Aliens attended the matches of the World Cup. The point of view, which may seem absurd, is seriously defended by the medium from the Brazilian state of Goias, Alexandre Sperki Vabe. Like many spiritualists, the visionary is convinced that space is inhabited by beings capable of communicating with humans, and "aliens land on the roofs of stadiums to collect the energy emanating from the fans, and then transfer to countries where there are wars or epidemics."
For Vabe and his fellow believers, communication with spirits, to which he also includes aliens, is not only a part of religious doctrine, but also a direct experience. Brazil is one of the few countries where spiritualism (communication with spirits), popular in the 19th century in Western Europe, has become a full-fledged religion with millions of adherents.
The Spiritualists are popularizing their cult at the broadest level in Brazil. In 2012, the film "Astral City" was released, based on the book of one of the founders of their teachings, Francisco Xavier. Stills from the film "Astral City"
According to official data from the 2010 census, 3 million 848 thousand Brazilians were registered as spiritists (espiritos) (for comparison, almost the same number are in the Baptist Church of Brazil). The share of spiritualists in the country's population is also growing - in 1991 they amounted to 1.1%, in 2010 - already 2% of that. At the same time, according to the 2010 census, in the ranks of spiritualists, the highest concentration of the white population among other religious movements - 68.7% of them belong to the descendants of European settlers, while, for example, among Catholics there are 47.5%, among Protestants - from 41.3% to 51.6% depending on denominations.
They are concentrated in the south of the country - on the coast and around the municipality of Palmelo in the state of Goias, which has the reputation of the "capital of the spiritists" (their share in the population of the municipality is 45.54%). The adherents of this doctrine have their own television and radio channels.
In addition, as follows from statistical data, spiritualists recruit the richest strata of society into their ranks. In the property section of this religious movement, only 24.5% of its adherents belong to the disadvantaged strata of society, whose income is less than or equal to the subsistence minimum (this is the minimum value compared to other religious movements), but to those with incomes from 3 to 10 subsistence and more than 10 living wages include, respectively, 28.9% and 6.5% of adherents of spiritualism, which is equal to the total number of all representatives of other religions falling into this category. To some extent, in this respect, spiritualism in Brazil resembles a Latin American analogue of the Kabbalah.
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How can they be attracted by the teaching formulated in the middle of the 19th century by the medium Alan Kardek (1804-1869)? Its distinctive feature, set forth in the "Book of Spirits" (1857) and subsequent works, which became a kind of Holy Scripture of the spiritists, is the absence of fear of the other world due to disbelief in hellish torments. Kardek argued that souls evolve, passing from shell to shell, and the dead and the living can communicate with each other.
In the middle of the 19th century, Kardek's teachings spread widely in France (in Paris alone, there were 60 thousand of his followers), in other European countries and in the New World. As a result, it was Brazil that became his second homeland - the books of the French mystic, who considered himself the new incarnation of the ancient Gallic druid, sold here today in the amount of 25 million copies.
Researchers note that the rise of Brazilian spiritualism is largely associated with the activities of the medium Francisco (Chico) Xavier (1910-2002).
The author of several hundred works, Xavier stimulated creative productivity in an unusual way: he found himself a spirit that wrote through his body using the method of psychography. Xavier's co-author, he said, was a Roman senator in a past life. The classical education of the deceased became at the service of the spread of spiritualism.
Xavier's first encounter with his spirit assistant took place under trivial circumstances: in a school class. The teacher asked the children to write an essay when the future guru noticed the pale figure of a stranger. By mutual agreement, he began to lead the hand of a teenager, who eventually received an excellent mark.
According to Xavier's ill-wishers, his main ability was his ability to attract an emotionally unbalanced audience. The lion's share of his success was brought to him by women who lost relatives and wanted to receive news from the other world from them. The medium used psychography, allowing his adepts to communicate with the departed. Grateful clients made Shiku a rich man, and skeptics called him a crook behind his back.
Another spiritualistic medium, known as Dr. Fritz, went much further with acts that became the subject of a criminal investigation. An engineer by training, a spirit claimed that he was possessed by the spirit of a doctor who was killed in battle during the First World War. Without a medical background, the contactee undertook surgery, which resulted in the death of several of his clients. The most reprehensible thing is that Fritz hid their corpses. The truth was revealed due to a family quarrel, after which the wife reported the fraudster.
The close relationship between Brazilian spiritualists and alternative medicine (in particular homeopathy) led to criticism that made many adepts feel in danger. Then, from their words, it became clear that spiritualism and the healing "alternative" are in no way connected with each other, and Kardek himself preferred traditional practices.
Another thing is his Brazilian followers: one of them, Zeliu de Moraes, combined spiritualism and African magic and created the Umbanda religion, which also became super popular in Brazil - according to the 2010 census, there are already 407 thousand followers in the country. Here European influence and heritage The black continent, including medical practices, are closely intermixed with each other.
The emergence of a syncretic cult in the person of Umbanda, claiming to be part of Kardek's legacy, put the heirs of his method in an awkward position. The potential for spiritualism associated with distancing from ritual religiosity could be completely lost when combined with African beliefs.
In all likelihood, Kardek himself would have been horrified to learn that his method was placed at the service of the pagan gods. The mystic himself argued that those do not exist at all, but there are only "developed souls." They do not differ from humans, but they have advanced further along the path of evolution. Worshiping any spirits in this worldview is clearly unacceptable.
Many spiritualists today - as they did a century and a half ago - claim to be Christians. There are formal grounds for this, if we approach the concept of "Christian" from a purely literalist standpoint. Kardek in his writings repeatedly mentioned Jesus, emphasizing that he was a "developed soul." Another thing is that this soul is human, but there are simply no other spiritualists in the cosmos.
… Without getting into an argument with his fellow believer Sperki Vabe, the medium Durval Champoni from the Federation of Spirituals of São Paulo states that although aliens almost certainly exist, it is not at all necessary to believe in flying saucers. "Spiritualism is intergalactic in nature, and souls can live on Saturn or Pluto." Not in living things, but in minerals, for example.