Few people have had a more interesting life than spiritualist healer David Cunningham. He has travelled all over the world offering his healing services, some of his clientele were even celebrities. However, in 1990, David was a prisoner of war held captive by Saddam Hussein.
The Gulf war started in April 1990. It was fought between Iraq and a combination of 30 nations headed by the United States whose goal was to liberate Kuwait.
Before the war Saddam Hussein captured peace volunteers and used them as 'Human Shields'. This meant that they were strategically put into prisons close to Iraqi military bases to stop any stop any bombing raids on them.
It was whilst captive that David promised himself and God that if he were to live through it he would use his ability to heal to help others.
David, originally from the North East, now operates from Houghton-Le-Spring. He offers his 'healing hands' in sessions with people who have become inflicted with some sort of aliment and believe that this form of healing is the answer.
I arranged to meet with David to ask him some questions to help with my understanding of spiritual healing. He was more than happy to help. At the start of the interview I explained to David my lack of knowledge on the subject and said that was fine. He told that most people had heard of spiritual healing but weren’t sure how it worked. I asked him how he would educate people:
"Well you’ve heard of this man called Jesus, and Jesus was a healer. Throughout time there have been other people who can actually do healing work by channelling the healing energies into them." He said.
From him saying this I assumed that David was a big believer in God but when I asked him about it he said that this wasn’t the case. In fact, whilst working in America, David was met with a lot of opposition from large religious groups, particularly from the 'Ultra Catholics, as David called them. This is because they believe Jesus was the only one who could heal. He also told me of a Mormon woman who had to go and see him in secret, due to her faith. She feared being cast by her community.
"Until recently I lived in Malta for four years which is a highly Catholic country and I was lucky I wasn’t burnt at the stake you know ‘people like me work for the Devil’ ‘if you come to see me you’d go straight to hell’. But I don’t have anything against anyone’s religion, you have to follow your own path ways." He said.
I thought I’d ask him his and said his was the religion of 'unconditional love'. That was the purest religion because there is no judgement or condemnations.
David showed a room at the back of his house where the healings took place. It wasn’t a particularly large room and half the space was taken up by what looked like a massage table which people would lie or sit on so David could examine them. On the walls were certificates, one showed that David was ordained as a minister in America. He had to do this as it was the only was he could put his hands-on people whilst working in America.
In this back-room David would check peoples’ chakras. He explained to me that there are eight chakras in the body, all allowing energy to flow through them in a clockwise direction. To check everything was flowing properly David would hold a pendulum over each one and depending on which way it swings shows the flow of energy through each point. Clockwise good, anticlockwise bad. He showed me a book which pointed out where each chakra in the body was. This book also had a list of diseases and what cause them, David showed me the one about cancer.
The book said that possible causes of cancer are: Deep hurt, long standing resentment, deep secret or grief eating away at one's self and carrying hatreds. I asked David how he would treat this, and he talked me through his method:
"I get them to write a list of all the people in life that have been harmful. Then, on an individual basis, write letters to the people direct from the heart, not the brain so it can’t be planned."
The letters that his clients write aren’t sent, instead David told me that he gets people to go outside, tear the letter up, set it on fire and say a prayer, which goes: "Please God remove this pain from my soul and deliver this letter.” He recommends that this is done daily, until a shift is felt in the soul. He told me that these letters were called 'F*ck you’ letters.
Whilst I was with David I was keen to try a healing but as it’s David’s profession he does charge. Being a poor student, I decided to ask somebody else.
I found Jacqui Maher on Facebook after she’d left a review on a healer in Newcastle’s page. I asked her why she decided to try spiritual healing, she told me:
“As a teenager I read people’s cards, then at 22 I was a dancer and teaching dance in a community center in a very troubled area, and got friendly with some of the kid's mums' Who told me I had to come and experience Reiki at their weekly class. So I did, and loved it.”
David said that his healing ability was a gift and that, like Jesus, some people had the ability to let the healing energies flow through their bodies. However, I asked spiritual healer Shakti Tracey if she thought healing was a gift:
“Anyone can do it- I teach it to kids, but I think the deeper we go with our own healing gives more capacity for holding a healing space for others too.” She said.
I wondered if people would go in so far as to believe that spiritual healing was an alternative to proper medical healing. Ali Thompson, who helps her friends through spiritual healing said:
“I do think it should be used alongside medical help. It might not be proven to solve illness but if a person believes that it helps them then surely it is of some use if it makes them feel better.”
I thought it best to speak to someone with a professional medical background, which proved to be a harder task than anticipated. Eventually I got in touch with intensive care nurse Dianne Swarbrick who said:
“Well it’s each to their own opinion, I can see that from a psychosomatic point if the patient feels it’s helping then it doesn’t matter, but I’ve never come across a doctor who has spoken about doing or referring a patient for it. We look after people’s spiritual feelings but that’s about all.”
After my experience of spiritual healing I wasn’t sure what to make of it. I wasn’t sure if it was a case of mind-over-matter or that it genuinely worked. But if it made people feel better then surely it’s a good thing.
