The Energy Healer

When he was a child in Yonkers, New York, Gene Egidio underwent an exorcism. He says he saw bright electric colors around people's bodies. He also got electric shock treatments.

At some point he decided, he says, to be normal. He joined the Navy, and then married a neighborhood girl. He took a job with Con Edison, settled in Yonkers, and had four kids. For 22 years, he lived a normal life. But when he reached his late 50s, memories of his childhood powers returned. 48 Hours Correspondent Bernie Goldberg reports on what he did then.

"I was very frightened to tell you the truth," Gene says. "I didn't know how to accept it. It took almost three years before I literally said, 'Okay, let's go for it'."

Gene moved to Southern California and started a new career, also working with electricity. This time, though, he was an energy healer. He has celebrity clients like Steven Seagal, Linda Gray and Catherine Oxenberg. He says he supplies them with energy.

It sounds hokey, but some experts say there is something to it. Clinical psychologists Steve Fahrion and Patricia Norris have done extensive research on energy healers. Fahrion was part of a ten-year study at the prestigious Menninger Clinic in Topeka, Kansas. That study found that energy healers are capable of generating up to 200 volts of electricity.

Egidio has never been tested by American researchers, but that doesn't stop the faithful who flock to his unassuming headquarters in Encinitas, California. He also does healing by phone, and will also impart energy to a picture. Many people send in photos so he can do this. These are "photo healings." He has even treated a cat.

How much does it cost? Gene says $75 for an hour and a half is a typical charge.

Michelle Jones, a longtime Xerox employee who met Egidio at a wedding, says that his treatment cured her painful ovarian cyst. She is a believer. Says Gene: "I don't heal anybody. They heal themselves by the energy I give them." For the record, doctors says ovarian cysts often disappear on their own.

48 Hours conducted its own survey, tracking down 56 people who attended a healing with Gene more than a year ago. Thirteen percent said Gene had relieved some physical pain.

He's not in it for the money, Egidio says: "Do you know what it is to see somebody come in that couldn't smile because they had so much pain? And they walk out and they smile at you? You can't buy that. There isn't a multi-billionaire in the world that can buy that."

Produced by David Kohn;