Dr. and Master Sha Page 2

  Since printing and shipping books takes a minimum of six weeks, I had to explain that that left Dr. Sha at most eight weeks to write and edit the book. The short timeline concerned me, but it didn’t concern him.

  “Oh, eight weeks is plenty of time. I work with the Divine and will have the book finished within three weeks from starting. We have lots of time,” Dr. Sha assured me.

  Still amazed, I inquired if the book was to be full-sized or if he was thinking of just a short book.

  “It will be a full-sized book. My students can help us with the editing. They can also help with the layout and design,” Dr. Sha responded.

  “Well, then you are not just authoring the book, you’re also packaging,” I observed. “The timeframe is still going to be a challenge, but I will see what I can do. Get me the book proposal as soon as you finish your conference and we will see what can be achieved,” I concluded.

  “Very good, and thank you, Bill. I know we are going to be successful together. When I checked with the Divine I was told that you have wonderful connections. You represented the For Dummies books and other big successful book series. That is my goal. I intend to write lots of books and sell millions of copies. I am a servant for the Divine and I have promised the Divine that I will heal as many people as I can. That is why my books are so important. They are not just books but soul healing miracles themselves. You will see. We will put soul healing calligraphy in each book, and the calligraphy itself will help heal people. You will help me find a television producer and we will also create health shows and events to heal people. You are going to have an important role in all of this, Bill,” Dr. Sha confirmed enthusiastically.

  I thanked Dr. Sha for his time and put down the phone.

  The call had gone on for more than three hours. It was after midnight in California. I only learned later that week that Dr. Sha had been in Toronto, Canada, during the call and had not gotten off the phone until 3 A.M. his time. This was while he was at a healing conference providing healings from 8 A.M. to 11 P.M. for days at a time. Two months later when I had my first physical meeting with Dr. Sha, I learned that this kind of drive and energy that enabled him to work at times for thirty-six hours or more without rest was not unusual for him.

  I did not yet know that I would be observing soul healing miracles myself, but I was already aware that I was about to embark on a journey with a most unusual and highly gifted client.

  In early September 2013 I had the pleasure of meeting Dr. and Master Sha in person. We had, after much discussion, decided to publish Soul Healing Miracles not with Simon & Schuster but with BenBella instead. The book had already been written, just as Dr. Sha had promised, and the final editing was taking place with almost a week to spare to ensure that the book would arrive on time.

  That first week in September Dr. Sha had arranged for a healing retreat for his students and student teachers at Asilomar on the beautiful Monterey Peninsula. Asilomar is a rustic meeting place with individual units spread over many acres, a quaint non-luxury convention center. Its location, however, is one of beauty and high energy near the ocean, with large open tracts of land just off the famous Carmel 17-Mile Drive. I had decided to drive up and meet Dr. Sha after spending the weekend in Santa Barbara with other clients. The drive from Santa Barbara was relatively short, just a few hours, and we had agreed to meet for dinner. My fiancée, Gayle Newhouse, accompanied me both on the trip and for the dinner meeting that had previously been arranged.

  Although I found the Asilomar site easily, it was not so easy finding the specific building and room. I quickly became lost, and while lost looked up and saw a man in a business suit sitting in front of a small cottage basking in the sun. I am not sure why, but I instantly knew, even though I was not close enough to make out any facial features, that this suited man was Dr. Sha. He had a simple air about him, and if not for the business suit I would have thought he was just an ordinary person on vacation taking a moment to relax in the sun.

  I soon found my room and called Dr. Sha’s assistant to reconfirm our dinner plans. Dr. Sha had made reservations at a simple Chinese restaurant in town, just a mile from the Asilomar center. During dinner I was impressed with how simple and gentle a man I was representing. On the phone Dr. Sha had done some of his “divine transmissions,” which are loud and full of strong energy, so I was expecting someone a bit more excitable and extroverted. But in reality Dr. Sha was soft-spoken and more of a listener than speaker. He had many questions for me and asked if I would be willing to get up onstage to address his students for five or ten minutes after dinner. He asked Gayle to join me onstage since he rightfully felt that energetically we were partners, if not business partners. There was going to be an evening session that would start at 10 P.M. and go until 5 A.M. Gayle and I would not be expected to stay past 11 P.M. so we could get a good night’s sleep, but he felt it important with so many of his students in attendance that I explain the genesis and purpose of his forthcoming book, Soul Healing Miracles.

  Of course, I agreed.

  Before going onstage, there was a session for a man in his eighties who had been diagnosed with cancer. He had a visible tumor the size of a baseball that was protruding from his chest. Dr. Sha performed a healing and had six of his top students participate as well. The healing took about twenty minutes, and after the healing it was visible that the tumor had shrunk by at least 20 percent. I was not sure what this meant medically, but I was impressed.

  When the healing session was over, Gayle and I were invited onstage. I was given a wonderful greeting and then explained why I thought Soul Healing Miracles would be the most important book Dr. and Master Sha had ever written. When I completed my short remarks I was treated to the most incredible experience I have ever had with a group of five hundred people. All five hundred started chanting, “We love you, Bill. We thank you, Bill.” The chanting must have lasted a full minute or more. That is a long time to have people you don’t know telling you they love you. I felt an enormous glow and sense of ebullience; really, I guess, a sense of being truly loved. Then Gayle was asked to make a few remarks and they gave her the same ovation with chants of “We love you, Gayle. We thank you, Gayle.”

  We were able to exit the stage and return to our room for a good night’s sleep, but it was clear to me that Dr. Sha had not only amazing abilities himself but had trained his students well.

  I share these details of my first encounter with Dr. Sha because in exploring the life and work of Dr. and Master Sha, it is important that I reveal the circumstances surrounding my personal experiences. I believe that I remain objective in all that I will be reporting on in this book, but those who are skeptical should know that I am not pretending to be completely unbiased. In reality no ethnographer ever is completely unbiased; there is always some existing bias. But anthropologists rarely share the unique circumstances under which their data is gathered. I do not believe that this first or any subsequent encounter has distorted my view of Dr. Sha and his students; but if it has, at least the degree and nature of such bias has been revealed.

  The only slightly jarring observation I made in this first meeting with Dr. Sha was that his students had a level of devotion resembling that which I have only witnessed at the ashram of Sri Sri Ravi Shankar and other spiritual teachers. I am not saying this is a bad thing, but as we explore the medical efficacy of Dr. Sha, it is important to realize that for many of his students, Dr. Sha is held at a level of devotion and admiration that only saints and gurus are accorded. I did not observe any behavior by Dr. Sha that encouraged this level of adoration, but we should acknowledge that this level of adoration and esteem is present whenever Dr. Sha is with his students. Perhaps it is the inevitable response of people who in most cases have had their lives saved or altered because of specific miracle soul healings that Dr. Sha has performed for them and their loved ones.

  The next morning Gayle and I ducked in just before breakfast ended. We had made our goodbyes to Dr. Sha the night before
and we were on a tight schedule to get to our next meeting. We joined a table of students and were relieved to encounter normal people. They were devoted to Dr. Sha. But otherwise they were just everyday people who had personal experiences with Dr. Sha that had been transformational and who, because of these experiences, were motivated to learn the essence of soul healing miracles. We will get to these miracles shortly, but first let’s explore the background and personality of this miracle soul healer, Dr. and Master Sha.

  Who Is Dr. and Master Sha?

  PSYCHOLOGISTS TELL US that the first seven years of life shape our personalities. In working with Dr. Sha I was fortunate to have many opportunities to learn about him not just as a healer but also as a person. And I came to recognize how his early years shaped not only his personality but his interest in healing.

  Dr. Sha was born in China in 1956 in what he refers to as The New China. This of course was the China of Mao Zedong, communism, and a rural economy. It was not yet a major economic power.

  Born in a small town in Northwest China, when he was six years old his parents and family moved to Xi’an City, Shaanxi Province, a world-renowned ancient city of about two million people. His father was the top executive of a coal mine with ten thousand employees. His mother was a technician who worked at the mine. We can imagine that it was through their work at the mine that they met, fell in love, and married. Their relationship was traditional in every sense, and Dr. Sha was their firstborn at a time when there were no limits on the number of children a family could have. Later Dr. Sha would have three sisters and a brother.

  Dr. Sha is very proud of his parents. His father was the type of hands-on executive who stood with his workers. Whenever there was a cave-in or other crisis at the mine, his father would be the first to risk his own life to organize a rescue crew to save the other miners. In every instance his employees would literally bar his way and try to prevent him from risking his own life. But he would say, “If I do not go down, who will go down to save the miners?” This sense of responsibility and care for others, so easily felt in the presence of Dr. Sha, comes from his earliest role model, his father.

  When Dr. Sha was born, he was in very poor health. He suffered from allergies, fatigue, and insufficient appetite. When he was just five years old he caught a cold and had a severe fever. His parents took him to the town’s best Western medical doctor, where he was given an injection. Soon after he returned home, he fell into a coma and his parents were not at home. His grandmother feared he would die. She ran to a neighbor who was an acupuncturist and the acupuncture brought the young boy out of his coma. His parents and grandparents were convinced that it was the acupuncture that had saved his life, and Dr. Sha developed an early appreciation for acupuncture that in his later life would direct him to learn the art himself.

  Dr. Sha was still a sickly child, and shortly after moving to Xi’an his primary physical activity was taking walks in the park with his parents on Sundays. One Sunday in the park when he was just six years old he observed a Tai Chi grandmaster teaching three students. The Tai Chi master was instructing them on what is known as “the pushing hands practice.” The master would do a movement and even without making physical contact, the student would be pushed several feet away. The six-year-old observed this exercise with each of the three students and could hardly believe his eyes. This was magic, and he wanted to learn how to use this Tai Chi power himself. He went running up to the grandmaster, and bowing as is customary with masters in China at that time, shouted, “Ye Ye, I want to do this. Will you be my teacher?”

  The grandmaster looked at the young boy for a while, thinking, and with a pleasant, yet stern smile told him, “You are too young to learn Tai Chi.”

  “No, no, I am not too young. I will be a good student. I so much want to learn. Please accept me as your student,” the boy pleaded.

  Surprised with the intensity of the entreaty, the grandmaster reconsidered. “Let me speak with your parents and perhaps I will make an exception.”

  The young Dr. Sha did not need a second opportunity. He ran back to his parents, brought them to meet the Tai Chi master, and after a brief conversation in which the Tai Chi master realized that Dr. Sha was from an important family, he relented and took the boy on as his youngest student ever.

  Starting the very next Saturday, the young Dr. Sha would practice Tai Chi for four hours each and every Saturday and Sunday for the next ten years. As a six-year-old it was very difficult to meet the demands of his Tai Chi master. The training included holding positions for up to thirty minutes at a time. After five minutes, Dr. Sha’s feet would ache. After ten minutes his entire body would feel as if it were on fire. As Dr. Sha reflected back on his early Tai Chi training, he commented, “Tai Chi taught me persistence and internal power. I learned at a very young age that I could push myself beyond pain and accomplish great control of my body.”

  With his health improving from Tai Chi and good nutrition as well as other exercises, the young boy quickly became a model for his siblings and a strong student at school. He was a dutiful son and would always show respect to his parents and their neighbors. He would help serve tea and would show respect by calling his neighbors Auntie and Uncle and following their guidance whenever it was offered. In school the young boy’s favorite subject was literature, but he excelled in all subjects and was chosen to be the class monitor. This was a position of honor even for a six-or seven-year-old, and Dr. Sha took the responsibility with serious intent to be the best class monitor he could be. In the class of fifty students there would always be one or two who were having difficulties with a particular lesson. As class monitor, Dr. Sha would stay after school to tutor these weaker students. It was, he felt, part of his responsibility to ensure that the entire class would progress and perform well on the school exams, not just he alone. Thus we see from a very young age Dr. Sha’s dedication to others, his intelligence, and his willingness to work hard. Dr. Sha’s own reflection on these early years and experiences was, “I learned patience from working with the students who needed my help. None of us were even ten years old at the time, but I had compassion for the slower students and enjoyed helping them. They said I had a good heart; I never felt superior to them or that I was doing anything special in helping them.”

  In high school Dr. Sha’s favorite subject was mathematics. He was the top student in every subject and was poised to go to any university he chose. As a teenager he had witnessed a neighbor who had terrible asthma. He asked the neighbor, “Have you seen a doctor? Has the doctor given you medicine? Is it helping you?” She said, “I have seen the doctor and am taking the medicine, but I am still suffering like this.” Another day the teenager saw a man with swollen legs who complained that he had problems with his heart and kidneys. He asked, “What is wrong with you? You have such swollen legs. Have you gotten help from the doctor?” He said, “I have heart and kidney problems. I have gone to the doctor but the medicine does not help this.” Intuitively the young boy felt that the doctors could help this man and woman, but he was disappointed that they were not getting enough help from the medical doctors. It was at that moment that the teenager thought that he wanted to be a good doctor to help people like this man and woman to remove their suffering. In the 1950s and 1960s most Chinese focused on Western medical treatments for all ailments. Although there were still acupuncture, massage, and herbal medical specialists, the government pushed Western medicine as the primary viable and rational approach to curing and healing major and even minor illnesses. If this teenager was really going to learn to help heal and cure his neighbors, then only a top medical school would do.

  But Mao Zedong had other plans. This was during the time of the Cultural Revolution, and it was mandatory for all Chinese youths to go to the countryside to learn and work on farms immediately after high school. Dr. Sha found himself working first on a farm for two years and then in a factory for another year. Fortunately the Chinese government reinstated the university system in 1977 and
millions of students sat for the board exam. Based on his outstanding performance on the exam, Dr. Sha gained entry to the medical college of his choice.

  Again Dr. Sha was a very good student and excelled. He learned all he could about Western medicine while also taking courses in traditional Chinese herbal medicine and developing his acupuncture skills. His interest in acupuncture increased due to a severe case of food poisoning that he experienced his first year at medical college.

  As Dr. Sha explained the incident to me, “I ate some pork for lunch and it must have been spoiled or diseased. Within hours of eating I had severe diarrhea and was vomiting. I went to the medical doctor on campus, and he gave me an injection. I went back to my dorm, but I could not even keep water down. I was still vomiting. One of my great friends who was in the same grade studying with me was ten years older than I and had studied traditional Chinese medicine from his family lineage. When I was in such pain and vomiting I asked my roommate to call him and come to me at 3 A.M. He immediately came.”

  “He asked me to lie on my stomach. He then moved the big tendon on my back and my inner thigh. When he pinched the tendon I shouted ‘Wow!’ It was extremely painful. He then asked me to get up and drink some water. I protested that I would just vomit the water again but he insisted. I drank the water and did not vomit. Shortly thereafter the excruciating pain I had been suffering disappeared. I was so shocked.”

  From that day forth, even while he pursued the latest techniques and findings emphasized in Western medicine, Dr. Sha made a commitment to master traditional Chinese medicine including Chinese herbs, acupuncture, and Chinese massage. He was fascinated by special techniques such as adjusting the tendon and acupuncture points that he had experienced himself. He had learned a profound lesson. Western medicine is not always the best approach. Western medicine and traditional Chinese medicine and other styles of traditional spiritual and energy healing can complement each other in specific situations. Just as he had always been a very good student in every class he took in medical school, soon Dr. Sha was an exceptional acupuncturist.