Many people are confused about the difference between these two healing modalities. This should not be construed as an attack on mind-body healing. It is a great step in human evolution. I remember a time when you couldn’t even discuss mind-body healing or the relationship between mind and body in public. You would have been attacked as a “dangerous” person. You could have even gotten in trouble with the authorities.  We would only discuss it with trusted people and always in a one on one kind of way. Never publicly. It was always secret teaching. It was the advent of Yoga here in America that made this teaching mainstream. We are grateful to all the yogis who bravely taught and published about this. Many lives were saved and much suffering alleviated.

Mind-body is based on the principle that there is no real separation between the mind and the body. They are one thing. Only different aspects of this one thing. The body is merely the mind made visible. By changing the mentality – the concepts, thoughts and ideas in a person’s head – generally through affirmations and positive statements – the body naturally changes and improves. This is wonderful so far as it goes.

Spiritual healing goes beyond this. The spiritual healer understands the relationship of the mind and body. But there are certain fixed conditions in the mind – some buried very deep – that can only be accessed by a Higher Power – a power that is essentially above the mind. This Higher Power comes in and clears the mind on the deepest levels and thus healing occurs.

The Mind controls the body absolutely – 100%. Spirit, or the Divine is supposed to control the mind. This is the way things were designed. Fortunately or unfortunately because of the faculty of free will, spirit is not in full control of the mind. And, thus, the seeds of pathology are planted. Discord has been allowed to enter. If Spirit totally controlled the mind, sickness and disease would be totally impossible. The mind and the body would be held in perfect harmony and immune to disease (which is discord).  Some say, though I can’t prove it, that death itself would be impossible. Such a person would ascend into heaven in the physical body.

Where mind-body healing works by affirmations, spiritual healing involves the invocation or a Higher Power. It works by prayer and meditation. This Higher Power comes in and starts to deal with the mental and emotional conditions (often hidden) that are behind the problem. When this happens, physical healing happens as a matter of course.

Spiritual healing happens in stages – which is why we don’t often see instant results. First it clears the mind, then the feelings and finally the physical body. Thus there is generally a time lag involved. But if one persists one will see results.