Walking Through Walls (30 page)

Pop continued with his lecture as if nothing had happened. “Thought is basically an electrical impulse similar to radio or television. You can't see the signals in the air and you can't feel the signals, yet when you turn on the television set, you can see or hear your favorite program. Pretty amazing, if you think about it. Yet this is exactly how psychic healing works. The body is like a two-way radio that sends and receives electrical energy. I am able to read and interpret these signals. When necessary, I can adjust them for the patient's benefit.

“Because I work with this invisible energy, I can heal anybody anywhere in the world. This energy is not restricted by time or space. Many of the people that I heal never talk to me or even meet me. I am able to locate and tune in to their bodies through my consciousness.

“The pendulum can analyze these energy patterns that surround us and operate the functions of our body. I can measure deficiencies in these energy patterns and determine what amount of remedy I need to send to correct that deficiency. The pendulum also enables me to look into the body and check the vitality of each and every organ.

“Let me give you an example.” With that, Pop picked up his pendulum and let it hang perfectly still. He took a deep breath and watched the pendulum. I saw it swing counterclockwise, giving him a negative response. I wondered what he was asking. No one else in the room knew what he was doing; they sat quietly watching. Pop stopped the pendulum and waited. Again it gave a negative response. At this point, people were beginning to shift in their seats; they wanted something to happen. Once more Pop stopped the pendulum and waited. This time it swung clockwise, giving him a positive response. His brow wrinkled for a minute as if he was trying to understand what the pendulum was telling him. Finally he looked up at the audience and cleared his throat.

“There is a man here tonight whose wife is very ill. She has breast cancer, which has now spread throughout her lymphatic system. For the past three weeks, she has been undergoing chemotherapy but is getting worse. I have been asked to talk to him.” The room was extremely silent. Pop looked around as if he had just announced the winning numbers for the lottery and was waiting for the lucky ticket holder to come forth and claim his prize. No one said a word. People were looking to see if this mystery man was sitting next to them. No one moved. It seemed as if my father had made a wrong call. I did not want him to fail in front of this audience. I was embarrassed and felt bad for him. This was at the university, and word would get around that he didn't know what he was doing. I felt like standing up myself and saying that my wife had breast cancer, but I don't think too many people would have believed that from a seventeen-year-old. When my father saw that no one was coming forward, he picked up his pendulum to double-check his findings.

While he waited for the pendulum to respond, a middle-aged man sitting toward the back of the room stood up slowly. Everybody turned to look at him. He stood there for a moment or two, knowing that he was getting the full attention of the room. “I am Dr. Michaels. How dare you stand here, in an institution of higher learning, and spin these fairy tales of psychic healing, which we know is an impossibility and does not exist? How can you walk around spouting nonsense that keeps people from receiving the lifesaving medical treatment that they require? You are only hastening their death and spreading ignorance. I don't know who let you speak here tonight, but I will find out and make sure that this does not happen again. Tomorrow morning I intend to contact the proper authorities to do whatever they can to prevent you from spreading your lies. I shudder to think how many people you have killed by your parlor tricks.”

People sat bolt upright in their chairs. The doctor's accusations had created a tangible tension in the room. There was a long pause before my father responded. “Dr. Michaels, why are you allowing your wife to suffer the pain and indignity of chemotherapy when she is so close to death? You know that the cancer spread very quickly from her breast to her lymphatic system and then to the rest of her body. It's now in her brain. You know that there is absolutely nothing you can do to cure her, yet you continue to pump her full of poison that is worse than the cancer. Right now she is so sick from the chemo, there's no turning back. You need to let her die with dignity and not as a failed medical experiment. I only regret that you did not come to me last year when all of this began. I could have helped.”

Dr. Michaels stood silent. He didn't say anything, but his face became bright red with anger and then he exploded. “You charlatan! You faker! You called the hospital and had me checked out before you came here tonight. They told you about my wife. This is just the kind of pathetic magic trick that you use to sucker the hopeless and take their money. I'll make sure you don't get away with this.”

The audience was astonished by this outburst. They didn't know who to believe.

My father responded calmly, “You know as well as I do that hospitals cannot release that kind of information. I never met you until just now and had no knowledge that you were going to be here. The information I relayed to you about your wife was given to me by one of my spirit guides. I told you this in an effort to help you open your mind and consider that there are other avenues of healing and that yours might not always be the only or correct way.

“Look, I am not against the medical profession. Doctors perform a wonderful service. But the people who come to me are the rejects of the medical profession. They are the ones that you could not help or that you made worse with needless surgery and toxic medications. Rather than make empty accusations, I wish you would take the time to meet with me. I am sorry to tell you that your wife will pass over by the weekend. There is nothing anyone can do now; she is too far gone. You need to be with her, to express your love to her, and help make her transition smoother. I know she will forgive you.”

“
Forgive
me? Forgive me for
what
?” By now the doctor was screaming at my father.

“I don't want to say it here in front of everyone. You know what has transpired between you two. Now is the moment to settle that past history between the two of you. I know how painful it will be to admit that you were wrong and that you hurt her, but you must. She will be gone soon, and it will haunt you the rest of your life. I would like to—”

At that point, Dr. Michaels, who was sitting in the middle of the row, just started bulldozing his way out of the room. He turned to my father and said, “Mark my words, you have not heard the last of me.” With that, he left.

I hated when people threatened and confronted my father. Pop took all this anger and aggression as just part of the job. This was one of the main reasons I didn't want to become a healer. Not only did I not want to deal with all the sick people, but more important, I didn't want to deal with all the people who would scoff at what I was doing.

My father turned to Miss Orson and said, “I'm very sorry for the outburst. He is in a lot of pain. His wife is going to die very soon, and he needed to hear what I had to say. It was the only opportunity of repairing the past.”

Miss Orson didn't know how to respond to what had just happened. She was clearly upset by the fireworks from a prestigious member of the hospital. She turned to the audience and with a forced smile said, “Well, this has been an interesting evening.” It was evident that she wanted to end the lecture as quickly as possible. “I want to thank the Reverend Lew Smith for his time and all the wonderful work he is doing, and I hope you have all learned something. Are their any further questions?”

One of the male college students stood up and said, “My mother has been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, and the doctors aren't helping her. Is there anything you can do to make her better? The doctor says there is nothing he can do.”

“There is a lot that we can do to help your mother. I would be happy to see her at my house, or if you want to have her call me, I can work with her over the phone. I will know in a matter of minutes how to best diagnose her condition and what form of treatment I would use. It's quite possible that her dis-ease is due to a karmic debt from a past lifetime, which we can address, or the issue could be hidden emotional causes. It could be a physical manifestation. There are many causes. Remember that just because we name a dis-ease does not mean that this is the cause of the problem. After we're done here tonight, I'll give you my card. There is no charge for my services.”

Another student, a young woman, stood up and asked, “Um, I think I'm getting, like, an ulcer. And you know, I have stomach pains all the time and—”

My father interrupted her. “Your diet is the problem. You drink coffee constantly, smoke cigarettes, and eat French fries. You'll end up with colon cancer if you keep going this way. You need to reduce your stress and stop taking so much pressure from your parents. If you call me, we'll work with spirit to remove all the pressure you're under and get you on a healthy diet. I'd like to see you undertake a series of high colonics to clear out the waste from your intestinal tract so that you can get a fresh start.”

“Oh my God, oh my God, how'd you know I eat French fries? Oh my God, that's, you know, all I eat. This is so incredible. Oh, this is so weird. I don't believe this. Wow!”

People started laughing. My father was the only one in the room who took her seriously. He said, “Please don't hesitate to call me; you need to make these changes. You may pay a huge price for your bad habits later on. Better you should correct the imbalance now.”

She had broken the ice. Now there were about a dozen hands in the air of people wanting to ask questions. My father pointed at another student. Before the woman could ask her question, Miss Orson leaned over to the microphone and said, “Unfortunately, we have run out of time. I promised the booking office that we would be out of here by nine o'clock. Let's thank Reverend Smith for his time and his wonderful lecture on psychic healing.”

With that, there was an enthusiastic round of applause. As the students began to file out, a few stopped to talk to my father and ask questions. He handed his “Reverend Lew Smith, Temple of the LOGO” calling cards to quite a few people. I was looking for the young man whose mother had multiple sclerosis. I expected him to come up and get a card. He didn't.

When everyone left, Pop said, “Let's go eat, just the two of us.”

“Aren't you going to invite Miss Orson along?” I was surprised that we were going to eat by ourselves. Usually we left each lecture with a crowd of curiosity seekers.

“No, just us.”

We walked over to a Denny's restaurant across the street. As I looked over the menu, I pulled out my pendulum. I thought I would use it to decide what to have for dinner. I asked, “Should I have the turkey combo or the spaghetti?”

Pop started laughing. “I'm just having eggs and toast.”

Suddenly I got embarrassed that someone in the restaurant might see me with the pendulum, so I put it back in my pocket. “I guess I'll have the same.”

“Thank you for coming with me tonight. It was nice to have you there. What'd you think?”

“It went well. Everyone seemed really interested in what you had to say except for the doctor. He really went a little nuts.”

“Well, what do you expect? The man's wife is dying, which he doesn't want to admit, and he doesn't know quite how to deal with the fact that his medical knowledge has failed. Sadly, for certain people, what I do is very threatening. It's really a shame. If they had come to me earlier, I could have helped that woman and saved everybody a lot of pain. I don't know why people can't see that by opening their minds they have nothing to lose and everything to gain.”

“Well, I think you handled him really well. I wonder why he bothered to come if he doesn't believe in this stuff?”

“I think spirit sent him. In his mind, he decided to come to the lecture to try to debunk me. But I believe that spirit wanted him to hear what I had to say so that he could make amends to his wife before she died. Who knows, maybe his experience tonight will open his mind to new possibilities.”

Just then the lights blinked three times in rapid succession.

“Oh, Arthur's calling. I wonder what he wants?”

Kiddingly, I said, “He probably wants to give his critique of your lecture.”

With that, my father took out a pen and began to write down Arthur's words. I kept eating my eggs. So much for dinner with just the two of us.

“Arthur tells me that you are applying for colleges,” my father said. “I'm sorry to say that you're not going to get into any of the schools you want. Arthur says he'll give me a list of where you'll get in.”

“Yeah, Mom wants me to go to school in the Northeast. She says the universities in Florida are terrible. Maya is going to the University of Florida. The problem is that my grades are very bad, and I don't think I'm going to do very well on the SATs unless I use my pendulum. So I guess you'd better get that list from Arthur of the schools I should apply to.”

“Well, why don't you stay and go to school here in Miami?”

“No, I think it's better that I go away. I'll have some new experiences.”