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For the past four years, Mangku Pogog has been confined to bed in his home in Mengwi, Bali Paralyzed by a stroke, he cannot walk more than a few steps. A bucket is kept nearby in case he needs to urinate, and Pogog spends his days watching television, smoking and watching after his grandchildren.  

He is a different man than the one I met five years ago. At that time he was a renowned Balian (Healer). Articles on him were published in the magazine "Shaman's Drum" and the Bali Post. He had been flown to Jakarta, Italy and Malaysia, and was treating the Sultan of Surakarta for lung cancer. At age 59 he had the body of an athlete half his age. And he was growing rich as wealthy tourists from abroad came to see him, paying increasingly high sums for his unique combination of massage, yoga, and mantra.

I was one of the westerners who visited Pak Mangku in those days. I had read the article in Shaman's Drum, which described a bizarre healer who could make the blind see, cure leprosy, and treat infertility. His treatments often involved him licking a patient's wound or area of infection - a dangerous practice to say the least. But the author of the article - and many of Pogog's patients - testi-fied to miraculous results. I flew to Bali in the hope of capturing one of these miracles on videotape.

Before the arrival of the western medicine in Indonesia, Balian were rather like country doctors, and could set broken bones and mix medicines from local plants. But in recent decades, Balian have left that work to doctors and concentrated on the Niskala - the unseen or useable powers - that effect health. "Balian are now people who specialize in black magic, in relieving people of ailments thought to be caused by spells cast by jealous neighbors or family members." Fred Eisenmann, author of "Sekala and Niskala", told me. "When doctors fail, a Balinese even now will quickly suspect the cause is black magic. Then they will go to a Balian."

Balian are unusual people, but Pogog was unusual even for a Balian. His practice was a synthesis of different forms. He was an excellent masseuse on an island known for its tradition of therapeutic massage. He was versed in the ayurevedic system of healing that stresses energy channels called nadis, which can be opened via yoga and deep tissue massage. He was literate and knew many mantes. And he was always learning. He owned books on yoga and anatomy, and he enjoyed questioning the many doctors who visited his home.

More important, Pogog's treatments seemed to work. On arrival I looked up one of the patients mentioned in the Shaman's Drum article, a fellow with a terrible skin disease. Pogog had treated this patient's open sores by licking the wound with his tongue. 
When I met the man a year later he seemed much better and told me that he had been symptom-free for a year since Pogog's treatment.

A typical session with Pogog began with a lengthy discussion / consultation. You would then  accompany Pogog to the bale and Pogog would "listen" to your feet - breaking a Balinese taboo against having the lower part of the body touch the higher part. Pogog would then begin the treatment. He used a number of "props" including two large round rocks and a hardwood log. He would place the rocks in various parts of your body - the soles of the feet and palms of the hands, the armpits and in the groin area, and hit them with rock. Hard. This didn't hurt you - the dense stone absorbed the kinetic energy - but it was loud and the effect was dramatic and startling. Pogog would tell jokes and laugh the entire time.

If you had an obvious Sekala problem - a persistent rash, broken bone that would not heal properly, or even an open wound with advanced necrosis, Pogog would apply his betel-stained saliva to or even lick the affected area. He would then continue to place you in a variety of yoga poses, manipulating the muscles and tendons, and then invite you to sit on his shoulders as he walked around the
compound, laughing, singing and dancing all the while. Then he would sprinkle you with holy water and send you to the temple to pray. 

Pogog's use of his mouth and saliva during his treatments was probably the most controversial aspect of his methods. From a western perspective, this was at best highly unsanitary and at worse compounded the risk of spreading infectious disease. Many visitors tried to impress this upon Pogog, but he would laugh and say that he wasn't like a doctor who needed a mask and rubber gloves because he had his own way of protecting himself against disease. After much prodding, he eventually explained his rational.

Pogog said that his healing power came from an animal spirit. One night, while out in the flooded rice paddies, a giant leech appeared, enveloped him and entered his mouth. He fell unconscious, but woke before dawn as if from a dream. Since  that time his saliva had the power to heal. By literally "licking" the problem, he could heal a variety of conditions that only decorum prevents me from describing. He told me  that before treating anyone he asked help and permission from this spirit, who even had a name. The spirit, in exchange for "using" Pogog's body, would protect him from sick- ness. 

I found the idea of a supernatural leech rather hard to accept, so instead I concen trated on what it was that Pogog did. Pogog's methodology seemed aimed at breaking down - almost literally - a patient's body and their attitude toward  their body. He would disarm you with humor, poke you, twist you, bang on you, pick you up, lick you, sing and dance with you until every boundary you ever erected, every rule you ever knew, the edifice of your personality had been broken, inverted,  complimented, mocked, lifted, dropped and shattered. The physical, kinesthetic process of the "massage" mirrored a psychological process that asked you to look again at the vessel you call your body, take - inventory, and reevaluate the nature of your   "sakit" - your sickness - and your relation- that before treating anyone he asked help and ship to it.

And after breaking you down, what were you left with? The sakit was still there, but a patient's relationship to the sakit had been transformed. These cathartic transformations did, in many cases, lay the foundation for physical, biochemical change.

But Pogog was not only adept in solving "niskala" problems, but "sekala" conditions as well. Pogog was a skilled masseuse with a deep understanding of anatomy. His own yoga practice was phenomenal. He had the ability to place or assist his patients into advanced yoga positions that theretofore were physically impossible. He also knew, like an osteopath or doctor of chiropractic, how to help many people with real - not psychosomatic - physical injuries or damage. An example:

Often boys are born with one or both testicles undescended. The testicles commonly drop into the scrotum before the child is 12 months old. When the testicles do not  descend, the only option available to doctors is surgery. As with all surgical procedures done under general anesthetic, there is a chance of complications - hemorrhage, infection, and even death.

Pogog had a technique which he commonly performed on boys and young men with this condition. He would perform deep tissue massage in the patient's lower abdomen and try to push the testicle through the obstructing guberculum into the scrotum. If that didn't work, he would take the patient's scrotum into his mouth and - while continuing the abdominal massage with his free hands - and create a vacuum in his mouth which would pop the testicle through the blockage and down in place.

I described this technique to a western doctor and he shook his head and winced. But after thinking about it for a moment, the doctor agreed that the technique did have many merits. Unlike surgery, there was no risk of infection or the side-effects associated with general anesthesia. The procedure took about ten minutes, was inexpensive, and the patient could go home not days but minutes later. Of course, he said, that no western doctor could perform such a technique without losing his medical license because of the impression of sexual impropriety. (In fact, a much-told rumor circulating about Pogog was that he performed oral sex on his patients.)

It is difficult not to look on people like Pogog with profound ambivalence. Robin Lim, the author of the article in "Shaman's Drum" witnessed these transgressive, highly theatrical techniques and later told  me "I couldn't figure out it he was the most deviant person I have  ever met in my life or a person so deeply, in his heart, in love with his patients that he would do anything in order to heal them." It is easier to question Pogog's sanity than his motives, particularly after witnessing, on many occasions, Pogog risk his own health to heal a patient. I tried to voice those fears to Pogog, but he mocked and dismissed my concerns.

While I was concerned with Pogog picking up a bacterial infection or virus, Pogog's Balinese friends were more concerned with the spiritual danger of his work. In the  Balinese world-view, if you rid someone of an illness that is karmic in origin, you run the risk of taking on that sickness and that karmic debt. And if a patient's illness was the work of a Leyak, by "eating" the sickness Pogog could incur the wrath of that sorcerer.

Pogog never tried to hide what he did, and everything done on his open bale. He welcomed strangers, foreigners, police officers, and reporters to witness his work, proud of the fact he had nothing to hide. Many of Pogog's patients were women and Pogog's wife or daughter-in- law was always there to providing assistance, which helped mitigate the impression of impropriety. It takes a great deal of courage for a woman to  visit a male Balian. Bali is always swirling with rumors of "balian cabul" - "horny" or "porno balian" who tell women they can cure them of their problem in exchange for sex. The fact that Pogog, with men or with women, always enjoyed himself, didn't help his reputation.

Many women came to Pogog who were  having difficulty getting pregnant. Some testified to me that Pogog cured them of their problem, and pointed to healthy babies as evidence. I suspect that Pogog's shock treatments were particularly effective in breaking women out of cultural conditioning or learned behavior that manifested in irregular menstruation and infertility. His treatments  were effective on western women as well. I met one western woman who visited Pogog because she hadn't had a period in 6 months.Pogog treated her and she had her period the next day


The physical, kinesthetic process of the  massage mirrored a psychological process that asked you to look again at the vessel you call your body, take inventory, and reevaluate the nature of your "sakit" - your sickness - and your relationship to it.

I was not the only person  who reed the article in Shaman s Drum. Large numbers of foriegners, waving the article, would appear at the market in Mengwi looking for a guide who could take them to "Mr. Pohoh". (Robin Lim had misspelled Pogog's name in the article, which cause no end of confusion, because "pohoh" means "mango" in Balinese.) A fellow I'll call Jerry was studying with Pogog and helping marketing efforts by creating color displays and distributing pamphlets in Ubud that were head- lined "Meet a Balinese Shamanic Healer". A film crew from Germany arrived and  spent a week with Pogog, pay- ing a great deal of money to document his work.

All of this affected Pogog's practice. He began to show preference to Western or wealthy Indonesian patients over the local villagers. He talked a lot about a tour of  America, which Jerry was trying to organize. There is a cultural stereotype of Balinese people as being prone to jealousy, and I got the sense that all the activity was not going unnoticed by Pogog's economically strug gling neighbors. I really began to worry when some- one reported to me that Pogog had derided a patient whose sesari (an offering that includes money) was insufficient.

It was time for me to go home, and I left with a sense of unease. I came to Bali to try and find out if this man was a charlatan or a miracle worker, an egomaniac or someone touched by God. It  turns out that he was all of  these things, but that still didn't explain him at all. After three months watching Pogog he still utterly confounded me. I was reminded of the words of Prospero in Shakespeare's The Tempest: "There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy".

A few months after I returned to America I got news of Pogog's stroke. A CT scan revealed a complete
non-bleeding stroke, and the doctor who treated him doubts that Pogog will ever walk again. It is a bit ironic that advanced new blood-clot dissolving medicines for stroke victims - made from leech venom - are not available in Indonesia when  Pogog was stricken.

A good many people are relieved that Pogog is out of business. The image of an infection-licking, disease-sucking yogi is hardly one  that appeals to the Balinese Tourist board. Some of Pogog's enemies were actually pleased by the turn of events. I met an expatriate couple -part-time residents of Bali since the 70's - who considered Pogog to be a leyak. A woman with a history of depression: whom they knew had visited Pogog at one point and weeks later committed suicide. They blamed Pogog for this. When I informed them that Pogog was now completely incapacitated, the response was "Serves him right".

But many of Pogog's patients feel differently. Jay Hartman is a H.I.V. positive patient that Pogog treated back in August of 1997. Doctors informed had told him that his viral load was 100,000 and his 
t-cell count, at 39, was too low for him to receive the then-standard therapy of AZT. Jay avoided all medical treatment and decided instead to take a vacation in Bali. He visited Pogog and I witnessed and taped his treatment. His viral load is now undetectable (30000/50000) and his T-cell count is 140.
He's completely asymptomatic, doing just fine, and he credits Pogog with his sustained health.

Robin Lim is not surprised that these healing techniques were effective on the many western patients who visitied  Pogog, but in retrospect she says that she wishes she had concealed Pogog's name and the name of his village in her Shaman's Drum article. "I guess I would rather have westerners to solve their own problems within the context of their own culture."

Pogog now has little to do but sit and wonder how this could have happened to him. At one point he told me that the cause of the stroke was black magic sent by other jealous Balian. Another theory was that he was cursed by his ancestors for spending his new wealth on renovating his home before rebuilding his family temple. He has also said the stroke stemmed from the fact that he left Bali to per- form healings - in a dream he was told that he lost his healing "wahyu", or "boon" because he comrnitted the error of putting foreigners ahead of his own local community. "That is why I am in this prison." he told me.

It is normal for a person to respond to a tragedy with shock, denial, bargaining, and depression. One can hope that the final stage - acceptance - will come to Pogog. The irony of the situation is that Pogog needs someone like his old self. He needs to be set free from his spiritual and psychological prison before there is any chance of a positive change to his physical body. It is ironic and even tragic that he cannot apply his own intuitive healing genius to himself. Who, now, will heal the healer?