The fact of the matter is, that it is useless to attempt to adapt the processes of Spiritual Healing to recognised forms of treatment, until the exponents of the method cease to soar on the wings of the imagination, and descend instead to the more prosaic levels of reason. Nevertheless, there is no doubt that theologians equally earnest, but far more rational than the founder of the Society to which reference has been made, are anxious that something should be done by the Church to assist in the work of restoring the sick to health. These men do not aspire to work the miracles of Christ and the Apostles by laying on hands and anointing with oil, but they wish to retain for the Church some portion of the command ‘Preach the Gospel; heal the sick.’ This wish is entitled to respectful consideration by the medical profession, and most certainly will receive it from broad-minded medical men. But inasmuch as the trained physician must be paramount in his own province of mental and bodily disease, it is the duty of the minister of religion to recognise that he is subservient in purely physical matters of health. By all means let him visit those of his own faith who are sick. Let his object be to inspire these patients with hope, directing the sufferer’s thoughts away from his disease to higher things. The laying on of hands and the anointing with oil may well be dangerous, unless used in a purely symbolic sense; for in the minds of the more ignorant such proceedings tend to occupy the same position as the treatment for King’s Evil in former times; and admirable though the spirit of reverence may be, it is not good to attribute miraculous powers to the object revered.
Therefore, let the clergyman be content, for the present, to leave the untrained practice of methods of suggestion to quacks; and investigation of so-called cures to the medical profession. At the same time, let the medical man avail himself of the services of the minister of religion in cases in which exhortation is likely to be of use; for in the field of functional nervous conditions, and slight mental disturbances, the help of a priest of forceful character, reasonably controlled, may be of great service.
In concluding this article a summary of the suggestions offered for consideration may be made:
(1) The main function of the minister of religion should be concerned with what is called the spiritual side of man, and not with purely material conditions, such as disease.
(2) If ministers regard the Scriptures as imposing upon them duties in healing the sick, they should be content to be subservient to the physician in material conditions that are not included in their training.
(3) In dealing with phenomena as specific as diseases, the Church must be prepared to accept scientific explanations. It is useless to complain of the materialism of doctors in connexion with material physical disorders.
(4) It is not unlikely that the effects of spiritual healing will prove to be merely results of a form of suggestion.
(5) Results that can be described as curative will be found, probably, only in what are known as functional and neurotic conditions.
(6) It is most unwise to countenance untrained laymen in carrying on spiritual healing in the name of the Church; for in the end the Church may find herself dragged at the heels of quackery.
(7) While much can be done by ministers of religion in encouraging sufferers from disease, or in distracting the attention of neurasthenics, and while such assistance should be welcomed by medical men, yet the Church should beware of attempting to attract believers by means of thaumaturgic displays of healing, which are open to explanation in other ways. The Church should not enter into competition with bone-setters, osteopaths, physical culture quacks, and other undesirable persons.