A Proudly Quoted Miracle

Popular accounts of seemingly amazing healings achieved by psychic means or by faith are plentiful. One writer, Jess Stearn, is dedicated to promoting such stories, and in one book, The Miracle Workers, he has a chapter titled “Miracles Without Medicine.” I will quote from this chapter to show how a clever author can present convincing data to sell a case, including the damning facts, and end up with a story that still seems plausible to the unwary. Stearn writes of a woman who testified thus:I had lost my sight, and the doctors could offer no hope of my ever seeing again. Something had gone wrong with a blood vessel feeding the optic nerve.... Originally, I lost the sight of my right eye, but soon the other eye went, too. The doctor said my sight might return within a few years or never.

Note that she has been told her loss of sight is not necessarily permanent. But she is “blind.” She has “lost [her] sight.” Or has she? In any case, she decided to visit a psychic healer, and on the next page author Stearn tells us:She began to notice improvement after her second visit. The shadows were getting clearer, and she saw blurs where she had seen nothing before.

Here we learn that she was seeing “shadows” before, which indicates that she had some sight. But was she receiving any medical treatment? In the text, we find that “in the meantime, she was receiving spinal adjustments from an osteopath....” Now, I am not much inclined to believe that chiropractors or osteopaths can adjust the spine to clear up eye problems. There are no connections whatsoever in the spine that can affect eyesight. However, the woman had sought other help, and as we shall see, some of it was legitimate, orthodox treatment. Says Stearn:Her sight did not come back at once, but improved gradually, until she regained her normal vision—in her case, 20/25.

Sight in both eyes? If in only one eye, which eye? Well after she had been to the healer, her doctor gave her a written summary of her case, which stated:As you recall, I first saw you in my office [nine months ago], at which time you had a visual defect of the right eye ... I felt that the diagnosis was a blockage of [an artery] and we treated you with cortico-steroids.... I remember that you did have some similar complaints in the left eye, but, according to my records, there was never any defect of the visual fields.... The condition improved and the last time I saw you [the right eye] looked very good with the blocked vessel appearing to be open....

So regular medication was administered in this case, the left eye was not visually impaired, and the woman’s description of having “lost [her] sight” is now revealed as rather premature and hyperbolic. The woman’s doctor’s report went on to give his medical opinion about her recovery:I don’t see anything particularly unusual about your spontaneous recovery, either. I would feel, though, that the medicine we did give you helped to a certain extent.

That last statement was enough to enrage author Stearn. Said he:[The doctor’s] reaction to a claim of psychic healing reminded me of another physician’s dismissal of a psychic cure as a spontaneous remission. The healer ... asked, “Why is it they don’t have these spontaneous remissions?”

First, the doctor did not state, nor did he imply, that the recovery was a “spontaneous remission.” That would have to be a complete reversal—by definition—“without external cause”; and there were causes brought to bear on the condition, which improved, but did not constitute a remission. The ailment was not untreated, and the result was not a great surprise to the physician. But his refusal to accept a supernatural explanation is regarded by the believers simply as stubborn insistence on ignoring miracles. In response to the other healer’s question, the answer is simple: Doctors do see spontaneous remissions occur, quite often, and they are thoroughly documented. In most cases doctors simply don’t know why they occur. But at least they are trying to find out, rather than stepping into Wonderland for an explanation. I must share with you a final observation on this particular healer Jess Stearn discusses. Asked to explain the case of another woman he had treated for eye problems and who simply went blind while he was treating her, the healer said simply, “She didn’t want to get well.” So, again, if the patient recovers, it’s because of the magic; if the patient does not recover, the patient is to blame. It’s never the healer.