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.