Rev. Fr. Ed Ram Lachman

Rev. Fr. Ed Ram Lachman
Catholic Worker-Priest.
http://catholiclabor.org/gen-art/loew.htm1. Eclectic in Philosophy: embracing Hinduism, Buddhism & Christianity.
2. Ecumenical in Theology and active in interfaith organizations.
3. Holistic in Psycho-Pharmacology: www.apitherapy.org/aas
(My specialty: Teaching-Preaching-Healing (Matthew 4:23).
From 1957, I conducted the Protestant Service in the General Hospital Chapel every Sunday from 10:30 to 11.00 A.M. for over fifteen years; also at Drake Hospital on Sundays from 6:30 P.M. to 7:00 P.M. Occasionally at Longview Mental Hospital; Emerson North Hospital and Rollman’s Psychiatric Hospital.
In 1957, I was commissioned as an Evangelist by Dean Flack of Hamma Divinity School of Theology at Wittenberg University to preach in Lutheran Churches in the Tri-State area of Ohio. Kentucky and Indiana and later in Michigan. In 1957, The Rector G. Hans Liebenow, Ph.D. appointed me a Vicar in his Immanuel Lutheran Church (LCMS).
In 1957, we were only a handful of East Indian Students on Campus. We were in the minority at the International Students Organization. Since I lived in the dorm for medical students and residents at General Hospital, I invited the Indian residents and
inaugurated the India Students’ Association in 1957. I was also the Treasurer of the Lutheran Foundation. As a member of the U.C. speakers’ bureau, I volunteered to speak at any time and any place in the Tri-State area. When I told Professor George Kisker from whom I was taking Abnormal Psych, that I usually preach on meditation as a form of psychotherapy, especially in Churches and hospital chapels at General and Drake Hospitals, he told me that Dr. Maurice Levine, the Head of Psychiatry, will get the police to run me out of town.
I was the forerunner of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi of Transcendental Meditation fame. At one Unitarian/Universalist Church I quoted from “Yoga: A Scientific Approach” by Kavoor T. Behanan who had done post doctoral research at Yale.” After the service, an elderly gentleman said to me, “I was Behanan’s advisor at Yale.” For seven years, until l967, I did research with more sophisticated instruments than those used by Behanan prior to WWII. During this time there were no normal values in Pulmonary Function for children under age 12. Under Dr. Leonard Bernstein, we got the children from Catholic Schools and orphanages and supplied the world with the long awaited normal values. I was motivated to prove that Yogic breathing is therapeutic in psychomatic diseases like asthma. Fortunately, we were allowed to study the children with respiratory problems at the Children’s Convalescent Hospital. My state of the art armamentarium included: Collins Respirometer, Pneumotachograph, Physiograph & Oscilloscope.
We also used the whole body plethysmograph to determine airway resistance in asthmatics and patients with emphysema and other Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Diseases. I contended that as scientists we have to put our data on a continuum; that is to say, if the cause is 99% allergenic then desensitization will be most effective; but should the etiology be 99% psychogenic, then meditation will be more effective than aminophylline which is only a palliative. Since I was convinced that meditation is effective, I got initiated in Transcendental Meditation in 1966. Then in the seventies, Pandit Usharbudh Arya, Ph.D. initiated me at the Himalayan Institute of Yoga Science and Philosophy in Honesdale, Pennsylvania. Then to crown it all, a Christian Swami,
H. K. Gandhi, M.D. from Gujarat, India, also initiated me in the nineties. In 1966, I paid $35.00 to be initiated in TM. Now it’s $2,500 and another $2,500 for the advance level, whereas I teach meditation free through my Sacred Order of Aquila & Priscilla. (SOAP).
Having studied Theory & Composition in Theological school in Guyana, also at the Cincinnati Bible Seminary and the U.C. Conservatory of Music. I usually take a mantra like “OM Namah Shivaya” then harmonize the melody with alto, tenor and bass but substitute Latin words to be sung as solo when I conduct a Catholic Mass at Nursing Homes on week-ends. where I teach patients How to Meditate De Mello-style as taught me by my retreat master, Fr. Jim Dolan, S.J. who was trained by Fr. Anthony de Mello.
I was the first East Indian hired by Dr. Paul I. Hoxworth . I wanted to draw blood donors because while they lie there bleeding for five minutes plus another ten minutes to recuperate, I have a captive audience. It takes me less than three minutes to teach them TM, or De Mello-Dolan style meditation or RELAXATION RESPONSE by Herbert Benson, M.D. a Harvard Cardiologist, whose book is a best seller.
The reasons why I never missed a single vein in more than forty years are: first I know the art of inducing the Relaxation Response. When donors are nervous, hypertensive, and afraid of needles, their veins constrict and hide. Secondly, I am the Father of the bevel-down technique. Whereas all over the world the bevel-up technique is used, I have found over the forty years it is better to use the bevel-down technique for phlebotomy. With the bevel down, the blood does not spurt in my face and orifices. My point is that even though the bevel-down technique is universally practised for infusion or transfusion, it is not as suitable for phlebotomy. Very few doctors and fewer nurses are experienced as phlebotomists who do nothing but hone their skills for years (as I did for forty years).
Not only was I successful in finding veins because of my bevel-down technique, but I was able to draw off a pint of blood in five minutes. Hence, I used to draw at least five donors per hour and more than forty donors in eight hours. Today, a staff of four nurses do not draw half as many donors as I drew single-handedly. The most I did was fifty- five
in nine hours with the help of a hospital candy striper. The room was also rent-free.
For the sake of the record and posterity, I’d like it to be known that I am the first phlebotomist to get the employee recognition AWARD presented by the medical director, Dr. Tibor Greenwalt, for screening and drawing the most donors single-handedly in a small room at the various hospitals in Cincinnati, Kentucky and Indiana. Then when I built up the clientele, Hoxworth then rented high priced store front premises t staffed with four nurses to draw less than half the donors I drew single-handedly. Because of the odious comparisons made between my productivity and the “union” nurses’ I was told that “if you continue drawing thirty donors single-handedly, then management will say that a crew of five on mobile units should draw five times thirty, i.e. one hundred and fifty; then we will be back to pre-union days; if you keep that up, we will put a bomb in your car instead of just slashing your four tires,” which they had already done.
HOLISTIC PSYCHOPHARMACOLOGY: Since I am an apitherapist, I need this # 793 level course to defend the claims of www.apitherapy.org/aas
My undergraduate major is Microbiology; my minor was Psychology; but after graduating I took several courses in Advanced Educational Psychology; counseling and guidance; Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) at Bethesda Hospital; Psychiatric Nursing at University Hospital not to mention the monthly Chaplains’ Meetings where we had to read our “Verbatims” i.e. what the patient said to us and how we pronounced the elegant grunt, “Ahm.” I excelled in demonstrating this by intoning the “Ahm” at various musical intervals (ascending & descending with variations on the theme). The psychiatrist then advised us how to be non-directive (Rogerian-style) which I did by doing meditation.
Suffice it to say that until 2026, I’ll be taking five to six courses every quarter at U.C That is 25 courses per year at $12,000/ year, plus continuing Ed in Theology at our Athenaem and Mount Saint Mary Seminary. Reasons? To fulfill my raison d’etre: to continue the Teaching. Preaching & Healing mission of the SACRED ORDER OF
AQUILA & PRISCILLA (SOAP) of which I am the spiritual head and founder in 1945.
I. To TEACH the way of God more perfectly. (Acts 18:26)
II. To PREACH my R-A-R-E Theology:
REPENT in order to receive the Holy Spirit. (Acts 2:38)
ASK (pray) for the gift of the Holy Spirit. (Luke 11: 9-13)
RECEIVE The Holy Spirit. (John 20:22)
EXERCISE the gift of the Holy Spirit; then there will be
Nine manifestations:
1. Speaking in tongues. 2. Interpretation of tongues.
3. Prophecy. 4. Word of knowledge.
5. Word of wisdom. 6. Discerning of spirits.
7. Faith 8. Gifts of healing.
9. Miracles.
III. To HEAL by apitherapy www.apitherapy.org/aas
by Prayer, Fasting & Meditation
by the sacrament of anointing the sick.
The above is my three-point mission of my
SACRED ORDER OF AQUILA & PRISCILLA