Healer brings light touch to church

Although many swear by the healing power in Barbara Walter's hands, some physicians and critics remain skeptical.

By EILEEN SCHULTE
© St. Petersburg Times
published June 22, 2002

LARGO -- Jo Edwards was preparing breakfast for herself and her boyfriend late last year when her cell phone rang from the across the house.

As she dashed to answer it, she slipped on a throw rug on the terrazzo floor and hit the ground smack on her right knee.

With a knee swelling to football proportions, she hobbled to a walk-in clinic, then to Florida Joint Replacement and Sports Medicine in Pasco County. There she learned her kneecap was broken and was given a soft brace to wear for six weeks.

Last Sunday, Edwards, a mortgage broker from Palm Harbor, stood on a podium at the Spiritual Center Church in Largo, put equal weight on both legs, held the brace aloft and told the 50 or so people before her that she never really had to wear it.

A day after going to the clinic, she said, she paid a visit to Barbara Walter, the spiritual center's pastor, and was healed.

"(During the healing) while I was laying there, I could feel the swelling going down," said Edwards, 53. "Before I left, I could lift my leg up over my head. I couldn't do that before I fell."

"What she did for me was phenomenal," she said. "She has got such a gift that could only be from God."

Walter, who recently bought the nearly century-old church building at 160 Sixth St. SW for about $400,000, has held services there since April.

She claims she can cure any health condition or disease, including cancer, depression, diabetes, epilepsy, herpes of the cornea, cataracts, mental retardation, heart disease, tumors and broken bones.

She's been performing healings for 20 years at her home and in other churches, she said, often with great success. She accepts donations during her 10:30 a.m. Sunday services.

After Edwards told her story, the diminutive Walter, 62, a divorced mother of eight, walked back and forth with a microphone singing and talking about God.

"Is there anyone here with pain at this time?" she asked.

A woman in the front pew held up her hand. Her other hand was encased in a soft purple brace and rested on a soft gray pillow. She said her wrist was broken, and she had no feeling in her thumb.

Walter stood in front of Dottie Hill and positioned her hands, fingers spread apart, in the direction of Hill's stomach, as though she was holding a large orb that was pouring out a steady stream of unseen healing power. Walter guided it toward Hill's swollen extremity. Every so often, she turned her hands slightly, as if driving a car.

"This will burn a little," Walter said.

"On a scale of one to 10, what is the level of pain?"

"About a six or seven," Hill responded.

"What is now?" Walter prodded.

"A four or five," Hill said.

"I won't be happy until it's zero," Walter said laughingly.

Hill closed her eyes and tipped her head to the sky as though she was absorbing the power. Seconds later, she said she felt a tingle in her thumb.

"That means her nerves have been connected up," Walter announced. "This will be 100 percent completely well, the spirits tell me, so don't worry."

Without getting Hill's pain down to zero, Walter moved on to a woman with a very swollen broken toe and then to Charles LeCher, Clearwater's mayor in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

LeCher said he's been attending Walter's healing services for 10 years and swears they help. Whenever he has an ailment, he goes to Walter for help.

Three months ago, he was in a car accident. He said that he suffered whiplash and that his "spinal cord started shrinking," resulting in a sore back.

"I've been to chiropractors and orthopaedic surgeons with little success," LeCher, 62, said. "(During the service) I could feel the energy. The pain was gone. I'm still a little stiff, but it has really started to feel better."

Not all agree.

"They (faith healers) don't do anything except keep people from competent medical care," said James Randi, a widely known magician who embarked on a challenge to paranormal and supernatural claims.

"People don't have a sense of reality about these things. They need some magic, they need to believe," said Randi, the president of the James Randi Educational Foundation in Fort Lauderdale.

An adrenaline rush often explains why "a person can throw away their crutches" after a healing session, he said.

Those who practice healing by faith probably do so to enhance self worth, said Randi.

But Walter, who said she connections with "the God force," does believe.

"I have a destiny. I'm a forerunner ... this world is moving from religion to spirituality," she said. "I feel like I'm a halfway house for people who are moving from man's rules to God's rule. His rule is to be loved, that what you put out is what you get back."

Randi isn't the only one who doubts faith healing helped heal Jo Edwards' fractured kneecap.

It's very common for nondisplaced fractures to heal on their own, even in a week, said orthopaedic surgeon Dr. John Shim of the Florida Joint Replacement and Sports Medicine through a spokeswoman.

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