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Labels: faith, politics, TV

After last week’s tease about St Paul coming to the earth plane and inhabiting a body in order to heal people, I couldn’t not watch last night’s show about Ray on Trust Me I’m A Healer.

To be honest, it was the “usual healing thing” – travelling the country, seeing up to 20 people per day at £30 a pop to do things that doctors can’t through claimed means and methods about which most people would be fairly sceptical…

But last night I saw something unexpected, a young woman that Paul couldn’t heal – Ray’s own daughter. She was hurting about the death of her mum and the “loss” of her dad to Paul’s ministry: she said several times that she missed her dad, hardly ever saw him, using words to the effect of “Paul’s at home but Dad rarely is”.

Her meeting with Paul (the first time she had done so – Ray admitted he hardly ever talks to his kids about his work) was the hardest part of the programme to watch. She was understandably upset and struggling to come to terms with what she saw – essentially her dad but with a different voice. But for me it was key that he couldn’t reach her, couldn’t heal her. In fact, it seemed like Paul was pushing her dad away from her, and her from him…

And it strikes me now that I know many “clergy kids” who also have that sort of relationship with their parent(s) – to everyone, the family is saintly, perfect, holy, but to those on the inside, it can be a very different and alienating experience to have to give your parent away…

Next week, apparently, it’s about the healing power of prayer… So more mumbo jumbo I couldn’t possibly believe in then! ;-)


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Labels: spirituality, TV

I’ve watched the first two episodes of the BBC2 series “Trust Me, I’m A Healer” over the last fortnight. It’s based on the premise that lots of people are going to healers when they used to rely on conventional medicines. Why is this and what phenomena are at work when this healing happens?

The format is that each week the filmmaker spends time with a different healer – last week a guy who believed in water spirits, fairies and the power of dragon eggs, this week a man who is a psychic surgeon (above). Each made (or their patients made on their behalf) fairly extraordinary claims – to have cured people of cancer, to have removed or reduced tumors, etc. The psychic healer this week only charged £25 for up to 30 minutes – relatively cheap in comparison to some of the stuff we’ve seen at MindBodySpirit fairs over the last few years. His wife in particular was really clear with people that miracles cannot be done on command, and there are no guarantees (particularly when someone is proposing to travel from Turkey to be cured of blindness). But he still apparently managed to see up to 100 people a day – £2500 isn’t bad for a day’s work. And one of his associates in Slovenia said that he was “the Christ consciousness in human form”…

In both programmes there were things going on that the filmmaker said he couldn’t explain, although each time he started off skeptically and continued to critically question the process, methods, etc throughout.

For me, one of the most telling things was that the people who went to them were literally at the end of their road – having been given no reason to hope by anyone else, least of all the medical profession. In that sense, many of them needed the hope that the healer seemed to give, and thus had no choice but to (want to) believe.

I’d encourage you to look out for next week’s show (BBC2, Monday, 10pm) – it’s about a man who says his body is frequently taken over by St Paul…


technorati tag: trust me i'm a healer

Labels: spirituality, TV