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Brandon Raynor

Diploma of Naturopathy, Diploma of Remedial Massage, Diploma Shiatsu, Diploma Chinese Herbs, Diploma of Ayurvedic Medicine, President International Natural Therapists Association (I.N.T.A.)

Brandon's early years moving around the world

Brandon Raynor was born in Ottawa, Canada on August the 14th ,1969. His mother, Bunty, is from Enfield, near London, England and his father, Gary, is from a small town called Nyngan, near Dubbo, NSW in the outback of Australia. His father is a civil engineer and ex Australian Army officer and runs his own business called Procon. His mother is an artist and nurse. They currently live in Manly, a suburb of Sydney, Australia. Brandon is a citizen of Australia, Canada and the UK.

Brandon had a very diverse childhood. He grew up in a suburb of Ottawa, the capital of Canada, called Kanata until he was 8. Then moved to Lilongwe, the capital of Malawi, a developing central African country, following his dad's work. After living there for 2 years, Brandon and his family moved around visiting Kenya, India and Thailand, places in which Brandon got to see many different ways of life and ways of thinking. The Raynor family then moved to Miami, Florida where they lived until he was 14. Brandon attended Junior High School in Miami for 3 years at Southwood Junior High School and 6 months at Palmetto Senior High School.

Brandon

During his time in Miami, Brandon developed a condition called alopecia where his body decided that it didn't want its own hair. This was quite hard at first but later Brandon found that he liked having no hair. "It saves me a lot of money on haircuts and shampoo", he reasoned. It also taught him what it was like to be different from what everyone expected him to be.

At the age of 14, his family moved back to his father's home country, Australia. He moved to a suburb of Sydney called Balgowlah and attended his last 3 years of High School there at Balgowlah Boy's High School. He was a prefect and graduated in 1986 with his HSC, or Higher School Certificate and was accepted into the University of Sydney.

Brandon becomes a vegetarian and gets interested in natural therapies

Instead of attending university right away he took a year off, working various jobs as a furniture removalist, surfboard maker, stock broking messenger and foundry labourer and saved up and traveled through Western Canada and America by car with an old friend of his from Miami named Jim Carlock. Brandon met some old friends of his mothers from her days working as a Quaker nurse in El Salvador who lent him a book called Animal Liberation by Peter Singer, a professor at Monash University in Australia. This book had a very large impact on him and from the day he finished the book he became vegetarian and decided never to eat meat again.This was an important decision for him and was one of the starts of his interest in nutrition as at the time he knew only a few things about combining proteins and being vegetarian in the 1980s was not as common as it is today.

Brandon at Sydney University and learns about meditation

Brandon returned to Australia after his travels and continued working and traveling around Australia until the following year when he entered his first year at the University of Sydney. He studied Psychology, Philosophy, Comparative Government and Political Economics. It was in his first year of university that he also became interested in meditation and yoga, and started to learn meditation.

This also had a profound impact on his life as he started to realize the depth of some of the Eastern philosophies from India and Asia in general. Brandon found studying Eastern Philosophy to be far more interesting than the Western Philosophy and Psychology that he was learning at university. Brandon was also an animal rights activist at university and found that the vivisection experiments that were being performed at university in the psychology department, such as chopping the top of a monkey's skull off, sticking electrodes in his brain to stop the monkey feeling full after eating, and other such experiments were not what he wanted to learn about at university. He dropped out of Psychology and in his second year he studied Social Anthropology, Comparative Religion, Education in Society and Child Growth and Development

By his second year of university Brandon's continuing interest in meditation, animal rights and environmental activism led him to believe that he could achieve and learn more outside of the university structure, so he decided to discontinue his studies at the University of Sydney and instead he moved to Melbourne and then Adelaide to study more at the Australian School of Meditation. He found the morning classes of yoga and meditation to be very beneficial to his life and his mental and physical health, and found the philosophy of bhakti yoga and Ayurveda to be much to his liking.

Brandon raynor

Brandon decides to study Naturopathy

Brandon returned to Sydney and after talking to a long time friend from university decided to study Naturopathy as he wanted a career that would help people as well as earn him a living.

He undertook the Naturopathy program with a school called Health Schools Australia. He liked the flexibility of the course and in his first year in 1991 he learned basic Swedish massage.

About the same time and in order to pay for his course because at that time the Australian Government didn't pay for Naturopathic courses, Brandon started working at a Health Food Shop in Bondi Junction called Macro Wholefoods. Macro Wholefoods was probably the largest health food shop in Australia at the time.

Brandon learned many things working there and made many friends from people following all sorts of lifestyle paths connected to the health profession from Macrobiotics and Aikido to Yoga of all sorts, and the Japanese art of shiatsu. There was a shiatsu clinic upstairs from Macro Wholefoods and Brandon was very impressed with the skill of the practitioners and the way that the shiatsu treatments made him feel. He was invited to come along to an introductory night at the shiatsu school that the practitioners had graduated from, called the Shiatsu Ryoho centre and was hooked after the teacher put his hand a few inches from Brandon's belly (or hara) and said that you have a sore ankle which he did.

Brandon starts to study shiatsu

Brandon studied shiatsu and macrobiotic cooking at the Ryoho centre in Surrey Hills, Sydney while he was doing his Diploma of Naturopathy by correspondence with Health Schools Australia. He completed his shiatsu training in 1992.

Meanwhile at Macro Wholefoods Brandon was starting to do Naturopathic Consultations for customers. Brandon learned an awful lot about whole food nutrition during his 2 and a half years at Macro Wholefoods packing food, setting up organic fruits and vegetables and dealing with customers and their Naturopathic questions.

Brandon's years in Byron Bay and his start as a political activist for health

By late 1992 Brandon decided to move up to a town called Byron Bay in Northern New South Wales. Brandon stayed in the Byron Bay area for 2 and a half years. He continued on with his Naturopathic studies completing his Diploma of Naturopathy in 1994. He also started studying Chinese Herbal Medicine with China Herb Company, completing a correspondence course there by 1995, and doing much of his practical training with a Herbalist on the Gold Coast. Brandon held several jobs working in Byron Bay, first at a health food shop doing Naturopathic consultations, then working at several premises and markets doing massage, but his longest job was at Samadhi's Natural Health Centre.

Brandon had a Naturopathic office at Samadhi's and offered Shiatsu massage and Deep Tissue Massage as well as Herbal Medicine Ayurveda and Astrology consultations. Byron Bay is famous throughout Australia as a place of natural healing and natural healers and Brandon took advantage of his time there to learn from other practitioners how to do good massage. One practitioner in particular, John Jones, impressed him with his extremely deep massage that John practiced in conjunction with his martial arts and Chinese Medicine knowledge. Some of Brandon's later massage work would be influenced by what he learned by receiving John's massages that took Brandon to his pain threshold but left him feeling so much better after the treatment.

Brandon Raynor and his two sons

During that time Brandon was also influenced strongly by a practitioner of the healing arts on the Gold Coast, just north of Byron Bay, named Carole Starr. Brandon became very good friends with Carole and learned a lot about kinesiology, Bach Flower remedies and releasing deep seated emotions using the breathe. Carole's treatments on Brandon had a profound effect on his own healing journey as well as on the type of treatments that Brandon would later do for other people.

In 1995 the owner of Samadhi's asked Brandon to teach a shiatsu course in conjunction with the local evening college. This was the start of a new career for Brandon. The people really enjoyed the course and Brandon enjoyed passing on his shiatsu knowledge although is own unique style had not yet totally evolved.

Brandon also started his other secondary career as a political activist in Byron by running for the local council in 1995. His platform was considered quite radical in its day and was a combination of promoting Byron Bay as an environmental, natural health and animal rights showcase for the world. Brandon missed out on being elected but received a lot of support for his unconventional platform, much of which would later be adopted by other political parties in Australia.

Brandon moves to the Blue mountains and takes on McDonalds

Brandon moved back to Sydney in 1995 and after working at a macrobiotic restaurant, in the Sydney suburb of Glebe, called IKU for 6 months, he decided the city life wasn't for him and he moved up to the Blue Mountains to a town called Bullaburra. Brandon had a lot to do with Franklin Scarfe from the Earth Repair Foundation and when McDonalds tried to open a store in Katoomba, Brandon was at the forefront of the movement to stop them. Dubbed the Face of McNo by his opponents Brandon fought successfully against McDonalds on the basis of their environmental and animal rights record. Brandon also put up many posters and stickers around Sydney detailing what McDonalds was doing around the world.

Brandon sets up his first political party called EarthSave Australia

It was at this time that Brandon, having been inspired by the writings of John Robbins from the US group EarthSave, decided to set up a political party in Australia called EarthSave. It took Brandon a year to gather the 200 signatures required to set up a state political party and in the meantime he moved back to Sydney and began working at Herbal Solutions in Bondi Beach. He was a resident Naturopath and did Iridology diagnosis, Herbal Medicine, Flower remedies and it was here that Brandon really started to perfect his massage therapy treatments. Again Brandon had the privilege of doing many swaps with skilled practitioners including a Chinese Medicine Practitioner that showed him some extremely deep abdominal massage techniques, some of which he was to use in his later development of Raynor massage. By this stage Brandon's massage was getting strong appreciation from the general public and many of his clients asked him where they could learn to massage like that. Brandon had noticed that many of the students who had just completed their massage training at the various massage schools in Sydney were looking for jobs at Herbal Solutions yet their practical skill at massaging was very poor, while some of the people that were dropping out of those same schools actually showed more promise. It was then that Brandon stated to some of his clients that he could probably teach more in a few days then they would learn in a year at a bigger college.

Brandon Raynor massaging

Brandon starts teaching massage in Sydney

Brandon then started to teach on Saturday morning at the Bondi Pavilion right on Bondi Beach. He and his girlfriend and soon to be wife , Rebecca, noticed that many of the therapists were coming out extremely good after the 8 weeks of Saturday morning classes.

He continued on in 1997 teaching his Saturday morning massage classes, all the while continuing to develope his political party and starting his campaign for the 1999 State Senate elections.

Brandon and Rebecca, also set up a small holistic health centre for a few months in the Blue Mountains called the Katoomba Holistic Health Centre and learned valuable lessons in setting up a Natural Therapies centre and in running a business, something Brandon did not have any previous experience with. Luckily for Brandon, meeting Rebecca had a good effect on him as she had a degree in International Business Management and was fluent in Japanese, as well as being a beautiful and loyal wife to him which had a stabilizing effect upon him.

The 1998- 1999 Election Campaign for EarthSave

Brandon and Rebecca campaign all over New South Wales in 1998 promoting their newly registered political party EarthSave. Brandon spoke at Vegan and Vegetarian Society meetings and at animal rights meeting all over the state. After the election Brandon worked part time doing massage at the 5 star hotels in Sydney and made a lot of contacts in the business and professional spheres and gradually shifted to learn more about business. During that time he massaged several well known people such as Annie Lennox from the Eurythmics and several members of the American football teams that came to Sydney in 1999 for the Super bowl.

In late 1999 Brandon again moved to Byron Bay while his wife Rebecca was pregnant with their first baby. It was at this time that Brandon started his studies of Ayurvedic Medicine by correspondence with Ayurvedacarya David Frawley of the American Institute of Vedic Studies. He attended many seminars also in Ayurveda in both Sydney and Byron Bay.

Brandon has his first child

January 14, 2000 saw the birth of his son, Jayananda Leo Raynor, at the Randwick Women's Hospital in Sydney. No event can change a person's life like the birth of a first child and this was certainly the case for Brandon. Jayananda is a Sanskrit name that means "The Bliss of Spiritual Victory."

Brandon Raynor and his son Jai

Brandon sets up his clinic

Brandon gave up his job that he had taken, working back at the 5 star hotels and instead opened up his own clinic in Manly, a seaside suburb of Sydney that his family had a long history with. Rebecca was very energetic in promoting the clinic and within 3 months his clinic was at maximum capacity. Brandon enjoyed this time of working for himself and he also started to teach some small massage classes from his clinic and his home in Manly Vale.

Brandon also spent a lot of time training in Shiatsu in the Traditional Japanese way when he worked with practitioners from the Shiatsu House in Sydney. This was also a very influential time in refining the subtlety of Brandon's later style of massage called Raynor massage. Brandon is still in contact with Uichiro Ogawa, who is now a shiatsu practitioner in Ikebukuro, Tokyo who was his main mentor at the time.

Raynors move to Brisbane and set up Paddington House

By August of 2000, Brandon and Rebecca decided that the fast pace of life in Sydney was not for them and they decided to move back to Rebecca's birthplace of Brisbane in the Australian state of Queensland. They set up a business called The Paddington House of Natural Therapies based in the Brisbane suburb of Paddington. It was there that they first started to offer 4 day intensive massage courses that got very popular. It was also there that Brandon started to switch from being a full time practitioner to a full time massage teacher. At first they offered the courses in the clinic which he set up and cooked all the students a home made vegetarian meal with the course.

Brandon continued to fly down to Sydney once a month and massage some of his former clients and he also the started teaching his massage courses down there once every few months.

Brandon Raynor with his son Jaya

At the start of 2001 Brandon, Rebecca and young Jayananda flew over to Japan, India and Thailand. Brandon got to experience first hand a lot of shiatsu massage in Japan, Thai massage in Thailand and Ayurvedic massage in India. When they moved back to Australia they moved to an even more peaceful and quiet location, the Northern NSW town of Chillingham.

Brandon Raynor's School of Natural Therapies set up

It was here that their business really started to expand. Rob Crisfeld, the manager of Firm'n'Fold Massage Tables, suggested Brandon do some courses at his premises in massage courses in Melbourne. Brandon started holding massage courses in Melbourne at the Gokula House Meditation Centre and they were extremely popular and often could not quite fit the number of people that had enrolled in the course.

Brandon and Rebecca would spend time at home then fly around Australia teaching massage courses. Brandon continued to expand his courses and started teaching in Adelaide in 2001 and by 2002 had started to teach his massage courses in Perth and Darwin.

Bali Temple

The school continued to expand with the first massage courses being offered in London, Manchester and Edinburgh in November 2002 and in Boston. Massachusetts in December of that year.

Brandon and Rebecca also started teaching courses in Tasmania and in 2002 had bought their first house in a town called Liffey, 45 minutes drive to Launceston in the north of the island. Tasmania has many beautiful forests and rivers and although the Raynors were away they appreciated their time in the beautiful wilderness.

International Natural Therapies Association set up

2003 and 2004 saw the implementation of a new Natural Therapies Association that Brandon set up called the International Natural Therapies Association. Brandon set this up after he had repeated clashes with the heads of the Australian Traditional Medicine Society who were upset by the success of Brandon's massage courses. Brandon created INTA to support the needs of his graduates.

Launceston Tasmania Wholistic Health Centre

In 2004 Brandon and Rebecca also set up a Holistic Health Centre in Launceston, which was very successful in helping many people in the city of Launceston achieve a better state of health. The school offered our massage courses there as well as yoga and meditation classes and had a shop selling organically grown herbal medicines and other products. Many of the students worked there giving massages to the general public. This was very successful for most of 2004 and then they decided to close their clinic, sell their property and move to Hawaii in early 2005.

Brandon and his family move to Hawaii

Brandon and his family lived on the Windward side of the island of Oahu in 2005 while continuing to do courses in the UK and Montana, and in late 2005 they bought a house in Makaha on the poorer Leeward side of the island where mostly people of Hawaiian origin live. Brandon, Rebecca and Jayananda all fell in love with Makaha and couldn't think of a better place to live. In 2007 Brandon bought 2 acres of almost oceanfront land on the side of a Mountain and has begun to prepare the land to build a retreat centre there. Brandon is an avid gardener and has planted mango, papaya, banana, guava, lychee, longan, tangerine and many other types of tropical fruit trees there in preparation for building his retreat centre in the years to come.

Makaha Hawaii

The Freedom Ride

In 2007 Brandon also launched what he called The Freedom Ride which was a campaign to deregulate the massage industry in America and also to encourage the US Government to use massage therapy and natural healing methods to help the soldiers coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan. Brandon, Rebecca and Jayananda spent 4 months of 2007 traveling around the western United States engaging in protests at state capitals as well as meeting many other practitioners in the industry and getting to know the US better during this ongoing campaign.

Brandon and Rebecca had their second son, Balaram on November 18, 2008 in Hilo, Hawaii.

New Centre in Sydney, Australia

In 2009, The Raynor Family moved back to Sydney to start their new venture, "Brandon Raynor's Natural Therapies Centre". Located in the heart of Bondi Junction, the centre offers Raynor massage, yoga, meditation, naturopathy and also has a small conscious living shop. All Sydney Raynor Massage courses are held at the centre as well as short courses for aromatherapy, reflexology, pregnancy and baby massages, couple de-stress massage, and vegan whole foods and nutrition cooking. Click here for more information about the Sydney Centre

For most of 2009 so far they have been touring and teaching in Australia and New Zealand as well as spending some time in Bali studying Balinese massage.

If you would like to contact Brandon Raynor please email him at This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it

Student Testimonial

How wonderful that massage was that you gave me in the course and how much it has changed my life.

As I mentioned, since my lung collapsing and being off the pill, my cycles were around 54 days long without ovulating. I had tried all kinds of herbs but after the massage, my next cycle was exactly 28 days with ovulating and, as a result, guess what.... I'm pregnant! An absolutely wonderful surprise and byproduct of an amazing therapy. I'm 13 weeks currently and have been really well, happy and healthy since the massage.

I just thought you should know how amazing the therapy actually is and what incredible things it can change not

only mentally but physically and biologically as well. So a BIG thank you for your amazing gift of healing. Todd and I are both so grateful and happy for all of your invaluable help.

Hope you have a great day.
K xoxoxo