Psychic Surgery

LEIDA LUCIA DE OLIVEIRA SPEAKS OVER DR. FRITZ

Carlos Paranhos da Costa Cruz, a dentist who worked in Belo Horizonte, reported how his sister-in-law Sonja had been diagnosed by several physicians, including her own father, with cancer of the liver. The condition being inoperable, in desperation she, her father and Cruz travelled to see Arigó at his primitive surgery. They waited in line with everybody else and when Sonja’s turn came, before she could say anything, Arigó informed her she had cancer of the liver and that he would perform a quick operation. He lay her down on the newspaper covered floor and made a quick incision, apparently into the girl’s liver, with his penknife. Stunned, Cruz and the girl’s father waited for the expected hemorrhaging, only to see a mere trickle of blood coming out of the wound.

According to Cruz, things then got even stranger, as Arigó inserted a pair of scissors into the wound and immediately took away his hand. The scissors appeared to move of their own accord. After a few seconds Arigó pulled out the scissors, reached into the wound and removed the tumorous growth, slapping it into Cruz’s hand when he was finished. He wiped the incision with a piece of cotton, quickly placed a crucifix against it,  and without stitches it closed up. Sonja was dazed but not in any pain, and was able to get up and walk around. She was cured. A biopsy of the growth which Arigó had removed confirmed that the growth was indeed cancer. Neither Cruz nor the girl’s father had any explanation for what they had witnessed.

Other eminent individuals taken to Arigó to be treated were Brazilian President Kubitschek’s daughter, his pilot and the head of his security police, all of whom reportedly came back cured from the great healer. Arigó always operated in bright light, and allowed anyone who was interested to come and watch his surgery, including doctors. One of the many physicians who witnessed Arigó’s psychic surgery was Dr. Ladeira Margues of Rio.

During an operation on a Mrs. Maria Silveiro, Margues saw Arigó remove a piece of tissue 78.7 cm (31 inches) long and 38 cm (15 inches) wide from her ovaries. During the brief operation Margues also claimed he saw the scissors moving alone, as if being taken by another hand, and described hearing ‘the sound of metals and tissues being cut.’ When Arigó saw that the wound had begun to bleed, he immediately stopped what he was doing and said ‘Lord, let there be no more blood.’ From that moment on there was no further hemorrhaging during the operation.

Unfortunately, the publicity and fame which Arigó’s abilities attracted brought him the unwanted attention of the Brazilian government, who, in the spring of 1957, arrested him for practicing medicine without a license, despite pleas from thousands of his patients.  Perhaps due to friends in high places Arigó was subsequently pardoned and released without serving his sentence. However, in 1964 he was arrested again, this time on charges connected with witchcraft, and given 16 months in jail, despite the fact that the authorities were unable to find anyone to testify against him amongst the hundreds of thousands he had treated by that time. He was to serve seven months of a 16-month prison sentence, though he was allowed to continue treating people while held in jail.

One example of Arigó’s psychic surgery performed whilst in prison was witnessed by a Roman Catholic Judge called Filippe Immesi, who went to investigate the legendary psychic surgeon for himself. He described an eye operation as follows –

I saw him pick up … a pair of nail scissors. He wiped them on his shirt and used no disinfectant. I saw him then cut straight into the cornea of the patient’s eye. She did not flinch, although perfectly conscious. The cataract was out in seconds … Arigó said a prayer and a few drops of liquid appeared on the cotton in his hand. He wiped the women’s eye with it and she was cured.

Puharich’s Investigations into Psychic Surgery

In 1963 American psychical researcher Henry (Andrija) Puharich, M.D, and businessman Henry Belk visited Brazil to begin a detailed 5-year-long investigation into Arigó’s alleged healing powers. Puharich claimed to have witnessed thousands of Arigó’s operations during the investigations and himself had a benign tumour removed from his arm in a few seconds, completely without pain. This example of psychic surgery was filmed, along with many of Arigó’s operations at this time, and showed Arigó slitting Puharich’s arm with an unsterilised penknife, removing the growth and slapping it in Puharich’s hand. The whole operation had taken five seconds, there was little bleeding and no infection afterwards. Puharich’s research into the Arigó revealed that such operations as he had undergone himself were commonplace.

Puharich’s studies included tests on the blood from tissue Arigó had removed from patients, in order to ascertain that it did indeed belong to the person who had been operated on. He also taped interviews with numerous patients and observers, made audio tapes and films of Arigó’s surgeries and diagnoses, and took numerous photographs, some of which can be found in J.G. Fullers book about the case (see sources). Puharich found that apart from his psychic surgery, Arigó was also able to diagnose illnesses, advise appropriate treatment at a glance, and write out complex prescriptions, often for dangerously high doses of drugs, or for medicines that were obsolete or even illegal. Investigations showed that Arigó’s prescriptions worked, even on terminal cases, although, as with his surgery, there was no known medical reason why they should do so.

Some time in early January 1971 Arigó began telling his friends and associates, including former President of Brazil Kubitschek, that they would not see him again, as he would soon die a violent death. A few days later on 11 January he was killed in a car crash. Arigó’s hometown of Congonhas do Campo reportedly came to a standstill at the tragic news, flags flew at half mast and the mayor declared two days of mourning for the great healer.

Other Psychic Surgeons

Apparently the death of Arigó did not mean the end of the shadowy Dr. Fritz, the Brazilian’s supposed spirit guide. Other Brazilian psychic surgeons claimed to be channelling the spirit of the German doctor, including Oscar and Edivaldo Wilde, and a gynaecologist from Recife called  Edson Queiroz. The Wilde brothers both died violently in car crashes, while Queiroz was stabbed to death in 1991. Currently, Rubens Farias Jr, a former São Paulo engineer and computer programmer, claims to be the channel for the spirit of Dr. Fritz,  who has chillingly predicted a violent death for Farias.

Fake Psychic Surgery

Understandably, considering the startling nature of the subject, there are those who believe that Arigó’s psychic operations were a complete fraud, and that the wily Brazilian accomplished his ‘miracles’ by relatively basic conjuring tricks, combined with the willingness of his patients to believe he was blessed with some kind of divine healing power. Psychic surgery is admittedly fairly easy to duplicate, at any rate for a trained stage magician like James Randi (who on his website mistakenly attributes J.G. Fuller’s book Arigó: Surgeon of the Rusty Knife to Puharich), so the theory goes that it must also have been easy to fake for the uneducated Arigó. Debunkers have suggested that Arigó never pierced the patient’s skin at all, but probably pinched or rolled it back over the area to be operated on, placed his hand under the roll of skin and ‘removed’ a piece of bloody animal tissue he had concealed in his clenched fist, or perhaps under the operating table.

Whilst this is undoubtedly true of a host of fake psychic surgeons, it is difficult to believe that Arigó was able to fool a million or so patients, not to mention the numerous doctors and other qualified observers who witnessed and verified his operations over a twenty year period. It must be borne in mind that in all this time Arigó was never detected in fraud; he was accused of it, but never by anybody who actually saw him at work. How, for example could Arigó have faked the eye surgery mentioned above, especially in front of other medical practitioners?

The evidence, in the form of thousands of testimonies by patients and doctors, photographs and movie films, is certainly impressive in the case of Arigó. But sceptics remain unconvinced that an uneducated working man with no knowledge of medicine could perform complex surgery, often on people given up as hopeless by physicians, whilst in some sort of trance state, which resulted in the restoration to health of the patients. More incredible perhaps is that Arigó apparently did these operations usually in less than a minute, more often a few seconds, without using sterilised instruments or antiseptics.

According to published accounts, there was little bleeding, no infection and the wound never required stitches. It also must be borne in mind that Arigó never at any time accepted payment for his services, he had to maintain his day job in order to provide for his family. While this does not seem to be the behaviour of a hoaxer, sceptics remain unconvinced.

How Arigó accomplished his surgical feats is a disputed point. If his healing abilities were faked, which is a distinct possibility, he was still able in some way to remove all sense of fear and pain from his patients, to affect their minds in an extremely powerful way. Beyond this, all is conjecture. On one occasion, when Arigó was shown a film of himself operating, he fainted. When asked for his own explanation of this incredible ability his reply was disarmingly straight forward – ‘I simply listen to a voice in my right ear and repeat whatever it says. It is always right.’

It is curious, but perhaps predictable, that no professional medical body ever thought it worthwhile to undertake a detailed study of this unique man, even to disprove his alleged abilities.

Some Sources and Further Reading

Fuller, John Grant "Arigó: Surgeon of the Rusty Knife". Crowell, 1974.

North, A. "The Supernatural Blandford". 1998. pp124-6.

Playfair, Guy. "The Indefinite Boundary". Souvenir Press.1976. pp42-43.

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