|
|
xxxxx |
A 2003 New Millennium Journal:
The Casa de Dom Inacio, Abadiania, Brazil
.
A Pilgrimage to Joao de Deus
By Celeste Allegrea Adams
|
Note: Each person who goes to The Casa de Dom Inacio has their own experience. I have heard remarkable stories of healing as well as some troubling stories. I am simply sharing my experience, since each person has their own unique story to tell.
|
The Calling
I had never heard of Joao de Deus and the Casa de Dom Inacio in Abadiania, but within a week’s time it seemed that a dozen people spoke to me about the work he was doing in Brazil. It started when I received an email, announcing the showing of a video about a Brazilian healer. I decided to see it and as I watched the video and talked to the videographers, I knew I was going. Soon after that money for the trip arrived from unexpected sources.
I bought my plane ticket and planned to leave in a week, then realized that the visa could take up to ten days. I mentioned my concern to a woman that I met at a cafe, and she picked up her cell phone to call her husband. She asked him to make sure my visa would be ready in time, then told me that he handled the visas at the Brazilian Consulate.
Everything I needed for the trip was effortlessly taken care of, and without even bothering to learn the exchange rate, I was on the plane, flying to Brasilia, less than two weeks after first hearing about Joao de Deus.
I’ve since learned that the types of synchronicities that I experienced are not uncommon. A German engineer, for instance, told me that he was in a bookstore and a book on Joao de Deus fell off the shelf and hit him in the head. He bought the book and soon after that went to the Casa.
Joao de Deus
Joao Texeira de Faria, known as Joao de Deus (or John of God), is an unconscious medium, born in Brazil, in1942. I’ve read that he was clairvoyant at a young age and only went to the second grade in school. Over the past 43 years, he has healed thousands of people from all over the world. He emphasizes that he does not do the work himself, but lets the entities work through him and has no recall of the work that they do.
He has been beaten and imprisoned for offering his gifts as a healer, and those that visit him at the Casa understand the personal sacrifices that he makes in working as a medium. There is a photograph hanging on a wall in a dingy room at the Casa, next to a collection of wheelchairs and crutches discarded by people who were healed on their visit. The photograph shows Joao operating on himself, while the entity guides his hand. I was told that incorporating these beings of light has played a toll on Joao’s body, and that the surgery was being done to help him recover from a stoke.
The Casa de Dom Inacio
The Casa has been described as a spiritual hospital where the doctors are spirits, and where miracles occur on a regular basis. The testimonies and oral histories of people who have experienced miraculous healings have been collected in a number of books that describe the healing work of Joao de Deus.
The Casa complex is entered through an iron gate and includes a cluster of buildings as well as a garden. There is an assembly room where people wait on one of several lines, to see Joao. Physical surgeries are performed by Joao in entity, on a low stage for everyone to witness. Journalists and doctors are encouraged to take photographs and videos of these sessions.
There are current rooms for meditation and a surgery room where people receive invisible surgeries. Spiritual soup is served free of charge each day in a café area, and there is also a modest gift shop where crystals can be purchased that come from the land surrounding the casa. In addition there are staff offices, a kitchen, and rooms where people have crystal baths.
The entities that work through Joao de Deus
Joao de Deus incorporates more than 35 different beings of light—certain entities stay for awhile then leave and others come in. These entities were former physicians, surgeons, saints, and notable figures on earth. Some entities reveal their identity, others do not. In my conversations with the Casa staff, they told me about some of the new entities that were working through Joao, and about those that were no longer working through him on a regular basis. As a person’s clairvoyant abilities become stronger, he or she can identify on an energetic level, which entity is coming through Joao.
Heather Cumming, a shamanic practitioner and superb guide for those visiting the Casa, helped me understand how to recognize the different entities that were working through Joao, based on energetic as well as physical changes. She said that when St. Ignatius of Loyola, (who lived during the years 1491-1556), came through, ‘Joao’s eyes would turn blue and become huge and he’d have more hair. His body seemed bigger since he had a big consciousness and big energy.’ St. Ignatius is the guiding entity of the Casa, and like Joao de Deus, he suffered a great deal of persecution in his lifetime.
In addition to St. Ignatius, other regulars include Dr. Augusto de Almeida, who is said to have been in the military, a doctor and a rubber tapper in previous incarnations. Dr. Oswaldo Cruz (1872-1917) is credited for eradicating the yellow fever epidemic in Brazil and is also a regular at the Casa. When Dr. Jose Valdivino works through Joao, paraplegics are often healed. When someone needed a tooth extraction, Francis Xavier might be the entity working through Joao.
As I began to learn how this worked, I became less sensitive to the different interactions I had with the entities through Joao. I admit that I wasted energy by concerning myself with the significance of the entity’s hand gestures, smile or lack of smile, or whether he looked at me or the person down the line when I stood in front of him. I didn’t understand, at first, that the variance in response had much to do with the different personalities of the different entities that overshadowed Joao.
Questions?
People asked if I had come for a healing. I always felt a little sad at the assumption that something was wrong, instead of something being right. So much was right. I had come for spiritual expansion, to gather more personal experiences.
Visitors to the Casa are encouraged to write down questions for the entities on a piece of paper, before standing in line for first-time visitors. Sometimes the questions are immediately addressed in clear answers, and sometimes the answers take a long time to understand.
I stood in front of Joao as a member of the Casa staff translated my request for ‘the ability to access higher levels of wisdom in my writing,’ into Portuguese. I was told to come back in the afternoon line, so that a different entity could work with me. At 2:00, another entity incorporated himself in Joao, and I was told to come for surgery in the morning.
Physical surgeries and invisible surgeries
Those who volunteer can receive physical surgeries, which are recorded on video each week. I've watched the surgeries and photographed them, and though they are very graphic, and difficult to look at, they are amazing. Most people experience no pain during the surgeries, though no anesthesia is used. Others experience minor discomfort. I did talk to a few people that had lingering pain, though it sounded quite manageable. In these surgeries, I watched closely as the entity works through Joao, making incisions to remove tumors—then sewing them up; scraping eyeballs; sticking a long slender metal instrument up someone’s nose.
I looked forward to having invisible surgery. The work began even before surgery. In the middle of the night, my left brain and throat began heating up. I had a terrible stomachache and nausea and suspected that I was releasing toxins. I was told that nine different things can be worked on by the entities during one invisible surgery. I assumed that various physical problems (or potential problems) were being addressed, even though I hadn’t directly mentioned any physical concerns to the entity.
Somewhere between 4:00 am or 5:00 am, the roosters began to crow; first one, then another, and soon it seemed that all the roosters in Abadiania and in all of Brazil were crowing. As I dressed in white clothes, I noticed that the left side of my head was already aching and still heating up. At 7:30 am,I joined others who were dressed in white and were walking to the casa. A number of roosters scurried by me and I wondered how they could crow so loudly with such scrawny bodies.
I sat on a wooden bench in the surgery room with twenty other people for approximately twenty minutes and could feel precision work being done on various parts of my left brain. Other people have actual scars that linger for a few days, even though they received invisible surgery.
After leaving the surgery room, we had a healing soup, prepared daily by the Casa staff and we purchased bottles of herbs. Although the herbs were all made of passionflower, but they were energized by the entities for each individual’s particular needs. (Since I received three surgeries, I ended up with three prescriptions for herbs, which equaled about a six-month supply of herbs).
My head ached for many days after surgery, and I couldn’t tolerate listening to more than a brief conversation—it felt like all the circuits were overloaded. After a few days of resting in bed, I went back to the Casa to present pictures of some friends and family members. The entity that worked through Joao scribbled prescriptions for herbs, and I was told to rest for a week. But first I was told to sit in the entity’s Current Room—where ‘the entity would work with me.’
The Current Room
Pilgrims to the Casa are encouraged to sit in the current room three days a week. They are asked to keep their eyes closed, and their arms and legs uncrossed so that the current will not be broken. One entity even requests that people remove their watches before sitting in current. We are also asked to remain in this position even if someone falls off a bench or if they begin screaming. The Casa staff keeps a close eye on people sitting in current and they know when intervention is appropriate.
As I found my way to an empty bench, I looked at all the other people sitting on benches with their eyes closed. A few people were rapidly vibrating, one woman was waving her hands in the air in geometric patterns, two others were sitting in strange positions with their head close to the ground. The mediums often hissed and from time-to-time there were screams when people experienced a release of some sort. Although spirit attachments are removed in the current room, and depossessions take place, the energy in the room is clear and clean as a result of the meditation and prayer.
Sometimes there was music by a popular Brazilian musician, or folk music from the Andes, other times it was a show tune, like "To Dream, the Impossible Dream," or "Don’t Cry for me Argentina," or even a lullaby. A Brazilian woman or man softly recited prayers in Portuguese, or words of inspiration. I enjoyed the amazing layers of sound, but I heard a number of Americans shake their heads wondering how they could possibly meditate in this kind of environment. This was nothing like visiting an ashram in India.
Shortly, after I sat down in the Entity’s current room, my breathing started to change. I wondered why I was taking such deep breaths and long exhalations. Soon I found my body bending forward with each endless exhalation, until I had to unbuckle my belt and open the buttons on my pants so I’d have more room to breath. My head had slowly moved between my knees and I wouldn’t be surprised if it was almost touching the floor…quite an impossible stretch for me since I had a stiff lower back.
I appreciated being guided through this breathing exercise. My mind was blank, and in that emptiness, I heard only one word, ‘Kuthumi,’ and somehow saw a clear column above my head. I felt the bench rapidly vibrating and wanted to check on the person sitting next to me, but kept my eyes closed since I didn’t want to contribute to breaking the current. Later when I opened my eyes, I realized that there was no one else on the bench, so it seemed likely that I had been the one shaking so rapidly. I also noticed that Ram Dass was sitting in a wheelchair in the aisle, next to me, and saw him regularly at the Casa for a couple of weeks after that.
Revision
A week after surgery, people are asked to wear white clothes to bed, and place a glass of water by their bed to drink in the morning. There was no breeze in the room, and I had a blanket covering me, so I was intrigued when I felt the sensation of a cool breeze scanning my body, starting at my toes and working it’s way up. It may have been 2:30 am when this happened. I’m told that this is around the time that the entities commonly make their visits.
In the morning, I stood on the revision line and talked to a perplexed German engineer, who told me that even though he didn’t believe in entities, he saw a stream of golden white light on his wall, the night before his revision. He knew there was no other source for it except spirit. When my turn came to stand in front of Joao in entity, I was told that I needed another surgery and after that I received a third surgery before returning home.
Receiving the gifts we need
The mystery of hearing the name Kuthumi stayed with me. One member of the Casa staff affirmed that he was familiar with Kuthumi’s presence at the Casa, but had no other information to offer. I also mentioned my current room experience to an Englishwoman, and she brought me two gifts. One was a gift of a Kuthumi, Aura Soma essence, and the other was pages and pages of information on Kuthumi that she copied out of one of her books.
As I read through her handwritten notes about his qualities and incarnations, my thoughts went in their own direction and I began to understand how I could be more skilled in navigating people and places where no love or appreciation extends to gifts of the intellect.
Other gifts that came through during meditations at the Casa were dominated by images from the life of a Biblical character, in which I received gifts of her wisdom. I also experienced the expanded revelation of past lives. After many meditation sessions, I began to get a sense of a new book that I would write.
I received a blessing for the book from the entity and believe my second visit to the Casa will lead me to a greater certainty about the focus of that book.
Days off
The Casa is often packed with busloads of pilgrims that come from other parts of Brazil, on Wednesday through Friday, since those are the days that Joao works at the Casa. From Saturday to Tuesday, most people rest and many take walks in the hills or linger over meals served at the various pousadas. During the days off, I had in-depth conversations with pilgrims from every country, and with the Casa staff, tour guides, local townspeople of Abadiania, shamans and mediums.
In conversations at Alton’s juice bar, one English woman insisted that you can only be healed if you have faith. The next week, I spoke to a college-age woman from Los Angeles who explained that her mother brought her there, and she came with no faith and hated everything spiritual. Nevertheless, she experienced instantaneous healing in her left eye, and was no longer blind in that eye. Another English woman spoke of complete healing from cancer. A young Australian woman, who was told by her doctors that she would die in a month from cervical cancer, was struggling to believe the entity’s last message that she was cured and could go home. A man from the Pacific Northwest determined that his blindness came from a limited ability to love, and asked to be able to love unconditionally.
Although many of the people that come to the Casa have extremely serious illnesses, and some are near death, the focus of most conversation seems to be less about illness, and more about philosophies of life. Still, there were times when listening to so many differing philosophies spoken with absolute conviction, made my head whirl, and meditating at the Casa seemed like a good way to return to my center.
The sacred waterfalls
There are a few rules surrounding visits to the waterfalls. One rule is that you have to receive permission to go there, since it is also a place where profound healings happen.
I went to the waterfalls with a writer whose work followed themes similar to my own. While she stood under the waterfalls, I carefully walked on stones that crossed a fast-flowing stream created by the waterfalls. Even though I was walking with enormous care, I suddenly found myself lying on my back on one of the flat stones, in the middle of the stream. I was stunned. I knew I didn’t slip—but there I was. It seemed like there had been a time lapse in which I was placed on my back. I slowly got up and wondered if I had damaged my lower back. As I moved around, I realized that there was no damage, in fact my lower back felt better than ever. The woman I had come with suggested that I had been given a chiropractic adjustment, and when I returned to town, I ran into a gifted medium who said exactly the same thing.
I’ve been told that the entities fix what needs to be fixed, and although the lower back stiffness went away for a few months after that, it returned. I mention this because I believe we need to be active participants in co-creating our own healing. I was given the opportunity in those three months, to go into deeper stretches that perhaps could’ve prevented the return of this minor body challenge, but I didn’t run with that opportunity. Instead I remained a bit imbalanced in my behavior as I spent most of my energy perfecting chapters of a book and not enough effort tending to specific needs of my body.
Lights in the night sky
During the rainy season, there are sudden rainstorms in the high plateau region of Brazil. One evening, I looked into the sky and saw heavy dark gray clouds, hanging low above the horizon. There was something unusual about these clouds, because they lit up but there was no sound of thunder. The long gray cloud had three connected sections and different parts of the cloud would light up, then go dark, then another part of the cloud would light up and go dark, then another and another. This went on for several hours, and still there was no sound.
An English medium was told by her guides to get her camera and film the clouds. Although she filmed for an hour, only three minutes of footage came out. Her digital footage captured three large orbs with small lights at various points on the globes, behind the clouds. None of this was visible to the naked eye. Dozens of people, who watched the clouds and the ‘mock thunder storm,’ pondered the footage for the next few days.
On several evenings after that, I wheeled the English medium into the hills behind the Casa, accompanied by a devoted mother, who wheeled her beautiful teenage daughter, Hannah. I will never forget these magical evenings when we lay on blankets studying the stars in the night sky. Hannah looked radiant as she waited in wonder and anticipation for an extraterrestrial craft. The English medium struggled to film the approaching lights in the sky that surrounded us, but her digital camera kept jamming. There was a difference of opinion about the lights—some thought they were car lights, others felt they were UFOs.
I feel a swirl of emotions since I learned this morning that Hannah passed over. Mostly, I feel awe when I look at her smiling face in a photo as I recall the magic and peace of the nights we shared, under the jeweled blanket of the mysterious Brazilian night sky. I also think of the visionary drawing that she made for Joao that hangs in the entity’s current room. I long for a copy to hang above my desk.
Answers
On my last day at the Casa, peace escaped me and confusion suddenly set in. I was confused because I could not access a significant chunk of a story that was playing inside of me, though I was given so many other pieces of the story. I stood silently in front of Joao, and wondered why a particular Biblical figure kept coming through during all my current room meditations, and why I couldn’t access certain essential pieces of the full story. The entity that spoke through him said, ‘come back.’
For some people, brief responses leave them frustrated, since questions are rarely answered directly. But for me, this was the perfect answer. Less is more. I need to take my own journeys and not a back seat to someone else’s.
Walking the Labyrinth
I spent my final day in Brasilia. At The Temple of Good Will, I walked past an inscription that read: "Those of little faith waste their time." I descended into the Temple that looks like a pyramid. Embedded in the floor of the Temple, is a spiral labyrinth where black marble guides you on a path to the center and white marble leads you on a path back out.
Walking to the center is a sacred passage in which I passed different lifetimes. The center of the labyrinth seemed like the point at which I entered the earth plane, from there I looked out at many incarnations of myself, standing at different points on the spiral. I sensed the geometric patterning of my life and realized that every experience in my life and past lives were all connected, and that nothing had been superfluous.
Returning home
Most journeys end with the return home in which stories about ones adventures are shared. As always, there were many different responses to my stories. I watched my father’s eyes widen with wonder at a few tales I told, but some of my cherished friends and relatives, who didn’t believe in life beyond death, expressed frustration with my brief account. Finally, I said to one relative, "You have to take the journey before you say it can’t be true." St. Ignatius of Loyola phrased it differently, "For those who believe, no proof is necessary. For those who disbelieve, no amount of proof is sufficient."
Some people heal completely of physical ailments, after their visits to the Casa; many heal after several visits; and some people like Hannah, do not physically heal but receive other glorious gifts before passing over. When I heard Ram Dass speak in Los Angeles a few weeks ago, I asked him if he had been healed of some of the complications caused by a stroke. He took my hand and his face beamed as he said the visit healed his heart. He mentioned that he had plans for a second visit, and curiously, it coincided with the plans I am currently making, for a second visit.
As I look through photographs from my pilgrimage, I pause over the ones that capture light from spirit energies that surrounds Joao de Deus as he works, and I look with fondness into the faces of the courageous people that came there for so many different reasons. I am ‘a shudder and a glow,’ over these magical and mysterious experiences, too many to describe in these pages.
Thank you for your dedication Joao de Deus, thank you magnificent spirits for all your blessings, thank you friends and staff of the Casa for sharing your stories. And thank you Hannah for the sweetness that you shared with me in the radiance of your bright spirit.
Celeste Allegrea Adams is a prolific writer on metaphysical subjects. She also writes documentary film narration, mystical screenplays and visionary fiction.
.
Copyright © 2003, Celeste Allegrea Adams
All rights reserved. No part of this article may be reproduced, transmitted, or translated in any form whatsoever, including Internet usage, without written permission from the author, except in the case of brief quotations referenced in critical articles.
|
|
|
|
 Exterior of the Casa on a quiet Sunday afternoon.
|
A medium at the Casa de Dom Inacio
xxzzx
|
|
|
|
 XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
|
xxx
Joao de Deus (with an entity working through him)
in a healing session.
xxx
|
Waiting at the Casa to see Joao de Deus
xxx
|
Scenes around the Casa
xxxxx
|
Statue in the Garden
Statue in the Garden
xxx
|
xxx
Path to the sacred waterfalls
xxx
|
|
|
|
|
xxx
Brazilian children playing after a sudden rainstorm
xxx
|
xxx
Volunteers making 'spiritual soup
xxx
|
|
|
A painting of Joao de Deus guided by an entity,
mediums in background
xxx
|
|
|
xxx
|
|
|
|
|
|
xxx
Alton's Juice Bar on a Sunday afternoon
xxxxx
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
