by KRISTIAN GRAVENOR

Some might not seem suited to a life prancing around in cotton sweatpants at the broke end of Wellington, and they include Anthony Pantazopoulos, who contorts around like Grasshopper teaching turtle-slow tai chi moves.

Pantazopoulos (Greek for "live long and full") looks like he gets his hair cut daily. Along with his self-deprecating quips, upright posture and impeccable manners, Pantazopoulos, 35, belongs in a law office or running a political campaign.

But Pantazopoulos - like an Indiana Jones of the healing set - has devoted his life to finding magic healers. Pantazopolous, who operates and lives upstairs from the Ikra Health Centre at the corner of 6th and Wellington along with his girlfriend Cristina, has come across, as he writes in Craig Cormack's Rising Tao Journal, a "Tai Chi master who can withstand blows from a sledgehammer; an alcoholic osteopath/shaman; a beautiful Christian faith healer; a clairvoyant hermit/monk living on Mount Athos; and most especially, a powerful Lebanese Alchemist who helped me find my wings in the vast unconscious mind."

He tells of a Terrebonne Avenue resident who is "a witch from Trinidad who can see into the body;" he explains "my girlfriend had gone everywhere trying to get this pinched nerve fixed and this witch fixed her within five minutes."

I took Pantazopoulos up on his invitation to attend a couple of tai chi classes and a Reiki massage, which consists of applying pressure to various acupuncture points, a seemingly simple procedure that leaves you with a floating feeling.

I chickened out on his offer of hypnotherapy, though.

It seems a lot of Montreal's gym owners I know have walked a tough road without a word of complaint, including Charles Berthaud, a softspoken bodybuilder who worked tirelessly to transform a garage into a gym across from the Verdun metro, and Stephen Burke, a victim of child-abuse who turned his court settlement into a downtown gym.

While giving me a massage to ease all the tension I work up loafing around on the sofa all day, Pantazopoulos told me of being raised in "a sort of orphanage - but it was okay, my father cared a lot and visited often." He went on to Vanier, where he cracked a bone in his neck playing football and for years, while slinging drinks in bars and playing perpetual student, Pantazopoulos could never escape the nagging pain.

Eventually he learned of a Cypriot named Kosta, the Magus of Strovolos. "I read a book about his healing powers and started thinking about going to Cyprus to meet him. I went to buy a second-hand copy at the Paradigme on Monkland and the cashier started raving about how she had written the Magus about her father's health problems and how the Magus wrote back with advice that saved his life. I took that as a sign that I had to go."

Anthony landed almost penniless in Cyprus and combed Limasol - where the Magus of Strovolos moved - for the mysterious healer. Eventually he found the home and was instructed to return a few days later. Days were spent lounging around a rundown hotel, where a premonition helped him avoid a broken-bottle brawl and a hotel maître d' ceaselessly giving him the evil eye. He returned to the Magus only to be told by an assistant to return a few days later.

After much persevering, he met Kosta the Magus, a normal-looking old man with glasses. While spilling out his life story, the Magus of Strovolos reassured him, "I already know." The emotional meeting was interrupted by a limping soccer player with a bad knee. Within minutes the old master had touched the soccer player, who felt immediately improved and left weeping with joy.

In the following days Pantazopoulos felt surges of electric energy and has since seen his pain level drop drastically.

Pantazopoulos suggests miracle seekers beware of healers "with a bit of ability. Those are the ones who think they're walking on water." And don't be fooled by kindness. "Sometimes the best healers come across as the biggest assholes and the devils hide themselves as angels of light." And most of all, "Be patient, it doesn't happen overnight."

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