This morning a parishioner, Dick Just, shared a remarkable healing miracle with me.  He and his wife had taken a vacation to Turkey and visited the "house of the Virgin Mary" near Ephesus, where the apostle John allegedly took Mary after Jesus' crucifixion.  A Catholic nun/ mystic, Anne Catherine Emmerich (1774-1824 AD), had received visions which gave many details about this house and its location.  When archaeologists discovered the house, these details were strikingly confirmed.  A Catholic lady advised Mary Ann, Dick's wife, to bottle some of the spring water there because it had miraculous healing power.  Mary Ann did not believe this but bottled the water just be polite.  

A couple of days later, Dick and Mary Ann were back in their Turkish hotel.  Dick was scheduled to have surgery on both torn miniscus in his knee.  His knee was very sore; so Mary Ann wanted to pour the holy water from "Mary's  spring" on his knee.  Dick agreed to this and then forgot about it.  When he returned to America, he entered the hospital for his knee surgery.  His surgeon cut his knee open and was astounded to discover that both miniscus had completely healed!  So he stitched Dick's knee up and sent him home to ponder his healing miracle.  

What strikes me is this: on historical grounds, I am absolutely certain that Mary's house at Ephesus is bogus.  I can't explain the nun's detailed vision of the site.  But Mary never drank from or bathed in the spring by that house.  Somehow decades of reverent regard for the imagined healing powers of that spring became a self-fulfilling prophecy.  I label this type of phenomenon as "valves to release your faith."  Jesus exploited this  principle in several of His healings.  He would anoint the sick with olive oil, spittle, clay, mixtures of clay and spittle, not because He believed in their healing power, but because many of the sick peasants He encountered believed in such healing agents.  Similarly, Jesus would heal by laying on hands and his apostles would pray over the pillow slips of absentee sick people and then return them to the sick, so that they could receive their healing.  Such techniques make an end run around the mind games we play in TRYING to believe.  Trying to believe causes one to look within to see how much faith we have.  But this very act automatically creates doubt!  Valves to release faith avoid such cerebral conteminants and create a flash point for healing faith to be imparted.

Don

That's very inteesting, Don.

When I read it, I looked around to see if I could find anything nearby that could serve as one of these vlalves to faith---an empty pepsi bottle, a box of kleenex, a credit card?  :D --but I assume a person cannot designate their own items to be valves, that someone else would have to pronounce it?

It's a bit distressing though to think that we're so mired in the material that we require some thing also material to release the faith we have inside.

Bets

;) Here we go again - this links to 'spirits in antiques', and the way meaningful objects can act as a lens to focus or of themselves somehow store intention......

I`m not sure how anyone would be able to get water from a spring near this house, as when I visited it awhile back I was driving a hire car and the house was almost at the top of a very large hill.
Are springs possible near the top of a hill, or is that another miracle in itself?

I also find it hard to believe that a competant surgeon would cut open someone`s knee without taking further x-rays fist. After all, the man had been away on holiday for a while.

roger

Springs are pretty common on hills - I remember drinking from a spring nearly at the top of a mountain in the Rockies once.  Artesian wells will not only pop up near(but not at - they need the pressure of water above them) the top of hills sometimes, but actually shoot out water under pressure.

Healing through thought and faith comes about when the healer or person in need of healing (sometimes one and the same) have deep thought and conviction that the healing has been done.  However, doubt springs up in most of us, and fleeting conscious thoughts or wishful thinking does not substitute for faith/conviction.

Magic, spells, and the like have been around for so long because to the common man, they bind the material world into one's deepest belief or convictions.  "By drinking this vial of magic potion, I will be cured."  The liquid goes down - it is just water, but it is a thing in the material world.  The person's belief/conviction is activated because he/she knows and has experienced the drinking of the magic potion.  Dave-MBS has calld this a "three legged spell," and I enjoyed his description of it very much in an old thread.  

Interestingly enough, shamans use this type of healing all the time, as do other faith healers and practitioners.  So, it is the conviction/faith brought about through a binding to the physical plane that turns thought/healing into reality.  And it is seen across many religions and practices.


Matthew

The X-rays had been taken prior to Dick's vacation.  The 2 torn misiscus were obvious from the X-rays; so there was no reason to take more.  The spring water near "Mary's house" is available to all and other members of my church have viewed it.

Both Dick and Mary Ann are down-to-earth Protestants and neither believed in the healing power of Marian springs.  The real question is this: what is the nature of the kind of faith that makes the miraculous difference?  At the moment the holy water was applied, Mary Ann was caught up in her imagination and was thus willing to play the "what if" game.  She wouldn't have poured the water on Dick's knee if she wasn't excited by the irrational possibility that this ritual might work.  Somehow she and Dick "drifted" into the ideal state of consciousness for the healing to occur.  I suspect that they were able to achieve this state because they tuned in to the excited expectation associated with the Catholic "superstition" about this spring.  I also wonder if the spring might have attracted some sort of mystical energy because of all the lofty thoughts about God's power that have been associated with it.  In this respect, I would associate that spring water with the "holy water" that priests use
so effectively in exorcisms.  I would not be too quick to categorize this miracle with alleged shamanic healings, as these generally seem to be psychosomatic.  In Dick's case, supernatural repairs of the knee clearly occurred through a special intervention that can't be explained solely on the basis of mental focus and power. No, this miracle deserves to be elevated to Ron Sandrock's miracle.  Ron is one of our church trustees.  His severe painful spinal damage was recently healed in response to prayer.  God's healing touch has never lost its ancient power.

Don

Donald, my friend,

Why would a shamanistic healing be any different?  Why are shamanisic healings "alleged and psychosomatic?"  Is not there but one God, one divine power, even if channeled through shamanistic means?  Even if an atheist goes for an alternative healing method, and somehow stumbles onto the power of faith and conviction - and is healed, is it not the same process?

No, in my view, while there are some truly stunning miracles and healings in the Christian community, I firmly believe that all of these healings share a commonality.  As Swedenborg states (to parphrase) "no action in the physical world happens but through divine love and intervention."

I am in no way trying to elevate shamanistic healings above any modern relgion; quite the opposite.  It seems crystal clear to me that when healing through faith/conviction tied in the physical by water, a potion, etc. occurs, that we are all tapping into the same divne source.

Matthew

:) Must say I was about to come in with the same thought Don.

Shamanistic traditions i imagine probably vary a bit, but by and large (as you'd expect in traditions developed by less intellectual but no less spiritual people) they seem to mostly just use different language and metaphors...

Hi all I have to say that i do healing and when i do this ,i always ask God to use me as a channel for his healing to come through me to whoever i am giving healing to and then my hands feel as if there on fire ,the heat is so strong in my hands.

My daughter shelley was having so much pain in her back and the doctor had given her painkillers but these did not help very much at all and she had this severe back pain for quite a while and i did healing on her back, as i did this the pain gradually stopped and shelley has not had any back pain since and i did this healing on her back about five months ago,but i would not say to anyone to give up there medication after healing if there on tablets for life,without seeing a doctor first,healing is from God,so always have faith in the healing as its sent with Gods love as he allows spiritual doctors to come through me from the spirit world as any doctor who dies can still do there work from the spirit world through the healing from God.

Love and God bless    Love Juditha

Don-

My wife was diagnosed with torn meniscus also.  Thing is, the initial diagnosis was based on her symptoms and x-ray.

However, before the operation, they had to confirm it with MRI.  

According to her dr, the x-ray doesn't always accurately diagnosis this particular condition.

For what it's worth.

R

Ok,

I just have to chime in here, since it is part of my expertise.  You can not see the meniscal cartilage on an X-ray with any clarity - period.  X-ray shows bone; soft tissue is best visualized with an MRI.  The typical meniscal tear patient will have a normal appearing X-ray.

Many meniscal tears do not require surgery - although sometimes if you take your car to Midas, you drive away with a new muffler.  

All this information should in no way nullify the healing that was described.  It does, however cast some doubt on the skill of the physicians who were involved, if everything occurred without more information.


Doc

I will ask Dick for more details on Sunday.  What I know is that the diagnosis was confidently made with the assistance of X-rays.  And it was painfully difficult for Dick to walk.  After the healing from the holy water, the pain vanished and the doctor was dumbfounded by what he found when he cut Dick open.  Ron's spinal damage was confirmed by X-rays and his healing and liberation from pain was the instantaneous result of prayer.

Don

Don

Dick shared his healing testimony publicly in church this morning.  Dick is no moony-eyed devotee of the Virgin Mary.  He is a Scotch-drinking, card-playing Methodist (poker and bridge).  His surgeon is the most respected in Spokane for serious knee damage.  He was given X-rays and an MRI immediately prior to his vacation to Turkey.  They very clearly showed massive tears in both miniscus, as well substantial arthritis. So it was not deemed necessary to redo these proceduces a couple of weeks later when he returned from Turkey.  Pain forced Dick to be on crutches during his visit to Ephesus and the nearby alleged house of the Virgin Mary.  After Dick's wife poured the holy water from the Marian spring on his knee, he felt better, but never assumed that he was completely healed. Not only were ALL the miniscus tears completely healed; his arthritic condition was virtually eliminated!  His surgeon was awestruck by the quality of this miracle.  

Don    

that does seem impressive, though I wouldn't rule out the healing being natural.  I don't know what mechanism was at work if it was a "miracle" (not due to "natural" processes) - whether a certain amount of "faith" by the couple at the time of the water-pouring, or the spring being "charged"by devotees beliefs etc  :-?

Don-

I'm glad Dick had the MRI, that would pretty much rule out an incorrect diagnosis.

The nagging question is, why do some people have these miraculous healings, and others don't?  

The answer is probably the same as why some people have remarkable ADCs (eg Savalas, Leonard) while most of us don't.

In both cases, it seems as if our own intent or wishes are irrelevant.  Either they are random events or they happen for reasons far beyond our ability to discern.

I don't know, but an Eastern view seems to be that we can potentially be instantly be healed of anything.

But that most of us (a) can't reliably access the levels of mind required to enable this, and (b) anyway out of delusion do lots in life that harms us and so bring on death.

There's stories of realised teachers manifesting illnesses and making them disappear again, or taking on illnesses from others. Sri Ramana Maharishi I think is quoted quite a lot on the subject of healing, maybe worth a Google...