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The Brazilian Healer with the Kitchen Knife: And Other Stories of Mystics, Shamans, and Miracle Makers

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Sandy Johnson describes her magical journey around the world to meet and be treated by a variety of holistic healers in THE BRAZILIAN HEALER WITH THE KITCHEN KNIFE. Disillusioned to discover that traditional medical doctors offered only the vaguest assurances that her breast cancer would probably not recur, Johnson felt inspired to seek out healers who consider all aspects of an individual (not just the physical) when they heal. Beginning with tips Johnson received from the Native Americans she'd interviewed for her previous book, Johnson discovered a wonderfully diverse group of healers working with shamanic soul retrieval, alchemy, intuition, yoga, Kahuna, Australian Aboriginal, chiropractic, water, musical, and psychic surgery methods.

THE BRAZILIAN HEALER WITH THE KITCHEN KNIFE is so fascinating and well-written that I found it impossible to set down, as Johnson devoted a chapter to each of sixteen gifted healers. Here are healers who can see inside peoples' physical and energy bodies with ease -- at times performing miraculous healings. Photos are shown of most of the healers, including one woman healer who comes out of her healing trances to find gold-like metal flakes on her body, an Aboriginal man who works with "love, light, crystals, and energy," and men who remove cancerous lumps and cataracts from their patients -- often with nothing more than a kitchen knife.

Johnson's open-minded skepticism is refreshing; even as she feels certain she's gone "down the rabbit hole," she retains her journalistic common sense and composure to ask these healers how they heal. The healers Sandy Johnson visited include: Sandra Ingerman, Katie Engelhart, Howard Wills, Vianna Stibal, Virginia Ellen, Milton Trager, Gary Brownlee, Auntie Margaret, Warren Barigian, Gerry Bostock, Dr. Ruth Ziemba, Peter Maxwel, Rubens Faria, and John of God.

Whether you are considering enlisting aid from a holistic healer, or are just curious to read stories that prove truth is stranger than fiction -- THE BRAZILIAN HEALER WITH THE KITCHEN KNIFE will satisfy and delight. I give this book my highest recommendation.

I just about gulped down Sandy Johnson's latest book, "The Brasilian Healer with the Kitchen Knife". I couldn't put it down once I'd opened the covers. Clearly the author made an amazing internal and external journey in order to write the book. She gives the reader a "behind the scenes" look into the world of healing and healers. Any skeptic who reads the book may well question his/her belief system, yet the writer was even handed in covering the subject.

Sandy begins with a skeptical view of spiritual healing, not unlike many of us who view this practice with suspicion. Her journey leads her from the city to the jungle, seeking to understand the meaning of `healing' and the methods of these mysterious healers.

She does not try to convince us that we need to change our beliefs, nor does she instruct us on how to go about a search of our own. This is a task performed by hundreds of other books on the subject written for the already convinced. Rather, Sandy gently takes our hand and introduces us to the wonders she experiences.

I feel like I know these people now; both the healers and the healed. I've seen their love, their mystery, and their character. After reading the book I feel differently about healing. Even if I should opt to use the `men in white coats' should I need them, it will be with a new understanding of the roles of the men, the medicines, and my spirit in the healing process.

This is an excellent book. It is a compelling story that offers a critical question for these times while hinting at an answer.

This book left me with a wonderful feeling, and opened my mind to some of the real healings that are possible if we only seek them out.

I read this book in one sitting. I just wanted to keep running through it. The narrative simply zips forward at a headlong pace. The writing is crisp, clear, to the point, and never wanders into unrelated territory. More important, these healers and mystics seemed real to me, for the first time. This book may change your mind about this sort of healing process.

I am glad that Sandy Johnson wrote this book. It is engaging, interesting reading. But it is a bit thin, which is frustrating. It would be a better book if she had gone into more depth about each healer. Nevertheless, I am glad she has written what she has. The more information about extraordinary people like these, the better.

Johnson has accumulated a number of fascinating stories regarding healers whose patients are actually healed. Their modalities are pretty far out, but who is to say that God must be stereotyped? I enjoyed all of the stories and having once been a program director for a holistic health center, I can attest that there is plausibility in all of these stories. Over the years and from my experiences and research, a healer is only a conduit. The patient actually heals him/her self. It is written: "It is done unto you as you believe." If the modality of healing is accepted by the patient, then the patient is healed. If the sickness re-occurs, then doubt and fear was allowed to come in. It is not the healer who failed, it is the lack of acceptance. The traditional medical modalities are rife with physicians who tell a patient they have only so many months, years to live and this is in effect, condemning the patient to death if the patient accepts the verdict. Medical schools have no idea about true healings. Pharmaceuticals are not the answer. Bettye Johnson, award-winning author, Secrets of the Magdalene Scrolls.

While this book is an easy and entertaining read, there is no substance to it. Do not read if you are looking for serious treatment of alternative healing. Read instead something like Richard Gerber's Vibrational Healing. Another lack is that there is no contact information for the healers mentioned.