Bruno Gröning
Bruno Gröning
Born
Bruno Grönkowski[1]

(1906-05-30)May 30, 1906
Danzig, West Prussia, German Empire (now Gdańsk, Poland)
DiedJanuary 26, 1959(1959-01-26) (aged 52)
Paris, France

Bruno Bernhard Gröning (1906 in Danzig – January 26, 1959 in Paris[2]) was a German mystic who performed faith healings and lectured. He was active in Germany in the 1940s and 1950s after World War II.

Life

Gröning was born into a Catholic family in Danzig in 1906. He was the middle child of seven and was raised in the suburb of Oliva. He did not finish school; he began training as a carpenter and worked in a variety of jobs. During the Nazi era, his family changed their last name to the more German Gröning from Grönkowski, Grenkowski, or Grzenkowski, and he, his father, and his brother joined the Nazi Party.[3] In March 1943 he was conscripted into the Wehrmacht as a Panzerjäger;[4] after stating that he would not kill another human being, he came close to being executed for this stance at a court martial.[5] He was captured by the Soviets in Köslin and from March to October 1945 was in a POW camp in Frankfurt an der Oder,[4] where he argued with his captors for better conditions in the prison.[5]

Gröning came to public attention in 1949. In Herford, the father of a young boy named Dieter Hulsmann, claimed that Gröning had healed his son of muscular dystrophy and told many people of his belief. News of this story circulated and soon crowds gathered in front of the Hulsmann residence, seeking healing.[6] In May 1949, the state of North Rhine-Westphalia (where Herford is located) prohibited Gröning from acting as a healer, and he relocated to the city of Rosenheim in Bavaria, where authorities were more supportive, with the state's minister president Hans Ehard opining that legalities shouldn't impede the activities of such an "extraordinary phenomenon".[2] With intense media coverage in magazines, radio and Wochenschau newsreels, soon tens of thousands of people were filling the horse paddocks near the inn where Gröning was lodging at the outskirts of Rosenheim, hoping that his "healing rays" (Heilstrahlen) would cure them of war injuries, blindness, and other handicaps and ailments.[2] Gröning spoke to them from a balcony and had small tin foil balls (allegedly charged with his healing powers) distribute to those that he was not able to touch in person.[2] While he did not demand money, he is assumed to have received a substantial amount of donations.[2] After half a year Gröning was forced to leave Rosenheim amid charges of negligent homicide of a 17-year-old girl with lung disease; he later received several suspended prison sentences and fines.[2]

Gröning died at the age of 52 of stomach cancer; his ashes were buried in Dillenburg next to his younger son.[7]

Teachings

Gröning said that his ideas were not a new teaching or religion, but rather an ancient knowledge that had been lost, saying that people had forgotten "the most important thing", that there is a higher power or force that is available to help people.

Gröning regarded health (rather than illness and disease) as the natural state of all living things and asserted that one can maintain health and heal from illness by absorption of a Divine life force that he called heilstrom. which translates into English as "healing wave" or "healing stream".

Tuning in to divine energy

To connect with and receive this energy, Gröning taught a technique he called einstellen (German for "tuning in"). He said that human beings were like batteries that used energy. To maintain health, a person needed to daily renew themselves by tuning into the healing wave.[8] The practice of einstellen consists of sitting in an upright position with arms and legs uncrossed and palms facing upwards. He stated that it was very important for the back to be straight and to not have any kind of backrest if possible. Inwardly the practice consists of having the wish to receive the heilstrom, having faith that healing is possible, and then focusing on the body, observing the sensations and feelings thereof.

He told people to "take on health" and that specifically in regard to healing it is permissible, even necessary, to be selfish, that is, to focus on oneself.

Gröning believed that when a person tunes into the healing stream that healings can occur spontaneously or slowly, depending on variables such as the quantity of life force flowing through the body, accelerated during einstellen. Sometimes the symptoms may worsen or increased pain is experienced before a healing occurs. Gröning called this occurrence regelungen (German for "regulation" or "adjustments") and stated that it is sometimes a necessary part of the healing process.[9]

Reception

Media coverage of Bruno Gröning tended to be negative. While some called Gröning a "miracle doctor", the popular press of the time tended to call him a "charlatan" or "crazy."[10]

In many towns Gröning was forbidden from making public appearances. Reasons for this varied. One charge brought against him was that he was practicing medicine without a license. At other times officials were concerned about the large crowds that gathered.[11]

Following

Various groups continue to promulgate Gröning's teaching, including the Circle of Information, the Bruno Groening Trust, the Bruno Groening Friends, the Association for the Advancement in Germany of Spiritual and Natural - Psychological Foundations for Living, the Association for Natural Spiritual Living, the Bruno Gröning Circle of Friends, and Help and Healing Sessions.

Gröning founded the Association for the Advancement in 1958 to replace the Gröning Association. The Circle of Friends was founded in 1979 by Grete Hausler, an Austrian school teacher who worked closely with Gröning.[12] The Circle of Information was created by Thomas Busse, who has written a number of books about Gröning and directed the documentary film The Gröning Phenomena. Help and Healing Sessions is an association of independent Groening groups and hosts online meetings.

The Bruno Gröning Circle of Friends was listed as a commercial cult in an official 1997 report by the Berlin Senate Committee.[13]

Personal life

Gröning married in 1928. He had two sons with his wife, Gertrud, both of whom died, the elder in 1939 from a congenital heart defect, the younger in 1949 from pleurisy; the couple later divorced.[14]

He was a chain-smoker, preferring American Chesterfield cigarettes, a heavy coffee drinker, and an alcohol abuser, and known to sexually harass women at times; members of his inner circle found it necessary to control his access to them to prevent scandal.[15] In the 1940s he wore his hair unusually long and kept only one set of clothing, which he washed every evening.[16]

References

Notes

  1. ↑ "Die jungen Jahre". bruno-groening-w.org.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Kratzer, Hans (2020-05-17). "Heilstrom aus Stanniolkügelchen". Süddeutsche.de (in German). Retrieved 2022-05-31.
  3. ↑ Black 2020, pp. 51–53.
  4. 1 2 (Black 2020, p. 52)
  5. 1 2 (Kamp 1999, pp. 113–114)
  6. ↑ Kamp 1999, p. 114.
  7. ↑ Black 2020, pp. 252, 255.
  8. ↑ Häusler 1993, p. 11.
  9. ↑ Häusler 1993, p. 10.
  10. ↑ Black 2020.
  11. ↑ "Circle of Friends continues teachings of faith healer". Toledo Blade. Archived from the original on 13 February 2015. Retrieved 12 February 2015.
  12. ↑ "The Bruno Gröning Circle of Friends: An international society for healing by spiritual means". Bruno Gröning Circle of Friends. 2014-08-29. Retrieved 2021-06-09.
  13. ↑ "Die Deutsche Amalgam-Page, SEKTEN - Risiken und Nebenwirkungen". www.ariplex.com. Archived from the original on 2002-01-02. Retrieved 2019-12-05.
  14. ↑ Black 2020, p. 52.
  15. ↑ Black 2020, pp. 49, 122, 131–32, 144.
  16. ↑ Black 2020, pp. 49, 132.

Sources

  • Black, Monica (2020). A Demon-Haunted Land: Witches, Wonder Doctors, and the Ghosts of the Past in Post-WWII Germany. New York: Metropolitan Books – Henry Holt. ISBN 9781250225672.
  • Häusler, Grete (1993). Bruno Gröning, Introduction to His Teachings. Wegberg: G. Häusler-Verlag. ISBN 9783927685215. OCLC 35717052, 864472216.
  • Kamp, Matthias (1999). Healing the Spiritual Way Through the Teachings of Bruno Gröning (trans. of Heilung auf dem geistigen Wege durch die Lehre Bruno Grönings). Mönchengladbach: Häusler. ISBN 9783927685369. OCLC 76619857.
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