Spiritual Healing

Religious and cultural roots

The Cochrane review of intercessory prayer opens by describing prayer as one of the oldest and most widespread responses to illness, and its authors treat that question separately from any philosophical question about the existence of God. A 2020 concept analysis from Iran found that spiritual healing carries different meanings in different cultures and religions, and its interviewees described divine forces with healers acting as mediums. The sources reviewed do not support a single dated origin for the whole family.

Organised healing in twentieth-century Britain

A study of healers' own accounts from Britain between 1900 and 1965 argues that spiritual healing was not a uniform practice with a linear history. It identifies healers regarded as having an innate ability and others who learned techniques, each describing their work in the language of medicine, psychology, science or Christianity current in their time.

The Spiritualist healer Harry Edwards (1893 to 1976) became its best-known public figure. A biography in the Psi Encyclopedia reports that he was first president of the National Federation of Spiritual Healers, founded in 1954, and that a code of conduct drawn up in 1959 accompanied permission for accredited healers to work in around 1,600 UK hospitals. That source is written within the parapsychology community and is used here for history only.

The biofield label

A separate strand uses research vocabulary. A 2015 overview reports that the term biofield was proposed in 1992 by an ad hoc committee of practitioners and researchers at a conference of the US National Institutes of Health Office of Alternative Medicine. Its authors present the term as a unifying concept bridging traditional and contemporary explanations of energy-based healing, which is a proposal rather than an established mechanism.

What the umbrella term covers

In this family, healing is attributed to a non-physical or spiritual agent or force. Edwards preferred the phrase spirit healing to emphasise mediumship, and described a chain of attunement from God through spirit guides and the healer to the patient. His account holds that healing does not depend on the religious faith of healer or patient.

Other usages differ. A 2000 systematic review grouped prayer, mental healing, Therapeutic Touch and spiritual healing together as distant healing, and the 2015 biofield overview prefers energy-field language. A UK curriculum describes Healing as transmission or facilitation of a natural healing energy.

Contact and absent forms

Edwards distinguished contact healing, with the hands as terminal points for healing energies, from absent healing, which he described as a mental request made through attunement. The UK curriculum likewise has separate sections for contact and distant healing, and a review of non-contact biofield trials restricted itself to treatments using no physical touch.

Members are not interchangeable

The members listed on this page differ in the agent or framework they invoke, for example God, spirit guides, an energy field or a named lineage. Similar wording does not show that two practices are equivalent, and a finding about one member should not be carried to another.

Sessions and settings

Practitioners describe either hands placed on or held near the body, or healing sent to a person who is not present. The UK Healing curriculum covers consultation with the client, agreeing a plan, consent, professional boundaries and the healing environment, and says these practices are non-invasive.

Edwards reported handling around ten thousand weekly requests for distant healing at his peak, with a staff of sixty and voluntary healers, accepting voluntary donations rather than set fees.

What participants report

In a randomised trial of healing for chronic pain, people in the healing groups reported significantly more unusual experiences during sessions than controls, though the authors considered the clinical relevance unclear. The UK curriculum states that for some people the experience is a connection to the spiritual or trans-personal and that research mostly indicates a relaxation response, a statement by the register's own authors rather than a trial finding.

What practitioners and users describe

Edwards held that disease often arises from deep-seated distress and invited people with conditions such as osteoarthritis to demonstrations, where he reported improvements that critics questioned. In the Iranian study, cancer patients described spiritual healing as a noninvasive, inexpensive way of achieving peace, adaptation and health, shaped by their religion and culture.

Conditions that have been studied

The 2000 distant healing review searched for trials in any medical condition. Trials have tested prayer for people already receiving routine care, healing for chronic pain resistant to conventional treatment, and non-contact biofield therapies for a range of conditions. The UK curriculum limits its scope to practice making no claim of a specific outcome that cannot be substantiated.

Prayer and distant healing

The Cochrane review of intercessory prayer included ten trials with 7,646 patients, all receiving routine care. It found no clear effect on death, general clinical state or hospital readmission, called the findings equivocal and did not recommend for or against prayer.

An earlier systematic review of distant healing included 23 trials with 2,774 patients, of which 5 tested prayer, 11 non-contact Therapeutic Touch and 7 other forms. Thirteen reported statistically significant effects, nine none and one a negative effect. The authors judged methodological limits prevented firm conclusions.

Healing for chronic pain

A UK randomised trial enrolled 120 people with chronic pain resistant to conventional treatment. Face-to-face healing against simulated healing, and distant healing against none, were each given for 30 minutes weekly over eight weeks. Pain scores fell in several groups including controls, with no statistically significant difference between healing and control, so a specific effect was not demonstrated.

Non-contact biofield trials

A 2014 review found 90 randomised trials of biofield therapies, of which 28 involving 1,775 participants used only non-physical contact. After excluding ten low-quality trials, twelve of 18 reported a significant benefit on at least one primary outcome. The authors described nearly all as pilot studies with small samples, which precludes robust conclusions.

What applies to the family

No single verdict covers the family. Each review concerns particular interventions, comparators and outcomes, and none of the sources reviewed tests all members. Absence of a demonstrated effect in these trials is not evidence of no effect, and a proposed energy-field mechanism has not been shown to explain any result.

Delaying or replacing care

The main harm described in the sources reviewed is reliance on religious healing in place of medical care. A review of 172 child deaths between 1975 and 1995 in families who withheld care for religious reasons estimated that 140 were from conditions with survival above 90 per cent with medical care. That study concerns exclusion of treatment in the United States and does not address healing used alongside care.

Spiritual healing should not delay or replace assessment or necessary treatment by a qualified health professional, and new or worsening symptoms warrant such assessment. The UK curriculum points the same way by listing medical referral among the circumstances registered healers must learn to recognise.

Practitioner training and boundaries

The UK Complementary and Natural Healthcare Council curriculum for Healing, revised in December 2024, requires at least 200 hours of study. Its learning outcomes include not diagnosing or promising specific results, recognising when medical referral is essential, and treating pacemakers, diabetes, epilepsy, mental health issues and medication or medical treatments as areas of concern. No statutory training standard was identified in the sources reviewed, and requirements differ by country.

Limits of the evidence on harms

The trials reviewed here did not report systematic adverse-event data for the family, so the frequency of harm from these practices when used alongside conventional care is not established by the sources reviewed. Costs, consent and safeguarding concerns were also not covered.