Dora van Gelder Kunz - Spiritual Healing

SPIRITUAL HEALING

SPIRITUAL
HEALING

Compiled by Dora Kunz

Foreword by Dolores Krieger, Ph.D., R.N.,
author of Therapeutic Touch

A publication supported by

THE KERN FOUNDATION

Wheaton, Illinois Madras, India

Learn more about Dora Kunz and her work at www.questbooks.net

Copyright 1995 by the Theosophical Publishing House

First Quest Edition 1995

Originally published as

Spiritual Aspects of the Healing Arts

1985 by the Theosophical Publishing House

Quest Books

Theosophical Publishing House

PO Box 270

Wheaton, IL 60187-0270

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Spiritual healing / compiled by Dora Kunz; foreword by

Dolores Krieger.

p. cm.

A Quest book

Revised ed. of Spiritual aspects of the healing arts, published in 1985.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 978-0-8356-0714-8

1. Medicine and psychology. 2. Holistic medicine. I. Kunz,

Dora, 1904-1999. Spiritual aspects of the healing arts.

R726.S65 1995

ISBN for electronic edition, e-pub format: 978-0-8356-2166-3

9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 * 97 98 99

Pythagoras said that the most divine art was that of healing. And if the healing art is most divine, it must occupy itself with the soul as well as with the body: for no creature can be sound so long as the higher part in it is sickly.

Apollonius of Tyana

Acknowledgments

The articles in this volume appeared in The American Theosophist, several in the Spring, 1984, Special Issue, also titled Spiritual Aspects of the Healing Arts. The one exception is Dennis Chernins piece, Holistic Medicine, which was written for this book. Rene Webers article, Philosophical Foundations and Framework for Healing, is an excerpt from a longer one on the subject that was published in Re-Vision, Fall, 1979, and also appears as a chapter in Borelli and Heidt, eds. Therapeutic Touch: A Book of Readings (Springer Publications, 1981). Henryk Skolimowskis paper, Wholeness, Hippocrates, and Ancient Philosophy, was presented at the Fourth Eco-Philosophy Conference on Wholeness and Ways of Being Whole, Dartington Hall, Devon, England, and also appears in his book The Theatre of the Mind: Evolution in the Sensitive Cosmos (Theosophical Publishing House, 1984). A revised and shorter version of Vern Haddicks piece, Karma and Therapy, appeared in The American Theosophist in 1981. The American Theosophist has published portions of Dora Kunzs and Erik Pepers Fields and Their Clinical Implication, and reprints of the entire text are available (see the last page of the article).

Contents

Foreword

DOLORES KRIEGER, PH.D., R.N.

Healing is a mystery that does not easily yield to the casually worded question. True healing elicits response from depths of the human condition that are not well understood in our time. Its enactment draws power from personal commitments that are foreign to our daily tacit acceptance of aggression and competition as a way of life. Rather, healing aligns with life-affirming forces such as compassion and humane support.

At the healer-healee interface a curious paradox undergirds the mystery: It is not that a the healer is healing b the healee but rather that both are expressions of a unified therapeutic interaction. In the process both are mutually healed, made whole and at-one. In a moment of clear vision we then may realize that as healers we have opted for nothing less than a self-to-self relationship. Therefore, we need no longer feel shy at the mention of such concepts as the spiritual aspects of healing, for healing naturally encompasses the entire spectrum of the human condition, if we will but lend our full consciousness to it.

The questions we could ask of healing are manifold: What is healing? What are its delimitations? With what kinds of illnesses is it most effective? How can we recognize those who have high potential for healing others? Are there valid bases for determining the best coupling of healer and healee? Finally, one must wonder how an ability we understand so poorly can be so selective as to inhibit the growth of tissues in malignancies and yet stimulate the growth of tissues in wound healing.

We are left with the conclusion that, yes, healing is an enigma However, if we will we can indeed plumb its depth to the extent that we are willing to know our selves on its own terms. Such is the quest upon which this book focuses. It is only you, the reader, who can attest to its resolution.