)
Faith Healing
(religion, spiritualism, and occult)Faith healing is a general term usually applied to nonmedical cures. It implies that the subject has an expectation of being healed; he or she has faith and is imbued with the idea that the acceptance of certain beliefs or doctrines (sometimes religious) will precipitate a cure. The method of healing may be hands-on, spiritual, reflexology, Reiki, dietary, herbal, by prayers, meditation, hypnotherapy, or any of a number of methods.
In many societies, a shaman performs healing. In the third century BCE, King Pyrrhus of Epirus cured colic by the laying on of hands (though, to be accurate, he touched with his feet and toes, rather than with his hands). English kings, starting with Edward the Confessor in the eleventh century CE, cured the tubercular affliction of the glands of the neck, known as scrofula, by the laying on of hands. This cure for what became known as “the King’s Evil,” continued through the line of English monarchs until Queen Anne. In France, King Robert the Pius did similar curing of the sick in the eleventh century and it continued in that country for many years. The recipients of these healings all believed beyond any doubt that the monarch’s touch would cure them. It was, therefore, pure faith healing.
Sources: