Healer Iwan uses snakes to cure patient
Healer Iwan uses snakes to cure patient
Text and photo by Johannes Simbolon
JAKARTA (JP): Iwan Rachmat, 40, has helped heal thousands of
people since he decided 23 years ago to focus his heart and mind
on the snake.
A drop-out of a technical college in Bandung, West Java, Iwan
points to the medicine symbol -- snake and grail -- to prove that
his philosophy is age-old, shared by wise men of all centuries.
According to Iwan, most all parts of snake's body -- its bile,
venom, meat, brain -- have curative properties.
"There are 48 kinds of illness that can be cured with
medicines or concoctions derived from snake's body," said the
father of five recently.
On the wall of his narrow house in Kota Bambu subdistrict,
Petamburan district, West Jakarta, hangs the sole picture of him
proudly standing beside a statue of a giant King Cobra with neck
developing as if it is about to attack its prey.
His obsession to snakes dates back to his childhood in his
hometown of Bandung, when he was bitten by a snake. His
grandfather, who was a traditional healer, cured him.
His childish curiosity overcame his fear and, after the
incident, he diligently studied the animal's behavior and the
magic way to subdue them under the tutelage of experts at many
pesantren (Islamic traditional boarding schools) in West Java.
The first snake bite at childhood was then followed by
thousands of other bites but, by then, Iwan knew how to cure
himself.
Later, Iwan passed on his expertise to his children. If you
come to visit him in his house, in fact, you might be surprised
(and afraid) to see his two youngest children, Feri, 7, and Jeki,
1, playing around with their pet golden-ringed snakes.
Snake master
Today, Iwan is known as "the snake master," who daily conducts
medical treatment at the Fatahillah museum in Jakarta. His
patients reportedly include Asian expatriates and high-ranking
officials.
"Many so-called traditional snake experts in the city often
claim to have some connection with me to improve their
credibility," Iwan says.
Iwan's house, tucked away among blocks of crammed dwellings of
less-privileged members of society, is reachable only by bicycle
which have to go through narrow, winding alleyways.
Iwan is part of the poverty-stricken group of people, perhaps
the last group in the city, which still believes in philanthropy.
His neighbors seem to love him because he often cures their
illness either for free or a negligible charge. This, he says, is
what has kept him financially poor.
"Everybody in the area knows him. He is a good man," hails a
pedicab driver who is based at the end of Jl. Kota Bambu.
Surprisingly, Iwan's acts of kindness resemble the
characteristics of snakes, as learned over time through hand-on
experience.
"Except for the evil King Cobra, which practices cannibalism,
all snakes are good creatures, even, in many cases better than
men," Iwan says.
Snakes, he says, never compete against one another for food.
One regulation applies among them: Never rob the fortune of your
fellows. Sometimes, they quarrel, biting each other but the row
never leads to killing.
Snakes in love
Snakes are family animals. After two adults fall in love,
they settle down in a pit and never wander beyond a radius of 500
meters. They cherish their love to death, there is no divorce,
both remaining faithful to each other life through.
"Their way of copulation is very amazing. Their tails, which
are nothing but their sex organs, are tightly united, while they
bite each other in the neck like cats for two days. No one can
ever separate them during copulation," Iwan says.
Parents search in shifts for food for their offspring. If the
male hunts for food, the female takes care of their babies and
vice versa.
Nothing hurts a snake more than having its offspring killed by
men. Out of fear, they naturally avoid encountering humans and
only attack them in self-defense. However, if their offspring is
slain, they will search for the killers for revenge.
"The snake has mysterious instinct which allows them to know
the killer. But if the killers have stepped beyond its turf of
500-meter radius, it will stop its searching and return to its
pit to hide its own grief," Iwan says.
The venom, which makes snakes hateful to men, also makes them
very valuable, according to Iwan. Through some pharmaceutical
engineering, the venom can be changed from lethal to curable to
fearful illnesses, including coronaries. As far as the snake's
venom is concerned, says Irwan, there applies a contradiction:
The more lethal it is, the more efficacious it is as medicine.
Ever since we heard the story on how the first men fell into
sin in the Garden of Eden due to the temptation of a snake, men
in their subconsciousness likened the animal to Satan. Men like
Iwan help us understand how good the species really is.