Ellis, I have always been interested in how the divine force of faith--IMO, a non-sectarian quality--works in and through all that is.
Because, even as a student, of my interest in psychology, religion and healing, many of my early sermons (beginning in the 1950's--focussed on the teaching and healing ministry of Jesus. IMO, he was a psychotherapist--I prefer to use 'pneumatherapist'--long before the idea was invented.
In the winter of 1964--I was 34 that January--I was urged on, by a member of the church (Toronto east) I then served, to offer a series of lectures in which I could give more details about what I felt was the role of the spirit (pneuma) in helping to heal the mind (psyche) and the body (soma).
He told me: "I like the drift that you are taking in your morning sermons. So do a lot of my friends. If you will do a series of lectures on healing on a Sunday evening, I will helped get it organized. In the lecture series you will have the opportunity to go into more details about what you have in mind."
He did. And the series was a great success.
The lectures were based on the book, PRAYER CAN CHANGES YOUR LIFE (Prentice Hall, 1957) by the psychologist, Dr. William Parker with the help of Elaine St. Johns, writer.
Based on the story of how he recovered from his own serious illness, Dr. Parker--a WW 2 vet--tells the story of a real experiment carried out over a year. It involved three groups of 15 people each: One used traditional prayer; one used psychotherapy, and one used a combination, which he called "prayer therapy".
The results of the experiment demonstrated that the combined use of meditative prayer and psychology helped a lot more people get well a lot faster than either psychology or traditional prayer did on their own.
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The first series of healing lectures, which I called PRAYER THERAPY attracted a large group of people. So did a second series, and a third, a forth, etc. I began using the non-sectarian title, PNEUMATOLOGY--the study of the human spirit.
Because there was a wide interest in the connection between faith, suggestion, hypnosis and the like the series attracted the interest of the all the media. There was even a front page story.
Naturally, there were attacks by the traditional religionists. This was good publicity for us.
PNEUMATOLOGY GREW
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When I moved to North Toronto (1966), so did the series. There, until I retired in 1994, it evolved, grew and gave rise to a number of weekly programs and experiments, including the Family Life Foundation
http://www.flfcanada.com And, as they: the rest is history--and ongoing.
