Bruno Groening - A Revolution in Medicine

Chapter 4

Bruno Groening's healing powers were already apparent when he was very young. In an affidavit his father, August Groening, declared that when his son was a child he had noticed his ability "to heal people from illnesses and suffering."1

He himself had been able to experience this. "I became so seriously ill that my doctors had already given me up. A short treatment from my son, Bruno, was sufficient to heal me."2

Many subsequent reports made by Bruno Groening's contemporaries repeatedly confirmed his gift for healing.

The lawyer and journalist, Dr. Kurt Trampler, wrote: 

"In 1949 there was hardly a happening in Germany to compare with the undivided attention and total commitment that the public accorded all the events around Bruno Groening. What he achieves is simply impossible to equate to any material concept of life. This is probably also the real reason for the occasionally bitter division of opinion which has flared up around him and his healing. Somebody who is so materialistically minded that he only believes what he can grasp with his hands or measure and prove with apparatuses will simply not be able to understand the incomprehensible results of Groening's work, and will tend to dismiss it intolerantly. But a person who is in awe of the inscrutable, the Divine, and does not base his decisions in life on rational reasoning alone, will at least seek to establish whether Groening's healing powers flow from those Eternal Sources which are beyond our power of thought. More than that, he will be prepared to believe the extraordinary and unusual phenomena he witnesses, even though there is no explanation for them in terms of what is familiar and has been researched. And so, no matter what the ultimate conclusions will be about Bruno Groening and his work in the final analysis, the results he engenders force people into two camps: those who are prepared to accept the unfathomable unequivocally as living reality, and those who are not."3

Herford and Traberhof – the healing of thousands

"Never before was a healer so in demand as Bruno Groening. Never was one so controversial. No one stirred up such emotions as the man who became known for his work with tin-foil balls. Time and again the authorities forbade him to heal."4

Kurt Allgeier writing about Bruno Groening in his book: Die Wunderheiler

What did Bruno Groening do to cause such a stir among so many people? As far as could be judged, he spoke to them. He called upon them to detach themselves from their illnesses and problems and renew their faith in God, the Supreme Physician. Dr. Trampler arrived at Traberhof on the evening of August 27,1949. He recorded his first impressions: 

"Infinite peace radiates from this man as he turns to address the many people at his feet. (Groening was on a first floor balcony) It is so still that every word can be heard by those standing on the outer fringes of the huge crowd around him (…) Groening avoids every form of rhetoric (…) For the first time we hear him urging his audience to declare their faith in God, which is the primary prerequisite for receiving healing. Then comes the instruction to stop thinking about their illness, close their eyes and pay great attention to what they feel in their body (…) At this moment we become aware of a gentle tingling sensation in our hands. It feels like a weak electric current. After quite a long time, during which he stares over the heads of the crowd with a look of intense concentration, he says he has given them all he can. Now they must let the energy work within them and believe in their healing, even though it may not occur immediately."5

A person who has never experienced spiritual healing will simply not understand this. Would one not rather have experienced a fiery address to enthrall the audience and, of course, provide the most fertile ground for mass suggestion?

And yet, Dr. Trampler's description was exactely how Bruno Groening worked.

He himself said: "I do not work the way a person thinks I should. I act in exact accordance with the way I receive this gift, and I do not receive it from humans. This I must make quite clear. As I receive it from God Himself. I cannot change this and this is why I don't do so."6

Groening's work is spiritual. As he says, he acts as a mediator of Divine energy to people who, once they have been suitably prepared, can absorb it and regain their health. This invisible gift, which he transmits during his moments of silence, has – often a short while later – the most incredible effect on those seeking help.

Dr. Trampler wrote: 

"Seldom at such a meeting does someone not feel the wave of healing energy. Many are immediately free from pain. In others, who trustingly retain the energy they have absorbed, it continues to work and actually effects very long-term organic changes. In many cases healings occur spontaneously, and the most obvious, which everybody around can see for himself, attract the most attention. At practically every mass healing session many lame persons are so intensely influenced by the 'current' that they are able to walk away from their wheelchairs or throw away their crutches. In some cases the blind suddenly regain their sight. These spontaneous healings are of extreme importance to those seeking healing and those whose own healing takes longer. Their belief that they will be helped is strengthened, and guards them against the opposition of those who do not believe in spiritual healing"7

I found a list of healings which had occurred after an address given by Bruno Groening at Traberhof and an interested observer had noted:8

Josef Fritz from M. was short-sighted and wore glasses. Now, suddenly, he can see clearly again.

Ludwig Suding from B., severe left-sided hemiplegia following 1918 war wound. Spontaneous recovery.

Waltraud Geiger from W., left arm paralysed after poliomyelitis. Can now raise her arm one third of the way

Anneliese Berger from R. Since 1937 paralysis from the waist downwards following poliomyelitis. Feels tingling, tugging sensation and warmth.

Kurt Kunze from A. has a 1943 war wound which has left his arm bent at the elbow and rigid. Since August 1949 arm is straight and flexible.

Maria Siegel from M., arthritis in her elbow for the past year. Medical treatment brought no relief. Now everything in order and no pain

Martha Roth from E., 73 years old. For 29 years difficulties in walking and pains in her limbs. Today healed and walks without a stick.

Elise Romminger from T., poliomyelitis since 1922; both legs lame. Walked with extreme difficulty with a stick. Now can walk unaided.

Hans Schonauer from M., multiple sclerosis for past 11 years. First his left, then his right leg lame up to his hip. Has received treatment from various doctors and also at University Neurological Clinic without success. His case declared incurable. Arrived at Traberhof on Wednesday, September 7, 1949 in Groening's absence. Reaction occurred next day. Now walks effortlessly without a stick. Left leg normal; right leg, almost normal.

Andreas Gruber from W., lame as a result of embolism after lung infection in 1945 and could not walk. Stands up and walks. 

E. A. Schmidt reports in similar fashion about the work of Bruno Groening in Herford. He watched people with speech impediments suddenly begin to speak. Many began to move limbs which, until then, had been lame and immobile. A badly injured war veteran, for instance, could again move his stiff arm, which had been smashed at the elbow joint by a bullet. The wife of an entertainer had had a stiff right knee for 7 years. After some initial difficulty she was suddenly able to move it again without pain, and could walk normally.9

Willi Horstmann from S., blind in his left eye, "could suddenly discriminate between light and dark, and soon could see quite normally."10

The case of Mr. Weiland, a former musician who was almost blind, was common knowledge. In 1949 he heard about Bruno Groening's healings in Herford and came to Westfalia. A paratyphoid vaccination in 1941 had led to an impairment of his optic nerve and reduced his vision to 1/25 of normal sight. A report issued by a medical officer of the Department of Health of the City of Dresden certified that his physical working capacity had been reduced by 90%. The eye clinic of the Richard Wagner Hospital in Dresden emphasised that Mr. Weiland was practically blind. He was in contact with Bruno Groening on the night of June 16, 1949 and after this his condition improved month by month.

A reporter of the publication Revue met with Mr. Weiland in Rosenheim and wrote as follows about his newly restored sight: 

"In Rosenheim Mr. Weiland could already identify a train at 500 meters, the clothing of passing people at 100 meters and a wrist watch at one meter."11

Many people who had received healing wrote to thank Bruno Groening; often this had occurred when he himself had not been present. Elisabeth Schwerdt from B. received an impressive healing a few days after meeting him. She wrote on May 12,1949: "Dear Mr. Groening, I simply must send you a few lines.(…) Yesterday a week ago you visited us. In the course of conversation I mentioned (…) my two serious ear operations, or rather chiselings, which caused me to lose my hearing in my right ear. When my doctor examined my ear with an otoscope he discovered a 4 mm. tear in the canal and gave me the very unpleasant verdict that it was quite impossible for me to regain my hearing.

Now you will be surprised to hear this: on Tuesday evening at 7 o'clock, to my and my parents' great joy, I suddenly realised I could hear with my operated ear. For this I must thank you, dear Mr. Groening. I cannot convey in words how grateful I am to you."12

At his first meeting with Bruno Groening at Traberhof, the lawyer and journalist, Dr. Trampler was able to convince himself personally of the efficacy of the healing stream.

As he wrote in his book Die grosse Umkehr, he had come to Traberhof to write a report on what was happening there. Not for a moment had it occurred to him that he himself could be healed by Bruno Groening.

An examination made by the Public Health Officer of the Federal Insurance Institution on May 9,1947 established that a wartime flying accident, which had resulted in a broken right heel and shin bone for Dr. Trampler, was being affected by arthritis deformans. The breaks had healed with considerable disfigurement and every movement of his foot was extremely painful. Even at rest he was never completely painfree.

"With the comment 'Patient is considerably impeded when standing and walking' I was classified disability grade 2 ( 50% incapacitation). I had become accustomed to this infirmity as an inevitable result of war, and from a medical point of view had never been given any hope of a real improvement."13

A particularly impressive testimony to the efficacy of the healing energy, which works according to its own rules in the body, is shown in the following report. Late at night on August 27,1949 Dr. Trampler sat together with a small group of people seeking healing in a small room at Traberhof. He was there as an observer to write his report and therefore did not think about his own problems. But having witnessed healings in the crowds earlier in the day, he was receptive to whatever might occur. Bruno Groening, who was busy with someone else, only glanced briefly at him. At that moment Dr. Trampler felt a distinct reaction in his body: first a sharp pain in his right shoulder "which gradually became a tingling sensation and then affected the entire right side of my body."14

Then his damaged right foot became very hot and Dr. Trampler had the feeling that there was something at work in it.

"It felt as though the blood was coursing more strongly than usual. The blood vessels were throbbing. This was something I hadn't felt in six years (…) The tingling and feeling of heat continued for a while, but my foot was very painful. After I had returned home and slept for several hours it was totally pain-free. For a few days I had a type of muscular pain in my lower leg, but then these regulation pains also disappeared."15 

A few days later Dr. Trampler could use his foot exactely as he had done before the injury. He no longer needed a walking stick. "Even when I sprang to my feet too energetically I had no pain."16

And the healing endured. His doctor in Munich, Dr. Hermann R., made a follow-up examination and established that "the mobility of the hitherto severly handicapped right foot was only minimally less than the healthy left foot, and this slight difference will be eliminated through regular use."17

His doctor could not tell him how the healing had come about.

Another case history was that of Mrs. Hunecke from Ahlen. She had suffered from multiple sclerosis for 15 years.

Dr. Jens Bergfeldt summed up her story as follows: 

"The patient was already in a wheelchair. Her entire lower body was lame, her face distorted by a unilateral spastic deformation of her mouth, her eyesight reduced to such an extent that she could only identify the outline of people and objects from a distance of one meter but could not recognise them; even her hearing was impaired."18

Her husband brought her to Herford, where she sat waiting patiently hour after hour until Bruno Groening appeared on the balcony in the afternoon and spoke to the crowds.

The report continued: 

"He expressly referred to the fact that he had been forbidden to heal, 'but if nevertheless something occurs and nevertheless people recover' these were his words, 'I cannot help it' No sooner had he spoken, according to the patient's husband, than a remarkable change came over his wife's face. It suddenly lit up, the distorted corner of her mouth returned to it's natural position and the veil lifted from her eyes. Groening's healing power was at work. The woman instantly recognised her immediate surroundings, and as the minutes passed she could also focus further away. She stood up and, almost without help, began to walk. Then she spoke in a normal voice, expressing her joy and surprise. On the arm of her happy husband, this person, who had not been able to make any movement without help for almost 15 years, walked through the crowds.

A few days later her husband appeared at Bruno Groening's quarters to hand in his report. It stated that her recovery was progressing. The incurable invalid of a few days ago was already busy with chores around her home. 'I feel as though my wife has come back to me like a completely new person' said her husband.

'Since we have returned from Herford' he continued, 'we have had a constant stream of visitors. Even our old house doctor has paid his respects and extended his heartfelt congratulations.'"19

The healings that occur in Bruno Groening's absence are a manifest sign of the Supreme energy to which, thanks to his teachings, people once again have access. This is also illustrated in the following story: 

An eye witness, Alfred Muscate, came to Traberhof with his wife, who was a doctor, to experience for himself the wonderful events taking place there. He wrote in his report, which he gave a magazine to publish: 

"After all the reports circulated about Bruno Groening these past days, I wanted to convince myself, and drove to Rosenheim. The estate was bathed in solemn, almost awe-struck silence. Although Bruno Groening had left for Munich an hour before, the crowd remained in quiet anticipation. As we were admiring the attractive, white-washed buildings, there is a sudden movement in the crowd, which presses around the wheelchair of a man who is lame. Forty-five years old and unable to walk for the past eight years, he suddenly stands up and leaves his wheelchair, walks back and embraces his family. (…) He came from Hamburg eight days ago and has just experienced the first signs of healing. (…) Another lame person suddenly stands up too and walks into the entrance hall of the building to report his healing. In between a simple, elderly woman with a white headscarf calls out: 'I can see again!' She is supposed to have been blind. (…) Several people begin to sing the hymn 'Great God we praise Thee' and everybody joins in. There is profound emotion on all the faces, many people are crying and even as an impartial observer one cannot be indifferent to this animated atmosphere.

We strike up a conversation with a young Yugoslavian medical student. She has been here two days, observing everything. She talks of two hundred healings which Bruno Groening has effected since coming to Traberhof. Most of the healings have been amongst the lame, but also blind and even feeble-minded people have been healed. She spent several hours with an elderly woman suffering from dropsy, who had pronounced swellings all over her body. This woman was spontaneously healed. Her face, which previously had been swollen, gradually regained its previous shape and in a short while was quite normal. And then the woman, who before had been quite immobile, walked happily to and fro and said she felt very well.(…) We ourselves saw five healings within one-and-a half hours."20

"I think readers will be able to understand what the feelings of the people must have been in view of what was happening around them. Even the Bavarian Minister-President, Dr. Ehard, said publicly that he considered Bruno Groening an 'exceptional phenomenon' who must not be allowed to be thwarted because of the laws. The President of the Munich Police Force, Pitzer, was so impressed by the healings he had witnessed at Traberhof that from the verandah of the house he expressed his thanks in front of the crowds, and the hope that Bruno Groening would receive permission to continue healing."21-23 

The way to well-ordered work 

In the years that followed Bruno Groening was at pains to create a stable platform for his work. His plans for a healing centre in Mittenwald at the beginning of 1950 were squashed by the authorities. Bavaria also withdrew his permission to heal. He therefore began to present his teachings in talks given to small circles.

Baroness Anny Ebner von Eschenbach from Bad Tölz had the following to report about her experiences gathered at such talks in 1950 and 1951: 

"As Bruno Groening received no support from the authorities in his attempts to address the sick in an orderly fashion, friends helped him by putting rooms at his disposal, Here, people seeking healing would be able to meet him, which meant that in larger groups they would be able to learn his teachings and receive help. One such meeting place was the Hotel Weikersheim in Gräfelfing, where Bruno Groening often spoke. (…) Those attending had to reserve seats weeks in advance and produce their entrance tickets. (…)

"It was obvious why people on crutches and walking sticks, or those who were carried in and blind had come; one only realised that others had internal ailments when they reacted suddenly and often very noticeably during the talk. Those who could not walk were usually placed in the front row as many of them began to walk quite normally. Before Bruno Groening entered the room, an introductory talk was given because it was necessary to tell the people about his healing methods so that they could receive the healing stream without resistance.

"Furthermore, they had to be instructed how to relax and not block their minds with their everyday thoughts, particularly those centred on their illness. Although Bruno Groening was usually in a room some distance away, many of them already felt the healing stream. (…) When he stepped into the centre aisle of the room, he remained standing some minutes in deep concentration. (…) He then greeted those seeking healing in a resonant and friendly voice and spoke to them about having faith in God and freeing themselves from evil. (…) While he was speaking, the audience began to react. People threw down their crutches and (…) then walked out of the room and kept climbing and descending the stairs. (…) 

"When Bruno Groening had finished speaking he often said: 'I've spoken a lot. Now I want to hear from you in this room what new feelings you have, what is happening to you?' (…) The dumb answered his question loudly and fluently. (…) Behind them there were often those who were deaf and, speaking softly, he asked them: 'If I speak as I am doing now, do you hear me well?' 'Yes,' came the answer, ' I understand every word when you speak as you're doing now and my head is in a whirl.' (…) Often he made the lame, who suddenly stood up, pick up his cigarette case from the floor up to ten times, which they did very gladly (…) after they had relied on outside help for years.

"This is how I experienced many, many meetings, attended by all kinds of people (of different educational levels, different occupations and different ages) and the examples quoted at every meeting pertained only to that meeting while the style of address was suited to its audience. But the message was always the same – it was a pointer to God."24

As the health authorities wanted to forbid his talks because they contravened the Alternative Medical Practitioner Law, the Groening Union was formed in November 1953. Those seeking help could congregate in groups in various centres, and Bruno Groening appointed an experienced person in every centre to take over as group leader to assist them along their path to recovery. He himself attended these gatherings from time to time as a speaker invited from the Union to address the audience. In this way the basis for an orderly way of working was created. At regular intervals those seeking help came together in "group meetings" to attune themselves to "the healing stream".

Mr. Hohmann, a retired headmaster, whose hobby for years had been borderline-science phenomena, experienced the following at a group meeting: 

"A 30 year-old man stands four to five meters away from Mr. Groening. Following his usual procedure, Mr.Groening asks him if he is absorbing Divine energy. The man replies in the affirmative. Mr.Groening asks him if he wants more. The man says he does. 'Please, take it. Help yourself' says Mr. Groening. At that moment the man becomes restless. His condition intensifies noticeably until his whole body begins to shake uncontrollably for five to seven minutes. Groening does not interfere and when the episode is over, asks him how he feels. He answers that a wonderfully pleasant feeling is coursing through his body and he feels free and light. Groening calls him to the front of the room and lets his bunch of keys fall to the floor, as if by accident. Without hesitation the young man bends down and picks it up. The keys fall down a second and third time, and he picks them up first with his right, then his left hand. Later I asked him what his problem had been. He told me he had been severly wounded during the War, was totally unable to bend down and. due to a spinal injury, walked with two sticks as he was practically lame. Neither doctors nor the treatments he had received in clinics had helped him. In despair he had sought help through suggestion, hypnosis and magnetism. In vain. Only Mr. Groening had helped him. In the meantime he has married and is practising his profession."25

Dating from the initiation of the group meetings in 1951, there are a great many healing reports. In these reports those who have been healed all mention the great strength they have felt in the group meetings. Many write of tingling and streaming sensations through their entire body, others describe having felt incredible lightness and happiness. Some of them could return home from the first meeting completely cured, others received healing gradually. Those who had been healed stressed that they had only listened to the address, either given by Bruno Groening himself or by his appointed group leader, to have had such success.

Many wrote joyfully about their newly won faith in God, which they had acquired along the way with his help. 

But the authorities decided that even the talks Bruno Groening was giving within the framework of the Union was a healing activity subject to permission, and they began preparing the next court case against him. I will deal with this later.

The limits of healing

Bruno Groening once commented: 

"Emotional suffering is the very worst kind of anguish. Neither God nor I can help somebody who abandons all hope."26

Somebody who seeks help but will not renounce the erroneous belief that he cannot be helped, or will not allow himself to be helped, must continue along his path of suffering.

Anny Ebner von Eschenbach reported the following incident: 

"A young woman arrived in a wheelchair. The nursing sister who had brought her sat down next to me. Suddenly Bruno Groening said: 'It's nice to be sick and have the whole household sympathetic.

"One is so spoilt! One doesn't have to work, one gets such good food and so many presents! ' The nursing sister nudged me and said: 'That applies to my woman there. She didn't want me to bring her. She tyrannises the whole household and doesn't make the slightest effort to get well. And she's only 30. I hope that after she has seen so many wonderful things happening, the wish and will awakes in her. Groening will help us. This is my wish and belief, because for us in the house her bullying has become unbearable.' But she was wheeled out just as she had been wheeled in."27

In the same way that a person cannot eat for his fellow man, everybody must make it his personal business to unblock himself inwardly to receive the healing energy, and do so regularly. Some healings occur spontaneously at first contact with the healing stream. Others take longer. Some people suffering from multiple illnesses recover first from one, and later from the others. In some cases I noticed that an illness to which little attention was paid, vanished first, whereas an illness which a person was trying to recover from but thought of continuously, remained until he was able to let go inwardly. In such cases Bruno Groening often said that the person was "sitting on his illness".

E.A. Schmidt had this to say: 

"It has already been stated that every thought, every wish tends to be realised. Here the power of thought and faith play a hitherto not fully realised role in relation to illness and healing.(…) It is a fact that the disturbing thoughts of the majority of those seeking healing impede, cut short and render ineffective the power of the healing stream. As I often tell them reproachfully when they wait for it to take effect, without realising what they have done, they are 'married to their illness'. They seem to enjoy having sickness and pain in their body; they have grown so used to both of them that, like good friends, they wish to retain them.

"In the case of such inner resistance, which Groening is quick to sense, he tends to say: 

'You are sitting on your illness. Put these thoughts behind you.'

"Often people seeking healing understand very little of what Groening is saying to them, and every word he speaks really has a deeper meaning. This inner 'deafness' is drastically illustrated by the following little incident, which is not without a certain humour: 

"(…) A woman who had suffered from heart problems for years, but with the best will in the world could not be 'reached', was told repeatedly by Groening that she was 'sitting on the illness'. When he was out of the room she whispered to her neighbour: 

'I really don't understand what Mr. Groening wants. He keeps saying 'You're sitting on your illness. But I don't have haemorrhoids.'"28

People with the bad habit of constantly talking about their illness and telling everybody their problems, hinder their own recovery. And somebody who seeks healing and believes he only has to ask for it, cuts himself off from the healing stream with his demanding attitude. Some people need a certain measure of patience and faith before a healing can occur. Often there is not only the need for physiological reajustments, but conscious or unconscious obstructions, for instance, spiritual contact to negative energies in the emotional-spiritual area, have to be removed.

Bruno Groening once said: 

"I have to animate what has been dead for a long time. It is not always possible to feel immediately that new life has returned. Often somebody has a long wait, but then, quite suddenly it is there if, in the meantime, the person has not allowed himself to be affected by the evil spirit of doubt and weak faith."29

Andreas Ermisch (37) from L. suffered a slipped disc on five occasions between 1976 and 1979. Despite operations, the slipped disc led to lameness in both his feet and seriously jeopardised his mobility. He needed walking aids and could only make use of these for five minutes, in which time he covered 200-300 meters. The lameness in his left foot persisted for seven years and in his right, fourteen years. After his 1979 operation he had to wear a steel corset. If he took it off for more than half an hour he had unbearable pain. He was declared 100% disabled. In 1983 at the age of 31 he took early retirement. The medical verdict was that the lameness in both his feet would be permanent. After five operations in various University – and special – clinics he refused to have the sixth operation. In December 1983 he made contact with the teachings of Bruno Groening. In the first years he found it very difficult to believe that he too would recover through spiritual healing. This may have been one of the reasons why Andreas Ermisch had to wait so long for healing. Only some time later, having witnessed the recovery of other people who had been declared medically incurable he could, as he told me, begin to have faith that he could also be helped, and he embarked on the spiritual battle for his recovery.

Andreas Ermisch: 

"I firmly believed in the regulation pains but I needed a lot of patience until, on May 20,1990 the great event occurred. At the end of the group meeting, when we prepared ourselves to receive the healing stream, I suddenly noticed that I could move my right foot. Since then my foot has no longer been lame and I can move it at will. Naturally I then wished for complete healing, but despite great efforts and attuning to the healing stream, nothing happened. So then I handed over, simply had faith and believed that all would be well. And this is exactely what occurred. On the morning of Ascension Day, 12 days after my right foot was healed, I got out of bed left foot first and to my great joy established that suddenly I could also move my left foot."30

From one moment to the next the lameness, which had persisted for years, disappeared at the above-mentioned times. Since then he can move both feet quite normally and no longer needs walking aids. On August 3,1990 he laid aside his corset. In November a specialist gave him a follow-up examination and confirmed that the lameness was completely gone.

Thomas Eich from W. had a similar experience. He had worn glasses for years and tried laying them aside, without success. Only after he had tuned in to the healing stream for several months he one day suddenly had the inner conviction that he could now do so again. This time he could see normally without them. The experience of Anna Klier was in complete contrast to this. A hemiplegia, following a stroke, disappeared within eight days after her introduction to the teachings of Bruno Groening.

This confirms quite clearly that spiritual healing occurs in accordance with laws which are quite different from the ones we are accustomed to. From a logical point of view one would assume that the condition of Anna Klier would need more time for healing than the lameness of Andreas Ermisch or the eye problems of Thomas Eich. There is no measuring instrument to show to what extent every person has to open himself to the healing energy to recover from his illness. Who is able to give information about the spiritual causes of an illness? Who knows about the resistance in people and in their environment, which opposes healing? Who knows an individual's fate? Whoever seeks proximity to the essence of spiritual healing must not restrict himself to a medical diagnosis.

Bruno Groening had to experience the limitations of his work in the case of his own children. Small children are emotionally particularly attached to their mother, and her attitude to spiritual healing is of considerable significance. This was the case with Mrs. Groening, whose extremely negative attitude towards her husband's healing activities totally disturbed the effects of the healing stream.

When her children fell ill she admitted them to hospital without his knowledge. And they both died.

The case of young Dieter Hülsmann was similar. The healing of this nine year-old child, who suffered from advanced muscular dystrophy, was the beginning of Groening's work in public. (see also chapter 5) The child, who was confined to bed, actually walked again with Bruno Groening's help, albeit initially somewhat uncertainly. His recovery increased progressively, so that Dieter – as his parents confirmed – could walk more and more. But at the end of 1949 there was a major setback. Why? The parents quarrelled constantly and later parted. Initially they had both supported Groening out of gratitude for the miraculous healing of their son, but later the mother took him to court. She suddenly demanded payment in arrears for the use of her home, and he had to pay her until the end of his life. Given this background one can well imagine that the separation of the couple had a negative effect on Dieter, particularly as contact with Groening ceased. The couple no longer followed the path to healing, which he had shown them, and disturbed the very sensitive effect of the healing stream on their child, with a corresponding reaction in the healing process. Medical therapy could do nothing for an incurable illness, and Dieter Hülsmann died a few years later.

These stories illustrate how the impact of other people's thoughts, particularly those who are closest to the person concerned, can strongly hamper the absorption of the healing energy and make a recovery very difficult. For good reason Bruno Groening continuously warned those seeking healing to pay attention to whose company they sought and in whom they confided. Thoughts are spiritual energies and through ignorance many people bring this energy to bear, to the detriment of others. It requires strong willpower to withstand these influences. People who are very much weakened through illness, or whose physiological condition obliges them to depend on help from others who doubt, scorn or bitterly oppose a possible healing, have to take a much more onerous path than those whose environment builds them up spiritually. Often such people have to battle doubt, or, despite absorbing the healing stream, feel powerless without realising that the negative attitude of a husband, a daughter or other members of the immediate family or a "friend", in whom they have confided, is blocking the healing energy. (See also chapter 3) This is why it is preferable not to discuss the healing process until it is complete, in order to first convince oneself of its efficacy. Personal success with healing gives a person the necessary self-confidence to counter doubt and open rejection with the necessary conviction. In Bruno Groening's time people actually went to the extent of deliberately spreading lies in order to prejudice the effect of healing. 

Dr. Trampler writes as follows about this: 

"… that certain circles knowingly spread lies, trying to disparage Groening's success. Recently in an office I was greeted with the most incredible surprise and the comment: 'Good heavens, you can still walk!' My astonishment was no less when I learned that, 'from an absolutely reliable source' had come the report that I had suffered a relapse and relied on my walking stick more than ever. Who invents such lies? In whose interest? Like a horse being put through its paces I had to walk, run and jump, in order to convince those doubting Thomases that not a word of what they had heard was true."31

Everybody can understand how such rumours, thoughtlessly spread, can damage people who are undergoing a healing process.

Bruno Groening often told those seeking healing: "I want you all to be good and have faith."32

For those people who were no longer able to believe in God, he considered the will to believe in goodness and health the most important prerequisite for healing. But the goal of his work was always that the experience of attaining health was to lead people back to a true and living belief in God and the decision to live the rest of their life according to the Divine laws. For this, he considered, was the debt of gratitude man owed God for his healing: 

"Not…(…) that when a person has experienced healing he stays away from meetings. He is precisely the one who has to be there. It is not only because of the healing. There is much, much more behind it."33

Spiritual healing is not a free ticket to continue living as before. The healed person is called upon to follow the good path in all seriousness. Negative power will continue to try and find a place in his life and plant the seed for new suffering in his soul or, what is also possible, cause him to revert to his old way of life. He can only resist this power when he learns to deny entry to negative spiritual influences.

This is why Bruno Groening said: 

"How wrong it is that a person who has experienced healing and found the path does not keep his word. He forgets the goodness which he needs and once again leads a dissolute life, once again listens to other people, once again allows himself to be led astray. And then he says: 'Yes, so-and-so and so-and-are right. This healing won't last long.' Who is to blame? The person concerned is to blame. Dear friends, do not cross out these words. Underline them. Underline that he himself is to blame."34

The purpose of spiritual healing is not to extend corporeal life. For everybody the time comes when, as Bruno Groening once said: "the sands run out."35 He was convinced that at the time of birth God also gave every person his time of death. Man can only shorten his lifespan by robbing his body of energy to such an extent that it can no longer contain his soul. In other words, it is no longer viable. The death of the body was not death for Bruno Groening. It was simply a transition to a higher, eternal existence: the soul shedding its material casing. For him healing was not a repair process so that the person could continue to function and carry on with his misguided behaviour, but rather it was of particular significance for his existence in the higher spheres after his "death". Here fate and the inner maturity of the individual are of importance, two factors which the average person is not aware of while he is on earth. True healing always means forgiveness and redemption and cannot be separated from a person's inner conversion.

To sum up it must be added that: 

It will be clear to everybody who has understood the basic rules of spiritual healing that a promise of healing may and can never be given. It is basically correct that God's healing energy does not accept anything as "incurable" and therefore it can overcome every evil but, as has been explained, it cannot ensure that everybody receives healing at every point in time. One person may have to wait years, whereas another with the same medical diagnosis may experience spontaneous healing Others again may receive help and healing in one particular area, but in another area an operation cannot be avoided.

Every form of dogmatism is wrong, and this cannot be stressed often enough. It is not only a matter of a person's physiological health, but also of healing his soul. To this end processes are necessary which run counter to the expectation of short-sighted human understanding and are rooted in personal destiny (see chapter 8). Whoever believes that he can consider a fellow man "spiritually less advanced" "or lacking in faith" because, despite all efforts, he has had to wait a long time for externally visible healing, or does not attain it right up to the time of his death, or who takes an apparent detour by having an operation, misjudges the ways of Higher wisdom, which takes into consideration the "healed state" of the person and his life in general on another plane of existence.

The person seeking healing must strive to do everything in his power to overcome his mistakes and bad habits, which he has recognised, and change, and then healing will be possible. When and how it occurs is at Higher discretion. In the final analysis, healing is an act of grace from God.

Bruno Groening: 

"God Himself will decide who is to receive healing."36

How do the healings occur?

It must be stated right away that there is no definite answer to this question, and I think this is how it should be. That is why, in this section, I will only indicate the correlations that lead to healing. Furthermore, I must limit myself to the most simple, basic principles. The act of healing actually incorporates many incalculable factors, for example: human destiny and Divine grace, and these factors exclude any pattern of mechanism.

The well-known Swiss psychiatrist and parapsychologist, Dr. Hans Naegli, defined spiritual healing as: 

"The effect on matter through man and matter (…) simultaneously activating subtle energies."37

In the nineteen twenties the Russian researcher, A. Gurwitsch, detected a weak radiation around cells. His countryman, Georges Lahkovsky, was able to confirm this through his own experiments. In his book Das Geheimnis des Lebens his years of research were summarised under three main concepts: 

Life develops through radiation

Life is directed by radiation

Life is destroyed when the balance of radiation is disturbed.38

In 1975 the German physicist, Dr. F. A. Popp (Kaiserslautern) confirmed the discoveries of Gurwitsch and Lahkovsky after extensive studies. As he said, he could detect "an ultra weak radiation around the cells of living beings"39 According to his research he assumed that the origin of this radiation was in the genetic structure ( DNA) of the cell nucleus. There, according to Dr Popp, because of the double helix structure of the DNA, electromagnetic vibrations (light waves are an example of electromagnetic vibrations) are absorbed by the cell, stored, (photon storage through the formation of the so-called excited complex in the DNA) and transmitted again.40

In his book Neue Horizonte in der Medizin Dr. Popp describes the DNA of the cell nucleus as "the centre for the reception and transmission of electromagnetic communication."41 Through electromagnetic waves it controls the entire life of the cell and promotes the exchange of information between cells. He presumes to have recognised that the meridian system known to Chinese medicine is the necessary basic structure for electromagnetic communication between cell systems.42

The Swiss biochemist, Dr. H.J. Niggli, who worked with Dr. Popp, wrote about the latter's results: 

"According to Dr. Popp's research the light waves (photons) are the controlling power of the most important events in the life of the cell. With highly sensitive equipment he detected these quanta of light, which he called biophotons, in the cells. This research, which is so important for the future, has for the first time shown scientifically that, by means of radiation, the predominant part of DNA controls the highly complicated biochemical process in plant, animal and human cells."43

The revolutionary discoveries of Dr. Popp considerably extend the existing scientific theories of conventional medicine. Until then it had described the regulation of physical processes only as the action of so-called messenger substances such as hormones or particular proteins, which are released within the body to convey information when the need arises and then transported by bodily fluids to wherever they are required. 

But can material messenger substances alone control such a complex organism as the human body?

If, by comparison, the whole communication system within or between the states of this world could only be effected through messenger services and the transmission of information by telephone and radio was not possible, could the burgeoning flood of information be dealt with in time? How much more is this the case for the human body! One must be aware of the fact that the human body is comprised of several billion cells, which are kept in stable balance by a finely tuned information system operating between the cells dying off and those being newly developed. Every second, thousands of cells must be renewed. But in addition, every cell in the body must be able to process a great deal of information in a very short time. It can easily be imagined that an active and split-second exchange of information between individual systems like the organs or the cells is necessary so that the body's functions co-operate harmoniously. Hormones and other biochemical messenger substances could not accomplish such a massive and diverse task. Therefore, the theory that such a transmission is made by radiation or electromagnetic waves is a feasible explanation for an adequate communication between the individual systems of the body.

It is obvious that this electromagnetic communication system discovered by Dr. Popp is to be considered the essential, superordinate control system of the body, whereas material messenger substances only have a modulating function. It is now understandable that a disturbance in the highly complex communication system between the cells and organs can cause a physiological illness. For when the exchange of information is disturbed, the cells and organs can no longer perform their tasks, and sooner or later this will manifest as an organic disturbance, which is an illness.

In his book, Mora-Therapie, Dr. Morell writes as follows about this: 

"Health can (…) be defined as a stable condition resulting from the unimpeded flow of all information within the body. So we can describe every interference in this process of 'internal operational communication' as a condition of illness. These interferences are blockages in the electromagnetic vibration system. They cause pathological (= diseased, which Popp and Morell described as sub-standard (coherence) ) vibrations, which mask the normal ones and lead to anormal, mistaken information and, which in turn, cause pathalogically diseased reactions, or changes in tissues."44

Dr. Morell continues: 

"If the inner self-healing, or rather self-regulation mechanism, that is contained in every living creature, is not in a position to break down these pathological vibrations, illness occurs."45

In the same manner the effect of harmful substances or pathogenic agents on the human body give us new insights. Some researchers today assume that material substances like medicine, but also harmful elements (bacteria and their toxins, heavy metal and other environmental polutants) emit certain vibrations. These have not only a physiological, but also an energetic effect.46,47 Harmful substances therefore emit harmful vibrations, which interfere with the body's regulating system, whereas medicine assists it by weakening or eliminating harmful vibration patterns.48 A healthy body can "suppress" harmful vibration patterns and eliminte the corresponding damaging substances. But a body which is weakened cannot do this. The interference, which is not apparent at first, becomes perceptible after a certain time as illness.

Dr. Moderegger comes to a similar conclusion. In his book Praktische Erfahrungen mit der Energetik des Menschen he speaks of a "natural energetic defence system which prevents harmful energies from becoming effective in the body."49

In this connection the research results obtained in the Medical Research Centre of the Soviet Academy of Science in Nowosibirsk are interesting. Here, two glass flasks, separated by a dividing wall of normal glass, were flanged together. Healthy cell cultures were introduced into each flask. Then a sickness – for example a virus infection – was added to one culture. After a certain time the cultures were examined electromicroscopically. As expected, there was no symptom of sickness in the healthy culture, which was separated from the other flask by the wall of normal glass. But when this glass was replaced by quartz glass, which allowed ultra violet light to pass through it, the situation was quite different.

In his book about the astonishing results of the Russian scientists, whose monograph was released in 1981 by the prestigious scientific publishing house, Nauka, entitled Ultraschwache Strahlung als interzelluläre Wechselwirkung50 Dr. Popp wrote as follows: 

"In over 10.000 experiments, in 80% of the cases the scientists reproduced microscopically recognisable symptoms of illness, also in the separated healthy cell cultures, as soon as they replaced the normal glass by quartz glass, which allowed UV light to pass through. Obviously the sickness contained signals, which had UV components and which passed through the quartz glass, infecting the previously healthy cell culture without transference of the virus or other particles."51

As Dr. Popp goes on to say: In over 10.000 experiments, whose statistical results could be reproduced, there could be no doubt as to the significance of these unusual results. The two researchers, V.P. Kaznachev and L.P. Mikhailova, are renowned in Soviet scientific circles. Their results have been confirmed by other researchers in the meantime.52

These scientifically conducted tests call for a change in the way of thinking. The material point of view should be extended to embrace an energetic way of thought. If pathogenic agents do not only affect the organism materially, but also through vibration, in other words energetically, then resistance to their attack is a question of energy.

So, to have "energetic immunity" or a strong self-regulating system, the body needs energy. Where does this energy come from? Is an adequate intake of food sufficient to keep the body healthy?

In an address Bruno Groening touched on this matter and said how wrong it was to rely on food and drink alone to keep the body healthy. He cited the example of somebody who was lame and in a wheelchair and who ate and drank sufficiently, but still did not succeed in reactivating his limbs.

He said: 

"Here is the proof – for me it has always been the case, but for you – that food and drink does not give him the necessary power in his legs, does not revitalise them. Life must be reintroduced. But man resists this."53

The Bible also states quite clearly that man needs more than material nourishment to keep alive: 

"Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God."54

Even in ancient Chinese medicine doctors spoke of a life force (chi) which maintained the human body. This vital energy flowed through the body along specific routes, the so-called meridians, to the individual organs. If the flow was disturbed, Chinese doctors said, illness would result.

These thoughts about a life force are also mirrored in Indian philosophy. Indian sages knew that there is a primeval light (prana) which man can absorb, and they considered this the vital energy of man.

Paracelsus, the prominent physician at the dawn of modern times, considered that vital energy was an invisible, spiritual, organising principle, whose wise, constructive work had its fundament in an intelligent source (God).

The founder of homeopathy, Samuel Hahnemann, considered that when man's vital energy was disturbed, symptoms of illness was the result. He characterised vital energy as follows: 

"In its healthy state, man's subtle, dynamic force reigns as 'Dynamis', the absolute animation of the material body, and maintains all its parts in admirable harmonic condition as far as feelings and deeds are concerned, so that our inner, sensible spirit can make free use of this living, healthy tool for the higher purpose of our existence."55

The existence of an invisible force which is the prerequisite for the emotional-spiritual and material life is disputed by modern medicine. Many doctors give the impression that they consider man's body a "biomachine" which, in order to function, ingests its energy in the form of well-balanced nourishment.

In contrast to this, history offers enough examples of inspired, deeply religious people who, over years and decades, could live without nourishment. One of these is Therese Neumann from Konnersreuth (1898-1963) who existed without food or drink for decades. She ate only a consecrated wafer every day. This was medically confirmed. A thorough 14-day examination revealed that her weight at the beginning and end of the fortnight was identical.56 Other documents clearly confirm that the case of Therese Neumann was no swindle, but with the possibilities available to contemporary science, simply an inexplicable phenomenon.57,58

Another example is that of the Swiss saint, Nicholas von der Flue, who took no food and drink for 20 years, only a consecrated wafer once a month.

It seems evident that there must be an invisible power which obviates the need for food and drink for certain people.

The assertion of Paracelsus, who considered the origin of life was in God, is impressively confirmed by the lives of Therese Neumann and Nicholas van der Flue. Their lives were governed by a deep attachment to God and were irrefutable proof of the existence of the life-giving, often denied power of God, a vital force which manifests to a greater or lesser degree in every being. This power alone is qualified to build up the body, for it comes from the source which created the body. To strengthen the vital energy, which means to strengthen God in man, is the basis of every true healing. It is the primary energy of all the body's energies. Without it the body could not be sustained. In it lies the key to health and sickness. If it is weakened, the "energetic resistance" of the body is weakened, damaging vibrations can gain a foothold, blockages can develop in the control system of the cells, the flow of energy is disturbed and illness can be the result.

The Belgian healer, Ben Clevers, described the correlations in the same way. For him illness is nothing other than a lack of cosmic energy.59

Bruno Groening spoke in similar vein in an address:

"The further a person withdrew from God, either knowingly or unknowingly, the less life there was in his body until his organs barely reacted the way he wanted them to. He could no longer live his life at full power. He had strayed from the source of his power and eventually lost contact with it altogether. He could no longer absorb God's energy. And so his body became a wreck."60

In the same way that the control of the body through electromagnetic waves can be upset by damaging vibrations, the life sustaining vibrations, as an emission of God's spirit, can be disturbed by opposing spiritual radiations, for instance: negative thoughts.

This is particularly noticeable in the life of a pessimist who, as general experience shows, is not only restricted in his emotional-spiritual reactions, but more prone to illness than a positive person. The radiation of a negative emotional attitude blocks the inflow of vital energy via the soul and lessens his personal energy, which reflects in weakened resistance to disturbing elements.

I would like to summarise these correlations once more: 

The human body is subject to the control of electormagnetic vibrations, which can only be detected with the most sensitive apparatuses. The harmony or order of this highly complicated regulation system, which works in close contact with the molecular regulation system through specific messenger substances, is the indespensible prerequisite for the physiological health of a person. There is harmony when the exchange of information between cells, tissues and organs is not disturbed. All processes in the body can then function according to plan and every cell according to its purpose in the organism. Disturbances would lead to faults in the control system of the cells and organs which, after a time, would reflect in physiological symptoms. Of course, the human body is exposed to many energetic disturbances on a daily basis, such as harmful substances in food and in the air, and technical and natural radiation in the environment. It's energetic defence system and its ability to overcome the disturbing signals and deflect them is in direct relation to its vital energy, which flows to it from God. This is at the disposal of man according to his inner attitude and his way of thinking. Negative thoughts hamper the inflow of this force, positive thoughts stimulate it. It is particularly strengthened when man learns to make himself consciously receptive to it.

Now, how does healing come about?

At a conference for doctors and healers in Bordeaux, the French healer, Charles de Saint-Savin said: 

"Medical science is based on the assumption that illnesses can be healed with physical, biological, chemical and other officially recognised remedies. What is most conducive to health and is used by healers is what Nature provides, but this is mainly ignored by orthodox medicine. And yet the atmosphere in which we live is permeated by these healing powers, only the ability to make use of them varies from person to person. While those people who are prone to illness and burdened with negative thoughts only have a limited ability to absorb the healing energy and therefore are unable to resist the various pathogenic agents, others absorb much more 'healthgiving fluid' than they need to keep their own organism healthy and can radiate the surplus to those who are ill. This is probably the secret of miracle healing."61

Angelika von Frankenberg, a healer from S. feels that illness is an imbalance of energy, a disturbance in the person's energy flow. She says she can feel with her hands where the flow is being obstructed and by transferring power, she breaks down the blockade so that the energy can flow once again and recovery can be effected.62

Other healers also speak of obstructions blocking the energy flow in people seeking healing, and which they can feel with their hands and remove. Some even say they can see the sick areas where the body's vibrations have been disturbed.63-69 The Russian researcher, Lahkovsky, also considers that healing is a renewal of order in the balance of the vibrations and harmony restored through radiation, which brings back energy into the body.70

All true healers bring healing into combination with the work of a power, an energy, which they help the person seeking healing to obtain. It is referred to as God's great energy, cosmic energy or universal healing energy, which flows through the healer's body and into the person seeking healing like tremendous heat, a strong current or light. 

Bruno Groening called it the healing stream or spoke of a healing wave. In it he saw the creative power of God, of life itself. In contrast to most healers he did not lay on hands, but mediated through the spoken word or in silence. When the person seeking healing was in a receptive state, he could tune in to the healing stream and, after certain reactions brought on by the body having to reajust to the new conditions, healing occurred in many cases.

Like most healers, Bruno Groening considered that the illness was possibly the result of a spiritual, or rather a mental separation from God, the source of vital force.

Through his work he offers the person seeking healing the possibility of renewing his spiritual contact to the source of life. In this way a strong vital contact begins to flow through soul and body, which achieves what the former weakened energy could not do: release the blockages brought on by negative thoughts and damaging environmental influences on the emotional and physiological levels. The breaking down of these damaging blockages and the reajustment of the energy fields in body and soul through the strengthened vital force often causes regulation pains, while the freeing of the regulation system has a visible effect on the damaged areas of the body, where the organs begin to build up once again. This process far exceeds the normal regeneration ability of the body tissues.

If the person, once he has obtained healing, makes a regular habit of absorbing God's healing energy and adopts a correspondingly positive mental attitude, he will constantly give his body the necessary energy to ward off damaging influences and illnesses.

Dr. Trampler summarised it as follows: 

"A person can recover his health through his spirit when, through the correct spiritual attitude and proper physiological moves he obtains the additional amount of vital energy needed to enable him to grow out of his sickness into a state of health".71

Distant healing

After having observed Bruno Groening's work for some time, Dr. Trampler came to the astounding conclusion that "the efficacy of Groening's power is not bound to his physical presence."72

In his book he cited the following occurrence at Traberhof: 

"Groening was away on a visit of several days to northern Germany. In front of Traberhof a big group of sick people awaited his return. They were prepared to wait as long as necessary. Before his departure he had decided to help these people through distant healing. Although I was sceptical, I was curious to see whether, without his presence, there would be results. At around 3 o'clock on a sunny afternoon I felt (without expecting to feel anything) exactely what I had felt during my first encounter with Groening: my one foot, which had not fully recovered, suddenly began to pain quite unbearably. This lasted about half an hour and then abruptly stopped. Afterwards the mobility was considerably easier. Almost at the same time that all this was happening to me, there were reports of healings from the square in front of Traberhof. At 18: 20 the 'healing wave' was again apparent. I noted the exact time. It manifested as a warm, tingling sensation which I first felt in my right hand and on the soles of my feet. This increased to a feeling of intensified circulation in my head and a buzzing in my ears – the same sensation that a rapid change of altitude in a cablecar or an aircraft engendered – and then all signs of tiredness disappeared. Some 15 minutes later there were more sick people saying they were healed. The repeated sensation of being in Groening's 'field of power' during the night of 7-8 September was so prevailing that one of his assistants began to instruct the group, as Groening usually did himself, how to receive the healing stream as soon as he felt the next wave was striking again. During the night there were a considerable number of healings, mainly recoveries from acutely painful conditions of all kinds: asthma, nerve complaints, cramps, but also paralysis, speech defects etc. Some of the healings were documented by Groening's assistants with the help of doctors.

During the night of 5-6 September a doctor brought Karl Sch. into the house with the dramatic announcement that on the square in front of Traberhof the blind man had just regained his sight. He produced a medical certificate from the University Eye Clinic in Munich dated 1949 which stated: 

'The patient, Karl Sch. born 24.08.1914 has nystagmus in the right eye, corneal scars and congenital star. Visual acuity 1/20. The left eye is missing. The patient is therefore practically blind. His reduction of earning capacity is 125%. He requires a permanent guide.' Signed: Dr. E. Walser, Medical Director

This man was waiting on the square to which Groening – at that time near Bremen – sent his healing waves. He described how he suddenly had the feeling that something in his eye was undergoing a change, and how he then was able to see an advertisement, a horse's head in blue neon light, on the roof of Traberhof. Finally all his surroundings came out of the fog into focus and he could see everything. A first medical examination, given to him by Dr. Zetti, confirmed this. The next day I took Sch. in my car to Munich. On the highway he described the cars he saw several hundred meters away. He told me what was to the left and right of the highway, from the church tower in the foreground to the mountains in the distance. In order to avoid any suspicion of thought transference, I kept looking in the opposite direction, and only checked afterwards whether what he named was correct. Everything was right, regardless of whether it was near or far. When I asked him what he had done to receive healing, he said he had prayed and waited."73

This story of Dr. Trampler shows quite clearly that there was no suggestion. Dr. Trampler could obviously feel the effect of the healing stream on his body without expecting it, and at the same time he felt it, other people nearby were healed.

How did Bruno Groening bring about such healing?

Many successful healers report that through their thoughts they can heal people who are far away and unaware that they are receiving healing. In her book Geistheiler Heute Anita Höhne writes that the Swiss healer, Evelyne Feigenwinter, needs only a recent photograph of the person, the name and a short description of the illness in order to apply distant healing. She could help two children, who knew nothing about it, and after concentrating on them for a few minutes every day for two months, healing was effected.74

Diana Craig, an experienced English healer and for years President of the largest English healing association, was convinced that a healer could make spiritual contact with a person seeking healing, and in this way send him healing energy without being physically near him.75

Keith Sherwood, the most famous healer in America, links distant healing to having a concrete mental picture of the person seeking healing, on whom he mentally lays hands. At the same time he makes spiritual contact with the source of healing, the "All-Being", and feels how the energy flows from him to the image of the person seeking healing.76

The well-known English healer, Tom Johanson, who, as Kurt Allgeier wrote, was famous for his countless distant healings and healings administered by telephone, described distant healing as follows: 

"It is absolutely imperative to meditate and picture this person. Then one must imagine that he is surrounded by light (…) This light comes from within the healer. (…) Then, all that one needs is to have the honest wish that this person recovers. This wish must be incorporated into the thought process. And it will succeed."77

But Bruno Groening did not know the people awaiting him over 800 kms away at Traberhof. He did not have their photographs and did not know their names. Nevertheless, in the crowd of unknown people so far away he could effect healings in the shortest time.

This must have been because he could avail himself of the Divine healing energy in unusual measure. He was obviously able to send so much of it even to distant places that a large number of people were noticeably affected by it, and Dr. Trampler had the impression of being in a healing "field of energy".

If one studies the phenomenon of distant healing, which today is practised by many healers, this form of spiritual healing is more understandable. The possibility of thought transference from person to person is recognised by parapsychology and, as will be described in more detail later, has often been proved by way of experiment. Whoever can accept the phenomenon of thought transference will also accept distant healing. Every thought is – after all – a form of energy. Why should healing energy not be transferred this way? Dr. Jerzy Rejmer, a Polish healer (he calls himself a bio-energy therapist) who lives in Switzerland, says that a healer is able to transform cosmic energy into healing energy.78 Bruno Groening considered himself a transformer of Divine energy, which he could pass on to mankind as healing energy. Once he indicated that with the help of Divine energy he was spiritually able to "make contact" with a person's personal wavelength, intercept it and learn the most important events that had occurred in that person's life.79 This can be compared with somebody listening to a radio, and who tunes in to a desired station and hears whatever it transmits. In this way, every discordant note can be detected. But unlike the radio station, which can be turned off, man the transmitter is active and open to interception on his own frequency all his life, even when he is asleep or sick. These phenomena have nothing to do with occultism or spiritism. At work here are the finest spiritual energies which, to date, are still beyond the range of contemporary instruments and only perceptible to man's inner senses. To future generations the potential of the human spirit will probably be as obvious as the utilisation of electro-magnetic waves in radio and television today.

Bruno Groening once said: 

"I know that amongst those people who profess to be spiritual healers, or think they can make spiritism work for them, there are many who, with hocus-pocus and outwardly mysterious doings, attempt to demonstrate exactely what they lack, namely, concentrated natural energy. This, thank God, I do not need to do, nor does anybody else who really understands this form of healing. (…) But I often like to introduce a little banter to lighten a serious situation. Furthermore, by choosing universal energy, God always selects the simple, normal and uncomplicated way."80

He had this to say about his distant healing: 

"It is quite immaterial to me whether the person whose spiritual wavelength I contact is here in the room amongst us, or somewhere in Cologne, London, Tokio or wherever. I can reach him everywhere, in the same way as you, with a highly sensitive radio, can tune in to Toulouse, Cairo or even Benghasi."81

In reply to the question asked by the reporter of Das Grüne Blatt, Gregor Harloff, as to whether he needed an object belonging to the person in order to locate him, Bruno Groening replied: 

"Not necessarily. It doesn't have to be a picture that gives me the wavelength. The best help is the good thoughts a person sends to his fellow man, which create an excellent contact for me, and one I can intercept immediately."82

He then told the reporter that the spiritual wavelength on which these unusual perceptions were made available to him was the same one on which he transmitted healing: 

"… I send and receive on the same wavelength. It is quite immaterial where the people are who must be helped, and I actually prefer it if they don't even know that I have a hand in their healing process because then they cannot disturb me with their thoughts."83

In an address given by Bruno Groening, Anny Ebner von Eschenbach heard the report of an American woman who had come to Germany to thank him for the distant healing he had given her daughter.

She said her daughter was in a hospital in New York to have a breast removed due to cancer. In despair the mother telegraphed relatives in Germany, asking them to contact Bruno Groening to help her daughter. Soon afterwards the tumour shrank, and due to this inexplicable abatement the doctors did not have to remove her breast, but only the trifling remaining residue of the tumour. She then told how Bruno Groening had been able to describe in detail to her relatives the room in the New York clinic where her daughter was lying; he even described the furniture, although he had never been there.84

When it is clear that everybody has a personal wavelength, which Bruno Groening could intercept, the transference phenomena which occurred in his vicinity are more readily understandable. Inge Thiede, a contemporary of Bruno Groening, told me of an interesting experience she had with him. She had the opportunity of accompanying him on a visit to an extremely sick woman: 

"This woman found it rather difficult to summon up the necessary belief, so Bruno Groening gave her some help. He made a gesture with his hand from the woman to me and then asked me to describe what I now felt;" said Inge Thiede, and continued: "at this moment I experienced intense pains, felt exhausted and had breathing difficulties, as well as other symptoms. As I described them all, the woman became more and more interested, until she exclaimed in amazement: 'These are exactely the problems that are plaguing me!' She turned to me and asked: 'How do you know all this?' Then Bruno Groening asked me to breathe out deeply. Immediately all the symptoms were gone. Due to this experience the woman was able to believe that even for her, help was possible."85

In her book Hier ist die Wahrheit an und um Bruno Groening Grete Häusler describes a similar experience. When she attended a talk given by Bruno Groening in 1950, she was suffering from severe liver damage, chronic diabetes and continuous sinusitis. Towards the end of his talk, he turned to her and made a hand gesture from the man sitting in front of her, to her. Suddenly her own symptoms were gone and she experienced a set of new ones. 

She writes: "I began to feel pain in my left arm and left leg. There was a buzzing in my ears and a pain through my head from one ear to the other, as well as an unusual headache. As I described these new symptoms, the man in front of me said in astonishment: 'But those are my symptoms!'

'Breathe out deeply!' said Bruno Groening to me, and the symptoms were gone."

At which point her own problems re-surfaced. She continued: "But I had an even bigger surprise when he passed my clinical picture on to my friend, Maria, and she began to describe what she felt in her body. They were all my pains. She even had dry lips."86

In this manner Bruno Groening often transferred symptoms from one person to another for a short while, in order to strengthen the latter's belief. On one occasion a married couple sat in the front row, listening to his talk. While he was speaking, he gestured with his right hand from the wife to the husband.

Anny Ebner von Eschenbach, who was watching this, related the ensuing conversation: 

"The man doubled up with pain and groaned: 'Mr. Groening, I have terrible pains in my lower abdomen all of a sudden. What can it be?' 'Yes' said Groening, 'these are your wife's pains. Now perhaps you will believe that she really has such pain, instead of telling her that she is imagining things. Do not disturb her healing process any longer with your derision.' The husband was then instructed to breathe out deeply, and this painful lesson cured his spiritual hardness."87

Dr. Trampler also reported that Bruno Groening was able to transfer symptoms from person to person for a short while, even though they were far apart, if the recipient was spiritually sensitive. This was yet another example of the basic spiritual principle, which we have already examined: through the energy made available to him Bruno Groening could "contact" a particular person and transfer this person's vibrations to another person of his choice, who then described what he felt in his body. In a case described by Dr. Trampler, this occurred over a distance of several thousand kilometers.88 Similar experiences were witnessed by other people.89-92

In reply to the astonished exclamation of a reporter reacting to this phenomenon: "But this is like television!" Bruno Groening said: "Do you really imagine that man can accomplish something which was not implanted into his archetypal ancestor at the dawn of Creation?"93

I read many eyewitness reports which repeatedly underlined Bruno Groening's spiritual abilities. They are well beyond our concepts of a world conceived at our level of thought. He often told his listeners that they could request healing for relatives who had stayed at home. There was no need to express this wish verbally. A silent plea from the heart was sufficient.

The following healing report from Rosenheim was dated September 13, 1949: 

The affidavit was signed by Gertrud E. Her husband, Hans E. had an accident at the beginning of 1949 which led to a left-sided cerebral haemorrhage. Some time later he had a right-sided hemiplegia. The day after Whitsun 1949 Gertud E. came to Herford to see Bruno Groening. She stood in the crowd as he addressed it from a balcony, and thought only of her husband, wishing him better. She did not address this wish in person to Bruno Groening. The following day, when she returned home her husband could walk again, the paralysis had disappeared and he felt well.94

Dr. Trampler told of a refugee family living in a Munich suburb: 

"Mrs. St. heard a radio interview with Bruno Groening. She was deeply moved by his words. That same night the pain from a continuous stomach problem began to recede and eventually disappeared completely. Encouraged by this miraculous healing her mother and sister made their way to Traberhof and were there for the mass healings which occurred on September 9.

At a moment when the two women were not thinking of their own problems, but were excitedly witnessing another healing, they suddenly realised that their own pains had vanished.(…) The younger woman's continually deteriorating eyesight was restored, and an arthritic inflammation in her upper arm disappeared. The mother was cured of a painful thrombosis in both her legs. Since then she no longer needs to bandage them and walks without difficulty. When Groening told the crowds, as he did at all mass healings, that they could also receive help for their relatives who had remained at home, Mrs. St.'s thoughts went to her husband who had remained in their business, suffering from intense sciatica. At exactely this time her husband, who was 80 kms. away, experienced a change in his pattern of pain and felt some kind of 'noise' in his body, which rapidly abated again. His sciatica was gone."95

The unrecognised magnitude of the human mind 

Bruno Groening's abilities show quite unmistakably that unimagined possibilities are at the human mind's disposal if it is consciously prepared to link up again with its source, God, and follow His wishes. With the necessary concentration it is possible to send thoughts from one person to another.

While he was addressing a group of 100-200 people, Bruno Groening could, without any great effort, read the thoughts of individuals in the group. He often stopped talking and drew people's attention to the fact that their thoughts were wandering, or they were preoccupied with their problems and their illnesses. At which point he told them what their thoughts were. He asked a woman to stop thinking about the preparation of the evening meal at home.96 On another occasion he addressed a man at the back of the group and asked him to leave the room if he could not stop thinking about the illness of his wife, who was also present.97 Once, while he was talking, he astonished his listeners by saying the police were in the room, for nobody was in uniform. Groening then went straight up to a man sitting in the back row who, when asked, confirmed that he was indeed a policeman, but he was off-duty, and attending the meeting because of his child.98

He once said that recognising the thoughts of people and distant healing stemmed from one and the same basic energy. Just as they can be contacted through the healing stream and spiritually sent healing energy, he could, as he said himself, make contact with them and read their plans and thoughts without any problem.99

The Indian yogi, Paramahansa Yogananda, described these correlations in exactely the same way in his autobiography. He observed how his teacher, Sri Yukteswar, was able to read the thoughts of other people and then reverse the process and guide them through his thoughts.

"My guru was a perfect human radio," he writes, (referring to the radio microscope devised in 1939, which Associated Press reported as being the first scientific proof of the existence of invisible rays that really travel from one person to another.)

"Thoughts are no more than very subtle vibrations moving in the ether. Just as a correctly tuned radio picks up a desired musical number out of thousands of other programmes from every direction, so Sri Yukteswar had been sensitively receptive to a certain pertinent thought out of the countless thoughts of broadcasting human minds in the world (…) Intuition is soul guidance, appearing naturally in man during those instants when his mind is calm. (…) The human mind, freed from the disturbances or 'static' of restlessness, is empowered to perform all the functions of complicated radio mechanisms – sending as well as receiving thoughts and tuning out undesirable ones. As the power of a radio broadcasting station is regulated by the amount of electrical current it can utilise, so the effectiveness of a human radio depends on the degree of will power possessed by each person. (…) The will, projected from the point between the eyebrows, is the broadcasting apparatus of thought. Man's feeling or emotional power, calmly concentrated on the heart, enables it to act as a mental radio that receives the messages of other persons, far or near.(…) All thoughts vibrate eternally in the cosmos. By deep concentration a master is able to detect the thoughts of any man, living or dead. Thoughts are universally and not individually rooted; a truth cannot be created, but only perceived."100

Bruno Groening did not only make contact with the present thoughts of people. Incidents that had occurred in the past or would occur in the future were also available to him. At a meeting there was a young woman with a haggard expression, who sat in the second row with a girl aged about nine. Baroness Anny von Eschenbach was at this meeting and noted the proceedings.

She reported that towards the end of the meeting, Bruno Groening turned to this woman asking: "Well Mother, what do you feel?" "Unfortunately nothing, Mr. Groening," she replied.

"You know Mother, you must not always dwell in the past. The shock is still with you. You must first release it! It was during a bombing attack You were in a kind of a garden house and were buried. You were in your eighth month of pregnancy. When you were rescued your child was born. It was blind. Is that right?" "Yes, exactely" was her astonished reply. "Well now," said Bruno Groening, "don't think of these terrible times any longer. Trust firmly in God's help and ask him for it! There is no need to bring the child if the mother is a firm believer." A week later the mother was back The worried expression had left her face and she looked younger. This time when Groening asked her, she answered: "Yes, a feeling of warmth is passing through me, and I feel happy and free!" "Well Mother, continue like this. It will soon be time." A week later the woman was there again, and in the middle of his talk Groening went up to her, stopped in front of her and said: "Mother, on Thursday at 17: 20, take your child into a darkened room. She will be able to see, but as she has never seen colours or shapes, she will be afraid and this could make her ill. Get her used to everything around her slowly!" Here Baroness von Eschenbach took up the story: "As this case interested me particularly, I made enquiries and sometime later learned that everything had happened at the exact time Bruno Groening had forecast. Some years later I mentioned the child to him again and learned that her sight was quite normal and there was no trace of her former blindness."101

At another meeting a woman asked him whether or not she should have an operation. Bruno Groening merely replied that she herself was the best judge. But he did advise her to take all available handkerchiefs to bed with her the following night. The woman did as he said although she did not understand his advice. During the night she began to bleed very strongly. The next morning she felt extremely well and went to see her doctor about the operation. He could no longer find a myoma.102

In August 1950 Grete Häusler and her blind friend attended a talk given by Bruno Groening. She was very suspicious of the whole procedure and had only accompanied her friend because the latter had begged to be taken to Groening. During his talk Groening turned to her and asked her how she had come to Munich.

She relates this incident in her book Hier ist die Wahrheit an und um Bruno Groening: 

"After about an hour he came across to me and asked: 'How did you come to Munich?' I replied: 

'By train.' 'No, impossible! I cannot!' he said. I did not understand what he meant. But suddenly I realised they were my own words, which I had spoken 14 days earlier to my mother when I read her the letter from my blind friend. No, impossible! I cannot! She was asking me to take her to Munich on August 28 to Groening! I was shocked to realise that he knew what I had said to my mother, partucularly as I had maligned him."103

This experience gave her the belief that she too could be helped by this man, and when she left the meeting she had been healed.

All this occurred without any occult mystery mongering. Bruno Groening was not in trance; this knowledge was simply available to him while he was fully conscious. Quite naturally he made it available to his audience, to strengthen their faith. It is the secret of his particular fate that his spiritual abilities were only used to help others, but not himself. (see also chapter 8)

Many people also asked him for help to find relatives with whom they had lost contact due to the War. Often those listed as missing had not returned to their homes.

Grete Häusler described his reaction to such requests as follows: 

"Bruno Groening did not always comply with such requests. But when he did, he gave an animated description of where and how the person in question was at that moment. He could also tell when he would return."104

A particularly impressive report as to the efficacy of Bruno Groening's work was given to me by Elsbeth N. from Duisburg, on behalf of her mother. She said: 

"Mr. Groening visted my mother at home and my aunt was also present. My aunt wanted to request healing for somebody else, and began to outline the case: 'A woman from eastern Germany 'when Groening interrupted and continued the story: 

" 'The person in question, a woman who is sick, is at this moment – 18: 50 - in her kitchen, there are also two children there. In the next room the mother of the sick woman is sick in bed. She has visitors. The woman in question, in the kitchen, now jumps up from her chair, holds onto the table for support, tenses, and in a few seconds regains her senses, hearing and speech. Now she goes into the room where her sick mother lies, joins in the conversation and then dominates it. This woman does not live far from here.' He turns to Mrs. B. 'You know where she lives. Go to her immediately. You know the exact time. Confirm for yourself what I have just told you. You will see that it is correct.'

"Excitedly Mrs. B. hurried away. Twenty minutes later she was back, even more excited, and confirmed that everything in the other house had happened exactely as Groening had told it around the time he had mentioned.

"(…) The woman in question is Wilhelmine P. Born on March 14, 1897 she moved to eastern Germany some years ago because of her husband's work. At the beginning of 1949 she and her husband returned to her former home as refugees. She suffered from total apathy, had had a nervous breakdown after the death of her only son and the circumstances resulting from the Russian invasion and was totally absentminded: her vital energy was crushed, she could not be induced to take part in any event, she had to be dressed and undressed, fed, had lost the power of speech and was completely deaf. She had consulted four doctors (their names were listed) They all said they could do nothing for her. Since Bruno Groening gave her distant healing, on February 23 1949,she has enjoyed the best of health, has gained 20 pounds and has suffered no setbacks."105

A retired headmaster named Hohmann came to a meeting out of interest. He witnessed an unusual occurrence, which he reported as follows: 

"In the room was a radio, which was not switched on and was standing on a record player. Then the inexplicable occurred. Mr. Groening switched on the radio simply be laying his hand on the smooth wooden cabinet. After a while he switched it off the same way, and then repeated the whole operation. I was totally baffled. Baroness Ebner von Eschenbach, who was sitting next to me, told me that Mr. Groening could actually influence matter. She had been present at a big gathering when a reporter arrived with her camera. Mr Groening is bothered by such interruptions, so her flashbulb did not work. She went next door to test it. It worked perfectly. So she came back into the meeting and tried again. Again it did not work. Now she was bewildered. By this time the meeting was coming to an end and Mr. Groening said: 'Now I don't mind if you take your picture!' And this time the flashbulb worked. I asked Mr. Groening about this superpsychic ability and he listed a number of similar occurrances but added that he only performed these supernatural acts to strengthen belief, but never to satisfy curiosity and on no account on demand. He was not allowed to do so as it was against his conscience. His task was to work in the Divine sense and he had to maintain the proprieties. He said he could tell me very much more, but it would only confuse me. Scientists in particular were the greatest sceptics and understood him least."106

By talking to other contemporaries of Bruno Groening I heard similar examples of the way he influenced matter. I would like to mention some of them.

Grete Häusler told me that at Bruno Groening's wedding a reporter called Sittig wanted to tape his speech. Groening asked him not to. Despite this, Sittig switched on his recorder and everybody saw it working. Later he discovered there was nothing on it.107

There was also the occasion when a documentary was being made about Bruno Groening. All the technical equipment: lights, cameras etc. were set up, checked and ready to run. But Groening asked the technicians to check their equipment again. They did, and to their amazement neither the cameras nor the projectors worked. They were about to start checking to find the reason when he asked them rather to sit down with him and wait a few minutes. A short while later he stood up and said they could now begin work. All the equipment was functioning.108

Grete Häusler recalled another incident involving a man called E. Bavay from Rosenheim who often accompanied Bruno Groening to meetings in Augsburg. They usually drove back after midnight. Once Groening suddenly fell fast asleep at the wheel. Mr. Bavay began to get uneasy but then he thought that nothing could happen to him while he was with Bruno Groening. And indeed, the car drove on as if guided by an invisible hand, and there was no accident.109 (see also chapter 2)

How little most people in the so-called developed and civilised countries know about the ability of the spirit! How they encircle and restrict the elemental powers, the Divine Omnipotence at the core of their being, through their wrong habits! There is a Divine spiritual spark in every person, but it can be so restricted through a wrong spiritual attitude that every spiritual-emotional and physical form of life is reduced to a minimum. Every true spiritual teaching can awaken it, to guide this abundance of life through body and soul.

In a society dominated by incorrect teachings, most people have failed to have their higher life, their spirit, awakened. Only a few, very mature people have chosen to follow the way of the spirit.

Consequently their work is considered miraculous by the ignorant general public or is vehemently opposed due to jealousy and egotistical interests.

Who is able to recognise such gifts in himself?

Bruno Groening said in a talk: 

"And he (man) also has a specific body. Everyone has one. One is no different from the other. Every one has the same contents. Mine is also no different. So, God gave us everything in our body. But who knew this? Who knew how to make use of it? Does man have to continue to listen to man, or has he been given the obligation to be convinced by the One who gave him not only life on earth but also such a wonderful body? Will man continue not to make use of his body? Does he not want to use it? Will he not do everything that he has to do? Does he not want this knowledge? Does he not want to be free? But from the outset he has been robbed of this freedom, which God has given him, by people who know no better, who lived in the belief that things had to be as they were, and he had to abide by this point of view."110

The secular school, which everybody has passed through at one stage, teaches and develops the mind. But there is another, a "spiritual school."

Throughout the ages, sages have taught their fellow men in order to awaken within them a longing for the Divine, and lead them along the narrow path of a more advanced life in spirit.

Bruno Groening: 

"Man, even one who is enlightened, must get to know this spiritual power once again. Once again he must learn how to use it for his own benefit, for the repossession and maintenance of Divine order. Due to the progress of civilisation, everybody has lost his ability to be natural, and to mobilise and use the powers within. My talks are only aimed at teaching my fellow men to realise that primarily it is up to them to put their own inner life in order. Practically everybody must learn to realise that he has lost sight of this Divine power. This is why I draw the attention of all my listeners to the natural powers that are within us."111

The negative reaction to Groening and his work is a regrettable sign of the way our culture has distanced itself from spirit. Despite the clarifying words of Christ, spoken 2000 years ago, man still does not seek the source of life within himself, but rather in dead letters and the outer world.

The higher planes of human existence

Knowledge of the higher planes of human existence is ancient and features in all the very advanced civilisations. Shankara (Shankarascharya) one of the most important philosophers of old India, wrote in his book The Brightest Jewel of Knowledge 

"Man is more than his shadow"112

Hundreds of years later, Paracelsus, the famous physician, expressed the same opinion. He said that if Nature were properly examined, another aspect of man would be revealed. Man is not only flesh and blood, but also has another body which is not visible to the normal eye.

Jakob Böhme, chose a more drastic form of expression to expand the one-sided consciousness of his contemporaries.

"Now, open your eyes and examine yourself. Man was created in the image of God from the power of His Trinity. Examine your inner man, and if you are not a fool or a stupid animal, you will see this clearly."113

In all mysteries man's nature is threefold: spirit, soul and body. The spirit is the immortal spark of the Divine spirit in man, the soul is its bearer. During its mortal existence it is encased in a material and mortal shell.

The apostle Paul said: "Do you not know that you are God's temple and the spirit of God lives within you?"114

In the Vedas, the holy scriptures of India, man is described as a "honey eater". He comes to the beehive of the soul to partake of the Divine nectar of the spirit.115

According to the Bhagavad Gita, one of the holy books of Hinduism, the soul of man is covered by three shells: that of mind, that of feeling and that of solid matter. As a prerequisite to a full return to God, these three planes have to be brought under the mastery of the soul.116 This calls for an inner striving in man so that the light of God's spirit can shine through the soul and out of the body. 

At the end of the eighteen hundreds, Baird Spalding, an American scientist and ten other western scientists had the opportunity of spending a longer period of time with wise and enlightened people in the Himalayas and paying profound attention to their work. His remarkable findings were incorporated in his books Leben und Lehren der Meister im Fernen Osten. 

During their many months together with the Masters, the scientists received a vast amount of proof of the almost incomprehensible power of the spirit in people in contact with God.

One of the Masters gave the following explanation: 

"It is not the mortal self, the self you see before you, who is in a position to achieve such things. It is the real, deeper self. It is that which you identify as God, God in me, God the Almighty, who can do such things through me. I myself, my mortal self, can do nothing. Only when I free myself completely from the outer world, and let the real me, the I AM, speak and act, and the great love of God work through me, can I achieve such things as you have seen me do."118

A person who considers that the purpose of life is the satisfaction of physical needs, or allows his intellect to bind him to a three-dimensionally visible world, will be unable to understand the concept of a higher plane of human existence. His existence is restricted to his physical consciousness. He will be unable to understand, for example, the life of Therese Neumann of Konnersreuth, who lived without food for decades. He will reject the many reports of a spiritual force at work as imagination.

Most people refuse to consider a higher plane of existence simply because they fear they will have to change their ways, or abandon their habits. They find it easy to dismiss something which cannot be explained as fantasy or hysteria, and prefer to continue to complain about the injustice in the world instead of following a higher call and beginning to reform the world by reforming their inner selves.

Bruno Groening: "My healings are based on a power within the divine order of Nature and do not breach natural laws. Consequently they may not be called miracles if, according to the present level of science, they cannot be explained, or only explained with difficulty."119

The assertion of some representatives of exact scientific thought, who consider miracles impossible because they abrogate the law of Nature, must be dismissed out of hand. In the same way the difference between a 'natural' and a 'supernatural' happening is only a fiction resulting from the limitation of human thought. Man is only qualified to speak of events which, on account of current knowledge, can be classified as 'inexplicable' in the same way that explicable and understandable correlations can be spoken of as natural occurrences.

The physician, Dr. Hella Emrich, illustrates these correlations very clearly in her book Geheimnisse der Wunderheilungen from the point of view of the Italian religious philosopher, Romano Guardini: "In fact, Creation is a construction of different levels. From the bottom level it is not possible to determine what is on the higher levels. In essence the higher levels are sovereign in relation to the lower. For example, the mineral (world) cannot determine the possibilities of 'life'. Nor can the biological processes of the human brain determine the course of spiritual events.(…) So life is simply materiality and the spirit, n contrast to the biological, is in a certain sense autonomous. Every succesively higher level realises its creative possibilities from within. On every level the same general laws probably apply, but on the different levels of existence they are probably used differently. 

"For example, the law of gravitation applies equally to the stone and the plant, the animal and man. Which characteristics of 'heaviness' are assumed every time do not depend on the law, but from the essential nature of being of the particular level. For example, I can put two similar sized and equally heavy little spherical objects on the ground. The one stays where it is until it is removed. The other opens, sinks a fine wickerwork of roots into the ground, puts forth a stem and, ever growing upwards, sprouts leaves and flowers. The first was a stone, the second a seed. In view of the law of gravitation, the stone and seed behaved quite differently. Was the law of gravitation repealed for one of them? It was not. In the structure of the seed there was a new structure: life. This life brought about something that was impossible for the stone: self-promotion in growth. However, this event is not opposed to the law of gravitation. Rather, it is a part of it and because of it. Because without it the plant could not grow vertically or develop symmetrically. It would not have had a launching level, nor an axis of equilibrium, not a place to grow nor structural order. Although the gravitation law is formally uniform according to the mathematically expressable sizes of mass, time and acceleration, it has qualitatively worked out differently on the two different levels of existence. The higher principle, in this case 'life' can – on account of the same law – call forth results, which are not possible for the lower principle. The same applies to the other levels in the psychological and spiritual areas of existence.

"A person has to work strenuously, but becomes discouraged and, after a while, cannot continue. The tools he wields are 'too heavy' for him. He can no longer carry the burden alone. And then he receives good news. Now, all of a sudden, he 'can' continue working. His tools are just as heavy as they were before. His physical strength is the same as before. He has taken nothing to give him additional strength. But now he can do what he could not do before. His emotional disposition has improved from within, and this results in an accelerated performance of the organism.

"Similar occurences can be pinpointed in the personal sphere.

"When the human spirit moves into a new sphere, into a relationship with God and His spiritual energy, is it then not be be assumed that once again, dormant natural powers, (…)which have already been bestowed, will be reactivated? Here too God's power does not rescind the law of gravity, but rather it opens up to new possibilities, so that in certain circumstances, Peter can walk on water."120

A great philosopher once remarked that true science and true religion are one. All wonderful spiritual works conform to higher laws in Creation. Scientists are only able to understand a fragment of these existing laws. The greatest is unknown to them. They are not able to forge ahead to the essence of things. Even the smallest flower eludes this analysis. They stand in awe in front of it, and can describe its outer appearance down to the last detail, yet cannot grasp the rudiments of its nascene development. No doctor can heal the minutest wound; he is always only the humble helper face to face with the inexplicable power of life in man. Even the light of the sun, which guarantees our very life every morning, is an unknown factor to the scientist. He can describe it and collect data on it in order to build a model. The physicist knows about the nature of the waves of light rays and will produce ample proof to confirm his theory. A second physicist can, with the same right, see a particle in the light, and can put forward watertight arguments and proof of experiments to corroborate his interpretation of this. Now science has to live with the knowledge that in light there are waves and particles. But who can say what light really is?

Scientific research has a purpose if it is made with the correct attitude in mind. The scientist who lays aside morals, ethics and respect for the achievements of Creation, who becomes a slave to his imagination and conceit, and only seeks personal fame, or allows himself to become the gofer for industry and powerpolitical interests, is a danger to society. Then, only too easily, do theories or scientific findings become rigid dogma, and new findings, which seek to update the existing ones, are bitterly contested. 

It is only somewhat more than a hundred years ago that the physician, Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis (1815-1865) discovered in Vienna that the reason for the high mortality rate of mothers through childbed fever was caused by doctors' lack of hygiene. They came to maternity wards from mortuaries where they had dissected corpses and, without washing their hands, examined young mothers. 

Thousands of young women died of sepsis (blood poisoning) through the transfer of bacteria from corpses. 

After grappling with the problem for a long time, Dr. Semmelweis introduced the disinfection of hands and, through this simple preventative measure, practically eliminated childbed fever. Although he could substantiate his findings, it was not until after his death that he was accorded general recognition by medicine. Today the illness is a rarity. Influential professors, who would not accept Dr. Semmelweis's findings at the time, prevented their general acceptance during his lifetime as they did not want to admit their mistake, and for years countless women, who could have been saved, had to die.121

How often will the same kind of tragedies be repeated in other areas?

Similarly, it cannot be condoned that science today simply refuses to have anything to do with the wonderful reports of the power of the human mind, simply because it is difficult to reconcile with scientific methodology. Furthermore, it borders on criminality that stubborness, and considerations of profits and reputation cause sums amounting to billions to be invested in a purely physiologically-orientated form of medicine. The most important spheres of human existence are ignored and, in the main, excluded from scientific research. This facilitates the work of charlatans, who profit from the general ignorance and despair of many people.

On the other hand it is encouraging that recently a growing number of scientists are prepared to take unconventional paths and fix their sights without prejudice on areas of human nature that were formerly taboo.

Their findings show a surprising similarity with the results of researchers, who, around the turn of the last century or even earlier, devoted themselves to the study of the higher planes of humanity.

The natural scientist, Professor Dr. Stelter, who until 1965 was a member of the Institute of Space Discovery in Bonn Bad Godesberg, and then lectured in physics and chemistry at the Dortmund College for Mechanical Engineering, is prepared to step across the narrow confines of orthodox knowledge. In 1974 he was named Professor of Radiochemistry at the Dortmund College. For years, with the meticulousness of a trained scientist, he has studied inexplicable phenomena around the world, in particular spiritual healing. He has sought out healers in Europe, North America, Russia, East Asia and the Philippines in order to obtain an objective view of these occurrences: 

"It is generally accepted that basically, apart from western orthodox medicine, there are hardly other possibilities of curing illnesses. For a considerable time this point of view has been in need of revision. There are ways of diagnosing, healing and operating, which are neither based on our medical knowledge nor can they even be explained with the help of science at its current level. 

"(…) Here our healthy common sense, or what passes for it, goes on strike and reason raises a protest because something which is not allowed to be, cannot be. Before we allow our view of the world to teeter, we prefer to suspect that other methods are fake and a fraud.

"'A fraud' is what the General Secretary of the French Academy in Paris thought when he and an illustrious circle of scholars were shown the first gramaphone He believed that the man demonstrating it was a ventriloquist, so he rushed at him and began to throttle him in order to expose him – but, to the general aastonishment, the machine continued to speak.

"In 1893 a young Berlin surgeon, later the famous Carl Ludwig Schleich, wanted to present a local anaesthetic, a new technique for anaethetising patients which he had developed, to a medical congress. The eminent authorities of the day, who were at the meeting, had him shown out of the hall. And in 1910 when, at a congress of neurologists and psychiatrists in Hamburg a discussion on psychoanalysis was announced, Professor Wilhelm Weygandt banged his fist on the table in outrage and cried: 'This is not a subject for a scientific meeting! This is a matter for the police!' 

"There are many more examples which illustrate the 'impossiblity of the possible'. One only has to think back over the last fifty years to the discoveries made in the field of natural science and the opinions that have been either overturned or changed. Then, from today's standpoint, try to imagine the situation in a hundred, or two hundred years! One would have to agree with the French mathematician, Arago, who a hundred and fifty years ago declared that with the exception of mathematics, one had to be very careful when using the word 'impossible' Not so long ago atom bombs, landing on the moon, the iron lung and kidney transplants were all 'impossible'.

"Is it not grounds for thought rather than logical that our progress, amazing as it has been, has been almost exclusively confined to technical achievements? It seems as though mankind, given the choice between technology and spirit, has decided overwhelmingly in favour of the former. The world of sciences in this rational age has paid attention almost exclusively to the material world, thereby all too often losing awareness of other realities affecting mankind."122

What follows is a mosaic-like assembly of some scientific facts, the results of experiments conducted around the world, and the conclusions of the researchers. Unfortunately, many of the more impressive results do not please influential circles and have been ignored on this account. 

I want to present these phenomena as simply as possible, but cannot avoid going into more detail in some cases. 

The Japanese scientist, Dr. Hiroshi Motoyama, conducted extensive experiments over a number of years to investigate the direct influence of the spirit on the body of other people. He placed two people in separate rooms, one as the receiver, the other as the transmitter. The receiver's room was protected by a Farady cage, a closed container of metal bars against electromagnetic waves. During the experiment the most important bodily functions of the receiver were monitored, as well as some of those of the transmitter. Respiration, cardiac action, circulatory functions, the behaviour of the autonomous nervous systems, in particular the interplay of the sympathetic and parasympathetic functions, were observed, and the cerebral currents were electro-encephalographically recorded. As test persons Dr. Motoyama selected some spiritually trained people, such as Indian yogis, but also some untrained people, such as students from Japan and India. They either lay down or were placed in relaxed yoga positions.

Professor Stelter comments on these experiments as follows: 

"When signalled by Motoyama,the transmitter had to concentrate on the person next door and send her 'spiritual energy'. As soon as this began, significant, and sometimes extremely striking changes occurred in the measured values of the receiver's bodily functions. For example, the respiration system, which only returned to normal when the transmitter had stopped concentrating. Furthermore, stimulation of the receiver's sympathetic nervous system (part of the human vegetative nervous system) subsided 20 to 30 seconds after the transmitter stopped concentrating. Also in other functions there were significant changes."123

This enabled Dr. Motoyama to show clearly that human thought was able to produce really effective working power, which could even cause changes in the body of another person. These results were confirmed by the medical faculty of the University of California in Los Angeles. There Dr. Lorenz Chapman, the research director, placed some test subjects in a room. Without their knowledge Matthew Manning, a well-known English healer, was in another room. Manning had this to say about the experiment: 

"First of all I relaxed completely. Then I imagined how I went into the other room where the test subjects were and placed my hand on their shoulder, urging them to save themselves because the building was on fire. About 15 seconds later the measuring instruments reacted. Later they said they had suddenly felt alarming heat."124

He added: 

"Many people believe that such experiments have nothing to do with healing. But for me they are unequivocal proof that all life forms are somehow bound to one another. I believe that all of us are a part of one another.(…) Our thoughts influence all life forms, our own as well as those of others, in a healing way."125

The power of thought, as shown in the described experiments, can cause impressive reactions, but can also work over great distances and on other life forms such as plants. This was shown in experiments conducted at the end of the nineteen sixties with the American couple, Ambrose and Olga Worral, who are healers.

Professor Stelter writes about this: 

"This experiment was conducted over a long period of time, to measure the growth rate of leaves of the raygrass plant. Equipment devised by Dr. H. H. Kleuter of the U.S. Department of Agriculture was used. The research director was the chemist, Dr. Robert N. Miller. The plants were located in Atlanta, Georgia. In Baltimore, about a thousand kilometers away, the Worrals concentrated on the plants at the agreed time of 21.00 hours, with mental pictures of accelerated growth.

At this time the rate of growth increased by over 800% and continued in this manner for several hours. Similar experiments had previously been conducted with other healing groups. Qualitatively they had received the same results, even though they did not have the same intense effect as those of the Worrals. In addition they were not conducted with the same scientific strictness as the Miller experiments. (…) To sum up it can be said that this indicates that there is a link, which not only is unused but completely unknown, between all living matter, and that there exists an energy which can transfer infomation, a fact which science has not yet grasped."126

Individual scientists have conducted many experiments in an effort to come closer to this specific human energy, which apparently can impinge on all living matter.

The chemist, Dr. Karl von Reichenbach, well-known in his day as a distinguished natural scientist and researcher as well as the discoverer of creosote and paraffin, spent decades studying the radiation transmitted by man. He placed healthy people in a darkened room and let them describe the emanations from test subjects. 50-60% of them, which meant about 500 people, could see coloured rays. He called these od. He could see that those on the right side of a body were more predominantly blue, while those on the left side were more yellow. If one of the test subjects was sick or sickening, the colour went over to a red tone.

Fifty years earlier, the Viennese doctor, Franz Anton Mesmer (1734-1815), said that everything living exuded a luminous aura.He spoke of a secret energy, a primeval ether or fluid, which permeated the universe, and therefore also man. He was convinced that this energy could be transferred from one person to another to bring about healing. 

Professor Stelter wrote: 

"Completely in accord with the views of Mesmer, Reichenbach believed that this od could be transferred to other people, and to this end they did not even have to be in close contact. This claim has been corroborated by a great many spiritual healers (…) today, as well as by the most modern research results of Soviet and Czech parapsychologists. In the USA, in addition to other researchers, Dr. Shafica Karagulla in particular has worked with the Reichenbach experiments. This Turkish-born doctor has had neuro-psychiatric experience in four countries and was named President of the Higher Sense Perception Research Foundation in Beverly Hills California, an institution which researches psi phenomena and the quality of genius. Amongst others, Dr. Karagulla also works with a sensitive who see the aura and also the energy body, which infiltrates the normal physical body. She sees it as a glittering cloth of flashing, radiant light.(Not everybody has the ability to see these fine energy structures in and around the body. Some people see nothing, others see them weakly and others again, see them either strongly or very strongly. The last group are sensitives. This term is not to be confused with another meaning for sensitive, which is susceptible. A sensitive person can or cannot also be susceptible.) 

In many strictly controlled experiments a series of tests which Reichenbach had made in the previous century were checked and confirmed. However, 130 years earlier Rreichenbach's colleagues thought he was not 'all there'. The highly esteemed Berlin psychologist, Emil Du Bois-Reymond considered Reichenbach's od research: '…a fabric of the saddest errors that the human spirit has ever produced, a fable fit for burning like an out-of-date novel, like a witch's bag of tricks.' Karl Vogt called Reichenbach's od: 'Nonsense, based on aggravated excitability'."127

In the nineteen fifties, the Soviet engineer, Semjon Kirlian and his wife discovered a technical method of making closer contact with this phenomenon of the energetic structure in and around man. They developed "high frequency electro-photography". If an object is placed into a field of high frequency alternating current and a photograph is taken, coloured light particles can be seen around the object. If the object is lifeless, the picture is constant, but changes can be noted around living organisms. It even seems that the various colours radiated reflect the activity of the object.128 Today this procedure is known as Kirlian photography. Even mood changes are shown in these X-ray photographs, and those trained in this work can see early warning indications of impending illness. Increasingly this type of photography is being used by doctors and non-medical practitioners to pinpoint changes indicating the early stages of illness, and in the former Soviet Union it is being carefully expanded to embrace research into biological force- fields. Work has progressed to the stage where the force-field or radiant crown of the patient is not only photographically registered in an instant exposure, but the chronological progress of a field, or radiation, can be filmed and interpreted for a medical diagnosis.129

The American physician, Professor Dr. H. S. Burr, who was at the Yale University School of Medicine for many years and has published close on a hundred scientific papers, is of the opinion that everybody, but also every animal and plant has a personal energy field, or body of energy. He maintains it is this body of energy which dictates the appearance of the person, animal or plant, from its moment of inception. He also believes that early warning signs of an impending illness can be recognised on this plane.130

Throughout the centuries researchers have come to the same conclusion. Totally independent of one another they have spoken of a higher, more subtle plane of mankind, and of a particular energy which is of considerable importance to the material, visible structure of the body. At the same time, for thousands of years and from all corners of the world, have come reports of the ability of certain people who, due to their highly developed inner senses, have been able to see a particular radiation around the body of people, often called an "aura". Professor Stelter is of the opinion that the statements of these people, who were never in either direct or indirect contact with one another, should be taken seriously, as they are basically identical. This applies not only to the aura, but also to the energy body.

He sums it up as follows: 

"It is fairly certain that we are dealing with the perception of actual phenomena, because it is completely against the law of probability that so many coincidences could have been produced accidently by the hallucinations of such different people from so many diverse cultural circles."131

Professor Stelter then elaborates on the phenomenon of the "aura" in life forms. Many sensitive people who can see the stucture of the aura can also see illness in it. This applies to the American, Olga Worral, or the German non-medical practitioner, Sigrun Seutemann, who, without technical help can recognise such disturbances.

He says: 

"They only require a certain concentration and a switchover in the way their perception functions. They also maintain that they do not actually see the radiation of the aura with physical eyes, although to begin with they do use them, but their perception comes directly from the biofield. For instance, Olga Worral can close her eyes after a while, yet she continues to 'see' the human aura in every detail including the changes it undergoes.

Gordon Turner, an English healer, gives an interesting account of further information that can be obtained from the aura. He maintains that the aura is a dynamic phenomenon which is in constant motion and reacts to environmental influences, emotions and physical illness by changing colour, intensity, form and size. (…) Spiritual healing sets processes in motion which are reflected in the aura, which means that the process of spiritual healing can, in certain circumstances, be optically observed by a sensitive. Gordon Turner states that if a healer works by the laying on of hands, the two auras melt into each other as soon as the healer places his hands on the patient. Within a few minutes the previous colours become predominantly blue and stretch well beyond the aura's normal boundaries. After treatment, the sensitive can still see signs and colours in the aura, which previously indicated illness, but which now quickly fade and appear to leave the patient's body. In cases of spontaneous or complete healing, the normal colours of the aura quickly return. In other cases, tiny points of differing lengths can be seen in the aura's field for weeks, months or years, depending on the severity of the disturbance."132 

The sensational discoveries of Russian scientists in the last century follow the same course. Since the beginning of the nineteen forties, ever increasing numbers of prominent scientists believe that the body is surrounded and penetrated by a very fine structure. They claim to have found a similarity between this structure and the condition known in physics as the fourth state of matter, physical plasma, which is attained through very high temperatures.

In physics it has long been known that matter is not only "solid, fluid or gas", but when the substance is subjected to very high temperatures, a fourth state, physical plasma, can occur. (This is not to be confused with familiar biological terms like blood plasma and cell plasma.) Water molecules, or other atoms and molecules, which are bound together in specific positions (solid form) are more mobile in their solid state (ice) and when subjected to more heat, lose their attachment to each other and swirl around the room as gas. Given more heat, the building bricks of our world, the atoms, separate further in that they increasingly lose their electrons, and leave electrically charged particles behind. This transition from gas to plasma takes place at very high temperatures, which explains the term "hot plasma". But when this condition is reached at low temperatures, it is known as "cold plasma". Formerly it was associated only with inorganic matter, but the Russian scientists believe that a similar condition is possible in living organisms. This delicate structure, from the minutest components of matter, forms a complicated, inter-connected network in living organisms, thereby completely penetrating and surrounding the visible body. The Russian scientists call it "bioplasma" and believe they have discovered a new form of energy which circulates throughout the body and constantly radiates from it. They also believe there is a connection between the changing patterns of radiation in living organisms as demonstrated by Kirlian photography and "bioplasma". The researchers think they have found indications that these minute sections of bioplasma can influence electrical fields and are therefore visible in high frequency photography.

In the same way that Professor Burr talks of a biofield, and others work on the principle of a human energy body, Russian scientists speak of the superordinate energetic structure of man, which they call a "bioplasma body".133 

The transfer of energy from this level of man to another can be very clearly shown through a number of experiments.

In the Neuropsychiatric Institute of California University, the transfer of energy from the healer to another person could be shown through Kirlian photography. Before the test the healer's energy was strong and that of the person seeking healing, weak. After therapy, the healer's energy had diminished, and that of the sick person had increased. These changes took place within a few minutes and were reflected in the improvement of the condition of the sick person.134

Through measurements, the chemist, Dr. Walter Stark, came independently to a similar conclusion. The transfer of personal energy is a fact for him. He has been able to prove that there is a great flow of energy from the finger tips and the balls of the hands.

The well-known laying on of hands, which people of all nations have been familiar with through the ages, leads, according to Dr. Stark, to the transfer of energy to the cell structures of the sick person.

He writes: 

"Through strong exterior emanation, as much energy can be conveyed for as long as necessary until this targeted group of cells once again vibrates in harmony with the body's other organs."135

To prove this transfer of energy he used water, which is the major component of the human body, and enabled him to achieve a clear scientific corroberation of the phenomenon. He had a healer place his hand near a glass of water for ten minutes and then, by means of calorimetry, infra-red spectral analysis and the measurement of surface tension, he established an increase in the energy in the water.136

Such surprising phenomena have also been established in other places.

The Bulgarian doctor, Dr. Georgi Losanov, researched the effect of healing hands on the growth of plants. The plants which had 'received radiation' grew three times faster than they did normally, and not only was growth accelerated, but they were also considerably stronger.137

The biochemist, Bernhard Grad from McGill University in Montreal, the physiologist, Professor Remi J. Cadoret from the University of Manitoba and the mathematician, Professor G. Paul, used barley corn to test the ability of a healer. 

Kurt Allgeier reports on this test: 

"The corn was first handled in such a way as to make its chances of growth minimal. It was first watered with salt water and then kept for 48 hours at a temperature of 40 degrees. Then 20 seeds per pot were planted in 24 pots. The seeds were watered with two watering cans; a healer was allowed to 'treat' one of them for 15 minutes before watering began. He held the can in one hand and held the other hand over the water.

The experiment was doubly blind'. Neither the healer not the scientists knew which pots were watered with which watering can.

Seven days later the plants which had received water treated by the healer were decidedly bigger and stronger than the remainder."138

At this stage it would be exaggerated to examine the detailed complexities of these correlations, which by no means have been fully explained. What it is important to know is that it is scientifically possible to prove that energy can be transferred from one organism to another without any form of "suggestion" coming into play. The plant experiment demonstrates this very impressively.

Professor Stelter: 

"Our knowledge of natural science derived from the study of inanimate matter and led to chemistry and physics. From chemistry and physics, in turn, we tried to extract and understand animate matter. If now, in the area of animate matter, there are basic and fundamental dimensions which were not found in the so-called inanimate matter, one cannot logically recreate a complete and proper picture of the animate, and therefore also of man. The reality is no different. The concept of 
consciousness is such a topic, which is ignored, or better said, banned from scientific discussion, and here it is referred to generally, not specifically, as human consciousness.

"This awareness, which should also encompass the intuitively extant knowledge within us, therefore the deeper levels of consciousness, has obviously until today been totally incorrectly assessed. The psychologists of mathematical science called this 'irrelevant quantity' and some of them still do so today. This is perhaps the gravest scientific mistake that has ever been made. The psychologist, Oskar Schellbach, described awareness as the alpha and omega from which everything originates. Without it there would be no physics, no chemistry and no natural science. The creative power of awareness is probably the origin of all our activities and also of paranormal phenomena. (…) Had scientists put as much energy into the investigation of the possibilitieas of awareness, as they have devoted to material structures and their energies, we would continually experience miracles. (…) This also appears to show that awareness is more important than matter. From this awareness come the possibilitis of healing sickness, which overturns all the scientific concepts we have held up to the present.

"It is time that science makes awareness the subject of a centralised investigation."139

Addressing objects

Many contemporaries of Groening found it very difficult to understand why he often handed small balls of tin-foil to those seeking help. They were 2-3 centimeters in diameter and had been held in his hand for a short while. 

People who reason only with their outer senses can see no difference between such a ball and one they can fashion themselves Understandably this show caused some doctors to speak of "a means of suggestion". But to those with some measure of spiritual susceptibility, the situation was quite different. 

As the observations of the chemist, Dr. Stark, clearly showed, it is also possible to transfer power to inorganic objects. In the case that was mentioned, the healer held his hand over water for a few minutes to transfer power to it, and through physical measurements Dr. Stark was able to establish increased energy in the water. Furthermore, this water which had received "radiation" stimulated plant growth. The scientists, Dr. Reichenbach and Mezmer, knew that tin-foil was an ideal medium to absorb such energies. Of course not everybody can form a tin-foil ball and claim to have "charged" it. This requires the necessary spiritual energy.

I also had the opportunity of receiving a tin-foil ball, which Bruno Groening had held in his hand in the nineteen fifties and, as he said, "had spoken to it". I was very surprised when I held it in my hand for the first time. I felt a very strong tingling through my whole arm and into my head, and a pronounced feeling of power. When I fashioned an identical ball I had none of these reactions. I questioned other people about this and my observations were confirmed.

Dr. Trampler wrote about this: 

"The most impressive cases to illustrate the efficacy of 'addressed objects' are those of people seeking help and who have never seen Groening. I have purposely chosen the cases of people whom I know to be critical or intellectual, in other words people who are not likey to be in danger of having succumbed to self-suggestion from the 'silver ball'.

The letter from Mr. Fritz R. in Grafelfing (dated 28.12.1949) reads: 

"It is now three months since my wife and I visited you and you gave me a 'silver ball'. Five and a half years ago I underwent a bladder operation. Shortly afterwards my bladder started to bleed and it appeared that during the operation smaller and larger blood vessels were exposed and from time to time some of them were bursting. Initially the problem was hardly worth mentioning, but as time went by the condition worsened and eventually I became resigned to the fact that hardly a week went by without my bleeding. The loss of blood was so extreme and the complications this engendered soon began to assume such catastrophic proportions that a specialist recommended another operation as soon as possible. But the dangers involved and the high cost resulted in my continually putting off another operation and suffering these constant bouts of bleeding. I cannot describe my despair.

"Then you gave me the silver ball and immediately the bleeding stopped. These past three months I have kept it constantly on the problem area and there has been no further blood loss. And this, even though just in these three months my work has obliged me to ride a bicycle for an hour a day, something my doctor had expressly forbidden me to do. Only now, just before Christmas, and after being under great physical and mental pressure, there was a sign of blood one day, but it stopped again immediately.

"One is inclined to regard what has occurred here a miracle, and I authorise you to make use of this report at any time. The suggestion of sceptical scientists that my case is also only a matter of auto- suggestion does not hold water, because in the beginning I could not believe that it would be successful since my condition was the result of a serious and unnatural intervention and had nothing to do with my mental state.'"140

Bruno Groening considered tin-foil ideal material for the absorption and storage of subtle energies. When he was young he instinctively realised that certain metals, papers and also wood had particular storage potential, but tin-foil was best suited for this purpose.141

Because Bruno Groening had the inner perception to know the laws of subtle energies, he not only distributed tin-foil balls but also pictures of himself. On the surface this would seem to indicate a sign of personal vanity, which would be in crass contradiction to all the reports I have received about him. But why did he give these pictures of himself to those seeking healing?

On August 20,l949 two journalists wrote a report in a Munich evening paper of an impressive experience they had had with a picture of Bruno Groening.

"Suddenly we had the opportunity to convince ourselves of his inexplicable powers. When we asked him if we could take his picture, he suddenly became very reserved and handed us a photograph of himself saying that if we really needed it, would we use this one? He also offered to autograph it. The picture he had given us suddenly had a most startling effect. He asked one of us to look at it and that person felt a tingling in his hands and a warm wave swept through his whole body. Groening repeated this exercise with the second person – and the same amazing result occurred."142

Bruno Groening once said that a photograph contained everything. Not only did it show the outer form of the body, but also the subtle powers within it. 

Everybody has a certain spiritual radiation, which is clearly perceptible to another person. It comes across either as unpleasant and weakening, or stimulating and strengthening. This same radiation can be experienced when looking at a photograph of an unknown person. It bears out the law that man radiates exactely what he has spiritually absorbed.

With all the impressive reports of Bruno Groening's ties to God, the feeling of power which I experienced by looking at his photograph did not surprise me. And yet I still wanted more proof, for this man, who was Germany's most prominent healer, was to be the central figure in my book. I found this, proof in radiästhesia, a word coined by a French Catholic priest, Abbe M. L. Bouly in 1930 and which is a com bi nation of the Latin word 'radius' meaning a ray and the Greek word 'aisthanomal' meaning a feeling or perception. Literally translated it means the ability to perceive radiation and refers to diviners identifying emissions given off by animate and inanimate objects.143 In more recent time this age-old technique has received increasing scientific recognition, especially in the field of geophysics.144,145

In the course of my investigations it occurred to me that several diviners had, independently of one another, observed a strong field of force around Bruno Groening.

In 1949 in the course of the scientific examination of Bruno Groening at Heidelberg University, the question was raised as to whether he was a transmitter of a field force.

The report in Revue was as follows: 

"After we had established that good diviners could also check fields of force in people, we had Groening 'checked' with a divining rod. A strong field of force was established, but it was not possible for us to identify its nature more closely."146

Dr. L., who lives near Osnabrück, got to know Bruno Groening in Herford. In the course of a conversation he confirmed the Revue report from a personal experience. Groening visited him for a few days in 1949. While he was there, Dr. L also received a visit from another friend, who was a diviner. The latter wanted to establish if there was a field of force around Groening. The two men were in the garden and Groening was indoors. According to Dr. L. the diviner was extremely surprised that already in the garden there was such a strong reaction.

He could only say: "Heavens above! Does he radiate!"147 

Now I looked for a diviner who could tell me whether similar radiation could be reflected from a photograph of Bruno Groening. Mr. Eberhard A. from O. had not heard of Bruno Groening. He also did not know that a divining rod could pinpoint the same radiation from a photograph as from a living person. He was therefore the ideal person to undertake such a test. To his own surprise, a 13x9 picture of Bruno Groening emitted a radiation which exceeded that of a normal person.148 I then asked the diviner, Horst Wollowski from S., to check this. With the vertical divining rod ( Dr. Hartmann) and the universal divining rod (one-handed rod) of Kobler he was able to establish a strong field of force.149

In radiästhesia, unlike physics, it is not yet possible to measure the established, or as some diviners say, the "estimated" scale of the field of force in numbers. This energy is still unknown in scientific circles, and does not feature in any terminology. So to construct a reliable picture, one has to ask several diviners to test the phenomena in their own way. The results they all gave me independently of one another enables me to state that it is a fact that there is a strong field of force around a photograph of Bruno Groening. This does not mean that others are asked to believe what I say; it is simply an invitation to those who are interested to check what I have been told.

There is, however, much tangible evidence to prove that a photograph of Bruno Groening has a strong field of force around it. And that, placed somewhere next to a person's body, it has the same effect as a tin-foil ball.

Marlyse Hein (51) from K. told me that her brother-in-law, Jean-Paul D. (54) had suffered from an ulcerated (ulcus cruris) leg for six months. Despite intensive medical efforts, it would not heal. She gave him a photograph of Bruno Groening and advised him to lay it on the leg. He did so and three weeks later could tell her that the open spot had completely healed.150

Petra Kruse (35) from L. told me that her children had received two guinea pigs for Christmas. Four weeks later one showed signs of paralysis in its back legs – dragging them when walking - and could not control its bladder, so it had a permanently wet rear. It started to lose weight. The other one lost the use of its front right leg, and hopped around on the other three. She decided to put a photograph of Bruno Groening in the cage, and placed it in the small house where they always sat and slept. For three or four days they sat uninterruptedly on the picture, and then they began to improve. Three weeks later all signs of paralysis had disappeared. The animals walked and ate normally, the bladder functioned normally, their coats shone and they had put on weight. Later Mrs. Kruse made enquiries and was told they had probably contracted a virus, which was the bane of breeders, the so-called "guinea pig paralysis", which normally is fatal.151

Edith Gerken (60) from H. also told me of her experience with a photograph of Bruno Groening. In the summer of 1991 she went to the annual fair with her sister, and was stung on the left elbow by a wasp. Her sister wanted her to get first aid, because her arm immediately swelled up.

Edith Gerken: 

"First I tried Reiki, in which I have the second grade. It didn't help. Then I remembered an old household remedy: a slice of onion on the sting. But this only increased the burning sensation. Then, without further hesitation I took a small picture of Bruno Groening from my bag and laid it on the badly swollen area. I only realised what I had done when my sister drew my attention to it. 

When I removed the picture a little while later, there was no sign or feeling that anything had happened. We could not even locate the sting. We were speechless that this little picture of Bruno Groening could have had such an effect. My sister said that if she had not been there, she would never have believed that something like that could be possible."152

Many more such reports have been made available to me. They make it quite clear that photographs of Bruno Groening really emit a healing radiation. This is explicable by the obvious fact that Bruno Groening was inwardly able to absorb, transform and make available infinite quantities of Divine energy. For he always stressed that one should never forget who was actually working and healing. His body was, and still is, only a casing for his soul, which opened itself wide to the wellspring of energy. The inner "filling" is retained in pictures and is perceptible as radiation. Bruno Groening wishes to be only a mediator who, with the power granted to him – will lead those people who have lost the light, back to it again: 

"Do not cling to my body, for it does not heal."153

It is always only the healing power of God at work.