The laying of hands is when hands
are placed upon a body…this was often done for religious purposes…in Christian
churches, this practice is used as a formal method of invoking the Holy Spirit
which is done usually during baptisms or confirmations, blessings, ordination
of priests, ministers, elders, deacons, and other types of church officers…more
recently, the laying of hands refers to healing…it is a form of psychic
healing, which may have absolutely have nothing to with religion at all, but is
where the healer or group focuses on sending powerful thoughts directly to the
part of the body that is in need of help…a medicinal form of metta…in many
churches today, people go to the altars to seek the hand of a power evangelist
or some other "anointed" man of God…(usually self-anointed) with the
hope is that he would lay his hands on them and their problems would magically
disappear…they would be miraculously healed, made financially prosperous, and
get whatever other gifts he has transferred to them…now some people claim it is
like a dead battery being charged by a live one…to reinforce this spectacle of
belief, often times it is observed that when the magic hands are laid on
people, some people will jump, their bodies may buckle and fall…all so that the
spectacle will confirm to others that something was transferred…the lame may
suddenly walk, the blind suddenly see, and so forth…people have prayer cloths
and sacred oils from suspect TV ministries that were supposedly anointed by the
TV evangelist…really?...the laying of hands can still be used when praying for
healing, or when praying for people to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, but
the scriptures do not teach anything about transference of spirit to anyone in
need.
