healing
Why Healing is Accelerated in a Group Setting
You can open to the Divine by yourself in a cave, but for most people, it’s far easier to do in the company of others. What kind of company? “Good Company” advise the Great Ones. That is the meaning of the word “Satsang” — a community of truth-seekers.
My mentor, Rev. Dr. Ron Roth, who spent over 40 years conducting healing services with attendance ranging from 10 to 10,000 people at any given event, used to warn the audience: “When I call out your condition, NOW is the time to come forward for healing. Don’t think you’re going to corner me privately later in the hall and get any result.”
He was referring to the fact that in the energy of the group prayer and devotion, the healing presence of the Holy Spirit and the holy spirit helpers were called forth in that elevated energy (vibration is another way of saying it) and performed the healing work in a way that usually was astonishing and miraculous. “When Kathryn Kuhlman led services,” he would exhort over and over, “she would stand and sing with the choir and the audience for over an hour before she began the healing portion.”
Why did she do this? Why did Ron insist on long intervals of musical prayer? Indeed, I learned the role of music in healing by serving as one of Ron’s musical team for almost 10 years. I experienced firsthand how music and chanting elevate the vibrational field. All cultures and traditions everywhere recognize this, and there are virtually no healing traditions that don’t include some sort of meditative sounding, whether it is drumming, om-ing, singing, chanting, gongs, kirtan or any other form of music.
Yogananda once held a service in which he had the jam-packed crowd at Carnegie Hall chanting “Oh God Beautiful” for an hour and twenty five minutes!:
“For one hour and twenty-five minutes, the thousands of voices of the entire audience chanted…in a divine atmosphere of joyous praise…The next day many men and women testified to the God-perception and the healing of body, mind, and soul that had taken place during the sacred chanting, and numerous requests came in to repeat the song at other services.“* *
Could Yogananda, or other great mystics, bring about healing without a crowd of chanters? Yes. Such Divine Masters vibrate at a level much greater than your average spiritual healer.
I studied with Mahendra Trivedi for a time, and he joked about experiments in India where they hooked him up to various scientific apparatus and brought in the greatest of Reiki healers, whose effect was absolutely nil. The reason, he chuckled, was “the stronger energy always wins.” His own energetic field was so much higher that nothing she did could affect him in any way. But he himself has transmuted, in scientific experiments, just about every substance known to man, and great healings have also occurred through him. So the fully God-Realized can and do emit a healing energy regardless of the environment.
Yet, many of them; in fact almost all I can think of, did use the group to amplify and generate the field and invite in the Divine Presence. John of God, perhaps the greatest medium and spiritist healer in hundreds of years, has several hundred mediums meditating to generate the field in which the benevolent Encidades (healing entities) do their work through him. At the Casa Dom Inacio in Brazil, this energy field is called the “current”. It comes from the portuguese word corrente, which means both an energetic/electrical current and a chain…it is a healing current formed by a chain of people.”Sit in the current” is the most frequent prescription given at the Casa.
Current is a beautiful example of “give & get.” Some people prefer to have a healer work on them in private. This is effective too, depending on the healer. But one must remember, that’s all about the “getting.” The beauty of healing in and with a group, is that you are also giving. And in terms of your own Grace Bank Account, that can only be a good thing.
Healing services are an opportunity to come together and generate that energetic field in such a way that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. This is the meaning underlying the famous quote of Jesus: “Where two or more are gathered together, there am I among you.”
Join me at our next free healing event January 10th, 2015 in Evanston, IL: https://revnettie.com/healing-events/
**(source: http://www.yogananda-srf.org/Kirtan_Chanting.aspx#.VKhbZidwsRI)
The Inner Voice
Learning to trust the inner voice, (or Inner Voice) is natural to some people, but a learned skill for most.
In the beginning the Voice can seem like just another thought amidst the LA Freeway Traffic Jam of the Mind. Yet something about it catches our attention: perhaps the thought is novel in some way, or there is a body sensation that accompanies it, or it’s a thought that just keeps coming around for another turn, asking for attention. Learning the difference between the voice of guidance (“call that person!”) and the voice of the ego-mind (“go ahead, eat the chocolate cake!”) is a skill worth mastering. And, it’s a lesson that’s never over, Spirit keeps upping the ante.
Life teaches us about intuition, and for some it’s a slow learning process. “I had a feeling I shouldn’t have gone out tonight…” “I knew I should have called her…” My healer friend Robbins Hopkins has an expression: “You get as many chances as you need.” It’s her gentle take on the reality that life will keep repeating the circumstances—both the tough lessons and the golden opportunities— till you step up and match the lesson being offered.
For some people, guidance comes in very strongly, in a clearly discernible way. Over decades, I’ve become one of those people. It wasn’t always as clear as it is now. Still, there are moments when I question, because it can be a thin line between your lower mind and your higher Self at times. Negotiating that line is one of the main lessons in life.
Just prior to a trip to California to do a healing/blessing event, when I received an inner message saying I should bring along a red silk sari I bought two years ago on a trip to India and had never yet worn, that little voice of doubt raised it’s volume for a few moments. Wearing a queenly red sari and playing the guitar at the same time could raise all sorts of questions in the minds of attendees, and did I really want to deal with that? (One of the participants later suggested I call it a “guitari.”)
But years of experience have taught me to trust and listen, and so I did. Upon arriving in CA, I found that my co-leader, Rev. Susi Roos, had also brought along her Indian garb, so we knew something was afoot.
That something turned out to be an evening devoted to the blessings of the Divine Feminine. Everything both of us had brought in our hearts and in our suitcases turned out to be perfectly synched, helping to create a powerful experience for the attendees and for us as well.
What messages have you received that you have brushed aside as silly thoughts, or that put you at risk of looking foolish? When have you followed that guidance and realized it was the Real Deal? I’d love to hear from you in the comments! (If you are reading this on the Home Page, Comments links are at the bottom. If you are reading this as a single-entry page, the Comments link is at the top.)
A Night to Remember
There are times in your life when you can see everything coming together in a way that is so perfect and so fluid that you can only stand aside and watch the pieces fall into place, knowing that only divine Grace could so direct the play.
Two years ago, on the night after my mentor Ron Roth died, I had a vivid dream visitation; a dream in which my friend Rev. Susi Roos and I were dressing in ministerial vestments in the vestry of a Catholic church. Ron Roth, in full priestly regalia, came charging down the aisle of the cathedral, holding his bishop’s staff and scolding us loudly in his most annoyed tone.
“Where are you, I’m WAITING for you!” he said impatiently.
He turned back toward the altar, and Susi and I fled down the aisle after him, practically running to keep up. He mounted the platform and we slid into seats behind him and looked out at a vast crowd.
On August 9th, that dream came to life when Susi and I got into our ministerial vestments in the vestry of St. Catherine of Siena Roman Catholic church in Rialto, California. And though Ron was not there in body, he certainly was fully present for both of us and for the people of the parish in the San Bernardino area who came in droves to attend the seminar and healing service Evicting Cancer, which, two years ago when I had the dream, was not even a glimmer in either of our eyes.
When I first floated the idea for doing this interfaith educational and healing event past Fr. Steve Porter, whom I had met in Brazil, I did some rapid math in my head. I knew his parish was large, and I figured that among 9000 people, many lives must be touched by cancer. How many would turn out on a weekday or weeknight to hear two unknown female ministers was at best a gamble—I figured anywhere from 10 to 100. But the Holy Spirit had other ideas.
Unknown to me when we had first spoken of the idea was the fact that Fr. Steve has conducted regular healing services at his church for years, and had everything and everyone in place to hold a large-scale event that otherwise would have taken a huge amount of logistical arrangements if we were truly starting from scratch—which we weren’t. With Fr. Steve’s enthusiastic support, the first of two events that day had around 300 people in attendance at 10:00 a.m.
A wonderful musical ministry team gave their time to support the services, and to provide translation during our talks as well. After we were introduced in English and Spanish by Fr. Steve, Rev. Susi, who works as both a nurse and a mind/body specialist at a leading cancer treatment facility, spent the first hour talking on the three biggest mistakes people make when addressing cancer, and gave easy and practical things people could do to greatly assist the effectiveness of their treatment. She put all the medical information into a spiritual context, touching on some of the concepts from her in-depth teleseminars and home-study programs.
Then it was my turn to open people up to a higher energy transmission through teaching and leading worship (something I’ve done many times on a scale larger than 300 people) and in the laying-on-of-hands healing (something I’ve done in smaller events).
Fr. Steve had arranged with one of the prayer groups to provide support, and in accordance with the way they conduct healing services at this church, every individual is personally escorted by a healing minister to come for laying on of hands; the minister stays with them if they go “down under the Power of the Spirit” (involuntarily fall gently to rest on the floor while healing is done on an unconscious level).
Our spiritual assistants also functioned as translators as the vast majority of those attending had Spanish as their primary language.
I knew one thing: don’t prepare too much, because whatever you think will happen, it will surely be something different. And so it was.
I was ready to lay hands on people in blessing, but shortly into the personal blessings I was led to look at them in the eyes, and as I did, thoughts would come flooding in, differing from one person to the next, such as “have courage!” or “you are loved…” There was clearly an energy being transmitted through the gazing, and all I had to do was get out of the way and let it happen. I also found myself clearing much “junk”—removing invisible energy blocks before passing people on to Susi, who then anointed them with oil. As she blessed them, many went down under the Power. Fr. Steve moved amongst the people and between us, lending energetic, logistical and prayer support.
The morning, scheduled to go from 10:00 – 12:00, continued till 1:00 p.m., as people waited patiently in line for their turn.
The evening event began at 7:00 pm, and saw many more people fill the church. This time it was clear to Fr. Steve that at least half were not his parishioners, but those who had heard about the opportunity through friends or through the local Spanish radio station, and had come with hope in their hearts, some bringing children, some with older people in wheelchairs, some holding pictures of loved ones.
As the evening went on, the Divine energy in the church became electric; people were open, full of devotion and enthusiastically ready to receive Grace. Reflected on many faces as they approached, was much fear, pain and suffering, and devotion as well. But just under the surface lay a hunger and thirst for love, hope, and most of all, peace—the gifts of the Holy Spirit.
The service started promptly at 7:00 and didn’t end till after 11:00. Fr. Steve estimated that we had over 1000 in attendance and about 700 who came up to be personally blessed. I had no idea how many; I could only see the person in front of me, and Juvenal, the human angel who was assisting me, pointed me where I needed to go in the cases of the elderly and wheelchair patients.
This time, as the evening went on, as I looked at the person in front of me, I knew within seconds who was physically sick and who was there for emotional reasons. If I asked, they would verify the information and give a few words about their situation. As expected, there were many with cancers, but there were many other conditions as well, often advanced and serious, as well as those seeking help with emotional problems.
People come to healing services hoping for miraculous help. And what they mean is, on the physical level, they want their cancers to disappear; their ailments—many of which took years and years to establish—to vanish immediately. I’ve been in this world of healing long enough to know that this indeed happens at times, and I believe that when it happens it’s to build faith not only in that person, but in all who know them.
More often, a new kind of journey is initiated. Susi quotes her first patient in this field who begged for her help, sensing Susi knew things that could help her, even though the doctors had told her they couldn’t do any more: “You turned my death sentence into a healing journey,” she later said.
While I’ve experienced that journey in my own life and witnessed it in so many others—some near and dear to me—that night took everything I’ve ever been through in the world of spiritual healing to a whole new level.
I stood at the center of the healing vortex and I could see, feel and know that an energetic transformation had happened for many attendees; that infusion of Divine energy would revitalize them; some in the physical, some in the emotional, some in the spiritual, and some in all three.
An infusion of energy always alters that which it touches; it’s a physical law. What’s less well-known is that it is a spiritual law as well.
As a result, I know that not only the people who came were changed; I, too, am changed.
For almost 30 years I have resounded with the quote from George Bernard Shaw that starts: This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one…
On August 9th, I was fully used by that purpose. There is no better place to be. For that privilege, I am grateful to God.
Our gratitude also goes to Fr. Steve Porter for making this event available to the people of his community, with whom we now share a profound sense of love and blessing.
revnettie 