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

by Sandy Johnson

Moved by her own struggle to recover from breast cancer, Sandy Johnson explores with curiosity and a measure of healthy skepticism the work of healers, miracle-makers, and transformers of the mind, body, and soul. She travels the world-- from a beachside compound in Hawaii to a remote village in Brazil-- to meet face-to-face with the most acclaimed healers. She often experiences their work first-hand and reports, with fascinating detail, the story of their real-life miracles and incredible feats. She also writes about the wonder of the "placebo effect," which seems to give some people the faith they need to begin healing on their own.

You'll meet Katie Engelhardt, a young woman from Tennessee, who is able to intuit and then often heal the ailments of people while in a trancelike state. Sometimes, after entering her trance, goldlike metal flakes appear on her face, neck, back, and hands. In another chapter, "Bundji," an Australian man with Aboriginal ancestors, tells how he was led to resurrect the healing methods of his people and now travels the world to heal those in need with "love, light, and energy." Dr. Ruth Ziemba, a traditionally trained nurse and chiropractor, explains why her treatments require only the lightest pressure with hands her patients say emanate an intense, healing heat.

You'll also meet John of God, the Brazilian with the kitchen knife, who treats as many as 3,000 people at a time, excising tumors, ending blindness, and curing arthritis and cancer at his Casa de San Inacio in a remote Brazilian village.

The Brazilian Healer with the Kitchen Knife grants an unprecedented view of this simultaneously ancient and modern phenomenon, and its most compelling practitioners. Sandy Johnson allows you to meet these spiritual magicians so that you can attempt to understand their gifts and motivations, and witness the best and worst of their work.

208 pages, Hardcover

First published July 4, 2003

About the author

Sandy Johnson attended the University of Pennsylvania, CIDOC in Cuernavaca, Mexico, and the New School for Social Research in New York City. She studied acting at the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York and at the Lee Strasberg Studio in Los Angeles.

As an actress, Johnson appeared in numerous regional stage productions, various TV episodes, soap operas and appearances in feature films Ash Wednesday and Two-Minute Warning.

In 1989, Johnson joined the faculty of Washington College in Chestertown, MD, as a creative writer instructor.

Johnson published her first novel, THE CUPPI (Delacorte/Dell), a fictionalized account of a twelve-year-old runaway, THE CUPPI (a police acronym for Circumstances Undetermined Pending Police Investigation) was the first book to deal with the rising epidemic of teen-aged children taking to the streets. Because of the extensive research involving interviews with dozens of runaways, Johnson was called upon to lecture to parent-teacher groups, and law enforcement and social agencies, and made numerous TV appearances: Washington and Philadelphia morning shows, Good Morning America, The Mike Douglas Show, among them.

As a result of her personal crusade, sections of the book were read into the Congressional Record, and twelve crisis shelters opened in major cities. Stories appeared in newspapers and magazines around the country, including a four-page spread in People Magazine. Features ran in Newsday, San Francisco Chronicle, Wall Street Journal, Liz Smith's column, and received rave reviews in The New York Times, Publishers Weekly and the Wall Street Journal. The Library Journal featured Johnson's photograph on its cover.

Johnson’s second novel, WALK A WINTER BEACH (Delacorte/Dell 1982), was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year.

AGAINST THE LAW (Bantam 1986), a non-fiction account of the Knoxville, Tennessee attorney Mary Evans who fell in love with her convict-client and aided his escape from prison.

THE BOOK OF ELDERS: The Life Stories & Wisdom of Great American Indians (HarperSanFrancisco 1994). THE BOOK OF TIBETAN ELDERS (Riverhead 1996) with a foreword by His Holiness the Dali Lama, THE BRAZILIAN HEALER WITH A KITCHEN KNIFE and Other Stories of Mystics, Shamans and Miracle-Makers (Rodale 2003). Republished as MYSTICS AND HEALERS

Johnson has just completed a memoir, The Thirteenth Moon and is currently working on a novel, Day of Yemanja.

Reviews

[Judy · Rating 3 out of 5]

interesting, if you believe it...

[Bookewyfe · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an interesting read, if you believe in the alternative healing methods described in this book. Each chapter is spent with a different practitioner and describes their methods. Crystals, psychic surgery, energy body work…I wouldn’t trust tossing modern medicine aside and swan diving into these methods. While I do believe in energy, I would combine it with modern medicine instead of just relying on that. Some of these other methods, such as ‘psychic surgery’, I would absolutely never go near.

[Nancy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked this book off of the shelf at random and was pleasantly surprised. I have read books before like this but they were more lectures on their version of the only way to live life. This author did not lecture, she allowed the reader to glimpse her own curiosity, insecurity, and faith which lessoned my own skepticism. It was a good read.