As part of our filming of the documentary about John of God I interviewed different people about their healings and their experiences. There were many stories that John of God cured grave illnesses and removed the most difficult of disabilities.

I interviewed a sweet 9 year old girl and her mom at the Casa about John of God. She had been a perfectly normal little girl until she was about two or three years old and they discovered a cancerous tumor on her spine. After treatment, she was left paralyzed, with no feeling in her legs and no chance of ever walking again. It was a heart-wrenching diagnosis, but her mother did not give up and when she heard about John of God visiting New York, she knew she had to go. After a profound experience with John of God in New York. They started coming to see John of God at the Casa in Brazil. When I interviewed her it was her tenth visit to John of God. The doctors said she would never walk again, that there was absolutely no chance. But each time she visited John of God, she’d get a little bit closer, a little bit better. When I interviewed her, she was actually managing to pull herself up and walk a few steps holding onto the bars. John of God told her she was getting her crutches on this trip and would be leaving her wheelchair.

Another person that I interviewed about John of God was Dr. Zsolt, who has an amazing story. He was a medical doctor in Austria for many years, specializing in cancer patients. Ironically, he developed cancer himself. His bowel cancer had progressed aggressively, and after eleven surgeries and at stage-four, he of all people knew that modern medicine could offer no more help. He did not have much longer to live. His wife was very spiritual but the doctor didn’t want to hear about natural healing. In his mind, his medical colleagues offered him the best medicine out there. One quiet evening at home, he caught a brief glimpse of a TV show, a documentary about John of God. He felt the energy of John of God coming right through the television. To his wife’s great surprise, he turned to her and said, “We’re going to Brazil.”  They took the trip to John of God, Brazil. I think it took several trips, but he was cured. He is now completely cancer-free and healthy. His medical tests confirm this. Now his role of “doctor” has changed dramatically. He coaches people with cancer on natural healing, and he brings people to John of God.

As a medical doctor visiting John of God at the Casa often, Dr. Zsolt had earned himself a position close to John of God. He is often invited by John of God on stage to narrate the physical surgeries and assists regularly in the “infirmary” where people recover from physical surgeries. He has seen many miraculous events by John of God at the Casa.

As I discussed the physical surgeries and asked his opinion from a medical point of view, he told a particularly intriguing story. Once at the end of a physical surgery, as John of God was about to close the incision, he decided to hand the surgical needle to Dr. Zsolt who was observing and asked him to do the stitches. However, when Dr. Zsolt attempted to sew the skin, he found the skin was rock-hard and cold as ice. The skin felt frozen, and when he attempted to stitch, the needle just broke off. John of God simply smiled knowingly, and when he picked up the needle it went in easily and he finished stitching the patient. To John of God, the Entity, the skin was penetrable, but to the physical-world doctor it was impenetrable. It is apparently the energy of the spirits and the spiritual anesthetic that make the skin act this way. This is also the reason there is sometimes no blood when John of God performs a surgery, or very little and why a person may barely have a scar the next day. The more one learns about John of God, the stranger this all becomes.

One of the strangest stories is that of Dr. Rogers. Dr. Rogers worked at a hospital in Brazil. He didn’t believe in Medium João, John of God or any other healer, but his wife and daughter did and they sometimes visited John of God at the Casa. Dr. Rogers had accompanied them to the Casa and was friendly to the staff, but he didn’t believe himself. But then, as a result of his not so healthy lifestyle, the doctor developed some heart problems. His wife suggested that he go in front of John of God and the Entity but he laughed and told her that Spiritism was a bunch of rubbish. He was a medical doctor and believed only medical intervention could help. Shortly after he suffered a heart attack and was rushed to hospital. Unfortunately it was too late and he died on the operating table. His death was certified by three different doctors.

His wife was distraught and called John of God and the Casa seeking help. The phone was taken to the Entity. John of God in Entity instructed the wife that she should stay by the body until 3 PM. The time of death had been 10:15 AM. It would be unheard of to leave a body for so long but since the doctor worked at the hospital, his colleagues thought there wasn’t any harm in fulfilling the wishes of his wife. So a nurse was stationed in the room to watch over the body. At exactly 3 PM the doctor sat up, opened his eyes, and asked for a glass of water. The nurse ran out of the room in shock. Dr. Rogers recalls that during the time he was “clinically dead” he had vivid visions of talking with Dom Inácio. Today he comes to John of God at the Casa to share his testimony of a man who was brought back to life–literally! Of course, he is now a believer of John of God and travels around the country, sharing his story and praising the work of John of God.

Another curious healing was a man who was a professor at a prominent university in the states. He suffered from epileptic seizures that had become so severe that he couldn’t work. He couldn’t do much of anything anymore and was essentially an invalid, never knowing when these terrible seizures would occur. Somehow he found his way to John of God, where the Entities told him that his healing would take some time. Of course he was willing to take the time—anything to be cured. He was thinking a few weeks. A few weeks turned into a few months, he actually stayed and became a guide. Years later he eventually returned home to a normal healthy life.

There are so many healing stories about the work of John of God. What I found most intriguing was that event the people healed of major health conditions still felt the most important thing about their healing was a profound spiritual opening that they attribute to the work of John of God.

By Gail Thackray, excerpts from “Gail Thackray’s Spiritual Journeys: Visiting John of God.”