Robert Ginsburg does not like the term ‘healer’ because he believes it suggests an unscientific, or faith-based, approach to his work. However, it provides a rough shorthand for his unusual training and skills.

For more than 15 years, Mr Ginsburg received specialist training with highly-praised Russian physicist and master healer Nicolai Levashov, resulting in the ability to address people’s health problems by scanning the body with his mind.

If someone has a health problem, he can locate resistance or vibrations in the body’s ‘subtle energy’ — which his training believes is the basic building block of our cells and organs — and use the power of his mind to eliminate it.

For example, he might reveal an energy disturbance around the pelvis, which he says he can address, and which can lead to healing of back and neck pain.

It is a long way — geographically and career wise — from Mr Ginsburg’s earlier life.

As a lawyer in the 1970s, he was convicting criminals in the United States, where he undertook several high profile cases.

He was chief attorney for the Penn Central Railroad fraud trial — the biggest of its kind in the country at the time —and he secured the first conviction of a terrorist killing of a law enforcement officer in the US.

So what made him change career, and do something so completely different?

Mr Ginsburg, 68, explained: “The simple answer is I needed a change.”

So when a friend invited him to attend a lecture by a healer, he tagged along out of curiosity. And he was intrigued by what he saw.

“I did not understand what was going on, but it fascinated me. So I started studying different types of healing, and eventually it became a passion.”

First, however, he had to move from Pennsylvania to California where he thought the environment would be more fertile for the career of a healer.

And it was in San Francisco that he met and trained with Nicolai Levashov. The training, he explained, expands the consciousness, as a result of which he says he can see and sense things now he could not before.

“It is what Levashov calls ‘The New Knowledge’ because of its untapped potential,” said Mr Ginsburg.

Some people will be interested in the theory while others will be sceptics. But the technique has its supporters, including doctors formerly with the NHS, and two US medical school professors.

As for Mr Ginsburg, he insists it is scientific, and based on a body of knowledge. And working remotely, hands-off, with no products or drugs, differentiates it from other alternative medical treatment.

At present he treats 90 per cent of his clients remotely, most whom are not even in the UK.

But he has also helped people in Oxfordshire. Among those he has helped here this year are a woman with a hormonal imbalance, a student with a chronic cough, and several people with severe back pain.

One who has benefited is 16-year-old Zosia Krajewski, from Radley.

For years she had had stomach problems, and these escalated while on holiday in France, where she collapsed and was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis.

Acupuncture was the only thing that helped, but it did not completely cure the problem, according her father, Andrew.

He added: “Since Robert’s treatment she no longer has any symptoms. What’s more, she’s got her energy and vitality back — she is a completely different girl.”

Five years ago, at Levashov’s suggestion, Mr Ginsburg, his wife Joanna and 16-year-old daughter Alyla moved to the UK — and they chose Oxford as a good place for their daughter’s schooling.

“I love Oxford — I feel like I fit here,” he said.

“It is beautiful, there is an intellectual climate and although it’s small, it has the sophistication of a big city, like London.

“There are also some great restaurants, too,” he added, revealing his partiality for Japanese food.

And being a film buff as well, he is excited to be moving house shortly to Jericho, where the Phoenix Cinema will be among a feast of treats on his doorstep.

n Contact: Robert Ginsburg 01865 980296.

Web: www.robertginsburg.com n Robert is giving a talk, Medicine of the Future, at The Tree Hotel, Iffley, on Thursday, May 26 at 11.30am. It will be followed by a two-course lunch and a cocktail.

To book tickets at £19.50 each, see the website www.treehotel.co.uk (link below) or call 01865 775 974. Parking available.