Friday, May 1, 2015

"Alternative" healing

As somebody working in healthcare, I tend to be skeptical to other methods of healing which have not been proven by large randomised controlled clinical trials etc. However, seeing is believing. And after western medicine is not able to cure my ailment, I have no choice but to explore the alternatives.

My younger sister suffers from psoriasis which remains uncontrolled after many doctors and many different medicines. From a relative, we come to know to Mr Antonius Porat. I would say he is Gifted (big G because it comes from God). Different foods for different people may have different effects. He will inform everyone their individual food to avoid/poisons. From my sister and my parents' recollection, it seems that his healing method is just as such. When I went home in December, my sister's skin was still pretty bad so I was not convince that this healing method works. But when I went home 2 weeks ago, my sister's skin improved tremendously. Seeing that, I decided to also go for one of the session. I am thankful that there was a session in Jakarta when I was home.

I had some reservations because I consider myself to eat very little already. In addition, it seems that the poisons are likely to be food that people usually eat a lot normally. For example, my mum gets egg and chocolate (well, she loves cakes so much!), my dad gets beef and some seafood (we know he loves these 2 types of meat much more than chicken or pork), my sister gets soda and ice (which she drinks almost everyday). For myself, my breakfast is always bread from supermarket and my dinner is replaced with cereal nowadays. Lunch is only my proper meal and I always rotate among the few stalls. I will have nothing to eat if milk or flour is one of my poisons. It is not that I like these food. I have no other choice but to eat them for survival. Lol  God is great and is merciful. He knows that I already eat very little and I eat to survive, my fears did not come true and my poisons are egg, butter, and chili.

Honestly, I was happy that I only had 3 poisons and I thought they would be easy to avoid because I don't think I have them very often. I was more worried if my poisons are potato chips, fast food, or bubble tea haha.. But I know they are not likely because I avoided them for 4 months but my face is still like shit.

Apparently, it is easier said than done! I don't like spicy food and I don't actively look for spicy food. But now I realise, I often buy Indonesian or Malay food. Although they are not spicy, they always have chili as a sauce (just to make the food look red) or even as decoration. Gosh!! Like that also can! I also often eat from the new Thai stall near my workplace which also serves spicy food. I have to rely on mixed rice food stalls now.

Similarly with egg. It is kind of easy to avoid the full eggs but there are too many food with "hidden" eggs. I like sushi and I almost bought a maki set last week when I realised that tamago is also egg T_T I eat ramen once in a month or in 2 months but I guess that has to go away soon. Quite wasted if I buy one and not to have the eggs.

Butter is almost always hidden but basically all cakes will be out for me. Those commercial biscuits also may have butter so I always read ingredients list nowadays.

The ultimate challenge is, however, even when I actively avoid those that I can see, sometimes there are hidden ones. For example, I ordered the stack of green vegetables and white bean sprout but when I started to eat, I saw some chili pieces inside!! Those mixed rice stalls also share tongs/spoons for different food. Even if I don't order chili or egg, the tongs/spoons have been previously used for other food containing chili or egg for other patrons.

Enough about food, let's go back about the healing. My parents and sister are not telling the full story. Avoiding personal poison is just one part of the healing. The other part of the healing is pertaining to lifestyle. When you shake hands with Mr Porat, he will be able to "see" if you have other problems in your life which may be contribute to your disease. For example, stress, having negative personalities, conflict at home or at work, etc. One thing that he emphasizes on is to always smile and be positive. Yes it sounds corny but this works on psychological aspect.

Spiritually, he will also remind people to follow their religions teaching, whatever their religions are. He will also be able to "see" if people seldom go to church/mosque/temple or if people go but actually cannot concentrate on the service or if people actually don't fast etc.

Lastly, the session itself is also a healing process. People may start to get skeptical here as often we imagine those healing sessions we see on TV: people crying and falling down etc. Mr Porat is a Catholic but his session is non-denominational. The session opens and ends with 1x Our Father, 1x Hail Mary, and 1x Glory Be. That's all. My parents and sister told me that the session opens and ends with 'prayers' so I was expecting it to be like those healing services on TV. At the start of the session, he mentioned that he was not the one doing the healing. The healing comes from God. Thus he advises people to remain throughout the session because once the session ends, the grace also ends or something like that. He does not want people to think that he is the healer and continuously look for him etc.

Apparently there were 2 children who were ever brought by their parents to one of his sessions. Subsequently when these children went to a Mass, they pointed at the statues of Jesus and Mother Mary and told their parents "Eh.. weren't these people also present at that session that we attended?". Aha!!

I am getting impatient but it has only been 2 weeks for me. I guess I just have to believe and obey. God is the true healer after all.

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