The Encyclopedia of World Religions

194 S healing, religious

in North America also extract foreign objects from the body of the sick person. A healer with special powers has also been important in C HRISTIANITY . Of all the founders of major religions, Jesus fits the image of charismatic healer most closely. He passed on the gift of heal ing to his APOSTLES . In time most Christians turned to other means for healing. But in the 19th and 20th centuries the idea that some Christians had the gift of healing reappeared in North America. One of the most famous healers was Oral Roberts (b. 1918), who built his own medical center in Tulsa, Oklahoma ( see P ENTECOSTALISM ). In addition to special healers, religions have found healing in rituals and changes in life-style. When indigenous people attribute illnesses to offended ancestors, they may acknowledge their offenses and make an offering to restore good rela tions. Among the Japanese, water—for example, bathing in a hot spring—has been an important way to seek health. Catholic and Orthodox Chris tians have a SACRAMENT of healing; a priest anoints a sick person with oil. In the ancient Mediterra nean world sick people often slept in the sanctuary of the god Asklepios; they left behind many testi monials to show that the god had visited them at night, often in dreams, and healed them ( see G REEK RELIGION ). Taoists have stressed that one should live in harmony with natural processes. They have also experimented with medicines that produce health, long life, and immortality ( see T AOISM ). Some religious people have also seen the source of healing in ideas and attitudes. From New Thought and C HRISTIAN S CIENCE to “the power of positive thinking,” such movements have had much influence in North America. HEALING IN 20 TH-CENTURY AMERICA During the 19th and 20th centuries, nonreligious, scientific medicine made tremendous advances. But people in North America have not abandoned religious healing. Some continue to reject medi cal techniques on religious grounds. For example, J EHOVAH ’ S W ITNESSES refuse blood transfusions. Some continue to turn to FAITH and mind based healing. Alternative medicines, such as Ayurveda,

possessed witchcraft did not even know what they were doing. Indigenous peoples have also attributed sick ness to possession by spirits. They are hardly alone. According to the N EW T ESTAMENT , J ESUS cast out demons. Folk traditions in I SLAM have known local spirits that could harm as well as help peo ple. Some scholars suggest that indigenous North Americans tended to talk about two different causes of disease. They tended to attribute physi cal illness to possession by a spirit; they attributed mental illness to the departure of a person’s soul. Yet another personal source of sickness and disease are the gods or G OD . At the beginning of the Iliad, A POLLO shoots his arrows into the Greek camp and causes a plague. The book of Deuter onomy promises that YHWH (“the Lord”) will afflict those who do not observe the T ORAH . The afflictions include “consumption, fever, inflamma tion . . . boils . . . ulcers, scurvy, and itch” (Deuter onomy 28.22, 27). Many religions, especially in Asia, attribute disease to nonpersonal causes. Indigenous North Americans often thought that a foreign sub stance—say, a feather—had entered the body and needed to be extracted. The ancient Chinese traced illness to a disruption of the harmony of nature. Ayurveda, a Hindu body of medicine, teaches that, in addition to personal causes, diseases result from an imbalance in the body’s three “humors,” wind, bile, and phlegm. Hindus, Buddhists, and Jains also attribute disease to actions ( KARMA ) in this or a previous life. Few religions have limited themselves to a sin gle cause for disease. Most of them give a variety of explanations, personal and nonpersonal. METHODS OF HEALING At one time or another religious people have used virtually every element of religion in search of heal ing. Many indigenous religions rely on specially initiated healers called shamans ( see SHAMANISM ). Shamans generally fight the spirits that are making people sick. They often travel to the spirit world to do battle. If they win, the people recover; if they lose, the shamans may die. Many shamans