Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
Also faith healer, attested by 1874; from faith + healer. Faith-curer is from 1883.\n\nThe power which a man's imagination has over his body to heal it or make it sick is a force which none of us is born without. The first man had it, the last one will possess it. If left to himself, a man is most likely to use only the mischievous half of the force
--the half which invents imaginary ailments for him and cultivates them; and if he is one of those very wise people, he is quite likely to scoff at the beneficent half of the force and deny its existence.
[Mark Twain, "Christian Science," 1907]
\nWiktionary
n. (alternative spelling of faith healer English)
Usage examples of "faith-healer".
He challenges the faith-healers to provide serious medical evidence for the validity of their claims.
The producers thought it would be instructive to explore how easily a faith-healer or guru could be created to bamboozle the public and the media.
An experiment with possible far-reaching consequences suggested itself: ship out to Theeo a load of so-called freaks, the people with bizarre gifts, the abnormal, the unusual - clairvoyants, telepathists, faith-healers, telekineticists, and so on.
The publicity posters, building me up as a miracle man, a faith-healer, and little short of a Messiah, proved scandalously effective.
Detailed follow-ups by Nolen, Randi and many others of those who have been told they were cured and agreed that they were - in, say, televised services by American faith-healers - were unable to find even one person with serious organic disease who was in fact cured.