Jose
Arigo
Jose Arigo: Born in 1918, this Brazilian performed
psychic surgery. It was believed that he could remove
tumors and perform other surgical operations without
having the patient feel the pain of an incision and/or
without them becoming infected. He was eventually
arrested for practicing medicine illegally but he
continued to treat people while in prison. Arigó was
born José Pedro de Freitas on a farm located 6 kilometers
from Congonhas, in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil.
His family was very poor and he could only study up
to the third grade of primary school.
At the age of 14 he began working at a mine where
he worked for 6 years. According to his autobiography,
around 1950 he began to suffer from strong headaches,
insomnia, trances, and hallucinations. One day he
felt that the voice that had been pursuing him took
over his body, and he had a vision of a bald man,
dressed in a white apron and supervising a team of
doctors and nurses in an enormous operating room.
This entity identified itself as "Dr. Fritz." After
claiming to have channeled Dr. Fritz, Arigó began
to perform operations using scalpels and needles.
His reputation soared and spread throughout Brazil
after it was alleged that he had removed a cancerous
tumor from the lung of a well-known Brazilian senator.
Over the next twenty years, thousands of people who
mistrusted traditional medicine, or had not found
help in it, came to Congonhas in search of a cure.
In 1956 Arigó was prosecuted by the medical association
of Minas Gerais, for the crime of quackery (curandeirismo).
He was sentenced to 15 months in prison, but was pardoned
by President Juscelino Kubitschek de Oliveira. In
1962 he was arrested and held for seven months for
practicing medicine without a license.
Despite the problems with the authorities, his fame
continued to increase, and in 1963 he was received
by President Joăo Goulart. He also allegedly cured
the daughter of Brazilian President, Joăo Figueiredo.
Arigó died in 1971, in an automobile accident.
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