Brazil Summary

For my healing research in Brazil, I spent four weeks at Jiao Teixeira Da Faria’s (nicknamed John of God) healing center named ‘La Casa de Dom Inacio,’ and I also visited a shaman healer in Rio de Janeiro named Carlos Sauer. The content of my Brazil interviews was both similar to what I’ve been hearing all year and also new in some respects. I will describe my interviews briefly here and will give a much fuller description in my final dissertation.

La Casa de Dom Inacio is a spiritual healing center in rural Brazil that is part of the Spiritist movement, although this center also has a heavy Catholic influence. The medium at this center, Jiao Teixeira Da Faria, has become internationally known in the last ten years for his healing work with terminally ill patients, having been featured on prominent news programs such as ABC Primetime and others. There are many full-length books that describe the healing that occurs at this center, but I will attempt to describe it briefly here. The core beliefs held at this healing center are 1) that humans are primarily spiritual/emotional souls living in secondarily physical and temporary bodies, 2) that therefore all illnesses have at least some spiritual/emotional component to them, 3) that ‘God’ is an infinitely loving energy source that humans can tap into for healing (e.g., via meditation, prayer, or faith), 4) that one’s soul is housed temporarily in a body during its time on Earth and continues to exist after the expiration of the physical body, at which point it is called a spirit or entity, and 5) that some humans, called mediums, have the in-born ability to communicate with such spirits.

Jiao Teixeira Da Faria is supposedly one such medium; more specifically, he is called a “full-trance” medium, meaning that he (i.e., his soul) can purportedly leave his body when he chooses so that a spirit can temporarily incorporate into the now-empty body and thereby perform healing work. Jiao “donates” his body for this healing work every Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday and all healing is given free of charge, as per the instructions of the spirits who work through him. He sees on average 700 people per day; it is estimated that he has seen 4 million unique people thus far during his 40 years of healing service. There are supposedly more than 38 different spirits who have incorporated into Jiao’s body since he was 9 years old; the most frequent spirits to incorporate identify themselves as the late Dr. Augusto de Almeida, the late Dr. Oswaldo Cruz, the late Dr. Jose Valdivino, and the late St. Ignatius of Loyola (after whom the center is named). Jiao’s speaking voice, personality, and physical mannerisms all change depending on which spirit he is incorporating that day. Each spirit also has a different healing specialty, and therefore a different spirit may incorporate depending on the needs of that particular patient.

The healing that occurs at the center can best be described as energy or spiritual healing, since the vast majority of people cannot physically see what is being done at the center, although many see physical changes immediately afterwards (e.g., a palpable tumor disappearing, being able to walk again, etc.). I say ‘vast majority’ because some people purportedly have the ability to see the spirits and the energy work that they perform as they are working through Jiao. The spirits who work through Jiao do not explain much about what they are doing exactly, although they have said repeatedly over the years (via Jiao) that they use the “energy of love” or the “energy of God” to do their work. The first room that a person walks through purportedly functions to energetically cleanse any negative or ‘stuck’ energy in that person’s energy field; the person is also supposedly diagnosed by the spirits in this room. The second room that a person walks through supposedly functions to provide him/her with a surge of high-frequency, loving energy, which is supposed to speed up (or start) the healing process.

After walking through the second room, the person who has come for healing will speak briefly to the incorporated Jiao. Usually no conversation is necessary, however, since the incorporated Jiao typically looks intensely at the person as he/she approaches and announces the treatment plan before that person has even had a chance to describe his/her problem. Also, the incorporated spirit is purportedly giving that person another surge of high-frequency healing energy in that brief encounter. The ‘treatment’ that is prescribed is either 1) an energetic/spiritual ‘operation’ to be had later that day, 2) herbal supplements to be taken for 2-3 months, 3) one or more dips under the center’s healing waterfall, 4) one or more sessions sitting in the first or second meditation room, or 5) one or more sessions laying under a ‘bed’ of crystals. Furthermore, everyone who goes to see Jiao-in-Entity is asked to eat the free vegetable soup that is provided afterwards, as it is considered infused with healing energy and therefore part of their treatment.

About 3% of people who have been recommended for a spiritual ‘operation’ on any given day will voluntarily request a physical surgery instead. The Entities will oblige by performing a physical surgery (via Jiao), although they have said repeatedly that an energetic surgery is just as effective. They say that a person who requests a physical surgery does so because he/she needs physical proof that something is being done to his/her body to heal it. However, due to Jiao-in-Entity’s high success rate with the spiritual/invisible surgeries (estimated at around 75-80%), the physical surgeries are becoming less and less popular. Nevertheless, the physical surgeries are unusual because 1) anesthesia is not used yet the patients report no or very little pain, 2) typical antiseptic procedures are not followed yet no case of infection has ever been reported in the 40 years that Jiao has performed these physical surgeries, and 3) little to no bleeding occurs. The spirits that work through Jiao have explained that they use an energetic or spiritual anesthesia that 1) numbs the patient, 2) eliminates completely the risk of infection, and 3) speeds up the blood-clotting process to such a degree that little to no bleeding occurs.

During the four weeks that I was there, Jiao-in-Entity saw between 500-1,000 people every day that he worked (every Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday). While many people were there for the first time, I did meet many people who had been healed from metastatic cancer, severe stroke paralysis, etc. and were returning because they enjoyed the “energy” of the center and wanted to maintain their healthy status. Others were experiencing a much slower healing process that required them to return occasionally for continued healing energy. Despite the many verified cases of healing at this center - many of which baffle medical doctors when the patient returns healthy - there are also people who do not get healed at this center. The Entities have explained that they are conducting spiritual healing and that therefore a person’s soul is always helped through their work; however, that does not mean that the person’s body is necessarily helped or even healed. In the belief system of this healing center, a person’s soul may have chosen to go through a long illness as a way to learn or experience certain things, or that soul may be ready to leave the body and is choosing that illness as its method of leaving. Many terminal patients who come to this center and are not physically healed have nevertheless reported that they returned to their homes feeling a deep level of peace that, according to their families, allowed them to die/leave their body with ease, less pain, and love. In my brief interview with Jiao while he was not incorporated, he simply recommended that cancer patients “find the right doctor, take good medicine, and have faith.” Interestingly, the Entities have repeatedly disapproved of the word ‘cancer,’ which they say brings unnecessary fear to the patient; instead, they describe it as a ‘spider’ in the body or in the energetic field. There is much more to say about my four weeks at John of God’s center; however, I will save any further description for my dissertation.

My final interview in Brazil was with Carlos Saur, a gifted Brazilian-born shaman who also spent 20 years living in the U.S. where he was trained by Cheyenne Native Americans in the art of sweat lodge ceremonies. Like many of the healers I’ve interviewed this year, Carlos believes that many illnesses have an emotional or spiritual component to them, such as repressed emotional trauma or negative feelings that have been lodged into the body. While Carlos does not claim to treat cancer, he has helped cancer patients to eliminate or significantly reduce the size of their tumors through his energy healing. In addition to recommending a sweat lodge ceremony to his patients when appropriate, Carlos also gives one-on-one healing sessions wherein he goes into a meditative/trance-like state in order to sense where the emotional blockages are in the patient’s body. He is then able to draw the negative or blocked energy out of the person’s body via a special Native American yawning technique, which I had the honor of observing. He performs his healing work with the help of drumming and chanting, which he uses to call his spirit guides who guide him in his work. Carlos had many other insights into health and illness in general, which I will describe fully in my dissertation.