Particularly active in the field of healing is spiritism disguised as religion. There are so-called faith healers who do not work with the power of the Holy Spirit, but with religious spiritism or white magic. The best known Spiritist healers are Arigo from Brazil, Harry Edwards from England and Antonio from the Philippines. Each has his own method, but all draw their power from the same source.
Arigo is a trance surgeon. He puts himself and his patient into a trance and then operates with a small, sharp kitchen knife. His most famous act was to perform a lung operation on a politician who then went public with it. Arigo, who had no medical training, performed the operation using an American system that was not yet practised in Brazil at the time due to a lack of instruments.
Harry Edwards
has been described as a spiritual healer. He says he can only heal when his “angels” are present. He made his diagnoses and gave impulses for healing while in trance. Dr Kurt E. Koch has repeatedly given pastoral care to people in England who have been burdened by Harry Edwards. Who these “angels” are was revealed to him in a counselling session. H. Edwards sold his first house to believing Christians. When the young couple moved in, they were horrified to discover that the house was a playground for evil spirits. They were so tormented that, with a heavy heart, they sold the house at a loss. Harry Edwards was president of a spiritist healing organisation with 2000 healers.
Antonio from the Philippines specialises in dematerialising. In a kind of half or full trance, he makes illnesses disappear. For example, he removes a gall bladder that is filled with stones by performing manoeuvres above the patient’s abdominal wall without instruments, as if he were opening the abdominal wall and pulling out the gall bladder. Sometimes, not always, he ends up with bloody hands.
Common to all three is the religious aura that surrounds them.
Before the operation, Arigo stands under a picture of the Virgin Mary and recites the Lord’s Prayer.
Harry Edwards is even mistaken for a priest by lay people.
Antonio says he fasts and prays. This was the only way he could carry out the operations. A doctor from Zurich, who is said to be a believer, says that Arigo heals like the apostles of the early church. A German pastor from Munich made the same claim.
This is a terrible confusion of the mind and a confusion of ideas. The gift of discerning the spirits is lacking in so-called Christians.
On the same level, for example, the phrase “All healing comes from God” is misleading. Oral Roberts said this in a magazine and Kathryn Kuhlman wrote it in her book “I Believe in Miracles”. If they had said: “All true healing comes from God,” then that phrase could stand.
You cannot just call these healing methods a hoax. Healing results are actually achieved. But at what cost?
Dr Kurt E. Koch in the book “Occult ABC”:
“For several decades I have been observing the serious negative effects of such healings on the life of the soul and the life of faith.
The apostle Paul warns the Corinthians to beware of false apostles and deceitful workers who claim to be apostles of Christ. “And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light.” (2. Corinthians 11:14)
