Adventures in Healing - Close Encounters with John of God

This writing is centered around a month-long visit at John God's spiritual healing center and sanctuary the Casa de Dom Ignacio or just "the Casa"; in Brazil during January 2011. While I journeyed there with close friends and acquaintances, I recount here only my own, direct personal experience, starting prior to the actual trip and ending several months afterward. What follows is not so much a travelogue or road journal, but a summary of the most significant experiences, healings, and insights I had at the Casa and afterward. While these occurred within the context of what is called 'Spiritism', they have universal application regardless of the reader's faith or denomination.

The writing was done primarily to support my own inner process, helping me to better understand and integrate my experience there. After sharing an early draft with family and friends, it seemed that the material could possibly benefit others, too. So it is now in your hands.

But be forewarned; the material can be challenging. Why? In part, because it reveals a lot about the deeper landscape of my interior life, which some folks will find strange or difficult to comprehend. Even more so, however, is the phantasmagorical nature of the John of God phenomenon, where the normal boundary lines of experience separating the real from the imaginal, the actual from the possible, the believable from the unbelievable can vanish. I have, therefore, tried to be careful in both processing and describing my experience, placing the emphasis on reporting rather than on interpreting. While I certainly believe that something has been going on, I do not claim to know what it is. For those looking to explain the phenomena described herein, I can only suggest the following possibilities: spirit-beings, extraterrestrials, universal field effects, parallel realities, cosmic wormholes, archetypal patterns in the psyche, hallucinations, psychotic breakdown, neurological disorder, and/or some combination thereof. Take your pick.