New Zealand's Greatest Doctor:
Ulric Williams of Wanganui
A Surgeon who became a Naturopath
By Brenda Sampson
Recovery through Faith
What is faith? One thing it certainly is not, is subscribing to some abstruse theological formula which neither the purveyor nor his victims understand or can apply.
Perhaps the shortest definition of faith is - expectation. According to our faith (expectation) it is likely to be unto us.
Made in the image and likeness of God, man is creative. Mind is our creative mechanism; thought is its instrument, the unconscious part of our mind is the executive. The thoughts, beliefs, impressions, suggestions and ideas that get, or are put, into our unconscious minds, tend powerfully to materialise. "I feared a fear," Job confessed, "and it came upon me." Well do the arch-exploiters, (medical, financial and ecclesiastic) understand this. Fear is faith in evil. "I believe in God the Father almighty", church people mechanically repeat; then demonstrate by their actions that, in fact, their one fundamental abiding conviction is in the reality and power of evil. Children of their father the devil? Easy to say 'I believe' (something or other); but it takes guts to live by faith. Gethsemane, Golgotha!
Faith in God is confidence in good. The faith that works, is living as if, not withstanding all appearances to the contrary, everything is, already and eternally, all right. Actually living that way, now. How else could it be proved? God is spirit, not matter. We and our Father are one. "For what is GOD but LIFE?" Psalm 18, verse 32 (Ferrar Fenton translation).
To regain lost health by faith, we must first stop making ourselves sick. The reasons for most ill health are: wrong feeding and wrong habits of body and mind.
Disease is mostly a more or less gradual degenerative process, a consequence of failure to comply with the requirements of well-being. Recovery is mostly a more or less gradual regenerative process, a reward for recognising and conforming to those requirements.
Of these processes, acute illnesses are a vital part of nature's (God's, that is) provision for averting or healing disease. Acute illnesses are "spring cleaning"; most of them. Suppressing them by surgery or poisonous drugs, too often is merely laying a foundation for recurring, or chronic, and sooner or later fatal disease.
Through people receptive and dedicated enough, and in the sufficiently responsive, the recovery process may sometimes be speeded up to a point where it becomes instantaneous.
Why, all this dis-ease? All most people need, to get or keep well is: - refrain or desist from what makes people sick. To get, or keep FIT we must TRAIN? (Horrible thought! So much easier to swallow shopfuls of poison pills!!). One lady is presently eating eighteen pills a day. And expects to continue for the rest of her life. It may not be long.
Why, suffering? Because, when we've suffered (and spent) enough, the barriers to common sense are undermined, and eventually, if we live long enough, broken down. Why do the sick want to get well? To be free to go on doing or thinking what has been making them sick? Why do they remain sick? To focus attention on themselves? To feel important? To dominate? For an easy life? For revenge? Or because the whole economy is organised to make and keep people ignorant, sick, terrified and exploitable? Rush to doctors for health; to churches for heaven. No, to become good, be good. To become well, start, now, to be well.
Janet Mason was dying of cancer. Her fifth operation showed it had gone wild; and there was no hope. It was then that she read an article I'd written in the New Zealand Mirror called "Master or Slave?" (of,or to, the unconscious). Said Janet to herself, "If what this article says is true, you don't have to die. There is a power that can heal; and there's nothing it can't heal." Lying there and thinking it over, at last Janet reached a decision: "Very good, I'm on my way." That was the turning point. Gradually strength returned. I didn't meet her till a year after her recovery was complete. Such a stir did it make in Hamilton, where she lived, that a community was formed, a large house with eight acres of ground bought, and the Masons installed, to help other seemingly hopeless sufferers. Mrs Mason administered that Home for twelve years; and till long after increasing age compelled her retirement. Her faith had made her whole.
Rogers, in Westport, was dying of cancer too. He had a growth the size of baby's head in the bowel. You could see it from across the room. Secondaries were everywhere. "One month to live," he had just been told, after his fifth operation. His tummy was scarred like a five barred gate; and he wore a leather covered plate, to keep his insides from falling out. I could only tell him what I'd told Dellow, not long before: "Give nature a chance, and the materials she needs, and she can sometimes work miracles." He was supplied with a simple diet, mainly vegetables and fruit, mostly raw, and a little wholemeal bread, cheese and nuts. Away he went; and I heard no more of him. But, exactly a year later, he called again. The growth had gone down by perhaps two-thirds. He had put on weight, and looked and felt, a different man. "Well," he grinned "what's so surprising? I knew if I got to Wanganui, I'd be O.K." Isn't that faith? Every year for seven years he called again. "No need to," he said, "I haven't missed a day at work since my second visit to you. I just felt like coming. And I have a free railway pass." He lived fifteen years. Then, I was told later, he relapsed into his former careless habits, and paid the penalty.
Benoni White wrote from hospital; "I'm ninety years old. I've got cancer. They are going to operate. I can't stand it. I know it will kill me. Please save me."
It didn't sound promising; but such an appeal couldn't be ignored. So with the Ward Sister's permission I saw the old man. A massive growth where the small intestine joins the large. I saw his X-ray films. Cancer all right. Astonishing that anything could get through. Benoni was a tiny scrap of a man; an artist, highly sensitive, and a lithograph expert. He lived alone in a rented room. Poor food. No fire. In winter, sat huddled on his bed, with a blanket round him, trying to keep warm. To make the story short, I took him to one of our Homes. Put him in a room with a bright outlook and a fire that was kept going day and night. He was given milk and oranges; and an enema every day. This he loathed. So seeing he was ninety, and sure to die anyway, we gave him a restricted diet on Nature Cure lines. But he longed for what the other patients had. So - oh well, poor boy! I examined him from time to time, and after a few days I wondered whether the hard mass was a little smaller. In three weeks there was no doubt. In three months it had gone. "You will never go back to those digs," I assured him. God doesn't heal sick people, and forget about their comfort. Something will turn up." Soon after that, a farmer and his wife who had lost touch with Benoni for years, got on his track again. They said they had a spare room with a fireplace, cords of firewood they needed help to burn, a sunny verandah, all the food he could eat - would he PLEASE come and live with them? Whose faith saved Benoni? Certainly not mine.
