Dentistry, Psychic

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Dentistry, Psychic

A special area of psychic healing involving paranormal dental filling or even tooth renewal, associated with spiritual faith and the power of prayer. This extraordinary form of healing was first practiced in the United States by a traveling evangelist, A. C. McCabe, who would conduct a service and then announce to his audience, "If you have cavities in your teeth, … if you have gum disorders, whatever it is, you come and I'll pray for you and God will meet your dental needs." McCabe then laid hands on each person in turn and prayed. He offered a mirror and flashlight so that individuals could see dental healing taking place.

One of these healing services, at Shreveport, Louisiana, was attended by Willard Fuller, another evangelist who practiced spiritual healing. Fuller witnessed more than two hours of dental healing and saw one woman receive a silver filling in a tooth cavity through paranormal means. McCabe told Fuller that he could also perform such healing, but it was several weeks before Fuller found the courage to invite members of his own congregations to come forward for dental treatment. After curing a man of a stomach ulcer, the same man came back to his services and asked him to pray for the healing of a tooth cavity. Fuller laid hands on the man's head and prayed, "In the name of Jesus, be thou everywhere whole," and the man confirmed that his tooth cavity was healed.

Fuller reportedly began demonstrating significant numbers of dental healings in 1960. They involved instantaneous filling of cavities with gold, silver, or porcelain, straightening of crooked teeth, and healing of decayed teeth or gums. Eyewitnesses described the paranormal filling as beginning with a small bright spot that rapidly enlarged until it filled the whole cavity. Journalist Bryce Bond (associate editor of the Psychic Observer magazine) testified to witnessing such dental healing and even experienced healing in his own gums. Fuller simply touched the subject on both cheeks at the same time, saying, "In the name of Jesus, be thou whole." Not all the healing was instantaneous, however. Fuller stated that in some cases healing took several days or weeks.

Analysis of some of the gold of these paranormal fillings shows it to be purer than that normally used for dental work. Some subjects even claim that earlier silver fillings turned to gold.

During a demonstration at the Spiritual Frontiers Fellow-ship summer conference at Wagner College, Staten Island, New York, in 1979, Dr. Audrey Kargere of Stockholm, Sweden, claimed that she received several paranormal gold dental fillings, as well as healing of one leg that had become swollen after a fall.

British psychic Matthew Manning attended one of Fuller's demonstrations in New York with great skepticism, but afterward testified that he witnessed a paranormal filling. He said that one woman had "a very decayed tooth which was black" and he "saw it fill with something white which appeared to be a kind of ceramic substance. When finished, she had a new white tooth." (Bond has stated that several dentists and scientists have witnessed such healing but would not allow their names to be used for testimonies.)

This type of healing is bound to attract skepticism from individuals who have had no firsthand experience of the healing sessions. Such healing goes beyond that claimed by other spiritual healers and is not subject to explanations such as spontaneous remission because the alleged paranormal production of porcelain and rare metals in dental cavities would have to be either fraudulemt or real, with little room for other nonparanormal explanations. There is little written from a scientific perspective. Fuller appeared to be a sincere individual with a simple lifestyle and did not charge a fee for his healing work. His ministry was maintained only by voluntary contributions. Bond claimed that about 25,000 people in the United States experienced Fuller's allegedly miraculous dental healing.