h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Proper spiritual healers don't 'make money out of people'...
proper spiritual healers heal people...

Well then to find out if they are proper, it might be a good idea to test them.

Those that use recognised 'mentalist' routines, such as cold-reading, and pass that off as clairvoyance, are certainly despicable charlatans, and should really be prosecuted for fraud.

You wouldn't need to test a real one. You'd be able to recoginise it straight away

This is a very difficult subject, I also believe that just because someone doesn't charge a fee it doesn't makes them genuine, some do this sort of thing as it makes them the centre of attention that they normally wouldn't be. A lot of people are very good at reading body signals that everyone puts out without even realising it, we all read someones body signals in general conversation without consciously doing so, which is why some people prefer to tell lies over a phone rather than face to face.
When my dad died it gave me some comfort to picture him in my sitting in heaven happy next to God, with a glass of his favourite whiskey in his hand. Did I really believe this to be so, no not really, and my dad had been ill for a long time. I had no urge to seek someone to "talk" to him but imagine someone who had lost someone suddenly and at a young age might, which may make them grasp at straws. This is a very difficult area to talk about as everyone is vulnerable at such times.

OK, hands up, I never saw the programme.

My gran had a stroke in her 50s. She went from being a little dynamo to a pitiful wee woman who was constantly in pain. All she could talk about was the pain. Various doctors prescribed her drugs which knocked her stupid but never totally took away the pain. One day her neighbour at the sheltered housing complex introduced her to a faith healer from the church. He sat down with her and talked to her. Whereas a harassed GP could only give her a few minutes, he would sit with her for an hour or so talking and more importantly, listening.

I saw him at work once when my gran was babysitting me, (I was about 12/13). He had a very reassuring manner. Within a few minutes of him starting to talk you felt calm. He did the "laying on of hands" bit on my gran and I could actually see her relax as he did so. She persuaded him to do it with me, which he didn't want to do. He put one hand on my chest and one hand on my back. As I felt the heat from his hands go through my chest (a perfectly natural phenomena), he said this was the "Holy Spirit".

Of course, that was just boswollox and even as a child I knew it, but the point is my gran believed it.

My gran was able to cut down on the medication that knocked her stupid, her blood pressure normalised and she started smiling and enjoying life again. She still complained sometimes of the pain, but not nearly as much as before.

The guy visited every week for years, until my gran had a second massive stroke and died. He would never take any money even though my mother says she offered repeatedly and would have paid him anything he asked.

I don't really care what he did or how he did it. My gran suffered less because of him and for that reason I don't have a problem with faith healers.

He certainly seems to have been a benevolent one. And it is true that with a lot of "alternative medicine" they will give you more consultation time than than a GP would. Which might well benefit you.

Rally: And how do you just know? I say if someone can heal, it should not be that difficult to test it. Some sick people get better, regardless of anything being done. I would like to know if a spiritual healer has a higher success rate than expected due to normal circumstances.

I can't answer that question for you.
Why don't you pop along to the Spiritual Healer's website and aske them?

Or I could e-mail that Nigerian business man who wants to store his fortune in my bank account, and let him tell me how a proper nigerian business man who wants to put money into my account doesn´t have to be tested.

There are a wide range of healers out there its not fair to tar them all with the same brush.

I cant bare the ones who give you messages from dead loved ones what a nasty sham all that is they deserve to be strung up or worse. Liars every last one of them.

People who have gift for making people feel better without misleading them are a differetn kettle of fish and I often feel sorry for them that they have been convinced to believe that their talent is a gift from on high.

I once saw an advert from someone who claimed to have clairvoyant powers with a phone number on it. Surely someone who has sight beyond sight should be calling *you* up whne the spirit guide knows you want a reading!

I knew somebody was going to say that.

My clairvoyant's badge arrives next Tuesday.

...and I'm getting bored with all those headlines that say "Clairvoyant wins lottery...again"!

RF

The central problem with outlawing spiritualism or any similar such thing is that the worlds' religions, great and small, are based around similar claims and if you start legislating that this small superstition is legally false then you open a massive can of worms that you probably don't want to.

A theocratic state like Iran has no such problem, it can simply outlaw such things as heracy or witchcraft but a liberal democracy has freedom of religion and that means freedom to believe any nonsense you like as long as your actions remain within the law.

Secondly, regarding why people fall for this stuff, it's a well-known truth that people will believe what they want to even in the face of evidence or their own reason and, faced with grief, people will gladly cling on to the notion that their loved one is still contactable, no matter how absurd this is.

I have been to see several spiritual healers and I have always felt better after I have seen them. They don't get in touch with dead people. They place their hands on your head/ or shoulders, sometimes they will hold your hand. They heal people. They try to make them feel better. They talk to them. There is nothing spooky about it.

Anyway, I didn't watch the programme so it would probably be best if I didn't add any more to this converstion.

I think the programme he meant was just Most Haunted or so anyway.
Well, there are different people who claim different things. Some easier to prove/disprove than others.

My aunty had a heart attack. A neighbour came in and spent some time chatting to her. She got better.

"I think the programme he meant was just Most Haunted or so anyway.
Well, there are different people who claim different things. Some easier to prove/disprove than others."

Why is it so important to you to prove or disprove it?


"My aunty had a heart attack. A neighbour came in and spent some time chatting to her. She got better"

Human touch and understanding is what keeps us alive

Well, for one thing because they are not all benevolent. You got those phillipino faith healers with their mock operations for example. And because I want to know if such powers exist.

It's pretty important if it's easy to disprove, don't you think?
Like
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/tm_objectid=16303507&method=full&siteid=94762&headline=spooky-truth--tv-s-most-haunted-con-exposed-tv--name_page.html

Even (or especially) if you believe in people having psychic ability, a fake throws the whole thing into disrepute, and makes it much worse for any 'real' psychics there may be.

"Well, for one thing because they are not all benevolent. You got those phillipino faith healers with their mock operations for example. And because I want to know if such powers exist."

Faith healers and spiritual healers do exist. You have to believe in them. If you don't believe it doesn't work.

Sometimes things happen that cannot be explained.
If someone tries to harm you they will be the ones who are
worse off eventually, ratio 1:3