Article related to Mongolia

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I'd dragged my autistic son to Mongolia to be healed by horses and witchdoctors. Had I totally lost my mind?

By Rupert Isaacson

Exactly how I had pictured our arrival in Mongolia I don't know. Straight off the plane and on to the steppe, I guess, with wild horses waiting for us, smiling nomads cheering, cattle, goats and yaks doing some kind of Broadway number in the background and wolves and bears accompanying on sax and trombone.

Certainly not sitting in a second-rate hotel room in the ugly scar of Mongolia's capital, Ulan Bator, trying to work out where on Earth I could find chips for my five-year-old autistic son. For the millionth time, all my fears about this trip came flooding back.

What had possessed me to drag my emotionally and physically incontinent son Rowan and long-suffering wife Kristin halfway across the world in pursuit of some crazy dream?

Did I seriously think the healing power of the country's shamans - along with my son's astonishing empathy with horses, which were so much part of Mongolia's landscape - could somehow make him better?

And did I even want Rowan to be made better anyway? Long ago I'd given up wanting him to be cured of autism - it was part of his essence. But I did want him healed - to be no longer at the mercy of his tantrums and his hyperactivity. Could a shaman heal those things?

The next day dawned warm and humid, with Rowan sitting bolt upright in bed.

Today was when we were going to meet nine healers from all over the country at the foot of the sacred mountain known as the Bogd Khan, just outside the capital. I'd been planning it for months, but now it had arrived I hardly knew what to feel.

It was just a short journey to the mountain, where nine shamans were waiting to meet us in a vast expanse of grassland. Some of the shamans were men, some women, and each was making their own preparations for the ceremony.

My doubts and fears rose to the surface again when Tulga, our English-speaking guide, introduced me to the chairman of the shamans' association of Mongolia. The man standing in front of me had a crushing grip and smelled of vodka. Had I fallen into a nest of charlatans?


'He's not good with new people,' I whispered to Tulga as he directed me to lift Rowan across to another shaman. Whispering words of comfort to my son, I passed him to the healer - as much as you can 'pass' a kicking, screaming child.

But once in her arms, to my great surprise, he went suddenly still - until the shaman's assistant passed her spiritual mistress a bottle of vodka, from which she took a hearty pull, then without warning spat the liquid all over Rowan's face and body. The result was predictable.

'Gi-raffe!' shrieked Rowan, plucking random words from thin air. 'Gotta go ho-o-ome!'

The second shaman pulled out a Jew's harp and began to play a strange tune. Then there was more vodka spitting. Rowan screamed as though being tortured for a moment before instantly calming down again.

'Let's go see some more shamans!' he shouted. We came to four shamans standing in a line, whirling, drumming, entering their trance.

Rowan gave a deep, bubbly giggle, and in that moment I knew he was OK. Actually, not just OK - I knew he had embraced the situation and was, at some level, at peace with this crazy ceremony.

The next shaman we came to whirled, sang and drummed as energetically as the others had, but whenever he came close to Rowan, his movements became quieter - gentle and slow. My son gave another of those deep-throated giggles.

'He'll be fine,' said the shaman. 'Just do this once a year for the next three years. He'll be completely healed.'

When Tulga translated this, I felt my stomach lurch. Did I dare believe it?

Then something extraordinary happened. We'd now been at the foot of the Bogd Khan for about three hours, and the light was fading. Clouds were gathering; a wind was getting up.

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