Page:Medicine and the church; being a series of studies on the relationship between the practice of medicine and the church's ministry to the sick (IA medicinechurchbe00rhodiala).pdf/116

 explanation of this is, that in Christian countries, spiritual forces have been actively at work for many generations, and that this spiritual activity has weakened the power of the forces of evil. There is, too, no blinking the question that the behaviour of insane people, or even of people supposed to be insane, might be explained on the theory of demoniac possession. For example, how often one sees people generally good and kind, and even truly religious, go suddenly into a fury of temper or violence of some kind; or in delirium we know that quite sweet, innocent people say dreadful things which one would think they could not even know. No doubt to some people the temporary possession by some evil spirit is a more comfortable theory than that it is a revelation of the natural man in us, when discipline and training are in some way relaxed, and that such is our real nature let loose.

The dangers of a belief in, and of practising consciously, Spiritual Healing are great, as far as doctors are concerned. It simply puts a premium on ignorance and laziness, and is disastrous to exact knowledge and scientific investigation. Spiritual healers assert that to dwell on the abnormal and pathological prevents their work on the normal. But who is to say what is the normal, till abnormalities