Psychic healing

Press, 15 August 1984, Page 18

Psychic healing

Sir,—l endorse the article of August 7 on “psychic surgery” and take exception to the remarks of Professor B. H. Howard where he quotes that this so-called “surgery” is nothing but a conjuring trick, that the tumours and diseased tissues come not from the patient’s body but from the butcher’s shop. As a patient of psychic surgery in Manila some 10 years ago, I was privileged to witness and photograph more than 100 operations at the bedside. In every instance the body was opened with bare hands and the incision could be seen by the naked eye. The healers wore short-sleeved shirts and an empty bowl lay beside the patient. There was no sign of any foreign substance, other than that drawn from the patient’s incision into the bowl. To witness just a few of the miracles performed, the blind to see and the deaf to hear, will ever remain in my memory.—Yours, etc* ALLEN FRAMPTON. Rangiora, August 14, 1984. ■ Sir, — I saw an Australian television programme on psychic healing. The television crew was turned away from the house where the “healing” was being conducted, so two of the crew presented themselves as man and wife for “healing.” The man said he was having trouble with a knee. “Treatment” was carried out on a knee

and clots of blood were “removed.” He obtained one of these clots. This was taken to a laboratory where the blood was found to be from a chicken or a reptile, and the laboratory assistant was adamant that it could not be human blood. The television man said he had slight knee trouble but not in the knee “treated.” These “healers” were charging ?50 a visit, and while there may have been a degree of faith healing, it could only work in the case of psychosomatic illness and be useless, even harmful, in the case of serious disease. — Yours, etc., P. CHAPMAN. August 11, 1984.