Faith Healing

　　信心與治療

　　Faith healing--apsychological approach.

　　信心療法是一種心理治療的方法。

　　The practice of faith-healing is prevalent in many countries. Many people are trying to influence the public through emotional persuasion designated as faith-healing. In order to impress on their patients the efficacy of their healing powers, some faith-healers use the name of a god or a religious object to introduce a religious flavor into their faith healing methods. The introduction of religion into faith-healing is actually a guise or a decoy to beguile the patient into developing more devotion and enhance the confidence or faith of the patient in the faith-healer. This healing act, if performed in public is intended to get converts to a particular religious denomination.

　　In actual fact, in so far as faith-healing is concerned, religion is not all that important. There are numerous cases of faith-healers performing their faith-healing acts without using religion at all. A case in point is the science of hypnotism, the practice of which involves no religious aspects at all. Those who associate religion with faith-healing are in a way engaging in a subtle form of illusion trying to attract converts to their particular religion by making use of faith healing and describing certain cures as miraculous acts.

　　The methods employed by faith healers are to condition the minds of patients into having a certain mental attitude with the result that certain favorable psychological and physiological changes invariably take place. This attracts the condition of the mind, the heart, the consequent blood circulation and other related organic functions of the body, thus creating a feeling of a sense of well-being. If sickness is attributed to the condition of the mind, then the mind can certainly be properly conditioned to assist in eradicating whatever illness that may occur.

　　In this context, it is to be noted that the constant and regular practice of meditation can help to minimize, if not to completely eradicate, various forms of illnesses. There are many discourses in the Teaching of the Buddha where it was indicated that various forms of sicknesses were eradicated through the conditioning of the mind. Thus it is worthwhile to practise meditation in order to attain mental and physical well-being.

　　很多國家都采用信心療法。醫生以感情說服病人、以信心感動病人來獲得更高的療效。某些信心治療者藉「神」的名譽或宗教事物來達到目的。宗教介入信心治療是一件無可奈何的事，信心治療者以僞裝來誘惑病患、欺騙病患，使病患對他更有信心，引導病患們去信仰他所推薦的宗教。實際，信心治療在宗教並不是那麼重要。很多信心療法也沒有把宗教帶進來，催眠術就是一種與宗教完全無關的信心療法。那些結合信心治療和宗教的人，目的無他，只不過是爲了替自己所信仰的宗教爭取更多的信徒。他們把信心療法的功效歸功于宗教的神秘力量。

　　信心治療者所使用的方法是調適病患的內心，使病患進入一種特別有利于身心的狀況，然後影響病患的心理，使心髒和血液循環及其他的器官，進入一種非常甯靜的狀況，從而達到最高的療效。信心治療完全是一種心理治療。透過心理的調整而達到治療的目的。

　　從信心治療看來，有規律和不間斷的修學禅定，也能得到同樣的效果，減少疾病的發生。在佛教經典中多處提到，很多疾病可以透過調禦身心而獲得痊愈，恐懼、緊張、焦慮也會在禅定中消除或斷絕。因此，爲了心理和生理的健康，禅定的修學是值得鼓勵的。