NSW spiritual healer quizzed about ovaries

A NSW spiritual healer who is suing an ex-client for defamation has denied telling her he would "get some information from your ovaries" during a treatment session.

Serge Isaac Benhayon also denied placing his hands on the fully clothed woman's lower abdomen, just above the pubic bone over her ovaries, telling the court the position was higher.

The 54-year-old former tennis coach was being cross-examined on Thursday in the NSW Supreme Court at the lawsuit he has brought against Esther Mary Rockett over a lengthy November 2014 blog post and her subsequent tweets.

He contends he was portrayed as the leader of a socially harmful cult, a sexual predator, as someone who indecently touched her in the treatment room, and delusional.

Ms Rockett, a former acupuncturist whose complaints included being subjected to a "sleazy ovarian reading", is fighting the case on the defences of truth and honest opinion.

During his cross-examination on Thursday, Mr Benhayon accused her barrister, Tom Molomby SC, of "playing games" and trying to make him out to be a "madman".

The founder of Universal Medicine, based near Lismore in northern NSW, agreed he closed his eyes for part of Ms Rockett's February 2005 session but said that was not unusual.

He denied telling her that when she was aged five a man in her life let her down, when she was seven a man in her life was not as he seemed, when she was 11 a man had not been there for her, and that at a later stage in her life a man tortured her.

"I may have said the energy was compromised," he said.

Denying he told her it was an ovarian reading, Mr Benhayon said the "modality" did not exist in 2005 but he had done the techniques about five times after 2009 or so.

Mr Molomby then played audio from a 2010 presentation in which Mr Benhayon referred to getting information from ovaries as far back as 1999, describing one as hard and the other as shrivelled.

Earlier, Mr Benhayon agreed he believed people who abused their authority, such as dictators and corrupt politicians, were reincarnated as disabled children.

He previously testified that most people had lived at least 2300 lives and he was the reincarnation of Leonardo da Vinci.

The hearing continues.