{"id":6561,"date":"2014-07-06T21:15:59","date_gmt":"2014-07-07T03:15:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=6561"},"modified":"2014-07-06T21:15:59","modified_gmt":"2014-07-07T03:15:59","slug":"the-horse-boy-and-the-shamans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=6561","title":{"rendered":"The “Horse Boy” and the Shamans"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you saw the 2009\u00a0 documentary The Horse Boy<\/em>,<\/a> about Rowan, the autistic boy who is helped somewhat by horseback riding and by Mongolian shamans, there is more to the story. (There is also a book, The Horse Boy: A Memoir of Healing<\/em><\/a>, published in 2010.)<\/p>\n

Before it was released as a DVD, the local university sponsored a showing of The Horse Boy.<\/em> I called my friend Hal, whose autistic son is now about nine, and asked him if he was interested in seeing it. This boy too enjoys riding horses and donkeys, which he is able to do at home and on trail rides into the Sangre de Cristo Range.<\/p>\n

Hal writes eloquently about life with an autistic son<\/a>, but my suggestion hit a wall. I brought it up again \u2014\u00a0 same reaction. So I shut up. I am not the one with the autistic son, he is. Maybe he does not like the idea of magic. Maybe a trip to Mongolia just seems impossible.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Rowan’s father, Rupert Isaacson, a widely traveled man whose parents came from southern Africa, was himself born in London and now lives with his family in Texas, has kept on taking his son to shamanic healers in Africa and on the Navajo reservation in Arizona.<\/p>\n

This is not without controversy. As he writes in the Daily Mail<\/em>, <\/a><\/p>\n

So many people thought we were mad, deluded. One friend said: \u2018All those shamans. It\u2019s like you\u2019re going to some spiritual supermarket!\u2019<\/p>\n

The publication of The Horse Boy<\/em> <\/a>was met with a torrent of hate mail accusing us of giving false hope, of abandoning established methods. (In fact, we had continued to follow the orthodox treatments).<\/p>\n

But there was one group that did support us: parents. Much of the motivation for telling the story had been my own despair at Rowan\u2019s diagnosis.<\/p>\n

If, back then, there had been some story of hope, of autism as an adventure rather than a catastrophe, I would have taken heart sooner, despaired less, and most likely found solutions more quickly.<\/p>\n

And the only things that had worked for Rowan in any positive way were the horse riding and the shamans.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Isaacsons have set up their own therapeutic system, the Horse Boy Method<\/a>: “We let the children use the horses like a couch, to allow all the physical and emotional discomfort to fall away, and the intellect come to the fore.” I think my friend Hal has developed something similar on his own, although his son goes to special-education classes too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you saw the 2009\u00a0 documentary The Horse Boy, about Rowan, the autistic boy who is helped somewhat by horseback riding and by Mongolian shamans, there is more to the story. (There is also a book, The Horse Boy: A Memoir of Healing, published in 2010.) Before it was released as a DVD, the local […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[150,125,11],"class_list":["post-6561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-childhood","tag-health","tag-shamanism"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-1HP","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1546,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1546","url_meta":{"origin":6561,"position":0},"title":"The Horse Boy: See it for the Shamanism","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"April 28, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"When a psychology professor and a human-rights activist\/journalist have an autistic son, their lives become incredibly difficult. Among other things, little Rowan never learns bowel control, and like many autistic children, he is prone to screaming, inconsolable tantrums. But his parents live in rural Texas, and they discover when Rupert\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Mongolia\"","block_context":{"text":"Mongolia","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=mongolia"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6430,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=6430","url_meta":{"origin":6561,"position":1},"title":"Anthropologist Describes Rebirth of Mongolian Shamanism","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"April 30, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"A news release from the MIT News Office carries the subhead, \"MIT anthropologist finds that after Soviet domination, a rebirth of shamanism helped Mongolia rewrite its own history.\" The release continues, In 1990, as the Soviet Union was disintegrating, Mongolia, long a satellite of the U.S.S.R., regained its independence. Socialism\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"anthropology\"","block_context":{"text":"anthropology","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=anthropology"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/newsoffice.mit.edu\/sites\/mit.edu.newsoffice\/files\/styles\/news_article_image_top_slideshow\/public\/images\/2013\/20131213180343-0_0.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":9017,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=9017","url_meta":{"origin":6561,"position":2},"title":"On Michael Harner (1929\u20132018)","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 6, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"The news of Michael Harner's passing has been going around, and of course some magical practitioners have to react by disrespecting him. You might well have heard the usual string of insults: he is an academic poser, he's a fake . . . a cultural imperialist . . . from\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"shamanism\"","block_context":{"text":"shamanism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=shamanism"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/michael_drum.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":11073,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=11073","url_meta":{"origin":6561,"position":3},"title":"“Witness of Another World” is a Powerful Documentary about “Visitor” Encounters","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 10, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Aside from an occasional excursion, I am not much into UFO studies. It was years after it came out that I read Jacques Vall\u00e9e's ((Born in France, Vall\u00e9e has spent most of his life in the US. His career includes astronomy, software engineering, venture capitalism \u2014 and UFO studies.)) Passport\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Argentina\"","block_context":{"text":"Argentina","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=argentina"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/Witness-of-another-world-Movie-Poster-.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":9662,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=9662","url_meta":{"origin":6561,"position":4},"title":"Pentagram Pizza: It Resembles the Shaman’s Drum","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"July 9, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"\u2022 Once again, magic and sports don't mix. According to Siberian Times (July 1), shamans invoked the ancestors to aid Russia's team in their World Cup match against Spain. As a result (?), Russia won 4\u20133. But then they lost to Croatia a few days later and are now out\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"occultism\"","block_context":{"text":"occultism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=occultism"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Tuvan-shaman-ST.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":10248,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=10248","url_meta":{"origin":6561,"position":5},"title":"Siberian Shamans Hold Camel Sacrifice \u2014\u00a0It’s Traditional, They Say","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 22, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Watch this powerful video, which is also embedded in this article in the Moscow Times online: \"Siberian Shamans Revive Ancient Camel-Burning Rite \u2018to Help Russia.\u2019\"\u00a0 The location is given merely as \"the Irkutsk region\" but elsewhere there are references to Tuva, a Central Asian republic that is part of the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"animals\"","block_context":{"text":"animals","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=animals"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6561","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6561"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6561\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6565,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6561\/revisions\/6565"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}