Men of Miracles – Part Three
When Jesus found himself surrounded by a large crowd of followers who had gone long hours without eating, he asked his disciples whether any food was available. Andrew mentioned that there was a lad among them who had five barley loaves and two small fishes. Then, speaking for entire generations of subsequent skeptics, he said: “But what are they among so many”. (John 6:19)
The Biblical story recording the miracle of the feeding of the five thousand is viewed today as little more than a romantic story, rejected by hard-minded materialists everywhere. Yet Jesus was not the first person to feed the hungry in miraculous ways. This feat had been done by others before him, just as it has also been done by others many times since. The very fact that others have done this adds further proof to the assertion of Jesus that all things are possible to those who believe. (Mark 9:23)
For example, the Italian Saint Don Bosco (1815-1888) was credited with performing a similar feat in 1860. Bosco had founded a boarding house for deprived children in Turin, Italy. When told one day that there was insufficient food for the children under his care, Bosco remained unperturbed. He merely asked the matrons to collect whatever food was available. They collected a total of twenty bread rolls and placed them in a basket.
Despite the fact that an observer, Francisco Dalmazzo, later confirmed that nothing had been added to the basket, Don Bosco was seen to distribute a roll to each one of the three hundred children who filed past him that morning. When the last boy received his roll, the basket was found to contain the same number of rolls (twenty), as it had before the meal began.
Another example of a miraculous abundance of food occurred one Christmas morning in 1972. A Jesuit priest by the name of Father Rick Thomas assembled a group of parishioners at his Youth Centre in El Paso, Texas, and decided to visit a community of destitute people who scratched out a living by combing through the refuse at a large garbage dump, located on the outskirts of the Mexican city of Juarez.
The day dawned cold and drear on that Christmas morning, and a light rain was falling as Father Thomas and his parishioners made their way to the throng that had assembled at the dump. Unaware of exactly how many people would be present, Father Thomas brought with him enough food for about one hundred and twenty-five people. When he arrived at the dump, however, he discovered that some three hundred and fifty people had gathered.
After a brief prayer, Father Thomas explained to the assembled group that he did not have sufficient food for everyone. However, he said that they would be happy to share what little they had brought. The food was laid out on a few trestle tables. As the people began to file past the tables, each one was given a burrito, some fruit, and a thick slice of ham. When the last of the waiting crowd had received their portion, there appeared to be as much food remaining as when they had begun.
Father Thomas then invited everyone to return to the line-up and take the remainder of the food for their families. This continued until everyone present was completely satisfied, including the parishioners themselves. Yet, after this second round of distribution, there seemed even more food left than before. There was in fact so much food left that Father Thomas was able to divide it among three other orphanages in El Paso after they had left the dump.
When examples of this superabundance of food occur within a traditional Christian context, they are believed to be signs of God’s supernatural power. They are not considered to be the sort of things that ordinary men and women can perform. One man who challenged this belief was a San Francisco dentist by the name of Philip Haley. Haley was fascinated by the phenomenon of food multiplication, and began a series of experiments in the 1930’s to see if he could achieve similar results.
Haley was convinced that the power to multiply food was actually a psychic ability, possessed by Jesus and other Saints, that could be matched by anyone who was prepared to develop the necessary psychic power. He therefore began a series of experiments in his own home. He gained his first success when a few oranges, which he had previously counted, mysteriously increased in number. He subsequently conducted over twenty experiments between 1933 and 1934, when he was able to create food under conditions of strict control, in the presence of witnesses who later verified his results.
Philip Haley was one of the first modern investigators to realise that the miracles recorded in the Bible might actually have happened just as they had been reported, and that these “miracles” might be duplicated by anyone who took the trouble to develop his or her own inherent power. Taking the words of Jesus as a template, Haley made that bold leap of faith that Jesus had sought to develop in his followers.
He believed that it was possible to multiply food, and that by acting on his belief, he was convinced that he would achieve results that would justify his belief. His later success proved to him beyond any doubt the truth of Christ’s words: “According to your faith be it unto you”. (Matthew 9:29). He had cast his bread upon the waters of life, and it had returned to him multiplied.
Philip Haley proved that “miracles” are as possible today as they were in Biblical times, and that they can happen at any time. All that is needed is is the underlying requirement of faith, plus the will to persist until success is finally achieved. Our experiences in life are determined by our beliefs, as the ancient Rishis taught. When we believe that we lack the power to do such things, our experiences in life bear out these limitations.
To the hard-minded materialist who believes that the universe operates according to a strict set of laws, and that all men and women are subject to these laws, the universe will appear to be limited by such laws, just as if it had been created in this fashion by an all-powerful God. If you truly believe that you are limited in what you can do in life, then that is what you will find.
It is only when a person has the insight and the courage to challenge the validity of these limiting beliefs, that the universe becomes unshackled, and these limitations are found to be illusory. The apparent “laws of nature” exist only for those who have allowed themselves to become trapped in webs of their own thinking. To the courageous exemplars of faith, there is no limit to what can be achieved. As the American philosopher and physician John Lilly, famous for his work with dolphins, once wrote:
“What is believed to be true is true or becomes true, within limits to be found experientially or experimentally. These limits are further beliefs to be transcended. In the province of the mind, there are no limits”. (The Center of the Cyclone)
