Mai Trai uses a wooden cylinder to tap a patient’s spine to rid the body of “thorns.”

A shaman in the central Hue city Town claims he can cure anything with a tap on the spine and a few needles… but only if the gods tell him to.

He then penetrates the spots with five-centimeter needles.

After removing the needles, thick black blood leaks from the wounds, which Trai’s wife then dresses.

The woman is given a blend of medicines made by Trai before she pays VND105,000 (US$6) and leaves.

Trai walks to an altar, mumbles and lies down on a bed nearby.

Trai repeats the process with almost all of his patients, who often come to him for rheumatism, headaches and respiratory diseases.

Rumors about “Trai curing any disease” have brought people from remote hamlets throughout the central provinces of Quang Tri, Kon Tum and Gia Lai to the small house in Tri Le Hamlet, Huong So Ward.

There is often a long line at his door outside downtown Hue, one of central Vietnam’s largest cities and the former imperial capital of Vietnam.

Trai’s workroom, less than four square meters, is thick with incense smoke. It’s difficult to breathe and see.

He has shelves filled with homemade medicines and rare cures.

The room is decorated with several statues that Trai says represent the unknown pagan saints that tell him to conduct his work.

A plate with a pile of money, where each patient leaves VND105,000 – no more, no less – sits by the altar.

Trai tries to hide the money from Thanh Nien reporters.

When asked about it, he says: “If I don’t receive exactly that amount, He will punish me,” referring to the saint he says gives him orders and instructions for each patient.

“I will be punished if I don’t follow the orders,” he says.

The healer and his wife insist they’re no hucksters.

“We only save people from diseases,” says Trai.

A patient says: “Trai cures anything, even cancer.”

But the shamanistic healer refuses patients who have been treated with radiation therapy at hospitals, says the female patient.

Trai’s neighbor Tran C., who introduces himself as a Viet Kieu (overseas Vietnamese) from Canada, says several hospitals in Canada have been unable to rid him from the sharp, stabbing back pains he gets as a result of spinal stenosis.

Spinal stenosis is a medical condition in which the spinal canal narrows and compresses the spinal cord and nerves. This is usually due to the natural process of spinal degeneration that occurs with aging.

But Tran C. says he’s felt no pain since receiving a 15 minute procedure from Trai.

Le Van Khang, vice chairman of Huong So Ward People’s Committee, says Trai only knows how to cure rabies, thrush and leprosy.

But Khang then says he’s never seen Trai work and is not qualified to comment on anything but economic matters.

Asked about those diseases, Trai says: “I’m very good at those diseases and don’t need the saints’ orders or instruction to cure them.”

“But with other afflictions, I always perform under orders,” he says.

Reported by Bui Ngoc Long