Alan:
We moved from Placerville, California, almost eight years ago. Before we moved, I talked with our intuitive counselor again. And she told me to take advantage of going to a new place and that I should try out new things and get out of my rut.
Soon after we moved here, we heard there was going to be Dances of Universal Peace right here. So we came here, and while we were here, we said, “What is this place?” And we learned that we were at a spiritual center. The person who told us where we were said that the minister danced her sermons. This is not the current minister. So we soon came back to a Sunday service.
I’m a musician. Soon after, I talked with the keyboard player, and she told me that she was leaving. I said I could replace her. And I did just that. I played with the band for many years until I got sick. I didn’t pay a lot of attention to the Center’s teachings. I was more interested in playing the piano.
Fast forward to about one year ago when I began to take classes in the philosophy of Science of Mind, and I began to do Science of Mind treatment. This is a form of affirmative prayer. When I learned that I had cancer, I began to use this form of prayer. I began to visualize visiting the surgeon; I imagined him threading the fiber-optic cable through my nose until the end of it reached my vocal chords. And then I heard him tell me “The cancer is gone.” Then I imagined how grateful I was to hear that!
Phyllis:
We were hesitant to tell the surgeon that Alan wasn’t having surgery. So instead we just kept telling him he was going to have more teeth pulled. And this was true. And he said, “Are you telling me that you’re going to take care of your teeth instead of the cancer?”
After another six to eight weeks, I wrote an email to the surgeon and told him our decision about not having surgery and asked him to support us in our decision even if he disagreed with it. He wrote back a kind email and said he would do this.
At this point, we still had some big decisions to make because we couldn’t foresee the outcome. We had to cover all bases. And the last thing we wanted was for Alan to suffer and have a painful death.
We were very familiar with Compassion & Choices in Washington State. This is the organization that was influential in legislation being passed for terminal patients to get a prescription for lethal drugs to end their life and eliminate end of life suffering and a painful death.
We decided that Alan needed to have the prescription in case he didn’t get well.
We called Compassion & Choices and soon met with the Bellingham volunteer who guided us through this process. It was all very surreal. Alan didn’t think he was going to have to use this, but he wanted the prescription available to him. He remained calm and clear throughout this process. Emotionally, it really threw me off base, and I experienced a lot of grief and anxiety.
Over about a three week period, we met twice with a doctor in Bellingham. Then a second doctor also had to review the case and approve it. Based on what the surgeon said would occur if Alan didn’t have the surgery, everything was approved and the prescription was sent to the pharmacy. Now that Alan had the prescription and he knew that he could avoid a painful death, he could focus on healing.
Now I could also relax and focus on helping Alan. My actions throughout the day were a living prayer. I often was tired and ornery, but I stayed focused on helping him with what he had to do to heal.
One of the strengths of our marriage is that we have always supported each other. Alan always does his best to support me so I can experience life in a way that is meaningful to me. I do the same for him. Phyllis
One of the strengths of our marriage is that we have always supported each other. Alan always does his best to support me so I can experience life in a way that is meaningful to me. I do the same for him. Once Alan made his decision not to have surgery, I supported him 100% and made certain he took every tincture, every pill when he was supposed to take it. There wasn’t one day where I compromised. It became clear that prayer takes many forms and loving actions are living prayers.
Alan:
It is now April 10th, 2012. I went back to the throat doctor. It was Phyllis’ birthday. He did exactly what I had imagined. He looked at my throat and said: “The cancer is gone, and so is the HPV wart,” just as I had imagined it.
This is what I did to get to that place. During the year while I was so sick, I went to weekly classes at the Center for Spiritual Living and learned about the Science of Mind philosophy. Those classes and going to Sunday services when I felt up to it was about my only recreation during the week.
The previous minister here once told me that she didn’t think affirmations worked because an affirmation often is just a string of words, without any feeling to back it up.
Wayne Dyer said in a recent PBS special, You make your future dream a present fact by assuming the feeling of the wish fulfilled. That which you feel yourself to be, you are. Every feeling that you have makes a subconscious impression upon your body and your awareness. A change of feeling is a change of destiny. I did exactly this, and it indeed changed my destiny.
I also did everything the naturopath told me to do. It took me almost all day to do this. Phyllis made certain that I did everything just right. This was a very difficult time for her because my mind was quite fuzzy, and she had to direct me throughout the day. This dynamic wasn’t good for us individually or for our marriage, but it was necessary. The naturopath recently told us we have been star pupils. She said that many people spend a lot of money, and even in the face of severe illness, they still do not follow the doctor’s direction.
I also did many other things. Anything someone suggested, For example:
- I had a hands-on healing circle with prayers. I lay on a table and about seven people laid their hands on me and prayed for me.
- Phyllis often gave me a Blessing on most nights after we joined all of you in prayer at 7:30 pm, and then she did Therapeutic Touch on me.
- One friend came over to our house and did a ritual specifically for healing.
- Reiki was done on me.
- I had regular osteopathy/cranial sacral treatments.
- I did some acupuncture.
- I had some very effective one-on-one EFT sessions with my good friend.
- I did some hypnotherapy.
- I had a Resonance Repatterning session.
- I did some network chiropractic.
- I got some physical therapy.
- Two people did shamanic journeying for me and both received informative messages.
- We did psychotherapy, separately and together as a couple.
- And I followed the recommendations of our naturopath and got rid of most of the electromagnetics in our house. We only use old-fashion corded phones now. And I got rid of all the electronics in my bedroom (which included a TV and a sound system), and I only have a lamp in there now.
Phyllis:
We’re certain that all these things had some effect, even though we did not understand how they worked. But a lot of people were involved, and this was clearly part of the Community Healing.
Whatever came into our field of awareness and was offered to us, we accepted gratefully.
Alan had nine teeth pulled, and seven of them were root canal teeth. Our dentist would have preferred to do the oral surgeries at least twelve weeks apart, but Alan was sick with cancer, and he needed to get these diseased teeth out of his mouth. So he had oral surgery a lot more often. Although getting the teeth pulled was painful, he felt better after each one was gone. All of them had either a fungal or parasitic infection. Clearly, these extractions were a big contribution toward his healing.
For support and understanding, I began to see a therapist. She calls herself a spiritual counselor. Alan went to one of these appointments. While we were chatting with her, we learned that she wrote her PhD thesis on the power of prayer and she explained how it was done.
Soon after that conversation, it occurred me “why don’t we have a prayer circle for Alan?” We had read books, such as those by Larry Dossey, on the power of prayer, and we knew that people prayed for their fellow congregants in church or synagogue, but we never knew of anyone who set up a prayer circle.” I said to myself, “If prayer worked for the students who were the subjects in the PhD thesis, why shouldn’t it work for Alan?” Within a short period of time, I gathered the necessary information about how to do this, and we sent out an email, inviting people to participate. We received an overwhelming response. This was a cause for a flood of more grateful tears. Within one or two days, at least 50 people signed up for two months; then we requested that people also do it for a third month, up until the time Alan would be seeing the surgeon in April for an updated diagnosis. Since then, we’ve learned that many more people were praying for Alan than we were aware of. Prayers were said by people all over the world.