Part Three – The Magic and Mystery of Spiritual Healing

In this series, we are looking at healing prayer from the integral understanding of Jean Gebser. He sees the integral structure as consisting of archaic, magic, mythic, and mental structures. When you are in touch with all of these in an integral way, you are living an integral life. In the integral development, we get reconnected in a more whole way to our enchanted magical, mystical self, our mythic psychic traditional self, our mental rational modern self, and our integral transparent self.

Gebser quotes Francie White, a creative force among the philosophies of consciousness, who says, “Beginning with our ever-present origin, the seed of all potential structures of consciousness are unfolding throughout time while maintaining the sacred original blueprint (within every seed) for humankind’s awakening. Beginning first with the archaic; then magical; mythic; mental; and, finally, integral structure, each so-called structure of consciousness creates deep shifts in the lived experience of reality of each given epoch of evolutionary history.”

Gebser says, “The magic [mystical] element plays a decisive part in interpreting such phenomena as healing.”

It is difficult to make the magic structure comprehensible because space-timelessness does not lend itself to description or illustration. So how do you explain, by rational means, that which is beyond the rational? Well, you don’t. But Gebser says that it can be described by the manifestations of it, such as at Lourdes, the small town in southwestern France that is famous for its miraculous healings. He devotes several pages in his book, The Ever-Present Origin, to the phenomena of Lourdes.

So what happened at Lourdes?

Mary’s appears to Bernadette at Lourdes

In the evening of February 11, 1858, a 14-year-old Roman Catholic girl, Bernadette, went to fetch some firewood by an outcrop of rock near a riverbank. When she looked up at a naturally occurring shallow cave in the rock, she saw “a lady who was indescribably beautiful appearing to her.” The “lady,” in seventeen more visits to the rock, revealed herself in Catholic metaphors as the “Immaculate Conception.”

Bernadette, having only a little knowledge of the Catholic faith, did not understand what this meant, but she reported it to her parish priest. He, though initially very skeptical of Bernadette’s claims, became convinced when he heard this because he knew the young girl had no knowledge of the doctrine.

During one of her ecstatic trances in front of the shallow cavern or grotto, Bernadette suddenly rose from her knees, walked a short distance, and fell to the ground. She began to dig in the earth until a small puddle of water appeared. Over the next few days, the puddle gradually formed into a pool and eventually became the sacred spring for which Lourdes is now famous.

Today, thousands of gallons of water gush from this spring, and five million pilgrims visit there every year to pray, bathe, and drink. A famous Madonna in Carrara marble marks the exact spot of the apparitions. The spring that Bernadette made flow in 1858 is still visible at the back of the grotto. An underground waterway channels the water to fountains and pools downstream into which the pilgrims are plunged with the help of hospital staff.

More than 80,000 sick and disabled pilgrims come to Lourdes each year, except recently with the COVID pandemic. Over 100,000 volunteers assist in caring for these people, helping and carrying them as they make their way to services. There are meditations, prayers, hymns, and chants in several languages during the procession down to the underground basilica. When all the participants have assembled in front of the altar, there is a period of Eucharistic Adoration, followed by the Blessing of the Sick.

There have been 70 miraculous cures of incurable diseases rigorously and officially documented by the Roman Catholic Church’s Medical Bureau. In their criteria, a miraculous recovery must be a complete, spontaneous, lasting, and immediate healing from a documented medical condition. The unofficial numbers of miraculous cures and healings are much greater – at least 7000, with an even larger number unreported and occurring later. Today, more than 5 million pilgrims visit every year to be healed.

Feeling at all skeptical? Events like this are often difficult to categorize in our mental structure. There may be part of us that holds back from believing—that’s not how science and medicine work! Right? What would a doctor say?

The Case of Dr. Carrel and Marie

Dr. Alexis Carrell won the Nobel Prize in 1912 for techniques he perfected in vascular surgery. Scientific American credited him with “having initiated all major advances in modern surgery, including organ transplants.” A physician friend of Dr. Carrell invited him to help take care of sick patients being transported on a train from Lyons to Lourdes. At that time, Carrell was an agnostic who did not believe in miracles but consented to help. On the train, he encountered Marie Bailly, who was suffering from acute tuberculous peritonitis with considerable abdominal distension with large hard masses. Other physicians on the train agreed with his diagnosis that she would pass away soon.

Marie was taken to the Grotto, where three pitchers of water were poured over her distended abdomen. After the first pour, she felt a searing pain, but after the second pour, it was lessened, and after the third pour, she experienced a pleasant sensation. Her stomach began to flatten, and her pulse returned to normal. Carrel was standing behind Marie (along with other physicians), taking notes as the water was poured over her abdomen, and wrote: “The enormously distended and very hard abdomen began to flatten and within 30 minutes it had completely disappeared. No discharge whatsoever was observed from the body.” Marie then sat up in bed, had dinner, got out of bed on her own, and dressed herself the next day. She then boarded the train and arrived in Lyons refreshed. After that, Marie joined the Sisters of Charity – to work with the sick and the poor in a very strenuous life – and lived another 35 years. When Carrel witnessed this exceedingly rapid and medically inexplicable event, he believed he had seen something like a miracle, but it was difficult for him to part with his former skeptical agnosticism – so he did not yet return to the Catholic faith of his childhood. Carrel returned to Lourdes many times, and on one occasion, witnessed a second miracle – the instantaneous cure of a blind boy.

Some years later, Carrel announced that he believed in God, the immortality of the soul, and the teachings of the Catholic Church. Gebser then quoted Carrel saying, “the only condition indispensable to the occurrence of the phenomenon of healing is prayer.” He writes, “Such places as Lourdes are truly religious, for they establish the religio, the bond to the past, which in this case extends back to our beginnings in the magic structure. Let this example suffice to illustrate the efficacy of space-timelessness to those who are able to free themselves from the confines of rational rigidity without necessarily plunging into the depths of irrationality.”

He says that the example of Lourdes can serve for all similar instances healing in the midst of a collective. The nature of prayer gives us an “unquestionable point of departure” from our individualized, mental pride. The conscious “effectiveness of the magic structure which, in fact, occurs hour by hour in us, would make sense” to us except that to the rational mind, the magic structure “appears mostly chaotic.”

He points out that the magic-mythical configuration of Lourdes is evident in the primordial aspect of the grotto, in the figure of the saint, and in the source from which the living water springs forth. The believer descends down into the underground basilica, into a liminal space as he moves into “a trance-like state of magic space-timelessness,” becoming one with the hundreds of helpers. He writes, “The power which was individually lacking in the afflicted hands flows from the hundreds of healthy hands with which they are united. A unifying flux, a communion streams through and equalizes this unity of those united in prayer who recover as a single body. When the suppliant reemerges from the depths of meditation and returns to his rational wakeful consciousness, he brings along from the magic depths his recovery and health.”

An amplified field

Algis Mickunas, internationally recognized scientist and phenomenologist, writes, “A way of understanding miracles suggests this: that the vital energy, the vital consciousness [spiritual womb] is not private—it radiates and in that radiation it pervades all bodies and all organisms, and when that radiation is centered on a particular organism that is deficient, it heals to that vitality. And indeed, you notice when people go to perform the miracles, they go to a particular church or a particular temple, and they pray, and they are close together. This is one indication that the miraculous works are through the vital consciousness, the vital region, which is not private.”

The cave and statue of Mary at Lourdes today

The amplified field coming from thousands of pilgrims from all around the world with the same intention and longing – to be healed and cured – “makes” a powerful field of healing. The explosive growth of Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity worldwide can be primarily attributed to the healings in their large gatherings. Beginning in the early 1900s, this movement now comprises 25% of all Christians in the world. In Latin America, it has shattered the Roman Catholic Church’s monopoly on Christianity. In Brazil and Kenya, 50% of the population are part of this movement.

At Lourdes, thousands of people from all different nationalities coming together at the same time with the same intention of being healed and get strength in hard times from a higher power, or God, can show us our value as humanity. That also can increase the sense of the value of humanity. Being a service to others is a powerful force. When we believe in a power larger than our own, we can let go of our control, we can relax and surrender. That can open us up to experience miracles. We no longer try to be something we deepest down don’t even believe we are – and allow a higher power to nurture and fill us. That can help us feel our own value and power. We can sense how much God/Universe/higher power loves us – so who are we to argue our own worth? When we believe in a power larger than our own, we surrender, and we are open to miracles. Going to a sacred site with a clear intention supports us to tap into experiencing our own value and power.

Visiting the Sacred Anytime

In the Integral Structure, we can see and move more freely, experiencing a greater freedom from space and time. We become less dependent on needing to physically go to a site such as Lourdes, though that experience would still have profound power and connection. We can spiritually descend into the grotto and wellspring of our spiritual womb, into the magical structure within. This internal space is not individualized, so whether we do it while alone physically or with others present, we are free to connect into the amplified field and vital healing collective energy.

It is incredibly helpful to find a group to practice with — church, healing service, prayer group, or ICN Sunday morning gathering and your WeSpace group.

WeSpace Healing Practice

1.     Do whatever practice or rituals that move you into a deeper state of consciousness.
2.     Sink into your cave, safe spiritual container, visceral center, which we call spiritual womb, gut, hara, or magic center.
3.     Become aware of those who are actively sharing the space with you, including other mystical, spiritual presences who radiate healing, such as Jesus, Mary, guides, and the cloud of witnesses.
4.     Notice the other beings, magical images, and sensations that flow around you.
5.     Intensify all of this by focusing your attention on the energy present and welcoming it further into the moment.
6.     Direct the healing energy field being created to the bodily area, person, or situation of healing that comes to your mind.
7.     Intentionally connect with the others present with you in the spiritual realm doing the same thing.

The Enchanted Collective Healing Power of the Lourdes Phenomena