An investigation into the phenomena and practices of spiritual ...

CHAPTER SIXSUFFERING AND HEALING6.1 IntroductionThis chapter analyses evidence from the data about perceptions of suffering and theprocess of exercising faith in seeking spiritual healing. It relates the data from theobservations and interviews to the literatures, whether medical, biblical or in popularculture. There is also an exploration of suffering as psychological or physical pain andhomeostatic imbalance as outlined in Chapter Two. A person who is suffering is identifiedas one with a physical, emotional or mental imbalance which could be short term or longterm. This description fits all the respondents and all those who volunteered to havespiritual healing administered to them during healing services in the URC and theinvitation for prayer in COGIC. In any one human experience there may be mixture ofmore than one element of suffering where the person is subjected to pain, defeat or change.6.2 Suffering in ContextReligious ideas are a prime source of concepts for coping with suffering. Each person andprobably each church has a different perception of suffering and the cultural background ofthe people may have some influence on this view. Daya (2005) suggests that althoughreligions vary, they offer some common responses to common experience of all humansregardless of their cultural, racial or religious background, going on to suggest theBuddhist psychology embodied in the “four noble truths” presents a template for thoughtabout symptoms, diagnosis, prognosis and treatment for human suffering.Nonetheless, human thought systems present a wide variety of ways of theorising suffering184