Antonio Noe Zavaleta's Niño Fidencio and Curandismo Page and the Just Published Sagradas Escrituras

Another note on Mexico's best-known folk-Catholic mediumnistic healer of the 20th century, Niño Fidencio. (See my earlier posts about El Niño here and here.)

Research, how I relish research; yet, it's endless. When I start a book project, I feel as if I am setting out on a path towards a goal… some final, pile-driven signpost of understanding. But like life, it's a path, the journey is the thing. So I've published my book, Metaphysical Odyssey into the Mexican Revolution: Francisco I. Madero and His Secret Book, Spiritist Manual, and over the past several months, I've updated it (it's in Kindle and print-on-demand paperback) several times, fixing typos, fiddling with the bibliography, adding a map, an index, then more corrections to the index, and so on. Minor changes, but very nice for me in this digital age to be able to make at the click of a mouse. But a point comes when one really must say, pencils down. It is what it is. And further corrections must await a new edition, a properly identified one with a new ISBN and an epilogue. And I'm already thinking what will go in there…

One important thing I did not know was just pointed out to me in an email by Antonio Noe Zavaleta, who is Professor of Anthropology and Sociology at the University of Texas Brownsville and co-author with Alberto Salinas, Jr of the both excellent and fascinating Curandero Conversations: Niño Fidencio, Shamanism, and Healing Traditions of the Borderlands: Cipriana "Panita" Zapata de Robles, a "cajita" or mediumnistic follower and channeler of the Niño Fidencio, entrusted Professor Zavaleta to publish the Escrituras, or scriptures left by El Niño, who died in 1938, along with further teachers channeled after his death. These Professor Zavaleta published last year, 2013.

It's all in Spanish except for a last section by Dr Zavaleta, "What Is This Book?" The first two paragraphs:

This book contains the original Scriptures or Sagradas Escrituras of José Fidencio Sintora Constanino, known as El Niño Fidencio (1898 1938).

The Escrituras are the scriptural teachings of El Niño when he walked the Earth; they continued to be documented by his followers after his death. The teachings are the basis of his core-belief system which  he left for all of us to read and examine. The Sagradas Escrituras have never been published before.

> Dr Zavaleta's research page on Niño Fidencio
> Universidad Autónomo de Ciudad Juárez webpage on the history of the Iglesia Fidencista Cristiana
> El Niño Fidencio: El Libro de las Sagradas Escrituras (link to amazon.com paperback)
> And Kindle

A further note. For my book about Francisco I. Madero, leader of Mexico's 1910 Revolution and President of Mexico, 1911-1913-- and, yes, a Spiritist medium-- I've been reading about mediums for such an age that sometimes I forget how shocking the subject can be for most readers. So hey, dear reader, if you need to, just take a deep breath. I don't ask anyone to believe this or that, simply that the historical record shows that, indeed, Madero was a medium and his metaphysics had their root in a rich, deep-rooted and international esoteric matrix.

Speaking of international connections, there's a book to write on the relationships among the Spiritist healers / psychic surgeons of Mexico, Philippines and Brazil-- though I'm not the one to do it. I'm back working on the Marfa Mondays podcasts and my book about Far West Texas. Coming soon: a post about the awesome (in ye olde sense of the word) rock of the Lower Pecos.

COMMENTS always welcome.

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SURF ON

Madam Mayo
>Niño Fidencio: De Roma a Espinazo
>José Sintora Constantino, El Niño Fidencio an excerpt from my book 
> Catherine L. Albanese's A Republic of Mind and Spirit: A Cultural History of American Metaphysical Religion
> Una Ventana al Mundo Invisible (A Window to the Invisible World): Master Majur and the Smoking Signatures

And over on the home page, www.cmmayo.com 
> My recent book, Metaphysical Odyssey into the Mexican Revolution
> Excerpts from my translation of Francisco I. Madero's Manual espírita, Spiritist Manual
> Recommended Books on Mexico
> Marfa Mondays: Looking an Mexico in New Ways: An Interview with John Tutino