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Is it reasonable or foolish to expect a healing if science has determined we cannot be healed? Is keeping someone in our “thoughts and prayers” the best we can do for those who suffer? If people believe in a God that can perform miraculous healings, where are all the believers who can empty out the pediatric oncology ward? Is the televangelist the only one who has stories of faith healing?

These aren’t easy questions, but they are necessary. Questions like this press us to the intersection of what we claim to believe and what we actually believe. Most people who believe in God also believe that this God can do miracles. So why, when it comes to God using believers to work miracles, do so many suddenly fall into unbelief? Does faith have the power to heal or not? Is it enough to embrace a theology that says God can heal if he wants, and then stand back passively?

There are a number of occasions in scripture where the disciples of Jesus were given the power to heal people and cast out demons. (Luke 8:9, Acts 3:6, 5:15) If you ask a modern believer if they believe the Spirit of God dwells within them, most will say “yes.” If you ask them whether that spirit has the power to heal, most of them stare down at the floor. Most believe the spirit of God has the power, but they don’t believe they have much if any involvement. It’s a passive faith, not active. I wonder, if possessing the spirit that heals people were the proof of one’s salvation, if the church would approve new doctrines. James tells us that a passive faith is a dead faith (James 2:17).

In my experience, most churches pray for others (at least corporately) and believe God will heal if He wants to. It seems only the pentecostals and some mystical traditions lay claim to embodying a spirit of healing and live like they believe it. Yes, many have been shown to be shams, but not all. There are genuine, documented cases of divine healing, taking place, all over the world and in our communities. No, not all prayers for healing are answered, but some are. So what is happening?

Quantum science has emerged over the last few decades and linked arms with New Age beliefs along with sects of Christianity and Eastern traditions. The power of the mind to heal has been around for centuries, but only recently has science given it careful consideration. Quantum entanglement is called by science as “spooky action” between two particles because there is no space/time or physical connection, yet they are inseparably linked. “Quantum Entanglement occurs when two particles become inextricably linked, and whatever happens to one immediately affects the other, regardless of how far apart they are.”

I want all comers to connect the dots here, so I will oversimplify the science. We are not just made of cells. We are made of atoms. Atoms are made of numerous sub-atomic particles. These particles are so small that the distance between them is like a small solar system orbiting at light speed. These particles are made of and powered by energy. Our physical bodies are essentially energy fields comprised of mostly the space between particles. Quantum science has proven that particles which are not connected in any obvious physical way are somehow nonetheless connected. Thus the particles that make up my body, while different to the ones that make up your body, are somehow connected into the energy that powers all particles. Science calls it photons or Light, so does the bible (John 1:9).

“The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world.” John 1:9

Here’s the mind blowing part. The particles change solely by our observation of them. In other words, consciousness alters the physical world. Awareness changes things as we know it. It’s taken science a long time provide an explanation for how “miracles” can feasibly occur, and on the heals of this, many people have become open to the power of our spiritual capacities. Reality is BOTH physical and non-physical in nature.

This opens up the discussion on healing and invites everyone to the table. Those who hold a faith in a divine power beyond all things who works though people in unseen ways can now sit along side those who hold faith in an unseen power which works through people in unseen ways. Faith then, is measured by conscious awareness of this “power” beyond it all. So when it comes to healing, it seems “Thoughts and Prayers” truly are in order. Furthermore, it is feasible (scientifically and spiritually) that if enough quantumly entangled people share an aligned conscious awareness, that the particles which affect healing most definitely can be altered. How is this not praying for the sick or a particular outcome?

Healing our bodies then, will require a practice which makes us aware. We need to be consciously engaged with and relating to ultimate reality, not merely reality as we perceive it. Early Christians have been saying this for centuries but have called it salvation or having a personal relationship with Christ. The Church came along and turned salvation into a threat, and a commodity which could drive the economic engines in the “Ultimate Fighter” smackdown of the deities, and lulled us all back to sleep in our respective religions. It’s time the church and the scientific world both wake up and get over themselves.

When Jesus and his disciples healed it had nothing to do with conversion to a religion. It had everything to do with believing (rewriting the malware script) that “With God, all things are possible.” God has become such a polluted term these days that people cringe at the idea. We need to get over this. The pantheon of deities in our competitive religious frameworks has us convinced that our tradition is the only valid one. As a result, people are dis-integrated between each other and are unable to share a common consciousness. This is exactly the opposite of what happened on the day the “Church” was established. The first church was what we would call the “unaffiliated” or “spiritual but not religious” today.

“…both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabians—we hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God.” Acts 2:11

Integration is where the power flows. Healing begins by re-integrating things that are separated. The healing of our bodies is a microcosm of the need for healing in our macrocosm. Healing is unity AND diversity, NOT uniformity. Christianity was the un-religion from the beginning and the power beyond it all was called the Christ, which appears throughout Hebrew scripture. The Gospel freed people from bondage to a religious system unto a faith. Is it possible to return to a religionless experience with the universal power behind all things. Science now sees it and names it something else, the question is can those who see it, see it from outside the framework of religion? Christ is not Jesus’ last name.

Now how do you suppose a first century person would describe this?

“For by  him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent.” Colossians 1:16-18

The next level of evolution among the spiritual but not religious is the migration from a nebulous unexplained energy to a personal energy which comes not from “a being” but from BEING itself. This seemingly small difference turns out to be not small at all. It is the frameshift upon which faith joins the power that heals all things.

Healing our bodies through faith is not only possible but at minimum, scientifically feasible. The question still remains as to what our practices will be which open us up to healing, liberation, and re-integration. No doubt it will require the opening of our minds, both for the scientist as well as the person of faith. Healing our bodies through faith will look the same for all of us. It will be conscious connectivity to the power that powers us, re-integrating and aligning with that which powers others. Others turn out to be our quantum-ly entangled brothers and sisters.

I hope you’ll come back later in the series when I will offer a practice that can open us up to the flow of healing in our lives. The watershed question is this: Do we see healing as the proof of faith or the process of our faith?