It is possible to give without loving, but it is impossible to love without giving.

- Richard Braunstein.

ABOUT ABSENT HEALING

Healing is a part of the ordinary Church Service for a few minutes, but for the specific service of healing individually there is a special service.

Before the service there is a book passed around to put names into which is read out in the other services.

This book is kept in the church in a prominent position for all to see and add to at any time by putting a name or a family down, writing the illness or reason is not necessary, but optional.

This is for ‘absent healing’ to be sent out from the entire congregation, and also when all the other churches ask for healing for their books - they include us too!

It is an old and charitable custom that makes a focus point of loving thought into a written positive action.

Perhaps we need this more than the spirit healers! Why do I say this? Well …

In one of Harry Edwards books he tells of being so busy that all the letters he received requesting absent healing were put in a draw without his having had time to read them.

Then a strange thing happened…he began to receive letters of thanks saying that healing had been given! What does this tell us? Not that Harry was negligent – but that the spirit helpers used the love in those letters to do the work without Harry!

Normally it is much more effective if the patient knows and cooperates with the absent healing, but of course this is not possible where the patient is extremely unwell or mentally disturbed. In such cases, friends or relatives should respect any deep convictions, which they know would make a patient unwilling. Patients should not ask to receive to spiritual healing from different sources, this is like trying to tune into different radio programs simultaneously, and can bring confusion rather than harmony and healing to the soul.

That is ‘absent healing’ but when we come to the healing service in person we are getting ‘hands-on’ healing. Some people find that the upliftment is spiritual, or mental. Not everyone finds a ‘quick fix’ that’s not always the way, but a slow and steady improvement over a few weeks is usual.

The first time I received ‘hands-on’ healing I started to cry, the emotion of love from spirit was so strong. This in later years I found this to be quite common.

Each Church has their own way of doing things but follows a general pattern. The SNU – Spiritualist National Union - service [Healing or other] is non-denominational in context, this means that anyone can be joining in regardless of where they are affiliated, and we have Christians and non Christians alike who also attend their own services.