the.com/laying on of hands

means A ritual gesture in which hands are physically placed on a person's head or body to confer blessing, healing, authority, or the Holy Spirit.

from The phrase translates a practice found throughout the Hebrew Bible and New Testament — priests laid hands on sacrifices to transfer sin, patriarchs laid hands on heirs to confer blessing, and apostles laid hands on converts to confer the Spirit or ordain them to office. The English phrase itself is simply descriptive, built from Old English 'lecgan' (to lay) and 'hand,' and entered common religious usage through Bible translations like the King James Version, which rendered the Greek 'epithesis cheiron' and Hebrew equivalents literally. The ritual is older than the phrase — the words just caught up to the gesture.