SPIRITUAL HEALING.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19349, 9 December 1924, Page 12

SPIRITUAL HEALING.

MR J. M. HICKSON’S MISSIONS. FURTHER CURES REPORTED THE DOCTORS’ CRITICISM. (From Our Own Correspondent.) LONDON, October 21. Mr J. Moore Hickson, the healing missioned has come from Bradford to hold services at the Church of St. Michael and All Angels, Paddington. At the final service of the mission at Bradford, long after the church was full, patients continued to arrive and sought admittance. While the service was in progress the congregation could hear the great throng outside singing “Praise God from Whom All Blessings Flow.” There had just left the church a Shipley woman, Mrs Vickerman, who for 13 years had been unable to walk without the aid of sticks, and who also for some time had been deaf. She throw away her,, slicks and listened to the conversation in n normal manner. Many women onlookers burst into tears, and amid scenes of great emotion the doxology was sung. Mrs Vickerman said that when Mr Hickson laid his hands on her she felt a thrill pass through her body, and she knew she had been cured.

The Bishop of Bradford, before giving the missioner his customary blessing, announced that further cures had taken place. The previous day a person brought from Keighley suffering from neuritis and arthritis was unable to use her hands. She had now lost all her pain and had full use of her hands. This cure, said the bishop, was verified by the rector of Keighley. Another person, who had been lame and unable to walk for 12 years, had been given strength to go about the house.

Mrs Pinfold, the first euro during the mission, has been seen by two doctors, who, whilst not committing themselves ns to the permanency of the cure, told her to stick to her determination not to use crutches again. She is still able to move freely about the house, though she uses a walking-stick, as her logs are weak through long disuse. At the close of the first service at Paddington it is stated that a woman, who had been blind for many years, suddenly exclaimed that she could sec the-porch of the church. She was able to make her way to the door without assistance. In another case, a man who had been lame for a considerable time, and who has attended previous services conducted by Mr Hickson in the church, said ho felt so much better that it would not be long before he could dispense with his crutches. BISHOP’S WARNING. At Salisbury Diocesan Conference it was resolved to appoint a committee to consider the ministry of healing. The Rev. lau Cameron referred to the wonderful incidents of the Bradford mission.

The Bishop of Salisbury (Dr Donaldson) suggested that they should suspend their judgment until they knew more about -it. He said it was because he believed so intensely that there was something behind the movement that lie was anxious to go slowly. Missions on a large scalp .should not bo held without most careful preparation, and in many quarters they did not know how to initiate them. They must go forward with caution, reverence, and hope.

THE SCIENTIST’S POINT OF VIEW. In a letter to The Times, Dr Otto May, of Hampstead, sots out the medical point of view of tiie healing mission. He says he has no reason to question the authenticity of the cures described, but that it is of real importance that the public should understand the limitations, as well as the possibilities, of this type of treatment. The failure to do so leads to so many tragedies of frustrated hopes and unrealised expectation.

‘■U ndoubtedly, the most dramatic cases are those of the euro of paralysis of many years’ duration —of a patient suddenly regaining command of movements which had seemed irretrievably lost. To the public one ease of paralysis is much like another—• if one can bo cured by faith, why not all ? It must therefore ho clearly pointed out that cases of paralysis fall into two groups—(l) Those in which it is due to some definite organic disease of the nervous system a disease which could bo demonstrated by objective changes if the body were examined after death; (2) so-called ‘functional’ paralysis, in which there no gross nhysical disease, hut in which the loss of power is entirely mental in origin duo to psyehological repression, dissociation, or suggestion. these latter are the cases which can he, and are, cured by the various methods of psychotnerapy (mental healing). They are, in fact, so cured every day in the hospitals and climics dealing with nervous diseases, though without the publicity and emotional atmosphere associated with a ’spiritual mission.’ ‘This, then, is part of the story—that symptoms dependent wholly on mental factors may be successfully treated by mental healing, whether this takes the form of psycho-analysis, auto-suggestion, hypnotism, or emotional suggestion. But it is not quite the whole story. In nearly every case of organic disease, whether consumption, cancer, heart disease, or what you will, while some of the symptoms are due to the actual disease, others are entirely mental, due to the psychical effects of the symptoms, and, in some cases, of the patient’s realisation of his disease. In other • words, every cdse of illness has some mental element, ready to react to suitable suggestion. This is the explanation of .the vogue of the many ‘universal cures’ abounding in the history of medicine, cures which have been proclaimed with enthusiasm, hfivo held the stage for a brief space, and then been relegated to oblivion. “It is reasonable to assume that Mr Hickson’s mission will result in the cure of many victims of functional illness and in the allevation of some of the symptoms when the disease is tine to actual organic change. But is it right or wise to speak of this a* ‘spiritual healing?’ Should it not rather be described as ‘emotional healing’ comparable in every way with the countless other cures by suggestion with which history has made us familiar?” A PSYCHOLOGIST’S OPINION.

“It is not the healer that heals,” said Dr Bernard Hollander, the psychologist, in an interview, “but the faith of the honied, and those present who also contribute their faith. In my own consulting rooms and professional experience, as in the experience of most doctors and hospitals, equally ‘miraculous’ cures nro effected which this world generally knows little about. It is all a matter of the faith of the patient. It matters little by whom or by what method _that faith is inspired. It is not a miracle nor a particularly difficult matter to get a paralysed patient to make a tremendous effort to move the paralysed limb. The reaction of that effort, however, is swift and certain.”