The Power Of Love To Cure

I have always believed that all things are possible. This doesn't mean I have personally achieved everything I have wished. Far from it, but I do feel I could have - if only I'd maybe had enough belief or brought other factors into play.

What put me on this track today was the story of Laura Binder who was diagnosed with breast cancer, had a mastectomy, and then found it had spread to her liver.

She was told by doctors in February of this year that they could not cure the cancer but would try and control it. Laura said, "I was so scared that I was going to die and leave my daughters without a mother."

Things were certainly looking grim but the cancer hadn't reckoned with Laura's nine year old daughter. Children don't know about the limitations that we adults put on ourselves.

Every day for over seven months Linzi wrote to her mother urging her to get better and not to give up the fight.

She wrote messages such as, 'You are like the centre of a rose and you smell just like a beautiful red one. You can fight cancer. You can fight it. I love you'

and

'I want your cancer to sail away mum, in a boat.'

Laura said of her daughter, Linzi refused to give up on me and wrote these wonderful letters every day. She was determined that I wasn't going to die and that I would get better.

So I took lots of photos of the children (she also has a two year old) and we went on lots of outings. I was desperate to spend as much time with them as I had left.

Linzi's letters brightened her mother's days as she lost her hair through chemotherapy and felt exhausted from the treatments. Laura said, "But her letters gave me strength to fight on."

Then a miracle happened.

At the end of September Laura went for a scan and fully expected to hear that the cancer had spread further - but it hadn't. The doctors were amazed: the scan revealed no trace of any tumours.

In Laura's words, "I just couldn't speak. I was in complete shock. To be told there was nothing that could be done for me and then finding out the cancer had completely gone was just incredible. The doctor just said to me that I was a miracle.

Laura credits Linzi with helping her win the battle over the disease. The doctors can't can't explain why the cancer disappeared.

Linzi sent one last letter to her mother:

'Congratulations! All your cancer is gone. I love you!'

A spokesman for Cancer Research UK said, The love from a daughter is a strong powerful thing. Positive thinking provides an incentive to get better. It's amazing how things like this can happen and there is no explanation for it."

No explanation? What about love - the most powerful of powers.

All things are possible.

Healing And Visualisation Without Will Power

Life is about developing ourselves along certain lines, some of these often categorised as paranormal. Sometimes though, we put too much effort and willpower into our quest, especially if interested in the likes of clairvoyance, visualisation, healing and so on.

An illustration of this is the almost unintentional powers developed by Colonel Henry Steel Olcott, who was founder, along with Madame Blavatsky, of the Theosophical Society, in the late 1800s.

At the time the colonel was in Sri Lanka, or Ceylon as it was then called. He had the idea that it would help the community if he could encourage a Buddhist revival.

At the time the Catholics were trying to convert the locals and intended to set up a centre at Kelanie, with the added attraction of a healing shrine similar to that at Lourdes.

Colonel Olcott realised that if the healing shrine was effective the Buddhists would lose many of their 'congregation' to the Catholics. The colonel suggested to the Buddhist high priest. Sumangala, that he too should try working healing miracles. The response was negative as the priest said he had no such powers.

The necessities for most development must surely be positivity or optimism. If we don't think we can do something then we are unlikely to achieve whatever it is.

Soon after the conversation with the Buddhist high priest the colonel was introduced to a man who was paralysed in one arm and one leg. The colonel thought he might as well try some healing suggestions on Cornelius Appu, as the man was called.

He made a few mystic passes over Appu and told him that this would help his problems. No real effort or will power was used by the colonel.

Unbelievably Appu returned to see the colonel later the same day saying he was feeling a lot better and requesting more treatment. Again a few words were spoken by the colonel and he passed his hands over his 'patient'.

Cornelius Appu started to improve and was so happy he spread the news that Colonel Olcott was a miracle worker. The cure was reported in the local newspaper and Appu brought another paralysed man to see the colonel. He followed the same procedure using positive words of suggestion and made his 'mystic' passes. This man was also cured.

The news snowballed and the colonel became overwhelmed by people with various ailments, all wanting to be cured. The few became crowds and his life was almost taken over.

Being an intelligent man Colonel Olcott realised that his powers were, "like riding a bicycle, a matter of confidence and practice." He came to believe in his powers as did the sufferers - and cures came about over and over.

The colonel recorded that he would often bathe in the salty water of the harbour and would feel "currents of fresh vitality entering and re-enforcing" his body. One time he said that "... it seemed as if I might mesmerise and elephant." He didn't! But what he did do was to cure a young man with facial paralysis from the other side of a room by simply saying in Bengali, "Be cured."

One of the things about this story is that it wasn't really important as to whether the colonel had cured that very first person. There was no pressure and the outcome didn't really matter. This attitude is something I have personally experienced with visualisation. If I picture what I want without any will power, with the attitude as if I was simply posting a letter in the mail, then the visualisation is more likely to be a success - especially if, afterwards, I can forget all about what I have requested.

Magic, success, healing or whatever you may want to call such things comes about almost involuntarily. All you do is set the process in motion. Forget will power.

It's interesting that Hitler could sway and influence crowds of people almost hypnotically but lacked charisma on a one to one basis. He could simply switch on his oratory powers, when it was necessary to do so - because he believed he could.

If we believe we can do something - really believe - then we can achieve anything. But true belief often builds slowly ... if we start small our belief increases and so will the size of our demonstrations or results.

How Rituals Combined With Action Can Cure Illness

On Sunday I wrote a post Woman Walks After 23 Years Through Spiritual Healing. I think of this as being a form of 'faith healing'. There was also a video on the post showing her being 'cured' and her first steps.

Today I was reading about how dummy pills can really work in making people feel better - even when the patient knows they are only a placebo!

This perhaps indicates that we can cure ourselves by thinking positive thoughts about feeling an improvement in our health - in other words a kind of faith healing. Our belief can work wonders with our general health.

Dr. Ted Kaptchuk of Harvard University Medical School carried out tests with patients who had an irritable bowel disorder. They were given a tablet with no active ingredients.

Dr. Kaptchuk explained, "Not only did we make it absolutely clear that these pills had no active ingredient and were made from inert substances, but we actually had 'placebo' printed on the bottle. We told the patients they didn't have to even believe in the placebo effect. Just take the pills."

Clinical tests where carried out where some patients had these placebo pills and others had real medicine. Even though the pills had no active ingredients patients taking them felt better and had improved symptoms.

Dr. Kaptchuk added, "These findings suggest that rather than mere positive thinking there may be significant benefit to the performance of medical ritual. Placebo may work even if patients know it is a placebo.

From these placebo trials we can see that if linked to a 'ritual' they can work and this is very similar to faith healing. There is a ritual of laying on hands, and the like, backed up with perhaps music or rhythm and the patient gets better. The subconscious realises something is happening and associates this with being cured. In the case of a placebo the act of taking a tablet, as offered by a medical practitioner, is sufficient to cause a subliminal trigger to make them feel better.

And, if you think about it, this is also the whole purpose behind magic or religious rituals: to cause a reaction of belief that something will happen, because of whatever act is being performed.

Ritual + an action = a desired response.