Zé Arigó worked as a farm labourer and truck driver. It would be difficult to imagine him as a surgeon.

Arigó, one of eight children of a landowner, was born on 18 October 1921. Although he had a normal childhood, he claims to have been haunted by a very bright light that almost blinded him. Then he began to hear a voice speaking a foreign language.

At the age of 25, he married Arlete André, his fourth cousin, and left home to work in an iron mine.

As his children arrived one after the other, Arigó began to have many nightmares and severe headaches. In his dreams, he always heard the same guttural voice, in a language he did not understand. One night, he had a clear dream. He was in an operating theatre, among doctors and nurses in old clothes, gathered around a patient. Leading the operation was a stout, bald man whose voice sounded very familiar.

Night after night, the same dream repeated itself and, after a while, the figure at the centre of the nightmare presented himself as Dr. Adolpho Fritz, a German doctor who had disembodied during the First World War, without finishing his work on Earth. He told Arigó that he had chosen him as a medium to carry out his work. Other spirits who had been incarnated physicians would also assist him. Arigo was to devote himself to the task of healing the sick and afflicted.

When he woke up frightened, Arigó jumped out of bed and ran out into the street, screaming and naked. His relatives and neighbours carefully carried him home, seeing him crying copiously. Doctors ordered clinical and psychological tests, the results of which showed that he was completely normal, but the nightmares and headaches continued. The village parish priest tried to help him with exorcism sessions (he believed that Arigó was possessed by a demon), but to no avail.

Pressed by the unpleasant situation, Arigó decided to comply with the requests made to him in his dreams by the German doctor. After meeting a crippled friend who had to use crutches to walk, Arigo suddenly found himself screaming:

– It's time to get off these crutches!

And pulling them, he ordered the man to walk, which he did, and he walked perfectly from that day on.

It so happened that, at the time, a Brazilian senator, Lúcio Bittencourt, was campaigning in that constituency to stand for re-election, and also for the election of Getúlio Vargas, the Brazilian Labour Party's candidate for the Presidency of the Republic. The doctors had diagnosed Lúcio Bittencourt with lung cancer and advised him to undergo surgery immediately, preferably in the United States. In reality, they had little hope of success.

He decided to postpone the operation until after the election campaign and, when he went to Congonhas do Campo, he met Arigó, who had already been a trade union leader, and, impressed by his magnetism, invited him to participate in a rally in Belo Horizonte, where they stayed in the same hotel.

Later, when Lúcio Bittencourt was lying in bed, pensive and worried about his illness, he saw the bedroom door slowly open. A dark figure, which seemed to be that of Arigó, entered the room and switched on the light. It was Arigo, standing motionless with an open knife in his hand. Dazed, the senator tried to sit up, but a strange weakness came over him and he fell backwards. Everything became confused and finally it became dark. The next morning, when he woke up, he realised that his pyjama jacket was torn at the back and covered with clotted blood. The cancer had been removed and, as was later confirmed, the senator was completely cured.

Despite persecution by the Church and the authorities, Arigó founded a clinic where he treated up to 200 people a day free of charge.

Two North American scientists (Dr. Puharich and Dr. Belk) came especially to study and test the phenomena with Arigó, accompanied by two interpreters from the University of Rio de Janeiro.

Jorge Rizzini, a well-known Brazilian spiritism researcher, offered to film anything that the Americans considered conclusive proof. But how to find something immediately credible that would convince even the most sceptical viewers?

Dr. Puahrich had been suffering from a non-malignant tumour, a lipoma, on the inside of his left elbow for more than seven years, which, although painless, was annoying. A normal operation would have taken about 20 minutes to remove it. After an agonising hesitation, Dr Puahrich decided to ask Arigó to remove the lipoma. All preparations were made for filming the procedure.

When Puahrich arrived at the clinic the next morning, Arigó turned to the patients, who already filled the room, and asked:

– Does anyone have a good Brazilian razor to use with this American?

Although horrified, Puahrich could no longer turn back. Knives appeared everywhere. Arigó chose one and turned to the patient:

– Roll up your sleeve, doctor.

Nervous, the American checked the placement of the camera. Rizzini positioned himself for the shot.

– Look over there! – Arigó recommended.

A few seconds later, Puahrich felt something soft in the palm of his hand, along with the razor. It was the lipoma. He looked at his arm and realised that the area where the tumour had been had swollen completely. There was only a small incision, less than five centimetres, and a small amount of blood. The American experienced only a vague sensation and stated afterwards:

– I felt nothing. I couldn't believe what had happened, and yet it had happened, because there was no doubt about it.

The operation was not followed by any infection and the wound healed completely. Rizzini's film was very clear and showed that the operation had lasted only five seconds. The Americans had no more doubts and were totally convinced of the veracity of the phenomenon.

Arigó continued to practice medicine without ever accepting payment for his services.

Many famous people came into contact with Arigó, among them the daughter of Juscelino Kubitschek. Despite all the benefits Arigó brought to his fellow human beings, he was imprisoned twice on charges of charlatanism, but continued his mission.

Arigo had a dream in which he predicted that he would soon pass into the spiritual realm through a violent death. On 11 June 1971, he was in the clinic as usual, but told his patients that he had to go to a neighbouring town to pick up a second-hand car he had just bought.

And at 12.23 p.m. on 11 January 1971, the medium Zé Arigó, while returning from a farm near Congonhas do Campo – MG, was struck by a sudden illness which caused him to suddenly lose control of his Opala car which, going in the opposite direction, collided head-on with a DNER vehicle. In the violence of the collision, he lost his life as a result of a traumatic brain injury. The brave Arigó, who for two decades cured or alleviated the illnesses and ailments of thousands of patients, thus passed into the spirit world.