http://humanifesto.org/liat_and_michelle/about_divine_energy.htm

Dances of Ecstasy
"Divine Energy"
A Film by Michelle Mahrer

"Divine Energy" is a one-hour documentary that explores the world of spiritual healing. It follows the journey of Lya who has cancer to a spiritual healer in Brazil - Joao Teixeira da Faria also known as "John of God"

Lya is from Melbourne and was diagnosed with breast and bone cancer over 18 months ago. She was told she had a few years to live. Following her instinct, she refused all conventional medical treatment and instead chose alternative therapies. Over the past year she has had some success stabilising the cancer, but late last year, she underwent a lot of stress in her life and the cancer spread through her bones. She has been in intense pain, having to resort to medication and radiation treatment. She goes to Brazil as a last resort. Lya is open and has no expectations. "I have talked to a lot of people who have been there. Some people get full healing, some people get partial healing, some people come to peace and come home and die." Over a period of 6 weeks I follow her journey with her husband Ian to the Casa Dom Inacio in Abadiania, a tiny remote village in the heart of Brazil. This is a story about courage and hope, and the role of love, gratitude and forgiveness in healing illness.

Joao Teixeira da Faria is a powerful spiritual medium. He is 63 years old and cannot read or write. For the past 47 years, since the age of 16, he has dedicated his life to healing others. As a medium who is an intermediary between the spirit world and the material world, he incorporates spirit entities that work through him to heal his patients. While he is incorporated by a spirit entity, he loses consciousness and his body is used as a means of conducting physical surgery and healings, many of which are miraculous in nature. " I am just a man, God is doing the healing and the good spirits" says Joao.

When Lya arrives she is in excruciating pain and cannot walk. She is taking painkillers every 4 hours to manage her pain from the bone cancer. Her husband Ian is devoted to her care. The film is centred on daily life at the Casa where people go every day. I film Lya meditating with hundreds of people in the main healing room called the "current room" where people give and receive energy. I film her visiting Joao, and undergoing invisible operations. I film Joao incorporated with the spirit entity performing many miraculous visible surgeries on patients without using any anaesthetic and little bleeding. Intercut with Lya's journey are scenes and interviews with courageous people who have come here from all over the world in search of a cure. Many have been told by doctors there is no cure for their condition, some have cancer, multiple sclerosis, chronic fatigue, and motor neurones disease. Some are stroke victims, or are paralysed after an accident. I meet Eusebio who has been blind for 33 years. He begins to see after being here for only 10 days. I film a man with a degenerative muscle disease get up out of his wheel chair and walk for the first time in years. Healing is very individual, some are frustrated with their lack of progress, and some don't get healed. Others experience more miraculous healings such as Maria an 8-year-old girl from Greece who has spinal bifida. Doctors told her she would be in diapers for the rest of her life, and confined to a wheelchair. Now after 4 years of coming here, her bladder function has completely healed and she is walking.

I interview many professional people who are visiting the Casa including medical doctors, a clinical psychologist, and a lawyer. Some were sceptical when they first came, but they all verify that Joao's work is simply not explainable with our limited western scientific perspectives and proves the existence of a larger dimension of life.

This healing is based on a philosophy called Spiritism. According to Spiritism, the physical body is believed to be only the current vehicle of the spirit. We have all lived many lifetimes, and when we incarnate into a physical body we are here to learn lessons. Physical illness can be a result of karma or blockage in the spiritual or emotional body. If we can begin to heal these aspects then the physical symptoms can heal also. At the Casa the main tool of healing is the expansive emotions of love, forgiveness and gratitude - essential teachings of all spiritual traditions including Christianity, Judaism, Islam, or Buddhism etc. Many speak of the healing as "God", others as a concept of energy. The film shows how this healing energy can be received as a tangible physical experience, which can be accessed through love, prayer or meditation.

As the weeks pass, we follow Lya's emotional and physical journey - her hopes, visions, fears, and realisations. Her physical pain from the bone cancer begins to diminish and she takes less and less pain medication. After 4 weeks Lya is pain free she is no longer taking any painkillers and is walking easily. Her husband Ian is ecstatic. Lya asks the spirit entity how her cancer is going. He tells her the cancer is much smaller but it is still there and it will take time to go away. Lya has recently returned from Brazil and is feeling really well. I will follow her progress in the next year including any medical tests she decides to do. I will also chart the progress of the other people featured and wherever possible validate the results with medical tests and reports from doctors.

The healings at Abadiania highlight our own role in helping to heal our illness. The fact that this centre is now attracting more and more people from all over the world indicates there is a growing need and desire to explore alternatives to purely western medicine and the purely scientific approach. Dr Katherine Weiser one of the doctors interviewed says "This will be the new medicine of the future. The results and techniques of what is happening here will one day be formulated by the scientific world to create a new paradigm of healing that integrates the spiritual and physical. This is why this place is so important."

Fundraising Screening - Tuesday August 16, 2005

Bio Michelle Mahrer


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