Singapore Modern Mediums
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By NEWPAPER REPORTER Zubaidah Nazeer
October 03, 2005
HOLISTIC HEALER LEE WAI CHING
‘My work is based on quantum physics’
SHE is more likely to be seen in a chic Issey Miyake dress than a robe.
And her work accessory of choice isn’t incense sticks, but her Apple Powerbook.
It’s a gadget Ms Lee Wai Ching, 48, takes with her when she flies to various countries to service her clients. It is also the communication tool with her clients as she does e-mail consultations too.
Ms Lee, who runs Earthstar Holistic Consultancy and who says she is married to her work, is among a new breed of new-age healers.
What sets her apart from old-school mediums?
‘The New-Age healer is a traditional healer as well as an intellectual scholar,’ she declares.
She claims that healers like herself even delve into the science of quantum physics as a basis for their work.
‘My work is based on quantum physics of multi-dimensional realities existing in many layers of space,’ she tries to explain.
What that purportedly means is she needs an understanding of the properties of matter, in order to know how to channel negative energies away from the spaces she ‘cleanses’.
Ms Lee holds a bachelor’s degree in arts from the California Institute of Integrated Studies and a masters in Transformational Learning. Both courses merge business and holistic modules.
She is also a certified holistic health counsellor and massage therapist. Her interest and initial training, she says, came from her mother and aunt.
‘They practised yoga and qi gong when I was a teen and I went along.‘I grew up with stories of black and white magic. My aunts are wonderful cooks and therefore healers, when we use food as medicine. My great-grandfather was the Chinese physician to a member of a Malaysian royal family.’
To build her credentials, she studied with four Chinese qi gong and tai chi teachers from China and Hong Kong before adopting her own methods.
Now, she claims, she is not only able to connect with spirit guides and angels, but she can also clear negative energies from spaces – like a modern-day ghostbuster, ridding places of negative presence.
She says: ‘My role is to lighten or enlighten. For example, like in the movie The Sixth Sense about a little boy with ability to assist deceased beings back to the light.’
Ms Lee claims that she has prevented a CEO from committing suicide, an executive from a nervous breakdown and even increased the energy of an adviser to a politician.
She travels to countries in Europe and the Middle East and the US and said she does work for the United Nations Community Development Fund for Women.
She does not use one set of beliefs in her healing.
‘I see myself as the bridge between the ancient and the new and work according to people’s systems.’
And rather than take these negative energies, or spirits, into her, she channels them away and into the ‘light’.
Aware of the increasing interest in all things holistic, she reasons: ‘It’s the new millennium. It’s an age where people try to find their comfort zone and true selves outside their usual sources.’
‘Angels send me messages’THREE years ago, she was suffering from depression – an unhappy result of losing her good friend in a boating accident.
It was so severe that two healers Mrs Charlotte Heng-Lee consulted said that she was becoming suicidal.
A healer used a healing technique, similar to reiki, and steered her out of her dark moments.
Since then, Mrs Heng-Lee has taken up an ‘angel healing’ technique to help others become more positive.
She practises what she calls ‘angel miracle healing’, ‘angel oracle cards reading’ and ‘intuitive counselling’.
The 31-year-old claims that she is able to tap into the angels surrounding a person to understand what these angels are trying to tell the person.
‘I act like an instrument through which the angels, who are present around every one of us, give a message or ‘advice’ to my clients.’
She does not think her gifts are special.
‘All of us can open our ‘third eye’ to this. It’s a matter of whether we believe it and want to learn how to do it. Most people just don’t because they are not open to it.’
She learnt these abilities from other healers, like local healer Umesh Nandwani of The Golden Space holistic centre and an Australian, Elizabeth Jensen. She says she is still in the midst of ‘upgrading’ herself and learning from other healers.
She uses oracle cards and crystals, including one in the shape of an angel, during her sessions.
She tries to avoid using dark colours during her sessions, explaining that lighter colours give out more positive energy.
Her clients are mostly in their 20s and 30s, from civil servants to managers. She also sees a
handful of elderly folks.‘They ask for all sorts of healing, from matters like relationships to work and career, and also about managing finances.’
Mrs Heng-Lee feels that healers like herself are similar to old-school mediums in one area: They act as the communicator or the bridge between humans and the spirit world.
‘The difference is that I do not let the spirit take control of my body and go into a trance-like state. I just merely channel them away.’
Don’t expect her to stomp around or starve herself of meat either.
‘Our healing work cuts across religion and races or cultures. It is about using the energies that surround someone.’
More young people are seeking out healers, she notes, because of the increasing awareness and openness to all things spiritual, like meditation and card-readings.
She admits that calling herself an ‘angel healer’ sounds ‘more high-class and appeals to the educated’, but adds: ‘At the end of the day, a name should not matter, as long as we can do the job or if someone believes in what you do.’
‘I cleanse not exorcise’
CHRISTY Hu says she has the ability to sense and communicate with spirits and allow them to enter her body.
She even uses mantras and chants while she heals.
But she does not see herself as a temple medium.
Rather, Ms Hu calls herself a ‘holistic healer’ – someone with the ability to cleanse a house or a body of negative energies.
The 36-year-old is a qualified reiki master and shiatsu therapist who can perform cranio-sacral therapy (which involves pressure points on the head and spine), lymphatic drainage or even acupuncture.
The fengshui consultant says that her interest in the holistic and the spiritual was piqued when she picked up yoga at the age of 15.
Her abilities to tap into the spirit world was a result of tutelage from various sources like Tibetan and Thai monks and Taiwanese fengshui masters. She also reads works by American healers, in particular Barbara Brennan’s book, Hands Of Lights.
Ms Hu claims she is able to conduct exorcisms too.
But she makes it clear: ‘Healers like me do not claim to use powers ‘given’ by a god. Rather, we tap into the universal energy and universal light.
‘My methods are not mystical, like mediums. I actually explain in technical terms to my clients what’s happening or what the cause is, like for example, explain the meridians of the body and how these affect them.’
She is not garbed in mystical costumes, preferring to work in something comfortable like T-shirts and pants or her sarong skirt.
Ms Hu claims that more people, especially young corporate types, are seeking her services to enhance their personal lives.
‘They range from successful businessmen to lawyers and they consult me on improving their relationships, wealth and careers.’
Aware that there are sceptics who think healers like her are con artists, she says: ‘There must be a connection, if they open up to me I can give them advice but if they are closed, I won’t say anything.’
A case of mind over matter?IT DOES not surprise psychologists that some people opt to go to new age healers.
Says Dr Tan Chue Tin, a consultant psychiatrist based at the Mount Elizabeth Medical Centre: ‘There will be people who do not adhere to or are disappointed with Western medicine.
”Then there are others, who, because of their educational level or their cultural perspective, prefer to turn to alternative sources of healing before deciding on Western medication,’ he says.
He also cites the placebo effect as a possible reason for its success.
Some illnesses, like allergies and psychosomatic ones, can go away simply because a person feels better about themselves.
‘Some conditions are a result of ‘if the mind is disturbed, the body is disturbed’. If the person believes going to a holistic healer makes him better, then that is half the battle won,” explains Dr Tan.
Then, there are conditions where the holistic part – meditation – can be used in combination with therapy to reinforce the will to live.
But the jury is still out on whether any alternative forms of healing can help cure illnesses which are organic-based, like cancer.
Associate Prof Ngiam Tee Liang, head of social work department at the National University of Singapore says: ‘I think you have to evaluate the efficacy of any form of treatment to see whether it really works. The public should base their final decision on evidence-based practices.”
The Old medium – Upgrade? No Need!By NEWPAPER REPORTER Zubaidah Nazeer
October 03, 2005
HE has seen young tang kees – Chinese mediums who lend their bodies to deities – speak in English when possessed.
He says more women tang kees have also joined the trade.
But Mr Goh Guan Kheng doesn’t think he needs to move with the times and do something else.
For one thing, it’s not a dying trade.
‘The followers have increased in number, the festive celebrations at temples get bigger and the ‘dragon’ chairs that tang kees sit on are also much nicer,’ says the medium, who has been practising for 30 years.
To many of his followers, he is the Chosen One.
Topless and wearing a pair of long, yellow pants, the 44-year-old sits in a wooden chair with carvings of dragons when he goes into a trance.
Such ceremonies usually take place in a temple or at a friend’s home where he has an altar decked with many statues of deities.
‘I allow the deity to possess me to answer questions from his followers,’ says Mr Goh in Mandarin.
‘These people ask about their health, family, career and wealth.’
Mr Goh says that he does not charge for his service.
Some people, though, make a donation to the ‘temple’ for incense and joss paper, usually between $2 and $20.
Mr Goh did not want to provide more details on ‘lending’ his body to a deity.
‘Tian ji bu ke xie lou (can’t let out secrets from heaven),’ says Mr Goh.
‘I can only say that I would see a very strong light before the deity possesses me and I don’t know what happens after that.’
Mr Goh, a director of Singapore Cheng Hong Siang Tng Charitable Organisation, claims that he is well-respected by his ‘followers’.
‘These people believe in the deities and they respect me highly because I have ‘yuan’ (fate) with the deities,’ he says.
Mr Goh, a carpentry installation worker by day, makes less than $1,500 a month.
The bachelor lives with one of his five sisters in a three-room Housing Board flat in Potong Pasir.
After falling ill at 11, supposedly after being possessed by a bad spirit, and later ‘cured’ by a bomoh (a Malay medium), he started spending time in temples where he learnt to be a tang kee.
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By NEWPAPER REPORTER Zubaidah Nazeer
October 03, 2005
HOLISTIC HEALER LEE WAI CHING
‘My work is based on quantum physics’
SHE is more likely to be seen in a chic Issey Miyake dress than a robe.
And her work accessory of choice isn’t incense sticks, but her Apple Powerbook.
It’s a gadget Ms Lee Wai Ching, 48, takes with her when she flies to various countries to service her clients. It is also the communication tool with her clients as she does e-mail consultations too.
Ms Lee, who runs Earthstar Holistic Consultancy and who says she is married to her work, is among a new breed of new-age healers.
What sets her apart from old-school mediums?
‘The New-Age healer is a traditional healer as well as an intellectual scholar,’ she declares.
She claims that healers like herself even delve into the science of quantum physics as a basis for their work.
‘My work is based on quantum physics of multi-dimensional realities existing in many layers of space,’ she tries to explain.
What that purportedly means is she needs an understanding of the properties of matter, in order to know how to channel negative energies away from the spaces she ‘cleanses’.
Ms Lee holds a bachelor’s degree in arts from the California Institute of Integrated Studies and a masters in Transformational Learning. Both courses merge business and holistic modules.
She is also a certified holistic health counsellor and massage therapist. Her interest and initial training, she says, came from her mother and aunt.
‘They practised yoga and qi gong when I was a teen and I went along.‘I grew up with stories of black and white magic. My aunts are wonderful cooks and therefore healers, when we use food as medicine. My great-grandfather was the Chinese physician to a member of a Malaysian royal family.’
To build her credentials, she studied with four Chinese qi gong and tai chi teachers from China and Hong Kong before adopting her own methods.
Now, she claims, she is not only able to connect with spirit guides and angels, but she can also clear negative energies from spaces – like a modern-day ghostbuster, ridding places of negative presence.
She says: ‘My role is to lighten or enlighten. For example, like in the movie The Sixth Sense about a little boy with ability to assist deceased beings back to the light.’
Ms Lee claims that she has prevented a CEO from committing suicide, an executive from a nervous breakdown and even increased the energy of an adviser to a politician.
She travels to countries in Europe and the Middle East and the US and said she does work for the United Nations Community Development Fund for Women.
She does not use one set of beliefs in her healing.
‘I see myself as the bridge between the ancient and the new and work according to people’s systems.’
And rather than take these negative energies, or spirits, into her, she channels them away and into the ‘light’.
Aware of the increasing interest in all things holistic, she reasons: ‘It’s the new millennium. It’s an age where people try to find their comfort zone and true selves outside their usual sources.’
‘Angels send me messages’THREE years ago, she was suffering from depression – an unhappy result of losing her good friend in a boating accident.
It was so severe that two healers Mrs Charlotte Heng-Lee consulted said that she was becoming suicidal.
A healer used a healing technique, similar to reiki, and steered her out of her dark moments.
Since then, Mrs Heng-Lee has taken up an ‘angel healing’ technique to help others become more positive.
She practises what she calls ‘angel miracle healing’, ‘angel oracle cards reading’ and ‘intuitive counselling’.
The 31-year-old claims that she is able to tap into the angels surrounding a person to understand what these angels are trying to tell the person.
‘I act like an instrument through which the angels, who are present around every one of us, give a message or ‘advice’ to my clients.’
She does not think her gifts are special.
‘All of us can open our ‘third eye’ to this. It’s a matter of whether we believe it and want to learn how to do it. Most people just don’t because they are not open to it.’
She learnt these abilities from other healers, like local healer Umesh Nandwani of The Golden Space holistic centre and an Australian, Elizabeth Jensen. She says she is still in the midst of ‘upgrading’ herself and learning from other healers.
She uses oracle cards and crystals, including one in the shape of an angel, during her sessions.
She tries to avoid using dark colours during her sessions, explaining that lighter colours give out more positive energy.
Her clients are mostly in their 20s and 30s, from civil servants to managers. She also sees a
handful of elderly folks.‘They ask for all sorts of healing, from matters like relationships to work and career, and also about managing finances.’
Mrs Heng-Lee feels that healers like herself are similar to old-school mediums in one area: They act as the communicator or the bridge between humans and the spirit world.
‘The difference is that I do not let the spirit take control of my body and go into a trance-like state. I just merely channel them away.’
Don’t expect her to stomp around or starve herself of meat either.
‘Our healing work cuts across religion and races or cultures. It is about using the energies that surround someone.’
More young people are seeking out healers, she notes, because of the increasing awareness and openness to all things spiritual, like meditation and card-readings.
She admits that calling herself an ‘angel healer’ sounds ‘more high-class and appeals to the educated’, but adds: ‘At the end of the day, a name should not matter, as long as we can do the job or if someone believes in what you do.’
‘I cleanse not exorcise’CHRISTY Hu says she has the ability to sense and communicate with spirits and allow them to enter her body.
She even uses mantras and chants while she heals.
But she does not see herself as a temple medium.
Rather, Ms Hu calls herself a ‘holistic healer’ – someone with the ability to cleanse a house or a body of negative energies.
The 36-year-old is a qualified reiki master and shiatsu therapist who can perform cranio-sacral therapy (which involves pressure points on the head and spine), lymphatic drainage or even acupuncture.
The fengshui consultant says that her interest in the holistic and the spiritual was piqued when she picked up yoga at the age of 15.
Her abilities to tap into the spirit world was a result of tutelage from various sources like Tibetan and Thai monks and Taiwanese fengshui masters. She also reads works by American healers, in particular Barbara Brennan’s book, Hands Of Lights.
Ms Hu claims she is able to conduct exorcisms too.
But she makes it clear: ‘Healers like me do not claim to use powers ‘given’ by a god. Rather, we tap into the universal energy and universal light.
‘My methods are not mystical, like mediums. I actually explain in technical terms to my clients what’s happening or what the cause is, like for example, explain the meridians of the body and how these affect them.’
She is not garbed in mystical costumes, preferring to work in something comfortable like T-shirts and pants or her sarong skirt.
Ms Hu claims that more people, especially young corporate types, are seeking her services to enhance their personal lives.
‘They range from successful businessmen to lawyers and they consult me on improving their relationships, wealth and careers.’
Aware that there are sceptics who think healers like her are con artists, she says: ‘There must be a connection, if they open up to me I can give them advice but if they are closed, I won’t say anything.’
A case of mind over matter?IT DOES not surprise psychologists that some people opt to go to new age healers.
Says Dr Tan Chue Tin, a consultant psychiatrist based at the Mount Elizabeth Medical Centre: ‘There will be people who do not adhere to or are disappointed with Western medicine.
”Then there are others, who, because of their educational level or their cultural perspective, prefer to turn to alternative sources of healing before deciding on Western medication,’ he says.
He also cites the placebo effect as a possible reason for its success.
Some illnesses, like allergies and psychosomatic ones, can go away simply because a person feels better about themselves.
‘Some conditions are a result of ‘if the mind is disturbed, the body is disturbed’. If the person believes going to a holistic healer makes him better, then that is half the battle won,” explains Dr Tan.
Then, there are conditions where the holistic part – meditation – can be used in combination with therapy to reinforce the will to live.
But the jury is still out on whether any alternative forms of healing can help cure illnesses which are organic-based, like cancer.
Associate Prof Ngiam Tee Liang, head of social work department at the National University of Singapore says: ‘I think you have to evaluate the efficacy of any form of treatment to see whether it really works. The public should base their final decision on evidence-based practices.”
The Old medium – Upgrade? No Need!By NEWPAPER REPORTER Zubaidah Nazeer
October 03, 2005
HE has seen young tang kees – Chinese mediums who lend their bodies to deities – speak in English when possessed.
He says more women tang kees have also joined the trade.
But Mr Goh Guan Kheng doesn’t think he needs to move with the times and do something else.
For one thing, it’s not a dying trade.
‘The followers have increased in number, the festive celebrations at temples get bigger and the ‘dragon’ chairs that tang kees sit on are also much nicer,’ says the medium, who has been practising for 30 years.
To many of his followers, he is the Chosen One.
Topless and wearing a pair of long, yellow pants, the 44-year-old sits in a wooden chair with carvings of dragons when he goes into a trance.
Such ceremonies usually take place in a temple or at a friend’s home where he has an altar decked with many statues of deities.
‘I allow the deity to possess me to answer questions from his followers,’ says Mr Goh in Mandarin.
‘These people ask about their health, family, career and wealth.’
Mr Goh says that he does not charge for his service.
Some people, though, make a donation to the ‘temple’ for incense and joss paper, usually between $2 and $20.
Mr Goh did not want to provide more details on ‘lending’ his body to a deity.
‘Tian ji bu ke xie lou (can’t let out secrets from heaven),’ says Mr Goh.
‘I can only say that I would see a very strong light before the deity possesses me and I don’t know what happens after that.’
Mr Goh, a director of Singapore Cheng Hong Siang Tng Charitable Organisation, claims that he is well-respected by his ‘followers’.
‘These people believe in the deities and they respect me highly because I have ‘yuan’ (fate) with the deities,’ he says.
Mr Goh, a carpentry installation worker by day, makes less than $1,500 a month.
The bachelor lives with one of his five sisters in a three-room Housing Board flat in Potong Pasir.
After falling ill at 11, supposedly after being possessed by a bad spirit, and later ‘cured’ by a bomoh (a Malay medium), he started spending time in temples where he learnt to be a tang kee.
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