This is the companion article to the one written by Sarah Hampson that also
appeared in the Globe and Mail on May 3, 2003.
All about Adam
Globe and Mail
Saturday, May 3, 2003 - Page F7
ALEXANDRA GILL meets a 16-year-old kid from B.C. who offers distant-healing
treatments through his Web site -- and counts rocker Ronnie Hawkins among
his patients
VANCOUVER -- Adam doesn't seem extraordinary. Tall and handsome, with short,
brown hair and a trace of dark fluff on his upper lip, he looks like a
typical 16-year-old.
He's a sporty guy who plays basketball and snowboards. In his spare time, he
lifts weights, listens to alternative rock music and hangs out with his
girlfriend.
If you met Adam in a mall, you would never in a million years guess that
this is the kid who claims to possess an extrasensory X-ray vision that
helped him to cure rock 'n' roll legend Ronnie Hawkins of terminal
pancreatic cancer.
"The most important thing for us is to protect his anonymity so he can enjoy
life as a normal teenager," Adam's mom says when I meet him and his parents
this week at a secret location in the suburbs of Vancouver.
Normal might be an odd adjective to use to describe a young man who says he
can see a heart beating within a chest, or pop cancer cells inside people on
the other side of the planet as effortlessly as most kids squeeze a pimple.
But other than his girlfriend, none of Adam's friends are aware of his
supposed abilities. "I'd like to keep it that way for as long as possible,"
says Adam, attacking a bowl of vanilla ice cream with a fork. "I'll come out
when I finish high school."
He says he has healed more than 300 people from ailments that range from
breast cancer to genital herpes during the past two years. He charges $75
per treatment, but he says he has never turned anyone away because of an
inability to pay.
Most of his clients have heard of him by word of mouth. All contacts are
made through his Web site (http://www.distanthealing.com) and he no longer
heals anyone in person. Because of an overwhelming response, he has recently
decided to focus his efforts on people with terminal cancer that has not
spread, and in situations when chemotherapy, radiation and surgery are not
recommended.
The mysterious, self-professed distance healer has become a minor sensation
this week, after Mr. Hawkins issued a press release to announce his recovery
and sing Adam's praises. Adam's father, who administers the Web site, says
he has had to turn down more than 100 requests in the past few days alone.
"I wish I could treat everyone, but I am only one person," says Adam, who is
currently offering help to four cancer patients, and has a waiting list of
10.
Adam and his family are well aware that this interview will only draw more
seekers to his site. But they have agreed to sit down and share their story
because Adam has just written a book that he hopes will help people heal
themselves. Hot off the press this week, DreamHealer was self-published with
the revenues that Adam has earned from his treatments. The book costs $23
(plus shipping and handling), and is offered for sale at
http://www.dreamhealer.com and http://www.ronniehawkins.com.
The book includes a chapter about Mr. Hawkins's miraculous recovery. Adam
says he read about the rocker's terminal illness in the paper. Although he
had not treated anyone with cancer, he thought that he might be able to help
and contacted the singer's manager in October. The doctors had predicted
that Mr. Hawkins would be dead by Christmas.
As long as he doesn't have to throw a dead black cat over his back in a
hurricane, he'll try anything, Mr. Hawkins's manager told Adam.
Apparently, Mr. Hawkins was the perfect case study. The doctors couldn't
operate because the tumour was wrapped around an artery. The cancer hadn't
spread. And the Hawk had refused drugs and chemotherapy.
The treatments began almost immediately. Each evening, Mr. Hawkins would sit
at home in Peterborough, Ont., with his feet firmly planted on the floor.
(The feet aren't essential, says Adam, adding that he has treated a woman
mid-flight from China to Canada before. "But it grounds the energy and makes
the treatment more effective.")
Meanwhile, somewhere in British Columbia, Adam would sit in his bedroom and
concentrate on a colour photograph of Mr. Hawkins. ("I could do
black-and-white, but colour provides more of a vivid connection.")
Within a few minutes, Adam would experience a jolt, Mr. Hawkins would
experience a slight tingling sensation, and the connection was made: Adam
could visualize the tumour.
"What I see when I go into someone is a 3-D holographic image," Adam says.
"I can see energy blockages, the problems, whatever. It looks like a 3-D
image of the body, with different layers.
"I can see a physical layer: the heart beating, guts moving, that sort of
stuff. Then there's a layer that's just like a hollow image of the person
and there are green dots where there are problems -- or green bulges,
depending on the problem."
He manipulates the bad dots to heal people. "Just like a computer. I take it
out, or whatever," he says, waving his hands to demonstrate, as a conductor
might wave a baton. "I move my hands around, because I can see the image in
front of me. It's just easier to visualize myself splitting it in half if I
use my hands."
Adam says he has developed several different methods for healing. With Mr.
Hawkins, he tried to bombard the tumour with energy. "You just vibrate it
until it pops. It pops quite easily. It doesn't disperse. It just floats
around and eventually your body eats it away.
"With Ronnie, it was dead after a few treatments. But I kept treating him
until it was all gone, just to make sure. We did a treatment every day for
three weeks, and every other day for another month."
Mr. Hawkins had a CT scan and MRI last month. The cancer is apparently gone.
"I've come to believe that the Big Rocker works in mysterious ways," Hawkins
writes in a testimonial reprinted in Adam's book.
"For whatever it is that Adam does, whatever he did for me, I don't
understand it and I don't criticize what I don't understand. I know Adam
can't help everyone on the planet, but I hope people will believe that there
is more to our world than we see and understand."
Adam says he discovered his "gift" two years ago. His mother, who has
multiple sclerosis, was lying in bed, suffering from a throbbing headache.
"I don't know exactly why I did it, but I put my hand over her head and the
pain was gone," he says.
His mother interjects: "But the problem was?"
"The problem was, I was just learning how to do this, and when I put my hand
over her head, I took the pain. It felt like someone stabbing me inside the
head."
His mother nods emphatically. "That's exactly what it felt like."
They were quite scared at first, but not entirely surprised. Ever since Adam
was a toddler, his parents have believed that he could see energy fields,
more commonly known as auras. They were open to the idea, they say -- Adam's
maternal great-grandmother had a similar ability, and there were native
shamans on his father's side.
As he got older, he began picking up random images from strangers.
"I've sort of become used to it, and I've learned to dim it down. I've got
increasing intuitiveness now. I just know things. Which is much better than
seeing it all, because when I used to walk through crowded places, it was
blinding. I had to walk with my head down."
The family's research into the phenomenon led them to Dr. Effie Poy Yew
Chow, a practitioner of quigong (Chinese energy-flow massage) and a member
of the White House Commission on Complementary and Alternative Medicine
Policy, who helped Adam develop his approach to healing.
"I have observed innumerable international healers," Dr. Chow writes in the
foreword to DreamHealer. "Adam is amongst the most gifted ones in his field
of healing."
Adam and his parents understand that many people might be skeptical.
"I was skeptical too," says Adam's dad, a kindly, olive-skinned man, with a
salt-and-pepper mustache, who is dressed in a conservative, button-down
shirt. He has taken time off work to attend the interview.
"But I've felt it. He's worked on my tennis elbow. He'd start working on it
in the car, right after a match, and by the time we got home, there was no
problem."
Adam says he has chosen to do distance healing because it's just as
effective as healing in person. "And I don't really have the time to do it
in person. When you do it in person, they want to talk a lot and discuss
what's happening. I'm still in high school and I've got a lot of homework.
And basketball."
Speaking of which, his gift offers a few side benefits, he says. "In
basketball, when someone's going to pass the ball, there's a spike in their
aura. It only happens a split second before they pass, but that's enough to
give you a bit of an advantage. I get a lot of interceptions that way."
And then, like any other normal teenager who has been given parental
permission to skip an afternoon of school, he looks at his watch and smiles
at his parents. "I guess I'm missing my last class."
Alexandra Gill is a member of the The Globe and Mail's B.C. bureau.
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