In March 1986, I was one of five invited speakers at the International Conference on Alternative Medicine held in Milan, Italy, sponsored by the Psychotronics Society of Italy.

Psychic research is called psychotronics research, mainly in Eastern Europe, especially in Czechoslovakia, now called Czech Republic. Psychotronics research "studies the interactions of consciousness, energy and matter. It also conducts experimental research and applied studies in interactions between living organisms and their internal and external environments, and the energetic processes underlying their manifestations."

At the end of the conference, the president of the Psychotronics Research Organization, who happened to be a close friend of Pope John Paul II, asked us if we would like to meet the Pope at the Vatican. We, of course, said, yes.

In Rome, we were led to a huge auditorium or hall where the Pope greets and blesses the various groups and organizations that have come to see him. There were about 2,000 people in the audience.

The Pope did not give any speech during this occasion. He merely greeted the various groups, calling them by name, and then blessed them.

I was surprised when the Pope greeted our group, saying, "And I would like to welcome the members of the Psychotronics Research Society for they are also doing something to help humanity."

After this, the six of us foreign speakers were given a pass or a ticket to come in front of the auditorium to meet and shake hands with the Pope.

Everybody was trying to catch the attention of the Pope. I was behind him when I shouted, "Your Holiness, I came from the Philippines." When the Pope heard the Philippines, he turned towards me and I handed to him the German edition of my book on The Truth Behind Faith Healing in the Philippines. He thanked me, and then said, "Faith is what we need most in our world today." (See photo.)

Shortly after his death in 2005, Pope John Paul II was beatified, and a few years later, was canonized or declared a saint.

He was one of the fastest beatification processes, which usually takes, in some cases, seven centuries before being declared a saint. It took, for example, 489 years before Joan of Arc, who was burned at the stake in 1431, was declared a saint on 16 May 1920 by the very Church that had condemned her as a witch.

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