Harry Edwards

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One of the most renowned faith healers in England in the 1950s was Harry Edwards. More than any other, he popularized healing to the public. On one occasion he managed to fill the Royal Albert Hall. As an amateur magician, Edwards went along to spiritualist meetings eager to expose the chicanery he felt was involved. Instead, the converse occurred and he became an initiate and disciple of the church.

He believed that his success was because of the fact that he was in communication with spirits when engaged in the healing process. These spirits, he believed, wished to help the living. His belief in these spirits meant that he was attended by a guide, or medium, during his healing sessions. Edwards was himself a convert to spiritualism and claimed he was in contact with the spirits of Louis Pasteur and Lord Lister.

It is a matter of documented fact that Edwards treated individuals who then made dramatic recoveries. Possibly this is merely because of the fact that he treated a very large number of sick people, and in the light of this it seems only a matter of statistics that some of the people that he treated would make dramatic recoveries, just as there will always be dramatic recoveries amongst a percentage of a number of the sick.

Edward's success and notoriety were felt to have sufficient weight and theological import for the Archbishop of Canterbury to set up a special commission in 1958 to investigate the evidence for spiritual healing. It concluded, predictably, that there was no evidence of any supernatural healing power at work with spiritualist mediums.

Whatever one's views on the subject, one could hardly expect such a deeply conservative organization as the Church of England to find in favour of the spiritualists, whatever evidence was proffered. Edwards continued healing until his death.