BADIANIA, Brazil – John of God, is the world’s greatest psychic surgeon.

John of God grabs a kitchen knife from a silver tray and appears to scrape it over the right eye of a believer. The “psychic surgeon” then wipes a viscous substance from the blade onto the patient’s shirt.

The procedure is repeated on the left eye of Juan Carlos Arguelles, who recently traveled thousands of miles from Colombia to see the healer.

For 12 years, Arguelles says, he suffered from keratoconus, which thinned his cornea and severely blurred his vision.

John of God is Joao Teixeira de Faria, a 69-year-old miracle man and medium to those who believe. He’s a dangerous hoax to those who do not.

For five decades he’s performed “psychic” medical procedures like that for Arguelles. He asks for no money in exchange for the procedures. Donations are welcomed, however.

The sick and lame who have hit dead ends in conventional medicine are drawn to Abadiania, a tiny town in the green highlands of Goias state, southwest of the capital of Brasilia.

Faria says he’s not the one curing those who come to him. “It’s God who heals. I’m just the instrument.”

“Psychic surgeons” are mostly concentrated in Brazil and the Philippines with roots in spiritualist movements that believe spirits of the dead can communicate with the living. Like Faria, they often appear to go into a trance while doing their work, allowing God, dead doctors or other spirits to flow through them.

Such practices have been roundly denounced.

The American Cancer Society has said practitioners of psychic surgery use sleight of hand and animal body parts during procedures to convince patients that what ails them has been snatched away.

But Arguelles, the 29-year-old Colombian who had his eyes worked on by John of God, doesn’t care what the medical establishment says.

A week after visiting Brazil and undergoing the procedure, he said his vision had improved “by 80 percent” and was getting better each day.

…and not delivering them! I’m madder than a surgeon with a rusty scalpel – I went to the doctor’s office the other day and found the old sawbones I’ve been going to for 40 years had hung up his stethoscope – and his replacement was a woman.

This whole idea of women taking men’s jobs is something that has been getting my goat ever since the women’s lib wackos cooked it up back in the 1970s. I say there are some jobs women just weren’t meant to have. I’ve never seen a female football player who could knock over a man. I’ve never seen a female stand-up comic who was funny. And I’ve never seen a gal yet who could pilot a 747.

Let’s face it, women are more qualified to serve coffee or tea on a plane than they are to sit in the cockpit. Would you put your life in the hands of a lady pilot who’s got to pull over every five minutes and ask for directions, and check the rear-view mirror while she puts on her make-up?

And those lady comics – give me a break! All they ever talk about is their feminine health problems. The day you see Ed Anger laughing at a PMS joke is the day I shave my legs and start wearing a garter belt, by jiminey!

Years ago, women used to know their place. They let men handle the important jobs like driving cars, building things, and surgery. They knew there were some jobs they shouldn’t even bother applying for.

Look at my loving wife, Thelma Jean – you never saw her putting on a construction worker’s helmet or driving a truck. She’s always been happy making my dinner, doing my laundry and keeping my house clean. That should be all any woman needs to have a full and satisfying life.

These modern gals have to stick their feminist noses in places they don’t belong – like in a doctor’s office. To make matters worse, the lady doc whose office I wound up in had a male receptionist. And even though this male-secretary was all smiles, I could tell he was plenty upset to be doing a job that was more suited for someone wearing a skirt.

I’m sure that office would’ve been much happier if the man was doing the doctoring and the woman was answering the phones. I guess it makes a kind of sense to have special women doctors for female problems, but there’s no reason on Earth why a man should have to go see a woman doctor.

I figure I’ve made it through 72 years of perfect health without a woman doctor and I plan on making it 20 or 30 more years the same way.

I’ll have to admit this gal tricked me at first because I figured she was just the nurse. But then she had the gall to ask me to take off my shirt. Whoa, Nellie! Ed Anger doesn’t undress in front of any woman, except my wife, and even that’s done in the dark.

This Medicine Gal pulled out a bunch of her medical doohickeys, and I could see she was getting ready to poke me in a way that no woman ever has – or ever will.

Needless to say, I was out of there in a flash – and on my way out the door I told the male-secretary that he could cancel all the appointments the Anger family has with this lady sawbones.

Now I’m gonna go out and find me a new family physician . . . and you can bet your bottom dollar it’ll be a fella!