| It's been 18 years since David Cunningham was captured by Saddam Hussein's troops during the Gulf War and used as a human shield. But he has never forgotten the pact he made with God while held captive: to use his spiritual powers to help people, if he was safely released. |
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| Shown: David L. Cunningham |
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The only thing that's ordinary about David Cunningham is his address. If you know anything about his story, you'd expect him to live in a castle or a cave halfway up a mountain. But home for David, 61, is a nice, detached bungalow in Fatfield, Washington, from which he operates his spiritual healing empire. His is a remarkable story of psychic ability, war, captivity, celebrity and miracles... David, who grew up in Whickham, left home at the age of 20 to seek his fortune in London, where he enrolled as a student at The College of Psychic Studies. Shortly after, his teacher, Don Galloway, took him to one side and told him that healing was his destiny. David said: "When I left home I was a green-eyed country boy. I knew nothing about life." "I was shocked when Don told me what he told me." Overwhelmed by this statement, David did nothing, until one of his friends became ill with abdominal pain. David said: "I went to see her and I was sitting by her bed, when a voice above my head told me to put my hands on the pain. "In a few minutes, she said the pain was gone. It was a really weird moment for both of us." After that, David went into the hotel trade and began to travel all over the world, using his gift now and again to help friends and acquaintances. Then David received the phone call that would change his life. He said: In 1990, my agent rang me up and told me about a job in Kuwait, managing the Kuwait Plaza Hotel." David took the job and flew to the Middle East. On August 2 of that year, he woke in his bed to the sound of gun shots. He said: "Iraqi troops were firing everywhere. I knew what was happening and I knew they would cut the phone lines, so I quickly called my sister and told her I was OK but that she wouldn't hear from me for a while." Saddam Hussein then gave orders to his troops to round up the Westerners and take them to Baghdad. And there David was held, as a human shield in The Gulf War, until his release three months later. During that time, he decided to make a promise to God and use his talent for healing to help others. After his return home, with his mother dying of cancer, David promised her he wouldn't go abroad again. But after her death, with no money and no job, his promise was tested. He said: The hotel in Kuwait rang me up and offered me my old job back. I was going to take it because I had no money but at the last minute I was offered a job in London." But David found his heart was no longer set on the hotel trade, and he wanted to keep his bargain with God. He said: "I knew I had to do something, so I went to the local hospital to put myself forward as a buddy for people with HIV and Aids. I spoke to the senior consultant for three hours and he gave me a job as a counsellor. "It was an incredible experience, working in that environment. Then a nurse put me in touch with a GP who said he had patients who weren't responding to treatment. "Gradually, I began doing healing work in the evenings and at weekends. "I left my job at the hospital shortly after. One of the things I found very upsetting was that there was a lot of death, and I just wasn't used to it. I wanted to heal people. "I was doing some work in Surrey with some horses, and it was going well. The people at the stables said they had a friend who had a lot of problems and asked if I would go and see her." David didn't know it, but the woman he was about to go and see was the actress Hayley Mills, the daughter of Sir John Mills and playwright Mary Hayley Bell. Hayley had starred in several Disney films as a child, including Pollyanna, and became good friends with David, introducing him to the rest of her family. In particular, Sir John and David became firm friends, and David has many happy memories of the glamorous lifestyle he was shown by the Mills' family. He said: "John was a wonderful man. I became his confidant, and he used to invite me to their grand parties. "I remember his 90th birthday at the Dorchester. I was Hayley's escort and we went in a white Rolls-Royce. There was a red carpet, a fanfare – it was incredible. "Andrew Lloyd Webber played Happy Birthday on the piano and Crispian Mills (Hayley's son] sang a lullaby. "I sat next to Stephen Fry. We started talking and he asked me what I did, so I began to explain about the eight chakras and I asked him if he would like me to see if his were OK. "He said: "I don't think, my dear boy, I want you to touch my chakras." The late Sir John Mills was an English actor who made more than 120 films after being talent spotted by Noel Coward. David said: "I remember that for John's 89th birthday, Stephen Fry bought him one of Noel Coward's dressing gowns, from Sothebys. "The whole room filled with Noel's presence when John lifted that dressing gown out of its box. "John was brilliant. I had such admiration for him. Even when he went blind he would stand in front of a mirror and straighten his tie to receive guests." Hayley's open support for David and his work opened the floodgates for more celebrity clients, including Demi Moore and Bruce Willis. David said: "They were both lovely. The phone rang one day and it was Demi asking if I could go and see her. "She was just a mum, looking after her three girls. One day we all went to the cinema together. It felt strange going to the movies with a movie star. "Bruce was lovely too, not affected at all. His chef made me something to eat and we just sat there in his kitchen, talking." Today, David travels to America, where he is ordained as a minister, every three months to visit clients. He also works from a clinic in Hong Kong. But the majority of his clients are ordinary people, and he still works a lot from his base in Washington. He said: "I treat whoever comes my way. To me, everyone is the same. Whatever job we do, it's just a job. I'm too old to get overwhelmed." David's work is based on the notion that every physical problem comes from an emotional problem, and that by realigning the flow of energy through the body and the eight chakras, these problems can be soothed or ended. David said: "People come to me and I ask them to tell me what the problem is. Everything comes from an emotion. "When we're not at peace, in harmony, and have unresolved issues, then that filters into our bodies. "People treat me like a priest. I'm unshockable now because I've heard it all. "I re-align people's life force, and get their energy flowing the right way again. I channel my energies into a part of the body until I feel a shift. "People respond the way they respond. I don't promise anything. I do my best to cure people or help them, but they have to do their homework and cure their demons. I get people to do homework, like release letter writing, until they start to feel different. "I do a lot of work helping people with ME, and I've had some amazing results. I think ME is a stress virus which lodges in the central nervous system. "I think ME is a problem of our time. We are swamped by materialism and we have no balance. It's all work and sleep, with no time to play." David bristles a bit when it comes to doctors and the medical profession. He said: "With all due respect, the medical profession haven't got a clue about the soul. They may laugh at me but I'm the one that deals with it and sees people getting well. When asked how he copes with cynics, he hoots with laughter: "I bless them. I know the power of healing and I've been doing it for a long time. I wouldn't still be working if I didn't have a good reputation." After a lifetime of visions, ghosts, voices, and premonitions, David says the most important thing for anyone is to keep an open mind about life. He said: "I've seen things you wouldn't believe." For more information, call: 0191 417 8231 or visit: www.spiritualhealingcenter.com Held as one of Saddam's human shields After his capture in Kuwait, David was locked up in a T2 tank factory, part of which was fitted out with cells, next to a gas bomb plant. He said: "I was locked up as a human shield with eight other people, mainly engineers and oil rig workers." While most people would have become hysterical, David stayed calm. He now says that being captured was the best thing that ever happened to him. He said: "I treated my captors with brotherly respect and got to know them. They told me they hated Saddam, that they were tired and wanted to go back to their families. They spoke perfect English. "I encouraged the other prisoners to stay calm and not to make trouble so that we wouldn't get hurt. "My captors put me in charge of negotiations. I used to speak with one of them once a week and negotiate for things like cigarettes. I later found out that he was one of Saddam's Ring of 12." Life in the lock-up was sparse, and although the prisoners were looked after, food was sometimes in short supply. David said: "They fed us on rice, cucumber and tomatoes, twice a day. For breakfast they gave us leven bread and black Turkish coffee. "The other men sometimes moaned about the food. Then the rice ran out and we had to live off just cucumber and tomato for two days. "I call it the Baghdad diet, because I lost seven inches from my waist. Before then I'd been a fat hotel manager!" Although he jokes about it now, at the time the experience was not as funny. David said: "My mother had cancer and she was dying, but I couldn't contact her. We couldn't phone our families. No one can understand what it was like. You had to be there." Though he was locked up, David held on to his dignity. He said: "We had a small bathroom so I showered and shaved each day. Because I was a hotel manager, I made sure we had lunch at 1pm and dinner at 7pm on the dot. "We were allowed to write letters but we couldn't seal the envelopes. They were checked before we sent them for sensitive material. "We played cards, we read books. They gave us books to read and films to watch. Ironically, these were mainly American war films." During the three months that he was held captive, David began to think back to his apparent talent for spiritual healing, and decided to make a promise with God to change the direction of his life. He said: "I made a promise to God, that I would start to use my gift to help mankind if I was ever released." As the days wore on, David began to wonder if he would every see home again. He said: "I began to get tired and wondered when I would be released. Then I heard a voice in my head that said 'after October 18'. "On October 20, the telephone in the guard's room rang and it made me shiver. I knew that call had something to do with me. "The they told me I was going home. "I was diabetic, and they were worried I would die, so they freed me along with 30 others. "They put me in the jeep to drive away and I looked back and saw the rest of the guys I'd been locked up with, standing there, waving me off. At that moment I felt a severe sense of guilt that I was free and they were not. "They were released at Christmas time. "When we got off the plane we were treated like VIPs, then some double doors opened and all of our families came rushing in. "I was crying, everyone was crying. My nephew said: "Uncle, we thought we'd never see you again. "We travelled up the M1 to go home and stopped at a travellers' cafe. I was so hungry. I ate a full English breakfast." After the euphoria of being released, David went back to his sister's house in Houghton: during his incarceration, his wife divorced him and he says that he would have been left homeless if it weren't for his family. He said: "I came back to my sister Margaret's house. You couldn't move in the street for TV crews. "It was more than 15 minutes of fame. "I was shipped across the country to do interviews and then suddenly that was it. I had to get back on with my life. "There was no assistance from the Government, nothing." 'After two sessions, I sent my carer home' Matt Robinson's story* Matt was a successful lawyer when he began to experience chest pains at work, just after his 30th birthday, four years ago. His condition deteriorated rapidly. Soon he could not stand up without assistance, read, or work. Six months ago, he came to Washington to see David, which proved to be a turning point in Matt's health. Matt said: "I saw every doctor on Harley Street and no one could help me. They diagnosed me with everything: migraines, vertigo, anxiety, depression. "I spent so much money trying to get better. I would have done anything. "Eventually, I went to see a professor and he said I had grade four ME, the worst kind. "I passed out on the floor of his office and he told me I couldn't leave the house any more. "It just got worse and worse. I was taking 28 tablets a day. "At one point, I couldn't even tolerate light or sound. "Three years on and my body was keeping me alive, but at times I began to wonder if I should be here any more. "About six months ago, I came to see David. Somebody had sent me an article about someone he had helped and I felt drawn to it. "After two sessions, I sent my carer home because I felt so much better. "By the third session, I was out in the garden, playing with the dog. "When he began healing me, I felt physical heat inside my body going into my stomach, but I also felt a lot of love and an intelligent energy. "People with ME have nowhere else to go because Western medicine cannot help them - I would strongly urge them to see a healer. "I'm still not 100 per cent and I still come to David for treatment, but I am much, much better than I was. "The experience has changed me. It's hard to call something a blessing when it took so much of my life, but in a way that's what it was. Being ill changed me: I'm not as selfish, greedy or materialistic. "Nice things are really nice but they're not massively important. "I enjoy every day and I try to do random acts of kindness here and there." * Patient's name has been changed. |
| Source: Sunderland Echo (February 2008) Alison Goulding http://www.sunderlandecho.com/ article available |
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