Now all that is changing. "Today the integration of spirituality and medicine is gaining acceptance and recognition in many academic and clinical institutions," say the authors.

"Although modern psychology and psychiatry focus primarily on the healing forces within their patients, the Spiritual Integrated Approach combines the healing forces of the human body, mind and spirit with the power and love of God," says Torosian, an Armenian Orthodox believer and Biddle a Roman Catholic.

"We believe that all healing ultimately comes from God and that healing prayer can release these forces to achieve spiritual growth and support the healing process," the authors told a symposium at Church of the Good Shepherd in Rosemont, outside Philadelphia.

There is dramatic evidence that a spiritually integrated approach to healing brings a unique perspective that science alone cannot provide, they said. "By uniting the laws of science and the mysteries of faith, a new and powerful force emerges from deep within our spirit that reaches beyond human understanding. Our spirituality creates hope and faith which are divinely inspired and have tremendous healing potential," they said.

"We are seeing dramatic strides with prayer and religion and it is having a positive impact on clinical outcomes. Meditation, spirituality and religion all contribute to the healing process," they say.

"In the area of heart disease studies show how spirituality, religion and prayer can improve outcome. Torosian said a double blind study of 400 cardiac patients who got state of the art medical care had half receiving intercessory prayer, while the other half did not. The group that did had dramatically improve results. They were discharged earlier from hospital, got out earlier from intensive care with less chest pain. Another study showed less mortality rates in patients who relied on prayer. There were fewer heart attacks, and less need for surgery. Prayer can be shown to be effective in the healing process."

Torosian said that prayer, meditation, good diet, exercise and a medical plan should work together. "Patients dramatically improved the outcomes. Angiograms done actually showed regression. Scientific evidence and studies show what can happen when the power available to all of us is utilized. This also applies to diabetes, lung diseases, HIV and AIDS disease, breast cancer, mental, depression, anxiety and hopelessness. We can integrate spirituality into conventional medicine without losing the integrity of modern medical advances, but we now know there are limitations to medical care."

Biddle who is in private practice and specializes in trauma therapy, said she first brought prayer to the University of Pennsylvania when she prayed with a man who was hopelessly suicidal. When he began to turn around, his evaluation got noticed by her hospital supervisor and she thought she would be fired for bringing religion into a totally secular environment. However, convinced that the man was improving with both therapy and prayer they allowed her to continue as long as "the prayer" was outside billable time. The patient lived and was healed. "A healing ministry was begun at Penn they were not aware of," she said.

We live in a world of hurting and wounded people, said Biddle. "I see so many deep burdens and it doesn't matter what academic or material wealth and background they come from. Americans will spend $92 billion on anti-anxiety pills and antidepressants this year alone, with baby Zoloff and baby Prozac being given to kids six months old."

Biddle said suicide statistics in the world revealed victims were getting younger as low as 7 years old. "We work more with psychological disorders than ever. In the course of therapy I introduce prayer as I sense the Lord leads in their lives. There is life changing therapy when you bring God into your life and allow Him to heal the deepest wounds of your heart."

"When people experience the emotion of fear it can raise their blood pressure from 60 to 200, it can make them vomit, experience spontaneous diarrhea, fear produces anxiety and panic disorder. We must get to the core of fear; we must ask where it originated. Medicating is not enough. The truth is there is no other place of hope except God. God is our hope; you can't take fear away unless you trust something bigger and more divine than yourself. We cannot overcome without the divine power of forgiveness. Unforgiveness makes people sick. Sadly you won't find forgiveness in the index of psychiatric journals, yet God has given us these tools and we ignore them at our peril."

Biddle recalled an account of a suicidal person. As she lay dying I told her, "You must choose life." The color came back in her cheeks, and suddenly she whispered "Oh my God, He is real." When I asked her who was real, she said "Jesus, I see him" and then she died. "I realized that God was giving her life eternal. It was time for my friend to come home."

The psychotherapist then told the story of a 44-year-old cancer patient she was helping. He had a mental picture of two giant angels on each side of his bed. He described the vision in detail. "When you have the Holy Spirit in you he gives you the kindness and attitude and right words at the right time. We should never be traumatized, we should never be stripped of hope. We should all be committed to the healing of a wounded world. Not one of you here is not hurting," she said.

"We need to ask what needs to be taken out and prayed for. People are afraid to love, to give and show love and affection; they have their guards up. Psychology has done a horrible thing. It has said if you love you are co-dependent, obsessed compulsive with a jealousy disorder." Biddle said that in other cultures like Latin America, people live out their passions. God has given us emotions. When we stand before God he won't ask how many degrees you have, but how much you loved and how much you loved Him."

Biddle said she was far more fascinated by the teachings of Jesus than much modern psychology. "'Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of thy Holy Spirit'" rings more true with time. You can die of a broken heart, cardiologists now admit that. It can block your arteries and cause high cholesterol. The biggest input into your heart is the Holy Spirit. Open your heart and spirit. Learn to forgive others first."

A suicidal patient Biddle said she was seeing at the University of Pennsylvania was not functioning any more. "He seemed to have the sentence of death. He wanted to die. At the end of the session I said, can I pray for you. He said yes. I said a short child like prayer. The patient wrote about it in his evaluation. I was called in by my supervisor. He asked what kind of therapy I was doing. I said traditional. But then he read what the patient then wrote; "a knot in my heart was undone. That was prayer."

Dr. Charles L. Zeiders, an Anglo-Catholic worshipper and practicing psychotherapist, told his hearers that the central tenet of Christian Holism for psychotherapeutic treatment is the Holy Spirit who is fully present in the clinical situation, with and within the therapist and the client, and is actively engaged in the treatment process.

In his book The Clinical Christ, Zeiders says that the Holy Spirit is the prime mover of treatment, the ultimate therapeutic force and completely clinically competent person. In Christian Holism therapists are operating on behalf of a sovereign person, utilizing powers that are given to them under the sovereign's authority."

Zeiders believes that the key to healing deep psychological wounds lies in the power of forgiveness. "When Jesus of Nazareth answered St. Peter's question, 'Lord how often must I forgive my brother...' Jesus' answer was radical forgiveness because he understood that human nature resembles divine nature. Jesus commanded forgiveness, because he knew that unforgiveness imprisons us in a will to punish that locks us into our woundedness. The will to forgive opens the way to our healing."

"Research studies support the notion that forgiveness can contribute powerfully to psychological healing and well-being. Science may well establish that forgiveness consistently produces a healing, restorative effect on a variety of outcome measures. I believe that the restoration of mental health that forgiveness almost inevitably produces is an effect of forgiveness. Because forgiveness so powerfully lifts souls to the experience of new psychological life, I call this effect The Resurrection Effect."

Zeiders cited the case of Joseph Cardinal Bernardin who was falsely accused of sexually abusing a former seminarian. Before the world he was maligned in the media. When the man admitted he lied Bernardin met with this young man and forgave him for accusing him falsely.

"There is positive impact to healing from understanding spirituality. Initial studies show that those who attended church weekly reaped incredible benefits including control of heart disease, diabetes and hypertension. We don't know the mechanism but the practice of prayer is a critical factor. Weekly community church group rituals promote wellness and help prevent disease.

"It is the same with prayer. How does religion and prayer really work? There are certain things that have been documented with prayer. Immune factors were looked at and it was amazing how prayer and strong faith improve the immune system; we don't know how it works, but we know that it does. White cells can increase and can have a positive impact on the immune system, so it can help people with ADIS and chronic infectious diseases.

"The relaxation response popularized by a Harvard doctor looked at ways prayer and meditation can affect the body. They found it lowered blood pressure, metabolism and heart rate. The benefits were a reduction in anxiety, hopelessness and panic attacks. A study at the University of PA on a study on nuns and Buddhist monks found the same kind of blood flow changes on both groups. The area of the brain increased was thought to be due to prayer in the nuns and meditation in the monks. We can document certain things, we can measure immune affects, but we are only scratching the surface."

Questioned on depression, the panel said the root cause was hopelessness and unforgiveness. There are spiritual roots to depression, they said. Authentic forgiveness can move one from depression to ebullience.

On defining wholeness. Wholeness is a balance of psychological, spiritual, physical and emotional factors. It is dynamism in harmony.

On forgiveness. It is not a one shot deal. Like the layers of the onion, when there are no more layers we reach the core of our outer being. That is out spirit. There is much core Wounding in people. We learn to forgive in stages as we go deeper and deeper.

Zeiders observed that the healing ministry is immensely paradoxical. "The healer is always healing even as we engage in the healing enterprise. We are aware there is more for God to do in us. It keeps us in an appropriate state of humility. God can use dreams to administer decisively to us. Dreams are in keeping with the gospel."

"God is ministering to us all on a case by case basis. Healing does not always occur in the way we think it should. There will be times our own processes are so desperate, that we cannot locate God. The healing ministry needs to be approached more aggressively than ever. The stories are not coming from super healers. We are all in this together, we are all being called to continue the ministry of that super healer Jesus Christ. It doesn't matter that we don't have it all together. He has it all together."

Bishop David L. Moyer, the Rector of Good Shepherd, a priest who has come under fire from Pennsylvania Bishop Charles E. Bennison, told VirtueOnline that he sees himself and his church as a stance against heresy and apostasy as part of the healing ministry of the church.

FOOTNOTE: If you would like to know more about this unique ministry please go to http://www.spirittoheal.com and purchase their books and sign up for a Spirit to Heal Seminar. If you have questions or would like to arrange a seminar for your group, please call 610-995-9988. VirtueOnline highly recommends this ministry. A smaller booklet "Spirit to Heal: Journal of Prayer" is also highly recommended. Copies of the Clinical Christ by Dr. Charles L. Zeiders can be obtained from Amazon.com. At the search engine type Clinical Christ. For those who might be interested in consutling with Dr. Zeiders or have him speak, he can be reached dr.zeiders@comcast.net or you may call him at 610 526 1968.

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