Healing is one area where Spiritualism has had an enduring effect upon establishment attitudes, an impact that belies the relatively small size of  the movement today.

All human cultures have had their esoteric healing traditions that have interpreted a seemingly natural human faculty according to their own mythologies.  Spiritualists, of course, view healing as a type of  mediumship and by the mid-twentieth century Spiritualism had played a central role in reintroducing healing into western society. Also, one Spiritualist healer in particular was causing intense embarrassment to both the established Church  (which had largely abandoned its own links with the healing tradition whilst still claiming to be an authority on the matter)  and the medical establishment which, as a branch of  the scientific establishment, saw no room for the superstitious notion that healing could be brought about by any other means than surgery or modern drugs.

The healer in question, Mr Harry Edwards, was not an Establishment figure by any stretch of  the imagination;  despite this, he probably did more to permanently affect Establishment attitudes, in the UK at least, towards a particular type of  mediumship (healing)  than any other single Spiritualist before or since.

Edwards was, easily, the most well known and best loved healer of  his generation, and over the course of  his long career he fought hard to win recognition for Spiritual Healing by the medical profession.  However, as he frequently pointed out, he did not see healing as being a substitute for conventional medicine, it was his greatest wish to see doctors and healers working together in a common cause with the doctor remaining firmly in charge of  each case.  In this respect, Edwards began an approach that has been continued since.

As far as the Church was concerned, Harry Edwards was outraged that mainstream Christianity had abandoned healing.  It was his view that the Church was disobeying the instructions of  its founder by doing this and he often said so in public which, no doubt, did little to endear him to the leaders of  the Anglican Church.  He would answer Christian critics, some of  whom accused him of  doing the  'Devil's work', by saying that people should be able to have healing in church every Sunday, and that if  this were done then the problem of  dwindling congregations would be solved at a stroke.  But, Edwards also warned all denominations that healing was the property of  no one, including Spiritualists, because:-

'There is not one set of  Divine laws for the Church of  England and another set for the Methodists, the Congregationalists, and the Spiritualists.  It is our common heritage.  To try and control it by ritual or set performances of  any kind, or to discipline, by set prayers, the healing efforts of  healer priests will likewise fail.'

Ironically, this attitude would also cause Edwards some unpopularity amongst Spiritualists but to the established Church, which had probably stifled the healing gift in this very way, it was a double insult, the other half  of  which was Edwards' very public success at practising what he preached at venues the length and breadth of the country.  There was also the fact that clergymen were turning to Edwards instead of  the Church authorities to ask how they could develop the healing gift themselves.  Parallel to this, many doctors, ignoring the threat of  disciplinary action, were covertly referring  'incurable'  patients to Edwards.

It was inevitable that matters would come to a head and this happened eventually in 1953 when the Church organised a commission consisting of  assorted Bishops and other clergymen, doctors and a psychologist to look into the evidence for  'Divine' healing.  However, before I relate how the Commission subjected Edwards to some astonishingly shabby treatment, despite his best efforts to co-operate, and of  how the healer eventually managed to humiliate the Church by guessing the true purpose of  its panel and successfully predicting its  'findings'  in public, a brief  account of  his career up to this point would be in order.

Henry  (Harry)  James Edwards was born on May 29, 1893 in Islington, North London, the eldest son of  a print compositor.  As a child Edwards was described in the biography by colleague Raymus Branch, Harry Edwards... The Life Story of the Great Healer, as being  'a holy terror of  the first order'  whose most notable achievements were the derailment of  a number of  railway trucks from the line at the back o f the Edwards home at Wood Green, and the premature launching of  a hot-air balloon one evening at Alexandra Palace.  Edwards' character underwent a dramatic transformation, however, when he developed a crush on the local butcher's daughter; in an effort to impress her he even gave up swearing and joined the local Church Lads Brigade.  He also developed an interest in politics and became a youthful, but avid, supporter o f the Liberal party, gaining his first experience of public speaking at political rallies.

During the First World War Edwards served in India and the Middle East, eventually attaining the rank of  Captain and it was here that he showed the first signs of  the extraordinary healing gift that was to make him famous the world over. As  'Assistant Director of  Labour, Persian Lines of  Communication'  he found himself, equipped with little more than bandages and iodine, having to act as an unofficial doctor to the native workforce.  Edwards was surprised to observe an unusual rate of  recovery even amongst those with serious injuries but he thought nothing more about this until many years later after his introduction to Spiritualism.
After returning to England Edwards married and set up his own print business in Balham, South London.  By now his early interest in politics had turned into a burning ambition to right the wrongs of  society and he stood unsuccessfully as the Liberal party candidate for North West Camberwell twice, in 1929 and 1935.  It was after his second election defeat, in 1936, that Edwards received a message that would change his life at a small Spiritualist Church at Clousdale Road in Balham.

Up until then he had adopted the views of  his father who, as a religious rationalist, had no belief in an afterlife.  Edwards was also a keen amateur conjurer and 14 years previously he had visited a Spiritualist Church for the first time with every intention of  exposing the medium's tricks.  Instead he was given a message that he could not account for and his interest was aroused.  So when, during his second exposure to Spiritualism at Clousdale Road, the medium told him that he was  'born to heal'  and despite the fact he had no idea what a healer was, he joined a development circle to see what would happen.  Edwards quickly developed trance mediumship and this was followed closely by his first cautious attempts at absent healing.

One of  these came after a distraught woman, a Mrs Newland, whose husband had been sent home to die of  lung cancer, wandered into Edwards' print shop quite by chance and he offered to try absent healing.  Two days later, Mrs Newland returned to say that her husband's condition had improved radically.  Later, x-rays showed no signs of  the malignancy but a doctor at St Thomas' Hospital who was unfamiliar with the case concluded that Mr Newland had never had cancer in the first place.

Edwards soon found that his early self-conscious attempts at contact healing often brought similar results, and soon his reputation had spread to such an extent that his home was regularly filled by people seeking his help.  He eventually found that many of  the elaborate gestures employed by healers, such as blowing on the patient and flicking away  'diseased'  energy from the fingers, were quite unnecessary and he developed the simple, straightforward approach that became his trademark.  It was not long before his efforts were being reported in Psychic News and the local papers.

In his autobiography, On The Side Of Angels, Gordon Higginson remarked that some aspects of  Edwards' healing bore the hallmarks of  physical mediumship and it was during this early,  pre-war phase of  his career that the healer sponsored the mediumship of  Jack Webber.  Edwards' photographs of  seance-room phenomena are some of  the best ever obtained and his careful documentation of  Webber's mediumship.  Edwards also ensured that some very sceptical members of  the press were able to report on some of  the Welsh ex-miner's remarkable seances. Montague Keen, writing recently in the Journal of  the Society for Psychical Research, has remarked that the name of  'Webber'  has been remarkable by its absence from the sceptical literature and that  'The record of  his physical mediumship... constitutes a challenge that seems to have been ignored even by our own society.'

It was after World War Two that Edwards' career really took off, with his public demonstrations of  contact healing at venues ranging from the humblest Spiritualist Church to the Albert Hall.  During these, Edwards would usually ask for those suffering from conditions that he had found to respond most rapidly to contact healing, but he was always careful to point out that, in most cases, patients would require further treatment and that a complete cure was not always to be expected. Even so, he began to experience foretastes of  the treatment he would receive later at the hands of  the medical members of  the Archbishops' Commission.  One such case was reported in the Cambridge Daily News in 1948.  At a demonstration at Cambridge Guild Hall Edwards had given healing to four-year-old Phillip Goodliff who, being crippled by polio, had to be carried onto the platform by his mother.  A minute after receiving healing, the child, after discarding his leg-iron, was  'romping' around the front of  the hall and creating such a disturbance that his mother had to remove his shoes.  However, the orthopaedic surgeon who had treated the boy, Mr Noel Smith, despite the fact that the child could now walk, declared that Edwards had merely used  'an age-old chiropractic stunt'  and that the treatment for infantile paralysis should be on  'scientific and proved lines'.

Of course, the case of  Phillip Goodliff  represented the only the tip of  a very large iceberg of  successful healings.  By the time that he received a request to submit evidence to the Archbishops' Commission, Edwards was a national figure who was answering thousands of  requests for absent healing from around the world each week at his Sanctuary,  'Burrows Lea'  in Surrey, which he had acquired in 1946. Edwards was also keeping records of  each patient's progress.  Ostensibly, the task of  the Commission was to assess the evidence for Divine Healing with a view to issuing guidelines to the clergy as to how requests for healing should be handled and how healing should be given.  As we shall see, however, the former aim somehow vanished from the Commission's agenda once it became apparent that Edwards could actually meet the criteria for evidence specified by the panel.  And, tragically, the  'guidelines'  that were eventually issued were little better than an insult to the sick.

As Raymus Branch has noted, if  it had not been for Harry Edwards then the Archbishops' Commission on Divine Healing would probably never have been formed.  It was, after all, Edwards' public demonstrations of  contact healing that had made the subject a matter of  public debate in post-war Britain.  So, although Edwards was not the only healer to be asked to co-operate with the Commission it was inevitable that, in the public mind, he would be seen as its chief  subject of investigation.  As the most famous healer of  the day, it was Harry Edwards, a Spiritualist, who bore the burden of  responsibility for proving the worth of  spiritual healing to the bishops and their panel of  medical advisers.

The panel formed to investigate healing was formidable indeed, including five bishops and an array of  senior doctors and academics.  The most notable and hostile of  these was Dr. David Stafford-Clark  (later to become known as  'the television psychiatrist').  Ironically, the panel also included the Rev. Maurice Elliot who had long campaigned for a liaison between Spiritualism and the Church.  Elliot had been one of  the prime movers behind an earlier Church Commission, formed by Archbishop Cosmo Lang, to investigate Spiritualism itself.  It was Elliot who had courageously spoken out after Lang had tried to suppress the resulting  'majority report'  which was favourable to Spiritualism, and the nature of  the Healing Commission may be judged by the fact that the then Archbishop of  Canterbury, Dr. Fisher, reacted with dismay at Elliot's participation.  Upon finding him present at the first meeting of  the Commission, Fisher had demanded of  Elliot  'And what are you doing here today?'  closely followed by  'Who sent you?'  upon which Elliot merely pointed upwards and walked away.

Edwards was later to comment that Elliot was the only friend amongst a panel that was otherwise  'horse-faced'.  However, if  the healer's account of  his interview by the Commission is to be believed, there must be some doubt as to the fitness of  at least one panel member to have participated in such an inquiry.

Although the Commission had been announced in 1953 it was not until July 7 1954 that Edwards  (accompanied by his assistant, Olive Burton),  arrived at Lambeth Palace to present his evidence for healing.  The Commission had requested details of  six cases for investigation by the medical panel.  Edwards, who by this time was dealing with thousands of  requests for absent healing every week, had little trouble in forwarding seventy such cases from the previous three months, the details of which could all be checked by the panel with the doctors concerned via the patients themselves.

After a talk, during which he invited the panel to witness a contact healing session at Burrows Lea, Edwards faced a barrage of  hostile, critical questions.  He related later how one doctor had stood up and contemptuously cast the papers relating to the healings to one side declaring  'There is no evidence of  spiritual healing here for they could all have been spontaneous  (natural)  healings'.  When Edwards pointed out the absurdity of  this suggestion  (that seventy patients who had been declared by their doctors to be  'incurable'  just happened to recover  'spontaneously'  after being given healing),  the doctor retorted that  'Too many doctors are declaring people to be incurable when they are not'.  When, at another stage in the proceedings, Edwards attempted to give details concerning the healing of  a  'blue baby',  this brought a shout of  'impossible'  from Dr. Stafford-Clark.  When the healer persisted in trying to give an account of  this case, Stafford-Clark swung his chair round and Edwards found himself addressing the doctor's back!

After their in-depth, minutes-long  'investigation'  of  the seventy cases presented by Edwards the panel then asked him to provide a further six 'case histories' for scrutiny, perhaps knowing that, owing to the confidentiality of  such information, the healer would be denied access to official medical histories.  In 1950, Edwards had helped a doctor from St. Bartholomew's Hospital who was conducting a private study of  healing by supplying ninety-five cases for examination.  Even the doctor himself had not been able to get access to the medical records for fifty-eight of  these cases but when Edwards pointed this out to the panel he was told, incredibly, that  'he only had to ask'  for the details.

Nevertheless, Edwards managed to meet the new criteria for eight cases which were duly supplied to the Commission with a request that he be allowed to see the medical panel's comments in advance of  publication.  In view of  the evasion tactics already employed by the medical panel this was an understandable request from Edwards who, by now, was beginning to suspect that even these cases would not be investigated properly and that the Commission was likely to be misled.  Edwards simply wanted to be able to correct any likely mis-statements or evasions concerning the cases to prevent this from happening.  As we shall see, however, Edwards had to wait two years, despite repeated requests, before he received an assurance that his plea to see the findings in advance would be met and, even then, this proved to be a waste of  paper and ink.

In the meantime Edwards continued with his healing work.  Shortly after the fiasco of  his interview at Lambeth Palace he gave a healing demonstration at the Albert Hall, on September 25 1954, in front of  an audience of  6,000 which included 17 members of  the Archbishops' Commission, representatives of  the BMA and members of  the Church's Council of  Healing.  Accordingly, Edwards made a point of  asking for people with  'incurable'  conditions:  a girl of e ight who was spastic from birth raised her arms above her head for the first time;  a man crippled by arthritis for 30 years walked away from the platform as did a woman who had not walked for five years.  During the demonstration, Edwards made numerous asides that were obviously intended for the ears of  the Commission, such as  'Would it not be a fine thing if  this healing was taking place in Canterbury Cathedral and in all our Parish Churches?  It should be happening there, for that is its rightful place!'

During the coming months, Edwards voiced his increasing frustration with the Commission more directly with a series of  letters to Lambeth Palace repeatedly asking, to no avail, that he be allowed to comment on the medical panel's findings. Gradually, he became so disillusioned with the Commission that he started to complain publicly about his treatment in his own magazine The Spiritual Healer, and this culminated in an open accusation of  'conspiracy and negligence'  when he found out that the patient from one of  the cases, a Mr William Olsen, had been asked by the Commission to provide his own medical corroboration and that five of  the other patients and their doctors had not even been contacted!

By May 1956 Edwards had just completed a book, The Truth About Spiritual Healing, in which he gave an account of  the Commission's behaviour . On May 8, after the book had gone to press he received a letter from Lambeth palace signed by the Bishop of  Lincoln and the Secretary to the Commission, the Rev. Eric Jay, saying that a Dr. Claxton of  the BMA had no objections to granting his request and would write to him shortly with the medical panel's findings.  Edwards was so pleased with this that he suspended his book's publication immediately, only to find that the conclusions of  the medical panel  (on which the Commission's report was eventually to be based),  were published in the British Medical Journal on May 12 anyway.  And, to rub salt into the wound, Edwards received Claxton's letter containing the findings two days afterwards.

As Edwards was to write later in an updated version of  his book... 'the offer of co-operation was a sham - a case of  "thank you for nothing"',  but what made matters much worse was the fact that the BMA report amply confirmed his worst fears as it contained evasions and downright errors concerning the eight cases that were scarcely believable.  This suggested that the panel had either not bothered to conduct its investigation with anything like the scientific detachment and thoroughness that one would expect, or had actually chosen to lie rather than admit that the cases presented evidence in favour of  Spiritual Healing.

Edwards wrote back to Rev. Eric Jay, to whom he had already predicted this very outcome many times over the previous months:-

'As I anticipated, and as I have told you several times, the BMA findings are purposefully evasive, misleading and a distortion of  the truth...  It is obvious that the doctors are hostile.  To ask them for an impartial judgement is asking them to agree that spiritual healing can succeed when they have failed, and this they do not want to do, whatever the evidence...  If  the commission is willing to accept the BMA report at its face value, that is its responsibility, but if, on the other hand, it cares to question this report, I shall be prepared to co-operate.'  Edwards included details of the BMA's errors but, apparently, the Commission was prepared to accept the report at face value as he received no reply to his letter.

A full commentary on the BMA report was included in the final version of  The Truth About Spiritual Healing.  Fairly typical is the treatment the panel gave to the case of  a patient, Mr. 'B', whose son had sought absent healing from Edwards on his father's behalf  for bladder cancer which was diagnosed after a biopsy.  An operation was planned but, according to the son, shortly after healing commenced his father's  'appearance was transformed, pain ceased, and he appeared to regain his perfect health'.  No cancer was found during a preliminary examination prior to the operation at the Royal Masonic Hospital and so the actual surgery was not performed and the patient was found to be cancer free on several occasions up to December 1954.  In 1955, the same patient became very seriously ill with bronchitis but again, after healing, recovered.  Three months later, however, Mr. 'B' died suddenly of a heart attack.

Doubtless, Edwards would not have objected if the BMA report had told the truth concerning this patient's demise  (after all he was not claiming that, through healing, one could achieve immortality)  but it claimed that Mr 'B' had succumbed to the original  'carcinoma of  the bladder',  completely ignoring the actual medical evidence.  Another case concerned a Miss E. Wilson who had been suffering from back pain for more than forty years and was diagnosed in 1950 at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary as having  'gross Kyphosis deformity'.  After one contact healing session with Edwards in 1951 her spine was straightened considerably, she became completely pain-free and was able to discard her back-brace and walking sticks... improvements that were acknowledged by her consultant, a Mr. Ross.  However, the BMA report stated wrongly, without even calling Miss Wilson as a witness, that she had  'improved whilst receiving physiotherapy in addition to Mr. Edwards's administrations'  when she had, in fact, received no further treatment because, as Edwards pointed out, she did not need it.  There were similar inconsistencies with all of  the other cases and it would be no exaggeration to say that the report was scientifically worthless.  Yet, the panel still managed to conclude from its non-investigation that...  'We can find no evidence that organic diseases are cured by such means  [spiritual healing]'.

Edwards' immediate response was to issue a statement to the press in which he gave the true details of  the eight cases and challenged the BMA to have them independently assessed.  Of course, this challenge was not taken up and, in the eyes of  many, the BMA must have appeared rather foolish.  The authors of  the report also seemed to have been blissfully unaware that Edwards had many friends in the medical profession and he was particularly annoyed that they had reminded doctors that they were liable to disciplinary action if  they co-operated with healers.  In a speech made in Bloomsbury the following year, Edwards was able to produce a fistful of  the 200 letters he had received from doctors requesting his assistance in the short time since the report's publication.  He warned the BMA that if they should be  'ill-advised'  enough to discipline even one of  them that...  'we are in a position to provide a great amount of  support to that doctor through the medical profession itself'.

It is, perhaps, hardly surprising that, in 1958, Edwards received a letter from the Chaplain of  the Commission telling him that none of  the evidence he had supplied would be used in the final report.  After all, the Commission had been totally out-manoeuvred by the healer who had managed to publicly discredit the  'findings' of  their eminent medical panel;  any reference to this in the final report would have amounted to a public admission of  everything that Edwards had accused the Commission of  unless they had taken up his challenge to have the evidence independently assessed.

The Commission had clearly decided to fudge the issue by not mentioning Edwards' evidence at all. But, Edwards had pre-empted the Church even here.  Anticipating the likely outcome years before, he had devoted a whole chapter in The Truth About Spiritual Healing to predicting what the Commission's recommendations to the clergy regarding healing would be.  He would now see just how accurate his predictions had been.  Today, nearly forty years after the Commission's findings were published, we can see that the Healing Movement has continued to flourish in the manner envisioned by Edwards, albeit without the co-operation of  the Church.

It must have seemed obvious to Edwards that the Commission, rather than take advice from a Spiritualist who was providing powerful evidence that genuine healing of  organic and mental disease was possible without placing any religious preconditions on the act, would uselessly try to cram the healing gift into its own dogmas to avoid losing face.  This belief  that one can magically confer the gift of healing on someone by dressing them in priest's robes and asking them to perform set rituals and prayers was, as Edwards had maintained all along, how the Church had managed to mislay its healing ministry in the first place.  Edwards' predictions of the Commission's recommendations may be summarised thus:  (i)  It would admit that healers from outside the Church may be able to bring about healing but there would be references to evil spirits and the Devil;  (ii)  It would  'suggest that applicants for spiritual healing should receive devotional education',  and it would also expect patients to become members of  the Church, placing its own preconditions on  'Divine'  healing;  (iii)  It would accept that healing may be possible with  'nervous diseases'  but not with organic conditions;  (iv)  It would disparage public demonstrations of  healing such as those given by Edwards.

This forecast was remarkable in its accuracy.  After the report's publication in June 1958 Edwards gave his reaction to it in his own magazine, The Spiritual Healer. There was, indeed, an acknowledgement that Spiritualist healers  'may be... gifted men'  but, despite Edwards' efforts to give an understanding of  this they were  'gifted in ways which as yet we do not understand'.  There were references to 'demons'  and how churchmen should  'exorcise'  patients.

There was the recommendation that  'Sickness...often presents a unique opportunity for instruction'  and that the patient be  'prepared',  'instructed'  and encouraged to 'confess'  to  'bring the patient to a real sorrow for his sins'  before healing.  The clergy were also advised that if  they were asked to give healing to a stranger they would  'need to discover whether the patient is a Christian... a churchman, whether he has been baptised... confirmed and is a communicant'.  In other words, the report inferred that non-Anglicans should be left to suffer, something which Edwards described as   'downright cruel'.  There was also the disingenuous comment that  'If the investigation was sufficiently complete, there might arise scientific evidence for unparalleled physical cures'  followed by a 15 paragraph dismissal of  apparent healing successes as being due to wrong diagnoses,  'spontaneous'  remission etc. Edwards remarked  'So illogical is the report that after ruling that any investigation of Spiritualist healings were outside its business, it devotes pages to explain them away'.

As far as public healing was concerned, the report, although not ruling it out, recommended that it should only be held for the  'instructed',  otherwise  'attendance at a healing service could have disastrous results'.  This prompted Edwards to retort that  'The only disastrous result will be that the patients may die while they are waiting for all this  "preparation"  before they are allowed to enter the Church to be healed'.

The popular press reacted with bewilderment and a certain amount of  outrage to the report.  The Daily Express commented that its  'jungle of  theological jargon' reached back to  'the dark superstitious beginnings of  man himself'  and was a 'tremendous attack' on other denominations including Spiritualists.  The Star, a leading evening newspaper of  the time, obviously unaware of  the irony of  the situation, asked in a leading article  'Why, for instance, didn't the Commission probe and test the evidence of  a man like Harry Edwards... Because, they say, it was outside their terms of  reference.'  Needless to say, Maurice Barbanell, editor of Psychic News was also outraged, he wrote that the report was a  'waste of  the paper on which it was printed'.  Perhaps the most ridiculous of  the report's recommendations had been its suggestion that to induce healing the priest should bless a bottle of  olive oil, soak a piece of  wool in this, draw a cross on the patient's forehead and, after reciting a prayer, burn the wool.  Edwards commented that  'If Spiritualist healers did this, they would be rightly laughed at'.  He also predicted that, until the Church came to its senses the sick would continue to seek healing from Spiritualists.  Which, indeed, they did.

Barely a month after the report's publication Edwards held another healing demonstration at the Albert Hall.  He shared the platform with 300 healers from the non-denominational National Federation of  Spiritual Healers  (of  which Edwards was President)  which had been formed in 1955 by John Britnell with Edwards' help.  Also there to speak in support of  healing was the MP for Kensington, George Roger, but it was Edwards himself who delivered the coupe de grace to the Archbishops' report.  After accusing the medical panel from the Commission of 'shameful negligence'  for not examining the evidence he had provided, he declared...  'We present the evidence for the judgement of  public opinion'.  Then two of  the eight patients whose cases had been misrepresented in the earlier BMA report, before being ignored completely by the Commission, stepped up to the microphone.  William Olsen who had recovered from spinal collapse and Elizabeth Wilson, a former hunchback, stepped up to the microphone to testify to their recovery at Edwards' hands.  A Mrs Blowes whose eight month old daughter had been sent home to die of  a malignant growth told the audience that the girl was now nine years old thanks to healing.  The audience were also told that the patient from one of  the other cases, a boy who had been crippled by a strange condition that had bent his body  'like a question mark',  would have been present were it not for the fact that he was taking his school exams.

The Archbishops' report was then finally laid to rest by none other than the Rev. Maurice Elliot who, as a member of  the Commission, had been present when Edwards first presented his evidence

Many years before, during his army career in the Middle East, Edwards had been entrusted with the task of  building a bridge over a wide, fast flowing river.  As he only knew how to build bridges over roads Edwards simply ordered the bridge to be built to one side of  the river which was then diverted underneath it with dynamite.  In retrospect it can be seen that Harry Edwards used a similar approach to paving the way for the increasing acceptance of  healing by the medical establishment that we see today.  Edwards already had considerable covert grass-roots support amongst doctors, indeed he recalled that after a lecture given to a division of  the BMA several doctors had taken him to one side and told him how they were his  'best friend here' , 'your strongest supporter'  etc.

In 1959 healers from the NFSH, of  which Edwards was the first president, were given permission to give healing in 1,500 NHS hospitals,  but Edwards continued to fight for recognition of  healing by the BMA and the General Medical Council. During his long presidency of  the NFSH, whose early headquarters was Edwards' own healing sanctuary at Burrows Lea, he was responsible for the organisation's early training courses, and he continued to demonstrate healing internationally, even touring Zimbabwe at the age of  82, shortly before his passing in 1976.

It has been estimated that, over the course of  his 40 year career, Edwards gave healing to around 14 million people, from the most humble to members of  the royal family, without ever charging a penny for his services.  One year after his passing, in 1977, the GMC issued a policy statement in which permission was given for doctors to refer patients to accredited healers if  they saw fit. 1981 saw the formation of  the Confederation of  Healing Organisations, an umbrella organisation for healing associations from all denominations who are prepared to accept a common code of  conduct prepared in consultation with the GMC, BMA and Royal Colleges of  Medicine.  In 1988, the Doctor Healer Network was formed by psychiatrist Dr Daniel Benor for Doctors who wished to employ healers at their surgeries and an increasing number of  Doctors, such as Dr Barbara King of Birmingham have become healers themselves.

Today Britain is the only European country to have a strongly established healing movement and an attempt to make complementary therapies such as healing available on the National Health Service was defeated in the House of  Lords by only 4 votes in 1990.  It would seem that the realisation of  this central aim of  the CHO is only a matter of  time, especially since an attempt by the Lannoye Committee of  the European Parliament to severely restrict complementary medicine in the UK was met with a threat by the last government to use the Maastricht treaty to veto any such move.

It is difficult to imagine that any of  the above would have been possible without Harry Edwards although, of  course, a great deal of  the credit belongs to many others also.  Despite his own Spiritualist interpretation of  how healing is achieved by attunement with  'God's Healing Ministers in Spirit',  he wisely recognised that this must take second place to the healing act itself.  His insistence that healing should be non-denominational was an act of  humility that ensured its wider acceptance by an increasingly secular society and an Establishment that is still largely hostile to the concept of  mediumship as such.  Of course, such an approach would be vastly more difficult with mediumship as a form of  evidential communication.

So much for the medical establishment.  The Church, for its part, seems to have learned nothing from its encounter with Harry Edwards.  The Churches Council for Health and Healing, unlike the NFSH, is not a member of  the CHO, and therefore is not bound by a code of  conduct which forbids forcing the belief system of  the healer upon the patient.  Consequently, the vacuum left by the mainstream church's rejection of  Harry Edwards' advice has been filled, in part, to the dismay of  many clergymen, by the rise of  the so-called  'Toronto Blessing':  in this, people cavort around like chickens in a disco, baying like animals while they exorcise various imaginary demons.  This practice has even been encouraged in church by some of the more evangelically minded clergy and some  'patients'  who have been exposed to it have claimed that they suffered long-term psychological damage as a result. Some may remember a TV documentary about this phenomenon a few years ago during which one man alleged that his  'healing'  had involved being forcibly held down whilst blackcurrant cordial was poured into his underwear to purify him.  One wonders whether the Archbishops' Commission would have regarded this as a 'disastrous'  result.

Naturally, one also wonders what Harry Edwards would have thought of  such antics.  A number of  years ago I was present at a contact healing session at Burrows Lea, during which Ray and Joan Branch gave healing to a lady whose neck, hips, and wrists were chronically affected by arthritis.  As she walked away from Edwards' old healing chair  (carrying her support collar)  she turned and asked Ray whether he ever heard anything from his former mentor.  He replied, with a smile,  'Oh, we never do anything without him!'.

Harry Edwards and the Archbishops' Commission On Divine Healing

BY: Steve Hume

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