By Emese EÅ‘ry
Traditional Chinese Medicine Practitioner
Nurse, Ear Acupuncture Addictologist

A black background with a white line on itThis article comes from Guidepoints News from NADA Summer 2020 Issue. Sign-up to receive Guidepoints in your inbox quartlery. The Guidepoints newsletter is the only publication devoted to the sharing and dissemination of our NADA work on an international scale. Become a member to opt-in for a print copy. Check-out past issues.

I had never thought that my father would go so soon after his teacher and friend, Dr. Michael Smith, to the Heavenly Home. We last participated in the NADA con-ference in Denmark in 2018, and we were planning to travel to London in 2020.

My father thought of Dr. Smith and the way he spread acupuncture everywhere selflessly with such great love and affection. He called him “Doctor Bird†in memory of his philanthropic mission of spreading the NADA ear acupuncture all over the world.

I have childhood memories of my father inviting Dr. Smith to our home in Hungary in the 1980s. Then, in 1985 they started the first NADA ear acupuncture training course in Nagyfa – in a prison-like alcohol treatment center with my father’s biophysicist team. At the first Hungarian NADA conference in 1986, Dr. Banga, the head of the Great Wall Institute, gave a report on the benefits of the NADA protocol for alcoholics. Numerous conferences organized by my father followed, and, in 1998, the ear acupuncture addictology became part of official alternative medicine that can be learned and applied without a medical degree.

My father was a biologist, a mathematician and a medical doctor, and, following Dr. Smith’s example, his purpose was always to have ear acupuncture widely spread and applied with therapists without a medical degree. He visited Dr. Smith at Lincoln Hospital so he could study the application of ear acupuncture in the South Bronx environment.

Besides his presentations, teachings and spreading the acupuncture treatments, he made a point of introducing and practicing NADA ear acupuncture in Hungary. He stood up for non-medical practitioners in the case of this easy, effective and wonderful method.

At the latest conference in Denmark, which was the first one where Dr. Smith was not present physically, my father received a metaphoric and expressive gift from our friend, Jo Ann Lenney: an elephant and cart pulling logs. It was symbolic of my father’s life: he pulled, led others to the Light and health, to the active life without a stop or rest, until the power of the heart can nurture it. It is what he left behind to those who love him: pull and help those who are hungry for love and health.

Now we have said farewell to him in his physical manifestation, but his memory, guidelines, spiritual guidance – and his disciples – stay with us and live on. We pursue the work he started and keep his medical heritage alive. He and Dr. Smith lead, support and help us on our path. God bless all of our NADA acupuncture fellows, friends from all over the world, and may Heaven help your work wherever you are.

Ajándok Had a Worldwide Impact

Ajándok EÅ‘ry’s daughter, Ajándék, wrote to us last July to say, “I am sadly letting you know that my beloved father passed away yesterday after a serious heart attack. We all miss him very much.†His daughter, Emese, added, “Our hearts save him for all the time. He will be our Protector in Heaven. He is now an eternal guardian Angel in our life. We miss him so much!â€

Ajándok founded the first NADA organization in Europe, and it continues to serve not only the most vulnerable segments of the population, but anyone else who requests treatment.

When speaking about Ajándok, Mike Smith said: “Sven [from Sweden] and Ajándok were my original home of NADA Europe. Ajándok was a physicist who came into official healthcare as a doctor in his 50s. He was wonderfully creative and not at all linked to clinical foibles. When he finally learned what healthcare as a daily job was about, his reaction was bemusement. He worked mainly for the homeless in street clinic outreach – not in step with other doctors.â€

His contribution to Hungarian society with the NADA protocol is immeasurable. He went on to express his willingness to support neighboring countries in setting up their own NADA services. Recently, in Croatia, he came to a full training with members of his family and shared about NADA in Hungary. He observed and supported the Croatian training process, and donated needles to keep the work growing. His death sent a wave of shock among the NADA Croatian providers, and many shared their condolences for his family.

But NADA wasn’t Ajándok’s only success story. True to Mike’s description of him being “wonderfully creative,†Ajándok earned degrees as a biologist in 1969 and a mathematician in 1974 at Eötvös Loránd University, a public research university that is one of the largest and most prestigious higher education institutions in Hungary. He received his degree as a medical doctor in 1996 and as a general practitioner in 2002 at Semmelweis University, a research-led medical school, one of the leading universities of medicine and health sciences in Hungary and the Central European region.

Ajándok practised traditional Chinese medicine for more than 50 years, and he had a valuable role in nurturing and upgrading Chinese-Hungarian relations in the area of medicine and therapies. One of the most significant results was that, in 2016, the Human Resources Ministry signed a letter of intent on establishing a Central and Eastern European Educational and Research Centre for Traditional Chinese Medicine with the Chinese Vice Minister of National Health and Family Planning.

Over the years, he has received too many awards to mention here. Some were for his exceptional contribution to the health of Hungarian people in the Carpathian Basin; for his outstanding educational work in the Alternative Medicine Academy in Veszprém; and for his excellent professional work through the decades.

He also received awards in recognition of his professional and personal life and work, and for supporting people living on society’s peripheries. Then in July of 2014, 30 years after the founding of “the first prison-program of the NADA protocol in the world in Nagyfa, Hungary, as Mike used to remember it,†Ajándok received an award from the Minister of Human Resources for his commitment to healing suffering caused by alcoholism and drug addiction using ear acupuncture.

Ajándok’s name signifies the Saint Peter’s Umbrella program which offers a solution for desperate mothers-to-be in emergencies with safe and anonymous places to leave their babies. This demonstrates in part why Dr. Smith treasured him as a friend and talked about him as being a truly humble person – working for those most in need of care.

Brian Mckenna, who worked in Hungary in the 1990s, told us that Ajándok was “a bright and imaginative intellect in a place and time where tyranny and poverty had severely oppressed the human spirit. His abiding interest in the possibilities of human healing contributed significantly to the recognition and usage of acupuncture and the work of NADA throughout Europe.â€

Rachel Peckham, NADA GB, remembers Ajándok as one of the first NADA trainers alongside Dr. Michael Smith. She noted that “he had such a passion for NADA and for life†– and added “how lovely it was that his family always joined him when he attended NADA conferences. He will be greatly missed.â€

His daughters, Emese and Ajándék, are trying to continue their father’s work though this is now a difficult time for them. They are offering the NADA protocol regularly in their acupuncture clinics – charging very little, about $1.50, or “for free in case of need.†And they use it with their colleagues as a charitable treatment. This is unique in Hungary.

His family told us that “Ajándok was a gift of God for all of us – he will be greatly missed by his widow, Zsuzsanna, his six children, eleven grandchildren, and by all of those who were his friends, patients and pupils.â€