Medium uncool

As you may have heard, famed Brazilian spiritual healer "John of God" (aka João Teixeira de Faria) has been arrested and faces charges of molesting and even raping numerous women who came to him for treatment.

The Washington Post reports:

Zahira Lieneke Mous, a Dutch dance choreographer, made the pilgrimage four years ago, seeking to heal sexual trauma she said she had suffered in the past.... She recounted in an interview with Brazil’s Globo TV last week how she waited in line twice to experience his healing. On the first visit, he scribbled a prescription for an herb she was told would help her. The second time, he offered a private consultation — a “spiritual cleansing.” Mous agreed. “You’re made to feel special somehow,” she told Globo TV.

She waited until everyone else in line had their turns, until finally she was alone, and “John of God” invited her into his office. And then into his bathroom.

That’s where Mous said he raped her — all while leading her to believe it was part of her healing.

She is among hundreds of women who have recently come forward with sexual abuse allegations ...

There are said to be as many as 300 women claiming abuse, although of course it's impossible to know how many of these claims are well-founded. Making things even worse for the medium, he initially missed a deadline to surrender to authorities and is believed to have withdrawn millions of dollars from several bank accounts, presumably in a bid to flee the country. He is now in police custody.

Although I've occasionally run across accounts of psychic/spiritual healing that seem legitimate — for instance, the George Chapman case — it's fair to say that this area attracts a huge number of charlatans preying on desperate people. And of course there is no reason why even a legitimate medium could not be guilty of gross personal misconduct; as far as I can tell, there is no correlation between psychic or mediumistic abilities and personal character, just as there is no correlation between musical or artistic talent and personal virtue. It is also possible that a legitimate medium could be corrupted over time by the adoration of his followers, gradually changing from a sincere spiritual seeker to an ego-driven cult leader.

In this case, I have no idea what the real story is — whether John of God has always been a fake, or whether he once had (and possibly still has) legitimate abilities but succumbed to the temptations of money, power, fame, and sex. Conceivably, the allegations are untrue or exaggerated; it appears that roughly a dozen women have filed complaints, so I'm not sure where the estimates of hundreds of victims are coming from.

Overall, though, I'd say it looks very bad for John of God and those who believed in him.

Comments

[Roger Knights]

From its title, I thought this thread was a claim that the Medium website is uncool. From the free samples it's been sending me it looks like the antithesis most of the free-for-web. Here's its website:
https://medium.com/

Google results for the medium website
https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=medium+site+review&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

Wikipedia entry on it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medium_(website)

[Roger Knights]

Nicholas Albery of the Social Inventions Journal, both now deceased, used to regularly publish accounts of Indian swamis, etc. who were mixed up in similar shenanigans.

[Matt Rouge]

Ugh, yeah...

For those who didn't get the joke, I presume the title of the post is a pun on the movie "Medium Cool," which is really great:

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0064652/?ref_=nv_sr_1

The guru who abuses doesn't seem to be all that rare a thing. Take the founder of Bikram Yoga:

http://www.espn.com/espnw/culture/feature/article/23539292/after-serious-allegations-founder-bikram-yoga-practitioners-crossroads

Or the abusive idiocy of Adi Da (whom Ken Wilbur enthusiastically endorsed at one point):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adi_Da#Public_controversy_(1985%E2%80%9386)

I've felt in the past that, at the very least, John of God was being overhyped. A local New Age store would hold sessions where some sort of artifact he had touched, etc. etc., was being presented. Whatevs.

[Mr Ecks]

Yes--perhaps. But with someone who has thousands--tens of thousands-- of women--many of them troubled already- visit him then a dozen flakes playing the Me Too caper on him is not any reason to swarm to the attack. You will likely find that NONE of these stories have the slightest evidence or corroboration attached to them. Most Me Too's don't. Wicked white patriarchy of course to want evidence and witnesses rather than accepting Marxist subjectivist assertions as being truth. And if her "truth" is that you raped her what does that old-fashioned marxistically out-moded concept of actual truth matter?

[Joni]

Oh please, Mr. Ecks -- "Most Me Too's don't" ?? Please come into this decade, if not this year, and possibly do a little research on the very good data that suggests that for every woman who puts up with exactly your derogatory attitude to come forward, there are many more who choose not to deal with disbelief like yours.

Michael, I'd suggest that such a comment deserves deletion (and then you'd be able to delete mine, too).

[Michael Prescott]

I don’t delete comments very often (though I do decline to publish some in the first place). I think Mr. Ecks is probably wrong about John of God, who certainly *acts* guilty — he tried to flee the country — but it’s still valid to point out that a man is legally presumed innocent unless proven guilty. We saw how "trial by media" could turn into a three-ring circus in the Kavenaugh hearings.

There have been some cases of false "Me Too" accusations, though I wouldn’t say "most" of them are false. I doubt that twelve or more women are all lying or fantasizing, but let’s wait until all the facts come out.