João de Deus (medium)

João Teixeira de Faria (born June 24, 1942), known also as João de Deus ("John of God"), has a reputation as a medium and psychic surgeon, who has been accused of being a confidence trickster He is based in Abadiânia, Brazil, where he runs the Casa de Dom Inácio de Loyola, a spiritual healing center.

João Teixeira de Faria was born in Cachoeira da Fumaça, Goiás (now Cachoeira de Goiás). De Faria has no medical training and describes himself as a 'simple farmer.' He completed two years of education and spent a number of years travelling from village to village in the states of Goias and Minas Gerais.

De Faria says he was told by his spirit guides that he must expand his work to reach more people and spiritist medium Chico Xavier told him he should go to the small Goiás town of Abadiânia to fulfill his healing mission. Around 1978, when João first performed healings there, he just sat outdoors in a chair near the main road where people began to arrive seeking cures for their various illnesses and conditions. Gradually the numbers increased to thousands per day and he developed his centre, Casa de Dom Inácio de Loyola. The Casa de Dom Inácio de Loyola has since been visited by millions of people seeking healing. He also owns a nearby cattle ranch, which covers about 1,000 acres and is valued over 2 million reais.

Much of his income comes from selling passionflower preparations, the single herb prescribed by John of God to cure a variety of ailments. The company which bears Joao Teixeira Faria initials, JTF Ltda, markets the drug and is registered in the name of his wife, Ana Keyla Teixeira, and his driver and employee Abadio da Cruz.

In 2015, de Faria was diagnosed with an aggressive stomach cancer. In August, 2015 a doctor of conventional medicine, Raul Cutait, extracted a malignant tumor of 6 cm - a gastric adenocarcinoma. The surgery and follow up of 5 months of chemotherapy took place at the Syrian-Lebanese Hospital in Sao Paulo. de Faria did not report these facts to the public originally saying he was being hospitalized for a stomach hernia.

...
Wikipedia