What is popularly termed faith healing is not the faith
mentioned in the Bible, which means a knowledge of the
interaction of the conscious and subconscious mind. A faith
healer is one who heals without any real scientific understanding
of the powers and forces involved. He may claim that he has a
special gift of healing, and the sick person’s blind belief in him
or his powers may bring results.
The voodoo doctor in South Africa and other parts of the
world may heal by incantations, or a person may be healed by
touching the so-called bones of saints, or anything else which
cause the patients to honestly believe in the method or process.
Any method which causes you to move from fear and worry
to faith and expectancy will heal. There are many persons, each
of whom claims that because his personal theory produces
results, it is, therefore, the correct one. This, as already
explained in this chapter, cannot be true. To illustrate how
blind faith works: You will recall our discussion of the Swiss
physician, Franz Anton Mesmer. In 1776 he claimed many
cures when he stroked diseased bodies with artificial magnets.
Later on he threw away his magnets and evolved the theory of
animal magnetism. This he held to be a fluid, which pervades
the universe, but is most active in the human organism.
He claimed that this magnetic fluid, which was going forth
from him to his patients, healed them. People flocked to him,
and many wonderful cures were effected.
Mesmer moved to Paris, and while there the Government
appointed a commission composed of physicians and members
of the Academy of Science, of which Benjamin Franklin was
a member, to investigate his cures. The report admitted the leading facts claimed by Mesmer, but held that there was no
evidence to prove the correctness of his magnetic fluid theory,
and said the effects were due to the imagination of the patients.
Soon after this, Mesmer was driven into exile, and
died in 1815. Shortly afterwards, Dr. Braid of Manchester
undertook to show that magnetic fluid had nothing to do
with the production of the healings of Dr. Mesmer. Dr. Braid
discovered that patients could be thrown into hypnotic sleep by
suggestion, during which many of the well-known phenomena
ascribed to magnetism by Mesmer could be produced.
You can readily see that all these cures were undoubtedly
brought about by the active imagination of the patients together
with a powerful suggestion of health to their subconscious
minds. All this could be termed blind faith as there was no
understanding in those days as to how the cures were brought
about.