It is an established fact that cures have taken place at
various shrines throughout the world, such as in Japan, India,
Europe, and America. I have visited several of the famous
shrines in Japan. At the world famous shrine called Diabutsu
is a gigantic divinity of bronze where Buddha is seated with
folded hands, and the head is inclined in an attitude of
profound contemplative ecstasy. It is 42 feet in height and is
called the great Buddha.
Here I saw young and old making offerings at its feet
Money, fruit, rice, and oranges were offered. Candles were lit,
incense was burned, and prayers of petition recited.
The guide explained the chant of a young girl as she
murmured a prayer, bowed low, and placed two oranges as an
offering. She also lit a candle. He said she had lost her voice,
and it was restored at the shrine. She was thanking Buddha for
restoring her voice. She had the simple faith that Buddha would
give her back her singing voice if she followed a certain ritual,
fasted, and made certain offerings. Al’ this helped to kindle faith
and expectancy, resulting in a conditioning of her mind to the
point of belief. Her subconscious mind responded to her belief.
To illustrate further the power of imagination and blind
belief I will relate the case of a relative of mine who had
tuberculosis. His lungs were badly diseased. His son decided
to heal his father. He came home to Perth, Western Australia,
where his father lived, and said to him that he had met a monk
who had returned from one of the healing shrines in Europe.
This monk sold him a piece of the true cross. He said that he
gave the monk the equivalent of $500 for it. This young man had actually picked up a splinter of wood
from the sidewalk, went to the jeweler’s, and had it set in a ring
so that it looked real. He told his father that many were healed
just by touching the ring or the cross. He inflamed and fired
his father’s imagination to the point that the old gentleman
snatched the ring from him, placed it over his chest, prayed
silently, and went to sleep. In the morning he was healed. All
the clinic’s tests proved negative.
You know, of course, it was not the splinter of wood from
the sidewalk that healed him.
It was his imagination aroused to an intense degree, plus
the confident expectancy of a perfect healing. Imagination was
joined to faith or subjective feeling, and the union of the two
brought about a healing. The father never learned of the trick
that had been played upon him. If he had, he probably would
have had a relapse. He remained completely cured and passed
away fifteen years later at the age of 89.