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The Amazing Cures of a Brazilian Miracle Man The Amazing Cures Brazilian Miracle Man A gifted spirit medium, Joao de Deus incorporates spirit entities who perform physical surgery and psychic healing through him with miraculous results. houghts of our origins and the purpose of our existence most often occur in that brief moment before we slide into sleep state. When our day's work is done, we watch the six o'clock news and grow weary from too much television. In that dark, waiting state, between ‘lights out' and the welcome veil of sleep, our minds will often query the reason for our being. I know I did! I was just like you—hard-working, dedicated, ambitious—and after twenty-five years of twelve-hour days I felt I had made it. A successful businessman, the proud owner of several jewellery stores, I enjoyed the fruits of my labour: a large waterfront home, luxu- ry apartment on the beach, investment properties, a Mercedes-Benz, and private schooling for my two sons. But deep inside me I often felt that life must have a greater purpose. Surely this could not be all there was to it. Then one day, quite unexpectedly, the 'Lord tooketh away’; actually, it was not the Lord, but some ‘low life'—a common thief who robbed one of my stores and reduced my materially wonderful life to rubble. As I sat staring at my empty shop, contemplating the consequences of an insurance pol- icy that would not cover the circumstance, I had the first glimpse of how fragile, how futile a purely material life really is. It was in the following bleak months of receivership that I was forced to look for a deeper meaning to life. When the world finally stopped spinning and all I held dear was gone—marriage, wealth, properties, income and, most of all, my self-worth—it was time to look for another meaning; not, I hasten to add, the ritualism of modern religions or the zealous fanaticism of the newborn breed. My years of calculated commercialism left me with a permanent factual attitude to life, so I needed proof in cold hard facts to support any new beliefs. I have been given the opportunity to observe, at first hand, irrefutable proof of the rea- son for our existence. The contents of this book are based on my personal observations. Where we came from and where we are going are difficult questions to contemplate in our modern-day rush for financial survival. That bedlam between the Corn Flakes and the six o'clock news does not provide much time for concerted thought. It takes time, quiet time, and lots of it. It requires instruction, explanation and education on a subject which is the antithesis of materialism; one which is totally intangible, incomprehensible, another world—literally, another world. As physical human beings, we require proof before we believe. I, for most of my life, accepted only what I could see, feel, eat or put into a cash register as real. I was the ulti- mate sceptic. On that memorable day in January 1996 when I first squatted on the floor of the main hall at Abadiania, so closely I could touch the action; armed with SLR camera and flash I watched earnestly for the ‘hidden card’, the sleight of hand or the obvious 'set- up’. What I saw astounded me, as it astounds countless thousands of first-timers. I saw Raul rise from his wheelchair, after fifty years as a paraplegic, and walk. Still reeling from disbelief, my incredulity received a coup de grace when I witnessed a tumour removal from a woman's eye by a blindfolded Joao, using only a kitchen knife. Now, having observed countless operations, healings and cures, including my own life- long affliction of chronic asthma, I am converting those energies I wasted on scepticism and false sophistication to this simple chronicle of a man's dedication to humanity, of a scale and sincerity that defies our western logic. We all need proof as a means of verifica- tion, but sometimes, even when we see the evidence, we still find it difficult to accept because its comprehension is contrary to our western upbringing. Such is the situation with the cures of Jodo Teixeira da Faria. by Robert Pellegrino-Estrich © 1997 Extracted from his book The Miracle Man: The Life Story of Joao de Deus Published in 1997 by Triad Publishers Cairns, Queensland, Australia NEXUS - 13 FEBRUARY - MARCH 1998