Antonio C. Agpaoa (1939-1982) most well known as Tony Agpaoa was a Filipino practitioner of

psychic surgery An alleged psychic surgeon at work Psychic surgery is a pseudoscientific medical fraud in which practitioners create the illusion of performing surgery with their bare hands and use sleight of hand, fake blood, and animal parts to convince t ...

. He worked in

Manila Manila ( , ; fil, Maynila, ), officially the City of Manila ( fil, Lungsod ng Maynila, ), is the capital of the Philippines, and its second-most populous city. It is highly urbanized and, as of 2019, was the world's most densely populate ...

. It was alleged that Agpaoa could remove tissue from the body of patients without making an incision. However,

magicians Magician or The Magician may refer to: Performers * A practitioner of magic (supernatural) * A practitioner of magic (illusion) * Magician (fantasy), a character in a fictional fantasy context Entertainment Books * ''The Magician'', an 18th-ce ...

and skeptics were convinced his feats were the result of conjuring tricks. In 1968, Agpaoa was arrested and charged for fraud in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

for pretending to mend a bone in a patients neck. American surgeon William A. Nolen has written "According to the A.M.A. he had separated hundreds of patients from their life savings and had cured no one." Magician

James Randi James Randi (born Randall James Hamilton Zwinge; August 7, 1928 – October 20, 2020) was a Canadian-American stage magician, author and scientific skeptic who extensively challenged paranormal and pseudoscientific claims. Rodrigues 2010p. ...

has noted that Agpaoa had his own

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removed in a hospital in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

, instead of visiting a psychic surgeon.Randi, James. (1982). ''

The Truth About Uri Geller ''The Truth About Uri Geller'', originally published as ''The Magic of Uri Geller'' in 1975, is a 1982 book by magician and skeptic James Randi about alleged psychic Uri Geller. In the book, Randi challenges Geller's assertions that he performs p ...

''. Prometheus Books. p. 182. "Tony Agpaoa, one of the wealthiest men in the Philippines as a result of his quackery, had his own appendix removed — in San Francisco, in a real hospital."

References

1939 births 1982 deaths Filipino psychics Spiritualists Psychic surgeons {{Philippines-bio-stub