People from all ages have turned to the spiritual world for healing from diseases. Seeking divine positive interventions for one's health is an essential part of many major religions. As science can investigate the natural world only, it surely cannot show whether divine intervention is possible; that question can only be left to a person's faith.
Amongst religious heads who operate, so to speak, "in good faith," lurks another kind of faith healer: a seething pantheon of godmen, gurus, fakirs and faith-healers whose practice of faith healing is deliberate hoax. Their aim is money and fame, so it

is no surprise that these cheats tend to operate through public performances. Using basic conjuring tricks and the ignorance of people, these fake faith healers command legions of followers while creating business empires that are worth millions.

Faith Healers
The notion that divine intervention, prayer or the care of a supernatural healer can cure disease has been popular throughout history. Miraculous recoveries were attributed to countless spiritual techniques commonly tied together as 'Faith Healing'.

Anything is possible with faith healing the blind can see, the dumb can talk and the lame can walk. In India, Faith Healing is famous mostly for curing the mentally sick. Approximately 80% of all Indians seeking help for mental-health problems, first, consult local traditional healers be it in villages or big cities. Faith healers, fakirs and godmen are by far the most socially acceptable way to try to cure mental illness in the country.

Some faith healers claim to get medical information about the diseases of their audience from God. Their unexplained knowledge is given as evidence of their divine healing ability, but in reality, they get hold of this information through some cheap and ordinary means to trick these gullible audiences.

Talking about these growing phenomena, Dr. J. Mayurnath Reddy, consultant psychiatrist, Yashoda Hospitals, said, “There are very few psychiatrists in India and very few mental hospitals (only in cities) to serve India's entire population. It is one of the lowest ratios anywhere in the world. But even if there were more professionals, it might not matter. As lack of awareness, inadequate hospitals and social stigma attached with mental patients lead them to seek faith healers help. Psychiatrists compete not with each other but with healers and gurus in India.”

This means that most people in the country go untreated for severe depression, substance abuse problems and psychotic disorders. Or rather, these people go untreated by qualified doctors. Instead, they turn to the gods.

Faith healers disseminate extremely hazardous misinformation in defending their practice of withholding medical treatment and seeking spiritual means solely for the cure of diseases.

Is there any proof that faith healing really work?
The first step in approaching this question is to identify what should be considered as evidence that an ailment was cured by a supernatural method. In my view, the evidence must be based on 3 basic criteria:

1. The disease must be the one that normally does not get well without medical treatment.
2. There should not be any medical therapy involved that may influence the disease.
3. Both diagnosis and recovery should be provable by detailed medical evidence.
As far as I know, none of the above criteria were ever met. No faith healer has ever sent the medical records of his/her patients. None of their clients (or patients) were ever examined by a physician before and after the healing was administered. No faith healer ever compiled data, inquired about his/her patients' health, months or years after the healing, or even kept statistics to show what percentage of people with various diseases were healed. On the other hand, there are many documented cases which shows that people with serious disease have died due to abandoning effective medical care after being healed by these so called faith healers.

Tips to identify fraudulent Faith Healing Frauds
Faith healers are, simply said, con artists seeking money. Their trade depends on our ignorance and sometimes lack of scientific or medical investigation. Accordingly, it is apt to be careful with any godmen (god women), spiritual gurus, fakirs, faith healers, etc., who seek favours and ask for money in return for healing, and that tells the patient to avoid conventional medical therapy.

The next article will be about Gem Stone