After several cups of butter tea and much prayer, a highly realized Tibetan Lama once told me 'I have come to understand that in the Western world, the demons are very weak'. The occasion was a private meeting I had with Dr. Tsultrim Kalsang, a teaching health care lama from the Tibetan Medical Institute in Leh, Ladakh.

In a tiny room at a Vancouver Buddhist Retreat Centre as incense smoke swirled, saffron-clocked monks chanted and ancient prayer wheels turned, Lama Kalsang sat on satin cushion gently smiling at me. He had come all the way from Tibet and was a soft-spoken man: humble, cheerful and disarmingly compassionate.

From a Western perspective this was an insignificant man, a naïve man, appearing to be more a crocked-toothed village goatherd than a health care professional: in the Western mind this was a man that in no way could have equaled the rigorous intellectual prowess of modern medicine. And yet, without lofty scientific swagger, he certainly did.

He looked deep into my eyes and then opened a small, dusty suitcase. Inside the case were a variety of exotic instruments: small bamboo whisks, tiny ceramic cups, satchels of large marble-sized brown pills, several thin iron wands used to burn flesh and an ancient ceremonial silver dagger.

I must have appeared slightly frightened. Lama looked at me, smiled warmly and, through his translator, said 'As you can imagine, very hard getting my medical bag across the border'. We both laughed; me a bit nervously.

He reached out and took my hand. The monks quieted.

While gazing blankly at the wall, he delicately slipped four fingers across my wrist and, for several minutes, took my pulse.

'For a Westerner,' he said and then gently placed my hand back in my lap, 'you have an unusually strong spirit'. The monks all looked at me and then began chanting again.

'What year were you born?' he asked.

'1960', I replied. Both he and his translator smiled and nodded. They exchanged a few words in Tibetan.

'It is very likely,' the translator explained, 'that in your last life you were killed in Tibet.'

'Oh', I said. 'That sounds awful'.

'Yes,' said Lama Kalsang, 'very much suffering'. I have since learned that in the late 1950s and early 1960s hundreds of thousands of Tibetan monks, nuns and lamas were systematically tortured, raped and murdered by China's occupying army. Clearly, Lama Kalsang suspected that in a past life I had been one of these unfortunate souls.

Next he instructed his medical assistant, an unusually young monk in a burgundy robe, to bring my urine sample. The monk, who looked more like he should be playing nintendo than working as a medical attendant, poured the contents of the jar I had brought into a deep clay bowl. He bowed slightly and offered it to his teacher.

Lama Kalsang took a bamboo whisk from his suitcase and began whisking the urine. He stopped for a moment, studied the results and then whisked again.

'Oh my,' he said, 'Nagas, two of them.' The chanting monks reacted with surprise but did not break their rhythm. Lama Kalsang showed the sample to his assistant and began explaining the results. While they discussed my urine, I quietly asked the translator 'what is a Naga?'

'As close as I can translate it, it is like an invisible snake person. They are rarely spoken about in public.'

I think, at that moment, I must have looked like a deer caught in headlights.

Throughout the rest of my consultation with Dr. Kalsang that expression never left my face. In years since, I have learned that what the Tibetans refer to as a 'Naga' we refer to as a 'Reptilian'. In the ancient Tibetan culture Nagas were magical snake-like beings that once ruled the earth and now live in hiding.

'Do you live by the water?' he asked. 'Yes,' I replied, 'is that bad?'

'The most powerful ones live in the water, you should not be by the water.'

'Oh,' I said, 'I will move'.

'It is important that you do so,' he said. 'When these two beings attack they cause the hives, boils and cysts that you have. More so at some times of the year.'

I was shocked. How did he know that I have a reoccurring problem with hives that, strangely, only appear in pairs? My Western doctor had tested me on several occasions and could not explain their cause, cure or uniquely doubled appearance. Did he see all that just from my urine sample?

'Why do they attack me?' I asked.

'Because you have a very strong spirit. They want to make you afraid and to stop your spiritual progress. They have caused you to have too much bile in your system and too much heat in your stomach.'

'What do they want? I asked.

'They want to make the world less compassionate', he said and then smiled, 'so they use water magic to make you afraid'

Lama Kalsang handed me a large satchel of fat, brown tablets and went on to explain that to combat bile I must, whenever possible, sit in a cool, dry and well-ventilated room and take tablets to regulate the fluids in my body. He smiled broadly and said 'you do not need to be afraid. Fear is the illusion they want you to have'.

Ironically, it would take modern medicine several years and dozens of laboratory tests to finally discover that I had a thyroid condition. I couldn't help but smile as my all-to-scientific Western doctor informed me that I needed to regulate my fluid levels and was hyper-sensitive to hot and cold temperatures.

"Shall I sit in a cool, airy room?" I asked, smiling.

"That would help," said my doctor importantly, while scribbling a prescription.

Although modern medicine still has no explanation for my hives, I now know they are the result of the spiritual entities, or Nagas, that are attracted to my light. Lama Kalsang explained to me that all illness rises from fear and, in the West, fear is mostly felt as a cloying annoyance, addiction or minor ailment. Weak demons indeed; considering the horrific afflictions suffered in many parts of the world.

Tibetan medicine is an ancient practice that takes into account all realms of spiritual influence in the body. There are few in this world, except several expertly trained and spiritually realized Tibetan lamas, that can successfully map the earth, air, fire and water in the body through the simple feeling of the human pulse. For the Tibetans, medicine is an ancient art taught over many, many centuries by highly enlightened re-incarnated beings. And, obviously, it works.