Why there is no "spiritual healing" industry

For over 30 years I practiced "spiritual healing" and never could make a living from it. And I never knew anybody else who got rich off that kind of practice. The little money I did make was from faithful people who believed they should support the practice, or from people too timid to complain they weren't healed, or from people who simply wanted a dial-a-friend. (Yes, there are a lot of lonely, hurting people who just want someone to say nice, positive things and express some love to them.)

But aside from the theological issues, a strong reason I stopped that kind of quackery is that there's no money to be made in it because spiritual healing simply does not work. If it did, it would be the hottest industry in the world. There would be millionaire spiritual healers. IPOs would spring up like mushrooms over every latest wrinkle in prayer technique or practice. Apologists for spiritual healing explain the vacuum by citing the evil materialism of opponents, even while they often admit that medical practitioners are sincere and humanitarian. In other words, most people who rely on or practice medicine just aren't spiritual enough.

And yet, in spite of - or even because of - their greed, there would be a spiritual healing industry larger than modern medicine. Sheer pecuniary interest would make converts of atheists and those billions of vulgar materialists - just as they now invest in the oil and defense industries, that while they do so much damage still have huge markets for their products.

But there's no such investment opportunity. Spiritual healers are pretty much loners, cultivating groups of followers who have more faith in them as shamans than in the spiritual "science" they purport to practice. And I'm not talking about the flashy televangelists who mesmerize millions with their obviously tricked up displays of faith healing. I'm talking about "professional" solo entrepreneurs, like I used to be. And even ordinary folk who offer to pray for sick people.

In the following article, Why Use Medicine If Prayer Works?," this conversation sums it up:

Nurse: “Would you like me to say a prayer for you?”

Me: “Feel free. Now I’d like to ask you a question… why did you go through all the necessary medical training if you believe that prayer can heal people?”

Faith and health

The grammatically challenged website On Faith, poses this question, ably answered by one of my favorite thinkers, Dan Dennett:

Do you believe that faith can effect [sic] your health or is that a lot of new age nonsense?:

Dennett:

Of course faith can affect your health, as various studies have shown. So can faith in new age nonsense. So can faith in the Yankees or the Red Sox. People cling to life to learn the outcome of the World Series, after all. This has been measured statistically. More seriously, I do not know of any studies that compare the health and longevity of those who attend church regularly to those who devote regular hours of work to some secular charity (Oxfam, you name it) or to volunteering for a political party, for instance. It might turn out that religious allegiance is a better health promoter than any other form of voluntary contribution, but so far as I know, this has not been determined.

The larger problem with this week’s ON FAITH question is that it is being asked at all. This question should not be seen as a matter of personal conviction or opinion at all. People’s hunches, anecdotal recollections, or personal convictions are of no more weight here than they would be about the causes of global warming. You have asked an empirical question, and there are established methods for answering such questions. Encouraging any other approach is actually undermining proper respect for scientific methods and facts, right alongside the nefarious tactics of the tobacco companies, the global warming skeptics, and the “teach the controversy” Intelligent Design crowd who have so successful persuaded so many people to treat factual material as if it were mere opinion.

But you can put a respectable spin on it: by asking the question you are gathering data on people’s convictions, data that can later be compared to the facts, whatever they turn out to be. It will be interesting to see, for instance, how many respondents declare with confidence that they know the answer to your question quite independently of any careful research. And it will be interesting to learn if they are right.

The problem with testimonials

A common technique used to sell an idea to present accounts of how its use has been successful. It's an old technique for promoting products, political candidates and even religious beliefs. But too often it even sneaks into supposedly objective science, as one of my heroes, Richard Feynman, observed in 1974. Here's an excerpt from the address where he describes the strange phenomenon known as "cargo cults" that has occurred in isolated South Sea island communities. It's really about honesty, which can be compromised when we are partisans for a particular point of view. Be suspicious of any system that does not publish its mistakes and failures along with its successes.

Cargo Cult Science

In the South Seas there is a cargo cult of people. During the war they saw airplanes with lots of good materials, and they want the same thing to happen now. So they've arranged to make things like runways, to put fires along the sides of the runways, to make a wooden hut for a man to sit in, with two wooden pieces on his head to headphones and bars of bamboo sticking out like antennas -- he's the controller -- and they wait for the airplanes to land. They're doing everything right. The form is perfect. It looks exactly the way it looked before. But it doesn't work. No airplanes land. So I call these things cargo cult science, because they follow all the apparent precepts and forms of scientific investigation, but they're missing something essential, because the planes don't land.

Now it behooves me, of course, to tell you what they're missing. But it would be just about as difficult to explain to the South Sea islanders how they have to arrange things so that they get some wealth in their system. It is not something simple like telling them how to improve the shapes of the earphones. But there is one feature I notice that is generally missing in cargo cult science. That is the idea that we all hope you have learned in studying science in school -- we never say explicitly what this is, but just hope that you catch on by all the examples of scientific investigation. It is interesting, therefore, to bring it out now and speak of it explicitly. It's a kind of scientific integrity, a principle of scientific thought that corresponds to a kind of utter honesty -- a kind of leaning over backwards. For example, if you're doing an experiment, you should report everything that you think might make it invalid -- not only what you think is right about it: other causes that could possibly explain your results; and things you thought of that you've eliminated by some other experiment, and how they worked -- to make sure the other fellow can tell they have been eliminated.

Details that could throw doubt on your interpretation must be given, if you know them. You must do the best you can -- if you know anything at all wrong, or possibly wrong -- to explain it. If you make a theory, for example, and advertise it, or put it out, then you must also put down all the facts that disagree with it, as well as those that agree with it. There is also a more subtle problem. When you have put a lot of ideas together to make an elaborate theory, you want to make sure, when explaining what it fits, that those things it fits are not just the things that gave you the idea for the theory; but that the finished theory makes something else come out right, in addition.

In summary, the idea is to give all of the information to help others to judge the value of your contribution; not just the information that leads to judgement in one particular direction or another.