Alexander Vonlanthen is the Swiss Joao de Deus reviewed by Reinhold Ritter
Alexander Vonlanthen
Der Weg zur Quelle der eigenen Kraft: Freiheit im Licht, Sein, Jetzt
www.metacenter.ch, 2011, 190 pp., hardcover, ISBN 978-3-905922-03-5
Alexander Vonlanthen: Ein Leben zwischen Himmel und Erde
A documentary by Rolf Dietrich
www.metacenter.ch, 2014, 61 min., ISBN 978-3-033-04258-2
(German and Swiss German with English and French subtitles)
Alexander Vonlanthen
Offenbarungen: Weisheiten der Vollkommenheit
Teile 1, 2, 3 – three sets of cards, each containing 100 cards
www.metacenter.ch, 2015
Joao de Deus, the Brazilian full-trance medium, is known all over the world, having treated millions of people. In Brazil, he and other healing mediums as well as prolific writing mediums, such as the late Chico Xavier and Divaldo Franco, both authors of hundreds of books, have helped shape one of the liveliest spiritual scenes, involving psychical surgery and spiritual healing.
Now somehow the phenomenon of full-trance healing mediumship has managed to jump to Switzerland.
By meeting Joao de Deus just ten years ago, towards the end of 2005, Alexander Vonlanthen, then a young Swiss man, has gained access to another level of consciousness, to healing and to the creative force. Since that time, an increasing number of people come to him for help, healing, and advice. Like Joao, Alexander will not claim to do any healing himself, but insists that it is God or the force within each and every one of us that does the healing. He will also explain that for healing to take place the person has to be ready. Accordingly, Alexander Vonlanthen’s first book bears the title “Der Weg zur Quelle der eigenen Kraft” (literally: “The way to the source of one’s own force”).
Nowadays, Alexander Vonlanthen offers regular evening healing sessions, each lasting for about three hours. He does this in a number of Swiss towns and cities, such as Berne, Zurich, Lucerne, and others. These meetings are usually booked out long time in advance. Typically, Alexander will start the session with a talk, then go on to demonstrate the kind of healing that is effected through him by calling up two or three volunteers from the audience. After that he answers questions. This is followed by a meditation, during which a healing space is created for everyone present. No one leaves without having received some healing.
What is happening is an individual and societal phenomenon, equally intriguing from the viewpoint of living spirituality and cultural anthropology.
Alexander discovered his gift when – together with his wife – accompanying his mother to see Joao in Ulm. Standing in front of Joao, Alexander instantly went into trance. Joao and the Entities recognized Alexander’s potential as a full-trance medium, placing him amidst the group of mediums supporting Joao, blessing and encouraging him.
In his book, Alexander describes how all of this was completely new for him. He underwent a genuine cultural shock. Until then, he had been a fairly easy-going young man, enjoying life and his young family, and holding a good job. Now this changed overnight. Suddenly he had to accommodate powerful energies running through him, forcing him to do involuntary movements, making him talk in an ancient strange language, utter strange sounds, and making him start healing people. Gratefully he acknowledges how only with the unceasing support of his wife, family and local community he could come to terms with this new situation and find his rightful place. He has given up his managerial position and now counsels, lectures and heals full-time.
He declares that he is always ‘spiritually online’ – connected at a higher level. When he does healing work, he goes into full trance. I feel privileged to have witnessed this many times. It is possible to have deeply meaningful dialogues with Alexander and the Entities, also on questions of physics, cosmology, or psychology, and get spontaneous answers that really seem to come out of another world.
Around Alexander there is evolving a circle of friends. Some of them are beginning to have similar experiences, albeit usually not so strong. These are doctors, scientists, psychologists, teachers, nurses and just local villagers. Some have discovered their own abilities to make trance music, do trance writing, and also trance healing, all of which Alexander actively encourages. Reporting to each other about their insights and experiences seems to bring about a deepening and quickening of the process. The perception is that there is a field of consciousness, which is contagious in a highly positive sense, helping people to unfold and manifest hidden talents and creative power.
Recently, Alexander went through a ten-day process of receiving 300 sayings of deep spiritual content. These are the new cards. Many are of a Zen koan-like quality. The Entities expressing through Alexander address the fundamental questions of life:
Is there God? Who or what is God? Who is responsible for life? Is it God or man? What is the meaning of death? Is every action the consequence of something previous? Is it possible that every movement manifests in a form? What is free will? Is there such a thing as free will? How do I know whether I have decided freely or not? What is ethical behaviour? Could there be a code for right behaviour? Are there many realities? Many dimensions?
Alexander’s whole work is strongly focused on awakening – an on-going and probably never-ending process.
The Alexander Vonlanthen phenomenon is an excellent example of a well-working relationship between a healer and the medical establishment, hospital doctors and scientists. It is deeply reassuring to see how local society manages to integrate the new and benefit from it.
Having Alexander Vonlanthen address the Network, will give members the chance to be first-hand ‘participant observers’ in a genuine experiment in higher consciousness.