What's everyone's views on this? Has anyone had a personal experience?
When I was in my first job, in my mid-twenties, I used to suffer periodically from quite painful ear infections. One day I was suffering quite badly from such an infection (it was very painful and myear had completely 'bunged up') and my friend at work suggested I speak to one of the lads down in the foundry. He was at the time in his early twenties and, while not mentally deficient or anything like that, he was a bit 'slow'. However, he attended the local spiritualist church and was, I was told, a 'trainee faith healer'.
My friend, who was eager for an excuse to satisfy her curiosity about such matters, got him to come up to my office and have a go at 'healing' me. I must stress that I had a completely open mind about this. I was as interested as my friend to see what he would do and had already decided that it probably wouldn't work but, if it did, well and good. Whatever happened, I decided, I would be no worse off.
I sat in my chair and he stood behind me and put one hand on each side of my head over my ears and, according to my friend who was watching avidly, he was muttering a prayer to himself. As he stood behind me I felt my affected ear begin to feel rather hot (the same sort of sensation that your face feels hot when you blush).
After a couple of minutes, he took his hands away and said just to let him know if anything happened. Throughout the afternoon the hot sensation in my ear continued and, a couple of hours or so after my 'treatment', my ear 'popped', my hearing was restored and the pain was gone.
I told my 'healer' what had happened and he just smiled and said 'I thought so'.
I must stress again that I had an open mind about this at the time and, if anything, was rather sceptical.
I didn't suffer from any ear infections again, until two years ago, when I had the mother of all infections and was away from work for two weeks . . .
Carole
When I was in my first job, in my mid-twenties, I used to suffer periodically from quite painful ear infections. One day I was suffering quite badly from such an infection (it was very painful and myear had completely 'bunged up') and my friend at work suggested I speak to one of the lads down in the foundry. He was at the time in his early twenties and, while not mentally deficient or anything like that, he was a bit 'slow'. However, he attended the local spiritualist church and was, I was told, a 'trainee faith healer'.
My friend, who was eager for an excuse to satisfy her curiosity about such matters, got him to come up to my office and have a go at 'healing' me. I must stress that I had a completely open mind about this. I was as interested as my friend to see what he would do and had already decided that it probably wouldn't work but, if it did, well and good. Whatever happened, I decided, I would be no worse off.
I sat in my chair and he stood behind me and put one hand on each side of my head over my ears and, according to my friend who was watching avidly, he was muttering a prayer to himself. As he stood behind me I felt my affected ear begin to feel rather hot (the same sort of sensation that your face feels hot when you blush).
After a couple of minutes, he took his hands away and said just to let him know if anything happened. Throughout the afternoon the hot sensation in my ear continued and, a couple of hours or so after my 'treatment', my ear 'popped', my hearing was restored and the pain was gone.
I told my 'healer' what had happened and he just smiled and said 'I thought so'.
I must stress again that I had an open mind about this at the time and, if anything, was rather sceptical.
I didn't suffer from any ear infections again, until two years ago, when I had the mother of all infections and was away from work for two weeks . . .
Carole