The Secret Teachings of the Espiritistas, by Harvey Martin, is a provocative and transforming exploration of events in Filipino culture that produced the most controversial healers and healing practices ever. Harvey Martin, former vice-president of The Philippine Healer's Circle and member of The Christian Spiritists of the Philippines, is uniquely qualified to write on the subject of spiritual healing. Beginning in 1983, Harvey spent nearly six years researching Filipino paranormal healing.

I wanted to point out the vast gulf that exists between what the Western media presents it to be and what I experienced and documented personally in the Philippines. In my research, I found a mentor who helped me to obtain old and fragile manuscripts from the organization founded by the grandparents of the contemporary psychic surgeons. With great difficulty, I had the old manuscripts translated into English for the first time. The information enabled me to reconstruct the history, not only of psychic surgery, but also of the underlying religious practices and beliefs of a virtually unknown cult of Asian shamans. I promised my mentor that I would publish the truth about the Filipino Espiritistas. This book is the fulfillment of that promise.

I lived in Hawaii for 20 years and operated a holistic educational and healing center on the Big Island from 1975 until 1983. In 1981, a dear friend dislocated his shoulder in a surfing accident and was cured by a psychic surgeon in Northern Luzon. Several months later, we co-sponsored the Reverend Alex Orbito (whose name was brought to more worldwide fame by Shirley MacLaine's book "Going Within") to conduct a healing mission in Hawaii. When (Rev.) Orbito invited me to visit the Philippines, I accepted and entered a world very few Americans have ever experienced.

Do you have doubts about traditional medicine?

Western medicine practitioners haven't grasped the implications of much of their own research in the fields of Mind/Body Medicine, Psychoneuroimmunology, and the intricacies of the placebo mechanism. Mock extractions of physical objects from sick people through sleight-of-hand are practiced in Tibet, the Philippines, and among the Sioux Indians of North America. From a skeptics' point of view, the commonality among these practices is medical fraud. From the perspective of a practitioner of mind/body medicine, however, these practices are increasingly being understood as innovative methods for activating the immune system. Placebo cure has been a taboo subject for decades because if is a 'dead ringer' for what parapsychologists call mind-over-matter. In light of modern research into such matters as placebo surgery, the old arguments of the skeptics are sounding increasingly misinformed and simplistic. The idea that sugar pills, or little bags of blood and tissue, can serve a powerful therapeutic function in the hands of someone specifically trained in belief mediated activation of the immune system is no longer questioned.

If they fail to do so, they will continue to be replaced by practitioners who will. Americans are voting for alternative health options with their dollars in ever increasing numbers. The popularity of alternative medicine is gradually undermining the old medical paradigm by sheer force of economics. When governmental agencies and medical authorities choose to accept research and draw conclusions that contradict broad public consensus, they become increasingly irrelevant.

People from all walks of life are disillusioned with a health care system they perceive as having been corrupted by economics. As I mentioned earlier, there is much research that supports the therapeutic efficacy of any kind of placebo surgery. In studies conducted in the fifties and sixties, placebo surgery for Angina Pectoris produced a 43% cure rate, while the actual operations for the condition only produced a 32% cure rate. If all these scientific studies are correct, at least 35% of the people who receive psychic surgery should be noticing real improvement.

Yes. I have seen a number of people fully recover from terminal illness after receiving psychic surgery. I have also seen many others recover from health problems that were serious but not terminal. While some regard the paranormal operations as the miracle, I believe that the operation itself is only the beginning of the process. If a miracle really takes place, the patient will discover the strength to reform themselves and sustain what they have received.

Harvey Martin, author of The Secret Teachings of the Espiritistas, A Hidden History of Spiritual Healing, may be reached at his website: http://www.metamind.net, or email: metamind@sysconn.com

Marie-Claire Wilson is the author and creator of the Spiritual Tarot: The Keys to The Divine Temple, and reads at Inner Space. Call her at 404-252-4540.

An Interview with Harvey Martin, reprinted from Aquarius Magazine, Volume 7, No. 5, October, 1999

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