Joao...the man himself: Back in the early 80´s...when performing surgery on oneself, without anesthesia, with the aid of disembodied, etheric, catholic entities just wasn´t such `a big deal`...
Abadiania, Brazil: Where white is the new black...lunchtime in the garden of the Caza de Dom Ignacio.
Just because your getting healed of incurable ailments doesn´t mean you can´t have a convivial lunch...note in background is the line for the free, relatively tasty, and energetically `charged` Caza soup.
I discovered this little side room after a few days...relics of years of miracles. There was another dusty case filled with discarded eyeglasses, dentures and mason jars full of removed tumors and other icky things...
This is the mystical, Catholic symbol of the Caza viewed sideways(im still getting this blog layout thing). It presides benevolently over the main entry room...and when i placed my head in it to pray, i was seriously and unexpectedly jolted by an energetic force. This photo includes a Special, limited time offer: If you wanna get in personally with the healing entities...just send me an email with a photo, your full name, birthday and current address. Ill print it out, put your info on the back and place it in the cosmic triangle...the entities will then be able to find and help you through etheric echo-location (im just guessing). Anyway...people have been cured of terminal illnesses from across the world through this...so dont blame me if ,miraculous, weird shit starts happening to you...
Hey there beloved fellow gringos!
First let me disclaim that this is a long ass blog...but its pretty crazy material, so hopefully it will hold your sweet, kind attention. Anyway...consider yourself warned. Okay...we´re going down the rabbit hole Alice...
Welcome to mystical Abadiania...and the Caza de Dom Ignacio! I truck stop town in central brazil where the blind see, the lame throw down their crutches and groups of tour-guided westerners pay way to much for ´energized´ quartz crystals at locally-run, new-agey storefronts...! There is some commercial bullshit going on here unfortunately, but this place is undeniably real, and filled with a power, energy and love that is truly healing people (i think including myself) on a daily basis. Some if not all of the money the caza itself makes through donations, perscriptions, etc goes to support great charity, like this amazing Soup kitchen across town that feeds the plentiful poor here in Abadiania. Surrounding establishments that have sprung have more questionable motivations. But people around here need new ways to make money....
In any case, While here in the past eight days i´ve met personally or seen blind folks strolling about with 20/20 vision, people with terminal cancer now vibrantly healthy and in complete remission, and any variety of folks with rare or unfathomable conditions western doctors have given up on... either noticably healing or completely well.
Its been a process for sure...portugues difficulties aside...you kind of have to discover how the place works through doing it....and its difficult to believe once you do. I can´t even start to explain the whole thing...but here goes...
Basically the spiritual foundation of the place is set in the Syncretic practices of Brazilian Catholic Spiritism (Kardec-ism) and combines traditional Catholic doctrine with an emphasis on and belief in both the mystical power of God as the force of ultimate Love in the universe, and the capacity for intermediaries, on His/Her behalf to come to the aid of open, willing humans in need. In the case of the Caza of Dom Ignacio, these intermediary spirits, or `entities´ as they are refered to here, are often the etheric (non-physical) incarnations of a variety of greater or lesser known spiritual aspirants, healers, etc of the historical past. The Caza itself, takes its name and guidance from its ´founding entity´, Saint Ignacius of Loyola...who happens to be the 15th c. Spanish ascetic Padre who founded the Jesuit order.
Interesting, Joao Ferreria de Textillara (John of God) is an illiterate, ex-miner and rancher of impoverished origins...whose power of mediumship suddenly developed when he was sixteen. While westernerns have recently discovered and altered his reputation, as well as the cultural landscape here in Abadiania, Joao has been healing countless thousands of brazilians here in his native land for over 40 years. What i most love is that this is not a personality cult(and ive witnessed some). Mediumship is an excepted, if unorthodox, tradition here in Brazil...and while the medium certianly obtains from the general community support, respect and a degree of charismatic authority, it is widely recognized and re-enforced that the medium him/herself has no power other then to channel/aid the spiritual entities efforts. Joao´s most popular saying is, in fact: ``I do not heal anyone...God heals.`` Pretty awesome really...
If you go on U-tube, you can find tons of crazy videos of Joao performing live, unanesthetized and often grotesque physical surgeries on willing, unalarmed patients. This is a small part of the Caza experience...and definitely what gets the most press, in the west at least. The Brazilians dont seem so squemish about its viscerality, and are more into celibrating the miriculous performance, carnival style. They´ve got a long Catholic tradition of celibrating mystical, if gory, traditions...
The reality Ive discovered is that many people, including already myself, when they walk up to Joao each day (he´s in trance...ie the entity is embodying him) are, in fact, assigned `surgery´. It is, however, only physical if you volunteer...and its specifically stated that non-physical/spiritual surgery is completely the same. Hard to fathom from a western perspective...and initially, when I was assigned surgery on my second day here, i was sure I wanted and needed the whole, crazy, physical cut and stitch performance...
But then I ended up in the surgery room with thirty or so other `patients`, finding myself not volunteering (i didnt feel afraid...i just found that when they asked, a noticable pressure kept my hand down). Instead then, i was instructed to put my right hand wherever i believed i required specific attention (i gripped my neck/upperback of course) and my other hand over my heart. Then i was told that the surgery had already begun and to remain thus, with my eyes closed, and my heart focused on connecting with God. I knew something was going on immediately, because my back was jolting and spasming uncontrollably the whole time. (this has been happening to me a lot here generally...the result, i truly believe, of the energetic force in this place. But this was the most intense id experienced.) 15 minutes later, the surgery was over...
Afterwards they gave us the bad news (someone had spilled the beans to me before however): I was to immediately go back to my pousada (hostel) by taxi and lie in bed for no less then twenty-four hours, sleeping the whole time if i could and certianly not busying myself with anything else (i.e. reading, writing, picking at my toes). The injunction is that what we recieved was in fact equivalant to, and in some ways perhaps more powerful than, an actual hospital surgery...and it needed to be treated as such. Additional noteworthy doctors orders peculiar to the caza surgery regulations include, however: no pork, no peppers and no alcohol for forty days!! OH yeah...and NO SEX, real or self-administered, for the same sentencing period...bummer way to start a vaca in brazil, no?
Im finding it somewhat amusing (esp. the pepper thing and some other orders like no time in direct sunlight), but doing my best to be a good patient by at least being aware and trying to stay on track. The sex thing is hilarious, but makes sense. Sexual energy is powerful, and in Daoist and other eastern religions, is understood as having the capacity, if reserved and/or used correctly to both heal, vitalize and enlighten the human individual. So i guess ill just have to deal...
My personal healing has been rather undramatic in comparison to others ive met. It is happening, but without a lot of fanfare. Ya know...like Sometimes Joao jumps out his seat, rushes to one individual among hundreds lined up to see him and performs a sudden physical or spiritual surgery on the spot...or sometimes people start trembling, fall over and wake up miraculously healed of their ailments. That kind of hollywood stuff. For me, i did my post-surgery time, felt some weird pressures pressing on my body from outside and have had definite senses of ´presences´ around me (sometimes a little freaky)... but have otherwise just been cracking and jolting my way towards less and less pain and discomfort....but if thats how its gonna happen...fine by me, baby....
I could write a lot more, but for now Ill just mention the other significant componant, both philosophically and practically, of the Caza. Aside from morning and afternoon sessions Weds. through Friday each week where hundreds line up to pass before the entity to recieve medicine (energized passaflora supplements), surgery or other instruction, the major practice/focus of the Caza is ´sitting in current´. This is what really drew me here and still amazes me.
This basically involves sitting in one of several rooms through which you pass in the process of approaching or leaving seeing the entranced Joao. Different areas have different intensities and ´kinds´ of energy in them (these energies are the result of the immediate presence of the Caza´s working entities)...you are only permitted to sit in one area, the first section, without Joao´s(ie the entities) permission...this i did, and the experience was so exhausting with my back jolting the whole time, that i almost went nuts. When you sit in current, u stay there as everyone who needs to see Joao passes by...thus a meditation session, on a busy day, can last over four hours! This is pretty intense, even by zen monk standards...
But the truly groovy thing is that it is specifically everyone sitting in current, it is believed by all and professed by Joao, that allows him and the entities to do the healing work (and it does look freakin exhausting...Joao is a sweaty, tired-looking oldman by the end). The energy of every one sitting and meditating aids the entities in conducting the healing energy through Joao and the rooms. Everyone is thus both sustianing and simultaniously receiving this energy during the sessions. Its kind of a wierd symbiotic relationship of etheric spirits and humans working together for everyones benefit....like, um, trees with oxygen and us with carbon dioxide.
So all this is super out there....even for me, a man who was raised by a mom who woke up to jesus placidly sitting in her room one night, and a dad who once in Guatemala, under the influence of certian, unnamed substances, claims to have sat for a lengthy while across a field from a vibrant, 100 ft tall, living, embodiment of the eight-armed, elephant-headed, Hindu God Ganesh (made popular by Apu of The Simpsons). And, honestly, if i weren´t here some of the concept would be pretty hard to fathom, even for me...and it really is almost like a different reality.
But Things that sound crazy in the real world just happen here. For me the greatest proof is the healing i see all around me and feel, if less dramatically, in my own body. Also palpable is the energy of this place. I cannot walk near the Caza down the street without feeling it...and going through the rooms to see Joao, if only briefly, makes my entire body go jittery and i often leave feeling like ive had a two hour workout. 80-90 percent of folks who come here experience some degree of the same experience. Sitting in the main current rooms apparently can really knock your ass out if your not adequately prepared for it (which is why the entity has to grant permission.)...
Anyway...u get the picture. Basically im in a tripped out, brazilian la-la land. If a woke up tomorrow morning to a gaint catipiller sitting on a massive mushroom in my room, smoking a hookah...id probably just ask him what flavor of shee-shaa he´s sampling (shout out to my teahouse homies...!).
Speaking of which...i have my 2nd surgery tomorrow morning early Am (this one´s the clincher...i can feel it)...followed by 24 hrs locked in my room...which is why ive felt compelled to stay up till midnight and get all this crazyness down on electronic paper for anyone massively unoccupied enough to follow my indulgent writing tendencies. ....But enough for now...
i wish everyone love....if you read this and know someone i know who hasnt heard im attempting ritual blogging, please inform them of this site. Its an exciting step for my in my technological development. I welcome and will be responding passionately to any emails i receive as even here, in the heart of mystical brazil, i hold my beloved Cville and its assorted kooky inhabitants, in a very special, persistant part of my heart...
much luv to everyone...you´ve officially finished this blog entry...congratulations...
Com muito prazar y amor...sua ermao y filha,
-gabe
