II
WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN
 This writer imagined for some years writing about “What Might Have Been.” That idea was clearly politically focused. What Might Have Been - If John F. Kennedy had avoided assassination, if his brother had not been gunned down. If Martin Luther King Jr. had continued his ministry. If such acknowledged great leaders had persisted into old age or even just a few more years, wouldn’t America be a different and better place today? And, wouldn’t that have spread positive effects to the rest of the world? What if we had found different ways to live besides fighting wars in placed like Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. What if America and Russia learned to just take care of their own business? Those scenarios might have promoted some happier endings in fact if not just in imagination. But, the imagined writing seems really too far afield from most of this writer's experiences and studies to ever eventuate. Maybe somebody else will compose those stories, some day. Maybe they have, by have somehow been overlooked. In any case in recent years, gifts of discovery and re-discovery of healing works accomplished over the ages by a number of truly great men have passed before our eyes. Surely women did much of the same kind of work, but their names have been lost to posterity. Still, stories of the wonders worked over centuries by great healing humans persist in many places to be told and retold. This is especially so now since many writings, cached in libraries around the world and only available in the past to scholars who could travel widely, are now digitized and freely accessible through websites like books.google.com, archive.org, gallica.fr and several others. These three are excellent sources which gave access to dozens of books to study about extraordinary healing personalities, methods, and cases which cover particularly the last few centuries. The lives and works of Jesus and his disciples are relatively well known. But coming into the second millennium, it has taken real work to gather clear pictures of Paracelsus and Van Helmont, Greatrakes and Mesmer, Elliotson and Esdaile, Du Potet and Newton. That is JR Newton rather than Isaac. May this be the place to briefly tell the stories of these Great Healers and to begin to retell how they did their awesome works as well as the “secrets” they recovered and shared in their times. Jesus
and the Disciples
Have you ever wondered how
Jesus healed? Were they all miraculous, or are the
methods he used still available? Well, the short answer
is that he used many methods according to the need of
those who met him and asked his aid. Sometimes, they
didn’t even ask. As when the woman with the issue
(hemorrhage) of many years reached out to him. She was
instantly healed as “virtue” was drawn from Jesus to the
woman.A miracle! Yes, because it was and still is generally not understood. No, because the “virtue” was merely a shooting forth of vital energy from the radiant aura of the Great Physician to fill in the void in the force field of the depleted woman. This mechanism is surely the main one which Jesus used actively and directly with the sick and lame. It is also the one which he taught his disciples, telling them to share with those in need that the healing force might refill them, relieve their weakness, and make them whole - at least for the time. Greatrakes
and Gassner
Valentine Greatrakes was an
Irish merchant of 17th century who observed his wife’s
healing works at the same time many suffered the King’s
Evil and other ghastly diseases of the time. He sensed
the call to heal. His wife scoffed for a time.His work was as a Stroker – which seems a fitting occupation for a man named Greatrakes. He stroked people’s bodies with his hands producing thousands of healings. Many, many were relieved and healed in Ireland. He eventually traveled to England at the request of a nobleman whose wife was ill. He was unsuccessful in her case but aided many others while the chemist Robert Boyle looked on in amazement. Johann Joseph Gassner was an 18th-century Catholic priest who caused much happiness among the ill and injured who came to him and much consternation to the authorities of the time. Gassner made relatively simple applications – exorcisms to his way of thinking – to bring about relief and healing of the needy. Thousands attended him and many were helped. But, Gassner’s works caused worries among physicians, clergy, and government. While the mass of evidence was in favor of the authenticity and effectiveness of the work that he did, those workw prompted fears and worries over time among those in power. Mesmer
and Du Potet
Anton Mesmer – one of the few human beings to have a word named after him – was an 18th century Swabian-German physician who made his own separate discovery through the gift of a ken mind inquiring into the wonders of Nature. He taught that all beings emanate and transmit currents of magnetic fluid. That fluid was capable of healing, relieving and preserving humans and animals. Mesmer tried to share his discovery of “animal magnetism” in Vienna, but was met with disbelief and denial despite the amazing cures and phenomena he produced. Eventually, he moved to Paris where he demonstrated greater wonders. The people were enthralled and thrilled. The scholars and physicians were scared. They did everything they could to suppress, slander, and destroy his potentially universal healing work. Nonetheless, Mesmer's spread hither thither and yon thanks to the likes of ... Jules du Potet de Sennevoy became one of the most visible and successful teacher-healers of the 19th century, even while he only sat in on a few classes in a Parisian medical school in his early years. Like Mesmer and other great healers, Du Potet studied nature in its obvious outer forms but also via its subtle spiritual essence. Jules had an epiphany when he first heard the word magnetism aka mesmerism in 1815, the year of Mesmer's death. Du Potet ultimately went on to teach himself magical magnet healing, to teach and spread the word about “animal magnetism,” to travel Europe and Britain with his healing message, and to share through plentifully through journals and books on the subject. Elliotson
and Esdaile
John Elliotson was a highly
respected professor of medicine at the London College in
the middle of the 19th century until he took up
mesmerism thanks to Jules Du Potet. He also did amazing
things, healed many incurables, and got attention from a
wide spectrum of the society. It appears that Elliotson
like Mesmer was too public about his work and brought
down the wrath of his peers.Elliotson eventually resigned his teaching positions and worked independently while producing a journal of magnetic healing [The Zoist] for a dozen years. All manner of medical, surgical, religious, and healing folks as well as grateful patients gave great praise to him. But, the powers-that-be did not abide his efforts. They feared to be put out of work. Elliotson’s healings and teachings were soon lost because there was no system or organization to fill his shoes and his ideals. James Esdaile was a Scottish surgeon contemporary with Elliotson who was assigned to duty at a prison in India. At a loss to treat his patients humanely when they needed drastic surgeries, he ventured to begin work with magnetism. He had only heard and read about mesmerism, never seen it practiced. A native assistant had seen the process done a time or two without success. So, Esdaile set himself and helpers to work magnetizing patients prior to surgeries. Sometimes, the process was strung out over several days. But, a large swath of patients were anesthetized with mere passes of the hands over their bodies. (This was before the advent of ether and chloroform.) Esdaile was able to remove all manner and size of tumors with little blood loss, no pain and no memory of the operation retained by the patient, and rapid recovery after surgery. The British government set him up for a time with his own hospital devoted to using magnetism. Sadly, the very successful experiment was lost in the passage of time when Esdaile gave up India to return to his native Scotland. Newton
and Olcott
James Rogers Newton was one
of the most recent of the great healers of the ages. He
was in middle age before he realized he had a gift.
Something told him he had a work to do. Newton gradually
put his hands and faith into action.He eventually relieved or healed thousands with methods similar to Greatrakes and Mesmer. He worked often with one sick person at a time. But he also stood before hundreds on occasion and produced healings at a distance in the midst of larger crowds. Newton’s work which occurred in America in the late 19th century was and is well-documented from reports of newspapers all across the country as well as during visits to Great Britain. Henry Steele Olcott’s healing career was short-lived at little more than a year’s length during his time in India in the 1880s. It appears that his work was intended to be more of a demonstration of the potential for healing with the touch than a specifically founded mission. Colonel Olcott was founding President of the Theosophical Society. While he traveled around South Asia promoting the Society while supporting indigenous religions, he was struck by the medical needs of many whom he encountered. Why not offer the gift of magnetic touch? He had studied it, but never put it into practice until he was fifty years old in a foreign land. Many successes followed. These extraordinary healers and many other ordinary ones doing extraordinary things are the starting point for our journey into a wider world of possibilities than most people dare imagine. We will pick up the thread in the next essay as we share some fascinating bits and pieces from own healing journey which - after 40 years - may be of aid to people in need in the coming days. |
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“Even as there is only one nature, one life, one health,
there is, only one disease, one remedy, one healing.”
Mesmer
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