2: A Healer is Born

Summary

Podcast Summary: Two-Faced: John of God

Episode: A Healer is Born
Date: February 4, 2026
Host: Martina Castro (Exactly Right and iHeartPodcasts)

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Overview

This episode of Two-Faced: John of God examines the rise of João Teixeira de Faria—internationally known as John of God—from humble beginnings in rural Brazil to global fame as a controversial “spiritual healer.” Through survivor testimony, expert interviews, and investigative narration, the episode explores how John of God built a lucrative spiritual empire, the factors that enabled his ascent, the international allure of his healing movement, and the far-reaching social and psychological impacts on his followers.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Personal Crisis and the Lure of Hope

• Testimonial: Karina’s Story
  • Karina, a Brazilian immigrant and single mom, recounts her difficult mental state in 2013 while escaping an abusive relationship and struggling with depression.
  • She describes feeling hopeless and praying "I hope I go to bed tonight and I just don't wake up" (03:01–03:18).
  • Her introduction to John of God came via a compelling Oprah interview:

    “I think I was 32 or 33 and then I had watched the Oprah show promoting John of God.” (03:30)

  • Karina’s vulnerability shows the desperation many felt before seeking alternative healing.

2. The Oprah Effect

• The moment Oprah featured John of God on her show is identified as a major inflection point that accelerated his global fame (03:54–04:25).
• Christina Rocha (Anthropology Professor):

  “Of course, when Oprah Winfrey went…” (04:17)

• The coverage brought tremendous credibility and international attention.

3. Roots in Brazilian Folk Healing

• João grew up in poverty in rural Goiás, in a family hustling “to make some money out of anything” (07:19–07:47).
• Learned fortune-telling and home remedies as a child.
• Noted for early stories of “clairvoyance”—predicting a destructive storm, which created his personal myth (08:07–09:06).
• Folk spiritual healing and mediums were and are common in Central Brazil.

4. Ties to Power and Legal Maneuvering

• Military Connections:
  • João entered the Brazilian military in the 1960s during the dictatorship, learning that proximity to power could shield him from legal consequences (09:36–09:57).
  • Began “healing” military associates, thus laying groundwork for a network of support.
• Strategic Alliances:
  • JOão settled in Abadiânia after being forced out of Annapolis, making a mutually beneficial arrangement with the town’s mayor (11:47–12:33).
  • Classic small town deal: The mayor provided land, João brought in spiritual tourism and transformed the local economy (13:09–14:14).

5. From Local Phenomenon to International Industry

• Early “Casa de Dom Inácio de Loyola” became a spiritual hospital and economic engine.
  • By some estimates, the Casa generated $135,000/month, before donations or commissions (14:14).
  • Everyone in town became tied to the business—posadas (guesthouses), restaurants, taxis, spiritual tourism.

6. The Magnetism for Foreigners

• Christina Rocha:

  • Noted that foreigners, even from countries with advanced medicine, would travel to rural Brazil for healing at the Casa (04:43–05:12).
  • Upon first visiting Abadiânia in 2003, she was surprised to find infrastructure and amenities aimed at Westerners (18:28–19:19):

    “They had cafes with the menu all in English…and most people spoke English and other languages, not Portuguese.” (18:46)

• The community's international composition fostered a sense of connection and support among people searching for healing or meaning (23:17–24:21).

7. Spiritual Beliefs and Healing

• John of God blended Catholicism, Spiritism, Umbanda (Afro-Brazilian religion), and New Age ideas, creating an inclusive belief system that resonated globally (20:54–21:38).

  “So the idea of charity is key here. It’s through charity that you grow spiritually. It’s through charity that you get healed.” —Christina Rocha (21:38)

• Illness and suffering were reinterpreted as karmic trials or opportunities for spiritual growth, reframing disease as meaningful (22:16).

8. Orchestrated Spectacle and Global Expansion

• Surgeries and miraculous healings (like inserting scissors into noses) were dubbed unnecessary by João himself, but existed to “convince the skeptical”:

  “They are not necessary. John of God, a million times, says a million times that day. But people don’t believe. So it’s good to see something absurd and extraordinary like this.” —Christina Rocha (27:03)

• Strategic international exposure:

  • Authorized biography (1997, in English and later other languages),
  • International volunteers as tour guides,
  • International healing tours (Germany, US, Omega Institute/New York),
  • Surged tourism exploded local guesthouse capacity from a few to over 70 within several streets (28:57–29:11).

9. The Drawbacks and Cracks Behind the Façade

• Marcelo Staduto (former medium):

  • Witnessed John of God’s growing vanity:

    “At the same time that he said, it’s not me who heals…but he has always been very pleased to be the greatest healer in the world…a sense of superiority.” (31:19–31:44)

  • Noticed dangerous devotion among followers:

    “If he tells me not to breathe, I’m not going to breathe. If he tells me to throw myself off the third floor, I’m going to throw myself. Then we have all the problems. We had.” (32:05)

• Insider warnings and concerns went largely unnoticed, and by the time scandals began surfacing publicly, it was “too late to fix what had long been going wrong” (32:45).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Karina (on her vulnerability):

  “Basically, I had no will to live. I was not going to kill myself because I don't believe in suicide. But I would pray and say I hope I go to bed tonight and I just don't wake up.” (02:57–03:18)

• Martina Castro (on Oprah’s impact):

  “There are many inflection points in the story of how John of God rose to fame, but this is the one that came up again and again in my interviews for this series. The Oprah factor.” (03:54)

• Christina Rocha (on the spread of faith healing):

  “Who have the best hospitals, best doctors… why would they fly to Brazil… to be operated on by this guy whom they can't communicate with?” (04:43)

• Cristina Phoebe (on local economy):

  “So it was like a big business deal to be friends with John of God and to open a hotel, because it was going to be huge…everyone around him knew that they were part of the business.” (13:34)

• Christina Rocha (on the Casa’s unique culture):

  “There was a feeling of being on holidays…a lot of community and making friends from all over the world and seeing yourself in other people's stories…” (23:17)

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Timestamps for Major Segments

• Karina’s Struggles & Introduction to John of God — (02:06–03:42)
• The Oprah Effect and International Attention — (03:45–04:25)
• John of God’s Early Life and Roots — (06:19–09:06)
• Military Alliances and Legal Maneuvering — (09:36–12:33)
• The Casa and Economic Transformation of Abadiânia — (12:44–14:52)
• Foreign Followers and the Abadiânia Experience — (17:26–19:49)
• Blend of Spiritual Beliefs — (20:54–22:16)
• Healing Tourism Economy & Global Expansion — (27:03–29:40)
• Early Warnings and Decline — (31:19–33:02)

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Conclusion & Teaser

The episode concludes by foregrounding the darker side of John of God’s empire—hints of criminality, fanaticism, and abuse—and sets up the continuation of the story with survivor voices and the unraveling of his pristine public image.

“Very serious problems. A mysterious death, fraud and sexual abuse. They didn’t start in 2012, but Marcelo says by then it was too late to fix what had long been going wrong.” (32:45)

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Next Episode Preview

• First-person survivor accounts and the unraveling of the secrets behind John of God’s empire (33:27–33:55).

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For more information on the episode and the series, visit iHeartPodcasts or search for Dos Caras: Juan de Dios for the Spanish version.

Transcript

[Podcast Host / Narrator]

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[Martina Castro (Podcast Host and Interviewer)]

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[Martina Castro (Podcast Host and Interviewer)]

50% off regular price for new customers. Upfront payment required $45 for three months, $90 for six month or $180 for 12 month plan taxes and fees. Extra speeds may slow after 50 gigabytes per month when network is busy see terms so I guess I can start just by you introducing yourself.

[Karina (Interviewee, single mom from Brazil)]

My name is Karina, I'm from Brazil. I moved here with my family when I was 16 years old and at first it was supposed just to be one year to learn English but but.

[Martina Castro (Podcast Host and Interviewer)]

Once they got to the U.S. karina's mom decided to stay so they've lived here ever since. Still Karina has family back in Brazil, so she asked us only to use her first name to protect them.

[Karina (Interviewee, single mom from Brazil)]

It's in my personality to question everything since day one that I understand myself as a person. But I needed help.

[Martina Castro (Podcast Host and Interviewer)]

Karina was a single mom getting out of an abusive relationship and dealing with mental illness. Despite how tough she sounds today, it's important to her to make clear that back in 2013, she was not herself.

[Karina (Interviewee, single mom from Brazil)]

The grief of ending that relationship, that was abusive. The grief of leaving the son behind, the grief of things not being working for a long time here. Basically, I had no will to live. I was not going to kill myself because I don't believe in suicide. But I would pray and say I hope I go to bed tonight and I just don't wake up.

[Martina Castro (Podcast Host and Interviewer)]

That I had it every day. She tells me her mind was just not there. And that's when she came across an interview on TV that caught her attention.

[Karina (Interviewee, single mom from Brazil)]

I think I was 32 or 33 and then I had watched the Oprah show promoting John of God.

[Martina Castro (Podcast Host and Interviewer)]

This is an interview I wasn't sure would ever happen.

[Commercial Narrator (Lenovo, Mint Mobile, Taco Bell)]

One of the most famous.

[Karina (Interviewee, single mom from Brazil)]

I mean, she did a great job convincing that it was great talks to anyone on. I wasn't the only one that went there. I tell you that.

[Martina Castro (Podcast Host and Interviewer)]

There are many inflection points in the story of how John of God rose to fame, but this is the one that came up again and again in my interviews for this series.

[Cristina Phoebe (Brazilian Journalist and Author)]

The Oprah factor.

[Commercial Narrator (Lenovo, Mint Mobile, Taco Bell)]

When Oprah was there, Ilhara visitado, He.

[Commercial Narrator (Frogfuel)]

Was visited by ministers and politicians, by.

[Commercial Narrator (Lenovo, Mint Mobile, Taco Bell)]

Celebrities, even Oprah, the crowning of the.

[Christina Rocha (Anthropology Professor)]

Expansion of the movement. Of course, when Oprah Winfrey went.

[Martina Castro (Podcast Host and Interviewer)]

This last voice belongs to Christina Rocha. She's a professor of anthropology in Australia, but she's originally from Brazil. When she first became aware of John of God, she was mostly interested in his popularity among foreigners. She couldn't help but wonder why foreigners.

[Christina Rocha (Anthropology Professor)]

Who have the best hospitals, best doctors in their own countries, they would fly to Brazil, a long flight to be in a vill that doesn't have hospital if something goes wrong and to be operated on by this guy whom they can't communicate with, who lives in a little village in the middle of nowhere and he cuts people open with no asepsis or anesthetics.

[Martina Castro (Podcast Host and Interviewer)]

Christina spent more than a decade trying to find an answer. It's a story that starts when John of God was just. Joao, a man raised in a really poor town reported knowing how to read or write. He had a history of run ins with the law and had been Accused of being a fraud. And thanks to a series of calculated decisions over the course of several decades, he went from that to becoming an internationally renowned and influential healer who would draw thousands of people to believe in him. From exactly right media and adon de mon media. This is two faced john of God. I'm your host, martina castro. Episode 2 A Healer is Born when was the first time you ever heard of John of God?

[Cristina Phoebe (Brazilian Journalist and Author)]

Well, I can't remember the first time because he was huge in Brazil. It was like part of our, you know, system, identity. It was like a thing in Brazil to go to John of God.

[Martina Castro (Podcast Host and Interviewer)]

This is Cristina Phoebe, a Brazilian journalist. Just to be clear, this is not Christina Rocha, who you heard at the beginning. You're going to hear from two Christinas in this episode. And both of them have written books on John of God. This Christina knew very well who John of God was at the height of his fame. But it wasn't until she did the research for her book that she learned who he was before that. Even then, Cristina says the story she uncovered included a lot of inconsistencies. What she was able to confirm is that way before he was known as John of God, he was simply Joao Teixeira de Faria, born in 1941 in a small town in Goias, a state in the center of Brazil.

[Cristina Phoebe (Brazilian Journalist and Author)]

And when he was growing up, very, very poor family, the family was like trying to make some money out of anything.

[Martina Castro (Podcast Host and Interviewer)]

Some people say Joao's mother was a palm reader or fortune teller. Others that his father was a tailor and that he sold herbal remedies to make ends meet. But what is clear is that Joao, the youngest of six siblings, was learning the family business from an early age.

[Cristina Phoebe (Brazilian Journalist and Author)]

So he learned a few things, like he learned to do those, like, it's a drink to cure things. And he would say that he read the future as a small child. He did that. So it was like a family doing anything to survive, you know?

[Martina Castro (Podcast Host and Interviewer)]

A story Joao himself is told many times is about when he first discovers his ability to predict the future. It's unclear whether he was 9 or 16 years old. Joao himself has claimed it happened at different ages throughout the years. But what is consistent is the story of what happened. Joo was walking with his mom down a dirt road on a sunny day. Not a cloud in the sky, but he turns to her and says, a big storm is coming. He even pointed out the houses that would be destroyed by it. A storm did actually hit the town and caused 40 structures to collapse. This mythical origin story is repeated again and again by news outlets and Joao himself. But it's important to point out that the claims of this kind of clairvoyance or supernatural power, they weren't unique. Where Joo grew up, the concept of healers and mediums was very common in central Brazil.

[Cristina Phoebe (Brazilian Journalist and Author)]

And there were also, at this time, a few healers that used the techniques that John of God would use after, like, cutting people without any, like, medical preparation or, you know, there are even.

[Martina Castro (Podcast Host and Interviewer)]

Videos of some famous healers conducting very similar surgeries back in the 1940s. But Cristina says Joo's path to becoming Joo de Deus, or John of God, didn't begin in earnest until he joined the military in 1964.

[Cristina Phoebe (Brazilian Journalist and Author)]

Very, very young, he went to the military. It was at that time we had a military dictatorship in Brazil. So he very early understood that he needed to be close to powerful people, so he would get rid of any accusations and stuff.

[Martina Castro (Podcast Host and Interviewer)]

That's because it was actually illegal in Brazil to perform anything that could be perceived as medical treatment. If you weren't a doct, you could be fined or thrown in jail. It's unclear what Joao did while he was in the military, but we do know he traveled to bases around the country. Cristina also says Joao worked for a time sewing and repairing military uniforms.

[Cristina Phoebe (Brazilian Journalist and Author)]

And then while he did that, he began to cure military for, you know, and tell them that he had such powers and stuff, so they would recommend him for another one and another one. And that started, like, the idea around him that he was able to do that. So I feel like he constructed this personality very smartly and slowly.

[Martina Castro (Podcast Host and Interviewer)]

So in the military is where Cristina says Joo gained some credibility and powerful friends. When he left military service, he went to Annapolis, a city in the state of Goias, and he just made, like.

[Cristina Phoebe (Brazilian Journalist and Author)]

A small house, a small living room where he would receive people to cure and to do spiritual healing and stuff. And they spread the word, and they started to making very huge lines. And then he was denounced for the local council of medicine.

[Martina Castro (Podcast Host and Interviewer)]

It was still illegal in Brazil to practice medicine if you weren't a formally trained doctor. So Joo speaks of this phase of his life as a time of persecution. He is said to have been thrown in jail several times. He sets up this idea that he tugs on for decades that the traditional medical establishment was out to get him because of his healing powers.

[Cristina Phoebe (Brazilian Journalist and Author)]

So he was sort of expelled from Annapolis to Abadjania, and he goes to Abadjania in a cordo, in an arrangement. He makes an arrangement with the mayor. So my take into this, my Interpretation is he needed a place to get established and secure people. He had lines and everyone wanted him. And the mayor needed any economic savior, any financial source, anything going on in a town where nothing goes on.

[Martina Castro (Podcast Host and Interviewer)]

So a kind of pact is made between Joo and the mayor of Abadianya, the place where he would really grow his empire.

[Cristina Phoebe (Brazilian Journalist and Author)]

So they did an arrangement and they gave John of God a little house and a big area so he could establish himself.

[Martina Castro (Podcast Host and Interviewer)]

And that little house was named the Casa de Dominacio de Loyola. It officially opened its doors in 1979 and became the spiritual hospital at the center of this international movement. Cristina says word spread quickly of Joao's.

[Cristina Phoebe (Brazilian Journalist and Author)]

Arrival, and very quickly he was like, whoa, huge lines and lines and many, many people going for him.

[Martina Castro (Podcast Host and Interviewer)]

The city at the time had little to no infrastructure. According to one source, the town had two hostels with maybe 20 beds max, and most roads weren't even paved. Over the coming years, as Joao grew in popularity, people in Abadianya would seize on this new opportunity. They would start taxi services or driving buses, open new restaurants and hostels called posadas.

[Cristina Phoebe (Brazilian Journalist and Author)]

So it was like a big business deal to be friends with John of God and to open a hotel, because it was going to be huge. So you could run like the bus business, the taxi business, the, you know, spiritual healing, crystals, whatever. It was like a very diversified. You could do so many things if John of God was there. So very quickly they learned that they had to protect him and protect the possibility of him to cure people, you know, to run the business. It's a business and everyone around him knew that they were part of the business.

[Martina Castro (Podcast Host and Interviewer)]

It was a multi million dollar business. By some estimates, the CASA alone was bringing in revenue of almost $135,000 a month. That doesn't include donations or the commissions Joao received from every person who did business related to the Casa. Over the course of the following decades, Joo takes a hold of this town's economy and he cleverly sets his sights on what will cause this business behind the Casa to really take off. Foreign visitors.

[Podcast Host / Narrator]

Support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On public, you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto and now generated assets, which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index. With AI, it all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year, you can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one of a kind index and lets you back test it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com podcast paid for by Public Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA and SIPC Advisory Services by Public Advisors, llc. SEC Registered Advisor Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete Disclosures available at public.comdisclosures Now I'd.

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[Christina Rocha (Anthropology Professor)]

I was in Australia and I started hearing people saying oh you're from Brazil, you must know John of God.

[Martina Castro (Podcast Host and Interviewer)]

That's Christina Rocha again, the professor. By the way, she sounds a little muffled because she wore a mask during our interview. She says around 19981999 when she was studying for a PhD in Australia, she had no idea who John of God was, but oddly enough he was pretty.

[Christina Rocha (Anthropology Professor)]

Famous in Australia because a lot of people from all walks of life, so from the hairdresser to the dance teacher, to somebody at the university doing the PhD with me, everybody was saying, look, do you know John of God? He's very famous. And I would say, no, I don't. And they would say, so you're not Brazilian because he is so famous, you know, you should know him.

[Martina Castro (Podcast Host and Interviewer)]

So the next time Cristina went back to Brazil to visit family, she decided to go to Abadiana to see what all the fuss was about. This was in 2003. She says what she saw when she first arrived totally caught her off guard.

[Christina Rocha (Anthropology Professor)]

Imagine 2003, there was no, what we call broadband, not even wi fi broadband in tiny little villages in central Brazil.

[Martina Castro (Podcast Host and Interviewer)]

But in Abadiana, this rural, middle of nowhere town, there was WI fi and much, much more.

[Christina Rocha (Anthropology Professor)]

They had, you know, cafes with the menu all in English, and they had things that you would get not in Sao Paulo or Rio, like drinks and things that you would have in Sydney, the cool, you know, flat white kind of thing or dandelion lattes and stuff. And they had it there. And I was like, what is this place? And all, you know, the Tibetan flags and all this. And most people spoke English and other languages, not Portuguese.

[Martina Castro (Podcast Host and Interviewer)]

She was so intrigued, and her curiosity was piqued for professional reasons. Christina's specialty is religion and migration. So when she saw this growing international community going to Apatiana to receive these rudimentary surgeries at the Casa, she decided she just had to find out more.

[Christina Rocha (Anthropology Professor)]

So I studied that from 2004 to 2014, 15, and the book came out in early 2017.

[Martina Castro (Podcast Host and Interviewer)]

But there's an important thing to know about how Christina approached the decade she researched John of God and his community.

[Christina Rocha (Anthropology Professor)]

As an anthropologist, I do participant observation and interviews, and participant observation is to be with people for so long that you, mostly you learn from them and you learn from your own body.

[Martina Castro (Podcast Host and Interviewer)]

This means Cristina lived and meditated with Joo's followers, which is to say she was very close to the movement and was considered a part of it in many ways. Throughout her research, she had a central.

[Christina Rocha (Anthropology Professor)]

Driving question, why they were interested in this guy and would go to great lengths and spend a lot of money to get there and try to get healed by him. And also I wanted to know how this global movement expanded.

[Martina Castro (Podcast Host and Interviewer)]

To answer all of these questions, Christina says, you have to understand what drew foreigners in. One was the unique mix of beliefs John of God brought together under his brand of spirituality.

[Christina Rocha (Anthropology Professor)]

So John of God was born Catholic, but with popular Catholicism. A lot of praying, a lot of blessings and all this. But he also was a high priest of Umbanda, which is Afro Brazilian religion. And he also follows spiritism, which he also encounter around Brazil.

[Martina Castro (Podcast Host and Interviewer)]

This mix included New Age concepts, making for an accessible and flexible set of beliefs that left room for everyone to feel identified with some part of it. Buddhist concepts about past lives, karma and reincarnation were also part of the belief system that was promoted at the Kasa.

[Christina Rocha (Anthropology Professor)]

So the idea of charity is key here. It's through charity that you grow spiritually. It's through charity that you get healed. And these spirits will heal you because they also are doing acts of charity.

[Martina Castro (Podcast Host and Interviewer)]

So those spirits that are channeled by John of God are coming back to improve their own karma by healing people through mediums like him. This belief system offered international visitors to John of God something they hadn't been able to find anywhere else.

[Christina Rocha (Anthropology Professor)]

So in one word, I could say they get meaning. It makes meaning. It makes sense. Finally, their illness makes sense because there is an explanation, a religious explanation or a philosophical explanation for the healing. Eunice is perceived as karma resulting from past lives and actions. So you sort of like, similar to the New Age thinking, you chose this life and you chose this illness because you needed to learn something in this life, right? So illness is an opportunity for you to learn to grow spiritually. It is about transformation.

[Martina Castro (Podcast Host and Interviewer)]

To top it off, you get to tackle this transformation with a whole community of people who are going through similar life experiences, which for Cristina, is perhaps the most essential ingredient to the magic of the casa.

[Christina Rocha (Anthropology Professor)]

There was a feeling of being on holidays, like you have all the tropical juices and the tropical fruits and foods. You had a waterfall to go to the weekends. You traveled a bit, went into the countryside or just walked around. There was a lot of community and making friends from all over the world and seeing yourself in other people's stories. Why are you here? And the other person say, oh, I have cancer. And this first person said, me too. What are you taking? What kind of cancer? Are you taking this medicine? What did your doctor tell you? So there was a lot of. Of engagement with each other, and they found peers. They found people who were suffering and undergoing the same life crisis. Could be divorce, could be, you know, or even people were not sick and they were just seeking meaning in life.

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[Podcast Host / Narrator]

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[Martina Castro (Podcast Host and Interviewer)]

These elements, a blend of New Age spiritual beliefs, community and a sense that they were connecting to a more authentic and spiritual place, were all on display at the Casa and they were all tied to the magnetism of John of God. But this wasn't by accident. It was by design. Even the visible surgeries like the scissors up the nose, those were a spectacle meant to get the most skeptical of the visitors. To believe in Joao and the spirits, Cristina says Joo talked about it openly with her.

[Christina Rocha (Anthropology Professor)]

They are not necessary. John of God, a Million times, says a million times that day. But people don't believe. So it's good to see something absurd and extraordinary like this. People standing up and being operated on and not having infections because they would believe that the entities were there.

[Martina Castro (Podcast Host and Interviewer)]

And the strategy worked. Despite there being many spiritual healers in Brazil, John of God was the one who broke through to become internationally famous.

[Christina Rocha (Anthropology Professor)]

There are many healers in Brazil, and they haven't become that famous. John of God doesn't speak any English. His Portuguese is rudimentary, so he has very little schooling, although he's a very clever man, I would say.

[Martina Castro (Podcast Host and Interviewer)]

According to Christina, John of God made a few smart decisions that made all the difference. The first was in 1997, when he allowed an Australian follower of his to write an official biography about him in English, which was later translated into many languages. John of God also did select interviews with the press and filmed documentaries. All of these ultimately served as ways to spread the word about his work. He also enlisted the help of international volunteers to become tour guides. He would tell people that their mission was to bring people from their home countries to the Khasa. But unlike typical volunteers, they were allowed to charge for this service as much as 2 to $3,000 per traveler. least one tour guide I spoke with said guides made hundreds of thousands of dollars a year bringing people who would in turn become guides themselves. The number of visitors ballooned so much during the early 2000s that other businesses boomed as well. Many of the local posada owners are rumored to have become millionaires during this.

[Christina Rocha (Anthropology Professor)]

Time in time, there were so many tour guides, and the number of guest houses increased so much that at the end, there were 72 posadas guest houses in four streets.

[Martina Castro (Podcast Host and Interviewer)]

Cristina says another key to Joo's growth and popularity was his decision to take his healing sessions on the road. He held sold out international healing events in Australia.

[Christina Rocha (Anthropology Professor)]

He went to Germany, to the US he went every year for many years to upstate New York, a place called Omega center, where all the new age healers or philosophers or speakers you know would come.

[Martina Castro (Podcast Host and Interviewer)]

The Omega Institute has hosted some of the most respected and popular spiritual speakers in the US Such as Deepak Chopra, Pemachodron and Eckhart Tolle. So it was tremendously validating for John of God to get to speak there. Starting back in 2007, you could see the impact of this back in Abadianya. Between 2000 and 2010, it was basically exploding.

[Christina Rocha (Anthropology Professor)]

There were like 5,000 people in the casa. And the casa is a little place, right? And they said that there were no. No vacancies in the guest houses, so people had to stay 40 kilometers away in Annapolis. It was mayhem. It was crazy. So things were getting really out of hand with the number of people and the adoring crowds.

[Martina Castro (Podcast Host and Interviewer)]

And then in 2012, Oprah visited Abadiania to interview John of God.

[Christina Rocha (Anthropology Professor)]

That's the. You know, really, when he's at the. The height of his popular fame, that kind of testimonial was very powerful for more people to come.

[Martina Castro (Podcast Host and Interviewer)]

But as Joo's movement continued to expand right under the surface, there were unsettling things taking place, Things that the people closest to Joao tried to ignore until they couldn't. Like Marcelo Staduto, the medium who worked with Joo that we met in episode one, Marcelo remembers being uncomfortable with the way Joo seemed to relish his popularity.

[Marcelo Staduto (Medium who worked with John of God)]

At the same time that he said, it's not me who heals, but it's God in good spirits, right? However, he has always been very pleased to be the greatest healer in the world. You may be a healing medium, but a vanity is expressed there, a presumption is expressed there, a sense of superiority.

[Martina Castro (Podcast Host and Interviewer)]

For Marcelo, this sense of superiority, the desire to be around powerful politicians and celebrities, it all went against what he believed the work at the Casa was all about. And what worried him most was that he could tell no one seemed to notice this.

[Marcelo Staduto (Medium who worked with John of God)]

Obviously, some people observed this and took the necessary precautions, but most go out of desperation, belief, fervor, and sometimes even by a certain fanaticism. And don't analyze anything as long as he cuts and no one feels pain. He is a God on earth, and I'm only going to follow him. If he tells me not to breathe, I'm not going to breathe. If he tells me to throw myself off the third floor, I'm going to throw myself. Then we have all the problems. We had.

[Martina Castro (Podcast Host and Interviewer)]

Very serious problems. A mysterious death, fraud and sexual abuse. They didn't start in 2012, but Marcelo says by then it was too late to fix what had long been going wrong.

[Marcelo Staduto (Medium who worked with John of God)]

It's very sad and a pity to have to say it and to have to recognize and to have to see the decadence of all this work. Of course, when we cried and prayed, we didn't know half of everything that happened, of all the criminal acts that took place.

[Martina Castro (Podcast Host and Interviewer)]

Next time on Two Faced John of God.

[Christina Rocha (Anthropology Professor)]

I was crying a lot.

[Cristina Phoebe (Brazilian Journalist and Author)]

I was very nervous. I told her what he had done.

[Christina Rocha (Anthropology Professor)]

To me.

[Martina Castro (Podcast Host and Interviewer)]

And she slapped me and told me to shut up.

[Marcelo Staduto (Medium who worked with John of God)]

Yes, a lot of people knew.

[Christina Rocha (Anthropology Professor)]

And when she'd get there, that person, he'd want to hold her hand. I began to get suspicious. You know, who is this guy?

[Commercial Narrator (Prime Video - Cross)]

Really?

[Martina Castro (Podcast Host and Interviewer)]

Listen to Two Faced John of God on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts there. You can also find this show en Espanol. Just look for Dos Caras Juande Dios. Two Faced John of God is a production of Exactly Right Media and Adonde Media, hosted and written by myself, Martina Castro. Our senior producer is Mariano Pachela, reporting and fact checking by Eloisa Traiano, production assistance and research by Giovanna Romano Sanchez, sound design by Mauricio Mendoza and our mastering engineer is Martin Cruz. Original music was composed by Mariana Romano. The artwork is by Vanessa Lilac. Marcelo Stoduto was interpreted by Claudio Diaz and Luciano Miranda by Andres Cavachero for Exactly Right Media. The executive producers are Karen Kilgariff, Georgia Hardstark and Danielle Kramer with consulting producer Lily Latowig and associate producer Jay Elias. If you're curious to know more about Cristina Rocha's research, her book is called John of the Globalization of Brazilian Faith Healing. Journalist Christina Phoebe's book about John of God is called Joao de Deus au abuso da Fe. Special thanks to both of them for speaking with us for this series.

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Aldous Hodge returns as Alex Cross, your favorite detective on television for season two of the hit show Cross, premiering February 11th exclusively on Prime Video. Critics called season one one of the year's best shows, with over 40 million viewers worldwide. And on February 11th, the story continues with a new season from creator Ben Watkins and based upon characters created by James Patterson, cross is Washington, D.C. 's most brilliant homicide detective and forensic psychologist. Fresh off his capture of the infamous serial killer, the fanboy, Cross teams up with the FBI to hunt down a vigilante serial killer targeting corrupt billionaires. As the case unfolds, Kross navigates a moral crossroads where the lines between justice and vengeance are blurred. Kross is back and better than ever this season. Get ready for a new case. Higher stakes, but the same Kross Watch season two of Kross new episodes weekly starting February 11th only on Prime Video.