He says only God can cure, but many people believe Jan de Vries saved their lives. Niamh Hooper reports.
He's been a leading light in natural healthcare for over four decades, has written 40 books, developed a successful series of flower essences to balance people in challenging times and runs 10 clinics in the UK and Ireland, the latest of which opened in Dublin's Drumcondra last week.
If ever there was a living example that taking the path of nature works, at a youthful 68, Jan de Vries is it.
Splitting his 90-hour week between seeing patients in his clinics in his home of Scotland, England, Northern Ireland and Dublin (formerly based on the North Circular road), writing weekly newspaper columns, giving radio and TV interviews and presenting lectures, the pioneering Dutchman is a curious mix to the onlooker.
Always turned out in a suit, shirt and tie, he could pass for a businessman until it comes down to the business of doing business. He starts by looking deep into your eyes. Or, to be more specific, your iris - as every abnormality in the physical body and mental sphere are impressed upon the iris. The use of this method of diagnosis (iridology), acupuncture, homeopathy, osteopathy, naturopathy and manual therapy are all part of this trained pharmacist's bag of tricks.
He has been called upon by thousands, from members of royal families to famous actors and politicians, from sports people to the elderly gentleman sitting in the kitchen at the clinic opening - one of the many who say they owe their life to de Vries. He, on the other hand, says he's never cured anyone. "God cures, I only treat," he says.
Dubbed the man with the X-ray eyes, the stories of de Vries's treatments are extraordinary and humbling in the vast depth of his knowledge and the genius of the human body given the right conditions to heal. In recent years, the demand to be treated by the man was so great in Belfast that there was a three-year waiting list for new patients.
His story began in wartime in Holland in 1944 when the Germans were looking for a man his mother had hidden. She told him to get on his knees and pray very hard that God would save them. Every other house on the street was turned over from top to bottom but there wasn't as much as a knock on their door. At that time he promised God that if his mother and he were saved from this terrible hell, he would care for the wellbeing of people for the rest of his life.
Despite opposition and threats of imprisonment and prosecution, he has kept his promise and stayed true to his mother's belief that when you have an honest message, you have nothing to fear.
In his 47 years as a practitioner, de Vries has seen many changes in healthcare and says our greatest challenge now is the immune system. "The immunity of people has gone down and when the immune system is weakened, people are much more susceptible to viral, bacterial, parasitical conditions resulting in ill health and there's the terrible growth of cancer.
"Undoubtedly, there are more cancers mentally and emotionally than are physical and a lot of the generated diseases such as diabetes, MS, rheumatism and arthritis are due to our way of living - pollution, wrong dietary management and worries."
To create vibrant health within, he urges us to look at the three forms of energy: what you eat, what you drink and how you live such as how much time you give yourself to sleep, how you relax.
His way to relax is in his garden in Troon, Scotland and by doing breathing exercises.
"The way forward is we have to learn more about energy. Energy is the future of medicine. Disease cannot exist in a balanced energy field. People need to learn more about the energy within themselves, how to transport it, how to balance it, how to use it. There's a tremendous amount stored that we have yet to learn to use."
The current aggressive impasse between conventional and alternative medicine, he attributes to the huge growth in the latter. "A lot of powers in the world don't like that from an economic point of view and really want it banned and the governments are being moved to look into it by these powers at work."
However, he says, we couldn't do without orthodox medicine. "If you break a leg, you need to go to hospital to get it set. If you need an operation, it's wonderful to have orthodox medicine but we have to learn they go hand in hand. Both are trying to ease human suffering. In Chinese acupuncture yin is female and yang is male.
"Orthodox medicine is yang - aggressive, harsh, get on with it and treat the symptoms quickly. Yin is alternative medicine - a little bit more gentle, a little bit more understanding and it's time these two got married.
"As a trained pharmacist I saw all the plus points of orthodox medicine but I went to alternative medicine because I knew orthodox medicine went the wrong way about it. There was an explosion of tranquillisers, antibiotics and steroids and I thought to myself we are not chemical factories - we are human bodies and humanly we could do it in a more gentle way. That's why I say yin and yang have to get married to get an ideal system."
One element of this gentler side to healthcare is using the unique signatures of plants, herbs and trees to heal. As the only pupil of world renowned Swiss doctor Alfred Vogel (author of The Nature Doctor) who was ever "really taught", he remembers many times being in the mountains, when Dr Vogel would say: "Here is arnica. If you stand on it, it will talk back to you. This is a sign from God that it should be used to treat trauma - that is the reason it makes a noise when you step on it."
He smiles remembering the Queen telling him her grandfather used to carry arnica in his pocket and would give it to people if he saw little accidents.
"Everybody has a signature and characteristic that makes them unique and you find the same in the plant, herb and tree world. They all have unique characteristics and signatures and if a practitioner is clever enough to recognise the characteristic of a herb or a plant which is in line with the characteristics of a person he will be a very good practitioner.
"For example, heather is a very jealous plant that will overgrow everything if you let it, so you adapt that for a patient who is very jealous. It's cure like cure."
Another popular example is St John's wort. Called after St John, who was the apostle of love, the plant is used for nerves, depression and blood circulation. "It almost shouts at you 'use me' for that because I'm created with hundreds of tiny little holes full of St John Oil which in the old days was called the healing balm."
Jan de Vries will be giving talks at the Health Show later this year in the RDS. Tel: 01 7978716 for his Dublin clinic.