We all hear stories of healing miracles from time to time, but
rarely do we see any real evidence. So when a medical doctor obtains the
case histories, reviews the evidence, and has his conclusions checked
by specialists, we have our evidence. Check out what he found.
The doctor and the investigationDr
H Richard Casdorph is an experienced doctor and medical researcher. His
CV shows he has published more than a hundred research papers in a
career that has spanned almost 6 decades.
In the mid 70s he
undertook a research project with a difference. He interviewed ten
people who claimed to have been miraculously healed of serious
conditions. He examined all the case histories - X-rays, medical
reports, etc - and also submitted them to medical specialists for
review.
In all ten cases, the evidence showed that an unusual
healing had taken place after the patient received prayer for healing.
The cases were written up in a book, The Miracles, which includes some
of the X-rays.
These were the cases ..... or jump straight to what we can learn:
Lisa LariosLisa
was diagnosed with cancer of the hip when she was 12, and was unable to
walk unaided. Her family decided chemotherapy was too traumatic and
called it off after one dose. The family were Catholic, though not very
religious, and a family friend invited the family to a christian healing
meeting conducted by 'healing evangelist' Kathryn Kuhlman. The friend
fasted and prayed for a week beforehand.
During the service, Lisa
felt a warm feeling in her stomach, and Kathryn Kuhlman said someone in
her section of the auditorium was being healed from cancer and should
stand up. Lisa, against her mother's wishes, stood up and was able to
walk without pain for the first time since the problem had appeared.
Lisa was X-rayed several times after that, and it became clear that
something strange had indeed occurred. Further X-rays (reproduced in the
book) were taken and reviewed by several doctors, and these showed that
Lisa's hip had been fully restored and the cancer was gone.
Elfrieda StaufferElfrieda
was 'critically ill' with chronic rheumatoid arthritis, and unable to
walk or dress herself, when she was taken to a healing meeting by her
husband. She had avoided going because "she did not believe in that kind
of thing", but after much prayer by her husband and urging by some
friends, she agreed to go. During the meeting she felt that parts of her
body that had been in extreme pain were becoming pain-free, and she was
able to move them. Dr Casdorph points out that gradual spontaneous
remissions can occur with this disease, but "she emerged from this
severe disability to complete normalcy within a matter of seconds or
minutes. This is not spontaneous remission."
Marie RosenbergerIn
1970, at age 44, Marie started suffering from severe headaches. She
underwent brain surgery, and a tumour was removed, but the surgeons
could not remove it all, and the biopsy showed is was malignant. The
tumour began to grow back, and Marie was not expected to live. The
family decided to spend an evening praying for her healing and her
husband stayed up all night. He had a vision of the tumour being healed,
but Marie seemed little improved when she woke. However she stopped
taking her medication, and continued to improve, as visits to her
neurosurgeon confirmed, with some amazement, until she was healed. The
book discusses the medical documentation and reproduces arteriograms.
Marion BurgioWhen
multiple sclerosis first affected Marion in 1958, she was pregnant and
not yet 30. She felt numbness in her hands, kept falling over, and
generally started losing coordination. But it was not diagnosed for four
years, by which time she was deteriorating steadily. Ten years later,
she had bad headaches, a deformed forearm, was incontinent, had a marked
loss of hearing and vision and was unable to eat or even hold her head
up. A friend visited regularly to pray for her and invited her to a
Kathryn Kuhlman healing meeting.
Marion at first refused to go,
but eventually was taken in a wheelchair. She can't remember exactly
what happened, but during the service she found herself standing up,
with her back and limbs straight for the first time in years. She began
to walk immediately, and later her surprised doctor found she had been
healed of all symptoms, including the deformities. She and her husband
became strong believers in Jesus.
Marvin BirdArteriosclerotic
heart disease was (and I assume still is) the most common cause of
death in the western world. Marvin Bird had his first heart attack at
age 46, and over the next 16 years was hospitalised 17 times because of
his heart condition. One artery was completely blocked and the others
were half blocked (as shown in angiograms reproduced in the book), but
he declined a coronary artery bypass because, at age 60, he didn't think
he would survive surgery. He attended a healing meeting even though he
wasn't then a believer, and an assistant, believing he had been healed,
invited him to stand up. He couldn't previously do this on his own, but
now was able to. Doctors later confirmed he was fully healed, and Marvin
started to attend church and believe in Jesus.
Ray JacksonIn
1972, Ray Jackson had a kidney removed in the Duke University Medical
Center because of cancer. He recovered well, but two years later doctors
had to remove a finger because they found cancer had spread there.
Shortly after they found cancer in his spine, pelvis, breastbone and
leg, and this time surgery was out of the question. (Two bone scans are
reproduced in the book.) He was booked in for radiation treatment, but
advised he could expect to live no more than a year.
Many friends
were praying for his healing, and before he began the radiation
treatment, he woke in the night to hear a voice tell him he would be
healed. The next day he attended a 'Kathryn Kuhlman miracle service',
during which the pain disappeared instantly. Tests the next day still
showed the lesions, but subsequent tests showed that healthy new bone
had filled in where the lesions had been. This case is notable because
of the wealth of medical detail available from Duke to confirm the
healing.
Pearl BryantPearl was a doctor of speech
therapy who had suffered from a range of medical problems - arthritis,
kidney, gall bladder and liver problems - for most of her life. By the
time she was in her sixties she had to wear long-leg braces whenever she
was out of bed because of weak knees and many falls. Other physical
problems (fainting, headaches, nausea and digestrive problems) also
worsened at this time. A devout christian, she began praying for healing
in her late seventies, then finally managed to get to a healing
meeting. During the meeting she felt an unusual 'grinding' sensation in
her body, beginning with her left hip and gradually moving around her
whole body and ending in her neck. She couldn't take the leg braces off
in public to test her healing, but next morning she was able to walk
unaided and regained full movement. She was fully healed.
Anne SoultsOver
just a few weeks, Anne began to have serious problems reading, speaking
and remembering. A series of brain scans (some of which are reproduced
in the book) and visits to different specialists revealed she had a
lesion that was increasing in size, consistent with a tumour. However
following prayer from a prayer group and at a healing service, further
scans showed no evidence of an abnormality. Dr Casdorph comments: "This
lady's brain abnormality was well documented by the standard diagnostic
techniques and she was seen by many specialists."
Paul TrousdalePaul,
a successful businessman, was admitted to hospital with severe
gastrointestinal bleeding after fainting several times. He required many
blood transfusions over several days. He had only recently begun to
attend church, and his minister visited one morning and prayed for him.
The minister said that he had been healed, but doctors would not release
him from hospital until his condition was re-tested. All tests showed
the bleeding had ceased and there were no abnormalities. Paul's
condition before and after were "well documented by medical records".
Delores WinderDelores
had severe spinal problems and pain for years, necessitating four
spinal fusions and two cordotomies (a procedure that disables part of
the spinal cord to reduce pain but results in no feeling in the legs).
For fourteen years she wore a body cast and neck brace to relieve the
pain and enable her to walk. At the end of this time, the doctors told
her there was little they could do for her, she had so many conditions,
but that she could prolong her life by staying still in bed, advice she
was unwilling to take.
Although she was a christian, she didn't
believe in divine healing, but she was persuaded to attend a Kathryn
Kuhlman meeting. She experienced a burning sensation in her legs (the
first thing she had felt in her legs for a time) and was completely
healed. She was also strongly renewed in her faith. Dr Casdorph says he
has medical records for Delores "an inch thick" showing seven serious
spinal procedures and the increasingly desperate medical diagnoses,
culminating in the doctor's acceptance that she had "gotten an excellent
result physically".
What we can learnTen people,
all prayed for by christians who believe in divine healing, all healed.
That is surely enough to make any open minded person think.
At
the very least, we can say that something quite unusual happened in each
case. Coincidence? The odds seem against it. Poor diagnosis? Ditto.
Lies? The documentation suggests not. Real miracles? It seems likely!
I suggest we can draw the following conclusions.
There
is good documented medical evidence of unusual medical recoveries after
prayer for healing. This evidence has been reviewed by medical
specialists,
The probability of natural remissions seems remote, and
the most believable explanation is surely that these were indeed cases
of divine healing.
In many cases, people prayed for some time before
the healing occurred. We should be encouraged to pray when loved ones
need healing. They may not receive the healing, but it is possible that
they may.
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