Inside the world of Mexico's mysterious faith healers - PHOTO

Award-winning Texas photographer Scott Dalton has traveled to Espinoza, Mexico, to document the extraordinary religious celebration of the county's most revered faith healer, El Nino Fidencio.The result of Dalton's multiple expeditions south of the border is a series of striking images depicting healing rituals combining Catholicism with indigenous traditions.  In Mexico, people afflicted with a physical or spiritual malady are just as likely to seek the help of a faith healer, or curandero, as they are to go to a doctor practicing Western medicine.Of all the curanderos, El Nino Fidencio occupies a special place in the hearts of the faithful. Born in 1898 as José de Jesús Fidencio Constantino Síntora in Guanahuato, the healer has acquired the status of a folk saint, according to Reporting Texas.Although he passed away more than seven decades ago, Fidencio's fame as a miracle worker has continued growing along with the number of his devotees, known as fidencistas. Twice a year - in March and October - thousands of people descend on the remote town of Espinoza to celebrate Fidencio's life and ask his spirit to cure whatever ails them - from headaches and insomnia to infertility and other more serious conditions. Scott Dalton heard of the bi-annual pilgrimage in the 1990s from friends and decided to travel to Mexico and observe the rituals first-hand.He made the trip in 2006 and 2009, photographing scenes from the religious festival seamlessly blending familiar Roman Catholic symbols with more esoteric elements. ‘What interested me in the project was just the idea of faith, and how it takes a variety of forms in peoples’ lives,’ Dalton told Slate. According to Dalton, Fidencio's followers believe that the folk saint's successors, the modern-day healers, can cure ailments by channeling his power. The Houston-based photographer recounted how he witnessed the eyes of curanderos rolling back in their sockets and their voice assuming a high-pitched tone similar to that of Fidencio.Fidencistas follow the Roman Catholic tradition, much like the revered healer himself, but the Church does not recognize him as a saint or miracle worker.In life, Fidencio prescribed herbs for different disorders, pulled teeth and painlessly removed gall stones without anasthesia - all free of charge. It also has been rumored that he was allegedly able to cure cancer and paralysis.But it was his practice of administering sacraments that got him in trouble with the Church.According to anthropologist Raul Cadena, a Catholic bishop met with Fidencio two years before his death and asked him to stop administering rites because he was not an ordained priest.  The healer briefly complied, but later flouted the Church ban. The circumstances of his death in 1938 are shrouded in mystery, with some saying he was felled by an illness, while others claiming Fidencio may have been murdered.(dailymail.co.uk)ANN.Az