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   "FAITH HEALERS: THEIR ROLE IN THE SPIRITUAL WARFARE [Faith And Psychic Healing"
 Spiritual Gifts
The nine(9) gifts of the Holy Spirit, of which healing is one of them, were given/known during the Pentecost. [1 Cor. 12:9]. Historically, the first manifestation of these nine(9) gifts happened on the Pentecost, two thousand years ago following the ascension of Christ. The Pentecost is remembered also being the birth of the Catholic, Apostolic Church founded by Jesus Christ in 33 A.D.
Admittedly, spiritual [divine] healing or Charismatic healing does not fall under faith or psychic healing. This is spiritually and biblically correct. But not legally. Legally, the Medical Act of 1957 as amended used "faith healing" as a general term; in other words, spiritual [divine] healing is categorized as "faith healing." The law does not even exempt faith healing or divine healing from illegal practice of medicine. Rep. Act No. 8237 considers faith healing within the coverage of traditional medicine. Incidentally, even before the passage of Rep. Act No. 8237 the Department of Health thru Traditional Medicine Unit, has considered faith healing a traditional medicine, as long as the practice is within the confines of the healer's religious freedom and his practices not violating of any penal/special laws in the Philippines.
Faith Healing, Not Spiritually Wrong
Is faith healing wrong spiritually?
No, if it is a legitimate faith healing. In point of time and precedence, "faith/psychic healing" antedated Divine Healing as "Charismatic Gift" for it is practiced before the Pentecost; the spiritual warfare started/reckoned not on the day of the Pentecost but when the Evil One failed in his bid to capture Heaven and succeeded instead in unseating Adam from the Garden of Eden.
Since that first [Adamic] temptation the spiritual warfare has been fought daily in every sector of the world and carried over to this present time. All religions speak of the battle of good spirits and bad spirits with men the object of such spiritual warfare.
Parenthetically, sickness with paranormal causes could not be treated or approached successfully by mere "normal healing". Spiritual or paranormal causes [i.e. sins and illness inflicted by supernatural or paranormal beings] call for spiritual or paranormal treatment/approach. Accordingly, diseases should be properly diagnosed or discerned to achieve successful healing.
Since time immemorial "faith healing" is the alternative and effective approach to paranormal causes- i.e., normal bodies being contaminated or infested by paranormal causes such as sorcery, witchcraft "usik", "barang", "paktol" or "kulam."
Faith healers who specialized "casting of bad spirits" or capable of removing abnormal/paranormal "things induced"/ "introduced" in the normal body, might be doing the job at that time, effectively.
Considering the rule of the "cosmic/dimensional barrier"[spirits, bad/good taking the form of material matter on earth]the faith healers incidentally, become "active participants" in the spiritual warfare or healing-i.e., removing the obstructions planted in the normal bodies of man and fighting the evil forces/pets of the senders of bad spirits. Because of this, faith healers actually feel the pain and at times may be subjected to spiritual retaliation or contamination of the opposing spirits. They may, in the process, out classed them or be themselves, outclassed, depending upon the power of the spirits involved. Often times death or sickness may occur in certain cases to the "unfortunate" faith healers.
Faith healers in their spiritual warfare[ destroying or driving] with the evil spirits may resort to various modes and means, bordering, however, to idolatry or superstitions in view of some rituals involved: (1) The use of "incensing" materials to drive evil spirits and often mixed with local "tawas" to capture and destroy evil animals and insects [the "pets" of evildoers]; (2) The use of some materials such as "oil", blessed salt or ordinary salt; (3) The use of noise such as the gong, trumpets, drums in the olden days and presently, the fireworks . This is common practice among the Chinese who believe that the noise drives evils spirits away;(4) The use of prayers and other "oracion." or "orasyon"; (5) The use of brooms[i.e , the noise of coco mild red brooms].etc.
Legitimate healing practices by faith healers should not be condemned for healing is always associated as something "good." However, certain practices before the Pentecost were abhorred by the Lord[Deut. 18:10-12]; such as the following -i.e., resorting to "medium and fortune tellers"[Lev.20:5-6;Lev.20:5-6]., "communicating thru dreams", etc. Thus,.
"Foolish people are deceived by vain hopes and dreams that get them all excited. A person who pays an attention at all to dreams is like someone who tries to catch shadows or chase the wind. What you see in a dream is no more real than the reflection of your face in a mirror. What is unreal and no more produce something clean Dream, divination, and omens are all nonsense.
You see in them only what you want to see. Unless the Most High has sent you the dream, pay no attention to it. Dreams have misled many people, they put their faith in them, only to be disappointed. The law is complete without such falsehood.
Wisdom as spoken by the righteousness is also complete without it. [Sirach 34:1-8].
Faith Healing, Misunderstood by Many In The Post Pentecost Era
Legitimate faith healers were primarily concerned with healing, irrespective of the spiritual life of the persons seeking some reliefs of their illness. While healing is good it should not be made the primal end, so Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Word, commanded:
Preach the Gospel and heal the sick.
Because of this, for all Charismatic involved in the healing ministry ,they must consider healing as merely secondary, with conversion as the primary end. This is achieved by Charismatic "processing"[ termed also as "spiritual cleansing"] now fully implemented by all members of the healing ministry.
Charismatic are entertaining some skepticism and doubts on the legitimacy of faith healing as that "coming from God" for some valid and legitimate reasons.
First, They questioned their "ritualistic "practices which are entirely different from the divine or spiritual healing.
Second, They questioned the prayers in healing -Latin, Greek, etc. for Charismatic prayers is Christ-centered- "In Jesus Name."
Third, They questioned the kind of "spirit" invoked by faith healers for every Charismatic believed that in every healing "God directly heals."
Fourth, The questionable "life-style" of the faith healers made them doubt whether their gift/s come from God or not.
Fifth, the various fakery and monetary schemes of some faith healers augmented their distrust to this type of healing. Divine[spiritual] or charismatic healing is not faith or psychic healing because their source of power is different: one from the Holy Spirit which started during the Pentecost and the other from other good spirits. Basically, they have one thing in common: the use of human beings as medium or instruments because spirits to enter our dimension must take/use material [ living or non-living ]matters. To consider other good "spirits" other than the Holy Spirit as "bad spirits" is to contradict a Church dogma: the intercessory powers of the Saints and the Angels in heaven, Virgin Mary, Sto. Nino and other good/Divine Spirits.
Charismatic healing is actually an improvement of the faith healing in the past- due to emphasis of evangelization, acceleration of the tempo of healing; and above all, the name - "In Jesus Name " makes the whole difference. The direct healing of God, freed his instruments from the adverse effects of bad spirits for He directly heals, fight and cast away evil spirits.
Faith Healers, Easily "Contaminated"
Faith healing usually started with the good spirits deciding to use the body of the faith healers for "intercessory purposes." The different tasks and obligations of the faith healers are dependent upon the good spirits using them. So do with prayers- some in Latin, some Greek or any other foreign languages. There is nothing wrong with foreign prayers as long as the prayers by themselves are not diabolic or Satanic in context. Do not expect a good spirit from the Roman time using the body of faith healers to be speaking and saying prayers in "Tagalog". But the "spirits" using the faith healers have limited healing power. Faith healers could not rise above their "source." Just like in Charismatic gifts you cannot have all .
One may be gifted by one or two of the nine gifts but not all. The "personal ambition" of the faith healers to treat all diseases invites "fakery"- to be known[false pride] that they can cure all. Often times the good spirit may decide to quit and abandon them for one reason[sinfulness] or another, yet the faith healers may pretend to have still the gift, the power of the supporting saints; hence, fakery and pretension being resorted to. More over, money is the root of many evils. They offered for hire their "dual services"[for good or for evil]: place "obstructions" for supernatural illness and they got paid for that. Remove the obstructions and they got also paid.
Finally, their lack of spirituality , their lack of biblical and religious background and their lack of the gift of discernment made them easy prey for Satanic side and purposes.. Satan can" jam" them, as Satan did to St. Peter during the earthly sojourn of Jesus. Unknowingly, they inclined themselves to the Satanic side.
PRAISE THE LORD!
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