An Interview with Emma Bragdon, Ph.D.
by Michael Tymn

Reprinted (with permission) from the Bulletin of the Academy of Religion and Psychical Research, September, 2004

The author of “Kardec’s Spiritism: A Home for Healing and Spiritual Evolution,” Emma Bragdon, a resident of Vermont, earned her doctorate from the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology. After private practice as a licensed psychotherapist, Dr. Bragdon taught workshops internationally for 13 years. Since 2001, she has been researching Kardec’s Spiritism and leading groups to experience the work of John of God in Brazil www.emmabragdon.com. She is a founding member of the “Catalyst Council,” leaders working to integrate the best of alternative/complementary therapies into the mainstream. She is currently executive and creative producer for documentary films on energy medicine, and spiritism. She is a guide for people visiting John of God, a world renowned spiritual healer working in Brazil..

Prior to your introduction to Kardec's Spiritism, what was your spiritual orientation?

“My spiritual orientation has been Buddhism since 1967-1971 when I studied with Suzuki Roshi at the San Francisco Zen Center and Tassajara Zen Mountain Center. Sogyal Rinpoche, a Tibetan Buddhist, considers Suzuki a Dzogchen Master—a very enlightened teacher. When Suzuki passed on, I branched into the study of other religions including Hinduism, Native American shamanic traditions (Yurok and Lakota Sioux) and Tibetan Buddhism. I have recently been deeply impressed by the teachings of Djwhal Khul, compiled by Aart Jurriaanse in Bridges and Prophecies. These channeled teachings fit hand-in-glove with Kardec’s channeled teachings. Kardec’s books define the landscape of the spiritual realms very clearly, and are practical in training mediums how to harness their gifts to help others."

     “I’ve cultivated an interest in spiritual healing for forty years. Although Zen Buddhism is not thought of as a “healing” tradition—clearly Buddhist meditation is both therapeutic and facilitates personal evolution. The Four Noble Truths of Buddhism tell us that “life is suffering” and meditation is a way out of suffering. This is a healing journey, a path to wholeness. Tibetan Buddhist tradition was born out of a Shamanic tradition mixed with Buddhism. All Shamanic traditions have distinctive healing practices, some of which include depossession (a kind of healing that effectively removes the influences of negatively motivated discarnates—those out of the body between lives-- who are attached to the patient). Channeled teachings stem from a root belief: We continue evolving through lifetimes alternating between learning as an incarnate and learning as a discarnate. Some courageous psychiatrists/authors like Brian Weiss have enabled us to validate that there can be profound healing when we address problems carried over from other lifetimes, and between lives.”

How did you become interested in Spiritism?

     “I was introduced to Kardec’s books when I asked about the philosophy of the sanctuary where John of God works. Knowing that patients had experienced spontaneous remission of cancer, AIDS, and all kinds of emotional and physical ailments through John of God’s sanctuary was compelling. Being a curious sort, and quite persistent, I kept asking questions of the staff. This led me to the Allan Kardec Educational Society (www.allan-kardec.org) in the USA—and their translations of important Spiritist books. Needless to say, I was deeply impressed by what I read, and felt that many in the USA would also be interested. Perhaps we are more prepared for the work now than we were 140 years ago, when the books were first written.”

   Of all the things you've observed during your visits to Spiritist Centers, what stands out most in your memory?

    “One day, sitting meditation in John of God’s consultation room with many powerful mediums associated with the sanctuary, I was invited to open my eyes to watch a physical operation. I saw a Brazilian woman standing just five feet in front of me, her shirt pulled up, her pants pulled down a bit, in order to expose her lower abdomen. Her face looked completely relaxed, her eyes bright and focused. Although she is rather plain by the standards of our fashion magazines, she looked radiantly beautiful, even beatific, similar to renditions we know of the Madonna. Within seconds, John of God performed abdominal surgery on her, using a knife to cut through her skin, then sticking his bare hand into her womb to remove a malignant tumor. She hardly bled. She never winced. She appeared completely confident and quite detached—completely relational and lucid, yet absorbed in something wholly sacred. I knew she had not had any anesthesia and John of God had not scrubbed nor did he use antiseptics. (I had by this time seen several other operations close-up.) After the removal of the tumor, while she remained standing, John asked his assistant to suture the patient’s wound. Minutes went by while the patient stood and waited—using the time to send a steady stream of loving energy into the surrounding crowd of meditators (about 60 of us). I’ve never before witnessed such complete absorption in the Holy Spirit. It seemed to me she was filled with the belief that God was healing her and she became a radiant vessel of God’s love as she was being operated upon. I interviewed her shortly thereafter and confirmed she had experienced no pain.

“I was also very moved by Marcel, a man who had been diagnosed as schizophrenic by San Paulo’s top psychiatrists. Although he appeared healthy as a teenager, in his mid-twenties Marcel had increasingly experienced psychotic-like symptoms. During those times he was exceedingly aggressive to others, and would scratch away at his body to try to remove the reptiles and spiders that he perceived crawling on him—although these entities were invisible to others. On two occasions I interviewed Marcel—one of those times I was accompanied by a distinguished psychiatrist from South Africa, Johann Grobler. Both Dr. Grobler and I agreed that Marcelo appeared quite normal. We believed his story that he had been healed of his affliction in a Spiritist run psychiatric hospital. Not only did he no longer have symptoms of psychosis, but Marcel was in training as a medium and healer in the very same Spiritist Center that sponsored the hospital. He was now part of a team of mediums who helped in the depossession of patients in the psychiatric facility where he had been a patient. We watched him in that role. He appeared clear, skilled, and very dedicated to his work. The patients clearly loved him.

      “Marcel’s father, Arnold, told us of their being warned by their Catholic friends—“Don’t go to the Spiritist Hospital, they are not people of God, but of the Devil.” But, Marcel’s parents brought him to the hospital anyway because nothing else had worked to help their son—not drugs, not the Church, not a long vacation, not even residential treatment in a conventional hospital. After a month of treatment in the Spiritist Hospital, including medical intuition for diagnostics, depossession twice a week, and regular laying-on of hands for healing, Marcel was discharged, and emotionally balanced. With tears in his eyes, Arnold said, “We got back our son…and we know this way is a path of working with God. It is also a practical path that works.” Once a banker, Arnold is now a medium, practicing skills to improve his healing abilities.    When you read Kardec you understand why people say that Spiritism is a way of practical Christianity.”

   Can you tell us a little of how John of God works? What kind of person is he?

     “John of God works three days a week, devoting the whole day to consulting each individual coming to see him at his sanctuary in Abadiania, the Casa de Dom Inácio. He is functionally illiterate and a normal man. Just like the rest of us, he does human things that aren’t perfect; for instance, he smokes cigarettes. However, unlike most people, he has the gift of deliberately entering into an altered state of consciousness and channeling one of 33 discarnates who work through him to benefit others. John of God allows these discarnates to work through him for hours at a time. Like Edgar Cayce, John is an “unconscious medium” and has no memory of what he does or says while in the altered state."

“One by one, visitors approach John, now addressed as “the Entity”, who sits in his consultation room. The Entity “reads” each person as they approach him, as if he has x-ray vision and can see into the details of each patient’s body, mind, and soul. He may suggest herbs and possibly psychic surgery, amongst other ways of facilitating healing such as meditation and prayer. When surgery is advised each visitor chooses if he/she prefers physical surgery to psychic surgery, effected by prayer. John says, “The real surgery is always accomplished through energy. Physical surgery is thus not more effective, than psychic surgery.”

From what you have observed, can a person who is very skeptical of the benefits of the healing methods employed at Kardecist centers receive healing benefits, or is complete faith necessary?

“ I believe it was Groucho Marx who said, “Keep an open mind but don’t let your brains fall out.” Healthy skepticism allows us to keep thinking and be open to new viewpoints, simultaneously. It seems to me that is a good way to travel through life, visiting an American hospital, a Brazilian Spiritist center, or anyplace making claims that seem unusual."

“Surrendering to the Divine is another matter. A person who has the capacity for this surrender to God’s will can have levels of deep spiritual experience that are not accessible to others caught in the identity of the Ego. It seems there are a number of Brazilians who have cultivated this type of surrender and we can learn from them.

    “Who should we place our faith in? The Higher Self and our connection to God. This is the teaching of the Spiritists. Each person needs to perceive how he or she does that in life, and when. Visiting a Spiritist centers can ignite the spark of this connection. Many skeptics who visit find they soften and change, even heal, as a result of visiting a Kardecist center.”

      In his book, "A Journey into Prayer," Bill Sweet of the Spindrift organization mentions one case of psychic healing in which 10 different doctors, all M.D.'s, witnessed up close a psychic healer reaching into people's bodies and pulling out diseased tissues. All were amazed and felt the surgery genuine. However, it was later demonstrated that the psychic surgeon was a magician of some kind and a total fake. Is there a possibility that what you have observed in Brazil has been "magic" or trickery of some kind?

“Something to ponder. John of God asks for no money for his consultations and surgery. Why would he want to trick people? His life would be much easier if he had fewer people coming to ask him for help. I sat next to a woman having a benign tumor the size of a large grapefruit removed from her abdomen by John of God. He was inches away, pulling out tissue with his bare hands and placing it in a metal bowl. After the operation, the tissue was sent out to a pathology laboratory for the benefit of the patient. Many patients have sent tissue removed by John of God to pathology labs. In April, 2004, the Research Director for the National Foundation for Alternative Medicine, Dr. Mary Ann Richardson, sat while John of God removed a cyst from her toe. There has been no evidence of trickery over the 45 years John of God has been doing his work.”

      Would a person who does not speak Portuguese be able to observe and appreciate what is going on in a Kardecist Center?

     “John of God’s center has translators who facilitate communication between John of God and visitors who are English speaking. Other Kardecist centers do not have translators to cater to international visitors. This is one reason John of God’s Casa has become so popular. It has become more and more easy to visit there as an English speaking person.”

   You seem to feel that there is hope for Kardecist centers to be opened in the U.S. without mediums and healers trained in Kardecismo, how could this come about?

“Ron Roth, Ph.D., a priest within the Catholic Church for 25 years, is founder and director of the “Casa of the Saints”, perhaps the first Kardecist Center in the USA founded by a native North American. Ron and his staff train people to hone their abilities as mediums and healers. I know of other centers that are beginning to be formed. I’ve been told that my most recent book is of great assistance in starting a center. It describes the components of a Kardecist center and describes how they function. The vast majority of them offer healings from groups of trained healers working together, not a charismatic “miracle” man like, John of God. For anyone interested in opening his or her mind to new possibilities in health care, new models of health care centers, more love, and a closer relationship to the Divine, it is a wonderful experience.”

Emma Bragdon, PhD.
Ph & FAX: 802-674-2919 in Vermont
EBragdon@aol.com
Director, Spiritual Alliances, LLC
PO Box 325
Woodstock, VT 05091, USA

Emma Bragdon’s books can purchased through www.spiritualalliances.com

Her schedule of tours to visit John of God is on www.emmabragdon.com

Click below to buy Emma Bragdon's book Spiritual Alliances.