John of God at the Casa de Dom Inácio, Abadiania, Brazil
by Linda G. Means, Ph.D., CMT
Peacehope Healing Arts, Monroeville, PA
www.peacehope.com
Abadiania, Brazil is a quiet little town in the countryside about an hour and a half drive from Brasilia. The primary residential and commercial districts of the town of Abadiania are on the south side of the main highway that runs through the vicinity. On the north side of the highway, the location of the Casa de Dom Inácio, a small community has blossomed to support the thousands of visitors who travel each week to request help from João Teixeira de Faria, known as "João de Deus" or "John of God." Those who work closely with him call him simply "o medio João", Medium João.
When I visit Abadiania, I stay in the Pousada Prates, the guesthouse owned by Neusa Prates. Sometimes I like to go outside on the sidewalk and sit to contemplate a large hand-painted sign on a house across the street:
Translation: "I was paralyzed and in a wheelchair from May 1, 2006. I was here for the first time in November of 2006, and now I am completely healed. Many thanks to John of God and to the whole family of the Casa de Dom Inácio. Aubin Yves (Caribbean)"
I’ve not yet met Aubin Yves; someday I will go knock on his door. But I sure love his sign! It is typical of Abadiania, a community populated by people who have migrated here from all over the world after being touched deeply by the spirit of love and healing embodied in this place. Many people who come here for healing end up staying for months or years, integrating themselves into this small community, volunteering at the Casa as interpreters or in the soup kitchen, and watching over visitors like a band of angels. João’s extraordinary commitment to his mission inspires dedicated service from many of those whose lives have been profoundly altered by the love that they have experienced here. I am one of those people. I’ve not (yet) moved to Brazil, but my life today is full of the peace and joy which has resulted from my spiritual healing process at the Casa, and I hope to facilitate this possibility for all who seek it.
João is an unconscious medium; he lends his body to be used by dozens of highly-evolved disincarnate entities on the spiritual plane who are devoted to assisting us with our spiritual evolution. João has no conscious memory of the time that he spends channeling these Entities; he says it is like being asleep. He says: I don’t heal; it is God who does the healing. João is an extraordinarily humble man, and an extraordinarily clear channel. Several books have been written about his life and his work. One of my favorites is entitled John of God, The Brazilian Healer Who’s Touched The Lives Of Millions, by Heather Cumming. João is a very private man, but he allowed Heather a glimpse of his personal life. João grew up in impoverished conditions in rural Brazil, and today he still lives a very simple life similar to the living conditions of his childhood home. João has never made money from his healing work. He has said that if he ever charged a penny for healing, the Entities would stop working through him. So he has worked hard to make a living as a tailor, a rancher, and a miner, all the while spending several days a week channeling healing for the hundreds of people who constantly come to him seeking help. The work of the Casa is supported entirely by volunteers and donations.
There are many mediums channeling information these days from highly-evolved spirit teachers whom we classify as angels or saints. João’s channeled healing work largely bypasses the level of information. Instead of telling us what we need to know in order to work on our spiritual transformation, the Entities who work through João direct our awareness to our spiritual nature, intervene directly in our spiritual bodies, and guide us through experiences that open our hearts and help us to grow our spiritual intelligence and release old patterns which created disease and limitations. Many people with life-threatening illnesses and physical handicaps travel to Brazil to seek healing at the Casa. The physical healing process results from the spiritual healing which the Entities facilitate. A Swedish friend whom I met in Abadiania described her healing experience to me in these words:
My life has not changed that much on the surface. But I'm changing from the inside. My friends tell me that they can see my change. I have shifted my own focus, from myself to giving love to others. It's like I have "new" eyes! The biggest thing that has changed is that now I allow myself to be loved. I can love myself in a small way, and in doing that I also allow others to do it. God will not do anything that is against my free will. So when I use my free will to NOT love myself then God will abide and not send me love. But now when I allow the love to touch me, God will show me what love really is, and it will change everything, first from the inside, then on the outside.
The world needs all of us to be teachers in a new sense, we teach by being the outcome of our own lessons. We will be able to be and act what we teach: no lessons with words, just lessons with being love and balance in the flow of our lives. This is what others see. And it's all because we are willing to be opened so that the Entities will continue their work with us.
I believe that if I let go of my will to have control, I will make it easier for God to do his work in leading me. I don't need to figure things out, where to put my feet. I don't have to worry about missing opportunities. All I have to do is to lean back, relax and listen to His voice. He is actually eager to lead me on my way, or better to say His way, I just have to let Him. It is in the grey reality of everyday life that I'm needed the most. I will have the job of spreading love and in this way I will be able to receive the warmth and the open heart from the Entities always.
I find these words to reflect my own experience with the healing work from the Casa. I had never before felt a direct connection with the Divine forces operating in my life until these Entities made themselves known to me via João. From the time of my first trip to the Casa, I realized that they know me better than I know myself, and they love me so deeply that they are willing to hold me in their hands and very carefully carry me through my healing process like precious cargo. This feeling of love and guidance has become a part of my daily life for the past two years, and it helps me to understand that all is well, all is perfect, I am loved, God is with me. Many blockages in my life have been lifted, my path has become increasingly clear and my ability to pursue my dreams has become strengthened.
I first came to the Casa asking for help with a cognitive dysfunction: I have never had autonoetic memory, the ability to cast myself back in time to recall things that I have experienced in the past. No recapturing of experiences from my childhood, or from yesterday. The channels that would enable me to experience memories are shut down; I’ve never seen anything visual inside my head, or heard any sound inside my head. On the inside, I’m like Helen Keller was on the outside; it’s all dark and quiet inside my head. I was feeling desperate to correct this situation and experience "normal" human cognition. Now I recognize that my healing process is a beautiful path of growing my spiritual intelligence and raising my vibrational frequency to a level which is not compatible with dis-ease. As I become clearer and more full of light through my continued relationship with João’s Entities, I have a more constant feeling of peace and perfection and love in my life. I feel more at peace with my level of cognitive functioning.
At the same time, the Entities have given me many, many indications that this condition can be healed. On three independent occasions, friends who were channeling information from Dr. Augusto de Almeida (one of the Entities who works through João), told me the exact same words regarding my neurological functioning: "it’s all there; it’s just like a switch that needs to be flipped." I recently did a massage session for a client with Parkinson’s disease. During her session, while I was channeling healing into her brain, she suddenly lifted her head and told me in a shocked voice that she had just seen a picture of her old house inside her head. I found out from her that she too had never had any visual mental experience before. And just before her session, she had requested that I take her picture to the Casa on my next trip to Brazil! I knew that her experience was really a gift for me: the Entities were saying, watch this, we’re showing you how the switch can be flipped.
This small miracle is typical of the work of the Casa Entities. One American friend describes the experience in Abadiania as being under a canopy of magical reality, and the canopy follows us home, as we maintain our connection with the Casa Entities. Miracles large and small become normal in Abadiania and at home afterwards. At the Casa, the Entity may direct someone in a wheelchair to get up and walk, and she does. Or the Entity may orchestrate a series of synchronistic events which provide the opening for healing to occur. An American friend had a daughter who had been unable to get pregnant, and she offered to take the daughter’s picture to the Casa to heal the fertility problem. The daughter was somewhat skeptical and refused the help. At the Casa, Mom happened to run into the American shaman who had performed the daughter’s marriage ceremony a year and a half earlier. So Mom emailed her daughter: your shaman is here at the Casa, are you sure you don’t want me to give your picture to the Entity? Daughter emailed back with her permission; the presence of her shaman in Abadiania lent credibility to the Casa process. Mom returned to the U.S. with Casa herbs to support her daughter’s healing. Within a month, she had news of her daughter’s pregnancy. Checking the calendar, they calculated that conception may have occurred on the exact date that Mom stood in line with her daughter’s picture.
I experience the miraculous energy of the Casa in another way as well. As an energy healer, I study the phenomenon of energy resonance, the tendency of one energy field to change its vibrational frequency to match that of another proximate energy field. This is the scientific theory that accounts for a soprano’s high note shattering a glass, or the way in which tuning forks tuned to the same note will all start vibrating when one is struck.
The small Casa community in Abadiania is a vibrational field resonating in the key of love. The many healers who have migrated to the town in order to support João’s work are a band of angels whose high level of spiritual intelligence and clarity and focus sustains a continuous current of love. Visitors who immerse themselves in this field for an extended period of time end up vibrating at the same frequency, which ultimately moves all physiological functions in their organism back toward normal. A cancer-prone individual who experiences this vibrational transformation becomes a person whose body is no longer an environment which is compatible with the dysfunction of cancer. This is my understanding of my own experience of healing from two kinds of cancer, a transformation which occurred before I discovered the Casa de Dom Inácio, but resulted just the same from a process of emotional and spiritual healing. You can read my story of this healing journey: God Tapped Me On The Shoulder And I Woke Up .
There are two examples of the power of energy resonance in our popular culture that provide inspiration for this approach to healing: the water crystal research of Japanese Dr. Masaru Emoto, and the experience of actor Michael J. Fox on his visit to Bhutan. Dr. Emoto, featured in the movie What the Bleep Do We Know? has published several books in which he prints his photos of water crystals. Dr. Emoto conducts experiments in which he exposes water to a variety of influences, then freezes water samples and photographs the crystals that form in the ice. His work has demonstrated consistently that when water is subjected to positive, loving influences, like loving words or music composed by spiritually-oriented composers, the water forms whole, radiant, complex crystals when frozen. Water from the same source which is exposed to negative influences, like dissonant music or violent, hateful words, does not form crystals.
One of the most powerful visuals for me is the pair of photographs taken by Dr. Emoto of water from a lake in Japan. Dr. Emoto froze "before" and "after" samples of this lake water on the day that a monk spent an hour praying over this lake. The before and after photos are printed here without permission:
The implications of this demonstration are stunning, because our bodies consist of 70% water. We all know what it feels like to be the crystal depicted on the right, clear, radiant, full of light and vitality. We also know what it feels like to be the crystal on the left: muddy, denatured, unholy. Dr. Emoto demonstrated the power of positive spiritual energy to transform us from a state of disease to a state of optimal wellness. All of us have had times of feeling like that crystal on the right, maybe as a result of a powerful spiritual event, or a time when you felt loved, validated, accepted by another human being. Then you go to work and your boss says "Boo," and all the fluid in your body responds to the negative energy by breaking down into the mass of goo on the left.
Environments like Abadiania sustain a love-centered vibrational field 24/7, so it is easy and natural to remain in a state of radiance for the duration of your stay. If you stay long enough, you may eventually recalibrate every cell in your body to function optimally, resulting in a state of good physical. mental, and emotional health. I witnessed this effect in a young American man, whom I first met when he had just arrived in Abadiania. This man had suffered from a severe, unexplained intestinal inflammatory disease, was hospitalized several times, was in tremendous pain and could not eat. I returned to Abadiania five months later to find him still there, looking well and happy, having gained 20 pounds and eating normally. He said that after about 3 months there, he started to heal.
The healing effect of love-energy resonance was also demonstrated in a very public way through the experience of Michael J. Fox when he visited Bhutan. Fox produced a television show which aired in early 2009 about groups of people who cultivate optimism in their lives and their work.
Fox traveled to Bhutan to study their culture of optimism, where they measure "gross national happiness." Happiness-producing habits are the societal norm, with cultural support at every turn. There was one extraordinary statement made by Fox in this program, regarding his experience with Parkinson’s disease during his stay in Bhutan. Hiking in the mountains of Bhutan, Fox commented, "Since I’ve been in Bhutan, my symptoms have been really diminished. I don’t know whether that’s from the altitude, or whether it’s just Bhutan."
Fox didn’t mention how long he had been in Bhutan when he made this observation, but the reduction of Parkinson’s symptoms in Bhutan was clearly evident from watching the movement in his body, compared with the rest of the program, which was recorded in other locations. As a spiritual and energy healer, I knew immediately that his neurological health had become more balanced in response to the vibrational field produced by an entire population practicing love and happiness as a keystone of their emotional and spiritual culture. Fox’s own energy field began to resonate with the surrounding energy, naturally producing neurological healing. It would be fascinating to see him heal himself completely by spending six months there!
After watching Fox’s television program, I scoured the Internet looking for comments about the vibrational healing experience that he demonstrated in Bhutan: was the significance of this event as evident to other observers as it was to me? I found the transcript of an interview that Fox did with Larry King, who asked the obvious question: well, are you going to go live in Bhutan? Although Fox was quite clear about the fact that his Parkinson’s symptoms had diminished dramatically in Bhutan, he continued to dismiss the suggestion that the effect was the result of simply being in a happiness-based culture, again attributing the healing effect to the altitude.
Even without knowing it, Fox showed us, on film, in his body what Dr. Emoto showed us in water: the shift in health and vitality that occurs in response to positive input. João Teixeira de Faria, through his pure, strong love and divine connection, has managed to form an inspired community in Abadiania which manifests a vibrational field akin to that in the happiness culture of Bhutan.
Here’s what I love the most about the Casa de Dom Inácio. Every week, hundreds or thousands of people travel from all over the world to request healing from João (on one Friday in April 2009, I was told that there were 900 people at the Casa on that day). People come in buses from remote parts of Brazil, people travel by plane in wheelchairs and on crutches and with oxygen tanks and with companions who help them with their physical needs. Yet there is no sign on the highway about John of God or about the Casa. There is no sign on the road that leads to the Casa from the highway. You could drive right past without seeing any advertisement of the presence of one of the greatest living saints and healers. Even at the entrance to the Casa, there is only one small plaque on the gate, barely noticeable, with the name "Casa de Dom Inácio de Loyola" (in English, Dom Inácio is Saint Ignatius of Loyola, the primary Entity who coordinates the work channeled through João). Anyone is welcome to come through those gates and stand in line for healing, at no charge. There is no fanfare accompanying João; he is so humble, he just steps in and does the work. The greatest testimony to his work is the number of people who are so deeply healed and inspired that they turn around and devote themselves to helping others connect to this healing process. Like me.
