Silva, Edivaldo Oliveira (ca. 1930-1974)

Brazilian Spiritualist healer specializing in psychic surgery. Born in Vitoria da Conquista, Bahia, he became a schoolteacher, taxidermist, and entomologist. In his later years he studied medicine and law, hoping thereby to qualify as a doctor so that his spiritual healing would be secured against prosecution for illegal medical practice. Although brought up as a Roman Catholic, he was an unconventional Christian who did not endorse the monopoly of the church authorities and developed his own personal theological approach. He did not claim to be formally aligned to Spiritism, the Brazilian form of Spiritualism, although his healing work was ascribed to spirit controls.

He first discovered his healing abilities in 1962, when he visited a neighbor who had a fit of temporary insanity. Silva went into a trance and was taken over by a spirit personality, becoming very violent. When he recovered normal consciousness, his neighbor had been cured.

Later, Silva visited a Spiritist center where he again went into trance, discovering on his way home that he had performed psychic surgery while in this state. Over the next ten years, he performed psychic healing on some 65,000 individuals.

During his healing sessions, Silva went into a trance-like condition while his spirit controls performed the work. He only learned the details of his healing afterward from conversations, photographs, or tape recordings. His spirit controls consisted of an international team that included "Dr. Calazans," "Pierre" (a Frenchman), and "Dr. Fritz" (a German), as well as an Englishman, a Japanese person, an Italian, and a Brazilian.

Silva believed that the psychic surgery operated on two planes—plasmic and ectoplasmic. In the former, red globules were actually separated from the plasma; in the latter, the operation was on a subtle body rather than a physical body. As with other psychic surgeons, he would make instantaneous incisions that were afterward apparently paranormally healed.

Silva was investigated by author Guy Lyon Playfair, a member of the Brazilian Institute for Psycho-Biophysical Research, who spent two years studying Brazilian healers firsthand. Two operations were performed on Playfair himself, who also witnessed the making of an incision in another patient and was allowed to place his fingers into the hole before the flesh was reunited.

Silva performed over 10,000 psychic operations during his lifetime. He died in 1974 after being involved in a car accident.

Sources:

Playfair, Guy Lyon. The Flying Cow. 1975. Reprinted as The Unknown Power. New York: Pocket Books, 1975.