It’s nice that a little statue commemorating Tom Bowen was placed in the Geelong park near where he once worked. He was extremely generous with his skills and did a lot of good work in the community, especially with sporting clubs and disabled people. The fact that the plaque on the statue refers to ‘the six boys’ myth, which was built into the design is unfortunate, but it’s still nice that Tom’s community work was recognised in this way and those who went to the trouble of arranging it deserve credit (though a little more research might have resulted in a more accurate portrayal).
The End of the Era of the ‘Uneducated Therapists’
Recent discussions with someone who claimed to have known Tom well confirmed a common theme that popped up during my research; Tom would be horrified to see the way his name and work have been used to further the aims of some who make outrageous claims as a business model. The same is said of the way some folk have placed Tom on a pedestal, regarding him as a guru, as one who could walk on water or change water to wine, or as would be in Tom’s case according to a few folk, change the water to whisky.
I reckon we could chart the course that led to this guru worship back to Elaine and Oswald Rentsch and was pushed along by those influenced by them (um, most of us really, at least initially). That they went on to set themselves up as gurus based on their ever-evolving fantasy contact with Tom Bowen is a wondrous story in itself.
That so many of us accepted without question what the Rentchs were saying and furthered the myth of infallibility upon Tom Bowen was probably as much due to our own uncertainties about what we were doing as anything else. After all, how can I do such a small amount of work and create a healthy change in so many people without a genius having led the way? Ernie Saunders, Tom’s mentor, is not factored into the equation.
It should be pointed out too that Tom was not unique. In and around Melbourne, and probably many other places, there were therapists at least as popular and effective as Tom Bowen. This was the era of the last of the ‘uneducated’ therapists who commanded great support from the public. Their popularity was obviously part of the reason why orthodoxy demanded control.
Footy club involvement
Tom was one of several ‘self-taught’ healers who terrorised the medical profession in Victoria, due to their popularity with the public, from the fifties into the sixties and a little beyond. Most, like Bowen, had extensive involvement with football clubs and had a ready market to ply their skills. Tom Bowen and his peers were part of a line that has existed throughout human history. A line that the opposition from an increasingly powerful medical orthodoxy was about to cut. As chiropractor Romney Smeeton said, “Probably the fact that we have to all be at certain levels of education, I think, will prevent people of that innate talent ever coming to the fore again. Their intuitive talent is killed with education because they then look on health in a blinkered fashion. To work like those guys did, you’ve got to look at it with a different pair of glasses.”
While Tom was doing his thing and packing them into his Geelong clinic, Ernie Saunders’ son George had them lining up in Brunswick, when he wasn’t being the official masseur for Australian Olympic and Empire (Commonwealth) Games teams. At the same time, Bill Mitchell was filling the seats at the South Melbourne football club. Long-term Bowen watcher, Keith Davis, will tell you of Les Dettman on the outer edge of Melbourne who travelled to the USA with Ernie Saunders. And down at Langwarry in Gippsland another ‘self taught’ healer, whose name I can’t recall, operated (or was soon to be operating) out of his garage. Mitchell, I had a treatment with and the Langwarry man, I took some footballers to see for treatments. Further down in East Gippsland, Lester Cox was on the verge of doing his own thing, another variation on the work passed along by generations of healers before. I also had a treatment with Lester and Lisa did a little course that he ran once.
George Schofield, who lived just out of Melbourne, might have had his name written alongside these healers but he chose to only work with animals, particularly dogs. George claimed to have learned his skills from Bill Mitchell. His was a household name in the greyhound racing community.
These are just those of whom I know. It’s not silly to suggest that special healers, many of whom would see reputations climb after ‘healing’ people ignored by the medical profession, forged their own reputations in their own towns or regions. I don’t know if they were as generous as Tom Bowen with their skills but I’ve never heard reference to any of them ever being regarded as wealthy folk. The difference between these people and Tom Bowen, mostly, is that nobody grabbed their name and put a title to their work.
So it is helpful if we can be a little realistic. Yes, Tom was an incredibly generous man with wonderful therapeutic skills and was widely admired and appreciated. While we can laud this, what were the results on those other than the beneficiaries of his generosity? His son Barry might argue the lack of benefits to his family, or at the very least, to him as a son. Despite being hugely busy there is little evidence to point to this translating as providing any particular wealth to the family. What I’m getting at here is that only taking the good bits as our understanding of anyone and using this as our model of that person, is a seriously flawed concept.
The enthusiasm of some to paint Tom as a genius is more based on fantasy than history, more on desire than reality. And as those who knew him well will tell you, he was anything but a guru and he’d be horrified to see such references.
For info about The Book, Email me at… thebowenbook@mail.com
