In February 2002 Anita Moorjani was diagnosed with lymphoma, a form of cancer that creates tumors in the lymph glands. She began using alternative methods of healing but, having no success, eventually underwent several conventional cancer treatments. Despite these treatments she became emaciated and weak; she had large visible tumors and open lesions. Her doctors informed her and her family that there was nothing more they could do and sent her to the hospital for her final days or hours.
In the ambulance on her way to the hospital she entered a deep coma that lasted thirty hours. In those thirty hours she had a life-transforming near-death experience during which she realized that a lifetime of deeply felt fear was the root cause of her cancer. She also experienced herself wonderfully free, filled by and immersed in an infinite ocean of unconditional love. She understood that she, herself, was that love—and that love was her cure.
We are pure love—every single one of us. I knew that realizing this meant never being afraid of who we are. As I experienced my biggest revelation, it felt like a bolt of lightning. I understood that merely by being the love I truly am, I would heal both myself and others. [During the experience she was told] now that you know the truth of who you really are, go back and live your life fearlessly!—Anita Moorjani, author of Dying to Be Me
Anita’s near-death experience ended and she came out of her coma. Alert and vibrant, she rallied rapidly. Within four days her tumors shrank by 70%; at five weeks, she was free of any signs of cancer and on her way home from the hospital.
In 1957, Mr. Wright was a hospital cancer patient of Dr. Phillip West in Long Beach, California. He had lympho-sarcoma. His lungs were filled with fluid, and malignant tumors “the size of oranges” were visible on his neck, chest, and abdomen. His condition was considered inoperable, untreatable, and terminal. He was told he had just two weeks to live.
At about this time, Mr. Wright read that a new wonder drug to treat cancer such as his—Krebiozen—was being tested in the hospital where he was a patient. Feeling highly optimistic about the drug, he was determined to have it given to him. Though he was told that he didn’t qualify to be in the test because his cancer was too advanced, he continued to demand treatment until Dr. West finally agreed to include him in the test group.
Dr. West injected Mr. Wright with a dose of Krebiozen on a Friday afternoon. “I had left him febrile, gasping for air, completely bedridden,” Dr. West wrote. To his amazement, by Monday Mr. Wright’s tumors “had melted like snowballs on a hot stove.” Yet no other patients who had received Krebiozen had shown any improvement. A baffled Dr. West continued to administer the injections. Ten days after the first injection, his health fully restored, Mr. Wright left the hospital and flew himself home in his own plane.
Two months later Mr. Wright read multiple medical reports stating that Krebiozen was proving to be ineffective. His health deteriorated rapidly and he had to return to the hospital. Dr. West took a bold risk, which today would be considered unethical, and told him there was a “new super-refined double strength” version of Krebiozen coming to the hospital in the next few days.
Ill as he was, Mr. Wright became his optimistic self again, eager to start over. Dr. West delayed two days before telling Mr. Wright that the nonexistent “shipment” had arrived, intentionally increasing his anticipation. By then, Mr. Wright was almost ecstatic; his belief very strong. With much fanfare, Dr. West administered the first injection of what was simply a saline solution. Recovery from Mr. Wright’s second near-terminal state was even more dramatic than the first. In only days, tumor masses melted, chest fluid vanished, Mr. Wright became ambulatory, and even went back to flying again.
Some months later, alas, Mr. Wright read yet another report declaring that Krebiozen was not at all effective as a cancer treatment. He once again succumbed to cancer. Within two days he died.
In 1965 Barbara Cummiskey, then fifteen years old, began showing symptoms of multiple sclerosis. Multiple sclerosis is a central nervous system disorder that causes a wide variety of debilitating conditions and is believed to be incurable. Though lovingly cared for by her parents, by the time she was thirty-one, she had twice come close to death when her heart and lungs failed; her hands and feet were so unnaturally and tightly curled that she could not walk or perform most tasks with her hands; she was functionally blind; she no longer had urinary or bowel control; one lung had collapsed and her diaphragm was partially paralyzed; she needed extra oxygen at all times; and she needed to be helped into a wheelchair in order to go outside her room.
Despite this litany of disabilities, Barbara remained clear in her mind and determined in her heart. She realized that though she had lost many physical abilities, she still had the ability to pray for others. Every day she spent hours praying for people. As she prayed, she felt closer to God; often she talked to God as if He were standing near.
By 1981, as her condition steadily worsened, her family accepted that she had only a short time left and prepared her for hospice care. On June 7, the day of her sister’s birthday party, Barbara wanted to do something special for her. Her mother helped her out of bed and into her wheelchair, hooked up her oxygen and wheeled her to the kitchen. There with great effort Barbara barely managed to give a few stirs to the cake batter for her sister’s cake.
That evening, talking with friends in her room, she heard a voice inaudible to anyone else: “My child, get up and walk!” To her astonishment—and everyone else’s—she unhooked herself from all the devices that had been keeping her body alive. Then she stood up. She felt tingling all over. She could breathe fully; her hands and feet had returned to normal; her arms and legs were filled out and whole. Walking into the living room she performed a few ballet steps she hadn’t been able to do for sixteen years. A visit to her doctor the next day confirmed that her multiple sclerosis was completely gone.
“I don’t know why God healed me. I don’t believe I ‘earned’ or ‘deserved’ a healing any more than I ‘deserved’ MS. I only know that on the morning of June 7, 1981, I felt good about myself—mentally, emotionally, and spiritually well. Through my prayer life, I was a busy, active member of the human family—not running or jumping or even walking like most people, but not separated from them by bitterness, self-pity, or despair. My mind and spirit were healthy and whole. And then God made my body whole, too.” —Barbara Cummiskey
These dramatic cases show clearly that people can recover from any condition or disease, even those considered incurable and terminal, and that extraordinarily rapid, even instantaneous, physical change is possible. Cases such as these are often termed “miraculous” simply because they have no scientific explanation. Other cases are termed miraculous because the person healed personally experienced divine intervention. However we view these cases, they clearly suggest that there is much more to healing than is presently understood by modern medicine.
Not only do such extraordinarily rapid, even instantaneous, miraculous healings take place, they do so far more often than most people realize. The Institute of Noetic Sciences’ Caryle Hirshberg, Ph.D., a former Stanford biochemist, combed through Western medical records and found over fifteen hundred verified cases of people unexplainably healed from terminal cancer and other diseases considered incurably fatal. Dr. Hirshberg compiled her findings in the book, Spontaneous Remissions: An Annotated Bibliography.
Spontaneous remissions from cancer, and other extraordinary healings of incurable diseases with no scientific explanation, are only the first type of “miracle.” There are equally well-documented examples of extraordinary healing in which the person healed was actively praying for divine aid.
The Medical Bureau for the Sanctuary of Lourdes is made up of a team of highly reputable doctors—including, at one time, a Nobel Prize-winner—who minutely review instances of miraculous healing among visitors to Lourdes. In the decades since the Medical Bureau began its work, the team of doctors has verified seventy cases of miraculous healing. Seventy cases may not seem an impressive number until we consider the stringent criteria used: there must first be a verified and unfavorable prognosis of a serious disease; there must be objective, biological, radiological evidence of the disease; there cannot have been any other treatment undertaken by the sufferer that could account for a cure; recovery must be sudden, instantaneous, immediate and without convalescence; and finally, the cure must be complete, lasting, and definitive.
Despite the impressive quality of data, modern medicine generally ignores verified cases of extraordinarily rapid, miraculous healing because they fall outside of what can be explained by modern medicine. Turning a blind eye to such remarkable results, alas, leaves a vast potential untapped.
“Even if they hardly ever happen, these ‘miracles’ are the kinds of exceptions to the ruling paradigm that inevitably create new areas of study.” —James Gordon, M.D., Georgetown Medical School professor and director of the Center for Mind-Body Studies
“If several hundred patients have succeeded in doing this sort of thing, eliminating vast numbers of malignant cells on their own, the possibility that medicine can learn to accomplish the same thing at will is surely within the reach of imagining.” —Lewis Thomas, The Youngest Science: Notes of a Medicine Watcher
Such “imagining,” however, is difficult to achieve within the confining boundaries of current medical theory. Biological laws, which are the foundation of modern medicine, fundamentally rule out the possibility that miraculous healing can occur. There simply are no biological laws that can explain how extraordinarily rapid physical change is possible. Lacking scientific validation, doctors lean toward assuming that reported cases have either been poorly diagnosed or put forward with fraudulent intent.
Such “imagining” is made doubly difficult to accept within current medical theory because those healed attribute their healing to many practices that aren’t material, the chosen domain of medical research. Among those non-material practices are releasing negative emotions and increasing positive emotions; examining and changing core beliefs; and making an inner connection to Spirit.
Which brings us to the three purposes of this book:
- One, to show that science does support miraculous healing, that while the laws of modern medicine and biology are at a loss to explain extraordinarily rapid physiological change there are other branches of science, notably within physics, that do support such change.
- Two, to show how and why non-material practices, such as developing positive emotions, changing what one believes, or making a connection to Spirit, can affect the physical body.
- Three, to show that the keys to miraculous healing are also the keys to everyday health and that these keys are within everyone’s reach.
Current biological laws are based on what is known as classical physics, a discipline that was firmly established by the late 1800s. The laws of classical physics are matter-centered; atoms and molecules are viewed as unchangeable bits of matter. Modern medicine uses these same laws of classical physics that can explain how a car engine works to explain how a human body works.
By the early 1900s, however, newer disciplines within physics began to emerge. Modern physics, as these newer disciplines are now generally known, has a fundamentally different view of reality from classical physics. The laws of modern physics are energy-centered; atoms and molecules are viewed not as unchangeable bits of matter but as changeable organized patterns of energy and there are now disciplines on the frontiers of modern physics that provide support for how nonphysical influences such as emotions, beliefs, or prayer can have a direct transformative effect on the physical body.
Some disciplines on the frontiers of physics are also highly congruent with millennia-old spiritual traditions, such as Vedic spirituality, mystical Christianity, Buddhism, Sufism, Kabbalah, and Daoism. When these two views of reality—energy physics and metaphysics—are considered together, they provide a bridge between science and spirituality without any loss of scientific rigor; they provide a mechanism through which Spirit can operate without breaking the laws of science. Far from ruling out the possibility of Spirit, theories on the frontiers of physics rule in the possibility, even making a case for the necessity of Spirit.
“The first gulp from the glass of natural sciences will turn you into an atheist, but at the bottom of the glass God is waiting for you.” —Werner Heisenberg, Nobel Prize-winner in physics
“There probably is a God. Many things are easier to explain if there is than if there isn’t.” —John Von Neumann, physicist and mathematician
Cases of extraordinarily rapid, miraculous healing indicate that we have access to a vast potential for self-healing. Tapping into this vast healing potential is achieved by discovering and learning to use our innate self-healing powers. Our innate self-healing powers are the key to both extraordinarily rapid, miraculous healing and every day health because, in a very real way, our bodies are continuous miracles.