A Child 0f Earth

Skeptical scientists and physicians use the word “psychosomatic” to explain away reports of supernatural healings, implying the particular ailment healed was due more to auto-suggestion than to any physical “miracle.” They point out that healings occur in certain groupings of diseases: neurasthenia, bursitis, arthritis, lameness, deafness, allergies, migraine headaches.

Although divine healing seems to work best among selective afflictions, it does attract enthusiastic testimonials. Thousands of people take the trouble to write national television programs claiming deliverance from suffering; we cannot simply dismiss their reports.

It does not diminish my respect for God’s power in the slightest to realize that he primarily works through faculties of the mind  to summon up new resources of healing in a person’s body.  The  word “psychosomatic”  no derogatory connotations for me.  It derives from two Greek words  psyche and soma, which mean simply “mind” or “soul,” and “body.” Such diseases and their apparent cures demonstrate the incredible power of the mind in affecting the rest of the body.

Let me illustrate the mind’s power with a few examples recently documented by modern science:

The mind can effectively control pain. This can also be accomplished by simple mental discipline  or  by “flooding the gates”  of  the  nervous system  with  distracting noises or additional sensations (e.g., acupuncture). I saw impressive evidence of pain control while in India, where Hindu fakirs would unflinchingly walk on coals, sleep on nails, and string themselves up on poles with ropes pulling on meat hooks through their backs.

    In the placebo effect,  faith in simple sugar pills stimulates the mind to control pain         and even heal some disorders. In some experiments among those with terminal cancer, morphine was an effective painkiller in two-thirds of patients, but placebos were equally effective in half of those! The placebo tricks the mind into believing relief has come, and the body responds accordingly. Placebos also show curative powers in areas other than in pain control; they can actually stimulate the fight against disease.

Through biofeedback, people can train themselves to direct bodily processes that previously were thought involuntary. They can control blood pressure, heart rate,        brain waves,  even vary the temperature in their hands by as much as 14 degrees.

In primitive cultures, shamans use a technique called “boning.” The shaman points a “magical” bone  at a person accused of some crime,  and that person will contort and writhe in pain, and die in a few hours. The only physical “cause” of death is the power       of suggestion.

Under hypnosis, 20 percent of patients can be induced to lose consciousness of pain         so completely that they can undergo surgery without anesthetics. Some patients have   even cured their own warts under hypnosis.  The hypnotist suggests the idea, and the   body performs a remarkable feat of skin renovation  and construction,  involving the cooperation of thousands of cells in a mental-directed process not otherwise attainable.

In a false pregnancy, a woman believes so strongly in her pregnant condition that her mind directs an extraordinary sequence of activities: it increases hormone flow, enlarges breasts, suspends menstruation, induces morning sickness, and even prompts labor contractions. All this occurs even though there is no “physical cause”—that is, no fertilization and growing fetus inside.

Brain researchers,  have recently received Nobel Prizes for discovering the mechanisms behind some of these mind-body connections.  The brain produces  an  array of chemical neurotransmitters called endorphins that can control pain and affect body systems, some of which are hundreds of times more potent than morphine.

Simultaneously, many researchers have explored how external factors, such as stress,     can have profound effects  on body systems.  People  who  are  unemployed  or  recently widowed have much higher susceptibility to disease. People who take quiet times during the day and force themselves to relax seem to develop a control of stress that brings them greater health. All of these findings, which are far too numerous and complex to explore in this article, point to the fact that the mind can be a powerful channel for directing physical healing, or its failure.

Is this mental-directed healing the mechanism that results in so many claims of healing from faith healing ministries? It seems very probable. The suffering person may well focus hope and faith and trust to such a degree that the physical body responds with true recovery. The mind is a powerful force, and God can use it for his good purposes.

(To be honest, I must also add that similar results are claimed by Mormons, Christian Science practitioners, and Hindus. These, too, write testimonials of supernatural healing, and offer documentation to prove their cases. Even a self-confessed humanist has access  to mental-directed powers: Norman Cousins describes in detail in Anatomy of an Illness how he fought off a crippling disease with the health-restoring weapons of laughter and joy. The benefits of good nutrition, relaxation, a soul at peace, and the harmony of love   are aspects of common grace available to all.)

Inbuilt Healing Of The Body
I see evidence of physical healing in the human body every day. Ironically, most patients visit a doctor because of healing, not disease: the symptoms that cause patients alarm are usually spectacular demonstrations of the body’s healing mechanisms at work.

An infected wound is red and swollen with pus: the redness comes from an emergency blood supply rushing white cells and agents of repair to the scene and the pus, composed of lymph fluids and dead cells, gives stark and dramatic evidence of cellular warfare being fought. Similarly, a fever represents the body’s effort to circulate blood more quickly and also create a hostile environment for some bacteria.

Vomiting coordinates scores of muscles in a dramatic reversal of their normal processes: designed to push food down through the intestine, they now regroup in order to violently expel the food along with toxins and unwelcome invaders that have accumulated in the stomach. All these irritations, which most of us view with alarm and even disgust, reveal the orderly progress of the healing body.

My profession of surgery depends entirely on the success of the body’s healing systems. When I set a fracture, I merely align two ends of bone properly; the body must lay down the calcium needed for them to rejoin or my work would prove futile. Similarly, I cannot cut through flesh and fat and mesentery and organ walls and sew them up again unless I count on the body to repair my intrusion with a seamless reweaving of the body’s cells.

I treated one patient, a young infant, who had the rare disorder of lacking the normal capability of cell healing. Before this problem had been diagnosed, I operated to remove  intestinal blockage. Sewing up her intestine was like sewing a rubber balloon. No matter how fine and tight I made the stitches, they would always leak. As I opened her up again and again, the wounds from my original cut fell loosely apart. I found no healthy scar tissue, no connective web of repairs. She was doomed to an early death.

When I speak of these natural healing processes of the body to some Christians, they want to brush the thought aside: “Oh, of course, but that’s just natural Providence. When I say healing, I mean miracle.” No one who has studied the mechanisms and worked with them every day, harnessing them, directing and aiding them, can brush aside the wonder of physical healing that God has built into each one of us. My wife, an ophthalmologist, calls these processes “the inbuilt miracle.”