Healing and Hysteria

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A highly charged religious atmosphere surrounding the place of pilgrimage, such as Lourdes, or a healing session can sometimes influence a patient and imbue him or her with a desire to combat the illness that once they had regarded as a fait accompli.

Urged on by the atmosphere of excitement and by dramatic renderings from the platform, cripples elatedly throw away their crutches and the once blind claim their sight has been miraculously restored.

There is known to be a form of hysteria observable at mass healing gatherings in which the illness of the patient is temporarily cast aside, and he or she can confidently walk up and down the stage and appear to have been healed. Such phenomena are usually ephemeral and the patients return to their former state once the show is over.

An instance of this occurred when the American faith healer Maurice Cerullo visited Britain in 1992. He staged a mass healing during which a young girl, called Natalia Barned, who was confined to a wheelchair was seen to walk across his stage unaided.

What had happened was probably a triumph of will on the part of the young girl. What is key here is the emotional state of the sufferer-it is known that during periods of religious ecstasy the symptoms of quite serious illnesses can be temporarily alleviated.

These factors-the variability of illness, the short-termism of many healing cures and our own emotionalism, considered together-should all be kept in mind when assessing the validity of healing. But we should also bear in mind that none of this necessarily negates the practice of healing, as cures do occur that cannot be refuted by these factors.