Walking Through Walls (12 page)

Ford was a curious character. While gifted with extraordinary supernatural talents and a direct line to those who had passed on, he was reportedly plagued by obsessions that included fastidious skin care and the need to drink. His personal life was usually solitary, but occasionally it would be peopled by devoted companions of both sexes.

The topic of that Sunday's lecture by Ford was on mediumship and the afterlife. There were maybe fifteen people sitting on wooden folding chairs in a small church off North Miami Avenue. The audience was composed largely of single women, mainly in their fifties. At first glance, they could have been widowed or never quite got to the altar and were leading small, unnoticed lives. They were here for a last chance at hope and redemption.

Ford used his sonorous voice and profound intelligence to captivate his small audience, as he had done his whole life. Having briefly attended the Transylvania College for seminary studies, he learned his Bible and became a charismatic preacher. Unlike Pentecostal preachers who just scared the hell out of you, Arthur masterfully combined the Bible and religious history with a live feed from the hereafter. He was convincing to all present. As usual, my father taped this and many more of Ford's lectures. They are nothing short of captivating. At this lecture, Ford spoke about reincarnation, mixing strong biblical references with his own work as a clairvoyant.

Ford opened the lecture with the single most provocative question for humanity: “Where does the spirit go after physical death? You don't immediately go to heaven and play a harp. First you have to iron out your character when you are free of the body. You go where you choose to go; God doesn't send you there. You are the same person in the spirit world as you are here.

“Christianity started as a healing cult. It was taken over by the Roman emperor Constantine. Read in the New Testament from First Corinthians 12:15, where Saint Paul lists all the spiritual and psychic gifts. He says you all have them, and you should use them for a purpose. In chapter thirteen he talks about love and says that before we can plunge into another dimension, we must get straightened out in this dimension, get rid of jealousy, greed, all those negative things that are often part of our lives. Develop positive love; make love your aim.

“Saint Paul gives you an account of what happens after you die. Go as far back as you like, and you will find that in the earliest written accounts, four thousand years before Jesus, people were aware of an invisible world. All religions grew out of the effort on the part of man to contact that world in some way. Jesus said, ‘The things I do, you can do.' Paul knew there was a guiding force in the universe. Heal the sick. Raise the dead. Preach the gospel.

“Freud once said to me, ‘If I had my life to live over again, I would be a psychical researcher.' The whole system of psychiatry and analysis as we know it today grew out of the work of a trance medium.”

While Ford spoke, my father looked around for an empty seat. A woman sitting off to the side suddenly turned around and motioned my father to come over to her. He thought she was going to point him toward a seat. Instead she whispered, “I see in your aura that you are a healer. Please help me; I can't stop this terrible cough. Place your hands on my shoulders and send me your energy.”

Puzzled by her request, my father reluctantly complied. While Arthur continued to speak, he touched her shoulders and began to feel a warm heat emanating from his hands. After about two minutes, he felt the heat subside and, without thinking, lifted his hands from the woman's shoulders.

“Thank you. You have healed me. I am better now.” She turned back to listening to Ford at the podium as if nothing had happened.

Arthur continued: “We know that there is a cosmic force, and if you identify with that, you get results. We need to make healing legal again in the church. The medical profession is a fool's corporation. I don't think any spiritual healer who works honestly will get in trouble. They can do nothing to you if you work in a religious manner, especially if you don't prescribe. A spiritual healer doesn't need to diagnose or prescribe. The same power that heals a heart condition can heal a lung condition or a brain condition. There is no law against it unless you begin to practice medicine. You have all the power you need if you only learn to use it.” With these few sentences, it was as if Ford was speaking directly to my father. Over the next several years, my father would be hounded continually by the authorities for “practicing medicine without a license.”

Pop noticed that there was an empty seat a few rows up. He sat down and listened to the rest of the lecture. Arthur concluded with, “The only way for me to see God is to see Him in action through a person who does things through love. This is how God takes form.”

When Arthur finished, people gathered to ask questions. Pop wanted to meet this man who spoke of healings and love. As he tried to make his way to Ford, he was stopped by a woman who delivered the same exact message he had heard earlier: “You are a healer, and I need your help. I have a heart condition.” Without thinking or questioning, he walked to an empty seat, and after she sat down, he put one hand on top of her head and another on her shoulder. Once again he experienced a tremendous surge of heat in his hands, as if someone had suddenly plugged him into an electrical outlet. When the healing was complete, he felt the heat subside from his hands as if they were controlled thermostatically.

As he attempted one more time to make his way toward Arthur, he was stopped by a third woman who requested that he share his healing powers with her. “I was recently hospitalized with cancer,” she said. “The doctor told me that I only have another month to live.”

Worried that he would give this woman false hope, he said, “I'm so sorry, but there is nothing I can do for you.”

“Yes, there is. You can heal me. I know you can. You have the energy that I need. Please give it to me. It will take only a minute, and it will make a huge difference in whether I live or die.”

For the third time, my father performed a healing. When he lifted his hands, he looked around, and the church was now quiet and empty. He said good-bye to the woman and walked out to his car. There were only two cars remaining in the parking lot. As he put the key in the door, a man came up and introduced himself. “I am Arthur Ford, and I am supposed to meet you,” he said.

“I enjoyed your lecture. Lately I've become very interested in healing.”

“Yes, I know. You have a lot of work to do. You will be creating new methods of healing.” My father didn't bother to ask how he knew. If anyone had access to psychic information about my father, it would have been Arthur. The two men instantly became best friends. While Ford was alive, they met constantly to discuss metaphysical matters. Arthur often introduced my father at his lectures as an “extraordinary healer.”

While he was alive, Ford began contacting my father on a daily basis via psychic means with invaluable information on healing as well as answers to many of his problems. Even after Ford died, in 1971, he continued to “talk” to my father on a daily basis. One could think of this spirit communication as a regular “phone call” from a distant relative. Usually around four in the morning, my father would wake up and begin writing down the spirit dictation that Ford and others would implant in his brain. Over the years these messages grew to over five thousand pages of written communication from the unseen spirit world.

This ability to receive psychic dictation took some time for Pop to perfect. At first my father thought that he was imagining the words that came to him, and that they were his own creation rather than a direct link to the spirit world. Arthur reassured my father that the thoughts he was receiving were not his own. “You can't seem to let go of the thought that perhaps these words are yours and not mine. This questioning is good up to a point. The point is reached when your thought prevents my words from coming through. A telephone conversation would be interminably long if each few words are interrupted with the question ‘Is this still you?' After you have confirmed that it is I, blank out your mind and let me come through.”

As my father increased his ability to receive spirit communication, Arthur sent him a message instructing him to be more receptive. “We enter through a doorway which must be unobstructed, or our way is barred. This holds true with the mind and its thoughts. A cluttered mind cannot send forth clear thoughts. Unburden your mind and open the passage so that thoughts can flow and transform into words that your pen will solidify into permanence. Stand aside so that the channel is open and the flow is maintained, else you bar the way. The bounty is endless only if the way is clear. Receive without obstruction.”

Pop had finally found the focus that he was looking for. The experiences that he had at Ford's lecture and at the meeting in South Miami were, for him, unmistakable signs that he was now a healer. Someone or something had suddenly flicked the switch and turned on his magic powers. Now, like a kid with a new toy, my father was eager to try his recently acquired abilities on anyone who was sick. It didn't matter if they had a cold or colitis, he loved to touch them, feel his hands heat up, and watch their symptoms disappear. It was as if he had waited his whole life to feel this surge of supernatural energy flowing through him doing good deeds for humankind.

Once again our house underwent a tangible transition due to my father's psychic interests. Seemingly overnight our isolated house became Lourdes central. People arrived in wheelchairs and on crutches, which they usually left behind. Bottles of medicine taken over the course of a lifetime were thrown in the garbage on their way out the door. Word quickly spread that my father could cure whatever ailed you. Pop was a bit like a teenager who had just received his driver's license but wasn't a really experienced driver. All he knew was that when he placed his hands near people, they felt better and they got better. Beyond this simple fact, he had no idea what was going on, how it was happening, or why. People arrived in beat-up old Fords and Rolls-Royces to see the miracle man. Often I would wait out in the backyard while Pop dissolved their tumors or healed their sore throat, so that I didn't have to interact with them.

Generally, Pop would have the patient sit in one of our white wicker chairs. Without saying a word, he would begin running his hands over the top of the person's head and then slowly over the front and back of his or her body as he intuitively searched for hot spots of disease that needed his healing energy. He looked like one of today's airport screeners “wanding” a passenger for metal items. Like a Geiger counter, his hands would suddenly react to a weak spot or a diseased area. It was at this particular spot that he would let his hands pause to pour forth the healing energy.

Eventually my father was able to instantly locate the specific areas needing his attention. One of his spirit guides—named Chander Sen, who had been a Tibetan monk in the fourteenth century—would shine a small pinpoint of white light that only my father could see, on the specific area where he needed to direct his energy.

Pop would stand stock-still, letting his healing energy pour into the person's body until this white light turned pink. This was the visible signal that the patient had received sufficient healing energy. During these healings, the house became very quiet. You could hear the dogs barking over on the next block. It was if the world had stopped while the mad scientist was at work. While all this transfer of healing energy was occurring, Mom would close herself off in the bedroom to read and smoke, waiting and hoping our lives would suddenly return to normal.

Oftentimes the patients would be spontaneously invited to join us for dinner, much to the surprise and dismay of my mother. These dinners served to celebrate a successful healing both for my father and for the patient. Though she never said a word, I could tell that my mother did not welcome these total strangers who captured my father's attention and intruded upon our family time. Her legendary social skills abruptly disappeared whenever a patient took center stage and left us off to the side of his attention. What was she supposed to do? Turn to a total stranger and say, “Tell me, Mrs. Wright, how did it feel when you discovered that you had a terminal diagnosis? Oh my, you must tell me all about it.”

For me it was odd to witness this constant parade of outsiders who disappeared behind closed doors with my father and then an hour later emerged with a smile and an air of tranquillity to break bread as if we were all old friends. I sensed that these people were somehow not clean, but, rather, diseased and dirty; I didn't want them too close to me. My father, on the other hand, beamed when talking to his newfound friends/patients.

As his caseload increased, our lanai became an ad hoc waiting room. I would pretend not to look at the crowd of miracle-seeking, disease-ridden humanity as I passed them on my way to the living room.

Possibly in response to my father's miraculous helping of strangers, Mom became involved in Daytop Village, an early rehab center for addicts. She read everything she could on drug addiction, including medical studies, autobiographies, and hipster literature. Mom flew up to New York for a meeting with the Daytop Village brass. Most likely her subconscious goal was to open a local chapter in Miami, in case I needed to be treated. Mom would now talk excitedly about methadone and new protocols for getting people off of heroin and speed. LSD remained more problematic. Just as my father was curing physical disease, Mom was interested in curing the disease of addiction. Eventually the support promised her never materialized and the project collapsed.