Chico Xavier

On Good Friday, April 2, 2010, Brazil celebrated what would have been the 100th birthday of Chico Xavier. Xavier is revered by Brazilians, particularly the people of Uberaba, where he lived in the state of Minas Gerais. He is widely regarded as the face of the Spiritist movement. The anniversary of his birth is also being marked by the release of a film biography.

Chico Xavier is the most famous and prolific practitioner of psychography, commonly known as spirit writing or automatic writing. Using this technique of transcribing without awareness or premeditation, Xavier produced over 400 books, some of them in foreign languages he didn't know.

The respect for Xavier in Brazil is akin to the reputation of Mother Teresa in India. He was hailed as a living example of a true Christian, thanks to his dedication to making himself and his talents as a medium available to anyone who requested them. The wealth he accumulated from donations and his writings was distributed among the needy of Uberaba and numerous charities.

It was common for celebrities to visit Xavier’s home in Uberaba. For more than 30 years he was seen as a kind of Christian guru. In his teachings, Xavier made it clear that every country had a role in spreading the Gospel. He is known for declaring that the term “foreign” or foreigner should be stricken from the dictionary.

Despite the power and appeal of his message, Xavier eagerly professed that none of the abilities attributed to him were really his, but rather he was a channel for the work of the spirits. He never attempted to perform miracles such as healing people.

The phenomenon of psychography, or spirit writing, is an age-old mystery and decried by skeptics who point out there’s no way to prove the author of the writings is anyone other than the writer. Proponents of automatic writing, however, insist that although deception is not unheard of, there are genuine practitioners of spirit writing, like Xavier. The most famous proponents of automatic writing were the Surrealists of early 20th century France.

Xavier’s authenticity was verified in at least one regard – his own demise. In a TV interview years before his death, he remarked he would like to die on a day where there was a national celebration occurring so that his passing would not bring sorrow. In fact, he died on the same day the Brazilian soccer team won the World Cup in 2002.

He “wrote” one of his many books in English, entitled Between Brothers of Other Lands, while visiting the US in 1965. There he introduced Spiritism to meetings of like-minded individuals, often referred to as spiritualists in the US. His presence helped inspire the creation of a Spiritist center in Washington, D.C. in the 1960s, which was called the Christian Spiritist Center. They were a loose organization of seekers, bound by their common belief in spiritual evolution and reincarnation. Xavier introduced Americans to the Christian aspects of the Spiritist movement, which originated in the work of the 19th century French educator, Allan Kardec.

Certainly the willingness of Xavier to dispense with his book royalties and his kindness and patience with all those, rich and poor, who wished an audience with him lend certain credence to his life’s work. Additionally, there are thousands of Brazilians who personally witnessed his medium powers and insist they were authentic.

To this day, what many Westerners would view as a psychic cult led by a medium of people longing to communicate with departed loved ones is considered an important religion in Brazil. Spiritists, along with followers of other religions like Buddhism, believe death is merely another dimension, and life may be viewed as providing a body or vehicle for the spirit.

I have a friend in Curitiba who visited Chico Xavier, hoping to speak to his deceased mother. Xavier was able to “write” a letter from the mother to her son in which she mentioned details that Xavier could not have known.

Curitiba has several Spiritist centers, where followers practice what they consider to be a religion, a philosophy, and a science. One center, the Brazilian Society for Spiritual Studies, offers courses and spiritual guidance as well as operating a charity. Followers are encouraged to seek help from the center’s mediums as well as instructed in the principles of Spiritism: spiritual evolution, charitable work, and lifelong study.

At the center, members absorb the works of Kardec or traditional subjects such as physics and journalism. The relentless pursuit of knowledge is one of the foundations of Spiritism and was diligently practiced by Chico Xavier. For Spiritists, as they are known in Brazil, the purpose of life is to learn, grow, and evolve. This explains their emphasis on education. Like many followers of Eastern religions, Spiritists recognize the role of learning as the pathway to a better understanding of God. This in turn offers a way of coming closer to God without necessarily having a clear definition or concept of God.

Members of Spiritist churches, designated during meetings by their white aprons, also practice “passe,” the holding up of hands for the passing of positive energy. “Passe” can be practiced individually or in groups with no regard to whether the recipients are healthy or ill.

There are numerous denominations of Christian Messianic churches in Brazil that also practice variations of “passe” under different names or with one hand instead of two. It is common for Roman Catholic families to invite followers of such churches into their homes when a family member is sick to have them hold their hands close to the ailing body for positive energy and relief from suffering.

Brazil’s Catholics differentiate passe from the evangelical practice of “laying of hands” to cure diseases, the primary difference being evangelicals touch their subjects in order to cure them, and in passe there is no touching involved, and it can be applied to healthy individuals as well.

Thanks to Xavier and others, the Christian movement known as Spiritism has more followers in Brazil than any other country in the world. Allan Kardec, the Frenchman who defined Spiritism, also did not consider himself a healer, nor did he proclaim his talents as proof of a divine calling to riches and fame. Kardec was a professor of mathematics, physics, and chemistry and often gave free courses to the poor. Communicating with the spirits of dead people was not uncommon among 19th century educated Europeans during seances. Kardec found the subject so fascinating that although he himself was not a medium, he assembled all the information he could find by witnessing such events and interviewing mediums.

Kardec coined the term “spiritism” in his first book on the subject, The Spirits’ Book, in 1857. (This book is still in print today and available in English.) He did not view spiritism as a religion but rather as a science. The book was followed by a series of others Kardec wrote, and they have come to be known as the Spiritist Codification.

Kardecist Spiritism became immensely popular in the late 1960s and early 1970s thanks to Chico Xavier’s public presentations and live TV appearances, with audience members requesting spiritual communication and then verifying the details of the communication.

If Spiritism can be viewed as a form of spiritualism, the belief in forces of energy in the universe having greater powers than we, than it is not altogether different from the New Age spiritual movement of the US. The American New Age movement tapped into the most primitive beliefs in the power of the sun and moon and water, pantheistic concepts going back to the dawn of humanity.

Xavier, like most Brazilians, was a Roman Catholic, and he made it clear that should anything in his spirit writing contradict the words of Jesus, Xavier’s followers were to disregard the writing. During his lifetime, Liberation Theology became popular in the Catholic churches of Brazil and throughout Latin America, a religious philosophy that distances itself from the Vatican, and like Spiritists, views death as simply another dimension. It is common to hear Catholic priests in Brazil speak about reincarnation.

In this light it is easy to recognize the way in which Chico Xavier’s popularity signals Brazil’s unique place in the world. For Brazil’s Catholics, finding a place for Spiritism in their Christian belief system was not a leap. Like Kardec, followers of Spiritism see no conflict between ancient beliefs and modern religion. The 19th century medium’s role of communicating with spirits is one dating back to the shamans of Native Americans.