How It Happens
Any one or a combination of the following factors may be involved: Some Deliberate Hoaxes. The Elmer Gantrys and Snake Oil Sams are still with us. They prey on the desperation that often accompanies illness, offering everything from pyramid-shaped cure-alls to home study courses on how to be a "faith healer." A reporter for The Plain Truth discovered that one traveling "healer" in California had several ex-circus performers with him. These acrobats were able to contort their bodies and then straighten them out at the command to "Be healed!"
Consider carefully the word of one of the most prominent of today's professed "healers" when she says flatly that "90 percent of all [so-called] faith healing is phony." She ought to know.
Wishful thinking. People wanting to be healed of some malady sometimes claim they are improving as a result of contact with a "healer" because they are afraid that not so affirming would demonstrate a lack of faith, which would mean they definitely will not be healed. Often at "healing revivals" and other such occasions the same individuals come up to the minister for prayer, service after service. Perhaps the first few times they are allowed up on the stage in plain view of the audience. Thereafter the "repeaters" are asked to sit in the front rows during services and to remain seated. At the end of the service the minister comes down off the stage and lays hands on them. There of course the audience can't really see that the same people are being "healed" time after time.
One elderly blind man faithfully sat in the front row every night for months. And every night he exclaimed as the minister came down and touched him, "Yes sir, my eyesight is coming clearer." But even as he sat there he confided to a Plain Truth reporter that his condition hadn't really changed at all — "yet"!
Another individual at the same service in Wisconsin conceded to The Plain Truth that during a "testimony period" he gave thanks that he was being healed "gradually," but that was not the case — it was wishful thinking.
Such incidents abound in "healing revivals;" real miracles do not.
Psychosomatic ailments. Many doctors believe that up to 80 percent of all diseases are psychosomatic in origin, that is to say they are caused or influenced by emotions. A partial list of such maladies can be as varied as: headache, colitis, asthma, backache, high blood pressure, ulcers, menstrual disorders, even, many are convinced, some colds, rheumatoid arthritis and cancer.
Researchers point out that if a body can make itself ill by emotionally inducing such functional disturbances, it can also rid itself of them through a profound emotional experience of some kind.”Healers," shrines, relics, etc. are really producing a "placebo effect." Thus many sick who expect to feel better after treatment by a "healer," actually do improve or recover completely.
Scientists are discovering amazing things about the natural power the body has to combat illness when there is a right mental outlook present. For example: "Three University of California scientists have demonstrated that hopeful thoughts may cause the body to secrete its own pain-killing drugs. . . . Already demonstrated to the satisfaction of some scientists is that positive feelings such as faith and hope stimulate white blood cells and other known parts of the immune system that combat disease" (U.S. News & World Report, February 12, 1979).
It must be emphasized here that when such remission of illness takes place it occurs through the operation of natural laws. It is not divine healing — the forgiveness of sins.
The Bible itself draws a direct connection between one's emotional state and one's health. A hopeful, optimistic outlook promotes physical well-being. Proverbs 17:22 states: "A cheerful heart is a good medicine, but a downcast spirit dries up the bones" (RSV). Again in Proverbs 14:30 we read: "A tranquil mind gives life to the flesh, but passion makes the bones rot" (RSV).
Hypnotism. Some "healers" utilize hypnotism. The power of suggestion can aid the disappearance of a psychosomatic disease. Or it can make a sick person believe he is healed whether or not he is. Or it can convince a person that he had an illness he never really had. In any case, this is not God's method of healing.
Lying wonders. As we indicated earlier, Satan and his demons, while they cannot heal, can perform certain miracles and "lying wonders." "Healing" sessions often are conducted with outright demonic symbolism and manifestations. Weird lights have been known to appear. A sweet aroma called the "heavenly scent" may waft across the room. People babble in strange tongues and go into trances. Some waltz around, "dancing in the spirit." Others see "visions."
Frequently after people are prayed for by the "healer" they fall backward semiconscious into the arms of a waiting usher. It is said they have been "slain in the spirit." You do not find such nonsense in the Bible! Every place in the Scriptures where the righteous fall down before God, they fall forward on their faces — prostrate before the Almighty. On the other hand, everywhere the Bible tells of people falling backward, God's Spirit is not in them! That happens to be a fact that can be demonstrated with the help of any Bible concordance.
It is clear in the Bible that if an individual happens to be possessed by a demon, his physical condition may be affected. A demon caused a woman Christ encountered to be hunched over (Luke 13:11). In another instance a demon caused periodic fits and convulsions in a boy (Luke 9:39). Obviously then there were times when the boy was between fits and convulsions. If a demon can cause such physical manifestations in a human, can it not also, by timing its seizures, make it appear a person it possesses has been healed or that a demon has been cast out — at least while others are watching — in order to deceive and delude the onlookers?
But Is It Healing?
Another point to consider is that that some of the "healings" as described in recent articles in various publications are not normal healings. Like the man with a severed spinal cord who after 20 years in a wheel chair was argued into going to a "healing service." Though he had absolutely no confidence he would be healed and was just about 'to leave, he was suddenly ordered to stand up and walk. He reportedly has been walking ever since. But, according to his amazed doctor, nothing has changed anatomically: his spinal cord is still severed, his muscles are atrophied, his legs so emaciated they should not be able to support his weight. There is no physical reason he should be walking.
Then there is the diabetic who no longer needs insulin in spite of a physician's attestation that the person's pancreas still does not function. Or the man with an artificial eye whose sight has been restored. He can now read with that eye — even though it is still artificial — made of plastic! If such miracles take place, people are still not HEALED and restored whole, which is how God heals.
God's mercy. God has not called everyone to understand His ways in this age. The majority of human beings who ever lived will not really come to know God until they are resurrected in the World Tomorrow after 1,000 years of Christ's reign on earth (see Revelation 20). Only a few are called to find eternal life in this age, as Jesus declared in Matthew 7:13-14. (Write for our free article "Is This the Only Day of Salvation?")
To those who obey the truth now God promises: "The righteous cry, and the Lord heareth, and delivereth them out of all their troubles" (Psalm 34:17). But God nowhere in all the Bible promises to hear and answer the prayers of the majority of humanity now cut off from Him. Nevertheless, we all are His creation. And God's compassion and love are great. It is therefore not inconceivable that there are times when He may answer an unselfish prayer of faith from one who, though spiritually blind, is sincere in reading and believing about healing in the Bible.
But sincerity means one is doing what one knows he should be doing. Mr. Armstrong has often explained how his wife was healed as the result of being prayed for by a minister of this world and the minister's wife. In fact, quite a few people were being healed by their prayers — until the worldly minister and his wife discovered a point of biblical truth that they did not want to accept. They rejected it and immediately their prayers ceased to be answered. They were no longer sincere regarding God.
God alone forgives sin and therefore miraculously heals.”I am the Lord that healeth thee," God declares (Exodus 15:26).