'Lighting the way to a smooth sale'
Lydia Slater in The Sunday Times 24.02.02

'If you've invested in a tinkly waterfall, hung crystals at the windows, placed turtles on all your surfaces and shoved your furniture about to improve the flow of chi, you are behind the times. The latest house dealers shun feng shui and use 'divine light' to heal energy blockages in the home.

And although it sounds (and looks) bonkers, the technique is being taken seriously by some estate agents and developers with hard-to-sell houses.

Suzi Morris is a London-based house-healer whose client list includes Natasha Caine (daughter of Sir Michael), the television production company Tiger Aspect and Farley & Associates estate agents. Other clients are reticent about admitting they use her services, including a property-development company whose buildings she 'heals' before any are put on the market. Her first attempt at house-healing was in one of its properties that had been on the market for more than a year. "The energy inside was terribly depressing and flat. It was no wonder nobody wanted to buy it." It sold for the asking price two days later.

The publicist Jori White brought Morris in after her West London house had been on the market for several months without attracting a buyer. The healing had unexpected results: instead of selling the house, White discovered she didn't want to move all. "It was a very nice house but it wasn't relaxing and I always felt we had to keep it immaculate," she says. "After Suzi did her stuff, the house felt much more homely and I stopped worrying about the odd bit of mess."

Morris uses a technique called Vortex Healing Energetic Therapy, which originated 5,000 years ago and was, she says, transmitted to her by its discoverer, a man called Ric Weinman. It is a method by which divine energy (described by Morris as "sparkly light") is channelled in a specific direction by the healer.

She begins by going around a property with copper dowsing rods that cross at points of stress. "Most people are quite sensitive to a house's atmosphere. It can stop you sleeping, for instance, or make you prone to arguments," she advises.

Despite the testimonies, many estate agents are sceptical. Mark Rimell, who oversees country house sales for Strutt & Parker, says: "Let's get real about this – we wouldn't list feng shui under the particulars. If it's a dull grey house it would be better to spend £300 on 100W light bulbs instead of 40W."

But, there are still plenty of people prepared to give house-healing a try. Morris has now healed 50 properties, including a wine merchants that was inhabited by "a sort of gargoyle – really terrible energy".

Thankfully, in my own home the problems were les dramatic, though there was a "deep unhappiness" on the top floor (I blame my old flatmate and her boyfriend problems), the sitting room was hot, flat and uninspirational, and there was a stress point in the bath at the tap end. By now I was smirking, but Morris handed me the rods and, sure enough, I could feel them crossing for myself. She then locked herself in the sitting room with her crystals and 14 bottled potions that she sprinkled about, and meditated for an hour while I waited in another room. Afterwards, we went round the house again, and the rods stayed still and apart.

The opera singer Sally Bradshaw used Morris when china started jumping from her shelves and her builder told her she had a poltergeist. "I wanted the poltergeist to go, but after the healing I found the acoustics had changed for the better," she says, "It's definitely different, although I feel rather silly admitting it."

As for me, I feel silly admitting it too, but I noticed a definite change in the living room, which felt brighter and less stuffy. Morris told me that she had sent a special energy through my house to help me put the furniture in the right place. A week later, I woke up with a start at 5am knowing that the dining room and the sitting room had to be swapped around.'