Kathryn Kuhlman’s Healing Mantle: The Power Behind Her Miracles and Ministry

Excerpted from Mantles: Past and Present.

Kathryn Kuhlman would say, “I know better than anyone else that I have no healing virtue or power. I cannot heal anyone; I’m the most ordinary person in the world.”

That was the way she viewed herself.

Kathryn would explain to congregations, “You say, ‘Kathryn, touch me, touch me!’ But it’s not my touch that is needed; it is His touch that you need. For it is not some of self and some of Him; it is none of self and all of Him. He’s not looking for golden vessels or silver vessels; He is looking for yielded vessels.”

The years went by, and Kathryn’s ministry grew. By the mid-1950s, it had gotten to a place in her meetings that the team would open the building hours before the service was to begin and the auditorium would quickly fill to capacity. So Kathryn put a new rule in place: “When the building is full and the fire marshal locks the door, call me; I’ll come and we’ll start church.”

When it was time, the team would call Kathryn and say, “It’s full, Ms. Kuhlman.” She’d reply, “All right, I’m coming.” Wearing her signature white dress, Kathryn would come to the green room to greet the VIPs who had come back to say hello to her and then graciously send them off to their seats.

Something sacred would happen as Kathryn then prepared to come out before the people. During those critical moments, everyone who worked with her behind the scenes knew exactly what they were to do and what they should not do.

Kathryn called those moments before every service “the time when Kathryn Kuhlman dies a thousand deaths.” She would pace back and forth behind the curtain or the door and pray until there was very little of Kathryn left and she was simply a yielded vessel through which the power of God could flow to eradicate disease and demonic oppression. She knew this would be some people’s last hope. If they did not get touched, they were going to die.

Kathryn was also very skilled and comfortable waiting for the public sense of God’s presence, a time where all hearts seemed to unite. Mother Etter referred so many times in her sermons to that place of Pentecost, where the people waited in unity and came into one accord. Then the power would come, or as the old-timers might say, “The blessing flowed.”

In a Kathryn Kuhlman meeting, the congregation would sing along with the choir often for hours waiting on God. Kathryn wouldn’t even come to the pulpit until the Holy Spirit was tangibly present. Often by that time, many people were simply healed in His presence, never receiving ministry from her personally.

And Kathryn knew that she couldn’t do a thing on her own to help anyone. So she would pace and pray and die, as she would say — and when she felt ready, she’d walk so quickly out on the stage wearing that flowing white dress that it looked like she was floating. Then the divine electricity that we call the anointing of God would begin to manifest as people were gloriously and instantaneously healed and set free!

I was in three of her meetings and met her once as a little boy, so I have experienced this firsthand. Someone would get healed — and then boom, boom, boom! Healings started popping like popcorn all over the auditorium. The rhythm of her meetings didn’t even go up and down; it just kept rising to a crescendo, lasting three, four, or sometimes five hours.

In one of Ms. Kuhlman’s miracle services that I attended as a boy, I was sitting about four rows back from the wheelchair section, which covered half of the bottom floor of the auditorium. There were probably 300 to 500 wheelchairs in the section.

All of a sudden we could hear a wind begin to lightly blow. I thought it was the air conditioner coming on. Whoooosh — the wind hit the wheelchair section, and approximately 30 of those people suddenly jumped up and walked out of their wheelchairs! Some were instantly whole; others shuffled a little at first and then began to walk normally. Even as a young boy, the power of that experience at Ms. Kuhlman’s meeting marked me for life. It ignited an undying hunger in me for the tangible anointing of the Holy Spirit that urges me on in my spiritual race to this day.

Kathryn Kuhlman walked in an unusual dimension of power. She carried a tangible touch of the Holy Spirit all the time, because she carried the mantle as a lifestyle, not as a church event.

When Kathryn came to the airport, she’d be walking to get on the plane and people would recognize her and ask her to pray for them. When she did, they would often fall to the floor from the power of the anointing. Sometimes people would be slain in the Spirit in the airport when Kathryn simply walked by them!

In 1965, Kathryn launched her television program “I Believe in Miracles” on CBS. For the next decade, it would become the longest-running religious program in CBS history.

In the last years of Kathryn’s life, preachers were not the only ones inviting her; even mayors of cities were asking her to come. Kathryn would receive invitations from city leaders that said, “Please come and hold a gospel healing crusade; we’ll give you our largest auditorium.”

The size of the crowds grew bigger and bigger over the years in Kathryn’s meetings. And as the crowds increased, so did the outstanding miracles. It’s all part of this great healing mantle for America that God placed on the earth — and I believe it’s for every generation until the end of the age when Jesus returns!

The Power of a Generational Mantle

This particular healing mantle has common threads that can be observed. For instance, in each generation, the reputation of this top healing mantle becomes national in scope as great crowds assemble to witness the outstanding miracles that occur on a regular basis. In each generation, the mantle carrier also made a conscious decision to primarily wear white when ministering.

There are also common ways that the enemy attacks the one who carries this mantle in each generation. It is the successor’s responsibility to stay aware of Satan’s strategies and take all necessary steps to guard against them.

In the case of this national healing mantle, all three generations of mantle carriers (Maria Woodworth-Etter, Aimee Simple-McPherson, and Kathryn Kuhlman) faced challenges in assuming their role as women preachers, which was frowned upon in society in their time. This was especially true for divorced women preachers, and all three eventually faced marital troubles that led to divorce.

All three also suffered the pain of loss concerning the subject of children. For Maria, she endured the grief of outliving all her children, five of whom died as young children.

Aimee went through a period of conflict with her daughter Roberta concerning the running of the ministry. Roberta was eventually removed from her leadership position as a result of a dispute concerning Aimee’s lawyer and subsequently moved across the nation to start a new life in New York City. So although Aimee had her son Rolf as her faithful helper in the fulfillment of her call, she never again had Roberta by her side in ministry.

As for Kathryn, she had made the decision on that dead-end street to lay on the altar her desire for a husband and children in order to fulfill the call of God that compelled her. Only the One to whom Kathryn surrendered her life knows the inner pain that her decision caused her during her years on this earth.

In addition, the national attention that helped grow these women’s ministries also became a heavy burden at times. All three generations of these mantle carriers endured opposition from multiple sources. They faced persecution from the religious, from the media, and from a secular society that didn’t understand their assignment from Heaven or the God they served.

Finally, the enemy’s strategies to stop this mantle from operating manifested in a similar way near the end of each woman’s life. All three had heart issues that helped contribute to their deaths.

This mantle starts working on the called one in the next generation who is willing to pay the price and live a life that allows God to trust him or her with it. The one chosen by the Lord to carry the mantle must learn how to work with it both in the natural and in the Spirit. That process of preparation takes time and a diligent pursuit.

But there comes the time when the mantle begins to work through the one called to carry it, and it gradually becomes a force that cannot be stopped. And every time the mantle transfers according to God’s plan to the next generation, it increases in some degree of power or scope.