied, fn his opinion, an altogether different plane. Mr Hickson professed be the agent and instrument Only. The right preparation for his mission was the preparation of the soul and body for the divine gift. Mr Hickson had worked in, close co-operation with the medical profession, regarding the work of the doctor as God’s work, and drugs and medicines as having in them healing virtues from God. His mission, when rightly understood, was eminently the same as the exercise by a gifted man of the power of healing, which Christ had left to His Church. In a discussion that followed, Dr H, M. Prins (Wellington), speaking as a medical man who had had considerable experience among mental cases, said tho spiritual healing of the sick should not be regarded as miraculous, but simply vis following the methods of Christ. The whole of a doctor’s training was materialistic, but most doctors were convinced that there was some power in them which did more good to their patients than drugs and pills, which patients did not take.—(Laughter.) Sick people wore inclined to choose a doctor in whom they had confidence, and who inspired them with the belief that they were going to get better. The Rev. Mr Greenwood (Auckland) said his own experiences of spiritual healing had been encouraging. In the course of his ordinary duties of parish priest in a Victorian mining district he had applied it to an old miner who had been paralysed for some time, and unable to walk. He told the man to have faith, and laid his hands upon him with prayer.. When he returned next day the man kicked the bed-clothes off. In the Auckland diocese he had practised unction with tho consent and full cooperation of the present bishop, who had also made use of it, end he had come across several remarkable cures. One well-known churchman was attacked by corebro-spinal meningitis. His temperature went up to 105 degrees, and death seemed certain. Spiritual healing was applied, and in a few hours his temperature foil. It was then found that the poison in his spine had collected at one point, and a surgeon by making a small incision was able to remove it. The man was now as well as ever. Another case was that of a woman who could not walk. What her disease was., ho did not know, but she had gone to Europe in vain for cure, hnd eventually she wont to "live in Knox Homo for Incurables. Now she was able to walk, and to visit her friends. Dr Currie (Christchurch) agreed with Dr Prins that conscious or unconscious suggestion by doctors did a great deal towards bringing about cures. He was rather afraid that the pendulum would swing too far and that for a time suggestion and the like would be applied to cases which plainly required ordinary medical and surgical treat-, ment.