Spirituality Is Good For Health

The resume of Dr. Harold G. Koenig is impressive and impeccable. He is an award winning medical doctor, and a prolific writer. He has been professor of Psychiatry at Duke University, North Carolina USA since 2004. He is also adjunct professor of two universities in Saudi Arabia and China.

This erudite medical doctor testified before the United States Senate in 1998 and the House of Representatives in 2008, of the benefit spirituality has on public health. He says, ‘All things being equal people who measure higher on religious or spirituality variables, typically have improved mental and physical health’.

His research, in collaboration with other researchers, conclude that there is good evidence that religious involvement is correlated with better mental health in the areas of depression, suicide and substance abuse. There was also some evidence of a benefit in stress-related disorders and dementia.

The work of Koenig echoes in some way, an earlier pioneer in the area of spirituality and health. Mary Baker Eddy (1821-1910), discovered the spiritual laws which formed the basis of the healing work of Christ Jesus, and set them forth in a book titled ‘Science and Health with key to the Scriptures’. More than just discovering the laws, Eddy also proved, through her own healing work, that these laws have a practical effect on human health. Moreover, this effect was not limited to mental disorders, but covered the entire gamut of psychosomatic illnesses. She found this law so reliable when its rules were adhered to, that she termed it the ‘Science of Christ’.

In the aforementioned book, Eddy writes that this spiritually scientific Christian method of Truth invigorates, purifies, neutralises and acts as an alterative. Consequently, she found, as others who study and practice this method are finding, that it changes the secretions, expels humors, dissolves tumors, relaxes rigid muscles and restores carious bones to soundness. Eddy attributes healing based on spirituality, entirely to the power and law of God.

Such benefit to the health of mankind must attract the attention of the highest thinkers and best intellects committed to healthcare, and if Koenig’s work is any example, it is. Spirituality is as old as time itself. Man is a spiritual being – the manifest expression of Spirit, the conception of Deity. Every individual, accepting the fact of their spirituality, can grow in the understanding of what constitutes the relationship between the Creator and spiritual creation. Consecrated study and consistently applying the laws of Spirit, has a practical effect. The result is healing.

It is heartening to know that there is a method or system of healing, which, even though it does not employ material means, is nonetheless being found to be efficacious and of practical benefit to health. It is heartwarming to realise that spirituality is beneficial to health.
Moji Solanke @CSCOM_NigWest