A Healer Among Us: Introduction

"I'll send out some extra strong thought on it," spoke the sandy-haired gentleman. "Let's see if we can get some results here."

Douglas Johnson's voice was sympathetic but firm as he spoke on the telephone to a client halfway across the country from his home base in Hollywood, California. The woman caller, through treatments from the psychic healer, had been cured of a painful arthritic condition only six months earlier. She was calling now for her husband whose recurring back condition had become so aggravated that he was unable to walk. Because making a trip from the Midwest wasn't feasible for them, Johnson suggested 'distance healing,' a sort of long­distance treatment which had proven successful for many of his clients in the past.

"We'll have to wait and see," he calmly reassured her, "but I think he'll be feeling better very soon."

The woman's plea was only one of many such phone calls Johnson receives weekly from among thousands of clients who have consulted him over the years. His constituency remains loyal and for good reason. Numerous case histories, many documented and corroborated by medical evidence, have aptly demonstrated his ability to perform miraculous cures of supposedly 'incurable' diseases. Cancer, heart disease, blindness, leukemia, lupus, strokes, arthritis, emphysema, bone disorders and chronic migraines, to name a few, are examples of maladies which have been healed, many instantaneously, through his extraordinary gift. In nearly all cases, the illnesses do not return, a trademark which sets him in a class apart from most other healers.

"Nearly everyone is helped," says Johnson, "but with some the healing process takes longer than with others. We don't know exactly why."

A case in point illustrates how much an individual's response to Johnson's healing treatments can vary. Helen Garmus, a housewife from Allentown, Pennsylvania, had been suffering with a rare medical condition known as ITP (Idiopathic Thrombocytopenic Purpura). The potentially fatal disease, whose exact cause is not known, leads to a destruction of blood platelets, which aid in blood clotting and in the regulation of blood flow in the tiny capillaries throughout the body. Her symptoms were classic and acute—patches of purplish discoloration on the skin due to hemorrhaging of minute blood vessels and uncontrollable bleeding from mucous membranes. She had been experiencing bleeding from her mouth, nose and tear ducts. At the time, the disease was not well known. She had been to seven different hospitals and dozens of specialists, all of them baffled by her unusual symptoms. It wasn't until after two exhaustive years of innumerable tests and ineffectual treatments that the disease was conclusively diagnosed. A regimen of antibiotic treatments was initiated, but it ultimately did little to stop the progress of the disease. Medical science had done all it could. Her family doctor finally recommended that all the family members and relatives be notified. She was in the terminal stages of the disease.

Helen heard about Douglas Johnson through a friend of her daughter, who lived in Pasadena, California. Having tried everything else, she agreed to see the psychic healer and arranged to make the trip to California from Pennsylvania. At the first session, Helen could feel intense heat emanating from Johnson's hands; it permeated every part of her body.

"It was like a feeling of pure love—a wonderful, soothing sensation," Helen recalled. "I knew right then and there that Douglas was my only hope."

There were signs of improvement right away. Prior to seeing Johnson, Helen had been hemorrhaging continuously; she found blood on her pillow each morning. After the first healing treatment, the bleeding stopped.

Encouraged, Helen continued seeing the healer every day for one month. During that time, her condition improved dramatically, and she felt well enough to return to Pennsylvania. Two weeks later, the bleeding returned slightly, but after talking to Johnson for ten minutes on the telephone, it again stopped. The long-distance treatment had worked. After that, when Helen periodically experienced a minor relapse of the disease, she would call Johnson on the telephone. Each time she found immediate relief. By the end of six months, she was well on the road to recovery. The bleeding had completely stopped; the telltale skin discoloration had faded. She continued consulting the healer by phone for two more years before all traces of the disease had disappeared. Fifteen years later, there have been no relapses or major health problems of any kind.

"Why are some people cured instantly while with others, it can take years before they are healed?" Johnson states. "We still don't know all the answers."

His work has achieved widespread recognition through the various media. He has demonstrated his ability to provide instant relief from many ailments on a number of TV programs including The Art Linkletter Show, P.M. Magazine, The Regis Philbin Show, and Psychic Phenomena: The World Beyond. Through radio interviews and lectures nationwide, he has expounded his unique philosophy formulated over a lifetime of spiritual seeking. Many of his extraordinary cures have previously been documented in the book, The Miracle Workers by Jess Stearn, and have been the focus of many articles appearing in such publications as Life and Fate magazines.

Johnson performs miraculous cures through what is known as 'laying on of hands,' the technique of placing one or both hands over the afflicted areas. In cases where a general healing is given, he may simply place one hand on top of the client's head and the other near the upper back or shoulder, but technique is never foremost in his mind.

"I now believe, after doing this for many years, that I don't have to place my hands exactly over the problem area. The energy or God force itself knows where to go and what needs to be done. One time I was working on a man who complained of migraine headaches. After several treatments, the severity of his headaches lessened to where he was hardly bothered by them. What surprised us both, however, was that his stomach ulcers and slight diabetic condition had also cleared up in the process. He never told me about those ailments until later."

The establishment of his practice in Hollywood, California seems to have been destined for him, and in part, had been the fulfillment of a boyhood dream. But getting to the famed glamor capital wasn't all that easy for the young suburbanite from Minneapolis, Minnesota. He was very sickly as a child and at sixteen was diagnosed as having the same serious heart condition that had caused his mother an early death. He eventually sought help from doctors at the Mayo Clinic who told him that if he was lucky, he would live two years. Faced with the prospect that any day could be his last, his chances of experiencing the Hollywood lifestyle seemed remote. A remarkable turn of events, however, led him to discover the field of Spiritualism on a trip to Los Angeles, causing him to move there permanently and establish himself as a psychic and healer.

His practice eventually grew to include many Hollywood notables as clients. Susan Strasberg, Diane Ladd, Shelly Winters, Laura Dern, Glenn Ford, Kathryn Grayson, Jill St. John, Will Geer, Jack Albertson, Ann Miller, Ann Sothern, Gig Young, Charlie Weaver, Elke Sommer and Harry Guardino are a few movietown luminaries who have sought him out over the years for psychic consultation, healing or both.

"Whoever thought," muses Johnson, "that one day I would be able to look out from my own back yard and see the Hollywood sign in the distance. It's just so unbelievable—"

A frequent lecturer, Johnson has inspired thousands with the triumph over his own ill-health as a child and with the evolution of his career as a psychic and healer. In the telling of his life story, many startling psychic phenomena are brought into fresh perspective.

The most enduring accounts are those which speak to the heart. Douglas Johnson's is one such story.