Elsa also had a frozen shoulder and, unknown to Matthew at the time of the healing demonstration, several tumours in her abdomen. After the healing she could move her arms freely and the pain in her back was greatly reduced. She went for a scan the following day and her doctor told her that the tumours were still there, though the largest of them was much reduced from its original seven centimetres. When Elsa went into hospital for surgery to remove the tumours, she insisted on having another scan. It revealed no trace of the tumours, and Elsa was sent home without being operated on. She has remained healthy for the last twelve years

“When I saw you, I told you that I felt something happening in my throat during the session and that when I concentrated something in my head seemed to be ‘in tune’. Once I was in the car, I tried my voice – amazing! Pavarotti won’t have sleepless nights yet, but what a difference! When I got home I tried it out on the family and they were speechless, which makes a change for them. Now I can order a pint in a pub without being ignored.”

“Around 1980, I had been prescribed glasses for reading and since then my eyesight had deteriorated to such an extent that by 1996 I was not only wearing glasses for reading, and the prescriptions were getting stronger and stronger, but I was also wearing contact lenses with glasses for driving and I was seeing less and less well. I got to the stage that I felt as though I had permanent net curtains in front of my eyes.

After the healing I started getting a very bad headache and didn’t know how I would drive home. On arriving home, I went straight to the bathroom and removed my contact lenses. I’ll always remember it – it was a lovely summer’s evening and as I walked into the garden to see my husband I discovered that I could see so vividly and clearly.

Every stick of straw on the thatched roof of my neighbour’s cottage stood out clearly and everywhere I looked was so incredibly bright and clear. I have never worn my contact lenses or spectacles since! My long distance and middle distance sight is fine, clear and vivid. With regards to near sight, I can now read without glasses and have indeed thrown them away.”

Lara was born in 1997 with three holes in her heart. Her parents felt that Matthew’s healing “could make all the difference and prevent her having surgery.” After healing sessions during 1998, the holes all closed up of their own accord. “We can barely remember her as a ‘vulnerable’ baby and will always be grateful for the healing you gave her,” her parents wrote two years later.

Anita Ridley, a young woman in her thirties, had undergone spinal surgery in 1994 after it was discovered that she had a spur of bone growing into her spinal cord, a prolapsed disc, and a narrow spinal canal. She was left with internal and external scarring, very restricted movement, and had considerable nerve pain in her legs.

After a healing session with Matthew she wrote,

In his book Healers and Healing, journalist Roy Stemman writes about one of Matthew’s healing demonstrations: “He invited a handful of sufferers, whose conditions lent themselves to demonstrable improvement, to join him on the platform to receive treatment. Some members of the audience seemed mesmerised by his bold turquoise, blue and black zig-zag patterned designer jacket, as well as being intrigued by what was or was not happening to the patient. There is no denying that he achieves results. Kay Sinclair had been involved in a car crash in 1996.

She’d driven into the back of another vehicle at 30 mph and she was suffering a lot of pain, had difficulty raising her left arm and experienced a pins-and needles sensation when she did so. She was also unable to bend forward more than halfway. Manning’s healing power got to work on her, and when he had finished, Miss Sinclair happily demonstrated a new-found freedom of movement and the disappearance of pain.

Nearly a year later I phoned her to check whether the improvement had been maintained or was just a one-minute wonder. “I experienced a dramatic feeling that day and there was no doubt that I was cured,” she recalled. “Within a month I took a holiday to Jamaica, which I had been dreading because I didn’t know how I was going to manage carrying my suitcase and travelling that distance. But I had no trouble at all. Now, I occasionally get tension in my neck, but nothing like the pain I suffered before seeing Matthew Manning.

Dan Hutchison had lost over 60 pounds in weight and was suffering from extreme fatigue when he was diagnosed in 1984 as having a tumour the size of a small melon attached to his right adrenal gland. It had also spread to his liver. “Statistics showed that nobody with this form of cancer had survived, and I was told to put my affairs in order.