Spiritual Healing
Scientific and Religious Perspectives

Explores both religious and scientific perspectives on spiritual healing, identifying what it is and how it works.

Fraser Watts (Edited by)

9780521197939, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 6 January 2011

224 pages, 5 b/w illus.
23.5 x 16.1 x 1.6 cm, 0.5 kg

'I have been looking for [this book] for the 20 years I have been involved in the healing industry … Most books on spiritual healing are written by enthusiasts and make no attempt to advance our understanding in a dispassionate way. This book does.' Methodist Recorder

There has recently been much interest in the relationship between science and religion, and how they combine to give us a 'binocular' perspective on things. One important phenomenon which has been neglected in recent work is the concept of spiritual healing. This edited collection explores a variety of approaches to spiritual healing from different religious points of view, identifying both what it is and how it works. The authors also explore the biological and psychological processes, open to scientific enquiry, through which healing may be mediated. As such, this book indicates the central proposition that religious and scientific perspectives answer different questions about healing, and there is not necessarily any conflict between them.

List of contributors
Preface
1. Conceptual issues in spiritual healing Fraser Watts
2. The historical Jesus and healing: Jesus' miracles in psycho-social context Justin Meggitt
3. The theology of spiritual healing Philip Clayton
4. Healing the spirit: mystical Judaism, religious texts and medicine Simon Dein
5. Conceptualisations of spiritual healing: Christian and secular Charles Bourne and Fraser Watts
6. The psychodynamics of spiritual healing and the power of mother kissing it better Bruce Kinsey
7. Spiritual healing in the context of the human need for safeness, connectedness and warmth: a biopsychosocial approach Paul Gilbert
8. Modeling the biomedical role of spirituality through breast cancer research Michael Boivin and Burton Webb
9. Spirituality and health: assessing the evidence Marilyn Schlitz
10. Relating spiritual healing and science: some critical reflections David Leech
11. Concluding integration Fraser Watts.

Subject Areas: Complementary therapies, healing & health [VXH], Clinical psychology [MMJ], Health psychology [MBNH9], Religious life & practice [HRLM], Spirituality & religious experience [HRLK], Religion: general [HRA]