Faith, healing and science

(First published in the Sunday Island newspaper, Sri Lanka, on 22.12.02 under the title “Concerning Science and Faith-healing”)

 I thought that the Christmas season would be a suitable occasion to reflect on an issue which is intimately related to faith in Jesus Christ; that is, the question of healing through faith. The question whether the claims made by thousands all over the world, that they have been healed of various physical and mental ailments through faith, are simply hoaxes or just psychology, must be addressed seriously. The more so because church authorities at Lourdes confirm that of every 1000 people who claim to be healed at the shrine only 15 (fifteen) or 1.5% have been certified by them, under rigorous scientific testing, as being genuinely healed, as opposed to merely having symptoms suppressed. The authorities also confirm, and that since the shrine became a centre for pilgrimages over 140 years ago, that only some 60 people have, after scientific testing, been confirmed by them as being healed through faith. Now, the problem is that a ratio as low as 1.5% may also be explained as a random phenomenon and merely as coincidence.

I must myself confess that in my own experience a number of so-called faith or miraculous healings are best explained in terms of psychology and placebo. At the same time I must also confess that I have witnessed several instances of healing that can in no way be explained away in terms of psychology or placebo and for which an unknown factor must be imputed. So, is faith-healing merely a hoax, a coincidence, or at best, merely placebo, or is there something more to it? In what follows I shall try to look at this question seriously, even though very briefly.

Appearance and reality

The vast majority of scientists pooh-pooh the whole concept of faith healing. However, evidence which can be interpreted as supporting its claims seems to be turning up at the cutting edge of some of their own disciplines. For countless centuries, common sense has held that the world consists of objects, both animate as well as inanimate, separated from and interacting with one another, in space and time. However, advances in physics during the past hundred years have shown that this view of reality is no longer tenable. Physicists now tell us that reality only appears to our senses to consist of separate objects, whereas in truth, behind the appearance, it dissolves into an infinite energy field.

They say that everything, whether objects, living things, and even thoughts and emotions, can ultimately be reduced to forms of energy. What our senses present to us as a world of separate entities, is in reality, in its depths, a unified whole, where everything is connected to everything else and where separation, isolation and conflict are merely the products of ignorance and misperception (avijja or maya). They tell us that what appear to our senses as solid objects are only whirlpools of energy inextricably linked to the surrounding energy field like vortices on a fast flowing river. Einstein referred to solid objects as bits of frozen energy and expressed this truth through his famous Special Theory of Relativity. Modern physicists call this infinite energy field the quantum universe. Mystics and men and women of faith call it Spirit.

Characteristics of the quantum (energy) field

Three characteristics of this infinite energy field are of importance to an understanding of its relevance to faith and healing.

1) Vibrations

First, physicists tell us that the infinite energy field is in a state of constant vibration. When the field vibrates at its lowest frequency it manifests as solid objects. As the vibrations increase in frequency the field transits from solid objects to sound waves which can be picked up by the human ear. As the frequencies speed up, the energy field manifests as the electro-magnetic spectrum, which is the band of energy within which radio waves operate and which in turn graduates on an ascending scale as low, medium, high, very high and ultra high frequencies. As the vibrations speed up still more, we go beyond sound and enter the realm of light. Within the realm of light, the lowest level is visible light but beyond that we enter a level which is not visible to the human eye and requires various devices for detecting and measuring, such as ultra-violet rays, x-rays and gamma rays.

Human thought, which is also a form of energy, even at its lowest level, operates at frequencies far above measurable light. At this point we part company with the scientists and claim, along with the great masters of faith down the ages, that there is a level of energy beyond even human thought that is not measurable and is essentially unknowable to the rational mind. It is a realm so subtle that it can be accessed only in the deep silence, with humility and veneration, and with fear and trembling. That is the realm of faith, prayer and meditation.

2) Intelligence

A second characteristic of the energy field is that it is a veritable river of intelligence and a medium for communication. Today’s "Information Highway", which is the vehicle for the Internet, is but a tiny rivulet off that river. We know that a human voice at its loudest can project itself, at best, only a couple of hundred yards. The same voice even whispered into a microphone and projected by a low frequency radio wave, which vibrates at a much higher frequency than the human voice, can be projected several times that distance. However, as the radio waves increase in frequency, from low, medium, high, very high frequencies, the distance over which they can be transmitted, and their content and volume, increase phenomenally. As the rate of vibration of the energy field increases to subtler levels of light, the capacity to carry information and intelligence also increases proportionately. Unlike radio signals which use only high or very high frequency signals, TV uses mostly ultra high frequencies for transmissions. The best illustration of the use of light as a channel for transmitting intelligence is the case of optic fibres which have to a great extent displaced wires in modern telephony. The much talked about communication revolution, which has enabled the human race to communicate at speeds and over distances that, just fifty years ago were unimaginable, and all space travel, have been made possible only by tapping into this electro-magnetic spectrum, which itself is only a tiny segment of the total energy field. The question is, if the energy field can serve as a vehicle for communicating data and information, why cannot it serve as a vehicle for even subtler types of information and intelligence, such as faith and prayer?

3) Unknowable

A third characteristic of the energy field, according to physicists who have explored its mysteries, is that only .001% of it can be apprehended through our five senses and that 99.999% of it remains beyond the reach of our senses and outside the scope of scientific inquiry. This means that science can claim for its domain only .001% of the energy field. It is very important to grasp this fact. Science, which claims to be able to unravel all there is to know about the universe, is – on its own admission – confined to just .001% of it. On the other hand, the balance 99.999% of the energy field lies beyond the senses and beyond the reach of science. This means that science takes for its field of investigation only the membrane of reality, rather than its substance. Beyond this visible, tangible membrane, there is the domain of faith, prayer and meditation. The great religious masters, saints and mystics of the ages have almost unanimously testified to this truth and have affirmed that ultimately, truth or reality cannot be apprehended only through the senses, or through reason alone, and that it unfolds its mysteries only when accessed by faith, prayer and meditation. That is why Jesus of Nazareth said, "Without faith you cannot know the things of God" whereas, "All things are possible to them that believe". He also said that whoever has faith even as a mustard seed, can command a mountain, "Go and be cast into the sea and it shall be done". He was saying metaphorically, that one who had attained the subtlest level of consciousness has power over the entire energy field and can bring forth from it whatsoever he commands. Obviously, Jesus, as the Son of God, was imbued with that quality of consciousness from birth. However, He also assured His disciples that they too can do whatever He had done and do even greater things, if only they could rise to the appropriate level of consciousness, or faith.

Unreliability of the senses

It is true that we cannot detect through our senses the adequacy of faith and prayer as instruments for accessing the 99.999% segment of the energy field. On the other hand, the fact that these phenomena cannot be detected or explained now, is not a sufficient reason for rejecting them. Just 150 years ago human beings had no knowledge of the electro-magnetic spectrum and just 50 years ago they knew nothing about optic fibres either, but now, in regard to both, the human race is wiser. Therefore, it seems irrational and fallacious to argue from one’s contemporary lack of knowledge to the impossibility of knowing in the future. Also, we know that much of what our senses testify to are illusions. The senses tell us that the earth is flat, that the sky rests on the ocean at the horizon and that there is water on the desert road. The senses tell us that the sun rises and sets, that the earth is at the centre of the universe and that the world consists of solid objects separated from one another. My sense of hearing tells me that where I am now seated and working on my word processor the room around me is silent. In truth, however, it is pulsating with the voices of news readers, singers and lecturers and vibrating with music poured out from thousands of studios around the world, if only I had a radio receiver to tune in. This does not mean that we altogether reject the evidence of our senses but that we just come to a better understanding of their scope and limits. Admittedly, our five senses give us access to different layers of reality. With our ears we apprehend reality as sound and with our eyes we grasp reality as light. Likewise with our senses of touch, smell and taste we apprehend reality as hard or soft, as fragrant or smelly and as sweet and sour. However, reality is infinite and to limit it only to the five dimensions of sound, light, touch, smell and taste, is to squeeze it into a finite frame arbitrarily constructed by the senses. It is as if someone who was born blind were to deny that there is a thing called beauty or if a person born deaf were to deny anything called a melody, merely because they lacked the tools for appreciating them.

Nature of faith

Then, what is faith that claims to be able to see where the senses cannot probe? Is it emotionalism or ignorance or credulity and naivete or a combination of all these things? No! It is none of these, although the mundane mind often confuses it for them. Basically, faith is a state of consciousness which deepens and broadens our faculties. First, it gives us access to a reality that the senses and the rational mind cannot grasp and secondly it enables us to change the world around us and bring it into line with that other reality. In much the same way that our five senses enable us to know some aspects of the multi-layered reality (aspects, which science tells us, amount only to .001% of the whole). faith is another faculty for accessing aspects of reality which the senses cannot know (aspects which constitute the balance 99.999% of the whole). One of the most succinct definitions of faith I have read appears in the Bible. It defines faith as the "substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen". In other words, faith is neither an emotion, nor a state of ignorance, nor credulity or naivete. Rather it is a "substance", that is, it is a state of consciousness out of which other things arise or from which other things may be derived. Faith is not only another mode of knowing, subtler than the senses and exploring where the senses cannot go, but it also has the capacity to bring the hidden reality into manifestation. Faith lays hold of things that the senses cannot apprehend and makes them tangible. Faith reaches out into the unknown, grasps things that cannot even be conceived by the human mind and pulls them down to earth. All the miracles of the New Testament testify to this definition of faith. Jesus was never deceived by His senses. He always abided in a reality that others never saw. He saw past the outer appearance of sickness, disability, hunger, limitation and death, and through faith, laid hold of the truth as it had already been established in the Father’s Kingdom and brought it into manifestation.

For Jesus, one of the primary goals of faith is to access God’s Kingdom and bring it into manifestation. That is why He commanded His followers constantly to pray, "Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth, as it is in heaven" and "Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness". However, there is an enormous barrier to the activation of faith. Before the faculty of faith may come alive, the "ego" or the false sense of self must die. Ego and faith are mutually exclusive. The ego is the gateway to the mundane world whereas faith is the gateway to the unseen. All the mainline religions unanimously attest to this central truth, although they differ from one another over how death to self may be realised — the central belief of the Christian faith being that death to self may be achieved only by identifying with Jesus on the cross.

The Kingdom

Jesus has given us several insights into the Kingdom which He came to establish on earth. His Kingdom is a kingdom of Righteousness, of Love, of Joy and of Peace, of Justice and Truth and of Goodness and Mercy. Within His Kingdom there is neither "Jew nor Gentile", meaning that there are no ethnic distinctions there because all are children of the One Eternal God. Within His Kingdom, the captives are set free and the oppressed are set at liberty, the blind receive their sight, the deaf receive their hearing, the dumb begin to talk, the crippled get up and walk and the dead leap to life. In His Kingdom the poor say they are rich and the weak say they are strong, the crooked places are made straight and the mountains are rolled away. The lion lies down with the lamb and swords are beaten into ploughshares and there is no more pain there, no more crying, no more mourning, and death itself is swallowed up in victory and "nothing that defileth, or worketh an abomination or maketh a lie shall enter therein". Clearly, this Kingdom that Jesus talked about has still to appear in our midst in all its full-orbed splendour. Meanwhile, however, every time someone reaches the appropriate level of consciousness or faith, the Kingdom breaks through and manifests on earth, in bits and pieces admittedly, and as isolated experiences, here and there, but flashes of the Kingdom nonetheless and when it does, we call them miracles or faith healing. In other words, miracles and healing result whenever someone climbs to a level of consciousness or faith from where he can grasp the reality that lies beyond the senses, ignores the appearance to which the senses testify, be it a cancer, an incurable disease, blindness, deafness or whatever, and brings the hidden reality into view. Faith, prayer and meditation may therefore be recognised as ways of knowing another reality and of bringing the world around us into line with it. They give us access to a realm that Jesus called "My Father’s Kingdom", a realm which although untouched by the distortions and imperfections of this world may be brought down to earth and be made real in our experience, here and now, in our physical bodies and in our minds, in our homes and in our relationships, within our communities and within nations. Faith, prayer and meditation are therefore the principal means available to us to hasten the coming of the Kingdom and changing the mundane reality around us. However, if despite seemingly genuine and intense faith nothing seems to happen, as indeed it seems to be the case at Lourdes and everywhere else, the only reason one can adduce is that ego or "self" has been a barrier. As I said earlier on, faith and ego are contradictory and mutually exclusive. No one ever tapped into the Kingdom and manifested it on earth who was still burdened by ego.

There are also many who believe that the Kingdom can be established on earth primarily through social and political action, through economic progress and even through revolutions. They are those who live at the level of the .001% reality, oblivious of the other 99.999%. They are those whose universe is limited to the valleys and who have no concept of the view from the mountaintop. Confronted by advances within their own disciplines, scientists are beginning to realise that they have been like children paddling on the shore of a vast ocean, having neither the means nor the understanding to launch out on the unknown expanse that stretches before them. It seems that they are now catching up with men and women of faith and uncovering truths the latter have known for countless centuries.

Conclusion

Basically, while conceding that the vast majority of claims made on behalf of faith healing may be explained in terms of psychology and the placebo effect, I am also saying that genuine instances of faith healing do occur and that they are also consistent with the new scientific understanding of reality. The central argument of this article is that, contrary to the traditional scientific world view which asserts that matter is primary and consciousness merely its manifestation or epiphenomenon, the truth is the reverse.

It is consciousness (Spirit) that is primary and what the world calls matter is only its manifestation. Reality is therefore a spectrum, or a continuous and infinite energy field, within which at one end is pure Consciousness (which most religions interpret as Deity), at the other end gross matter and, in between, varying admixtures of the two. Human life occurs halfway along this spectrum, constantly in tension between the higher spiritual end, which is its true habitation and estate, and the lower material end in which it is firmly anchored. The ensuing tension is what constitutes the "angst" of life, i.e. the deep inner disquiet that afflicts all human beings in some degree or another. This model of reality has a long inheritance in the western and eastern traditions of human thought. An element shared in common by both these great traditions is that, in proportion as a human being moves up the spectrum towards pure consciousness, he or she begins to find release from limitations that characterise life at the lower end of the spectrum, such as disease, decay and death. In other words, as someone begins to live increasingly in the Spirit he finds release from the Law, which is set out in the Christian vision as the Law of Sin and Death, and in the Buddhism as the Law of "anicca, dhukka, anatta". Faith healing or miracles occur when someone of heightened spiritual awareness lays hold of the reality at the higher or spiritual end of the spectrum and manifests it in a three-dimensional form at the lower or material end of the spectrum. Attaining such a level of consciousness is a function of faith, prayer and meditation.

In my view, the miracles of Jesus of Nazareth are the best illustration of the outworking of such a pure consciousness.