Spiritism and Mental Health: Practices from Spiritist Centers and Spiritist Psychiatric Hospitals in Brazil

Professor Amit Goswami

Ivan Hervé, MD (2006), reported about 181 cases he tracked for 20 years of treatment at a Spiritist Center in Porto Alegre, giving a description of their disorders and the results achieved.

Almost 40 percent of family practice physicians (Olive 1995) disclosed that they had prayed with patients, and 9 out of 10 of those believed that praying with their patients had beneficial effects on the medical problem or psychiatric problem that was being addressed.

We have hunted for big simple neuro-chemical explanations for psychiatric disorders and have not found them. (Kenneth Kendler, Co-Editor in Chief of Psychological Medicine, quoted in Lacasse 2005)

Research on the long-term effects of psychiatric medications reported by the Director of the National Institute of Mental Health in 1996 reveal that they compromise brain function rather than enhance it (Hyman 1996).

The Self-Aware Universe (1995), Physics of the Soul (2001), and The Quantum Doctor (2004)

A large national poll found that almost 50 percent of patients would like to share in prayer with their physicians during medical office visits (Yankelovich Partners Inc. 1996).

“Soul Medicine”

Almost 80 percent of individuals who seek medical care for any reason feel that their religious or spiritual beliefs are directly related to their health concerns,