Article Surfing Archive

Psychic surgery started in the Philippines in a spiritualist community. The first well-known psychic surgeon, Eleuterio Terte performed surgery using only his bare hands. Frequently accompanied by his assistant, Tony Adpaoa, he created an opening in the skin and reached in to remove foreign bodies, diseased cells and tumours. The skin miraculously healed after the surgery. Filmed and written about by authors of the book "Into the Strange Unknown", Ron Ormond and Ormond McGill, it became a subject of interest in the late 1950's and early 1960's. The authors, amazed at the authenticity, referred to the surgery as a miracle.

The Brazilian psychic healers of the late 1950's often used not only their hands but actually made crude incisions with kitchen utensils or non-surgical blades. Jose' Arigo' was one of the more famous of those healers. He claimed to have a direct connection to deceased medical doctor, Dr. Fritz. Dr.Fritz became a popular spirit when several other psychic surgeons around the world also made the connection to his spirit.
Many of the Brazilian doctors used methods in psychic surgery that resembled Chiropractic practices, shiatsu massage or Qi Gong. Frequently licensed doctors closed the wounds created by the psychic surgeons in Brazil.

While it was in its heyday, psychic surgery caught the attention of many and became a huge method of creating a cash flow for the surgeon. Several popular magicians, including James Randi, Milbourne Christopher, Penn and Teller and Criss Angel have debunked psychic surgery as a fraud. The surgeons create a flesh fold and make it appear that their hand is going into the abdominal area of the patient. Then they reach into a container of animal entrails, livers, gizzards or even glass, hidden from view and with slight hand movements, make it look as though these are pulled from the sufferer's body. The wound magically heals since it never existed. The Brazilian patients that received actual lacerations were not so lucky; they had to heal on their own after their surgery.

By the year 1975 the Federal Trade Commission announced that psychic surgery was a hoax and banned all travel tours that transported their clients for psychic surgery. In the year, 1990 the American Cancer Society and the British Cancer society both urged patients that were ill not to seek the help of psychic surgeons but use traditional paths for recovery.

Some still ignore the warnings and prove that psychic surgery doesn't work. These people are usually the ones that receive hope from no other source. The psychic surgery is their last effort in an attempt not just to cling to life, but to find a cure so the quality of life exists. The late comedian Andy Kaufman was one of these people. In the final stages of incurable cancer, he and his girlfriend went to Baguio, a mountain resort town in Manila. Twice daily he received psychic surgery treatments and seemed, after six weeks, to be getting better. He returned to Los Angeles and suddenly his health deteriorated and he passed quickly. His desire to get better drove him to the psychic surgeon and the belief in the surgery helped him improve his spirits but in the end, it did nothing for his health.