Article July 19, 2004 Issue

What's driving the interest in spiritual healing?

By Margaret Rogers

A MAN CALLED me a couple of weeks ago to ask about spiritual healing. Recently diagnosed with a disease considered controllable but not curable by drugs, he was looking for alternatives. He told me he was a physical therapist and was willing to change his diet, but didn't want to take the prescribed medication.

I've worked in the field of spiritual healing for 30 years, and in recent times I've noticed an increase in inquiries from people who have never considered such an approach before. The Associated Press recently reported that prayer is the most common choice of alternative medicine by far. Amazon.com lists more than 35,000 titles under spiritual healing. An Internet search for workshops on the subject comes up with over 129,000 offerings. What's driving this interest?

In the case of the physical therapist, the answer was simple. A few days before he called me, he had heard a woman on the radio version of the Sentinel tell how she was healed by prayer of the same disease he had. It gave him hope that he could be healed, too. I find that people who express interest in spiritual healing usually give two reasons. They're looking for a better option than conventional medicine offers them, and/or they're dissatisfied in general with a material approach to life and are seeking spirituality.

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