strickland digital

J
EIGHT KEYS TO
HEALTH AND WHOLENESS

Think, Feel, Heal

Think, Feel, Heal
EIGHT KEYS TO HEALTH AND WHOLENESS
By Rev. John A. V. Strickland
Transform Now Publications
Atlanta, Georgia

Disclaimer: The information in this book is designed to provide helpful and
interesting information. This book is not meant to be used, nor should it be
used, to diagnose or treat any medical condition. For diagnosis or treatment
of any medical problem, consult your physician. The publisher and author are
not responsible for any specific health or allergy needs that may require medical
supervision and are not liable for any damages or negative consequences
to any person reading or following the information in this book. Answers to
prayer often come through medical professionals and others in the healing
arts and sciences.
Book design: SPS Publications, Eustis, Florida
Cover photo: istockphoto/shuttertop
Unless otherwise noted, all scripture quotations are from the New Revised
Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches
of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights
reserved.
Copyright © 2018 by John A. V. Strickland
ISBN 978-1-7323505-0-2
For updates and information about Rev. John A. V. Strickland’s speaking
engagements, visit www.thinkfeelheal.com.
4

Contents
Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Overview: Part One . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Chapter 1: Give Thanks in Advance for Everything . . . 19
Chapter 2: Believe You Can Be Healed . . . . . . . 25
Chapter 3: Love Is the Answer, the Only Answer . . . . 33
Chapter 4: Will, Willful, Willing . . . . . . . . . 41
Chapter 5: Faith with Hope and Imagination . . . . . 47
Chapter 6: Imagination . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
Chapter 7: Forgiveness . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
Chapter 8: Authentic Action . . . . . . . . . . 69
Epilogue: Part One . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
Overview: Part Two . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
Chapter 9: Prayer and Meditation. . . . . . . . . 79
Chapter 10: Your Definite Chief Aim 87
Chapter 11: Seva: Unselfish Service . . . . . . . . 93
Chapter 12: The Heart-Mind Connection . . . . . . 97
5

Chapter 13: The Sympathetic Vibration . . . . . . . 103
Chapter 14: No Sick Atoms 109
Chapter 15: Clean Up Your Messes . . . . . . . . 113
Chapter 16: Write Your Own Epitaph . . . . . . . 117
Chapter 17: How I Found Healing . . . . . . . . 121
Chapter 18: Transition Is a Form of Healing. Be Ready. . . 129
Chapter 19: The Final Analysis: You Are Already Whole . . 135
Afterword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
Notes 143
6

Preface
A spiritual man had developed a reputation as a gifted healer. He
was so powerful, he raised people from the dead! Some thought he
was God incarnate. Others called him a terrible blasphemer. One
day, a temple leader rushed to him for help. Although his daughter
had just died, he still had hope the spiritual man could heal her. As
they made their way to the temple leader’s home, a woman who
had been hemorrhaging for twelve years interrupted them. She recognized
the spiritual man and rushed toward him. “If I only touch
his cloak,” she said to herself, “I will be healed.” The spiritual man
turned and said to her, “Take heart. Your faith has made you well.”
She was healed instantly. The spiritual man continued traveling to
the home of the temple leader. Upon his arrival, he took the girl by
the hand, and the girl arose. Reports of this dramatic event spread
throughout the land. 7
MN
When I was a boy, my family rescued a magnificent shaggy mutt
from the Humane Society. He developed lumps on his head. The
veterinarian diagnosed malignant brain tumors and said our dog
had only a short time to live. A family of modest means, we did not
7

THINK, FEEL, HEAL
have the financial wherewithal to pay for costly treatments. So, we
used the tools available to us: love and prayers. The tumors went
away and he lived a long and happy life. In the ensuing years, I have
seen many animals and children respond to the curative powers of
love and prayers. Something about their openness and innocence
makes them receptive to such things. As adults, past hurt, abuse,
and feelings of abandonment may keep us from easily opening ourselves
to love and prayers. Children and beloved pets can teach us a
lot about the miraculous power of faith.
MN
As a young man, I earned a scholarship to play football at Vanderbilt
University. In one game, I suffered a terrible injury to my
neck and shoulder and was partially paralyzed. My father, a medical
doctor, sent me to the finest specialists. They said I had torn
two major nerves. The doctors advised that with therapy I could
improve the movement of my arm and hands, but the nerves could
not regenerate and I would not recover. Yet, I did recover. Over the
last fifty years, I have had no impairment whatsoever. I believe my
recovery was due to two things: I meditated regularly to realize a
conscious connection with my God, and I found a warm, loving environment
where people believed in me when I was having a hard
time believing in myself.
MN
A friend was diagnosed with oral cancer. The recommended surgery
would leave her face horribly disfigured. Two days before the
operation, she was meditating with a friend and heard a clear message
from her father: “You do not have to die to earn my love.”
When she reported for surgery, the doctor ordered new X-rays to
see how far the cancer had spread. Amazingly, the cancer was com-
8

Preface
pletely gone. She has remained cancer free for the last thirty-five
years.
MN
I was called to the hospital to visit a church member who had
just been diagnosed with terminal brain cancer. I had been with
that church only a short time and did not know him very well. He
told me his story from the hospital bed. In his early adulthood, he
had been a raging alcoholic. He found Alcoholics Anonymous, sobriety,
and God. He had worked to make amends where he could.
He even built a clubhouse in his backyard for AA meetings. While
he asked for prayers for healing, he said he was at peace with his
life and ready for his next adventure on the other side. He had
a fast-growing type of cancer, and his physical body deteriorated
quickly. Throughout the days ahead, his spirits remained high. One
day, he gathered his family and friends, then asked them to say The
Lord’s Prayer aloud. After everyone said “Amen,” they opened their
eyes, and he had indeed crossed over to the other side. To me, this
too is an example of healing.
MN
Thirty years ago, when I was director of a large, worldwide prayer
ministry known simply as Silent Unity, I was invited to dedicate
a church in the Bahamas. The minister was a friend of Sir John
Marks Templeton, a world-renowned investment manager and
philanthropist.
In ancient times, healers were the ones who explained science and
the cosmos. At some point, science and religion separated. Sir Templeton
dreamed of bringing them back together. Thus, he created
the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion—presented annually
9

THINK, FEEL, HEAL
to a person making great strides in bringing spirituality and science
together.
Because of my connection to healing through prayer, Sir Templeton
asked to meet with me to discuss spiritual healing and other
ideas. He said his children’s generation knew thousands of times
more about science and the human body than he or his parents,
but they did not know much more about God. He wanted my help
researching spiritual healing. While my organization did not feel
guided to participate in a study of this nature, my conversation with
Sir Templeton stayed with me as I continued to witness the power
of prayer.
MN
My father was a medical doctor, and one of my brothers followed
in his footsteps. They were disappointed I did not become a man of
science, too. Believe me, the world is better off not having me as a
medical doctor, but that does not mean I have given up my interest
in healing, especially since I consider the recovery of my neck and
shoulder to be a spiritual healing. Sometimes in medical science, an
unexpected recovery with no apparent reason is called spontaneous
remission. I don’t care what they call it; I just want it when I am in
physical distress.
This book is more about spiritual healing than medical science.
It is more about spirituality than religious dogma. Yet our physical,
mental, emotional, and spiritual practices are all connected. I have
learned this in more than forty years of teaching the approaches to
healing outlined in this book. In the following pages, you will read
about some of the people who have been helped by these ideas.
May this book be a blessing to you or someone you love.
10

Introduction
In contemporary times, a new insight into spiritual truths has
revealed a major idea that affects health, happiness, and overall well
being. This is the big idea: consciousness precedes manifestation.
Think even bigger and realize that consciousness, in fact, causes
manifestation. Consciousness is the sum total of everything we
have thought, felt, experienced, and believed. It is what we have
hoped for, what we have loved, and what we have feared. It is the
whole energy of our being. We are, in a sense, a big bundle of magnetic
energy, drawing some things to us and repelling others. When
we experience something we don’t like, we usually try right away to
change that thing, person, or experience. We are outward-directed
and other-directed. But this is getting the cart before the horse. We
first need to work on our own consciousness. The premise of this
book is that we can change our lives by changing our consciousness.
We effect change by working from the inside out, not vice versa.
We are going to start with five components of a healing consciousness,
which are Belief, Love, Will, Faith, and Forgiveness.
We will expand and modify these simple concepts to include the
following eight ideas: Thanks in Advance, Belief, Love, Willingness,
Faith, Imagination, Forgiveness, and Authentic Action. These
eight principles, when understood and applied, will change your
consciousness, body, and experiences in this physical world.
11

THINK, FEEL, HEAL
12

An Overview of Part One
THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF HEALING
In the mid-1970s, I began studying the metaphysics of the Gospels
with Rev. Ed Rabel, one of my seminary teachers. With extraordinary
spiritual insight, he taught us the Bible was written on
different levels, from the literal to the metaphysical. That is, in addition
to being historical, the Bible is symbolic and allegorical. Have
you ever picked up a book you read years ago and found new and
deeper meanings in it? After studying with Rev. Rabel and contemplating
his insights, I found when I again read the Bible, it took on
an entirely new and deeper meaning.
Rev. Rabel defined metaphysics as, “That which is true of the interior
life of all individuals.” In academia, metaphysics is defined as,
“A division of philosophy that is concerned with the fundamental
nature of reality and being that includes ontology, cosmology, and
often epistemology.” 2 For our purposes, we are going to stick with
Rev. Rabel’s definition in which the Bible is the textbook for the
soul’s unfolding. The Bible is less about ancient history and more
about your history and mine, he said, explaining its stories apply to
everyone, whether Jewish, Christian, or agnostic. Rev. Rabel was
13

THINK, FEEL, HEAL
a mystic, and I often wondered where he came up with his ideas.
Through his teaching, I was inspired to dig more deeply and learn
more about my own soul.
As Rev. Rabel looked for a spiritual approach to healing, he concluded
one must either connect with someone with a healing consciousness
or develop one’s own healing consciousness. For our purposes,
consciousness is the sum total of all our thoughts, feelings,
impressions, attitudes, beliefs, wants, hopes, imaginings, loves, and
fears. We have built our consciousness from the time we were born,
perhaps even earlier, being conscious in our mother’s womb. We
receive, experience, and express ideas and things according to what
is in our consciousness. When we do not like our lives, we often try
to change something or someone outside of us, usually with little
success.
For example, studies show that people who win or inherit a large
sum of money are not any happier after receiving the money than
they were before. If we don’t have a consciousness of abundance,
we don’t know what to do with the money when we get it. If we
don’t have a consciousness of loving relationships, even if we should
somehow find the perfect mate, we still won’t be happy. If we exercise,
rest, meditate, take supplements, get medical treatments, have
chiropractic adjustments, and ingest healing herbs, we still will not
achieve healing without a consciousness of health.
From Rev. Rabel’s studies of the healing miracles in the Gospels,
he identified five components of a healing consciousness. He
said we could make contact with someone who has a healing consciousness,
as did the woman in the story from the ninth chapter of
the Gospel of Matthew, or we could develop our own healing consciousness.
Since we don’t really know what is in the consciousness
of another, it is better to develop our own.
14

The Consciousness of Healing
I hope you will read the entire book, but I am going to tell you
up front the components of a healing consciousness according to
Rev. Rabel. They are Belief, Love, Will, Faith, and Forgiveness.
One or more of these components appear in every healing miracle.
As I teach these five principles in lectures, classes, and workshops
around the United States, many people report amazing experiences
of renewed health. Rev. Rabel believed developing a healing consciousness
was also the how-to of healing. Being a good student,
I accepted his teachings and taught it myself. In time, however, I
began to see there is more to healing than this five-part model.
Rev. Rabel never wanted to write a book because he believed it
was important to reserve the right to change his mind. I feel certain
if Rev. Rabel were alive today, he would give his blessing to
the principles I have added. Jesus gave thanks before the desired
demonstration. When He raised his friend Lazarus from the dead,
He began by giving thanks. He was giving thanks even before the
demonstration.
Rev. Rabel saw in the Gospel narrative of the healing miracle
at the pool at Bethesda the man had to have the will to be well.
Using one’s power of will is essential to healing. However, I believe
healing needs more than human, ego-driven willpower—it requires
a willingness toward Spirit. A strong will can get us lots of things
in life, but it can also cause lots of challenges for us in our bodies,
emotions, and relationships. Thus, I prefer to call the power willingness.
An idea from Charles Fillmore (1854–1948), a true American
mystic, will help us grow our healing consciousness. Mr. Fillmore
believed faith was a spiritual gift to all human beings and it had a
twin: imagination. You can use your power of imagination to visualize
health and wholeness (and any other good thing you desire).
15

THINK, FEEL, HEAL
All of us use imagination every day, but most imagine things unconsciously.
Consciously direct your imagination and add it to faith,
and you are well on the way to well-being.
I have also concluded in addition to having a consciousness of
healing, one needs to take authentic action. Jesus instructed a blind
man to wash the clay out of his eyes in order to see (see the ninth
chapter of the Gospel of John). The man had to do something.
Let me share a deeply personal story. I visited a dear friend in
the hospital before his surgery and sat with his family during the
operation. After the several-hour operation, the surgeon was able
to get most of the tumor, but not all. The operation gave the man a
couple more years. He told me he knew he should have gone in for
checkups much earlier, but he kept putting it off. He did not blame
himself or get depressed. He lived the rest of his life with calmness
and equanimity. He remained a kind, positive, and generous man.
He advised everyone he knew to take authentic action and have
regular checkups. This kind of authentic action may save your life.
Certainly, a lot of us are alive today because we followed the advice
of the medical profession and had regular checkups. When we work
on our consciousness, we ought not ignore common sense or advice
from the medical profession. The blind man in the story from the
Gospel of Matthew did as he was told and his sight was restored.
Sometimes, Jesus would speak a word of healing or lay His hands
on someone, and at other times the person had to do something in
order to be well.
In Part One of our book, we expand our components of a healing
consciousness by several more ideas. We start with five basic
ideas, then grow our formula to eight: Give Thanks in Advance,
Believe You Can Be Healed and Are Being Healed, Love Yourself
and Everyone in Your Life, Be Willing to Be Totally Healed, Have
16

The Consciousness of Healing
Faith that You Are Being Healed, Use Your Imagination to Visualize
Your Complete Healing, Forgive Everyone and Everything,
Including Yourself, and Take Authentic Action. That is our plan for
wholeness and well-being. In Part Two, we will explore more ways
to be well. If you truly work all the ideas in Part One, you will find
wholeness. If you add the ideas in Part Two, you will be amazed at
the high level of your well-being.
17

THINK, FEEL, HEAL
18

Chapter 1
GIVE THANKS IN ADVANCE FOR EVERYTHING
Well-being is an amazing combination of physical, emotional,
mental, and spiritual wellness. Once, I was serving in a ministry
in which two young women were working with a psychiatrist
who used hypnotherapy to lose weight. They loved our church and
encouraged this doctor, a retired Armed Services psychiatrist, to
come for a visit. Initially, he declined, saying, “Most of the people
I worked with in the Army had problems caused by their religion.”
They said to him, “But my church is different.”
He countered, “Everyone says that about their church.”
They persisted: “Just come one time. If you don’t like it, you don’t
have to go back, and we will quit the church, too.”
He came. He loved it. He stayed and became one of the largest
contributors. I am not intent on criticizing anyone’s religion, but
I do think that a lot of challenges arise out of one’s feelings of
inadequacy and lack of healthy self-love. Our spiritual beliefs, attitudes,
self-concepts, and beliefs about others, the world, and even
God have a profound effect on our well-being. I don’t know if the
19

THINK, FEEL, HEAL
ideas in this book will bring you total, complete, pain-free, guiltfree
wellness, but I do know practicing these ideas will push your
total being toward greater wellness and happiness in life.
We start with a surprising idea: Give thanks in advance for everything.
From an early age, most of us were taught to say thank you
when someone gave us a present or did something nice for us. We
received a gift first, then we gave thanks. How can giving thanks
for what we desire help us be well, or happy, or prosperous? The
universe is made up mostly of energy. Some would say that it is all
energy. We are, at the very least, mostly energy, and energy responds
to our mental, emotional, and spiritual states. We draw experiences,
people, ideas, and even things to ourselves accordingly. Have you
ever walked into a room and noticed you were almost immediately
drawn to some people and repelled by others? It’s because of your
energy. I have been told by real estate professionals that a prospective
buyer makes up his or her mind about a home within fifteen
or twenty seconds after entering. Sights, sounds, or scents may influence
the decision, but in general, the prospective buyer senses
the energy of the house. Do you remember having anxiety about a
school exam and feeling sick to your stomach? It is about energy.
One of the greatest attitudes to adopt for anything good you
desire, including healing, is gratitude. In more than four decades
of ministry, I have found the happiest and healthiest people I encountered
were those who adopted an attitude of gratitude. They
were grateful for sunrises and sunsets, for sunny skies and rain, for
just about everything. The people who were most unhappy and unhealthy
focused their energy on what they did not have, the failures
they experienced, and the times when people mistreated them.
Their attitude of unhappiness and ingratitude continued to create
reasons to be unhappy and ungrateful, and their health suffered.
20

Give Thanks in Advance for Everything
When you order a meal at a restaurant, you don’t ask for something
you don’t like. Think of the universe as a server in a cosmic restaurant,
standing at your table waiting to take your order. A grateful
attitude is like ordering our favorite meal, well-prepared and delivered
by a kind, attentive waiter. Your attitude will bring you something
energetically compatible.
I knew a kind, gentle, positive, loving minister whose church was
intentionally set on fire. What a horrible thing to happen! While
there was a lot of upset and fear among the members, this minister
did not change his attitude. He knew God and the universe
were on his side. They kept the church together for a year or so in
temporary quarters. Then, another congregation decided to move
and put their church up for sale. My friend’s congregation had the
money to purchase the soon-to-be vacated church. It turned out to
be much better than the one which had been destroyed. Even if we
have positive, grateful attitudes, we still may have health challenges
and all sorts of bad things happen. However, our attitudes will help
us through the difficult times and the health challenges, and our
attitudes will draw to us compatible experiences.
In the mid-1970s while attending seminary, I volunteered at the
Jackson County Jail and the Kansas State Penitentiary. One day in
the seminary’s bookstore, I came across an interesting title, Prison to
Praise, by Merlin R. Carothers, who had been serving a prison sentence
for a felony. Somehow, behind bars, he discovered a personal
relationship with God and caught the secret of a happy, healthy life:
Give praise every day for everything in this life. Praise and thanksgiving
are not literally the same, but they are certainly related.
So, let’s add the idea of praise to the idea of giving thanks in advance
of what we sincerely desire. Rev. Carothers began to praise
God when he was healthy, sick, hungry, full, treated well by the
21

Pages22–120notavailableinsample.

Chapter 17
HOW I FOUND HEALING
One of the courses I took as a freshman in college was Psychology
101. In the first class the professor told us we had a choice:
either we could write a term paper or we could be guinea pigs for
senior and graduate students. I and most of my classmates chose
the latter. I was a subject in all sorts of experiments. One required
me to be interviewed on various topics by a graduate student in
front of his professor and classmates. That was simple enough until
the graduate student asked me, “What was your favorite childhood
story?” I felt my blood pressure and temperature rising. Then he
expanded on the question. “Or who was your favorite super hero?”
I was a rough-and-tumble football player. I played linebacker, and
my coaches told me to play with reckless abandon. That was totally
out of character for me, but I played that way anyway. The graduate
student did not realize he had let me off the hook by asking about
my favorite super hero. I let out an inaudible (I hoped) sigh and
said, “Superman.” The audience nodded, and I could almost hear
them saying, “Well, of course. What would you expect a linebacker
to say?”
121

THINK, FEEL, HEAL
Truth be told, my favorite childhood story was The Contented Little
Pussy Cat by Frances Ruth Keller. That story was too soft, warm, and
cuddly for me, a freshman linebacker, to acknowledge to a class full
of psychology graduate students. The story of my life, in my opinion,
had been about a little guy who was content, but unlike the pussy cat
in the story, I was convinced by friends and by the slings and arrows
of outrageous fortune to be discontent. I was on the journey back to
contentment. I learned that no matter what others think, I can be
content. No matter what others do or do not do, I can be content.
No matter what happens to my body, I can be content.
I was a content little boy, but a few years after I was introduced
to that sweet book my family fell apart. Suddenly, my father left
my mother, my brothers, and me to fend for ourselves. It was scary.
Money was scarce and sometimes we did not know where our
next meal would come from. Fortunately, our nice house in a nice
neighborhood with good public schools nearby was fully paid for
due to my mother’s inheritance. For some reason, my little-boy self
thought our father had left and money was scarce because I was
inadequate. So, I became an overachiever. I did very well in school
and athletics. I did not realize at the time that I was trying to earn
the love of father figures—my teachers and coaches. I am grateful
I had so many good coaches and teachers, but I became a people
pleaser. I had lost my sense of self and self-worth.
In my senior year of high school, I was an all-state football player
and a scholar. My mother only saw me play in one football game
in high school and that was when I was a sophomore. I scored the
winning touchdown in that game. Mother’s friends had to point
out to her that I was the one who scored that touchdown. She knew
little about sports and worked hard to put food on the table and
keep my brothers and me well clothed. I called her at work one day
122

How I Found Healing
to ask her to take me to a hotel downtown, where I would be signing
a full scholarship to a fine university. She was both proud and
surprised because she did not really know about my athletic prowess.
Toward the end of my senior year, my mother died of cancer. I
had to get a legal guardian in order to finish school. I completed the
year successfully as valedictorian and most outstanding all-around
student.
I was in no mental or emotional condition to go away to college
to play football in the Southeastern Conference. I had a girlfriend
who was very important to me, and her family had kind of adopted
me. From the moment I arrived at college, I hated it. The coaches
were not like my father figures in high school. This was big business
and they rode me pretty hard. Depression sank in. While my
relationship with my girlfriend grew more difficult, I kept trying
to please my coaches. Eventually, I earned a starting position. This
was my first and last game as a starter on the freshman team of a
major university. I sustained a serious injury to my neck and right
shoulder, but I would not take myself out of the game. “I will prove
myself worthy,” I thought. Then, while favoring the other shoulder,
I injured it. I left the game, never to return.
The following morning, I called the coach and told him I was
quitting the team and dropping out of school. I felt horrible. I felt I
had overcome all odds to be a success and now I was a quitter. I had
failed miserably. I went home to Atlanta, totally overwhelmed and
defeated. I was told my right shoulder was permanently injured.
The doctors said, “With physical therapy it will be more functional,
but the injury is so severe you will never totally recover.”
I went home to lick my wounds. I broke up with my girlfriend
and lost her and her family as my support system. I felt alone, hopeless,
and helpless. Then I remembered how I loved the little church
123

THINK, FEEL, HEAL
where my mother had dragged my brothers and me to Sunday services.
It was positive, warm, and loving. I showed back up in church,
and nobody there really cared if I was a football player or a scholar.
I enrolled at Georgia State University in Atlanta, and suddenly
found a warm home there. I was no longer a hero, but Georgia State
and my church didn’t mind. They didn’t care about my past failures
and that I had quit my previous school and football team. I am truly
grateful for them welcoming me as I was—a college freshman.
One of the interesting things about my childhood church is that
we meditated. Back in the 1970s that was pretty weird in Atlanta,
Georgia. During the Sunday service we would have a guided meditation
for about five to eight minutes. In classes and group meetings
we meditated for longer periods. I found that for eight minutes a
week I was not feeling miserable, wounded, or less than a human
being. I kept going back and discovered those eight minutes had
grown to thirty. As I kept going, those minutes grew. Meditation
allowed me to consciously connect with my Source, my God, my
Creator. During meditation, I was not thinking about how lost,
hopeless, and helpless I was. I was letting go and letting God be
God in me and through me. After about nine months, I woke up
one morning and said to myself, “Hey, I am not feeling miserable!
What am I feeling? I am feeling good!” At that moment I knew my
injury was completely healed.
I had not been consciously trying to find healing. I had not been
doing therapy, but I had been meditating, and not just in church. I
got tapes and instruction in the process of meditation. I went to a
church that was warm and loving, and I went to a university that
was warm and loving. Georgia State is a downtown, urban school.
In those days, we had about 20,000 to 24,000 students, about half of
whom went to night school. More than fifty percent of the students
124

How I Found Healing
were married and about eighty percent worked. The average age was
about twenty-seven. These were people who valued a higher education
and were willing to work hard to get a degree or advanced
degree. It had a small campus footprint then, and no dorms. Yet it
became my home, my alma mater. I made good grades. I was inducted
into honor societies, and I was friends with the deans.
To what do I attribute my healing? First, I stopped dwelling on
the injury. Second, I found a warm, nurturing environment both at
school and at church. I want to particularly focus on the first item.
Emmet Fox, a famous metaphysical spiritual leader in the twentieth
century, held Sunday services for overflow crowds in Carnegie
Hall. His book The Sermon on the Mount gives tremendous practical
insights into the deeper meanings found in Jesus’s Sermon on the
Mount. I highly recommend this book to anyone seeking to understand
the esoteric teachings of Jesus.
Dr. Fox wrote on a number of other topics. One of his articles,
which you can find online, is “The Golden Key.” This has been a
life changer for me and for millions of others. He calls the Golden
Key scientific prayer. What does he mean by the term scientific? If
something is scientific, it should be replicable by others. In a scientific
experiment, if one establishes the same conditions, uses the
same substance, and follows the same steps, the results should be
the same. Fox taught that if you follow the methods prescribed in
“The Golden Key,” you should get the same results. What is Fox’s
Golden Key? He says to stop thinking about the problem and think
about God instead. That’s it. It is that simple. We cannot hold two
thoughts in mind at the same time. It is true that our minds can flip
back and forth from one thought to another, but we can only hold
one thought at a time.
125

THINK, FEEL, HEAL
The basic rule of consciousness is called the Law of Mind Action.
Simply stated, that law is, “Thoughts held in mind produce in the
outer after their kind.” This is one of the most important ideas you
can ever learn about manifesting healing, happiness, abundance,
love, or anything else your heart truly desires. A wise person has said,
“A true desire is really God tapping on your heart to let you know
that God has something good in store for you.” At the time Dr. Fox
was preaching and writing, the emphasis in the metaphysical spiritual
community was on the power of the mind. New insights have
revealed to us that it is about both the mind and the heart. Our
thinking and feeling must work together. Therefore, I would restate
the Law of Mind Action like this: “Thoughts and feelings held in
heart and mind produce in the outer after their kind.” Instead of
just thinking about God and what you believe about God, add what
you feel about God. There is an old story about a young boy who
was frightened by a thunderstorm and cried out for his mother. She
came to him to comfort him and asked, “Don’t you believe God is
here with you?” He replied, “Yes, but sometimes I need God with
skin on!” He needed the physical presence of his mother to remind
him that God is always with him. Sometimes we need God with
skin on.
Let’s go back to my dark night of the soul when I decided to give
up my dream. A man named Frank Hart Smith stayed with me the
whole night in my dorm room to make sure I was going to be okay.
I will be forever grateful for this particular God with skin on who
was there when the thunderstorms in my soul were too much for
me to take. Years later, when I was about to graduate from seminary
and after I had passed my final exams, I wrote to him. “You
probably don’t remember me,” I said, “but you stayed with me all
night during my dark night of the soul. I just want you to know that
126

How I Found Healing
I am okay. Next week I will be graduating from seminary and be
ordained.” He telephoned the seminary, and somehow they found
me and connected me on the call. He said, “John, this is Frank Hart
Smith, and I want you to know that I am angry with you.”
I was shocked. “Why is that?”
He said, “How did you think I could ever forget you?”
I hadn’t realized how deeply he cared about a young man in desperate
physical and emotional pain. I can see now that when I had
bottomed out and did not think I could go on, God provided Frank
Hart Smith to be God with skin on—the help I needed, and that
was the beginning of my healing.
After my healing was complete, late in my freshman year of college,
I knew what my mission was. I wanted to help people in the
way I had been helped. I was to love those who could not love
themselves, to believe in those who could not believe in themselves,
to be God in a skin suit to the best of my ability. I don’t believe my
healing was complete when my arm and neck recovered. In some
ways, the healing happened in my mind and heart before my body
got the message. In some other ways, the healing is still in process
as I share what I know about healing. This book is part of my healing
process. I hope it is part of yours!
127

THINK, FEEL, HEAL
128

Chapter 18
TRANSITION IS A FORM OF HEALING. BE READY.
Many years ago, I heard a lecture by Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross,
the Swiss psychiatrist, who had recently written her seminal work,
On Death and Dying. She was a remarkable woman who pioneered
care for those who were dying. One of my recollections is that she
said something to the effect of, “Dying is un-American.” She knew
we did not deal well with it. Today, I think we do much better. I am
so grateful for the work of hospice. I have often visited people who
are being cared for and loved as they approach their transition.
When my father-in-law was in hospice, I took my small dog to
see him. Duke was welcomed by Dale and the hospice workers.
We began calling my dog Rev. Duke, Minister of Unconditional
Love. He was never certified as a service dog, but he was welcomed
anyway. He used to sleep on my father-in-law’s legs as he watched
television. Hospitals, which are rightfully concerned about germs
and infection, have not been as open to having animals for visits,
but Duke and Dale had a great time together. I believe Dr. Kübler-
Ross’s work and lectures have helped change the world, and were
particularly influential in the United States.
129

THINK, FEEL, HEAL
In my family and spiritual tradition, we often refer to the process
of dying as making one’s transition. I believe death is not an end
but a graduation. Dr. Kübler-Ross observed that dying was sometimes
thought of as failure or giving up. In some spiritual traditions,
people believe the person dying must have displeased God or
must have done something wrong. We need to get over this idea.
Dr. Kübler-Ross spoke of the olden days when a person knew he
was near death. That person would call the family and close friends
together so they could share their goodbyes and farewells. In more
recent times, terminally ill people were sequestered in sterile hospitals.
I have a colleague who shared about his mother-in-law’s passing.
He and his wife would crawl into bed with the dying woman to
hold her, comfort her, and weep together. I must confess I thought
that was strange when I first heard about it. In time I saw the beauty
and love in that act. Another colleague sent me a letter telling me
that he was dying. He used bright-colored ink and started the letter
with these words, “Hey John! Guess what?! I’m dying and I am
going to die consciously!” He did. The people who die consciously,
filled with light and love, are dying in a healthy way. They are making
their transition to the next life.
I do not intend to spend much time on theological points of view.
For some, if one has the right religion one gets into heaven after
death. My position is that God and the heavenly afterlife are big
enough for all of us, but I wish to share my mother’s point of view,
which I ultimately adopted. She believed that life was an endless
school. We have lessons to learn in life, and when we learn them
we graduate to the next life. If we don’t learn them in this life, we
repeat the course in the next life. When I was young, miserable, and
feeling like a complete failure, I wanted to give up and make my
transition. Then I thought about my mother’s theology and deter-
130

Transition Is a Form of Healing: Be Ready
mined that it made sense to me. I decided I would rather learn my
lessons now than have to repeat the course.
I was once invited to be on a panel with others who have suffered
from depression. The audience was composed of psychiatrists,
psychologists, psychiatric nurses, and other mental health professionals.
They wanted to know what was most important to me in
getting over my depression. I told them of my mother’s spiritual
philosophy and how it inspired me to stop feeling sorry for myself,
to seek help, and get on with my life. Having suffered from depression
has helped me be a better minister to others. Do I like it when
I have bouts of depression? Of course not, but I have this philosophy:
Whatever life hands you, make the most of it and use it to
make the world better! Can I say my spiritual philosophy is correct
and better than any other spiritual philosophy? I cannot. I can only
say that having my belief has helped me live my life better and has
helped me help others live their lives better.
A new person visiting my church came through the receiving line
at the end of the service. She said, “Hi, my name is Jane [not her
real name], and I am dying. I wanted to check you out to see if you
could do my service after I die. I will make an appointment and
see you next week.” I thought to myself, “Oh, boy. This is going to
be a doozy of a meeting!” She came, and the meeting was, in fact, a
doozy, but in a good way. Her doctors had told her that her illness
was terminal and she only had a short time to live. She had asked
for prayers for healing, but she was getting ready for her transition.
She wanted to make preparations for her service. She told me I
had passed her test and I could do her service. Then, she proceeded
to tell me jokes about death and dying. It was her way of coping,
she said. So, I did the right thing. I told her jokes about death and
dying. Hers were much better. A month or two passed by and I got
131

THINK, FEEL, HEAL
a call around midnight from her son. He apologized for calling at
such a late hour, but his mother had asked to see me, as she felt the
time of transition was near. I was instructed to go to the hospital at
the emergency room entrance. He would meet me there.
When I arrived, he again apologized, and I told him the call was
totally appropriate. His mother had told him she was dying. He
questioned her, “How do you know?”
She replied, “It’s my body. I know these things.” I told him his
mother had a unique sense of humor, and he said, “Yeah—it’s sick,
isn’t it?” I said, “No, actually it is quite healthy.” When I got to her
room, her other son was there and she had an oxygen mask on. She
looked as if the end were only moments away. She opened her eyes
and motioned me over to her bedside. Then she took off the oxygen
mask, and I leaned close to her lips so I could hear what I believed
would be her last words. She told me another joke about death and
dying! Then her ex-husband walked in, and I had a fearful thought
there would be some kind of argument. But, no, that was not the
case. She thanked him for coming to see her, and then said, “I just
want to thank you for giving me these wonderful sons.”
She did not make her transition that night. That came a few days
later, but she had one more joke for us. Her service was held at
a lovely chapel on a hillside in a beautiful cemetery. The sky was
blue. The temperature was around seventy degrees. There was a gentle
breeze. When the service concluded, we walked down the hill
to her grave for the interment. A small cloud came to where we
were standing and poured buckets of rain on us! We all figured that
somehow Jane had arranged for the weather to play a joke on us. It
was the perfect ending of a lovely service for a healthy person who
was graduating from this life experience to the next.
A long time ago, I heard a lecture on humor by psychiatrist Christian
Hageseth III. He wrote a book titled A Laughing Place, which
132

Transition Is a Form of Healing: Be Ready
I have loved and used frequently in my ministry. At the end of the
book he shares some Positive Humor Affirmations. Let me share
just a few of them.
I am determined to use my humor for positive, loving purposes
only. I will take myself lightly, even though I take my work in life
seriously. I will not seek to be offended. When in doubt, I choose
to see others as meaning well. I will practice positive paranoia.
(My definition of positive paranoia is that I believe the world is
not out to get me, but to give me a blessing!) In adversity I will
use humor to cope, to survive, and to grow. On the day of my
death I will look back and know that I laughed fully and well. 10
I want to share one more story of transition, this one about a
friend’s father. He had his own church and his own minister. This
other minister was to do the bulk of the funeral message, and I was
to share a few remarks. This other minister had spent a good deal
of time with Frank (not his real name) toward the end of his life.
Frank was a man of faith. He loved God and he loved his neighbor
as himself. He loved his wife, his children, and extended family. He
lived long and well and provided well for his family. He trusted his
God and was not afraid of dying. In fact, his minister emphasized
that Frank had told him a number of times he was ready. He was at
peace. His body had served him well for a long time, but now was
the time to let go and transition to a new life in a new world. He
was ready.
I want to say here that I believe in healing. I believe God is for
healing. I believe the ideas I have shared will help us find healing.
That said, we shall make our transitions at some time. Let us live
our lives fully, follow our dreams, love one another, and do, to the
best of our abilities and understanding, those things that promote
good health and longevity. When the time comes to cross over to
the other side, may we be ready.
133

THINK, FEEL, HEAL
134

Chapter 19
THE FINAL ANALYSIS: YOU ARE ALREADY WHOLE
In this final chapter I invite you to play a little game with me,
the What If game. I ask you this: what if you are already perfectly
whole and well? What if you are already that which you have been
seeking? What if you have all you need to be strong, happy, and
prosperous, with incredibly loving, mutually fulfilling relationships?
What if you already have all you could possibly need?
I have friends whose parents lived in Montana in a cabin that was
heated only by a wood-burning stove. The cabin had no air conditioning,
either. Now this was some time ago, in the twentieth century,
but in my lifetime. Their children had moved away, prospered,
and were living good lives. They worried about their parents as they
aged. The parents loved their home and had no intention of leaving
it. So, the children decided to give their parents the gift of a modern
HVAC system, completely installed, fully paid for. However, the
parents could not understand the concept of a modern thermostat.
All they had to do was set the thermostat to the desired temperature
and it would take care of everything, but they were used to
putting more logs in the stove when they were cold and opening
135

THINK, FEEL, HEAL
up the doors and windows when they were hot. So, in the winter
they would turn the thermostat all the way up to its highest setting
until they got too hot, then open windows and doors. (My modern,
twenty-first-century thermostat watches my comings and goings.
It senses the times of day when I need the house to be warmer or
cooler and adjusts itself accordingly. It’s even more sophisticated
than the twentieth-century thermostat.) While this couple had a
thermostat that would take care of their need for warmth or cooling,
they continued to labor needlessly to make their home comfortable.
When it came to HVAC systems, they had everything they could
want or need. They just didn’t know it. What if you have everything
you could want or need but you just didn’t know it?
Born in 1952, I consider myself modern. As a child, I learned
what a checking account is and how to deposit money and write
checks. Some people prefer to live the old-fashioned way, especially
when it comes to trusting city folks. I know a story of a couple who
lived off the land, way out in the country. One day, the husband
died. A few weeks later, a man from an insurance company went to
the house to present the widow with a large check. Although the
insurance money would cover her expenses for the rest of her life,
she continued to live in poverty. She thought the outsider with a
fancy suit who arrived in a fancy automobile was a con man. She
could not believe that all she had to do was go to a bank, sign the
back of the check, and the money would be hers. What if you just
had to trust the universe in order to have everything your heart
sincerely desires?
I am partly Scottish by ancestry. I did not know this until my
father made his transition. At his memorial, some of the relatives,
whom I had not seen in more than forty years, said to me, “You
look a lot like your father. You and he are both more Nesbit than
136

The Final Analysis: You Are Already Whole
you are Strickland.” The Nesbits were from southern Scotland and
the Stricklands were from northern England. The way I figure it
is that somebody snuck across the border and found a wife. A few
years ago, one of my brothers and I visited Scotland. In the lovely
city of Edinburgh, we found a pub called Filthy Richard’s. We
inquired about the name and were told that there had been a person
who lived on the street, sometimes cleaning up the alleyways
and emptying the trash cans. He was always filthy, but at the end
of the evening, the restaurants and pubs would give their leftovers
to him. Eventually, Richard disappeared. A man came looking for
him because he had inherited a great sum of money from a relative
he never knew he had. He died penniless, when all the time great
wealth was looking for him. What if your wealth and health are
looking for you?
As a young minister, I served a great congregation in Jacksonville,
Florida. I had drawn some young people to the church who thought
of me as more than their minister. I was their friend and they were
my friends. One day, they invited me to go tubing with them on the
Ichetucknee River. It sounded delightful to me, but there was one
hitch. They were going on Sunday morning and, of course, Sunday
morning was a work day for me. They were embarrassed when they
remembered I was a minister!
Anyway, they went tubing, and I preached on Sunday morning.
One fellow who went with them was most fearful. He had grown
up in New York City and had never learned to swim. Nonetheless,
he was convinced to go tubing. There were no life vests where they
rented the inner tubes. The New Yorker became more fearful. As
they floated down the river, his tube sprang a leak. You know where
I am going with this, don’t you? Yes, the man in the leaky tube began
to scream for help. He was panicking. He was sure he would
137

THINK, FEEL, HEAL
die. His fears had come true. This is the way fear works. We find
these sage words from the Old Testament: “Truly the thing that I
fear comes upon me, and what I dread befalls me. I am not at ease,
nor am I quiet; I have no rest; but trouble comes.” ( Job 3:25–26)
This fearful man in the leaking inner tube manifested the thing he
feared. He was neither at ease nor was he quiet. Trouble came to
him, but his life was not done. Two men grabbed him by the shoulders
and shook him until he stopped screaming. One of them, in a
firm and loud voice, said, “Just stand up!” The water was only a few
feet deep and it was flowing very slowly. To be saved from what he
believed was his watery grave, he only needed to stand up! He did
and the story had a happy ending. I think even more important is
that the man then decided to go to the YMCA and take swimming
lessons! Do you remember the story about the healing at the pool at
Bethesda, which we discussed in an earlier chapter? What did the
Man from Nazareth say to the man who decided he wanted to be
healed? “Stand up, take your mat, and walk.” The man did just that.
What if all you need to be well, happy, and fulfilled is to stand up?
In the holy book from the Abrahamic religions, there is a familiar
creation story from Genesis 1:1–3: “In the beginning when God
created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and
darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept
over the face of the waters. Then God said….” Let’s just stop right
there. In the beginning there was God, the self-existent one and
the only one, but God is a Creator God, so God decides to create.
What is the stuff of creation? We might think of this as creation ex
nihilo, or creation out of nothing. God created out of nothing, or so
it would seem, but I don’t think that is exactly correct. God created
using God material or God stuff. Everything is created out of Godstuff.
The wind from God is thought of as the Holy Spirit. God’s
138

The Final Analysis: You Are Already Whole
breath is moving across the unformed God stuff, and God then
begins to speak the words of creation. In Genesis, chapter two, we
find another creation story. I want to draw your attention particularly
to the seventh verse: “. . . then the Lord God formed man from
the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath
of life; and the man became a living being . . . ” So human beings
were created by the self-existent Creator God who breathed (with
God-breath) life (God-life) into the dust (which is God-dust or
God-stuff ) and voilà! human beings had life! You and I are direct
descendants from God.
I had a wonderful realization when I was six years old at Camp
Celo, a Quaker camp in North Carolina. It suddenly came to me
like a bolt of lightning: All human beings are related! Yes! I told everyone
who would listen, and they thought, “How cute, little Johnny
has figured out that we are all related!” It took a while longer,
say twenty or thirty years, to realize that we are all descended from
God, created in God’s image and likeness and endowed with God
powers! We are God-beings. The Master Teacher, Elder Brother,
and Way-shower tried to tell us we are already what we have been
seeking to be. He said, “Therefore, I tell you, do not worry about
your life.” (Matt. 6:25) “You are the salt of the earth.” (Matt. 5:13)
“You are the light of the world.” (Matt. 5:14) “Is it not written in
your law, ‘I said, you are gods?’” ( John 10:34) Finally, “Very truly, I
tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I
do and, in fact, will do greater works that these. . . .” ( John 14:12)
The message is that we are already everything we have been
thinking because we are created by God. The big challenge is that
we have been asleep to the truth of who and what we really are. We
have been hypnotized by life, in a sense, into believing we are less
than good. We can’t do much, and we have to live sickly, unhappy,
139

THINK, FEEL, HEAL
meager lives. What I have attempted to do is share truths I believe
will awaken you to your imprisoned splendor. I want you to know
you are powerful. You are whole. You have everything you need
within you, not because of anything you have done or earned, but
because you are beloved of God. As God’s beloved child you have a
right to be well. I bless you, my friend. May you know the truth of
who you are, and may that truth set you free from illness, unhappiness,
and any form of lack. This is the truth: you are already that
which you have been seeking.
140

Afterword
Many years ago, an older friend of mine said, “I had never read the
Bible cover to cover. I made the intention to do so and began my
task. When I got to the point where I read, ‘In the beginning God’
(KJV Gen. 1:1), I stopped. I needed to ponder the meaning and importance
of the beginning phrase in the Bible. I pondered this passage
for fifteen years and then I wrote a book on it.” Unfortunately,
I never got to read that book. I was inspired by the understanding of
a seminary professor back in the mid-1970s. He perceived from his
study of the Gospel account of Jesus’s healing miracles that there
were five components of what he called “a healing consciousness.”
I was excited about his teaching. For years I taught Rev. Ed Rabel’s
ideas, and they were well received. Over time I added two more
steps, plus the idea of taking authentic action. Later I added more
ideas I believe will help one find health and happiness. I have been
saying for many more than fifteen years that I was going to write a
book on these ideas, but with ministerial duties as my top priority,
I did not find or make the time to do so.
I had a teacher and coach who was fond of saying, “Successful
people do what they say they will do.” Her wisdom has stuck with
141

THINK, FEEL, HEAL
me. So, when I retired from full-time pulpit ministry, I decided to
do what I had been saying I would do. I wrote the book Think, Feel,
Heal.
I am grateful to all the people who encouraged me to write this
book, and I am grateful to you, dear reader, for taking the time to
read and consider these ideas. May they give you hope and some
fresh ideas about how you, too, can find healing.
142

Notes
1. These words are a paraphrase of the Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 9,
verses 18–26.
2. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary, 2016.
3. Norman Cousins, “Anatomy of an Illness (As Perceived by the Patient),”
New England Journal of Medicine 295 (December 32, 1976):
1458–1463.
4. Norman Cousins, Anatomy of an Illness as Perceived by the Patient
(New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1979).
5. Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1976),
8–9.
6. Gerald G. Jampolsky, M.D., and Diane Cirincione, Ph.D., Mini
Course for Life (Sausalito: Mini Course Publishing, 2007), 8–9.
7. Dr. Wayne Dyer, Your Erroneous Zones (New York: Funk &
Wagnalls, 1976), 29.
8. “The Complete Artscroll Siddur,” in The Interfaith Prayer Book, ed.
Ted Brownstein (Lake Worth: Lake Worth Interfaith Network,
2014), 31.
9. Gerald G. Jampolsky, M.D., and Diane Cirincione, Ph.D., Mini
Course for Life (Sausalito: Mini Course Publishing, 2007).
10. Christian Hageseth, A Laughing Place: The Art and Psychology of
Positive Humor in Love and Adversity (Minneapolis: Berwick Publishing
Company, 1988), 141.
143

MN
For updates, visit
www.thinkfeelheal.com.
MN