Brother Mandus was born in an English seaport - Hartlepool in 1907, son of a water clerk for a ship's chandler. An average mischievous youngster in school, he and a companion, in celebration of Guy Fawkes Day and the Gunpowder Plot to blow up the Houses of Parliament, had made gunpowder with chemicals bought with their pooled resources, constructed bombs of ink bottles filled with the powder, and nearly succeeded in blowing up the house and neighbourhood. Naturally they received a sound thrashing.

As an aftermath of this experience, he says, standing one day before a mirror in a gilt frame, somehow he knew that "there was only eternal life and endless security." He says he felt so strongly that he would live forever that he took a nail and scratched on the bottom of the frame, "I will live forever."

His parents belonged to the established Church of England, and he was baptized and confirmed in that church. At nineteen years of age he went to South America, where he spent seven years. Returning to England at twenty-six, he visited a friend who had undergone a remarkable change since they had last met, and they talked of things spiritual until the small hours of the night, when, he says, he was filled with a Power from beyond himself and knew he had to respond to it. He had not up to that time even owned a Bible. He got one next morning and opened it first to John 15, "I am the true vine." As he read, he says, "These words burned in my mind like fire . . . it were as though the Voice of Christ was speaking to me." He knew then "that the words were truth and that here was a way of life with infinite possibilities."

World War II came and went. Meanwhile he had been introduced by a friend to the most important practice he had ever known, how to meditate in the Silence. And in this practice he spent many hours. People came to share their troubles with him and he was able to help them. He decided to close his present business, which had suffered severe financial reversals, and begin a full-time healing ministry. He writes, "I was a man on a mission and the happiest man in the world." Within a few weeks he had set up a Sanctuary, two modest rooms, one for an altar and one for an office in which to carry on his work. His first patient was a woman of some sixty years of age, suffering with arthritis in the legs and badly crippled. She was completely healed, he reports, apparently instantly, after prayer - a wondrous sign to him. He knew, he says, that "this Love-Power of Christ is the same today as it ever was" and "in this one act of answered prayer was potentially the complete solution to every problem on earth, from personal disease and disaster right through to warfare."

Others came and were healed instantly; some yielded only slowly to cure; and some received no physical healing, but were "lifted up in courage, faith and love." Daily he discovered the "external evidence of divine guidance, healing, supply and steady progression." At first he only prayed with people who came for help. Then people began writing for healing intercession, and so the ministry was extended until before long hundreds of letters were received daily from all over the world, and Brother Mandus reports that many were healed and blessed in this way. It soon became evident, he writes, that the Power of the Written Word in letters formulated in prayer is effective without limits of time and space.

A little later he felt that he should take his gospel out into the world. He had had no training in public speaking, but when invited to address a company of people he did so without notes, and as he began speaking all nervousness disappeared and he was given words to say. He eventually spoke to crowded halls and churches all over the world, and always, he relates, the words are given to him as he speaks.

One night it came to him that he should publish a free monthly magazine devoted to the principles he was teaching through the Sanctuary and through correspondence. He had no money for such an enterprise, but by the time the printer's bill was presented, provision for its payment had been made, and before very long some quarter of a million copies of the Crusader were going out quarterly free of charge to those who asked for them - a million a year. And there was always money to pay the printing and postage bills.

As the first Sanctuary became unavailable, another and larger was offered, and when this was outgrown the present Sanctuary and World Healing Crusade headquarters was acquired. Here dedicated staff carried on the work that Brother Mandus started. In an article in the Crusader (November, 1959) under the title "Pray without Ceasing," some idea is given of how Brother Mandus' work at the Sanctuary at headquarters is carried on. Letters from all over the world are received daily and placed on the altar, "and the needs of every one are given to the Father for divine adjustment." Every letter is answered with loving help and encouragement "and with the teaching of spiritual principles which naturally helps us all to keep in communion with God and with each other." In addition, says the article, the staff members use a scientific principle only now beginning to be understood and practiced. They have proved that the Love-faith-prayer consciousness when released into the written or spoken word, even in a recording or over the internet, releases the same power to those who are receptive to it.

In our worldwide work with visual recordings of healing prayer and spiritual teaching via the internet and through our letters, we have discovered that we can convey the same “Prayer Consciousness” to those who view and listen to them, perhaps thousands of miles away and months or years later. This is true because the only reality is the Divine Mind of God, and whatever is released in communion with the Lord must be forever real." To view the Sanctuary Altar live: Click Here