The healing stream
October 2010
By Julia Dutta
The Bruno Groening circle of friends is one of the largest spiritual healing groups in the world
I am sitting on the terrace of a house in salubrious Shimla, surrounded by pine trees. The air is crisp and fresh, though a shade sharp, and most of my companions are sheathed in a jacket or shawl. Our small group of Indians and Westerners is listening with rapt attention to a young man giving an introductory session on the Bruno Groening Circle of Friends, a large spiritual healing organisation based in Germany, whose members girdle the globe.
This is the first time I have heard of this organisation and I am surprised to discover that it has made deep inroads into India since 1998, with members grouped into four zones, north, south, east and west.
The more I listen to the talk and the testimonies from the audience, the more I am intrigued. Miracles appear to be commonplace here. One lady said that after practising the therapy she had been healed of her paranoia over getting cancer and other illnesses. Another mentioned that a lingering wound from a shoulder surgery was healed through the group therapy she underwent at the group meetings.
Their website testifies to innumerable instantaneous healings that range from osteoporosis, heroin addiction, depression, exhaustion, asthma, arthritis, decade-long chronic pain, allergies, stomach and bowel pain and many other diseases.
A medical doctor, G Blaettner, had to surrender his scepticism when his own wife was spontaneously healed from arthritis.
A 33-year-old lady from Stuttgart, identified only by initials MM, suffered from severe attacks of multiple sclerosis, that left her two legs paralysed and vision impaired, in addition to tremendous pain. She writes, “About three months after my introduction to the teachings of Bruno Groening, in July 1990, my strength was suddenly back in my legs. During the summer of 1991 there was a three-month period when, on occasions, I could neither write nor speak and the whole right side of my body felt non-existent. Then, suddenly a rapid improvement set in and since October 1991 I have been completely free from all my previous symptoms.”
An asthma patient, Mrs AN from Munich, was so afflicted that she could only breathe when she remained still. Emergency doctors would inject her with a preparation of Theophylline, which enabled her to sleep for a few hours in the sitting position. Frequently hospitalised, it was during one of her stays that she heard of the Circle of Friends. Within a few days she was discharged and has never had another attack since.
One lady called Mrs EW (52), from Nordenham talks about how her 26-year-old daughter, who was handicapped on all four limbs due to brain damage during her childhood, could only walk on the balls of her feet and had a rounded spine, healed in almost full measure after being exposed to the Bruno Groening healing technique.
Their website has detailed more than 200 cases of healing, many of which are scrupulously endorsed by medical practitioners. Reports of healing are submitted regularly to The Medical Scientific Group, who examine the report, talk to the patients and carry out a thorough investigation before they put a stamp of approval on the case.
The healing stream
How does all this happen? What is the power that is behind the healings? And who on earth is Bruno Groening?
There is nothing particularly spooky or spectral about the healings, for Bruno Groening, the late initiator of the movement – he passed away in 1959 – was simply tapping into the energy of the universe. What we would call prana, or the Chinese would call chi, Groening called Heilstrom (healing stream). It was this stream of energy that he invoked to facilitate healing for hundreds of his patients. He exhorted his followers again and again to believe in God’s healing powers. “Trust and believe that the Divine Power helps and heals,” is an oft-quoted line. “Separate yourself from the illness. It doesn’t belong to you. I will help you reconnect to the divine power,” he said emphasising rule number one of spiritual healing – the recognition that one is innately whole and perfect and that the ailment or malaise is not an intrinsic part of who we are and therefore can be dropped the moment we make a distinction between it and us.
Bruno Groening never treated anyone, and therefore did not heal them in the traditional medical sense. The healings took place as people consciously chose to re-establish their connection with God. “Belief in the good is as much a prerequisite to becoming healthy as the will to do so. Humans are surrounded by healing waves everywhere that they simple absorb,” he observed with wise acumen.
Gröening (1906 – 1959) was born in 1906 in Danzig-Oliva, Germany, the fourth of seven children and was a simple workman. From a very early age he was aware that an energy flowed through him to heal others. People thronged to him and were healed of diseases, discomforts, ill-health of mind and body miraculously! His fame was at its peak after WW ll, during 1940 and 50, when as much as 30,000 people would assemble for his mass healing sessions.
Unfortunately, like many evolved souls ahead of his time, Groening was persecuted for his healings by medical practitioners and was eventually hounded to death. But the teachings did not die with him.
Working across countries, ever since his death in 1959, his friend Grete Häusler (1922- 2007) founded what we now know as the Circle of Friends in 1979. The task of the Circle of Friends is to preserve Bruno Groening’s legacy for posterity and offer people in misery the possibility of obtaining help and healing. At first there were only a handful of like-minded people, but by the end of the ’80s its growth was rapid. The Bruno Groening Circle of Friends is today one of the largest associations for spiritual healing in the world. As Bruno Gröening had said: “It can’t be stopped; healing will take place all over the world”. The organisation is registered in Germany as a charity, is run completely by volunteers, funded completely through donations, and has no paid staff. Affiliation to the Circle is voluntary and free of charge. There are also no national, ideological or confessional ties. All activities are free of charge. Costs are met by voluntary donations. Our world, a global village, and yet torn apart by wars, terrorism, pain, sorrow and the misery of the human predicament, is in need of healing. Perhaps Bruno Gröening’s teaching has an answer to our desperate condition. However, one must have an open heart to receive the teaching as well as the healing waves.
The procedure of healing is pretty simple. One simply sits with uncrossed feet and hands, palms held up and asks Bruno to bring order in one’s life and body by sending heilstrom. One can substitute Bruno with God if you are uncomfortable praying to a human being. Most people experience a vibratory sensation or a pleasant tingling in their palms, which is the indication that the heilstrom is under way. The feeling is pleasant and calming, and one comes away energised. There are local groups who meet every week or so and practise group healing considered even more effective. All in all, there is a purity and seriousness of intent about the organisation that is attractive at a time when commercial interests taint every spiritual endeavour.
I, too, had a real life experience at the meeting, although it dawned on me much later. Over the last one year I had lived in Bhopal and had developed a pathetic condition close to asthma. When I went to rest in Shimla during a hiking week, organised by the Bruno Groening Circle of Friends, I was unable to breathe deeply without breaking into a choking cough. When I climbed hills, even a gentle slope made me breathless. It took me a long time to realise that after the introductory meeting with Hannes Michael and the group in Shimla, I was completely healed! I could talk and climb without causing any stress to my lungs.
“When I am no longer of this earth as a man, that is, when I have given up my body, then mankind will have come to so far, that each person will be able to experience help and healing from within himself,“ Bruno is supposed to have said during his last days. Can we not take him at his word and use the power within us to draw upon the healing energy surrounding us and establish perfect health for ourselves?
Inputs from Heike Beck, Germany
Contact:: http://www.bruno-groening.org/
To reach Northern India Delhi Chapter:
Contact Salil Ahuja (M) 0-9899023989
Julia Dutta is Branch Director, Xebec Communication, Delhi. She is also a writer and poet. You can reach her at:juliadutta@rediffmail.com