The Power of TV: Heal Thyself

                    THE POWER OF TV: HEAL THYSELF

After it was all over, I wasn’t sure if I would tell anyone about it…I felt silly and embarrassed for participating in the strange incident.  I haven’t done it before or since, but I still can’t deny the truth of what happened.

Channel surfing in search of some amusing or interesting program to lock onto for a lazy Saturday afternoon of TV watching my partner’s search was halted by idle curiosity when she came across what was obviously a religious program. It featured a man with a Nehru-type jacket with white clerical-collar shirt underneath. The man’s name crawled across the bottom of the screen. “Hey, I’ve heard about this guy; he’s supposed to be a healing minister. Come and look at this stuff,” Elaine called out. “He is so bizarre!”

“Oh, come on, Elaine,” I answered, climbing the stairs to the tiny TV loft to join her. “There has to be something on better to watch than this crap, with ninety-nine channels to choose from! I can’t believe you want to watch this garbage!” She was decidedly irreverent, and this sort of program was definitely not her usual cup of tea. “I don’t want to look at this con artist,” I said. “We both know that stuff is totally bogus and I’ve seen more than I want to, even before I look!”

“No, really! Check this out. This dude has got thousands of people believing they’ve found divinity in a stadium! Look at their faces,” she said, as the camera scanned the vast audience. Faces and arms lifted skyward, tears streaming from mesmerized eyes, the apparently anointed appeared transported to some other place.

A chorus of children’s voices rang out over recorded religious tracks as the charismatic preacher stood on the stage with eyes closed and hands raised, uttering unconnected words in a singsong voice. “Listen to this. He’s speaking in tongues now!”

The preacher’s slight accent sounded exotic and somehow soothing, but I couldn’t quite identify its origin.

“Just another religious charlatan drumming up business and some huge donation bucks from TV land’s wide world of suckers,” I said.

His bouffant silver hair swept up across his head in the classic “comb over” style intended to cover up a bald spot - a ploy that seldom succeeds.  A second man joined the preacher on stage, and the seemingly enraptured pair began singing along with the choir.

Several men moved quickly about the stage, preparing to receive the dozens of congregants who were now surging to the front of the huge stadium where the TV show originated. The assistants were arranged across the stage, stacks of blankets neatly folded before them.

I watched as the long line of devotees climbed the small set of stage-side steps, one by one to stand before the preacher. Speaking softly to each one as they approached him, the man reached out and either placed his fingertips on a forehead, or blew gently into a face, sometimes quickly sweeping his hand toward their eyes, in a gesture suggesting a bolt of lightning.

Every single person reacted like they'd been physically struck!  As they fell, each was caught by two assistants and lowered gently to the floor, where they were covered with one of the waiting blankets. Bodies were piling up on the stage at an impressive rate! 

A man got up from his wheelchair and danced.  A woman said she had cancer and testified that her pain had left when he described her in the audience as “a woman in a red dress.”  One after another, people bore witness to their newfound health as they ran the length of the stage, swung their arms or kicked up their legs, moving as they had not moved in years, or so they claimed. The parade of petitioners lasted for oh, perhaps, thirty minutes, while the audience wept and prayed and sang. The swooning continued.

Then the preacher turned and, looking squarely into the camera, said, “Now I would like to invite our home viewers to come forward to be healed. Let God work his miracles through me.” 

Raising his hands in front of his chest, palms outward, the TV camera zoomed in for a close-up shot so that his hands filled the small TV screen.  I was startled to see that his palms were an angry red hue…so intensely crimson they appeared blistered.  His left hand was unlike his right hand: it was shaped differently and was significantly larger and even more fiery than the right hand. The left palm was extremely wrinkled, as though his hand had been immersed in water for hours. “This guy has the strangest hands,” I said. “Gives me the creeps!” 

He intoned, “Place your hands on your television screen and you will gain the power of healing that I bring you. Let God move through the television and heal you! Join with me now! Praise the Lord! Hallelujah!”

With eyes closed, he continued, “There is a man with a problem in his stomach, pain that won’t go away. You are being healed now! A woman whose hair is falling out from a scalp disease is being relieved of the terrible itching she has suffered for years! A man whose knees are crippled with arthritis can now stand and can walk, now run! Praise the Lord!” Then more muttering of unintelligible words… “More speaking in tongues going on,” I laughed.          

“Do it,” Elaine said, “Go ahead and put your hands on the screen. Maybe he can heal your hands and feet.” “Yeah, right!” I laughed in reply.” “No, really. I’m serious. Why not try it? What have you got to lose?” she said.

Unwrapping the dressings from both hands, I gazed at the open wounds in the center of my palms, acutely aware also, of the pain on the soles of my bandaged feet. I usually made dismissive jokes about what I called my “stigmata,” so-called because of their peculiar appearance, but it was really no laughing matter.

The skin condition, which had begun spontaneously as a series of small eruptions three years earlier on both hands and both feet, had defied medical diagnosis throughout months of lab tests, examinations and attempted treatments by a score of medical specialists, and the mysterious wounds grew ever larger and more painful.

Finally, the doctors informed me that my condition was permanent but hopefully the symptoms could be kept in remission. They would stop testing for the source of the condition and simply try to treat my painful and troublesome symptoms. After more months of trial and error involving one medical treatment after another, still, nothing worked to either heal my wounds or relieve the symptoms. The large sores on my hands and my feet seeped fluid constantly, requiring bandages that effectively interfered with my ability to walk well or to work with my hands. The lesions got worse and worse.

Although I was at the end of my rope with the whole situation, I had absolutely no belief that this quack on my TV screen could fix anything!  “No, I can’t do it, Elaine. I’d feel totally stupid and besides, you know I don’t buy into this crap!”

“Come on,” she insisted, “I promise I won’t tell anyone and besides, what can it hurt? Go for it, Toots! What have you got to lose?”  With deep reluctance, I answered, “OK, then,” as I finally gave in. “Just make sure this doesn’t get out to our friends, right?”

Though still feeling silly for agreeing, I decided if I was going to go through the process, what the hell: I might as well give it my best shot! So, settling myself comfortably on my knees in front of the television, and closing my eyes, I took several deep breaths, exhaling slowly as in my meditation practice. I settled down to a low place of ease and relaxation, opening up my mind to the possibility of…something, I didn’t know what…anything. 

I self-consciously placed my hands on the screen against his and tried deliberately to suppress my deep skepticism.

Immediately feeling a tingling crossing the palms of my hands, I recognized it as a minor electrical charge emanating from the screen.  Almost at once that impression dissipated,  to be replaced first by a tingling feeling and then with an increasingly hot, pulsating sensation. 

I was momentarily taken aback by the astonishing feeling. But there was no reason not to pursue this thing and I took another deep, full breath, expelling it slowly into a black void now surrounding me. I could no longer feel the burning in my hands.

Then from behind my still-closed eyelids, a brilliant white triangular outline appeared against the velvety black surround. Shaped like bent neon tubing, the triangle glowed radiantly in my mind’s eye as I kept my hands held lightly against the television screen.

Blinded by the powerful luminosity of the vision, I felt my body filling up with a powerful outward pressure and my heart began pounding.  I dimly remember wondering if my blood pressure had suddenly skyrocketed. Had I forgotten to take my medication that day? I couldn’t think clearly…everything around me seemed like it was drifting away and concentration was impossible.

Along with this extreme feeling of fullness came a scream of noise from inside my ears that sounded like television static playing at full volume. It grew so loud I could barely hear the words: “…a woman with back pains is being cured…” “…a man with paralysis can move…”, “…a child with a twisted leg is being healed…” Then, as the words faded into emptiness, I heard nothing more than the spiraling electrical charge drowning out everything. My mind whirled around the brilliant triangle of light in the blackness. I was lost in place and time and could only let the waves of white-hot radiance wash over and through me.

Finally, exhausted and unable to remain sitting upright any longer, I leaned back from the TV and slumped down onto the carpeted floor.

Now I understood what I had seen happening on the television stage. I lay there as the others had, unable to stand or even move for several minutes. Tears began flowing from my eyes, unbidden and unexpected. All I could do was to sop up the steady stream until it eventually stopped…there was no controlling it.

Elaine watched in silence as I finally sat up slowly, breathed deeply for a minute to gather myself and then physically rejoined her in the little room. 

“Your face is bright red,”  she said. My hands, too, were beet red and throbbed warmly.  “It feels like they’ve been burned,” I said. “They’re so sensitive I can’t bear to put my palms together.” Cupping my hands several inches apart, I had the sensation of a strong energy radiating between them. The pressure against my palms was strong and full. I felt like I was pressing against the sides of a big soap bubble…it was there and yet not there.

Elaine said excitedly, “Wow!  What just went on? What was that like? I called your name several times but you didn’t seem like you could even hear me. Did you hear what he said while you were doing that?” 

“No,” I whispered. “I couldn’t hear anything except white noise.”

“Well, it was pretty wild! He said, ‘…a woman with a skin disease on her hands and feet is being healed…”

He was right.

         *          *          *          

Nineteen years later, he’s still right.