Holy madness in healing

In my second year, I was supervised by a San Diego psychiatrist, Dr. Samuel Sandweiss, who is a devotee of Sai Baba. For two years we met and he told me stories of this man of miracles. The miracle stones shook my very foundation of reality. Sometimes i thought that Dr. Sandweiss was himself out of his mind, except he was friendly! Intelligent, and sociable, with a loving wife and four daughters.

When I finished my residency, I traveled with Sam to India to see Sai Baba. Baba deluged me with so many miracles that after four days I couldn't take any more and left on the fifth day. During that brief visit I observed and experienced Sai Baba manifesting material objects out of thin air, He manifests sacred ash, called "vibhuti," rings, medallions, even candy, with a wave of his hand. If you think this was sleight of hand, let me say that Sai Baba even materialized a three-foot-high gold brooch for his pet elephant. During the closing moments of that first trip, I was called in for a personal interview. Sai Baba knew everything about me. Now, I'm obviously interested in things that most doctors and psychiatrists shy away from, But it was as if he'd lived inside my head every moment of my life.

But we've just scratched the surface. There is no miracle known to humankind that Sai Baba has not performed. I personally know two people who had a loved one resurrected from the dead. The most astounding was a woman whose husband died while at the ashram. She refused to let anyone take the body for cremation. She told people, "Babe said he would come help him." Five days after the man's death, Sai Baba came to the room, which reeked with the odor of the decaying body. Half an hour later Sai Baba walked out of the room with the resurrected man. . .arm in arm, cheerfully greeting the wife.

Isaac Tigrett, founder of The Hard Rock Cafe, is a devotee of Sai Baba. In Isaac's younger days, he says, he was sailing around the curves of the Malibu hills in his sports car when it flew over the cliff. Sai Baba appeared in the car, held his arms around Isaac and protected him completely. The car lay demolished at the bottom of the cliff with the waves pouring over it. Isaac was unharmed.

These stories are jarring to the average American, but more so to the average psychiatrist. "Magical thinking" they call this stuff. Yet, if one dares to explore what I have said, then we are faced with more than a challenge for the theories of modern psychiatry. Psychiatry is a speck of dust compared to the infinite mystery of God. Sai Baba says, "I am God and you are God. The only difference is that I know it and you don't." And so, yes, this psychiatrist is saying that, after his puny, medical ego had been sufficiently deflated, that he, that 1, know that God is on earth, walking, talking. Is Sai Baba my guru? We, in the West, have a very hard time with the idea of a real guru. We're tough-minded individualists, and surrendering to Sai Baba has been a tough lesson. What is a guru, anyway? The word means "he or she who removes the darkness." These people are like human magnets, their power of attraction is so great. Although gurus throughout the ages have developed immense powers, these are not what attract. It is the boundless love one feels in such a presence, a love so great that one can be permanently changed.

How has this transformed my practice? Because I have witnessed miracles, I now expect miracles. It's my job to create the atmosphere in which a miracle can occur. The mere belief in miracles is like a fertilized garden. I now know that deep change need not take eight to fifteen years of psychoanalysis, four times a week. Deep change can be instantaneous, and that is a miracle. But there are "real" miracles that I have been part of in my clinical work, and I stand in awe before them. Take Carmen, an acquaintance who came to me for help after being diagnosed with lung cancer.