The Little Shop of Horror in the Brazilian Hinterland
“‘In the name of
Jesus-Christ you are all cured. Let what needs to be done be done in the name
of God.’”
Joẩo de Deus.
In the
original story, a shopkeeper in a flower shop grows a plant which feeds on
human blood and flesh. In the Brazilian
version, the shop’s owner Joẩo Teixeira de Faria, feeds on his
devotees by exploiting their distress, gullibility and innocence. In the thousands, followers come from around
the word to visit his spiritual healing center in the middle of Brazil where
they are tricked, milked and often sexually abused. “Joẩo de Deus” or “John of God”
Teixeira’s nom de guerre ruled the
roost of world-renowned faith healers, mediums, psychic surgeons, and in other
words quacks. His fans are world
celebrities like Oprah Winfrey, soccer stars and even Lula da Silva and Dilma Rousseff,
two former Brazilian presidents.
Brasilia, being just 100 kilometers away, the current president Michel
Temer, also paid a visit. In this
particular instance, John’s healing medicine failed miserably: Lula is in jail,
Dilma was impeached and Temer is totally discredited and may be prosecuted for
corruption.
Now the
76-year-old self-styled faith healer makes the Guinness book of records for the
astronomical number of sexual abuse allegations leveled against him. Move over Harvey, enter John! #MeToo has come
to Brazil with a vengeance! This being Brazil, a country of superlatives, not
only does John of God break the sexual abuses record, 500 as of today and still
counting[1],
but he is first among equals in terms of number of followers and the size of
his financial estate. It is astounding
that a cottage industry started five decades ago by a semi-illiterate country
bumpkin (who still has difficulties writing his own cheques[2])
can now gross US$ 100 m year. He does
not charge for his healing services, but donations are accepted.
With savvy, John
of God has diversified his investment from farms (7), real estate, guest houses,
gift shops, “pharmacies”, bingo halls to mines.
Before surrendering to the police, he is said to have withdrawn R$ 35 m
(US$ 9m) from several bank accounts, presumably to hide the money in case of
future compensation claims[3].
On the other hand, diversification has
eluded the small town of Abadiania in Goias State. John’s healing and spin-off business provides
a life-line to the town and the region.
With the provider in jail, the line has irremediably been broken. No wonder, many local people still refuse to
believe that their idol has misbehaved.
Pilgrimage
to John’s healing center Casa Dom Inácio de Loyola are organized like
package tours by travel agencies. Most
come for a two-week tour. Charmless
Abadiania had no less than 72 pousadas
or guesthouses to cater to the needs of the visitors who are picked up by taxi
at the Brasilia airport. About 70 expats
live in Abadiania to assist foreign visitors.
The devotees are required to dress in white to enter the spiritual
healing center. Being such a shrewd businessman, the
medium probably receives a financial percentage from the agencies. In the town, John of God is like Queen
Elizabeth in the UK, his picture is posted everywhere. The Entity is a brand which has veto power on
any deal. For ex. the Entity can vet a
new construction, and approval must have a price tag.
Since
opening his center in the 70s, million of people have flocked to Abadiania,
where John of God is worshiped like the new Jesus (see my friend’s comment
below). For other people, he is a
rapacious quack. He is not fuzzy and
claims to cure everyone, the bereft, the paraplegic, the sick or the
blind. I do not understand why the
Catholic church has allowed him to build his brand of Christian spiritism on the
tenets of the Catholic dogma. He
performs psychic surgery: visible surgery by cutting people up with forceps,
scalpel or knife without the use of anesthesia, and invisible surgery using the
internal power of the Entity, i.e. God working through him. He has been jailed in the past for practicing
medicine without proper diploma. Oprah
Winfrey described her 2013 visit as an “overwhelming experience.” Now, all traces of John of God have been
removed from her website.
Who is the woman with John?
Predictably,
when diagnosed with an aggressive stomach cancer, the medium did not trust his
own healing gift. He discretely travelled
to Sẩo Paulo to treat his cancer in a hospital with a good
reputation. This episode was hushed up.
The first
elements coming out of the investigation into John of God’s sexual abuses point
to his careful selection of the victims.
He targeted distressed women who cannot conceive, so he could more
easily lay his hands on their private parts.
The women were petrified and forced into sexual acts on the premise of transferring
his “cleansing energy”. They were
subsequently threatened into silence. According
to some of his victims’ allegations, John of God seems to have been a lazy
sexual predator. He would do rape if it
was effortless, but his sexual act of choice was the low-intensity blow
job. He even had one performed by a girl
whose father was in the same room praying with his eyes shut.
The door of the infamous room
I read in the
Brazilian media that he has eleven children by eleven different women; his
eldest daughter calls him a monster and claims he beat and raped her when she
was a teenager. When John of God surrendered to the police he said:” I
surrender to divine justice and justice on earth.”
I wonder
which one will prevail in the end.
[1]
Including from Bolivia, USA, Australia, Germany, Belgium, and Switzerland.
[2] Am
I being sarcastic?
[3] Am
I again being sarcastic?
Herewith a brief report of my friend's visit to Abadiania.
ReplyDelete"It was a long, long time ago - some ten years. Strangely I had never heard about Joao de Deus in Abadiania although I had lived nearby, in Brasilia, for many years. Only decades later, when my cousin, who lived in Austria, told me about Joao de Deus and proposed to meet me there, did I learn about Joao de Deus and the (whom, they say, Joao de Deus incorporates). My cousin showed me propaganda leaflets and even a video. She told me that Joao de Deus had even visited Austria, and that she was among the organizers of his visit. She used to go to Abadiania once a year, for a number of years. I finally went with an elderly neighbour of mine to Brasilia. A driver met us at the airport and took us directly to Abadiania. We stayed at a simple pousada managed by Fritz, another Austrian. The pousada was full of tourists, German, Swiss, a few North Americans being the majority. My neighbour was the only Brazilian.
Right after our arrival we went to the Centro Santo Inacio de Loyola to undergo our preparation. Someone explained our programme, then we were told to meditate, with eyes firmly closed. I remember that my neighbour blinked and was told again to please shut her eyes. Then someone said a prayer and we were told to return the following morning to be introduced to Joao de Deus. The following day we had to queue for a while and then met Joao de Deus who, all dressed in white, was sitting ceremoniously on what seemed to be some kind of throne. Not unlike a pope or a king. There must have been hundreds of visitors, and all were equally dressed in white. Joao de Deus looked rather unapproachable on his throne but still had a paternal smile. We had the opportunity to briefly greet him and say something about the reason for our visit. He would promise help, and to most visitors he handed a piece of paper on which he had a prescription. (I didn t get a but remember having seen a few: it looked like a simple on a white sheet of paper. It seemed more or less the same for everyone: water and pills made out of maracuja, to be purchased at the in the Centro.) No sermon, no mass, only this ceremony after which we were invited to eat the soup, a vegetable soup prepared by volunteers. The soup was good, but not the pills: my neighbour felt sick after having taken them a few times. Everything was managed by volunteers, and, as far as I could see, many of them were foreigners. There was even a translation service for the many tourists who could not speak Portuguese: you put down your concerns and problems on a piece of paper, and someone translated them in writing and left the paper at a sort of altar.
Second part of my friend's report: "You also had the opportunity to leave a photo of family members who were too sick to travel to Abadiania. (I left a photo of my old cat who was already very sick. She died a few months later.)
ReplyDeleteJoao de Deus gave certain visitors permission to go to the nearby. I didn t have permission but went anyway. But you could not stay there for more than a few minutes to enjoy the beautiful landscape and the cool water because the many fellow visitors jostled and pushed you on."
Joao de Deus performed , visible or i.e. surgeries.. I don t know what his criteria were. I knew about these surgeries from the leaflets and videos but don t know whether he did any while I was there. I do remember having read in the leaflet that whoever underwent was firmly instructed to return to his pousada by taxi, even if the pousada was practically next door. Taxis were there in abundance.
The Centro offered you to lie down on a crystal bed for half an hour, at an extra cost:: a normal bed with crystals (quartz) placed around it, nicely lit in blue. It was supposed to .
About Abadiania: it is a small village some 100 km from Brasilia. In Abadiania everything revolved around Joao de Deus and his business. There were maybe a dozen pousadas, lots of taxis, a few shops that sold exclusively white clothes, a few simple restaurants and a soup kitchen for the poor. All in all a modest affair. So where does the money come from? Donations probably (although I don t remember having been asked explicitly for a donation), and most certainly the pharmacy and crystal beds.
I would never, never have imagined what Joao de Deus was capable of doing. He was an elderly man, and, it seemed to me, without particular charisma. To my cousin, however, he is still a who helped thousands of people, even after the recent revelations.
From a friend in Brazil. "Well done, Joao' s activities had been tolerated for too long. I wonder whether he got political support. Might be a new chapter in the story."
ReplyDeleteFor some mysterious reason some passages, namely the ones with quotation marks, disappeared from my above report.
ReplyDeleteJust to clarify part 1: Only decades later did I learn about Joao de Deus and his Centro Santo Inacio de Loyola (the saint that he says he incorporates).
And in part 2: Joao de Deus gave certain visitors permission to go to the nearby ''holy waterfall".
Thanks for your clarification.
DeleteA Brazilian friend called me to tell how much she enjoyed the blog. She also told me that an acquaintance of hers had several times visited the faith healer and doesn't believe the accusations!!!
ReplyDelete