Faith Healing Research

Faith healing in different religions has a long history, despite the fact the practitioners and patients can encounter legal problems. The placebo effect can cause some people to heal themselves, albeit when the medical condition becomes severe and the patient refuses to consult a medical practitioner, the legal system must deal with the offenders. Antecedent to modern times, faith healing was used by people when there was a lack of medical care in the community or the distance to travel was restricted by time or weather. Curiosity about the Amish, Hutterite, and Mennonite communities is rife among the "English" as the Amish call outsiders. The religious orders are an enigma to most people because little is known about these people. The beautiful quilts the women make, the horses and buggies trotting down the roads, and the appealing farmlands are what people know about the Amish. Outsiders consider the Mennonites and Amish so healthy, they need no doctors, yet they become ill as often …show more content…
The history of faith healing in the Anabaptists communities of the Amish, Hutterites, and Mennonites emerged when the first Anabaptists arrived in the United States from Rheinland and Switzerland in the seventeenth century (Nolt 2015). The practice was brought into the country in the minds of the people immigrating for religious freedom. Powwowing is learned by oral transmittal information, from man to woman and woman to man, however there are also some esoteric books available for practitioners to use and most of them were written in the late seventeenth and eighteenth century (Kriebel 2007). Spell books are not written today because of the Pennsylvania Dutch antagonism for powwowing. Be Your Own Doctor by Rachel Weaver is one book Dessecker found in almost every home she visited. The book is written by a Master herbalist and has many recipes for herbal