In Brazil, when I saw this article in the newspapers about a healer, I decided that I was going to go see what this was all about. So, at 6o’clock in the morning, on a Monday morning, I arrived at this address in the newspaper, and there were lines around the block. People waiting to be treated by this healer.

I said, “Excuse me, but I’d very much like to observe you, if possible.” And he looked at me, and he said, “I don’t want any publicity. I don’t want any sensationalism. I have a job to do, and I explained to him, “No, I’m an academic.” And I finally convinced him, and he said, “Okay, you could not only observe me. You can actually help me, and he puts a tray in my hand with scalpels, tweezes, gauze, and a whole bunch things.

He then takes a pair of tweezes off the tray in my hand, and he rams it into the eye of this guy, and levers it under the eye, and kind of like pops the eye out, and switches hands, picks up a scalpel off the tray, and starts scraping the eye. And I’m standing there like this, looking. Don’t drop the tray. Don’t fall over. Keep watching.