I grew up believing that she really healed people from polio, palsy, cancer and other ailments. It made for a fascinating episode each week. Sometimes I was credulous that they were healed but for the most part I accepted that she some kind of gift from God and really could heal people. I was never sure if it was their belief or the power she had but I watched So the fact that women could have the same power as men in healing the sick was not outside of my mental construct.
I remember seeing an episode where a woman with cancer was healed that is described in the Wickipedia entry below:
Following a 1967 fellowship in Philadelphia, Dr. William A. Nolen conducted a case study of 23 people who claimed to have been cured during her services.[2][3][4][5] Nolen's long term follow-ups concluded there were no cures in those cases.[6][7] Furthermore, one woman who was said to have been cured of spinal cancer took off her brace and ran across the stage at Kuhlman's command; her spine collapsed the following day and she died four months later.[8].[6]Until today I didn't have any clue that Dr. William A. Nolen had conducted a study where no cures were ever proven. An interesting piece called The Hurt of Healing debunks Roberts and Kuhlman.
As a Latter-day Saint I don't often hear about faith-healing even among active LDS men. I do believe in faith healing having experienced it in my own ministry. A couple of weeks ago in the lesson from the Joseph Smith manual on healing only a couple of men had experiences to share. A former stake president talks about taking Gene R. Cook down to the hospital to give a sick missionary a blessing. Most of the men in the quorum talked about healing a sick child over their many years of Melchizedek priesthood ordination. I shared how I raised my child from the dead.
When I joined the church I was told that men hold the priesthood and that women support the priesthood. I have never witnessed any woman (other than once or twice allowing my wife to stand in with me) that ever exercised the priesthood with their husbands. Even among more liberal sisters including the birth of a child that had the umbilical cord wrapped around her neck I haven't seen a woman attempt to heal or cure a sick person.
In my reading in Church History I read where Mary Fielding Smith healed a sick ox. I read where women exercised priest-like powers in the ordinances in the temple but I have not read where a husband nor a wife exercised the power of laying hands on a person. Recently my wife pointed out in a post "Emma Smith's Blessing to Herself" that Joseph Smith allowed Emma Smith to write herself a blessing which he supposedly signed to ratify its acceptance. When my wife told me she was writing herself a blessing I told her I would sign it also. I figured if Joseph Smith was liberal enough to do that being an ultraconservative Mormon then I could do the same.
When my wife first suggested that since I didn't have another person with me in giving blessings to my children why couldn't she put her hands on mine and assist I tried to find a way to do it that would be acceptable to LDS Church leaders and my ethical conscience. Honestly since I invoke Heavenly Father and take care of being voice in both ordinances I figure the requirements of the church are being met. In some ways I am not deep down sharing the priesthood since I don't let her act as voice. I would feel uncomfortable if I wasn't in charge of the ordinance. I figure the combined faith can only help not hurt when conducting healing blessings.
I read where women share the priesthood with their husbands but nowhere in Mormon Doctrine (McConkie) nor Answer to Gospel Questions (Joseph Fielding Smith) do I find much evidence to support women assisting outside the temple in the actual laying on of hands. In the temple I am sure in giving washings and anointings that they conduct priesthood ordinances using the priesthood with other women.
In terms of operational practice I don't see much evidence that women generally bless anyone except through prayer. I once asked a general authority about why women couldn't lay hands on and heal their sick children if the husband wasn't home and he told me that the child could just as easily be healed through the righteous prayer of a faithful mother. I told him I let my wife lay her hands on mine and he didn't say a word--just looked at me.
