Appealing on behalf of healing
By Carl Munson
The word “healing” really seems to push people’s buttons. Just recently, I heard a Radio 4 guest - on one of those hot-air opinion-based programmes - slam anything to do with healing (i.e. “run a mile”) based on the merest mention of the word. Fair play I suppose, it does conjure up images of eccentric characters standing over or behind those in need, with their hands hovering mysteriously in the air, eyes closed and an atmosphere of mystical expectation.
In fact, when I once questioned a person who asked "would you like some healing?", asking her: "what is it?", she replied "well, it's healing," in a way that suggested everyone knows what healing is and what's more it can only be for the good. So I do understand widely-held discomfort, but feel I must challenge the widely-held ignorance that tends to go with it.
In the last few weeks, BBC2 did the concept of healing no favours either, with its series “Trust me I’m a healer”. A predicatble stitch-up that's thrown together a random bunch of "healers" and given them the usual media treatment - opinionated skepticism and understated ridicule - and an all-out effort for a cheap laugh about something most people don't understand. Of course, making fun of what you don't understand is something "foreign" people used to endure in pre-multicultural days, but let's not open that can of worms here.
Sadly in this recent BBC2 hatchet job, the inference, as with most mainstream programme-making is that all healing is suspect, which to any intelligent person is like saying all eating is somehow bad or all medicine is wrong. Healing is an activity which, like eating and medicine, can go a number of ways in the hands of any number of people.
Here’s some help for those who haven't dismissed it out of hand based on sloppy media portrayal and a few eccentric or rogue practitioners they've experienced third-hand on the telly, down the pub or at a mind, body and spirit fair…
There's "Spiritual Healing", which the National Federation of Spiritual Healers (NFSH) says is: "a generic term used to describe various forms of holistic healing across the world." They claim there are "more than 15,000 healers operating in the UK, of which 5,000 belong to NFSH but many others work independently and in their own way."
Add to these thousands those who do not use the prefix "spiritual", which might include many complementary therapists not uncomfortable with the term healing (which after all, must surely mean "to make whole") and you get a potentially huge heal-th boosting army, who get written off by the prejudice that surrounds that simple, yet deeply powerful, h-word.
As the NFSH say, "healers come from many different backgrounds and belief systems. The source of healing energy is open to interpretation and varies depending on the individual." So for heavens sake, do see for yourself and quiz anyone who calls themselves a "healer" until they satisfy any qualms you have. Because that's where I would advise caution; anyone who does call themselves a "healer" as opposed to someone who facilitates "healing" should be carefully examined.
Use the 3 'i's that I often recommend - intelligence, instinct and intuition - but please don't get hung up on a word or your old ideas and pre-conceptions. You colud be missing out if you do. If I'm not mistaken, the NHS has spiritual healing in its vast and diverse armoury these days.
"People who receive healing often experience profound benefits. Healing should always be considered a complementary therapy, not an alternative to conventional treatment." the NFSH reminds us. "Spiritual Healing can help on many levels as it treats the whole person, mind, body and spirit. Remarkable changes can occur but a physical cure is not always a certainty. (NFSH) healers should not offer false hope."
Of course they shouldn't. But that's not a reason to not give healing a chance. You might be surprised.
This article was posted by Carl Munson
