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Talk:Faith healing/Archive 4

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Latest comment: 6 years ago by Worldbruce in topic Major lead sentence change without discussion
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Citation overkill

Latest comment: 9 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Six works were added in 2007 to support a single sentence: "William Branham is usually credited as being the founder of the post World war 11 healing revivals." This is WP:CITEOVERKILL. There is a separate article about William Branham.

I removed three general works: Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements (1988), Dictionary of Christianity in America (1990), Pentecostalism: Origins and Developments Worldwide (1997), and one monograph about Branham: The Healer-prophet: William Marrion Branham ... (2000). The two remaining works include content about faith healing in Pentecostal or Charismatic contexts that might be useful for someone. –BoBoMisiu (talk) 18:45, 7 November 2015 (UTC)

Newsweek Poll

Latest comment: 9 years ago8 comments4 people in discussion

@Bblandford: the content you added in this edit has a problem with the source. The cited webpage on cmf.org.uk includes incorrectly cited content.

You wrote

According to a [2005] Newsweek Poll, 72 percent of Americans say they believe that praying to God can cure someone, even if science says the person doesn't stand a chance.

Unfortunately the cmf.org.uk page contains incorrect information, it says: "According to a Newsweek Poll, 72 percent of Americans say they would welcome a conversation with their physician about faith; the same number say they believe that praying to God can cure someone, even if science says the person doesn't stand a chance." The citation for that paragraph is "Newsweek 2005; 10 November, http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3339654/". The 2005 year is incorrect.

The linked msnbc.msn.com page was Archived February 3, 2004, at the Wayback Machine so it could not be a 2005 poll. Nevertheless, the msnbc.msn.com page has the same quote but with more information. That page seems to be a secondary source about the poll. There is not enough information given to date that poll. –BoBoMisiu (talk) 01:09, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

CMF is a fringe source anyway (they have a very obvious dog in the fight). We should not use it if there is a source closer to the original. The MSNBC piece actually undermines the claims to effect, noting that the increased longevity of regular churchgoers is attributable to entirely non-supernatural causes. This is quite an old claim and per WP:MEDRS we should look for newer material and, if it doesn't exist, question whether it's actually significant at all. Guy (Help!) 14:49, 14 September 2015 (UTC)
Are you sure about that? The MSNBC piece says, "People who regularly attend church have a 25 percent reduction in mortality—that is, they live longer—than people who are not churchgoers. This is true even after controlling for variables intrinsically linked to Sundays in the pew, like social support and healthy lifestyle." Saying that the effect persists after controlling for variables doesn't sound like saying that it is attributable to entirely non-supernatural causes. Perhaps you were thinking of some what other source says about this particular study? WhatamIdoing (talk) 11:59, 21 September 2015 (UTC)
The MSNBC piece does not actually support the purported efficacy of faith healing. It supports the efficacy of a community that has a lower incidence of certain lifestyle factors. The efficacy of intercessory prayer has been tested through RCTs and is zero. Guy (Help!) 08:45, 29 September 2015 (UTC)
I don't believe that the MSNBC piece tries to name a cause at all. It certainly does not appear to me to be "noting that the increased longevity of regular churchgoers is attributable to entirely non-supernatural causes." Instead, it says that after controlling for what you describe as "certain lifestyle factors", there's still a mortality reduction—and then it drops the subject and moves on to other subjects, without trying to attribute the difference to anything at all. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:22, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
I agree with WhatamIdoing. Moreover, not seeing the actual survey or knowing the conditions under which the questions were asked is a critical facet. For example, I think you would get a different response if the respondent is sitting in a living room and asked over the phone with everything in a normal state in contrast with standing in a hospital emergency room with their child being treated for something traumatic. Saying people believe in something is kind of irrelevant, e.g. a poll of History Channel watchers who are conditioned by years of exposure to sensational UFO etc. episodes will be more prone to believe in ancient astronauts etc. –BoBoMisiu (talk) 17:36, 21 September 2015 (UTC)
And how do you know whether they actually attend religious services anyway? The poll was performed in the US, and half the Americans who say they attended church last week are telling lies. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:29, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
@JzG: - My feeling is an opinion poll just does not fit there and is not significant to the topic, and does not match the nature of the article. So I think it better to simply remove this sentence. Markbassett (talk) 19:34, 23 October 2015 (UTC)

Scientific investigation section

Latest comment: 8 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

The inclusion of the two studies mentioned below looks questionable to me.

  • A 2006 study found that intercessory prayer had no effect on complication-free recovery from heart surgery, but curiously the group certain of receiving intercessory prayer experienced higher rates of complications.

An exceptional claim (prayers can have - in this case adverse - physical effects), or at least the suggestion of such an effect, based on a primary source, and MOS:OPED ("curiously")? Any significant results must be due to placebo effect, unknown confounding factors (non-random selection etc.) or chance. Of course such studies will exist, doesn't mean we should use them.

  • A group at Johns Hopkins published a study in 2011 reporting no significant effects on pain, mood, health perceptions, illness intrusiveness, or self-efficacy, but a small improvement in reported energy in a double-blind study to test the efficacy of spiritual exercise in chronically ill adults.

The double-blind characterisation seems questionable (did the patients not see the video they were watching?), although (mis)use of the term in psychology (CBT studies) is rather common. From the abstract: Individuals in each group were shown a 28-minute video and given a workbook to complete over 4 weeks. Sounds more like a form of Acceptance and commitment therapy than faith healing to me. "Statistically significant improvement" would be a more neutral wording than "small improvement" btw.

Note: Reference 4 ("Faith Healing". American Cancer Society.), used 5 times in the article, doesn't work (redirects to a "more info can be found..." page). Prevalence 17:32, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

@Prevalence: The Faith Healing at the Wayback Machine (archived April 27, 2013) on cancer.org was more detailed than the current page. I fixed the link.
I agree that the language in the article is subtlety loaded but it is not written from just a structured perspective that uses set terms correctly. E.g., even that ACS page states: "Some scientists suggest that the number of people who attribute their cure to faith healing is lower than the number predicted by calculations based on the historical percentage of spontaneous remissions seen among people with cancer." So, in my opinion, "number of people who attribute" vs "number predicted by calculations based on the historical percentage of spontaneous remissions" is not satisfying either.
I think watching a video can potentially frame the meaning of the workbook like in the familiarity principle. –BoBoMisiu (talk) 17:38, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

Do not merge Supernatural healing, since this is religious, and the other is non religious.

Latest comment: 8 years ago3 comments3 people in discussion

There is a difference. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.25.50.54 (talk) 15:24, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

  • Keep separate See Medical Subject Heading "Spiritual Therapies" at United States National Library of Medicine website where "Spiritual Therapies" category is a subcategory of "Complementary Therapies" and contains several categories including "Faith Healing", "Magic", "Medicine, African Traditional", "Yoga", and others. "Supernatural healing" is not a Medical Subject Heading. The subject heading distinctions seem to be that "Spiritual Therapies" are "Mystical, religious, or spiritual practices performed for health benefit" while the subcategory "Faith Healing" is "use of faith and spirit to cure disease". Faith is a belief without proof – it may be a belief about natural or supernatural. –BoBoMisiu (talk) 19:25, 9 May 2016 (UTC)
  • Supernatural healing really ought to be a category rather than an article. There's not a lot in the current article and what sources I can find tend to go into the specifics of the individual healings rather than any broad overarching details. SPACKlick (talk) 20:05, 9 May 2016 (UTC)
Latest comment: 8 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

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Latest comment: 7 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

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Suggest moving the Pseudo-Science Panel to the bottom.

Latest comment: 6 years ago4 comments4 people in discussion

I don't recall seeing a category panel in the top right corner of an article before. I think this should be moved to the bottom so long as the article remains in the pseudo-science category. Elmmapleoakpine (talk) 18:43, 5 March 2018 (UTC) I would do it myself, but I am not sure how. I will leave it to someone else. Elmmapleoakpine (talk) 18:46, 5 March 2018 (UTC)

The WP:SIDEBAR, Template:Alternative medicine sidebar? Those are normally at top-right. VQuakr (talk) 06:59, 8 March 2018 (UTC)
You will need to get consensus on the template's talk page for that. Raymond3023 (talk) 11:40, 8 March 2018 (UTC)
User:Elmmapleoakpine The panel was only added somewhat recently, 31 May 2017 by OccultZone without mention in the TALK. You could revert it as a non-consensus action, but I would suggest pinging them here for some explanation of it being in the article. The location if included does not seem open to change. Cheers. Markbassett (talk) 13:02, 11 March 2018 (UTC)

Non Christian faith healing and overlap with other practices

Latest comment: 6 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

Does anyone else feel that the article, by concentrating so extensively on certain Christian practices fails to deal with other forms of faith healing which often have overlap with Shamanism or other aspects of spiritualism? See for example these sources [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]. As shown by some of those sources, even when major religions like Islam come into it, overlap with more traditional practices can occur, and they can go in the other direction too. See for example, this which originated from a protestant Christian [6].

I'm not saying we should include all aspects of these, some of them could be called more "magic" than "faith", nor everything someone calls faith healing. But a number of these clearly include aspects of divine or supernatural intervention so I think there should be at least some mention with links to other relevant articles where appropriate. I'm also not saying the Christian part isn't important, heck while researching this I found several refs which claim quie a large percentage of Christian converts in China arise at least in part due to faith healing.

But we also shouldn't be stuck in the trap of only covering Christian or major religions because the others aren't "real faiths". I appreciate finding sources for this may be difficult. (I looked at the talk history but couldn't find that much relevant discussion. I was suprised about how much of it is dedicate to whether or not faith healing is a pseudoscience.)

Nil Einne (talk) 14:28, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

I am also concerned with the lede identifying faith healing as a primarily Christian practice. It's older than Christianity and practiced by many, many groups of people (and there are lots of Christians who think it's no good). I think "for example, Christians" or "such as Christians" would be more appropriate than "especially Christians." Darkfrog24 (talk) 22:03, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

Faith healing is not intercessory prayer and it is not just claimed miracles

Latest comment: 6 years ago17 comments6 people in discussion

I'm surprised that this hasn't been made more clear. "Faith healing" is a compound term and when it is treated as such it is referring specifically to a kind of practice that takes dead aim at a particular disease or affliction in a particular individual. It is not the same thing as when a person attributes their recovery to a miracle. Faith healing involves a practitioner who claims to work either with the benefits of on behalf of a divine magical power. The malady is identified ahead of time and the healing is claimed. It is often done in the context of a religious service. jps (talk) 13:57, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

You are wrong. See this post. A simple prayer for a sick loved one is faith healing too.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 19:14, 13 March 2018 (UTC)
There is a rather wide difference between the mainstream theological position that it's fine to ask God for success with science-based medicine, and the New Thought derived position that healing comes from prayer (and that science-based medicine is either unnecessary or even antagonistic to this). Lumping them together, as this article does, makes about as much sense as treating Theistic evolution and Young Earth Creationism as the same thing. Ian.thomson (talk) 19:24, 13 March 2018 (UTC)
I'm serious here, what term do we use for "God, please let Grandma's chemo work" and what term do we use for this? The skeptical literature I've read generally refers to this as "faith healing" and "God, please let Grandma's chemo work" as just "prayer." Ian.thomson (talk) 19:43, 13 March 2018 (UTC)
It can be mainstream religion too to believe healing can come from prayer alone on rare (miraculous) occasions. What is not mainstream is to say healing will likely or definitely come from prayer alone, so don't go to your doctor and don't take medication. I am serious too, I see no evidence of pseudoscience in that Benny Hinn video - instead I saw theatre, placebo, mass hysteria, evidence suggesting either he is a con man or a crank and it is clear he is practicing a bizarre form of faith healing that would be rejected by all mainstream religions. Now to the pseudoscience bit: if someone were to suggest that Benny Hinn's bizarre rituals and theatre show could or does - to the untrained or unsuspicious eye - resemble science and could be mistaken for science by an untrained eye is crankism in and of itself. Faith healing is actually unscientific rather than pseudoscientific, because of the lack of a convincing evidence base and because it does not resemble or pretend to be scientific.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 07:14, 14 March 2018 (UTC)
To answer your question about 'grandma' and 'Benny Hinn' - both are faith healing per several dictionary definitions and thus are both the subject of this article. One would be mainstream because you are requesting an intervention of God whilst the other is taking command of God and instructing God to behave a certain predictable way under the command of a man as if by magic which would not be mainstream religious thought and maybe the latter could then, with a very big stretch of the definition of pseudoscience, be labelled pseudoscience. The problem is is that faith healing does not generally present itself as scientific (produce repeatable predictable results nor try to use scientific jargon or falsified/misrepresented evidence in scientific journals or websites) so pseudoscience is the wrong label. Maybe 'unscientific' is better term because of the lack of convincing evidence.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 08:14, 14 March 2018 (UTC)
With regard to the title of this section: an intercessory prayer is, by definition, a prayer for the benefit of someone else. Therefore, someone praying for the healing of someone else (faith healing) is an intercessory prayer. A repeated problem I keep seeing again and again is that people voting support have a poor grasp on English language definitions of key words in this discussion (key words definitions commonly misinterpreted by support voters: pseudoscience versus unscientific, intercessory and of course faith healing itself). I don't like to be offensive, but it is what it is.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 08:49, 14 March 2018 (UTC)
I think you have a poor grasp of the history of ideas. That linguists would see fit to shoehorn faith healing with prayer is not surprising. But there are entire books written about faith healing [7] which conform to what I'm saying in this section. jps (talk) 11:48, 14 March 2018 (UTC)
I know full well that, for obvious reasons, books focus on fringe anti-science/anti-medicine faith healing cultic and con man faith healers and a small number of these books have then used the word 'pseudoscience' without carefully thinking of the implications of use of such a term. That does not change the fact that the vast majority (like 99% I guess) of faith healing is indeed normal - at home or at church - simple mainstream prayer for a sick wife, disaster or famine relief because multiple dictionary definition of faith healing includes this defintion. Of course there are books that define their topic focus on aspects that are of public interest, but this does not change the English language definition or meaning of a word and thus what this Wikipedia article includes and covers and should cover.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 12:23, 14 March 2018 (UTC)
Just because you want faith healing to be treated that way in the reliable sources doesn't mean that's how it is treated. There is a more academic term for creationism too, but it is drowned out by the reliable sources who use the term to describe pseudoscientific evolution denial. We go by the sources, not by the wishes of the editors. jps (talk) 13:00, 14 March 2018 (UTC)
We go by sources indeed, and dictionary definitions and scholarly definitions of pseudoscience can help us weed out unreliable sources that 'support voters' are misusing. My argument is support voters refuse point blank to acknowledge how reliable sources define the meaning of pseudoscience and it is like talking to a brick wall.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 13:36, 14 March 2018 (UTC)
That's because we go by how sources address the question of how pseudoscience applies to FH, not by what some editors think. Get your thoughts published by a university press, then they might have some relevance to this discussion. Alexbrn (talk) 14:24, 14 March 2018 (UTC)
I think the 'oppose voters' are missing WP:DICDEF. I didn't start this game of insulting the intelligence of the other users, but if we're going to go down that route, I'll point out that there seems to be a lot of thoughtful and intelligent editors who are supporting the lean in towards looking at the pseudoscientific aspects of this topic. When I pointed out that the plurality if not majority of books deal with what we all acknowledge to be the aspects of faith healing that are most in tuned with opposition to medical science, I am dismissed because someone looked up a definition in Merriam Webster's. Yeah, that's the level of discourse right now. jps (talk) 15:01, 14 March 2018 (UTC)
And I'm surprised at reading the lead and not finding anything about proven fraudulent use of faith healing by many public and private individuals who use the hope and promise of a healing for profit or publicity. People who pray is one thing, and prayer circles in churches are very common for either a sick member of the church or their relatives and friends. This is faith healing at its core, and maybe if someone is very good at creative visualization then something may shift (see Lourdes and other "miracle" sites for setting up a context for healing to occur). But public fraud has occurred, via hidden microphones and pre-knowledge of life events deemed "inspired" instead of data-mined or detected by paid employees of the "healer". There should at least be a sourced warning about such practices somewhere within the end of the lead paragraph or two without changing the language describing the practice without bias or adding language debunking the faith of those who pray and hope. Randy Kryn (talk) 04:14, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

Free Advice

User:Literaturegeek, you may find my essay at WP:1AM to be helpful at this point. --Guy Macon (talk) 18:31, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

Nice essay. Good job writing it, thanks for sharing.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 18:56, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

This talk page needs a laying on of hands. Or at least a round or two of communal wine. In fact, taking the x=y logic of some editors in this argument into account, since faith healing (which they think of as imaginary science and imaginary medicine) would be labeled real enough to list as a form of science and medicine, shouldn't the Meat template include "communion" and "communal wine" since they are imaginary body parts? Randy Kryn (talk) 13:39, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

Major lead sentence change without discussion

Latest comment: 6 years ago36 comments7 people in discussion

The lead sentence, which has been stable, has been changed without discussion from "Faith healing is the practice of prayer and gestures (such as laying on of hands) that are claimed to elicit divine intervention in spiritual and physical healing, especially the Christian practice." to "Faith healing is a form of alternative medicine in which the treatment of illness is meant to be effected by supernatural powers." I'll change it back and then editors can actually discuss such a major shift of emphasis. Thanks. Randy Kryn (talk) 13:13, 11 March 2018 (UTC)

Agree with the revert. While faith healing is something that can be viewed through the lens of alternative medicine, the vast majority of sources do not define it or deal with it in such terms. Sources tend to discuss it as a religious practice. It's very rarely framed as something making a medical or scientific claim. Not everything in the entire world, is about rational skepticism all the time. Imagine the article on transubtantiation started "Transubstantiation is a scientifically impossible pseudoscientific process that religious numptys claim occurs during mass (they are wrong)." That's what this reads like. We should 100% point out the scientific studies demonstrating this stuff doesn't work, but this is merely a PART of the article, not the main focus, as the reliable sources do not treat it as the main focus. Brustopher (talk) 18:40, 11 March 2018 (UTC)
Err, so why are we citing some random religious website when we have relatively recent academic textbooks published by university presses available? Seems a bit POV-pushy. A review of WP:RS might be helpful ... Alexbrn (talk) 19:17, 11 March 2018 (UTC)
Umm, the "random" website (please consult a dictionary for the proper use of the word "random") cites The HarperCollins Dictionary of Religion. Is there some reason that that source is not deemed reliable for content about a religious subject?- MrX 🖋 19:57, 11 March 2018 (UTC)
Yes, because we don't know whether this website is accurately representing the supposedly good source. If there is a RS book, find it and cite it. But - we have an academic reference book from OUP in 2006. I suggest we cite a respectable scholarly reference, and not a web site (an unreliable tertiary source in this case). Alexbrn (talk) 15:52, 12 March 2018 (UTC)
Association of Religion Data Archives is an academic association funded by several universities. There's no reason whatsoever to believe that they can't accurately cite sources. I'm not sure what source you are referring to, or why it should be given prominence over this one, but I would be happy to take a look.- MrX 🖋 17:27, 12 March 2018 (UTC)
It has no evidence of editorial oversight, is not scholarly and is a tertiary source built on submitted work by anonymous "investigators". It is even odder this is promoted as the "sole" definition and is not cited anywhere outside the lede. To be very clear, are you seriously saying you prefer this web site to a secondary scholarly source such as the one Randy Kryn removed? (that is the point of this discussion). Alexbrn (talk) 18:10, 12 March 2018 (UTC)

FYI, this is now being discussed[8] at FT/N. Alexbrn (talk) 18:32, 12 March 2018 (UTC)

Thearda.com harkens back to a time when people were desperate to get stuff online that wasn't online. It was a pet project and is of interest for historical purposes, but is no longer the high-quality we would demand of reliable sources. My library does not have a copy of HarperCollins Dictionary of Religion and I question why we would rely on a single source that is 20 years out of date. jps (talk) 18:48, 12 March 2018 (UTC)

If you doubt the reliability of the source, or the source that they cite, take it to WP:RSN. WP:NOTINMYLIBRARY and WP:SOURCETOOOLD are not Wikipedia guidelines.- MrX 🖋 19:38, 12 March 2018 (UTC)
If you can't understand basic editorial arguments, maybe butt out? jps (talk) 21:21, 12 March 2018 (UTC)
See WP:PSTS and WP:V. This is already at one noticeboard and I notice nobody seems to share your enthusiasm for thearda.com. We should favour scholarly secondary sources per the WP:PAGs. In any event we are going to need a bigger "Definition" section and then the lede can sync with the body as it is meant to. Alexbrn (talk) 19:42, 12 March 2018 (UTC)
I was not saying that the cite and words shouldn't be used, but you removed the entire first sentence, replaced it with yours, and thus changed the entire tone and direction of the article. The stable tone of the first sentences should be kept, and not discredited (the topics that should be discredited are those people who make prey of "believers" and fleece them in direct cons). The main emphasis of this page is the topic of faith in prayer, a hope for recovery that some people have for themselves or their loved ones. That this is "alternate medicine" (although no medicine is involved?) is certainly not the primary lead topic, which you made it. That could be focused on later in the lead or body of the article. Randy Kryn (talk) 20:00, 12 March 2018 (UTC)
Whatever we have, we need to follow the WP:PAGs. What you restored goes against a load of them. Alexbrn (talk) 20:03, 12 March 2018 (UTC)
I'm pretty familiar with our policies. Perhaps this snippet from WP:PSTS escaped your notice: ""Reliable tertiary sources can be helpful in providing broad summaries of topics that involve many primary and secondary sources, and may be helpful in evaluating due weight, especially when primary or secondary sources contradict each other." - MrX 🖋 21:10, 12 March 2018 (UTC)
theard.com is not a reliable source; the underlying tertiary source may be - but nobody knows exactly what it says. Alexbrn (talk) 21:27, 12 March 2018 (UTC)

Why can't we have both? Seriously, they both speak to different aspects of the topic. We need MORE sources rather than arguing about which single source to use. jps (talk) 21:21, 12 March 2018 (UTC)

I didn't suggest that we should only have one source, or even that the current lead sentence was ideal. I objected to removing the only source.- MrX 🖋 21:38, 12 March 2018 (UTC)
I object to relying on a source (the HarperCollins encyclopedia) which no Wikipedia editor has read. I think it's intellectually dishonest. Alexbrn (talk) 21:41, 12 March 2018 (UTC)
But we're not citing that source.- MrX 🖋 21:54, 12 March 2018 (UTC)
But your defense of theard.com was that it was using that source! Are you now saying the authorless, editorless website is an RS itself? (and in that case why do we have this weird "citing" bit in the reference?). This is also intellectually dishonest. Alexbrn (talk) 22:09, 12 March 2018 (UTC)
I gave valid reasons for trusting the source. That doesn't mean that their source has to also be verified by us. What specifically in the first sentence do you believe is not factual or not verifiable?

Faith healing is the practice of prayer and gestures (such as laying on of hands) that are claimed can elicit divine intervention in spiritual and physical healing, especially the Christian practice.

- MrX 🖋 22:18, 12 March 2018 (UTC)

Can someone just WP:Resource Request the page? It's obviously fair use. jps (talk) 22:13, 12 March 2018 (UTC)

Actually, if a load of definitions have been copy-pasted out of a source (which is possible) there may be a copyvio/copylink problem here too. Our text isn't even supported by thearda.com anyway ("gestures"?). I have raised at RS/N. Alexbrn (talk) 22:22, 12 March 2018 (UTC)
Why don't we do some good writing and blend the two. After reading the lead to Medicine I'm more inclined to say that medicine applies. I was under the impression that the definition of medicine refers only to liquids and pills and other physical well-defined objects. Seems it extends to stuff like prayer. So let's blend the two concepts into an acceptable sentence or two that the participants of this discussion can all agree on (a true consensus means everyone agrees, which I wish - a form of prayer if done right - was used more on Wikipedia). And in a perfect world I'd personally add right in the lead paragraph something like "Hustlers and con artists, who prey on and take monetary advantage of believers in faith healing, should be dragged across the coals", if it is well-sourced of course. Randy Kryn (talk) 22:32, 12 March 2018 (UTC)
Seems like a plan to me. Someone want to try out a lede sentence? Incidentally, citations in the lede are typically a bad idea anyway. We should be summarizing the article and the sources should be in the body. jps (talk) 22:35, 12 March 2018 (UTC)

Definitions

(List will grow)

  • Galanter, Marc. Cults : Faith, Healing and Coercion, Oxford University Press, 1999:

Most often, we apply the term faith healing to treatments used in cultures whose fundamental beliefs are alien to the contemporary values of scientific medicine.

Alexbrn (talk) 22:46, 12 March 2018 (UTC)

When fraud is not involved, faith healing is a cooperative form of magical thinking involving a healer and a patient in which (a) both healer and patient believe in the healing power of spirits or other mysterious healing mechanisms; (b) the healer consciously or unconsciously manipulates the patient into believing he or she has cured the patient's ailment by prayer, hand movements (to unblock, remove, restore, etc. some intangible "energy"), or by some other unconventional ritual or product; and (c) the patient validates the healing by giving signs that the healing has worked, such as walking without a brace for a short period, breathing freely, feeling relief from pain, or simply thanking the healer for the "miraculous cure."

jps (talk) 22:50, 12 March 2018 (UTC)

Faith healing, recourse to divine power to cure mental or physical disabilities, either in conjunction with orthodox medical care or in place of it.

  • Smith, Jonathan Z., ed. The HarperCollins Dictionary of Religion, HarperCollins, 1995, p. 355:

A term usually limited to the Christian practice of restoring health by means of prayer, a transfer of divine power, or the intervention of the Holy Spirit.

(HarperCollins quote supplied pursuant to request at WP:RX by jps on 14 March 2018) --Worldbruce (talk) 00:26, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

Discussion

Okay - I think something like "Faith healing is a form of attempted medical treatment which invokes divine or supernatural power with the claim it can cure illness or infirmity" ? Alexbrn (talk) 07:56, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

Alex, I would incorporate the third reference and say this: "Faith healing is a form of attempted medical treatment, used in conjunction with mainstream medical care or rarely in the place of, which invokes divine or supernatural power with the claim it can cure illness or infirmity."--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 15:35, 14 March 2018 (UTC)
"Rarely" is original research. jps (talk) 15:46, 14 March 2018 (UTC)
I know, I wrote in my edit summary for that post that a source is needed regarding frequency of refusal of medical care during faith healing.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 15:50, 14 March 2018 (UTC)
So, until we know what the frequency is (compared to what, exactly?), I would object strenuously to the inclusion of any modifier about how often faith healing, when it is used, is used in place of medical treatment. Just remove the modifier. jps (talk) 16:25, 14 March 2018 (UTC)
Yeah, I agree. Probably I shouldn't have put it forward as a suggestion without first having a source. Good point about compared to what; would be problematic if a source were found, for example, talking about a fringe form of faith healing or followers of a certain cult figure who had high frequency in the 1950's for rejecting medical care. Your suggestion of just removing the modifier might well be the best suggestion.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 18:09, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

There are plenty of examples where faith healers argue that their flock should seek out medical care. One can ask whether this is to shield them from possible lawsuits or accusations of practicing medicine without a license. Of course, the reason for that is because some faith healers have been exposed to such legal action. To that end, it would be irresponsible for us not to mention that faith healing can be done in either way, but we need to leave the details of how, when, and why to the body of the article. jps (talk) 18:14, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

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