'Faith' or 'fake' healing?

(photo courtesy of shamanism)

In places where most people greatly rely on their faith in God, deception is a widespread occupation. Just like in the Philippines to be exact, faith healers or albularyos gain a quite huge sum of money for treating diseases through what they call “God’s grace.”

Faith healing is defined as a healing through spiritual means. American Cancer Society said in its article entitled “Faith Healing” that faith healing can come in various forms such as prayer, visit to a shrine or a strong belief to a supreme being.

Among all these forms, psychic surgery is the most disturbing. It is a procedure wherein the healer’s bare hands allegedly incise a certain part of the patient’s skin in order to remove pathological matter and backs it with meditation. After the procedure the incision instantly disappears like the skin was never incised before. It is said to be a miracle from God.

Several YouTube videos proved that psychic surgery is merely a trick. All you have to do is to prepare pieces of bacon, food coloring and fake blood. The trick is quite simple. The healer orders the patient to stare at the ceiling like he was staring at God while faking an incision through the skin by manipulating his hands on the affected area and showing the said to be tumor which is actually a piece of bacon. It is indeed a waste of money. According to Stephen Barrett in “Some Thoughts about Faith Healing,” several patients face serious injury after believing that the procedure healed them.

Other psychic surgeons make real incisions. And knowing that they perform it with their bare hands, it is in truth risky. Every bona fide medical practitioner knows that sterilized medical gloves should always be used in operations to avoid infection of the patient’s body.

Even the Holy Bible condemns faith healing. It was said in the third commandment of the Lord, “Thou shall not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.” Faith healers, despite their strong faith in God, obviously violate this commandment for they are using God for financial purposes.

Whether faith healing is real or not, everyone must remember that healing comes from God. Any disease can be cured even without a medium. All you have to do is to believe in Him.