laying on of hands

plural layings on of hands · alternative laying-on of hands

1. ChristianityThe practice of using touch to communicate spiritual energy from one person to another, especially as an act of healing.

   And when Simon ſaw that through laying on of the Apoſtles hands', the holy Ghoſt was giuen, hee offered them money,[…]

   1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Acts 8:18, column 1

   4 more examples

   He holds daily levees, which are crowded, at Metropolitan Hall, where he proclaims that he has been sent of God to heal diseases by the touch. Many are fools enough to try the experiment . . . . His formula is, "Disease, depart," accompanied with a laying on of hands.

   1865 April 2, “From the West”, in New York Times, retrieved 25 Jan 2013

   They cast out devils by magic charms, cured diseases by the laying on of hands, drank deadly poisons unharmed, and unharmed played with deadly snakes—or so they claimed.

   1915, Jack London, The Jacket (The Star-Rover), ch. 17

   This monstrous parody of divine compassion . . . performs, in the presence of moving picture cameras, a grotesque parody upon the laying on of hands and the healing of the sick.

   1922, Upton Sinclair, chapter 35, in They Call Me Carpenter: A Tale of the Second Coming

   Popoff would race around an auditorium, striding up to dozens of people he had never met, greeting them by name, reciting their addresses, diagnosing their illnesses and then pretending to heal them with a laying on of hands.

   2001 June 24, Leon Jaroff, “Fighting Against Flimflam”, in Time

2. ChristianityThe charism whereby new bishops are initiated into the apostolic succession.

   Synonyms: chirothesia