Spirit and Spirit Terapy

SIDNEY M.
GREENFIELD
SPIRITS AND SPIRITIST THERAPY IN SOUTHERN BRAZIL:

A CASE STUDY OF AN INNOVATIVE,
SYNCRETIC HEALING GROUP 1
A B S T R A C T . This paper examines the treatment of patients by a group of Spiritist
healers in southern Brazil. After describing and analyzing a healing session, the practices
are shown to be deviant from conventional Spiritism in two directions: (1) they employ a
technique, called apometry, that they claim makes possible the transportation of a part of
the patient's body to the astral world where it is treated by disincarnate doctors who do
past life regressions; and (2) although a conventional Spiritist disobsession is performed,
the healers invoke rival Afro-Brazilian spirits who often are shown to have caused the
patient's symptoms.
Building on the work of Csordas (1983), I hypothesize that the discourse employed by
the healers moves the patient to a new reality or phenomenological world in which s/he is
healed "not in the sense of being restored to the state in which s/he existed prior to the
onset of illness, but in the sense of being rhetorically 'moved' into a state dissimilar from
both pre-illness and illness reality... (Csordas 1983:346)." The new state, in this case, is
the world of Spiritism. Unlike the Catholic Pentecostals Csordas studied who already
were members of a primary group of believers, however, the patients treated by the
Brazilian healers are mostly unaffiliated individuals who face the increasing uncertainty
and insecurity of life in disorganized, anomic, urban Brazil. By encompassing modern
science on the one hand, and aspects of the Afro-Brazilian traditions on the other, this
healing group appeals to the often distraught white middle and lower-middle classes,
providing them with therapeutic meaning that in many cases leads to healing, conversion,
and the sense of security and safety that often accompanies identifying with and
belonging to a religious group.
Strong and
indestructable. Always trying to do better, to become
perfect, to improve our qualities. We are presently on a
mission here on earth, a mission the outcome of which
we do not know, but which inevitably will be for our
good (Lacerda de Azevedo 1988:45, my translation).
We are spirits, immortal and divine.
INTRODUCTION
In the following pages I describe and analyze the therapeutic practices of the
C a s a do J a r d i m healers. Followers of the Spiritist teachings codified by Allan
Kardec (n.d., 1975, 1963) in the mid-19th century, they have built on that
tradition as it has been elaborated in Brazil (Bastide 1978; Cavalcanti 1983;
Greenfield 1987; Hess 1987; Renshaw 1969; Warren 1984), and under the
leadership of Dr. Jose Lacerda de Azevedo, have pushed it beyond what is now
accepted by mainline believers with the addition of developments ranging from
Culture. Medicine and Psychiatry 16: 23-51, 1992.
1992 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.
24
SIDNEY M. GREENFIELD
modem physics on the one hand to Afro-Brazilian religious beliefs on the other.
After presenting case materials and explaining the treatment in terms of the
healers' modified Spiritist belief system, I shall hypothesize, following Csordas
(1983), that the discourse employed by the healers moves the patient to a new
reality or phenomenological world in which s/he is healed "not in the sense of
being restored to the state in which s/he existed prior to the onset of illness, but
in the sense of being rhetorically 'moved' into a state dissimilar from both preillness and illness reality... (Csordas 1983:346). The new state, in this case, is
the world of Spiritism with its distinctive view of humanity and the human
condition. Unlike the Catholic Pentecostals Csordas studied who already were
members of a group of believers, however, the patients treated by the Casa do
Jardim are mostly unaffiliated individuals who face the increasing uncertainty
and insecurity of life in urban Brazil by themselves. By encompassing science
on the one hand, as does conventional Spiritism, and aspects of the AfroBrazilian traditions on the other, Dr. Lacerda and the Casa do Jardim, we shall
see, appeal to the distraught white middle and lower-middle classes, providing
them with therapeutic meaning that in many cases leads to healing, conversion,
and a sense of security and safety that often accompanies identifying with and
belonging to a religious group.
For the past half-century or more Brazil's population has been growing
rapidly while the society has been urbanizing. In 1940, for example, approximately one-third of the reported population of 41 million lived in urban
areas. Today, in contrast, more than two-thirds of the estimated 145 million
people are urban, and there are 10 cities with more than a million inhabitants.
The population of greater Porto Alegre, for example, is in excess of two and
one-half million.
Starting in the 1950s, and continuing through the 1980s, millions of rural
laborers and sharecroppers seeking a better life relocated in the cities where
unfortunately they found inadequate housing, inadequate social services, and
limited employment opportunities. The general welfare, nutritional standards,
and health of Brazil's urban masses today are very poor. In the midst of the
poverty, insufficient employment opportunities, rampant illness, and inadequate
social services, a number of mostly syncretic religious denominations have
come into being, each competing for converts by offering to help those in need
with their problems. One of the many forms of help each offers is healing. As a
result, Brazil's urban sector contains a range of altemative healing systems each
rooted in the religious traditions of its providers. These healing systems, along
with the religions from which they derive, may be thought to constitute competing altematives in the urban market place. Although first directed at the poor, all
segments of the national population have come to participate in the offer to heal
of these fast growing, syncretic urban religions.
SPIRITIST THERAPY IN SOUTHERN BRAZIL
25
A TREATMENT SESSION AT THE CASA DO JARDIM

It was 7 AM on a cold, damp Saturday morning in the middle of winter in the
city of Porto Alegre, capital of Brazil's southernmost state of Rio Grande do
Sul. I had just arrived at a Spiritist center to observe the healing practices of a
group I first had come to know several years previously (Greenfield, 1986).
There already were more than a hundred peopIe waiting in the rain and 35
degree fahrenheit cold to receive treatment. Others would be arriving throughout
the morning. Most of the patients were from the greater Porto Alegre
metropolitan area. Some, however, had travelled from as far away as Brasflia,
the Northeast, and Amazonas. A few even had come from neighboring Umgay
and Argentina. All, it turned out, were suffering from the symptoms of a variety
of illnesses ranging from cancer to depression to drug addiction. They varied in
age from senior citizens in their eighties to teenagers, and there even were a few
small, children. The vast majority were white and of the middle and lowermiddle classes. The poor, so numerous in both Porto Alegro and throughout
Brazil, who are mostly black, were conspicuous by their absence. The patients,
usually accompanied by friends and/or relatives, had come to be treated by a
group of healers known as the Casa do Jardim (Garden House), 2 one of many
religious-based healing groups so common in Brazil's urban sector.
At 8 AM, led by Dr. Lacerda and the Casa do Jardim healer-mediums, the
patients, their friends and relatives - who now numbered several hundred crowded into the auditorium for an invocation that was a short prayer asking the
cooperation of God, Christ, and the spirits in the work that was about to begin.
Then, with the efficiency and resolve that characterizes the group, the members
formed a number of smaller units and went off to separate rooms where they
work in teams of between four and seven individuals. The same individuals tend
to work together week after week. The patients and others, meanwhile, waited in
the assembly room until the number they were given when they registered was
called and they were escorted by a coordinator to the room to which they had
been assigned.
This morning I accompanied Dr. Lacerda and his team. The room I went to
was set up like a classroom, with a table and a blackboard in the front. The
chairs, however, had been moved to the sides. Six, occupied by members of the
healing team, were set out along the side wall. Several others, occupied by
visitors learning the techniques, were near the table where Dr. Lacerda stood. I
sat against the opposite side wall with my video equipment and tape recorder.
Since there was no heat in the building, it was damp and cold. Dr. Lacerda
greeted everyone individually as they entered, while offering some general
words of advice to the visitors observing the techniques, before the first patient
entered.
The patient, a young woman accompanied by her sister, was invited to sit
26
down on a vacant chair located at the back of the room next to one of the
members of the healing team. Her sister sat next to her. Dr. Lacerda greeted
them and asked if they were Spiritists. When they replied in the negative he
asked if they had read any of the writings of Allan Kardec, Chico Xavier, or
other Spiritist authors popular in Brazil. The patient replied that they knew of
the authors and their writings, but had not really read them. To this Dr. Lacerda
intoned that they should. He then asked the patient to tell him her problem.
The woman then explained the symptoms that had brought her to seek the
help of the group. One of the healers seated along the side wall, an elderly white
haired gentleman who also is a physician, however, politely interrupted her after
about a minute to ask a question, the answer to which was followed by several
other questions. Following a brief exchange he told her that it appeared to him
that she had a thyroid problem. This, he went on, is a problem of the somatic
body that is understood and can be treated by conventional medicine. It does not
require the procedures in which the Casa do Jardim specialize. He suggested
that she go to her own physician, or, if she did not have one, she could see him
at his office.
Dr. Lacerda concurred with the diagnosis. He then explained to the patient,
and to the visitors leaming the techniques, that the Saturday sessions were
devoted to helping people with problems which the medical establishment was
not equipped to deal and for which it had no solutions. Since her case was not
one of them, he advised her to take his colleague's advice while reminding her
to read some of the classic Spiritist texts and learn basic doctrine. The two
women then left the room after thanking Dr. Lacerda, Dr. Harv6 and the others
present. 3
The second patient to enter the room was a well dressed woman in her late
thirties. She was accompanied by a distinguished looking man wearing an expensive leather coat who introduced himself as her husband. Dr. Lacerda asked
them both if they were Spiritists. When both said no, he asked if they had read
any of the list of classic books the titles and authors of which he recited rapidly.
When both again said no, he turned to the woman and asked her to tell him her
problem. She said that for the past several months she had been experiencing
debilitating headaches that would not go away. She said that she also was
suffering from excruciating pains in her back and in her legs. She had been to
the doctor, she added, but the medications he had prescribed had not helped.
Before she finished, and without inquiring as to whether she had been to any
other healer, or how she had learned of the group, Dr. Lacerda turned and
shouted the word plataforma (platform) and began to count backwards rather
loudly while waving a metal rod over his head; he brought the rod down and
then up, punctuating each number. Within a few seconds a member of the
healing team seated against the wall, a tiny, dark haired young woman, began to
speak in a voice very different from the one she had used previously to greet her
27
colleagues and the patients. She had gone into trance and was describing a series
of events in which the patient supposedly was now participating. The patient,
meanwhile, had stopped speaking and, although now watching what was
happening, also was listening passively to another member of the healing team
seated just beside her. What was happening, I was told later, was that a part of
the spirit body of the patient had been separated from her physical body and
transported, on the platform, to the spirit world where it was sent to a consultation room in a hospital there. A spirit doctor was diagnosing her symptoms. The
dark haired young woman had accompanied her and was reporting the diagnosis
back to the attentive members of the Casa do Jardim.
THE SPIRITIST VIEW OF THE EVENT
To assist the reader in understanding this, let me now turn to some aspects of
Spiritist belief with special emphasis on the relationship between spirits and
human beings.
Spiritism is a belief system that had its modem beginnings in Hydesville,
New York with the Fox sisters in the mid-19th century (lsaacs 1957; Moore
1977; Nelson 1969). Recognition of the possibility of communication with the
world of the spirits of the dead then spread to other parts of North America and
from there to Europe where it was codified into a religious and philosophical
system by a French school teacher, Hippolyte Leon Denizart Rivail, who
published the results of his efforts under the pseudonym of Allan Kardec
(Kardec n.d., 1975, 1963). Copies of Kardec's writings soon were brought to
Brazil where they became popular first among the upper classes, and by the end
of the nineteenth century, among the population at large (Bastide 1978; Renshaw 1969).
In Kardec's hands the idea of two worlds, one of the living and the other of
the dead, with communication possible between the two, was elaborated into a
complex philosophical system with a moral emphasis. Below I summarize the
moral system Kardec developed that is so important for understanding the
healing practices of the Casa do Jardim. First, however, a few words must be
said about the Spiritist view of the human body.
Spiritists believe that God created not one, but two worlds, the invisible one
inhabited by spirits and the visible, or material one in which we live (Cavalcanti
1983; Greenfield 1987). The spirits of the invisible or astral world are assumed
to be the vital element in this dual universe. Each incarnates periodically, which
is to say comes to earth - or some other planet on which life is assumed to exist.
There it is exposed to what are considered challenges from which it may learn
lessons that may contribute to its moral advancement. Human beings, in the
Spiritist view, are spirits temporarily incarnate in a material body.
Spirits, along with everything else in the astral world, are said to be made of
28
materials that are of but minimal density. They have bodies, but these are so fine
that they cannot be seen or otherwise perceived by us and would not be able to
function in our world of very dense objects. 4 To be able to participate in the
visible world each spirit, when it incarnates, must obtain a body of appropriate
density.
The creation of material bodies is a biological process of the material world
and Spiritists accept biology as we know it along with its view of reproduction
(Mundim 1981:35). Only in their view, the union of sperm and egg is guided by
forces in the spirit world. "The spirit architects map the chromosomes of the
body that will serve as the instrument of the reincarnating spirit, including the
illnesses from which it will suffer during the lifetime as part of the learning
experience of its mission" (Mundim 1981:35).
Once embryogenesis is begun, the spirit is said to attach itself to the newly
formed fetus by means of its perispirit, a semi-material, bioplasmic substance
that is a permanent part of every spirit being. Its perispirit is said to provide each
spirit with its defining characteristics, the equivalent of its personality. The
perispirit then remains as a permanent link between the spirit and the physical
body for the duration of the incarnation.
The coupling of spirit and material body by means of the perispirit takes place
in a restricted segment of space surrounding the material body (see Greenfield
1987). The chacras of the perispirit are brought in line exactly with the plexus
of the somatic body uniting the otherwise separate dimensions of the dual
universe. Once this happens, a symbiotic relationship is said to be established
between the spirit and its somatic or material body.
Spiritists generally believe that each living human being is composed
minimally of what might be considered three distinct bodies: the spiritual, the
perispiritual, and the material. Most, however, believe that there are more than
three. Dr. Lacerda, for example, speaks of seven, two of which are material and
five which are spirit bodies (Lacerda de Azevedo 1988:29-45). It is the last of
the five spirit bodies, the astral, that is of interest to us because it is the part of
Dona Anna that was transported on the platform to the spiritual plane for
diagnosis.
Dr. Lacerda believes that he has learned and perfected a way of uncoupling
the several bodies that according to Spiritism are brought together in the making
of each living human being. He calls the procedure apometrfa, apometry, from
the Greek words apo, meaning "over and above" and metron, meaning
"measure" (Lacerda de Azevedo 1988:81).
In 1965, a Puerto Rican by the name of Luiz Rodrigues, who had emigrated to
Brazil and was living in Rio de Janeiro, visited the Spiritist Hospital in Porto
Alegre. While there he explained in broad outline the technique that would
enable Dr. Lacerda and the other Casa do Jardim healers to do something new,
unique, and innovative (Lacerda de Azevedo 1988:81).
29
Conventional Spiritist practice, from the time of Kardec, was for incarnate
healer-mediums to Receive the spirits of deceased healer-doctors who through
them brought the knowledge and techniques of the spirit world to help the
living. Sr. Rodrigues' system reversed this. Instead of the "advanced" treatments
and techniques being brought from the spirit world to the material through
mediums, he suggested separating the several bodies of the patient and sending
the astral one temporarily off to the other plane to be treated there by spirit
doctors in a spirit hospital.
Although the emphasis of Spiritism is on life in this world, Brazilian mediums
have been learning about the astral world for well over a century now. Building
on the foundation laid down by Kardec, enlightened spirits have sent messages
"psychographed" by mediums - such as Francisco Candido "Chico" Xavier,
Hercilio Maes, and the others Dr. Lacerda names when he asks each patient
about their familiarity with the doctrine - that told about life on the astral plane
(see Hess in press). Their readers learned that, among other things, spirits also
get sick; and when they do they are treated by doctors in spirit hospitals. The
techniques used there are believed to be much more advanced than anything we
know about. Healer-mediums receiving spirit doctors occasionally show us
some of these advanced techniques. Would it not be so much better, proposed
Sr. Rodrigues, if we sent our sick to the astral world for treatment? The idea, Dr.
Lacerda and his colleagues reasoned, was a good one; the practical question was
how to do it?
Modem physics provided an answer (see Lacerda de Azevedo 1988:67-72).
Dr. Lacerda maintains that he has developed a way to uncouple the several
bodies that constitute a human being and then transport the astral one, which is
the body in which the spirits live on the astral plane, to the spirit world. He does
this by applying energy in large amounts. When he counts, punctuating each
number with the downwards movement of a metal rod, he is directing the energy
he believes he has learned to control. 5 When he did this with Dona Anna, he was
able to uncouple her astral body from the rest of her and send it to the spirit
world for diagnosis and treatment.
By applying the appropriate mathematics a trained person can enable the spirit to
uncouple itself from its material body with considerable efficiency. This is apometry,
...the treatment we use to treat both the living and the dead. Apometric uncoupling has
opened the doors to enable us to systematically investigate the astral dimension, a
universe truly parallel to ours (Lacerda de Azevedo 1988:37. My translation).
Certain mediums, Dr. Lacerda maintains, having rejected what he considers to
be the unenlightened stubbomess of the heads of the Spiritist Federation of Porto
Alegre, have the ability to uncouple their astral bodies on their own. Some, like
the dark haired young woman mentioned above, are able to accompany patients
to the other world. Dr. Lacerda has used this ability to negotiate a special
arrangement with the hospital A m o r e C a r i d a d e (Love and Charity). Dr.
30
Louren~o, the director of this institution in the other world, is a friend. He has
been incorporating in Dr. L a c e r d a ' s wife, Dona Yolanda - one o f the mediums
in the group - for many years. After some lengthy negotiation Dr. Louren~o
agreed to make the hospital available to Dr. Lacerda and his Casa do Jardim
colleagues on Saturday mornings. He was attending Dona Anna when her astral
body arrived at the hospital.
THE THERAPEUTIC ENCOUNTER

The reader will recall that Helena, the medium in trance, had just started to
report Dr. Louren(;o's diagnosis o f Dona A n n a ' s illness. A l m o s t immediately
another medium j o i n e d her in trance, her astral body now in the spirit hospital
Amor e Caridade. Both then described a series o f events they said were
appearing on a large screen. Dr. Lourenqo was bringing back scenes from
previous lives o f the patient to determine the cause o f her head, back, and leg
pains.
After hearing the first few words uttered by the mediums, Dr. Lacerda turned
to the visitors and exclaimed: magia negra, black magic. He had heard enough
to know that the cause o f Dona A n n a ' s pains were black magic.
The mediums then reported an incident appearing on the screen in which the
spirit o f Dona A n n a inflicted a great injustice on another spirit that is now
incarnate as her sister-in-law. The two women have never gotten along since the
day each had married into the family o f Dona A n n a ' s husband and his brother.
The spirit o f the other woman was swearing to get revenge on the other who had
treated her so unjustly.
Suddenly another medium seated along the side wall opened his closed eyes
and began to speak. "Where am I?" a weak, cracking voice, very different from
his previous strong baritone said. " H o w did I get here?"
Dr. Lacerda turned to the medium and said, "Calma, relax, we only wish to
talk with you."
"I d o n ' t want to talk to you," replied the voice. "Let me go, I d o n ' t want to be
here. I d o n ' t like it here! It is so bright! M y eyes hurt! I want to go! Leave me
alone!"
But Dr. Lacerda persisted. W o u l d you not prefer to come out of the dark? To
leave the dirt and filth? W o u l d n ' t you like to give up those ugly claws and the
dirty fur?
The voice responded in the negative maintaining that it did not want to be
there. It did not want to continue the conversation. Gradually, however, through
his questions, Dr. Lacerda engaged the reluctant spirit in conversation.
As a dialogue developed, it soon became clear to me that I was witnessing a
disobsession (see Milner 1980; Hess 1989), one o f five treatment modalities
31
employed by Spiritist healers (Greenfield 1987). 6 Dr. Lacerda was slowly and
skillfully indoctrinating the spirit in Kardecist morality. But the spirit, whose
physical description was gradually made clear to the observers, was unlike
anything I had ever known to appear at a Spiritist disobsession.
Spiritist mediums regularly receive disincamate spirits who return to the
material plane and perturb and/or obsess unknowing individuals causing them to
behave in ways that often are diagnosed as mental illnesses. Most mental illness,
according to Spiritists, is caused by errant and/or malevolent spirits imposing
themselves on the living.
At a disobsession a group o f mediums sit around a table while a leader well
versed on Spiritist philosophy, who usually is not a medium, directs the session.
One by one the mediums incorporate disincamate beings who are trying to take
over a body that already is occupied, causing the symptoms o f a patient who has
come for help. The patient, it might be noted, need not be and usually is not
present at the disobsession. The leader engages each troublemaking spirit in turn
in conversation. Once the spirit's attention is gained, usually by asking it leading
questions, the leader explains to it that it does not belong in the material world.
The body in which it is trying to incorporate does not belong to it. It has no body
because it is presently disincamate. It should stop bothering the person it is
disturbing and return to the spirit plane where it should behave itself and prepare
to reincarnate. Only in this way, it is gently but forcefully reminded, will it be
able to advance to a higher stage of development.
In the course of the dialogue with each obsessing spirit, which usually lasts
but a few minutes, the leader will summarize the basics of Kardecian moral
philosophy. This is to educate or indoctrinate the offending spirit, who is the
immediate target of the short lecture. The mediums and others present, however,
also benefit from the repeated affirmation of their shared belief system.
A MORAL PHILOSOPHY OF TRANSCENDENTAL PROGRESS

Previously I said that Kardec took the idea of communication between the living
and the dead and developed it into a complex moral and philosophical system.
The codifier o f Spiritism was a product o f the nineteenth century who accepted
its overriding belief in progress. But unlike most nineteenth century thinkers
who looked for progress at the societal and cultural levels, Kardec was interested in the individual, a t the spirit level. The spirits, as we have seen, were
postulated as the vital element in the dual universe. By reincarnating they
animated the material world. Each spirit was assumed by Kardec to be set at the
time o f creation on a progressive course that is to lead it inevitably to moral
perfection. Morality was defined in Judeo-Christian terms. Christ is seen by
Spiritists not as the son o f God, but as the most advanced spirit ever to come to
32
this planet. His life is taken as the standard, or exemplar of moral perfection held
out for all, both incarnate and disincamate, to emulate; and his words, especially
as set out in the gospels - as they were interpreted by Kardec (1963) - are taken
as expressing all that is good and moral.
Each spirit, starting in ignorance but capable of learning, is assumed to set out
on an inevitable course the end goal o f which is to perfect itself morally. To
attain this transcendental goal, each, as we have seen, is assumed to incarnate
periodically in the material world which may be thought o f as a kind of schoolhouse where spirits come to be presented with experiences from which they can
learn lessons that will enable them to progress morally. Spirits, however, are
assumed to have free will. They may choose to benefit from or to disregard any
specific lesson to which they are exposed.
As each goes through its individual transcendental trajectory, incamating,
disincamating, and reincarnating across the millennia, while not always aware of
the moral imperative to do good and reject evil, each spirit accumulates what is
referred to as its Karma, the cumulative balance of its previous experience
which some view as a series o f moral plusses and minuses. This Karma becomes
a part of them and their being in both worlds.
The heart of the Kardecian system is the doing of good, the quintessence of
which is charity. "Without Charity," Spiritists assert, usually referring to the title
of chapter 15 of Kardec's The Spirits' Book, "there is no salvation. ''7
The role o f Spiritism then is to assist spirits, both incarnate and in the astral
plane, to understand the importance of moral progress and to facilitate them in
achieving it. This point is basic to understanding all Spiritist therapy and
specifically what the members o f the Casa do Jardim are doing.
INTEGRATING AFRO-BRAZILIAN SPIRITS IN THE SPIRITIST DISOBSESSION

Dr. Lacerda, as I noted, was treating Dona Anna by performing a disobsession.
He was instructing, by means of a dialogue, a disincamate spirit that was
responsible for the symptoms of his patient. After engaging it in conversation,
he repeated emphatically to it the importance o f spiritual advancement and
moral progress. Step by step he pointed out to the spirit the errors of its ways
while explaining what was right. Gradually he convinced it that it really wanted
what Spiritism believed was good for it. It wanted to leave the dark, lowly, and
unenlightened state in which it was living and seek advancement. It also agreed
that it should stop tormenting Dona Anna and return to the spirit plane, not to
the lowly place where it had been found, but to the hospital Amor e Caridade
where someone would help it to seek reincarnation as soon as possible.
While in one sense the treatment of Dona Anna was a standard disobsession,
33
in another it was not. The obsessing spirit, as I noted, was unlike anything I had
ever seen or heard about at the many Kardecist centers where I had previously
observed disobsessions. Spiritist mediums receive spirits of the dead who in the
past had incarnated as human beings. In the course of his dialogue with this
spirit Dr. Lacerda made reference to its low, heavy vibrations and to its claws
and fur. In his running commentary to the visitors he had called it variously a
ghoul and a monster. Ghouls and monsters are not part of the Spiritist universe
and Spiritist mediums do not receive them at their sessions.
Dr. Lacerda also once referred to the spirit as an exu. Exus were part of the
supernatural pantheon brought to Brazil from Africa by the slaves. Originally
they were the messengers of the Orixtis, the African deities. In Brazil the
African tradition was syncretized, first with Christianity to form the Candombl6,
Xang6, Batuque, etc., and then with Spiritism to form Umbanda. In the latter,
which is the largest and fastest growing alternative to Roman Catholicism in the
Brazilian market place of religious beliefs, the exus have become a separate
category of supernaturals who incorporate in mediums. They, along with the
pretos velhos (old former slaves), caboclos (Indians), and crian~as (children) do
the charity of helping people that Umbanda has taken from Kardecism to be its
primary mission (see Brown 1986; Brumana and Martinez 1989; Pressel 1974;
Greenfield and Gray 1989; Greenfield and Prust 1990).
Spiritist mediums, as we have seen, do not receive orix6s, exus, or other
Umbanda spirits. They consider Umbanda and the other African-derived
religions to be less advanced or enlightened and their spirits to be lower forms.
Along the continuum that has been proposed to organize the variety of Brazilian
popular religions (Bastide 1978), Kardecism, or mesa branca (white table) 8 as it
sometimes is called, has been placed at one end as the highest or most advanced,
with the Candombl6, Xang6, Batuque, and the other heavily African influenced
religions at the other as the lowest or least advanced. Umbanda lies somewhere
between the two extremes, more progressive than the purely African-derived
religions, but less so than Spiritism.
Dr. Lacerda and his fellow healers at the Casa do Jardim, unlike other
Kardecists, recognize Umbanda and its spirits. They believe, as Umbandistas
themselves maintain, that these denser, less enlightened spirits, like the exus, can
inflict injuries on the living. Umbanda has its own system of treating the
illnesses that derive from its distinct view of the universe. The Casa do Jardim
healers, while they do not see the Umbanda system of therapy as valid, acknowledge the ability of their spirits to cause illness. They have decided, therefore, as
Hess (n.d.), applying Dumont's (1980) framework, has argued for other
Kardecist intellectuals, to "encompass" the discourse of Umbanda. By doing this
the Casa do Jardim is able to include the healing of illnesses caused by Umbanda spirits in its treatments.
The heads of the Spiritist Federation, of course, do not accept this, as they
34
also do not accept the unorthodox transporting of patients' astral bodies to the
spirit world. They want no Umbanda spirits on the grounds of the Spiritist
Hospital, and they want the spirit healers to come from the other world here
rather than sending the patients there. For these and other lesser reasons, Dr.
Lacerda and his colleagues were asked to leave the garden house of the Spiritist
Hospital in 1987.
Several years before, however, Dr. Lacerda had arranged for several of the
mediums in the group to join Umbanda centers and learn to receive e x u s and
other "lower" spirits. Today they are able to receive spirits like the one that was
obsessing Dona Anna. Instead of having to refer patients like her to Umbanda
healers, whose therapeutic abilities they question, they are able to treat them
themselves.
During the ritual conversion from doing evil to doing good, Dr. Lacerda had
asked the spirit monster to stop tormenting Dona Anna. Just before departing for
the hospital A m o r e C a r i d a d e , however, it said that it could not. Without another
word Dr. Lacerda demanded the name of its boss. The repenting spirit first tried
to deny that it had a superior and then refused to reveal its name. Eventually,
however, it acquiesced.
A fourth medium who had been sitting quietly all this time then burst forth in
a tirade. In a voice also unlike the one he had used to greet the patient, he
protested being present in this brightly lit place. A repeat of the previous
performance then followed with Dr. Lacerda eventually winning over and
enlightening the "boss." In the course of the ritualized debate that led to the
spirit accepting the "truths" argued by Dr. Lacerda, it also admitted that it did
not work alone. It had a gang of underlings to whom it gave orders. Some time
previously it had been approached by the spirit that was now Dona Anna's
sister-in-law and asked to help it get revenge. Several months ago, it continued,
one of its henchmen, the spirit that had appeared earlier, acting on its orders, had
placed a tiny electronic device in the back of Dona Anna's head. The apparatus
was connected to controls in its possession. This was the cause of the patient's
headaches and pains in the back and legs. And while the underling had installed
the device, only it was able to remove it.
Dr. Lacerda then paused while turning to the visitors. This is the black magic
I mentioned earlier, he said. He then explained that most of these low level,
malevolent spirits are organized in gangs the leaders of which are magicians
who practice the black arts. Ancient Egypt, he observed, was the home of all
black magic. Almost all of the spirits using it today were once incarnate there.
Many, like those who have appeared today, have not reincarnated since. Instead
of accepting new lives that will give them the opportunity to progress, they hide
in the lowest, darkest, densest parts of the spirit world, known as the Umbral,
and sell their services to other unenlightened spirits like the sister-in-law of
Dona Anna.
35
After being shown the error of its ways in the conversion experience of the
disobsession, the black-magic practicing boss spirit agreed to remove the
apparatus. It also agreed to go to the hospital Amor e Caridade to seek treatment
that would enable it to reincarnate soon and pursue spiritual development.
As the boss departed, Dr. Lacerda commented to the observers about the
organized gangs of low level evil spirits in the other world who have access to
the most sophisticated electronic and other devices that can inflict injury and
pain on unknowing victims. One of the tasks of the Casa do Jardim group, he
added, since they are the only Spiritists to have acknowledged the existence of
these spirits, is to combat them, indoctrinating, enlightening, and redeeming
them, while convincing them to remove the insidious devices from their victims.
Once this is done, through their enlightened friends in the spirit world such as
Dr. Lourenqo and his staff, they are able to put them on the path of progress and
development.
The redemption of the boss, whose conversion and acceptance of help could
serve as a role model for other low level spirits, did not end the session. Abrir a
frequencia (open the frequency), intoned Dr. Lacerda as he tumed, starting to
count, from the observers back to his co-workers. The first medium who had
accompanied Dona Anna to the astral plane, and who had been silent during the
disobsession of the two monster spirits, suddenly began to speak, this time in a
voice different from both of those she had used before. She was joined by a
voice from yet another medium who thus far had not spoken. It was soon clear
that the episode in which the initial injustice inflicted by the spirit of Dona Anna
on her sister-in-law was being re-enacted, just as it had been on the screen in Dr.
Lourenqo's consulting room in the hospital Amor e Caridade. The patient's past
life experience that was the ultimate cause of her present suffering was being
recreated.
As it unfolded, Dr. Lacerda stepped in to put in words the immoral deeds
being acted out. He made explicit to Dona Anna what she had done. He then
explained to the spirit of the sister-in-law that although she had been wronged,
she should not have sought revenge. Spiritists not only do not approve of
vengence, they believe that seeking it negates spiritual advancement. Therefore,
the spirit of Dona Anna's sister-in-law was behaving against her own best
interests. She should call off the black magic and forgive Dona Anna for what
she had done. Likewise, Dona Anna should forgive the spirit of her sister-in-law
for causing her pain. Finally, the two should forget the past, make up, and
devote their energies to seeking spiritual advancement.
The spirit of the sister-in-law slowly came to see the light. It apologized to the
spirit of Dona Anna for what it had done. It ordered the black magician to
remove the apparatus and it begged the spirit of Dona Anna for forgiveness. An
emotional scene between the two spirits, or more precisely the mediums
incorporating them, followed. Dona Anna's spirit begged the other to forgive it.
36
This was followed by a reconciliation in which the two spirits embraced each
other in tears of happiness.
After a few minutes both spirits took their leave. The medium who had
received Dona Anna's sister-in-law then stood up and approached the patient.
Dr. Lacerda raised his metal rod and began to count again. The treatment had
been completed. Dona Anna's astral body was being brought back from the
hospital in the other world. The next task was to rearticulate or recouple it with
her other bodies. The medium now standing next to her was giving hand passes
to bring energy from the spirit world to help facilitate the recoupling. First, Dr.
Lacerda asked the medium to check and make sure that all of the devices had
been removed. When assured that they had been, he completed the rejoining of
the now healed patient.
Dona Anna, who, although engrossed in the dramatic events played out before
her also had been deep in conversation with the one member of the healing team
who had not participated in the disobsession, was now told that she could leave.
She would experience the headaches and other pains no longer, Dr. Lacerda
reassured her. She should, however, read the books by Allan Kardec, "Chico"
Xavier, Hercilio Maes, and others mentioned previously to learn to help herself
and also should attend sessions at a Spiritist center. She and her husband, who
along with her had observed the proceedings in amazement while also participating in the discussion with the team member seated next to them, then thanked
Dr. Lacerda and the others and departed.
THE THERAPEUTIC VALUE OF THE TECHNIQUE

As the next patient was being shown in Dr. Lacerda turned to the visitors to
inform them that perhaps 75 to 80 percent of all illnesses begin on the astral
body. Medicine, he added, cannot treat them until they appear on the somatic
body, which they eventually do because of the symbiotic relationship between
the spiritual and somatic bodies. Since western medicine recognizes neither the
spirit body nor the symbiotic relationship between it and its somatic counterpart,
it must wait until an illness has developed sufficiently to manifest itself on the
material body. Then it can treat only what according to Spiritists are the symptoms because the real causes are at a level whose existence it does not acknowledge. With apometry, however, the illnesses of the astral body can be treated
quickly and easily by spirit doctors long before they ever appear on the flesh.
The real value of apometry he added, was its ability to treat mental illnesses.
Obsession, he observed, raising a topic developed at length in his book, "is the
illness of the century" (Lacerda de Azevedo 1988:136). Like most Spiritists, he
believes that with the exception of those cases where there are demonstrable
physical causes, "All mental illness is spiritually based" (Lacerda de Azevedo
37
1988:136). Misguided spirits, usually at lower levels, for reasons unique in each
case, inflict what manifests itself as mental illness on the living. Disobsession,
rather than psychotherapy or any of the other therapies developed by conventional science and medicine, he emphasized, is the most viable form of treatment. Unfortunately it is not generally employed because conventional science
does not recognize the existence of the spirit. Conventional treatment, to the
detriment of the mentally ill, he added, is a prisoner of its materialist assumptions. One of the Spiritism's tasks, which the Casa do Jardim group shares with
other Spiritists, is to free science from its materialist biases (see Hess 1987;
Greenfield 1990c). Apometry, he concluded, with its ability to harness and
control sources of energy from both planes, can be used to determine who the
low level spirits that cause much of the pain and suffering of incarnate patients
are, and communicate with and help (or heal) them as in the cases just witnessed. This enables the Casa do Jardim to do what their more conservative
fellow Spiritists cannot do in ordinary disobsessions.
THE RITUAL DRAMA

As the morning continued and patient after patient was welcomed and treated, a
pattern emerged that became more clear in later weeks and when I visited the
sessions of the other healing teams. Symbolically, the apometric treatment of the
Casa do Jardim healers, like the Spiritist disobsession on which it is based, is a
ritual drama highlighting the struggle between the forces of good and those of
evil. Dr. Lacerda and his Casa do Jardim colleagues are the champions of good.
Patients suffering from a variety of symptoms, ranging from unspecified aches
and pains for which no organic causes could be found, to depression,
schizophrenia (professionally diagnosed), cancer, and occasionally drug
addiction, were found to be suffering from the effects of evil coming from the
astral plane. They, and the doctors and other (mortal) healers from whom so
many had sought treatment that was unsuccessful, of course, were helpless
against these forces from the invisible world. With the assistance of enlightened,
cooperating disincamate spirit doctors, the earthly representatives of "the good"
learned that some low level being, or exu, often as part of a gang of such ghouls
and monsters, was the true cause of the patient's suffering.
There followed a titanic struggle between the leader of the earthly healers representing good - and each of the spirits, individually or collectively,
responsible for the suffering of the patient. Dr. Lacerda, or one of the others,
would attribute to their antagonist(s) all that Spiritists believe is evil. The
offending spirit first protested, denying the doing of evil. Tenaciously, however,
the representative of good engaged the other in dialogue, rebutting its arguments
until it was forced by the logic of the truth to admit its misdeeds. Yes, it was
38
doing evil. It was sorry, however, and would repent. It would call off the
members o f its gang and would remove the apparatus it had installed that was
the immediate cause o f the problem. A n d more importantly, it acknowledged the
laws o f Spiritist cosmology that explicated good and evil and specified how
spiritual advancement was to be achieved. Yes, it would seek reincarnation and
pursue moral advancement. But, it almost always would add, the victim also had
been evil. In some past life the spirit that was now incarnate in the body o f the
patient had committed an evil act the victim o f which had sought revenge. In
Spiritist belief victims and their obsessors usually travel together across time
reincarnating often as neighbors, kinsmen, and even spouses or offspring, and
alternate in trying to gain revenge. The healers, as in the case o f Dona Anna and
her sister-in-law, had not only to get the lowest level gang members to name
their boss, repent, and seek help in development, and then get the boss to
remove the device that was the immediate cause o f the pain, repent and seek
help, they also had to get each o f the parties seeking revenge on the other - in
this lifetime or a previous one - to admit that it was wrong, forgive the other,
and seek the guidance that would help it to advance spiritually.
What started as treating an incarnate patient suffering from a specific set o f
symptoms or illness evolved, after the patient's astral body was uncoupled and
dispatched to the hospital in the invisible world where it was diagnosed and
treated by a team o f spirit doctors, into a ritual performance in which the group
leader in tum indoctrinated in Spiritist morality and philosophy o f developmental progress first ghouls and demons, or spirits from other religions such as the
exus o f Umbanda, all of whom appeared to be members o f gangs headed by
bosses who were black magicians who then also had to be indoctrinated and
converted. Then the spirit that had contacted the gang had to be enlightened as
eventually did the spirit o f the patient who in a past life had been an aggressor.
While in each case the Casa do Jardim healers started with a specific patient,
they never knew who or what they would encounter and have to show the light
before a treatment was completed. Almost everyone who had once lived,
individually or as part o f a group, it appeared, was a possible victim and/or
perpetrator o f obsession. 9
TREATMENT RESULTS
W h e n I asked Dr. Lacerda about the outcomes o f the treatments, he first
mentioned the many testimonials he had received over the years from patients
who considered themselves cured o f a variety o f illnesses after one or two
apometric treatments by the Casa do Jardim healers. He reviews many o f these
successful cases in his b o o k (Lacerda de A z e v e d o 1989). His response to me,
and his published presentation, however, is that o f a clinician. His definition o f
39
successful treatment is, as it is in his medical practice, that the patient does not
return to complain further of the same symptoms. He assumes that if the patient
no longer claims to be bothered by the symptoms, he or she is cured. He also
told me that he has records of thousands of cases that he and the others have
treated over the years. While no one has analyzed them, he maintained the vast
majority o f treatments have been successful. He further asserted that the success
rates o f the Casa do Jardim group over the past two decades are considerably
higher than comparable figures for psychiatric treatment, psychoanalysis and
related therapies; and, he emphasized, they take much less time and there is no
comparison in cost to the patient since he and his colleagues do not charge for
their services. Although neither he nor the others do follow-up visits, as is the
case in his medical practice, he could only conclude that if a patient did not
return for further treatment it was because he or she no longer was suffering
from the symptoms that first brought him to the Casa do Jardim.
I discussed the issue of efficacy and cure further one day with Dr. Ivan Harv6
who now does the Friday aftemoon diagnostic interviews to determine which
patients are to be treated by conventional medicine and which ones need the
services of the Casa do Jardim. His first response was also that of the clinician
who assumes that if the patient does not return to complain further about his
symptoms he is cured.
I then pressed him, reminding him of the rather unusual assumptions and even
more questionable techniques employed during the Saturday morning sessions.
He was a medical doctor, I reminded him, who had done an internship in the
United States. How could he, or I after studying the Casa do Jardim healing
practices, go before a group o f scientists and scholars like those he had met in
Philadelphia and Washington and expect them to take seriously a report on a
treatment modality that alleges to transport patients to another world where their
experiences in a previous life are found to be the cause of their present
symptoms? Perhaps if he could convince me that the patients were cured, as
both he and Dr. Lacerda maintain, I suggested, scholars and scientists also might
listen.
Almost in frustration he responded that as a clinician with all o f the experience he has he can tell when a patient is cured. Take all o f the records and
statistics you want, he went on, you just have to look at the patients.
A few Saturdays later I was sitting in on the group in which he participates as
a medium. A young female patient entered the room looking troubled and
concerned. Dr. Harv6 and the others greeted her, recognizing that she had been
there before. They wondered why she had returned.
The leader opened the frequencies and sent her astral body to the spirit world.
A series of demons and other spirits then appeared and were disobsessed. She
was told that someone she knew was seeking vengence for something she had
once done. The leader then explained to the offending spirit that seeking revenge
40
was wrong. An emotional reconciliation followed and the spirits departed, each
motivated now to do only good and abstain from evil.
By the end of the session the patient was relaxed. The tension was gone and
she no longer seemed concerned as she had been at the beginning of the session.
Dr. Ivan took me aside to discuss the case. "Did you see that?" he asked me.
"It is a perfect example of what I was trying to convey to you." He then
explained that this was the second time this patient had been treated by his team.
The first time had been approximately two years ago when she arrived totally
distraught and suicidal. Had not a girlfriend literally dragged her to the Spiritist
Hospital grounds where they then practiced, she most probably would not be
alive today.
The patient, then 16 years of age, was from a poor, strict family of European
descent. She had met a young man with whom she had fallen in love. Her
family, however, would not accept him. And when she had become pregnant,
she found herself abandoned, first by the young man and then by her family.
Without money or means of support, and rejected by her kinsfolk, and with no
place to go, she felt that the world had come to an end for her.
During her treatment at the Casa do Jardim it was learned that the spirit
incamate in the young man had been murdered by her in a previous lifetime.
Leaving her pregnant and abandoned was his revenge. Although he did eventually ask her forgiveness, while forgiving her, it was not possible for him to
care for her and the child in this lifetime. Her parents, however, whose spirits
also appeared through mediums in the session, agreed that it had been wrong of
them to reject their daughter and grandchild. When the patient left the treatment
session, her parents not only took her back, she reported that they got along
better than they ever had. She attended sessions at a Spiritist center and learned
the doctrine. Her parents joined her and began to do the charity so important in
the Spiritist tradition. She found a job where she worked until the baby was
born. With her mother's help she was able to return to work shortly after the
delivery. Her parents loved the baby and were happy to have both of them in
their home. Furthermore, she had met another young man and the two were in
love. He had asked her to marry him and wished to adopt the baby. Her parents
not only accepted him, they treated him like the son they never had. She had told
him everything and he had become a party to her new life of Spiritist development and charity. She was healthy and happy.
She had come today because she was having trouble at work. She had not
been given a promotion she thought she deserved. It was discovered in the
treatment that one of her supervisors, retaliating for something she had done to
him in a previous life, had prevented her promotion.
His spirit had been treated this morning and had repented. The patient and
everyone else present, consequently, was convinced that her career would go as
well from now on as had the rest of her life.
41
Dr. Harv6 said to me: " T w o years ago she was ready to commit suicide. W i t h
our help she not only recovered, but today she is a happily adjusted woman with
a full life. W h a t more in the way o f success could you ask for?"
I must admit that to the best o f m y understanding the young woman certainly
appeared to be better after treatment than before. A n d the same was true for the
many patients I visited in their homes after other sessions at the Casa do Jardim.
Most indicated that their symptoms had improved, if they had not disappeared
altogether. But such hearsay reporting b y patients is not usually acceptable as
proof o f cure to scholars and medical researchers. They would want before and
after examinations with careful controls. Unfortunately, I am neither a physician
nor a psychotherapist. I am unable to do what medical researchers would
consider as most basic to establishing an argument for the curing abilities o f the
Casa do Jardim healing practices. A n d neither Dr. Lacerda, Dr. H a r v t , nor the
others are willing to take the time from doing what they believe is their first
priority - treating patients - to organize the data, let alone present it to the
medical community.
Drs. Lacerda, Harvt, and the others recognize the difficulty most rationally
trained intellectuals, be they Brazilians, North Americans, or Europeans, have
taking seriously the treatment techniques they and their colleagues use each
Saturday morning. Dr. Lacerda addresses this point in his book.
Decriptions such as these .... of dead doctors treating the astral bodies of patients, of
mediums and patients visiting invisible hospitals with treatment rooms containing highly
advanced machinery (and, of course, of buildings, gardens, vehicles, etc.) all may seem
the fruit of flights of the imagination and smell of science fiction.
But they are not.
For more than ~ years dozens of our mediums have visited the hospital Amor e
Caridade, the institution in the astral plane that cooperates with us in our work. In all this
time different mediums (first independently and then in groups), and on different days,
gave identical descriptions of the gardens, of the buildings, of the waiting rooms, of the
operating rooms, and above all of the treatment techniques employed...by the teams of
astral healers...
Based on everything we experienced, we cannot escape concluding that with apometry
the therapeutic process is enhanced and diversified. The spirit (of the patient) can be
treated by disincarnate doctors while the body is treated by the living. Besides, it enables
us to regress both the living and the dead to their past lives to show the causes in the
remote past of their illnesses - uncovering karmic interrelations with other spirits enabling not only the investigation of the laws of karma, but also the treatment of
profound illnesses with lasting effects (Lacerda de Azevedo 1988:82, 83, my translation).
HEALING BY SYMBOLIC TRANSFORMATION

In a perceptive hermeneutic analysis o f the rhetoric o f transformation in ritual
healing, Csordas has argued that
42
healing is contingent upon a meaningful and convincing discourse that brings about a
transformation of the phenomenological conditions under which the patient exists and
experiences suffering or distress. It can be shown that this rhetoric redirects the supplicant's attention to new aspects of actions and experiences, or persuades him to attend
to accustomed features of action and experience from new perspectives... To the extent
that this new meaning encompasses the person's life experience, healing thus creates for
him a new reality or phenomenological world. As he comes to inhabit this new, sacred
world, the supplicant is healed not in the sense of being restored to the state in which he
existed prior to the onset of illness, but in the sense of being rhetorically 'moved' into a
state dissimilar from both pre-illness and illness reality...
In linking the rhetorical aspect of discourse with the endogenous healing process, this
approach suggests that the transformation brought about by healing operates on multiple
levels. Insofar as endogenous processes take place on physiological and intrapsychic
levels, and rhetoric acts on both the social level of persuasion and interpersonal influence,
and the cultural level of meanings, symbols, and styles of argument, the experience of
healing is an experience of totality (Csordas 1983:346).
Csordas applied the analysis in a study o f the healing activities o f Catholic
Pentecostals in the United States. The groups with which he worked were
relatively small, self contained populations o f believers who formed a primary
community. This enabled him to analyze the rhetoric o f transformation o f a
symbolic meaning system shared by the members o f the group. The Casa do
Jardim healers and their patients, however, do not form a community. Although
the healers are all Spiritists who share a c o m m o n belief system and set o f
symbols, the patients, as in the cases presented, mostly are neither Spiritists, nor
active members o f other religious groups. They are, like most members o f the
middle and lower-middle classes, unaffiliated. As I noted previously, there are a
number o f religious denominations in the urban Brazilian setting that form
primary communities - Spiritists, Umbandistas, Batuqueiros, etc. Only a small
percentage of the population, however, actively participate in any of these
groups. The remainder are unaffiliated, but may be thought o f as potential
converts. They are the people the religious groups are trying to attract by
offering services such as healing. The pattern is that many o f the active members
o f Spiritist, Umbanda, Candombl6, Batuque, and even Protestant religious
communities become so mostly after being healed by the ritual healing system
o f the group (Krippner 1989). In the process they become members o f a primary
group who are transformed by the power of its rhetoric.
The rhetoric used by the Casa do Jardim healers, as we have seen, is a
Spiritist rhetoric; but as I shall now try to demonstrate, it is a rhetoric that
employs in a distinctive way symbols and meaning sets central to Brazilian
national culture. In tuming to the way Spiritism adapts the dominant symbols o f
Brazilian culture, I shall hypothesize that the Casa do Jardim appeals to a
specific sector of the Brazilian population, the white, urban, middle classes,
many o f whom become active participants in Spiritist primary groups in the
process o f being cured (see Greenfield and Gray 1989).
43
RELIGIOUS COMPETITION AND ENCOMPASSING THE RHETORIC OF OTHERS

Brazilian culture, as Da Matta (1979, 1985) has pointed out, does not make a
clear cut opposition between this world and the other, as do, for example, most
of the national cultures of Western Europe and North America. Instead,
Brazilians see this world as part of a continuum that extends into and is a part of
the other where power and authority is located. God the creator is seen as the
locus of all power. In contrast with post reformation North American and
Western European assumptions, Brazilians believe that God still is actively
involved in the affairs of this world, and the ultimate cause of all that happens
here. From the perspective of the individual this means that all that happens to
him, good and bad, is caused by God and any modification can be obtained only
through His future intervention. That is, if one has wealth or health it is because
God so wishes it, while if one is poor or sick it also is because God has made it
so. If the individual wishes to modify his or her circumstances, such as his
material condition or the state of his health, it follows that he must enlist God's
cooperation to effect a change.
Again in contrast with North Americans and Western Europeans, Brazilians
do not appeal directly to God for help; instead they approach Him through an
intermediary. In the still dominant Roman Catholic tradition, which may serve
as the paradigm for the national cultural pattern, and which provides many of the
symbols and the basic rhetoric used by all the competing religious denominations, one goes through a saint or the Virgin Mary who then may serve as an
intercessor between unhappy and/or suffering humans in this world and the all
powerful creator in the other. This belief system is played out, for example, in
the still popular pilgrimage tradition in which individuals make promessas, or
vows promising visits to shrines and other prestations if the virgin or the saint
intercedes successfully and God ameliorates their suffering or otherwise
provides what they request (see Gross 1972; Greenfield 1990b).
In the rhetoric of the Casa do Jardim healers, the ultimate authority of God as
the cause of all that happens on earth is made explicit in the opening invocation
made by Dr. Lacerda before every healing session. He and his colleagues, he
explains, are the instruments of God; they can only help those who seek their
assistance with active collaboration from the other world.
Having placed themselves within the framework of dominant Brazilian
beliefs, Dr. Lacerda and the Casa do Jardim healers then present an alternative
to the Roman Catholic view of intermediacy. Instead of an other world composed of God surrounded by the Virgin and the saints as in Roman Catholicism,
Spiritism, as we have seen, sees only spirits, spirits living out what is believed to
be - in Kardec's reinterpretation of Christianity - God's true creation. Christ, for
example, as we have seen, is not the son of God, but rather the most advanced
spirit ever to have appeared on the planet. Spiritual advancement, as elaborated
44
by Kardec, based on information provided him by several advanced spirits, is

taken to be the proper reading of God's - and Christ's - message. By doing as
He "really" ordained - i.e., striving for spiritual advancement and doing charity
the sick and the suffering can attain the true health and betterment He wishes
for them. Advanced spirits, such as Dr. Lourenqo and his associates at the
Hospital Amor e Caridade, and others, replace the virgin and the saints as the
intermediaries between human sufferers and the other-wordly help they seek. By
following Spiritism, the new intermediaries will help the patients to transform
their situation and as a result become well.
In this respect the Casa do Jardim healers are doing what all Spiritists, healers
and others, do: they offer an alternative to the traditional imagery of intermediacy of the Church to a people many of whom have become disillusioned
with the hope it offers. The difficulties of twentieth century urban life appear to
have further eroded whatever faith many Brazilians still had in what once were
the predominant beliefs of Roman Catholicism. In this respect, all of the
alternative religious groups competing for converts may be seen as offering an
alternative to a belief system that no longer provides satisfaction for much of the
population. The challenge they make is not to the traditional belief that power is
located with an omnipotent God who is the cause of all that happens, but rather
to who best can serve as intermediary with that God to intercede on behalf of the
living. If the saints no longer are believed able to do the job, perhaps enlightened
spirits can? Or maybe, to draw from some of the other alternative religions, the
African deities can, the Holy Ghost, or the new syncretic pretos velhos,
caboclos, or other entities of Umbanda? The variety of religions (and healing
systems) competing in Brazil's urban market place may be viewed as each
offering a different path to God and His absolute power through their own
intermediaries whose cooperation may be enlisted by means of their ritual
practices.
The Casa do Jardim healers, however, as noted above, in doing this also are
encompassing two sets of rhetoric that strengthen their specific appeal to the
urban middle classes. The first of these, which all who follow the teachings of
Kardec accept, is to encompass the rhetoric of science. Spiritism invariably is
presented as the science that codifies the laws of the more inclusive invisible
world (see Hess 1987). Scientific terminology is used in discussing reincarnation, karma, and spiritual advancement and the basic beliefs are presented as
laws.
Unlike other Spiritists, the Casa do Jardim group also encompasses the
rhetoric of Umbanda by recognizing exus and other spirits that are part of
supernatural pantheon of this new, fast growing syncretic religion. In this way
they appeal both to those who respect science, but also may fear Umbanda and
the legacy of African sorcery it retains.
Umbanda, as I have indicated, has established its own intermediaries between
-
45
God and man who are a mixture or syncretism of the Roman Catholic saints, the
African Orixds (deities), Amerindian supematurals, and spirits from Spiritism.
But Umbanda also has taken from the African tradition beliefs in what in the
broadest sense might be called sorcery. The powers of its supernatural intermediaries are believed to be hamessable to do both good and/or bad. That is, its
exus are believed to be able to both help or hinder the health and well being of
the living, depending on how they are used by specific ritual practitioners
(Maggie 1975).
My intent here is not to elaborate on Umbanda and what many consider its
back, or underside, Quimbanda. Instead it is to indicate that most Brazilians
living in urban areas, whatever their social position, race, or personal beliefs,
have some familiarity with stories attributing an illness or other misfortune of
some person known to them personally or by name to a "work" of Quimbanda.
While they may not "believe" that the illness or misfortune was actually caused
by the Quimbanda ritual, there is enough of an element of uncertainty and doubt
to lead many who would not otherwise turn to Umbanda or Quimbanda to fear
becoming the victim of an exu unleashed against them by those jealous of them,
their job or business, or social position. By encompassing the rhetoric of
Umbanda/Quimbanda, the Casa do Jardim healers are able to offer the white
middle classes the belief that they will be able to undo and/or cure what many
fear are illnesses and misfortunes afflicted on them through nefarious works of
Quimbanda.
PATRONAGE AND HELP WITH OTHER PROBLEMS
In addition to the value of science and protection from Quimbanda, Dr. Lacerda
and his Casa do Jardim colleagues also offer patronage in this world to the
urban middle classes. The Brazilian symbolic world, as we have seen, is ordered
hierarchically, with power and authority located in the other world. To gain
access to God and His ability to heal or otherwise improve our well being, one
must go through intermediaries in the other world.
This world, however, also is believed to be ordered hierarchically and,
therefore, one also needs intermediaries to get help from the top. From its
inception, almost, a broad range of important social relations in Brazil have been
what are referred to as relations of patronage and clientage (Greenfield 1972,
1977, 1979; Hutchinson 1966; Roniger 1981, 1987, 1990). Individuals, differentially placed in the social hierarchy, with access to distinctive kinds and amounts
of resources, entered into exchanges that became formalized in social relations
of patronage and clientage. The classic example of this from nineteenth century
post-emancipation Brazilian history was the relationship between a rural
landowner and the many dependent laborers living on his property (Carone
1971, 1978; Castelo Branco 1979; Cintra 1979; Nunes Leal 1977; Pang 1979).
46
When Brazilians moved to the cities in the mid-twentieth century, however,

they found no patrons; urban life, it is still claimed by some, is antithetical to
traditional rural social forms (Camargo et al. 1981; Velho 1980). But the new
migrants appear not to have lost the belief that access to the sources o f social
and political power and resources is to be obtained through a patron. At present,
therefore, urban Brazilians, primarily the poor, but also the middle classes
whose wealth has been erroded and whose social position has been threatened, if
not actually destroyed, may be thought of as people in search of a patron who
hopefully will help them to find a new place for themselves in the developing
social order of the city. Elsewhere I have argued that Umbanda cult leaders
(Greenfield and Prust 1990), Spiritist healers (Greenfield 1987, 1990a), and
other leaders of urban religious groups serve as patrons for clienteles composed
of segments of the urban poor. Dr. Lacerda and his colleagues at the Casa do
Jardim, I would hypothesize, fulfill this role for the white, middle-classes. As
doctors and educated professionals who combine modern science and medicine
with religious healing, they appeal to the middle classes many of whom identify
better with them than they can with "Popular Catholic," African-derived, and
other alternatives. This initial identification provides them a distinct advantage
when it comes to beginning the rhetorical transformation that may result in
healing and conversion.
Many years ago, Roger Bastide summarized the role Spiritism played in
providing new meaning and a sense of security specifically for the white middle
classes.
Here city people without status, who have lost their place in Brazil's old patriarchial
structure and not yet found ... an organization to provide them with a measure of
security, seek a new cosmic or mythic framework to sustain them. They find a place in a
hierarchy of spirits that extends from the earth to the planets, where there is one law for
all in a supernatural society hierarchized according to merit and virtue. They escape from
human loneliness in a mystic association with this new supernatural society (Bastide
1978:315).
CONCLUSION
One final factor of no small consequence must be added in concluding. Elsewhere Patric Giesler and I (1989) have shown that the respect and prestige
conventionally attributed a patro n in Brazil, especially when he or she is a
healer, when combined with the fantasy-proneness and considerable ability of
most Brazilians to imagine, contributes significantly to the increased probability
of a patient-client entering a state of heightened suggestibility or hypnotic
trance. Many o f the patients I observed at the sessions of the Casa do Jardim
appeared to have been in an altered state of consciousness when Dr. Lacerda
apometrically uncoupled their astral body by punctuating his counting with the
47
waving of a metal rod. Increased receptivity to suggestion while in such a state,

we are learning, enhances the working of mind-body processes, contributing
significantly to the healing of illnesses, especially those that have an emotional
component (see Rossi 1986).
Most of the patients treated by the Casa do Jardim healers, as Dr. Lacerda
himself would agree, suffer from what might be called psychosomatic illnesses.
It could very well turn out that the combination of their respect for Dr. Lacerda
and his Casa do Jardim colleagues - in the image of a patron - and their
heightened suggestibility after entering an altered state of consciousness, enables
the patients, when exposed to the rhetorical discourse of the group, to reduce
enough fears and anxieties to start to feel better. This reduction in the
psychosomatic trauma is enhanced by something else that takes place during all
apometric treatment.
While the leader and the mediums act out the healing ritual, the patients, as I
have noted, sit quietly, usually conversing with one member of the team not
participating in the drama. This group member, however, it turned out, was
performing more conventional psychological therapy, complementing and
reinforcing what the patient was getting directly from the healing ritual and
indirectly from the suggestions being made by the group leader. The combination of therapeutic approaches may produce sufficient temporary relief to inspire
many of the patients to read Kardec and other Spiritist authors mentioned by Dr.
Lacerda and to attend sessions at a Spiritist center. The repeated exposure to the
Spiritist message, as the symptoms ease, may then convince the patients that
they have discovered the "real" cause of their illness, which, if it is not karmic,
can be cured by acceptance of and conversion to Spiritism. And by becoming an
active member of a Spiritist center, the patient participates in a primary group
that reinforces the beliefs to which he first was exposed by the Casa do Jardim
healers. As a member of a new religious community, the phenomenological
conditions under which he existed and experienced suffering and distress may
be said to have been transformed. He has been cured by going through the
complex process of religious conversion that began with the Saturday morning
session at the Casa do Jardim.
Department of Anthropology
University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee
Milwaukee, W153201, U.S.A.
NOTES
1 Revised version of a paper presented at the symposium, "Systems of Healing in
Brazil," at the annual meetings of the American Anthropological Association,
Washington, DC, November, 1989.
I wish to thank the Fulbright Commission and the Graduate School, The Center for
48
Latin America, and The College of Letters and Science of the University of WisconsinMilwaukee for the financial support over the past few years that made the research on
which the paper is based possible. I alone am responsible for its content.
2 The Casa do Jardim refers to a building located in the garden of the Spiritist Hospital
of Porto Aiegre. The hospital had been established by the Spiritist Federation as one of its
many charities. For more than two decades, beginning in the late 1960s, the group had
met there every Saturday morning to treat patients. In 1987, however, they were asked to
leave because their beliefs, and following from them, the forms of treatment they
employed were judged to have gone beyond the acceptable orthodoxy of Spiritism, at
least as defined by the directors of the Spiritist Federation who administer the hospital.
Since then they have continued to treat patients, renting space on a short term basis from
a number of unaffilated Spiritist and/or Umbanda centers. Their hope is to some day be
able to finance the construction of their own premises.
3 Unlike the woman who had left without being treated, most patients who seek the help
of the Casa do Jardim healers already have been to conventional medical doctors. They
usually have taken tests and been to laboratories and hospitals. When their symptoms did
not disappear, they looked elsewhere. Some also may have turned previously to a Spiritist
center - where healing is done - before coming to the Casa do Jardim. Others may have
tried one or more Umbanda healers, a Batuque pai-de-santo, or one of the other religious
based healers so popular in Brazil. Only if their symptoms disappear and they learn about
it by word of mouth will they come to the Casa do Jardim. Dr. Lacerda and his fellow
healers, of course, respect conventional medicine and what it can do. Their concern is
with what it cannot do. To prevent patients like Amelda, the woman who had just left,
from wasting their time and needlessly occupying the group, Doctor Ivan Harvr, who
diagnosed the thyroid condition, now screens patients on Friday afternoons. He conducts
a detailed interview diagnosing each patient's problem. Those, like Amelda, who can be
treated medically are sent to conventional doctors. Those that need the treatment
developed at the Casa do Jardim are assigned to a healing team, given a number, and told
to return on Saturday.
4 For Spiritists there is an inverse relationship between density and degree of moral
advancement - and therefore good. The astral world is believed to be more advanced than
the material. It is less dense than the material world whose density is indicative of its less
morally developed state. For Spiritists the denser something is the less spiritually and
morally developed it is assumed to be.
5 This innovation, however, has not been accepted by mainstream Spiritist intellectuals
and leaders. It is one of the reasons the Casa do Jardim group was asked to leave the
~arden house at the Spiritist Hospital.
The other four are: administering hand passes (see Armand 1983; Toledo 1954);
directing healing at a distance by their spirit guides; "psych0graphing," or writing
prescriptions for medicines dictated to them by their spirit guides; and doing surgeries
when possessed by spirit doctors from the other world.
7 Spiritist religious practice in Brazil has come to be referred to as the ethic of practical
charity (Renshaw 1969:74). "Spiritism without charity," adds David St. Clair (1971:115),
quoting an unnamed Spiritist author, "is inconceivable: It just is not Spiritism."
Spiritist charity took two main forms in Brazil: (1) the giving of social assistance to the
poor; and (2) healing (McGregor 1967:93). The second, including both physical and
mental healing, then developed into what Renshaw (1969) refers to as Spiritism's mission
in the universe. With respect to Spiritist healing McGregor (1967:93) adds that a "...total
and genuine lack of cost and treatment by specific.., spirits rather than generalized
healing through their aid are the main differences between Brazilian and other branches
of the movement."
8 A reference both to the table around which Kardecist mediums sit and to the fact that
most Kardecists are white and middle class.
9 See Droogers' (1988) interesting case in which Brazil was the patient that had to be
disobsessed.
49
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SIDNEY M.

SPIRITS AND SPIRITIST THERAPY IN SOUTHERN BRAZIL:

A B S T R A C T . This paper examines the treatment of patients by a group of Spiritist

SPIRITIST THERAPY IN SOUTHERN BRAZIL

A TREATMENT SESSION AT THE CASA DO JARDIM

SPIRITIST THERAPY IN SOUTHERN BRAZIL

SPIRITIST THERAPY IN SOUTHERN BRAZIL

THE THERAPEUTIC ENCOUNTER

SPIRITIST THERAPY IN SOUTHERN BRAZIL

A MORAL PHILOSOPHY OF TRANSCENDENTAL PROGRESS

INTEGRATING AFRO-BRAZILIAN SPIRITS IN THE SPIRITIST DISOBSESSION

SPIRITIST THERAPY IN SOUTHERN BRAZIL

SPIRITIST THERAPY IN SOUTHERN BRAZIL

THE THERAPEUTIC VALUE OF THE TECHNIQUE

SPIRITIST THERAPY IN SOUTHERN BRAZIL

THE RITUAL DRAMA

SPIRITIST THERAPY IN SOUTHERN BRAZIL

SPIRITIST THERAPY IN SOUTHERN BRAZIL

HEALING BY SYMBOLIC TRANSFORMATION

SPIRITIST THERAPY IN SOUTHERN BRAZIL

RELIGIOUS COMPETITION AND ENCOMPASSING THE RHETORIC OF OTHERS

by Kardec, based on information provided him by several advanced spirits, is

SPIRITIST THERAPY IN SOUTHERN BRAZIL

When Brazilians moved to the cities in the mid-twentieth century, however,

SPIRITIST THERAPY IN SOUTHERN BRAZIL

waving of a metal rod. Increased receptivity to suggestion while in such a state,

SPIRITIST THERAPY IN SOUTHERN BRAZIL

1979 Domestic Crises, Schools and Patron-Clientage in Southeastern Minas Gerais.

SPIRITIST THERAPY IN SOUTHERN BRAZIL

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