"a special potency" -- which healing prayer is that?

[Sen McGlinn]

A letter on behalf of Shoghi Effendi says (in part):

These daily obligatory prayers, together with a few other specific ones, such as the Healing Prayer, the Tablet of Ahmad, have been invested by Baha’u’llah with a special potency and significance, ...

We have a lot of prayers for healing. Which one is the Healing Prayer that is referenced here?

The quote above is part of a long letter on behalf of Shoghi Effendi dated January 10, 1936, addressed to the National Spiritual Assembly of the United States and Canada. An email to Robert Yoder from the Department of the Secretariat at the Bahai World Centre, dated September 28, 2008, responds to the question:

As to the Healing Prayer to which the Guardian refers, it is probably the one known as the Long Healing Prayer, but nothing specific about this has been located at this time.

That is unlikely, because the secretary assumes that his readers in 1936 will know which prayer is meant – so it will be the most widely used healing prayer in North America at that time. The Long Healing Prayer was not available in English translation when the secretary wrote that letter. The Long Healing Prayer, beginning “In invoke thee, O Thou Exalted One…” with the refrain “Thou the sufficing …,” was translated in 1945 by Ali Kuli Khan and his daughter, Marzah Gail. They would not have translated it, if there was already a translation in wide use.

The short healing prayer, beginning “Thy name is my healing,” taken from the Lawh-e Tibb, Baha’u’llah’s “Tablet of Medicine,” was known in English at least from 1911, as we can see from Ethel Rosenberg’s “Brief Account.” She notes that it was to be recited nine times. The prayer was used by Christine Fraser in introducing Abdu’l-Baha in Sacramento in 1912. It was widely enough used for Abdu’l-Baha to reference it in a tablet in 1914 (see the inset), and it was quoted, in Esslemont’s Baha’u’llah and the New Era in 1923.

If someone mentioned “the Healing prayer” in 1936, they would have been referring to this, the “short healing prayer.”

More sources and evidence is on my Bahai Studies blog :

https://senmcglinn.wordpress.com/2023/09/30/a-special-potency-which-healing-prayer-is-that/

 

[EricPH]

God works in mysterious and profound ways. If the words of the prayer were all that is needed, then everyone would be healed if they used this prayer. I sense, we also need to do something, we have to have faith and trust in what we pray for.

In 2011 I had tests done for cancer, about a month later the doctor phoned and said he urgently wanted to see me, it was non – Hodgkin Lymphoma. This was a name I recognised, our friend had this cancer, and died a few months later.

Being told I had cancer was out of my hands, there was nothing I could do about it. A few minutes after putting the phone down; I prayed for the wisdom, strength and the peace to do God’s will, whether the cancer was a death sentence, or just an inconvenience. I can only say that from the moment of making this prayer, I have experienced a profound sense of peace that is beyond my understanding, and the thought of cancer has never troubled me for a moment.

I only made this prayer once, then it changed to giving thanks for another day of peace.

I have never once prayed for healing, at the age of 62, the prayer for healing seemed too complicated, it might or might not be my time to go. Recognising this profound sense of peace comes from God, gives me reason to be thankful.

On reflection, I sense that the peace I experienced possibly helped the cancer to heal. I have heard that worry and stress can exacerbate medical problems.