Faith Full

At this workshop that wasn’t about faith healing,Patrick offered advice on ‘Life’,or coming to terms with the choices and decisions we made that may have taken the fun out of living. Dressed in a black Nike T-shirt and jeans,sporting long hair and an unkempt stubble,Patrick looked more like an ageing rockstar than a to-be godman,but his scruffy,dishevelled appearance was of no consequence to a rapt audience. “Why do we worry? You have your limbs intact. Look at old beggars,they’ve grown old on the streets,you’ll make it one more day,” he spoke in a soft,resonant tone,with a beatific smile. “Leave it to the universe to take care of you,” he added.

Patrick got all this wisdom from living his own life,which has apparently been a series of unmitigated disasters,with him lurching from one catastrophe to another. As a child,he was incapacitated by paralysis and a coma from which he recovered,he says,because of his unwavering faith. After he lost all his money due to a stock market crash,he realised that God had a different plan for him that didn’t involve waking up every morning to clock into an office. To use a cliche,he then emerged victorious,miraculously cured of illness and greed,and finally happy.

So he got into healing. People who are unable to believe in miracles and divine intervention may have a hard time reconciling their intellectual knowledge with faith healing,which traces its origins to medieval times when kings were thought to have the ability to heal through royal touch. But scientists also acknowledge that when a person believes strongly that a healer can cure,a placebo effect can occur and make him feel better. From what I can tell,when all else fails,that’s when you turn to faith healing. Through his trust,The Samarpan Foundation,which has the rather sweet tagline of “Love,peace,happiness,kindness”,Patrick started what he calls the Light Movement,meditation and faith healing workshops to channel the energy of the universe to improve your life.

A lot of what Patrick says makes sense even if it is stuff we’ve heard before. It is just hard to keep perspective in times of acute stress. He advocates humour,reminding the audience that the entire existence is one big cosmic joke anyway,and most of what we do doesn’t matter. Much like The Secret,the bestseller by Rhonda Byrne,he advises acts of kindness and good thoughts and the practice of gratitude to feel abundant and happy. He offers simplistic solutions to chronic problems,which I think could sometimes enrage someone who’s actually suffering,but he has a gentle manner that probably attracts people looking for answers. You may not get a lot better going to him,but you’re certainly not going to get worse,and chances are you’ll come back just a little wiser.

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