ABSTRACT Matthias Avigdor discusses what is known of the life and work of  Felix Kersten, a manual therapist who famously provided treatments to Heinrich Himmler during WWII, each treatment provided in exchange for pardons for prisoners and labor-camp inmates. Although Kersten wrote two books about his ‘physio nervale therapie’, and although from those we know that he treated both viscera and nerves, we are left with no clear understanding of how he achieved his stunning results.