Spirituality and Medicine

The Latin word “doctorus” means a “healer”, not a “curer”,
so in essence healers and doctors are simply doing the same thing with
different methods. No respected doctor will deny the significance of
psychological motivation for the immune system activation in fighting maladies.
The ancient techniques of meditation, hypnotic focusing, ‘healing prayers”, “awakenings”
or even “laying on of the hands” are being analyzed, “polished” and used in modern
clinical settings. For example, the old hypnotic techniques that were advanced
by the German doctor Schultz, American doctor Erickson and Russian Dr. Raikov,
respectively, are now being used for surgeries as a solo anesthetic.

Similarly, it has long been formally accepted that spiritual
therapy diminishes symptoms in sex abuse victims. Dr. Nichole Murray-Swank,
PhD, a clinical psychologist at Loyola College in Maryland, Columbia recently created
a formal spiritual treatment program for sex abuse victims. All patients with
PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) saw decreased symptoms. The largest
benefit was in depression and anxiety. In a totally different area, spiritual
healing was exceptionally helpful for patients with cancer as an adjunct to the
careful individualized traditional treatment.

Active collaboration and cooperation of doctors and healers
of different religious and cultural backgrounds is exiting and extremely
promising, not only in developing effective non-invasive remedies, but in
discoveries of new phenomena. As an example, in 1987 a team of German, French
and Yugoslavian doctors (including psychiatrists, neurologists and eye doctors)
together with Bishops and performed scientific and medical studies the
phenomena of Ecstasy and Apparitions at Medijugorie, (Jugoslavia). They
confirmed the existence of unusual and specific stages of vigilance that were
never studied before. This may be similar to new and advanced research in sport
medicine which recently discovered a similar state of mind in a few athletes- a
state of a super-concentration and super performance. This state is called the
“Theta-State” based on the predominance of theta waves on their EEG at that
time. Curiously, the predominance of theta waves is typical either for sleep or
for specific deep stage of hypnosis, but in this case it occurred during a full
alertness. The stages of alertness are as many as stages of sleep, and may be
even more. And all these stages are very different in their activity and
significance.

The Sleep and Behavior Medicine Institute, an Accredited
Member of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, has established recently
friendly collaboration with Bishop Ron Roth and his team in the study of the
physiological and clinical effects of spiritual healings, performed by the
internationally known professional healers. The results of this investigations
and treatments will be reported by our E-Journal “Sleep and Health” and by the
Ron Roth Foundation’s News Letter. Collaboration of spiritual healers and
doctors is the part of integration of Alternative and Traditional Medicine for
benefits of all of us.

References: Laurentin, R., Joyeux H.: “Scientific &
Medical Studies on the Apparitions

at Medjugorje”.
Veritas Publ. Dubin; 130.

Sullivan, M.
“Spiritualized Therapy May Lessen Symptoms in Sex

Abuse Survivors”. Clinical
Psychiatry. News March, 2005:18.