The Shaykh recounts the story of treating a young man with madness through medical fasting

The Shaykh : We will pray... for five minutes... If it is about fasting, I spoke with some of the brothers... One of our brothers was afflicted with something resembling madness; I call it intermittent, meaning it is not constant. He would be sitting in the house... and the episode would strike him, and naturally he would not leave anything in the house or the room without smashing it to pieces. He was treated in many hospitals, including the American University in Beirut, to no avail. They subjected him to... and he gained no benefit. From the many times he visited them, he seemed to have lost hope in that treatment. He had barely heard this experience from me, and I also mentioned to him what is in the Book of miraculous cures and strange experiences, when he said... I want to try it, but... it is not easy to maintain the fast... He fasted for eleven days and then stopped, but he told us that he saw a benefit, meaning that... it decreased significantly. So he was patient with himself for months, then he returned to fasting, and thus he fasted for forty days in three stages. But the man was cured, so his joy was great. It was as if he had vowed to himself to advise everyone he knew who was ill: fast, fast. So he told us... He said, a young man from among my friends came to him complaining about his mother’s illness, and that she had reached the point where she was bedridden, unable to move from it even to relieve herself. And despite the fact that she had two daughters who were nurses in the hospital, the matter exhausted them. When he heard this complaint from his friend, he said to him: Make her fast. He said to him: O Shaykh, how can we make her fast? She is an old woman, and we fear she will die. There is nothing but water. He said: Make her fast, and you do nothing. Put a glass of water in front of her. She will cry out, she needs food, she needs something, lemon, a cloth... Absolutely do not respond to her; only the water in front of her. This man... He said this conversation was between some of us, or the talk was between some of us. You are not convinced that she will die, so try this experiment on her... If she dies... and if she recovers, you will have gained her... They heard this speech, and by Allah, they deprived her of everything called food and drink except water... pure water. And the old woman would cry out... After three days, she got up from her bed.
The student : From hunger, she is looking for food.

The Shaykh : ... And after that... Therefore, he took this second and third experience. I am the first experience, he is the second, and the old woman is the third.