To the Editors:
I have heard somewhere in the past that the only answer to calumny is silence. But your review of my forthcoming book, Arigo: Surgeon of the Rusty Knife…by Martin Gardner [NYR, May 16] has gone so far beyond calumny that he cannot remain unanswered.
There is a world of difference between healthy criticism and vicious, scurrilous attacks. In effect, he “reviewed” the book before he even read it, by writing my publishers months ago a long condemnatory letter which paralleled his present review, simply because he heard the book was coming out.
In my note at the beginning of Arigo I mention that the story is strange and incredible, but that there are undisputed facts that cannot be altered even by the most obdurate skeptic. Then the introductory note goes on to say:
It is an established fact that Ze Arigo, the peasant Brazilian surgeon-healer, could cut through the flesh and viscera with an unclean kitchen- or pocketknife and there would be no pain, no hemostasis—the tying off of blood vessels—and no need for stitches. It is a fact that he could stop the flow of blood with a sharp verbal command. It is a fact that there would be no ensuing infection, even though no antisepsis was used.
It is a fact that he could write swiftly some of the most sophisticated prescriptions in modern pharmacology, yet he never went beyond third grade and never studied the subject. It is a fact that he could almost instantly make clear, accurate, and comfirmable diagnoses or blood pressure readings with scarcely a glance at the patient.
It is a fact that both Brazilian and American doctors have verified Arigo’s healings and have taken explicit color motion pictures of his work and operations. It is a fact that Arigo treated over three hundred patients a day for nearly two decades and never charged for his services.
It is a fact that among his patients were leading executives, statesmen, lawyers, scientists, doctors, aristocrats from many countries, as well as the poor and desolate. It is a fact that Brazil’s former President, Juscelino Kubitschek, the creator of the capital city of Brasilia and himself a physician, brought his daughter to Arigo for successful treatment. It is a fact that Arigo brought about medically confirmed cures in cases of cancer and other fatal diseases that had been given up as hopeless by leading doctors and hospitals in some of the most advanced countries in the Western world.
But none of these facts, all carefully brought together and examined, can add up to an explanation. And it is for this reason that this story is so difficult to write….
It was difficult to write. But not half so difficult as encountering an hysterical diatribe (certainly not a critique) by a person who is so afraid to face facts and history that he descends to unprecedented levels of calumny.
This reviewer seems to want to rewrite Brazilian history, and to pretend that Arigo never existed. He ignores the conservatism with which the book is written, and the central thrust of the entire story: There exist certain phenomena which have yet to be explained. Science is just beginning to explore these by-passed pockets. They should be cautiously explored under meticulous controls.
This is exactly what the book says. Yet your reviewer utilizes two-and-a-half columns of your space to vilify documented records which are plain and simple facts. I went to great pains not to extrapolate.
There are two independent advance reviews from highly-respected publishing trade journals which seem to take a totally different point of view in reviewing the book:
- Publisher’s Weekly: “How Arigo did what he did remains a subject for wonder and conjecture. That he was a psychic healer of phenomenal powers the reader of this well-documented study will hardly doubt.”
- The Kirkus Reviews: “…his immaculately objective report will unnerve the most stalwart skeptic…. Fuller does not proselytize….
But it is not simply a divergence of opinion that surfaces here. Your reviewer has made statements which go so far beyond the bounds of decency that I am stunned that anyone could stoop to such a level. (https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1974/07/18/trick-or-treatment/)
Full text of "Arigo: surgeon of the rusty knife"
In New Age Medicine: A Christian Perspective on Holistic Health Paperback – January 1, 1988 Christian authors Paul C. Reisser (Author), Teri K. Reisser (Author), also investigate Arigo. Maybe you think the Egyptian magicians who duplicated the first 3 miracles of Moses were also frauds. Most of what is real is unseen, and demons can have advanced knowledge of both the human body as well as technology (UFOs), and in the latter days of the latter days,
then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming: Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness. (2 Thessalonians 2:8-12)