gusash

Can someone tell me what the Baha'i view is on blood transfusion? Or some quotes from Abdul-Baha on the subject? Was recently reading some jehovah's witness material and I was just wondering what our beliefs are on this. It had some quotes from the Bible as well - I'm a tad confused :P

Thanks guys

Fadl

We just follow the doctor's orders in these things and have no prohibition against any medical practices including transfusion.

MAWillsey

‘Abdu’l-Bahá said: Disease is of two kinds: material and spiritual.

Take for instance, a cut hand; if you pray for the cut to be healed and do not stop its bleeding, you will not do much good; a material remedy is needed.

Sometimes if the nervous system is paralyzed through fear, a spiritual remedy is necessary. Madness, incurable otherwise, can be cured through prayer. It often happens that sorrow makes one ill, this can be cured by spiritual means.

How All Can Help

The work of healing the sick, however, is a matter that concerns not the patient and the practitioner only, but everyone. All must help, by sympathy and service, by right living and right thinking, and especially by prayer, for of all remedies prayer is the most potent. “Supplication and prayer on behalf of others,” says ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, “will surely be effective.” The friends of the patient have a special responsibility, for their influence, either for good or ill, is most direct and powerful. In how many cases of sickness the issue depends mainly on the ministrations of parents, friends or neighbors of the helpless sufferer!

Even the members of the community at large have an influence in every case of sickness . In individual cases that influence may not appear great, yet in the mass the effect is potent. Everyone is affected by the social “atmosphere” in which he lives, by the general prevalence of faith or materialism, of virtue or vice, of cheerfulness of depression; and each individual has his share in determining the state of that social “atmosphere.” It may not be possible for everyone, in the present state of the world, to attain to perfect health, but it is possible for everyone to become a “willing channel” for the health-giving power of the Holy Spirit and thus to exert a healing, helpful influence both on his own body and on all with whom he comes in contact.

Few duties are impressed on Bahá’ís more repeatedly and emphatically than that of healing the sick, and many beautiful 114 prayers for healing have been revealed by both Bahá’u’lláh and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá.

o Bahá’u’lláh and the New Era

Author: J. E. Esslemont Source: US Bahá’í Publishing Trust,1980edition Pages: 286

The Healer

The power of spiritual healing is doubtless common to all mankind in greater or less degree, but, just as some men are endowed with exceptional talent for mathematics or music, so others appear to be endowed with exceptional aptitude for healing. These are the people who ought to make the healing art their lifework. Unfortunately, so materialistic has the world become in recent centuries that the very possibility of spiritual healing has to a large extent been lost sight of. Like all other talents the gift of healing has to be recognized, trained and educated in order that it may attain its highest development and power, and there are probably thousands in the world today, richly dowered with natural aptitude for healing, in whom this precious gift is lying dormant and inactive. When the potentialities of mental and spiritual treatment are more fully realized, the healing art will be transformed and ennobled and 112 its efficacy immeasurably increased. And when this new knowledge and power in the healer are combined with lively faith and hope on the part of the patient, wonderful results may be looked for.

In God must be our trust. There is no God but Him, the Healer, the Knower, the Helper. … Nothing in earth or heaven is outside the grasp of God.

O physician! In treating the sick, first mention the name of Thy God, the Possessor of the Day of Judgment, and then use what God hath destined for the healing of His creatures. By My Life! The physician who has drunk from the Wine of My Love, his visit is healing, and his breath is mercy and hope. Cling to him for the welfare of the constitution. He is confirmed by God in his treatment.

This knowledge (of the healing art) is the most important of all the sciences, for it is the greatest means from God, the Life-giver to the dust, for preserving the bodies of all people, and He has put it in the forefront of all sciences and wisdoms. For this is the day when you must arise for My Victory.

Thy Name is my healing, O my God, and remembrance of Thee is my remedy. Nearness to Thee is my hope, and love for Thee is my companion. Thy mercy to me is my healing and my succor in both this world and the world to come. Thou, verily, art the All-Bountiful, the All-Knowing, the All-Wise.—BAHÁ’U’LLÁH, Tablet to a Physician.

‘Abdu’l-Bahá writes:—

He who is filled with love of Bahá, and forgets all things, the Holy Spirit will be heard from his lips and the spirit of life will fill his heart. … Words will issue from his lips in strands of pearls, and all sickness and disease will be healed by the laying on of the hands.

O thou pure and spiritual one! Turn thou toward God with thy heart beating with His love, devoted to His 113 praise, gazing towards His Kingdom and seeking help from His Holy Spirit in a state of ecstasy, rapture, love, yearning, joy and fragrance. God will assist thee, through a spirit from His Presence, to heal sickness and disease.

Continue in healing hearts and bodies and seek healing for sick persons by turning unto the Supreme Kingdom and by setting the heart upon obtaining healing through the power of the Greatest Name and by the spirit of the Love of God.

aidan

I have just started working for the National Health Service Blood and Transplant Service.This is an essetial service for all citzens of the UK.So many people indesperate need of blood andorgans and not enough donors.Please whereer in the worldyou gliveive blood and donate your orgas when you die.Give another a chance of life perhaps the greatest gift you will ever give

cire perdue

I was waiting on a bus yesterday and there plain as day was a phoenix clearly in the sky made of cirrus clouds only. It was neat. I was frankly reminded of guash's phoenix. What a sign it was.

The JV blood idea makes no sense whatsoever since blood transfusions have only been used for the last 100 years. We are still learning and in the news was to add more plasma to transfusions as increases the patient's ability to clot. Duh. How can we be so smart and so dumb at the same time?

I have used "waiting for the bus" as an analogy for powerlessness. One cannot make the bus come faster no matter what one does. I like to use the time to i.e. look at the sky, pray, and slow down. We have that same powerless over people, but rarely do we realize that and let go and let God.

Not being able to drive for now is more a blessing than a curse, as long as I have someone take me to the store for 24 lbs of cat litter, gallons of vinegar and distilled H2O, b/c the heavy stuff will pull your arms off before you get home........