It’s so nineties! Michael “Lord of the Dance” Flatley, he of the world-famous and oft-mocked Riverdance, is back, no thanks to conventional Western medicine. Flatley has been MIA since 2006, felled by a mysterious virus that left him weakened, unable to move freely, and unable to share his love of The Dance. But then he found a unconventional cure. It’s called a “Plexus System” and it involves the body’s energy.

Full disclosure: a guy once took me to see Riverdance on a date, and it was absolutely amazing! I thought it was going to be really silly, but those Irish dancers can really hoof it…from the waist down, at least. Through my amazement, I did notice that “the dance” seems localized to the bottom half. The top half of the body stays oddly still.

Full disclosure: a guy once took me to see Riverdance on a date, and it was absolutely amazing! I thought it was going to be really silly, but those Irish dancers can really hoof it…from the waist down, at least. Through my amazement, I did notice that “the dance” seems localized to the bottom half. The top half of the body stays oddly still.

Irish-American dance master Michael Flatley is back on stage after years of suffering from a “mystery virus,” thanks to a treatment by an Irish “energy healer,” Irish media quoted Flatley as saying on Wednesday. Flatley, born in the United States in 1958 of Irish heritage, rose to fame as a member of the “Riverdance” troupe that helped propel Irish dancing into the global spotlight and later opened his own “Lord of the Dance” show. He was taken to hospital in London in 2006 with a virus that forced him to cancel the European tour of his “Celtic Tiger” show, a dramatization of Ireland’s history.

“Conventional medicine failed to cure me from my mystery virus,” Flatley told the Irish Independent newspaper. “And then, by chance, I met a young man from Ireland called Michael O’Doherty who works on the body’s energy,” Flatley said.

“When he came to visit me in Ireland, I could barely get out of the chair,” he said. “He visited me about 10 times afterwards and, now, I feel really good. Great, in fact. I can dance at speed and I’m close to 100 percent fit again,” he added.

According to the clinic’s website, the “Plexus System” developed by Michael O’Doherty and Tom Griffin works by “rebalancing the life-force energy within and around the body. Einstein concluded that everything is energy and beyond energy is a Supreme Intelligence,” the website says. “Within the Plexus System, we have begun to understand the powerful effectiveness of this intelligent life force.”

Thanks to the treatment, Flatley has been able to take part in U.S. celebrity dance TV shows and has resumed a strict daily training regime, the Irish Independent said.

[From Reuters]

I’m kind of “meh” about this unconventional healing – not that Western medicine is the end-all of treatments. Many have found that too many Western health problems could be helped through more Eastern treatments of diet, exercise, meditation, yoga, etc. But the “Plexus System” doesn’t sound like that, does it? It sounds vaguely like Scientology. But still, I’m happy that Flatley is better, and I’m thrilled that he will be coming to an American dance show soon!

Here is a clip from Riverdance:

Michael Flatley is shown out with his wife Niamh Flatley on 4/25/08 at the Four Seasons Hotel in Dublin. He was presented with the Variety Club of Ireland ‘Entertainer of the Decade’ award. Credit: WENN