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Tuesday, August 10, 2021

Stories of Two Approaches to Healing: Faith and Holistic

 

In the last post, I promised to relate my encounters with a faith healer and a man who received a health reading from Edgar Cayce. I describe them in the order in which they occurred.

 

In my mid-twenties I was investigating various aspects of religion. When I learned that a famous faith healer was conducting a crusade and healing service close to where I lived, I decided to attend. I was curious about what occurred, but I was not a believer in faith healing (no longer the case). Also, I had not yet become acquainted with the readings of Edgar Cayce.

 

The faith healer was Kathryn Kuhlman, who was an American evangelist known for miraculous healings at her services, and her event was held in Columbus Ohio. The auditorium hosting the event was packed with people when I arrived, and I had to remain in an adjacent room off the main hall. I was stunned by the sea of cots with bedridden people with their crutches and canes scattered about. Many people were in wheelchairs, some were grievously ill, and most likely all hoped that they would receive a healing.

 

Ms. Kuhlman began speaking, and I pressed into a group that was able to get a peek at the stage through an open door. I don’t recall how long she spoke, but I do remember the point when she asked people to come to the stage to receive the Holy Spirit. By now I had stepped into the main hall to get a better look. Suddenly, heeding her request, people began to rush to the stage. I was caught up in the surge and literally swept onto the stage. I had not intended to go onto the stage with thousands of people watching. I was there as an observer, not a participant.

 

She began her signature act of saying a brief prayer as she touched a person on the head. The person would then collapse into the arms of men who stood behind the person as catchers. The catchers then gently laid the person onto the stage. Kathryn Kuhlman repeated the gift-of-the-Holy-Spirit process with three or four people ahead of me in line, and soon it was my turn. I was skeptical of the whole business. It was hot and I just wanted to get off the stage. She said her prayer, touched me on the head, and I was soon lying on the stage like the others before me.

 

I describe what happened in the following way. I felt as if every concern I ever had was lifted from me as a curtain of light moved horizontally across my field of view. I felt wonderful and did not care that thousands of people were watching me. I don’t know the length of time I spent on the stage, but I was soon back off the stage watching as she concluded her service by describing various illnesses such as cancer that she saw among people in the audience. She would point out the person, name the disease, and declare the person healed.

 

Now, I had no way to know if the people experienced a healing. Over the years that she was active, thousands claimed healings. According to Wikipedia, Jamie Buckingham, author of her biography Daughter of Destiny, claimed that the most rigorous medical standards were applied before declaring that a healing occurred. For some basic information see the disputed article: Kathryn Kuhlman. (2021, July 29). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathryn_Kuhlman

 

According to the Wikipedia article, others found no evidence of cures. A doctor followed up on the reported healings from a fellowship in Philadelphia and did not find evidence of cures. The article doesn’t describe the criteria he used or how he judged success. He was criticized for only attending one healing service and not following up with reported healings. Nevertheless, she had her detractors.

 

I did not attend her event for a healing, but I certainly experienced something I never experienced before. I cannot say if anyone was healed of a physical ailment after receiving her gift of the Holy Spirit, but her fame had spread because of the reports that people were healed.

 

I will elaborate on faith healing more in a future post. In this post, I suggest that for a healing to occur, a degree of faith is needed on the part of the person seeking the healing. Someone may experience the Holy Spirit but lack the faith for a healing to occur.

 

The second encounter I describe is with a man who received a reading from Edgar Cayce. This encounter occurred in Dayton, Ohio, and at the time the man was retired. He said that as a young man he became extremely sick and went to various doctors for help. However, he did not get better and said his weight dropped to 85 pounds. He began to have frequent blackouts and became desperate for an answer. He heard about Cayce from an article in a national publication and sent in a letter requesting a reading. He said he did not really think he would get a response, but sometime later (don’t recall the exact time) he got a letter with his reading. The reading described his condition in detail and said the blackouts were caused by a medication recently prescribed by his doctor.

 

He did not share the details of the reading with me. But he said it had dietary recommendations, exercises, a recommendation to meditate, and other changes he did not care to discuss. He said that he felt he had nothing to lose and began diligently following the advice. He did not get better at once, but he said that gradually his health improved. After about 6 months, his health was fully restored.

 

These two stories may appear to illustrate two different approaches to healing, but there is a common denominator. In addition to physical changes such as diet and exercise, Cayce recommended regular meditation. He said that setting up a spiritual purpose was important for a lasting healing to occur. For both types of healing to be meaningful, a faith in a Higher Power (Cayce’s philosophy is Christ centered) is necessary. People wanting a healing must believe in a Higher Power and that the Higher Power can and will heal them.

 

In the next post, I will elaborate more on these approaches to healing. This will include answering the following questions and criticisms. Why are many people who profess faith and ask for a healing not healed? Did people really get better by following the Cayce readings? Does alternative medicine work or is it just a charade to take advantage of the gullible? If faith healing works, where does traditional medicine fit?

 

If you are in poor health, life can quickly become a burden. In my own family experience, my son has struggled for fifteen years with health problems, some caused by a genetic deficiency. I have watched him go to specialist after specialist trying to just get an accurate diagnosis. It took over ten years of tests and doctor visits to even understand the nature of his illness. They now say he has an autoimmune disease, but the cause is unknown. So, I am aware of the strengths and weaknesses of the traditional approach to healing through the medical profession. Despite great strides in technology, there is much they do not understand.

 

Three years ago, my son had part of his thyroid removed because of a large tumor. The doctors who had examined him previously were not aware of the tumor, but his subconscious was. A series of dreams led him to insist on his physician ordering a scan of his thyroid, which revealed the tumor.

 

The medical profession still does not understand the value of those messages we receive every night for maintenance of our physical health. Some doctors and scientists are beginning to understand that disease is first reflected in our dreams before manifesting physically, but little real progress has been made to use dreams as a diagnostic tool.

 

After my son’s experiences, I decided to author a book that is a review of current medical practices along with a description of what I believe is missing. I show how dreams can be an important and effective diagnostic tool through examples from my own life and that of my son’s. My book is thoroughly researched and contains numerous references covering all aspects of health care. A separate chapter is devoted to alternative medicine.

 

Unfortunately, none of the literary agents I contacted expressed an interest. I am not a MD and do not have a PhD in a field such as neuroscience, so it is difficult to find interest. For non-fiction books, agents take a hard look at the credentials of the author. I believe that if I had medical credentials my book would already be published. I am contemplating serializing it and proving it in chunks on my blog. Amazon has a new service called Vella for serializing books and publishing them in installments, which may also be a possibility.

 

I hope the readers of this post are following the latest revelations and reports concerning climate change. They are all saying that climate change is happening now, will get much worse, and we are out of time to avoid total disaster. The timeline for gigantic upheavals in the form of higher temperatures, worse floods, endless droughts, and violent storms is this decade, which is what my dream showed in 2015 (see the post that is dated 8/18/2015 titled A Dream About Edgar Cayce and Climate Change).

 

If we do not make major changes now, we will experience the worst. We can no longer avoid some of the changes that will occur this decade. The scientists have said that some of the changes are already irreversible (see Intergovernmental Report on Climate Change released on August 8, 2021). I believe that as my dream showed, the major changes will conclude by 2030. But what will be left of the world as we know it? It is up to us to decide.


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