We are ripe for a historic change regarding spiritual healing. The purpose of this book is to promote that change. But the change I propose in this book might not be what you think or want.
This book is for the few who are ready to go first in creating the much needed change regarding spiritual healing. It is not for those who are at home in and benefit from the status quo of mass confusion about spiritual healing, the status quo in which we have no general consensus on what spiritual healing is and relegate it to the private, personal domains of religion, metaphysics, existential psychology, psychism, and New Ageism.
In the current reality we have created, we have no general consensus on what spirit is much less spiritual healing. “Spiritual healing” can refer to any number of very different things. In my first book, Revisiting Spirit: A Brief Introduction to Thumotics, I wrote-
"Spiritual healing" is part of our vocabulary, but we have no general consensus on what the words mean. For some spiritual healing is healing of a person's inner self or soul. It might involve the healing of one's past life, becoming enlightened, having one's soul saved from damnation, finding one's purpose, escaping the cycle of reincarnation, or ascension to a higher vibration or level of consciousness.
For some spiritual healing is healing by non-medical, religious, metaphysical or psychic means. The means of spiritual healing might be prayer, meditation, receiving healing energy, a shamanic journey, guided imagery, past life regression, connecting with one's Higher Self, crystals, or gaining insight through a form of divination.
For others spiritual healing is healing from a supernatural or divine being such as a god, goddess, the Buddha, Jesus, a bodhisattva, angel, saint, or ascended master.
For still others spiritual healing is something else.
I do not believe we should suppress or do away with our current reality and those at home in it. I believe we should create a new alternative that expands and thereby moves beyond the current reality. I believe in a creating a reality that is better by being more life-affirming. I believe in a reality in which more of us are spiritually healthy and well. I am devoted to doing what I can with others to help create that reality.
In our current reality “spiritual healing” means anything an individual wants it to mean. So do “spiritual health and wellness” and “spiritual disease.” Rarely do those who use the words define them. As a result we cannot be sure what they mean. Neither can we develop shared scientific study or publicly recognized professional practices related to spiritual health and wellness, spiritual disease, and spiritual healing. Besides, much of what is currently called spiritual healing, requires dependence on and blind faith in and the spiritual healer rather than exercising one’s own freedom and ability to heal.
Imagine what our current reality would be if we had no general consensus on the meaning of “physical health and wellness”, “physical disease” and “physical healing“; “mental health and wellness”, “mental illness”, “psychiatry” and “psychotherapy”; and “social health and wellness”, “social disease”, and “social healing.” What a chaotic mess that would be.
Fortunately, we have created general consensuses on the meanings of physical, mental, and social health, wellness, disease, and healing. I believe in creating a general consensus on the meanings of spiritual health and wellness, spiritual disease, spiritual healing, and spiritual therapy.
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