Miracle Healings, The Holy Spirit and Kathryn Kuhlman

 
Kathryn Kuhlman was the Christian woman in whose presence thousands of people offered testimonials of having experienced sudden 'miraculous' healings from the Holy Spirit.  Numerous healings had occurred just minutes before the men and women joined Kathryn onstage.  Although Kathryn was a figure who achieved some prominence in the mainstream media during her lifetime, in 2019 Kathryn's amazing life and career seem mostly forgotten.  Publisher of the 1999 Commemorative Edition of Daughter of Destiny, Lloyd B. Hildebrand in a Preface reminded that Kathryn Kuhlman had found it difficult to express her predicament: "She realized that her calling was not based upon her own abilities but, as she liked to say, 'God chooses the foolish things of this world to confound the wise.'"  Her directions to the author were simple: "Tell it all, Jamie; tell it all!"  This article presents excerpts from Daughter of Destiny.

Kathryn Kuhlman was born at a Missouri farm in 1907 and made her transition to the ascended realm of life in 1976.  Soon thereafter was published the first edition of the biography Daughter of Destiny by Jamie Buckingham, who had been the writer that worked closely with Kathryn Kuhlman to bring to publication eight of her nine books.  A few documentary videos available at YouTube reveal some of the wonderful things that became known at Kathryn's 'miracle services,' which continuously for many years filled the largest exhibition halls from coast to coast as well as overseas.  The video presented at the conclusion of this article is among the recordings now available on YouTube about which it can be said 'seeing is believing.'

one of Kathryn Kuhlman's 'miracle services'


The caption for this billyburke.org photo shown below is: "Cowboy image that appeared in Ms. Kuhlman's healing crusade in the Midwest.   Miss Kuhlman had just announced something about the Western atmosphere and that the Holy Spirit whom she loved had a real sense of humor, and said, 'If we could see Him right here I am sure He'd be dressed in cowboy boots with spurs and a cowboy hat.'  Just at that moment someone in the audience snapped this picture of Ms. Kuhlman on the stage!"

 
Here are passages from Daughter of Destiny —

Kathryn was only six years old when her older sister, Myrtle, married a young student evangelist, Everett B. Parrott, and moved to Chicago.

[age 14]  Sunday morning, standing with her mama [Emma] at the close of the service [in church], as the minister gave the invitation, Kathryn began to cry.  It wasn't until years later, when she was able to evaluate that experience in the perspective of time and additional experiences, that she was able to understand she had been touched by the Holy Spirit.  The sobbing was intense, so intense she began to shake.

Kathryn was quoted: "Walking home with mama, I felt the whole world had changed.  I was aware of the flowers that grew along the street.  I had never noticed them before.  And the sky: it was azure blue with white, fluffy clouds that looked like swirls of angel hair.  Mr. Kroenoke had gotten a new paint job on his house.  But the house hadn't changed!  Kathryn Kuhlman had changed.  It was the same paint, the same street, the same town.  But I was not the same.  I was different.  A soft breeze blew against my cheeks and sifted through my hair.  I think that Kathryn Kuhlman floated all the way home that Sunday."

Secondary school in Concordia [Missouri] ended with the tenth grade.  At sixteen Kathryn had all the formal education available unless she entered the Lutheran academy.  Myrtle asked mama to let Kathryn join her and Everett for a series of tent meetings in the northwest.  They would keep her for the summer and let her return in the fall.

"We've decided," Emma said slowly, "to let her go.  But it's with great reluctance on my part."  Somehow, Emma Kuhlman suspected that if Kathryn left, she would never return.

She was right.

On occasion Kathryn and Myrtle would sing or sometimes play a piano duet.  Twice that summer Parrott asked the sixteen-year-old redhead to come to the platform and give a "testimony," which consisted of her story of being "saved" in the little Methodist church in Concordia.  Both times she closed the testimony by reciting a lengthy poem, complete with dramatic gestures.  The people responded heartily.  They loved her drama and the way she pronounced her words.

During this time [the next five years] Parrott enlisted the services of Dr. Price's pianist, an extraordinary keyboard musician named Helen Gulliford.  Although Helen was eleven years older than Kathryn, they became fast friends.

Things were not going well with the Parrott Tent Revival team.  Myrtle and Everett were fighting much of the time.  She accused him of consorting with other women, becoming more and more like her mama, hard and unyielding.  By the time they got to Boise, Idaho, things had gone from very bad to terrible.  Parrott didn't even show up to the meeting, choosing to take his tent and travel on to South Dakota.  In Boise, services were held in the Women's Club, and Myrtle did the preaching.

After the final service, the night before they were scheduled to leave—Myrtle to return to her husband and Helen and Kathryn still undecided—a Nazarene pastor approached them outside the Women's Club.

"Well, let the girls stay then," he offered.  "I pastor a small mission church near here.  They can come in and, at least, play the piano and sing."

"All right," Myrtle said with a note of resignation.  "Kathryn wants to preach anyway.  Why not give her a chance and see what she can do."

"Fine," the little pastor beamed.  "They can start tomorrow night."

And that's how it all started.

One bleak day, Kathryn and Helen arrived in Pocatello, Idaho.  The only hall available for her services was an old opera house, so long fallen into disuse that there was some question whether it would stand up after a cleansing; its dirt seemed to be its strongest reinforcement.  But it took more than a little dirt to cool the combined fervor of Kathryn and Helen, who were billing themselves as "God's Girls."  "Even then," Kathryn told me, "I knew what God could do if only the gospel—in its simplicity—were preached."  Before the two young women left town, after six weeks of holding nightly services which often lasted past midnight, the main floor and both balconies were filled.

[One night in Joliet, Illinois, where Kathryn had come for three months of services]  The crowd, which had numbered several hundred, had gone, and Kathryn stayed on with the half dozen people who were still kneeling at the alter rail.  One of those was Isabel Drake, a teacher who commuted from Joliet into Chicago on a daily basis.  Kathryn was sitting with Isabel's mother on one of the front benches while the young teacher crouched at the altar, sometimes sobbing, sometimes praying.  Suddenly Isabel rose to a full kneeling position, lifted her face toward the ceiling, and began to sing.  Kathryn said, "I had never heard such music.  It was the most beautiful singing with the most beautiful voice I had ever heard.  She was singing in a language I had never heard, but it was so ethereal, so beautiful, that I felt the hair on my skin begin to rise."

Although the words sounded like it might be some ancient Greek or Phoenician chant, Kathryn knew their origin was not earthly.

The music continued for almost fifteen minutes.  The young teacher then dropped her head and remained quiet at the altar before turning and embracing her mother.  Although Kathryn had sat under the teaching of Charles Price and knew of Pentecostal groups (they were called "holy rollers" in those days) who spoke in tongues, she had never heard it before.

Kathryn knew that every man on the face of the earth was built with a God-consciousness inside.  A hunger for God.

[1933]  Earl F. Hewitt, a businessman, had joined her . . . as her business manager. 

[Kathryn told Hewitt about her plan for getting established in Denver] ". . . Find me the biggest building you can.  Get the finest piano available for Helen.  Fill the place up with chairs.  Take out a big ad in the Denver Post and get spot announcements on all the radio stations.  This is God's business and we're going to do it God's way.  Big."

Using a combination of faith, brass, and credit, Hewitt rented 500 chairs and a grand piano, telling the people he would pay for them in two weeks.  The two weeks revival, however, stretched into five years.

"Healing services" were often held at the close of the evangelistic meetings, and the preacher [Phil Kerr and others] would ask all the sick to come forward for special prayer.  On some occasions they would be anointed with oil.  On other occasions they would be asked to go to a back room for special prayer.  In some instances, there would be dramatic healings and the people would come back the next night to testify.  This thrilled Kathryn, for although she seldom prayed for the sick herself, she was always amazed and gratified when people were healed.

Visiting preachers came and often stayed for months at a time.

Kathryn was very generous with these men, encouraging the people to give as much as they could.  Raymond T. Richey came up from Texas with a healing campaign and preached from the same text, Jeremiah 33:3, every night for three weeks.  Kathryn even invited Everett and Myrtle Parrott to hold a series of meetings.

But nobody thrilled the people, and Kathryn more than the handsome evangelist from Austin, Texas, Burroughs A. Waltrip.

Waltrip made his first trip to the Denver Revival Tabernacle in 1937.  He came on the recommendation of Phil Kerr, the radio evangelist, and stayed for almost two months.  At thirty-eight, he was eight years older than Kathryn.

Good looks and good preaching made a good combination, and Kathryn invited him back in the fall of the year.  This time his wife, Jessie, and their two sons, aged six and eight, came along.

The people in Denver found Jessie Waltrip to be quiet and unassuming, an ideal wife for the dynamic preacher.

But something happened during Waltrip's second visit to Denver.  The facts are unclear.  Mrs. Waltrip took the boys and returned to Austin.  It was time to enter them in school.  A month later Waltrip wrote his wife saying he was not coming home.  The report he gave in Denver, however, was that Jessie had deserted him.

Standing before her congregation in Denver, Kathryn announced at the Sunday morning service on October 15 that God had revealed a new plan.  She and Waltrip had decided to combine their ministries.

Although she had not mentioned marriage, everyone seemed to know.  A ghastly hush fell over the congregation.  All the rumors they had been hearing about Waltrip divorcing his wife in order to marry Kathryn — it was all true.  Women began to sob.  Several got up from the choir and walked out.  Men sat stony faced in their pews, looking at Kathryn in disbelief.

On October 18, 1938, she was married in Waltrip's Radio Chapel by a Methodist minister, Rev. L. E. Wordle of nearby Swaledale.

Before the [wedding] service, Hewitt met with Kathryn and explained the situation.  Helen Gulliford had resigned from the Kuhlman ministry.  She would stay in Denver to work with one of the groups which had already pulled away from the tabernacle.  Hewitt said Kathryn would never again be welcome in Denver.

When the people of Mason City discovered that Waltrip had lied to them about his first marriage, they, too, drifted away.  The Radio Chapel was closed.

No one seems to know exactly when the separation took place.  In a 1952 interview with the Denver Post she said, ". . . And I haven't seen him in eight years."

That would put the separation in 1944 — which is probably accurate.  This means they lived together for the better part of six years.

[Kathryn is quoted]  "One afternoon, I left the apartment—it was in the outskirts of Los Angeles—and found myself walking down a tree-shaded street.  The sun was flickering through the great limbs that stretched out overhead.  At the end of the block I saw a street sign.  It said simply 'Dead End.'  There was heartache, heartache so great it cannot be put into words . . ."

Blinded by tears, she turned around and started back up the street whence she had come.

Three days later, standing in the train station in Los Angeles, now completely cried out, she took her final look at Mister.

Much of her life was behind her and she had nothing to show for it.  All she knew was she had a one-way ticket to Franklin, Pennsylvania, where she had been invited to hold a two-week meeting.

Traveling alone, Kathryn went first to Franklin and then set out trying to start over again.  Ohio, Illinois, Indiana.  Down into West Virginia.  Almost every place she went she met the same resistance.  They knew of Waltrip and of the scandal in Denver.

Matthew J.  Maloney . . . invited her to return to Franklin for another series of meetings . . .

[early 1946]  Things went well.  The old tabernacle seated 1,500, and it was filled from the very beginning.  Encouraged by her reception, Kathryn started to branch out.  Radio was the natural medium.

[spring 1946] . . . Kathryn walked into the office of radio station WKRZ in nearby Oil City . . . she had come to buy air time . . . She insisted on a certain time every morning.  And she got it.  She left without ever inquiring about the cost.

By midsummer, Kathryn's fame had spread and she added a Pittsburgh radio station — with the broadcasts emanating from Oil City.

On several occasions, Kathryn had preached on "healing."  And things happened.  She always closed her services with altar calls, inviting people to be "born again."  Invariably the altar around the front of the building would be filled with kneeling persons, crowding onto the platform and down the aisles.  The response was just as great when she had a "healing line."  Taking her cue from the popular "faith healers" who were moving about the country, she would ask all the sick to come forward, after which she would lay her hands on their heads and ask God to heal them.  The results were not spectacular, but there were results.  A few people were healed.  And no one was more surprised, or perplexed, than Kathryn herself.  She was determined to find out more about this physical manifestation of God.

Somehow, she realized, it was the Holy Spirit who was carrying on the work of Jesus.

Just as Kathryn stood to preach, there was a disturbance in the audience.  A woman was coming forward.  She had her hand up.  "Kathryn, may I say something?"

"I had a tumor," the woman said shyly.  "It had been diagnosed by my doctor.  While you were preaching, something happened in my body.  I was so sure I was healed that I went back to my doctor this morning and had it verified.  The tumor is no longer there."

There had been no numbered healing line.  No laying on of hands.  No prayer.  The miracle simply occurred while Kathryn was preaching about the power of the Holy Spirit.

Kathryn's people . . . purchased the old roller skating rink at Sugar Creek, three miles outside of Franklin . . . they called the new meeting place "Faith Temple."  The seating capacity was almost twice the size of the old tabernacle and from the first service it was packed — standing room only.

. . . there was a knock at the door of her third floor apartment.  The sheriff, dressed in street clothes, was waiting in the hall . . . "This morning my office received papers which I am required to serve you.  It is a divorce suit filed in Arizona by Burroughs A Waltrip, Sr.  You are named as the defendant . . . My office ordinarily releases the names of all divorce suits to the local newspaper.  But I have been attending your services and am convinced God sent you to this crime-riddled county for a special purpose.  That is the reason I am delivering these papers personally.  There is no need for anyone to know what has happened.  God bless you in your ministry among us.  I am at your service." . . . Until he died, twenty-three years later, Kathryn sent flowers to the sheriff on his birthday.  She never forgot.

Kathryn expanded her radio ministry . . . beaming her half-hour programs into Ohio, West Virginia, Maryland, and the Washington D.C. area . . . Kathryn began holding services in many of the nearby cities . . . Miracles continued to happen . . . The Pittsburgh paper reported many of these miracles.  And although they also had a great deal to say about those who were not healed, in most cases they accurately reported the miracles as well.

One who kept coming back [to services]—for five months before he was healed—was Charles C. Loesch.  Injured in an accident fourteen years before, his sacroiliac had become calcified, causing him to walk in a stooped position . . . He did keep returning to the miracle services.  The more he came, the more he forgot about his own problems, focusing his prayer on those in worse shape than he.

Then one afternoon at Faith Temple, sitting with a large group of men on the stage while Miss Kuhlman preached, his leg began to vibrate.  The vibration caused his heel to hit against the floor like an air hammer.  Miss Kuhlman immediately stopped preaching and turned around.

"What's this?" she inquired loudly.

Embarrassed, Loesch could only bend over and hold on to his wildly vibrating leg, trying to keep it from hitting the floor.

"You're being healed, sir," Miss Kuhlman exclaimed.  Then turning to the audience, she said.  "The power of God is on that man." . . . After the service Loesch discovered that not only had his leg grown out, but his back was loose and limber.

It was the beginning of a twenty-eight year loyalty to Miss Kuhlman in which he would give up everything else to follow her, becoming her maintenance man, chauffeur, and factotum.

The last week of November, western Pennsylvania experienced the biggest snowfall in its history . . . On Thanksgiving Day, 1950, the roof of Faith Temple caved in.

Three weeks later, Kathryn bought a house in Fox Chapel, a suburb of Pittsburgh.  It was to be her home until she died.

The area where the degree of [Kathryn's] non-involvement was most difficult to understand encompassed the thousands of prayer requests which poured into the office each week . . . there is no evidence — at least during Kathryn's later years that she made any effort to grant those requests and pray specifically for the people's needs . . . The fact remains that many, many people who sent prayer requests to Kathryn Kuhlman were healed — often within the week.  [This category of spiritual healing is sometimes known categorically as 'distant healing' or 'absent healing' when an ill person's thought appeal for healing is made in relation to his or her personal knowledge of some specific human facilitator of healing.]

Even though there is no satisfactory definition of a miracle, Kathryn did insist on certain standard criteria before a miracle story could be printed.  Unless the healings passed these tests, they were not to be included in her books.

1.  The disease or injury should be organic or structural in nature — and should have been medically diagnosed.

2.  The healing should have occurred rapidly, or instantaneously.  The changes would have to be abnormal, and not the kind that could result from suggestion.

3.  All healings would have to be medically verified — preferably by more than one doctor.  At least one of the doctors must be the patients private physician.

4.  The healing should be permanent, or at least of sufficient duration so as not to be diagnosed as a "remission."

Because we held rigidly to this standard, many of the most spectacular miracles were never reported in her books.

Perhaps the most thrilling stories were those told by the medical doctors themselves.  Dr. Cecil Titus of St. Luke's Hospital in Cleveland said that a ten-year-old girl's club foot "straightened before my very eyes while Miss Kuhlman prayed."  Dr. Kitman Au of Burbank, California, a radiologist, told a newspaper reporter, "I have seen healings in Kathryn Kuhlman's services that I, as a doctor, can only say go beyond human power."  And Dr. Richard Owellen, the cancer research specialist from Johns Hopkins University, told of holding his infant child in his arms at a miracle service and watching the child's dislocated hip twist, under the power of the Holy Spirit, until it was healed and in place.

Videotaping—through the television industry—became the most dominant fact in Kathryn's life during her last eight years.  She loved it.  She loved the glamour, the excitement, and the challenge.

"Get me some information," she said to Steve Zelenko, her radio engineer in Pittsburgh.  "I need to know something before I make any commitments."  Steve compiled a list of figures and then made his recommendation.  "You're the one who is always saying 'Go big, think big,'" Steve said.  "My advice is to get the best producer available and line up with a big network in California."  The "best producer" turned out to be Dick Boss, who had just finished a fourteen-year stint with the Billy Graham organization.  The "big network" was CBS.  Both agreed to take her one, and over the almost ten-year period she did five hundred telecasts . . .

Kathryn had become a world-wide figure, as much as demand in Sweden and Japan as she was in Cleveland or St. Louis.

Few, very few of those who left the miracle service unhealed, ever grew bitter.  Most had already outlived their bitterness.  They came to Kathryn as a last resort.  Many of them returned, again and again.  In their wheelchairs.  Pushing their crippled children on stretchers.  Hobbling along on crutches or in their braces.  To curse Kathryn Kuhlman would be like cursing God.  Instead they increased their giving and intensified their prayers.  For whether they were healed or not, at least the miracle service gave them something that doctors and modern science were unable to give — hope.  The one ingredient essential to life.  And joy.  She gave them joy.  Here, in an atmosphere where they were accepted and loved, the people sang and praised God in joy. 

Music played a great part in the services.  Even though everything seemed spontaneous, it was actually the result of meticulous planning based on many years of trial and error.  Kathryn was satisfied with only the best.  She never had a poor soloist on stage.  She used only the finest musicians at the instruments.  Her choir, directed by Dr. Arthur Metcalfe, was trained to perfection, and every number was rehearsed until it could be presented with faultless diction and supreme harmony.  Jimmy Miller, the choir's accompanist and her pianist for twenty-seven years, was flawless in his work.  In Jimmie McDonald she had one of the finest solo voices in the nation.


Also important was Charles Beebee, her balding little organist who stretched his short legs toward the pedals, feeling not only Kathryn's moods, but flowing in seeming perfect harmony with the Holy Spirit as his talented fingers roamed the organ keys, reflecting the presence of God in the room.  Every time someone came forward to testify of a miracle, the organ was undergirding.  Beebee, feeling the intensity of the testimony, would push the organ to a rising crescendo as the people applauded — or offer a subdued background for those who tearfully whispered their deepest longings into the microphone.


The mechanics of the service, the preparation, was one of the secrets of creating the proper climate.  Kathryn would often go to the meeting place, especially if it was new to her, early in the morning, to roam the aisles and pray.  Later, the ushers were always briefed, in detail, often by Kathryn herself.  Nothing was left to the imagination.  In some of the bigger auditoriums the ushers even used walkie-talkie radios, whispering instructions to one another.  The taking of the offerings, which always seemed so spontaneous, was rehearsed and rehearsed until it could be carried out flawlessly.  The men, sometimes as many as three hundred of them, were trained days in advance on how to handle problem people, how to spot those in need, how to respond to emergencies, how to discern whether a healing was genuine or merely emotional.

Kathryn insisted on the presence of luminaries behind her on the stage.  In Youngstown it was that vast men's chorus of redeemed alcoholics.  In the huge services at the Shrine Auditorium or in various key cities across the nation it was recognized ministers, politicians and community leaders, and the choir which sometimes numbered 1,000 voices.  She had a special love for doctors, and wanted them either on the stage or on the front rows of the auditorium.

Most religious celebrities adjust their life styles to fit ascending fame.  But even though Kathryn's fame mushroomed like an atomic cloud as she moved into the sixties, she always remained a "small-time operator."  By the time the Kathryn Kuhlman Foundation was formed in 1957, her annual gross income was in excess of $1 million.  Yet she steadfastly refused to do what most big-time "religious operators" do. 

She enjoyed talking about the movie actor and actresses who attended the miracle services in California . . . who appeared incognito behind dark glasses, seeking, like all the others in the Shrine Auditorium, spiritual reality.


She became fair bait for the television comedians.  Entertainers like Flip Wilson and Carol Burnett could bring down the house with a ridiculous Kathryn Kuhlman imitation.  Kathryn always seemed to enjoy them more than anyone else.  She knew the television and night club entertainers would only pick on those with national stature, and I believe she was willing to tolerate the humiliation of having Carol Burnett make fun of her just for the sake of basking in the notoriety which belongs only to celebrities.  After Ruth Buzzi did a really "far out"  imitation of Miss Kuhlman on "Laugh In," (laying hands on casaba melons in a supermarket) Kathryn sent her a personal letter which contained one line: "No one enjoyed the satire more than I."  Ruth replied by wiring Kathryn two dozen long-stemmed roses.

After her private audience with Pope Paul at the Vatican, she sent out press releases to several major newspapers in the nation—along with a picture of the Pope holding her hand—saying, "His Holiness complimented Miss Kuhlman on the 'admirable work' which she is doing and admonished her to 'DO IT WELL!'"


She read every review, every article about her that appeared in all those Sunday newspaper magazines across the nation.


I was with Kathryn backstage in her dressing room at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles.  She had just finished a four-and-a-half-hour miracle service, having stood on her feet the entire time . . . The door opened wider and in walked an old man—well into his eighties—with an erect military bearing.  A companion said, "Miss Kuhlman, I'd like to introduce General of the Army Omar Bradley." . . . She rushed to the door and went into her routine . . . "Aw, God love you!  And you were here for the MIR-a-cle service!" . . . They talked about spiritual matters for a few minutes.  Then the general mentioned a specific need in his life.

"Dear Jesus," Kathryn intoned, closing her eyes and reaching out to pray for him.

It was as far as she got.  His legs buckled under him and he crumpled backwards — "slain in the Spirit" . . . "Our wonderful Lord can meet your every need," Kathryn said deliberately, her face glowing with faith.  "I know how much He must love you right this minute."

. . . the motivating force in her life was love.  Like the apostle Paul who said "the love of Christ constrains me," she was driven by love — her love for Christ and her love for people . . . It's no wonder that in the end she died of an enlarged heart, beating and expanding until it tried to claim the entire world for Christ.


It seemed that Kathryn had finally "arrived."  Her desk was cluttered with letters from top-name television personalities asking her to appear on their shows — Mike Douglas, Dinah Shore, Merv Griffin.  Some of them, like Johnny Carson on "The Tonight Show," tried to bait her.  "Most doctors say that up to eighty-five percent of all illnesses are psychosomatic," Carson taunted.  "How can you claim these people are healed when they weren't really sick?"

Kathryn was never better with her answer — after all he was on her turf with a question like that.  "If the doctors are not able to help psychosomatic cripples, and they come to these great miracle services and God touches them and they leave without their crutches and stay healed — what difference does it make whether its psychosomatic or not?"


In May 1975 she came to Las Vegas for a miracle service . . . But her physical condition was poor.  After the meeting, when we were with her in her suite at Caesar's Palace, I urged her to curtail her schedule.

"I can't," she said, pacing nervously back and forth.  "There is no way.  'The ministry' must continue."

Twenty years before, she had slipped out of Pittsburgh and gone to a doctor in Washington, D.C. for a physical checkup.  He warned her she had an enlarged heart.  She needed to slow down . . . As she grew older and the pressures grew greater, the heart condition grew worse. 

On February 20, 1976, her face once again began to shine as the Holy Spirit settled upon her for one last anointing.  The nurse in the room turned and looked as the glow enveloped the bed.  An indescribable peace seemed to fill the room.  And she was gone.

The video shown below provides an example of the 'miracle services' — the healings footage begins at around the 50 minute point of the video.

In this video, Kathryn Kuhlman is heard to mention to a doctor in the audience: "But had you ever thought really that all healing is of God."