The Healing Touch

Michelangelo - Creation of Adam

Edward the Confessor - 13th century

This distinction is vividly expressed in the funeral effigies which are to be found in the royal mausoleum at St Denis near Paris. The tombs contain not one but two statues of the king: a naked figure representing the mortal remains of the man himself and a gorgeously robed effigy which stands for the imperishable office of the monarchy. Nowadays, we regard the naked statue as a reminder of the fact that even kings must die. But for the men of the Middle Ages the clothed figure made the much more important point that the institution of monarchy was indestructible. When the divinity of the office was called into question, the medical miracle associated with it suffered a severe setback. Although Charles II reinstated the practice following his restoration, the ceremony never fully recovered its former vigour, and by the time Samuel Johnson was brought up to London to receive the touch of Queen Anne, it was little more than a quaint survival.

Miraculous healing is not necessarily related to high office. Sufferers can just as easily acknowledge the supernatural claims of a private individual. Jesus of Nazareth deliberately turned his back on rank and title. The fact that his miraculous powers were associated with his personality means that he belongs to the group of persons whom the German sociologist Max Weber declared had ‘charisma’, by which he meant not personal glamour but something which might be regarded as a sign of heroic endowment: superhuman strength, holiness, chastity or zeal:

Weber was describing the sociology of great leaders, and although some of the figures he discussed used faith-healing as a way of advertising or clinching their missionary claims, Weber did not concern himself with the medical details. Nevertheless, the idea of charisma helps to distinguish those healers whose power depends on personal character from the ones whose remedies are invested in sacred rank. The scrofulous patients who crowded into the royal presence put their faith in the office of the Crown; the woman who reached her hand to touch the hem of Jesus’s garment recognised the personal appeal of the Saviour himself:

The miraculous authority of the prophet Elijah was also personal in character, although the miracles were performed through rather than by him; whereas Jesus Christ, as the incarnation of God and not merely his earthly representative, was presumably the author of his own remedies. In both cases, though, the therapeutic power was invested in the living person of the miracle worker himself.

Neither Jesus nor Elijah offered his cures as a routine outpatient service. They used their powers somewhat sparingly, and when they did stoop to heal the sick it was with the ulterior motive of dramatising their mission and making a point about the miraculous power of faith. This is almost the reverse of modern faith-healing, in which the healing is an end in itself. Nowadays faith-healers hold regular clinics, and, although these are usually cast in. the form of religious services, which means that the cures are regarded as sacraments and not simply treatment, the congregation has a particular interest in dramatic clinical improvements.

Benny Hinn - Modern Day Faith Healer

The gift of miraculous healing can just as easily be recognised in someone who claims that and nothing more especially when affliction is widespread and unrelieved. His charisma may, in fact, consist of nothing more dramatic than a convincing account of the moment when he was called to exercise it.

[The above is from the book The Body in Question by Jonathan Miller, (1979). Unfortunatly out of print. Try http:/www.abebooks.com May also be available at your local public library. Jonathan Miller also did a BBC series.]


Other places in the Bible. Note in many cases there must be confirmed anticipation of being healed by being touched before the miraculous touch can be administered.

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