My father and esoteric healing

[UKBoy1977]

Need some help here. My father died of cancer 16 years ago and was very skeptical all his life. Not in the educated sense like people on here, but in the 'don't believe in any of that crap' kind of way.

When he got cancer he ended up trying faith healing and esoteric healing which according to this link

http://www.esoterichealing.com/intro.html

does not involve faith but does seem to involve energy fields and the 7 'chakras'

Anyway my mother tells me about this now, I was too young to remember. She says that on one occasion a faith healer said a prayer and waved his hands around my father's body whilst he had his eyes closed. He felt a feeling of warmth all over his body and when he opened his eyes noticed that the feeling of warmth went exactly wherever this man put his hands. The whole experience made him feel great and relieved his pain. From this moment he became a believer in this method.

On several other occasions he had an esoteric healer come to the house and she did the same thing during a half-hour session, and every time it succeeded in easing his pain.

Now I try and preach things like placebo effect and the general relaxing effects of these things, but I really cannot make a convincing case for there not being something to this.

How could a man who was supposedly a non-believer up to the last moment suddenly feel a warmth spreading over his body and then become a believer in healing?

I guess I need to buy Randi's book on Faith Healing!

 

[Phil]

How could a man who was supposedly a non-believer up to the last moment suddenly feel a warmth spreading over his body and then become a believer in healing?

The same way there are no atheists in fox holes.
In extreme situations, fear and anxiety are powerful enough to cloud otherwise rational minds. There becomes a strong 'need to believe' (you hear Randi and other skeptics say this often). But I think the fact that your father is no longer with us is reason enough to dismiss the healers.

 

[Nyarlathotep]

The only differnce between even the most hard nosed skeptic and evreybody else is that they don't believe in something without evidence. This means some skeptics, just like some of the rest of the population, WANT to believe in things even if they don't actually go as far as to accept them.

I can easily see if one is in pain and dying, grasping at whatever hope comes along, even if it means allowing oneself to THINK that some faith healer, that one would scoff at under any other set of circumstances, is having an effect. The mind is a funny thing that way and we humans have an amazing capacity for self deception.

I don't think it means that there was anything to the 'treatments' your father underwent and I don't think it means your father was stupid or gullible. It just means your father sucumbed to a very human weakness at a very susceptible time.

 

[Ipecac]

The same way there are no atheists in fox holes.
In extreme situations, fear and anxiety are powerful enough to cloud otherwise rational minds. There becomes a strong 'need to believe' (you hear Randi and other skeptics say this often). But I think the fact that your father is no longer with us is reason enough to dismiss the healers.

Agree completely except for the "no atheists in foxholes". There are, in fact, atheists who will die without crying out for a being they don't believe in to save them.

 

[Phil]

Agree completely except for the "no atheists in foxholes". There are, in fact, atheists who will die without crying out for a being they don't believe in to save them.

No doubt.

It's just an expression was using to illustrate a point.

 

[robbersdog]

Need some help here. My father died of cancer 16 years ago and was very skeptical all his life. Not in the educated sense like people on here, but in the 'don't believe in any of that crap' kind of way.

When he got cancer he ended up trying faith healing and esoteric healing which according to this link

http://www.esoterichealing.com/intro.html

does not involve faith but does seem to involve energy fields and the 7 'chakras'

Anyway my mother tells me about this now, I was too young to remember. She says that on one occasion a faith healer said a prayer and waved his hands around my father's body whilst he had his eyes closed. He felt a feeling of warmth all over his body and when he opened his eyes noticed that the feeling of warmth went exactly wherever this man put his hands. The whole experience made him feel great and relieved his pain. From this moment he became a believer in this method.

On several other occasions he had an esoteric healer come to the house and she did the same thing during a half-hour session, and every time it succeeded in easing his pain.

Now I try and preach things like placebo effect and the general relaxing effects of these things, but I really cannot make a convincing case for there not being something to this.

How could a man who was supposedly a non-believer up to the last moment suddenly feel a warmth spreading over his body and then become a believer in healing?

I guess I need to buy Randi's book on Faith Healing!

It would seem your father needed to believe, and was helped along by his own mind. As has already been said, the fact that he is no longer with us is a good sign that the healing didn't work.

In fact, you provide evidence in your description that it wasn't the healer, but your fathers mind which produced the effect. You describe how he felt a warm sensation over his body, but then when he opened his eyes the sensation followed the hands. Until he opened his eyes, his mind had no idea where the hands were, the warm feeling was just a general one. When it could see which parts should feel warm, they did.

The reason a lot of people on this forum feel so strongly about these 'healers' is that they not only provide false hope, they could also lead to the patient giving up on real medicine. I don't know if this is the case with your father, but I'm sure you could see how this could come about. All this whilst all the time taking money from the 'patient' which could be useful to the family or to the proper medical institutions who really help people.

Obviously any effect produced by the healer was merely superficial. As Randi points out, the healers seem to only focus on the short term 'feel good' factor. They may make poeple feel a little better, but this effect can be produced using concentration techniques with no need to claim 'psychic' abilities.

I'm sure people in your fathers position really want to believe in this stuff. I would like to think I would be strong in such a position, but it is impossible to know, and I hope none of us ever need to find out.

 

[tim]

I'm a bit older than most of you - 53.
7 years ago I had a burst aneurysm in my brain. I came as close to dying as you can get. I had brain surgery, but the prognosis was not good. If - and it was a big if - I survived, I was likely to suffer serious brain damage.
I am pretty much an atheist. But when I was waiting to go down to surgery, I prayed. I prayed to every deity I could think of.
I recovered, pretty much. Some minor problems, but mostly I'm ok. For about 3 months after the operation I examined a number of religions and spoke to a lot of people. In the end, I came to the conclusion that my living was down to the skill of the surgeon and had nothing to do with god. But for a while there I would have worshiped any deity who promised me hope of life not in a wheelchair as a brain-damaged object of pity but as a living, breathing, caring human being.
I recommend "The Faith Healers". Something of a rant, because Mr Randi got so angry about it, but well worth the read.
I hope the above helps you to understand your fathers state of mind.

 

[Phil]

. . . But for a while there I would have worshiped any deity who promised me hope of life not in a wheelchair as a brain-damaged object of pity but as a living, breathing, caring human being.

I'm still trying to get people to see me as anything but a brain-damaged object of pity. And I've never been close to dying.

 

[tim]

I'm still trying to get people to see me as anything but a brain-damaged object of pity. And I've never been close to dying.

Any success?

 

[XRX]

But I think the fact that your father is no longer with us is reason enough to dismiss the healers.

"It's too bad she won't live. But then again, who does?"

 

[Phil]

Any success?

Very little, unfortunately.

 

[Suggestologist]

She says that on one occasion a faith healer said a prayer and waved his hands around my father's body whilst he had his eyes closed. He felt a feeling of warmth all over his body and when he opened his eyes noticed that the feeling of warmth went exactly wherever this man put his hands. The whole experience made him feel great and relieved his pain. From this moment he became a believer in this method.

He had first hand experience of an alteration in his subjective experience of pain by the method -- why should he not believe in the method's ability to relieve pain? Extending that belief to the belief that the method also functioned curatively was, of course, not warranted. However, it did relieve pain -- that is a fact.

The "healer" demonstrated the fact that your father could alter his subjective experience, to feel heat (a sensory hallucination) wherever the "healer's" hands were waving over your father's body. This then generalized to the understanding that your father could control the sensations he felt in his body (i.e. not feel pain that would otherwise be felt as a result of his organic disease -- or more specifically, to replace pain with a pleasant sensation of warmth).

Pain is fundamentally psychological. Why should it not be dealt with on psychological terms -- if the techniques work?

As for organic disease, it is physical, why should it not be dealt with primarily on physical terms (i.e. medication)? In fact, would it not be the case that pain relievers combined with medications that may cure the organic disease, may reduce the effect of the curative medications. Then, would it not be better if pain relievers were dispensed with altogether, and pain controlled only psychologically, while disease is combatted by curative medication, surgery, or other types of clinical treatment? It is my position that this is a better option.

But, just as primarily psychological problems like pain can be reduced physically by medication and surgery, it is also true that psychological means can assist healing. Moods do affect recovery time after surgery; that is scientific fact.