Almost half of healers’ patients report immediate benefit

Psychical researcher Tricia Robertson

Eighty patients have co-operated with Scottish psychic researcher Patricia Robertson in a study of the benefits they have received at the hands of two English healers, Gary Mannion and Nina Knowland. The healers also participated in the research.

Robertson revealed some early findings in a lecture on paranormal healing to the Society for Psychical Research in London on Thursday, 1 October, titled “Do Miracles Happen?”

She reported that 86 per cent felt heat from the healer’s hands during treatment, half experienced a quick cessation of pain, and four out of ten said they sensed “internal manipulation” during treatment.

Robertson, whose previous research includes mediumship studies conducted with Prof Archie Roy in Glasgow, is gathering a database of signed testimonies from each to the patients who agreed to participate.

Gary Mannion

Among 50 of Gary Mannion’s patients studied, 30 were seen by him in Glasgow during two controlled sessions in August 2008. These individuals were provided by Tricia Robertson and were therefore totally unknown to the healer, and many were also unknown to the researcher, having been referred to her by others.

Almost half (44 per cent) reported immediate improvement in one visit.

Mannion is a trance medium whose main spirit control (the personality who speaks to patients during treatment) is Abraham, but others are also said to assist. So, for example, in the case of one patient, described by Robertson as “very high up in the nursing profession”, the spirit of “Dr Nicola Alexandre” worked in conjunction with Abraham to produce a result which the patient described, 44 days later, as “nothing short of amazing”.

The patient had smashed three vertebra in a fall and was suffering severe pain and restricted movement. Following healing, she was mostly free from pain, and eventually experienced far greater movement which, to her great joy, enabled her to sit on the floor and play with a granddaughter.

Nina Knowland

Although no controlled sessions were conducted with Nina Knowland, Robertson has researched 30 of her cases – all of whom were the healer’s own patients – and discovered equally impressive results.

One of these was a girl who had suffered with eczema for a long period, receiving little benefit from the treatments offered. Robertson showed the audience a photograph of the girl’s back, covered in areas of dry skin and inflammation, and another image, taken just 24 hours later, in which the back was almost totally clear.

Another of the cases Robertson discussed included a man named Sean who had a broken glass pushed into his left eye during a bar fight. The glass severed every layer of the eye, leaving him blind and with no pressure in the eye.

During a hospital consultation, specialists decided the eye should be removed and replaced with a glass eye. Next day, Sean visited Nina Knowland for treatment, during which he felt something happening at the back of the eye, which he described as “like knitting”.  When he went back to the hospital on the following day, they couldn’t believe the change in his damaged eye, with the layers coming together, its pressure returning to normal and the retina having reattached itself.

The healer believed that with continued treatment she might be able to restore some vision to the eye, but Sean has decided not to pursue that course of action. Instead, he told Robertson that he is happy with things as they are – retaining the sightless eye and relying on his right eye for vision.

Tricia Robertson, who is a DACE tutor for the University of Glasgow (Department of Adult and Continuing Education), concluded that “miracles do appear to happen” and will publish a report on her study once she has completed all the interviews and obtained signed testimonials.

Both healers attended the lecture which Robertson had begun with a description of other healers’ methods, to demonstrate the many different techniques used. Among those she mentioned were Harry Edwards, Jose Arigo, a Brazilian whose control was said to be a German, Dr Fritz, and George Chapman, whose spirit control was William Lang, an English ophthalmic surgeon.

Edwards produced remarkable results simply by laying hands on his patients. Arigo (while in trance) made people better by borrowing knives from spectators and opening up his patients, removing tumours or other matter. Chapman, on the other hand, allowed Lang to “operate” on the etheric bodies of his fully-clothed patients to improve their conditions, going through the motions of carrying out an actual operation.

Gary Mannion has been the subject of a TV documentary and “Abraham’s” treatment does not appear to be an operation, as such, but a diagnosis and then laying on of hands.

Nina Knowland’s technique, she says on her website, is to use both spiritual healing and psychic surgery, though she does not explain what is the difference between the two, apart from saying her work is “mainly restorative healing, channelling a higher vibration on the 5^th level of the auric field, restoring the body at the cellular level.”

Clearly, Gary and Nina are producing impressive results for some of their patients, and I applaud Tricia Robertson for taking on the difficult task of putting their abilities and achievements under the microscope.

But I do wish healers would resist the temptation to give pretentious names to the techniques they use. I don’t understand why they feel the need to use the term “surgeon” when clearly no surgery (as we know it) is involved at all.

I was also surprised to hear the suggestion that Harry Edwards was also a “psychic surgeon”. One of the UK’s greatest healers, Edwards was strongly against such terminology and even argued that it shouldn’t be necessary for a healer to go into trance. I recall that he and George Chapman had a long and lively debate on the subject in the pages of Psychic News many years ago.

My advice to all healers is: Drop the fancy, meaningless and confusing labels and let your results speak for themselves.

Nina Rowland, Tricia Robertson and Gary Mannion, after the lecture. (Photo copyright: Roy Stemman)

FOR MORE INFORMATION:

This was a Gwen Tate Lecture, given as part of a bequest to the Society for Psychic Research in memory of Gwen Tate.

Tricia Robertson is secretary of the Scottish Society for Psychical Research.

Garry Mannion can be contacted through his website.

Nina Knowland can be contacted through her website.

You may also find these related articles of interest:

1. Doctors probe spirit world with astonishing results
2. Two Scottish giants
3. In life and death: proving you still exist
4. Past-life hypnosis ban in Israel
5. Spirit helps doctor treat patient