BRAZIL
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Religions as a Percent of Population
Roman Catholic 75 percent
Historical Protestant 12.5
percent
Pentecostal and
neo-Pentecostal 7 percent
Spiritist 3 percent
Afro-Brazilian 1.5 percent
Shinto, Buddhist, Jewish,
Indigenous 1 percent
BRAZIL
Religions as a Percent of
Population
Roman Catholic 75 percent
Historical Protestant 12.5
percent
Pentecostal and
neo-Pentecostal 7 percent
Spiritist 3 percent
Afro-Brazilian 1.5 percent
Shinto, Buddhist, Jewish,
Indigenous 1 percent
COUNTRY OVERVIEW
The religious landscape of
Brazil reflects the successive waves of migration that brought
European, African, and Asian settlers to interact with indigenous
populations. Soon after Cabral claimed Brazil for Portugal in
1500, Jesuit missionaries introduced Roman Catholicism. However,
the goal of economic development has long outweighed the pursuit of
doctrinal purity in Brazil. When Jesuit efforts to educate and
protect indigenous peoples angered plantation owners who sought to
enslave the Indians, the colonial government expelled the Jesuits in
1759. Although Brazil has grown to become the largest Roman
Catholic country in the world, census figures do not capture the
tendency of Brazilians to affiliate with more than one religion.
The massive importation of
slaves from west Africa provided one of the most pervasive and enduring
religious influences in Brazil. Slavery in Brazil surpassed
slavery in the United States in both quantity and duration, and the
legacy of apartheid remains present in contemporary life.
However, participation in Afro-Brazilian religions spans all ethnic
groups and social classes and bears no stigma. Most Brazilians
recognize the offerings left to African deities at crossroads or
enshrined in Carnaval floats. Catholics may attend Afro-Brazilian
ceremonies without weakening their Catholic identity. In fact,
the northeast, the traditional home of Afro-Brazilian religions, is
also Brazil’s most Catholic region.
Though Roman Catholics
maintain a numerical advantage in Brazil, fewer than 20 percent of
Catholics attended weekly Mass. Since the 1950s, Protestant
groups have made significant inroads among poor, urban Brazilians,
eliciting such devotion that practicing Protestants may outnumber
practicing Catholics. The aggressively proselytizing churches
have taken their message to the airwaves. More recent migrants
have brought Islam, Shintoism, and Judaism to Brazil. Religious
syncretism in Brazil implies more than a mechanical integration of
cultural traits from one faith to another. The intermingling of
religions creates entirely new, coherent systems of thought that are in
a constant process of renewal.
RELIGIOUS TOLERANCE
After independence from
Portugal, the 1824 Constitution affirmed Roman Catholicism as the state
religion. With the overthrow of the emperor in 1889, the Roman
Catholic Church lost its official status. Instead, the new
republic looked to the scientific philosophy of positivism for
guidance, enshrining the motto “Order and Progress” on the national
flag. Afro-Brazilian religions were seen as a source of
criminality and subject to police raids. In the 1920s and 1930s,
the Roman Catholic Church sought to reinsert itself in the Brazilian
national identity by erecting a statue of Christ the Redeemer on
Corcovado Mountain in Rio de Janeiro and cultivating close ties to
President Getúlio Vargas. The Constitution of 1934
rewarded their support with state subsidies for the Catholic Church and
Catholic schools, though these were later nullified.
During military rule from
1964 until 1985, religious and lay leaders suffered imprisonment and
torture for speaking against the dictatorship. While the 1967
Constitution guaranteed the free exercise of religious expression, it
was not enforced until the return to democracy. The government
does not require religious groups to register and allows for the
unrestricted establishment of places of worship. In 1977,
authorities ordered the Protestant group Wycliffe Bible Translators to
leave the indigenous areas where they were working. Since the
early 1990s, the Bureau of Indian Affairs has restricted the entry of
missionaries to indigenous territories.
A national scandal followed a
1995 broadcast of the neo-Pentecostal group Universal Church of the
Kingdom of God in which a church leader kicked a statue of Brazil’s
patron saint, Our Lady of Aparecida. The television presenter
apologized and was removed from his post. The presence of both
Catholic and Protestant elected officials has safeguarded government
respect for religious tolerance. Efforts toward
interdenominational harmony have been helped by the National Council of
Christian Churches, an ecumenical group which sponsored a 2000 campaign
for “Human Dignity and Peace.”
ROMAN CATHOLICISM
1DATE OF ORIGIN IN BRAZIL
1500
2NUMBER OF FOLLOWERS IN BRAZIL
125 million
3HISTORY
From the beginning of
Portuguese colonization in 1500, Catholic evangelizers have faced
significant challenges in spreading their doctrine. Unlike in
Spanish America, the Portuguese Crown retained complete authority over
the Church, including the right to appoint clergy and publish papal
bulls. Since the Crown collected tithes, the Church never
established an independent source of wealth. Spiritual life in
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries centered on the plantation, not
the parish. Landowners paid priests, who celebrated Mass on the
owner’s property.
The Catholic Church remained
subject to government authorities during Brazil’s first years of
independence. Dom Pedro II refused to circulate a papal
condemnation of Freemasonry, but several Brazilian bishops circumvented
his decision by expelling Masons from their organizations. The
subsequent imprisonment of two bishops and Vatican intervention
contributed to the official separation of church and state in
Brazil. In the veneration of a black terra cotta Virgin Mary in
São Paulo state, Church leaders saw an opportunity to reassert
control over popular faith. In 1929, they petitioned the pope to
name Our Lady of Aparecida the patron saint of Brazil. Her shrine
has become a destination for pilgrims from all over the country.
To coordinate its outreach to
poor parishioners, Brazilian bishops founded the National Bishops’
Conference of Brazil (CNBB) in 1952. When the Second Vatican
Council (1962-65) affirmed that the Church was of this world and
committed to an accessible liturgy, the CNBB implemented those reforms
in Brazil. Although the Catholic Church had at first welcomed the
military coup in 1964, it grew increasingly alarmed at the rampant
human rights abuses. By 1979 four priests had been murdered and
one bishop had been kidnapped, beaten, and painted red. A meeting
of Latin American Catholic leaders had established a “preferential
option for the poor,” which energized Brazilian bishops to support the
family of the “disappeared” and tortured and denounce government abuses.
Small grass roots groups
called Ecclesiastical Base Communities (CEBs) originated to allow lay
leaders to conduct religious services where priests were scarce.
The shortage of priests and the vastness of the Brazilian territory has
been an ongoing challenge for the Catholic Church. During the
1970s and 1980s, CEBs incorporated the new liberation theology into
their worship, applying biblical lessons to confront contemporary
conditions of inequality. At their peak, 80,000 CEBs operated in
Brazil.
While many hailed base
communities as the seeds for a transformative mass movement, only a
small proportion of Brazilian Catholics participated in them.
Several other forces conspired to weaken their potential. The
election of a more conservative pope distrustful of communist-inspired
ideology undermined the authority of progressive bishops. Critics
have also noted how the emphasis on literacy and intellectual arguments
alienated many of the poor parishioners CEBs were intended to
attract. Competition also increased from Protestant groups and
the Movement for Catholic Charismatic Renewal who emphasize the
ecstatic gifts of the Holy Spirit. The ascendant conservatism in
the Catholic Church at the start of the twenty-first century hampers
its ability to connect with the large base of poor Brazilians who
clamor for social change.
4HISTORICAL AND CONTEMPORARY
LEADERS
During the years when the
Roman Catholic Church fell out of official favor, some of the most
charismatic Catholic leaders came from outside the Church
hierarchy. Antônio Maciel, known as the Counselor,
attracted many followers in the northeast after a devastating drought
in 1877. His reputation as a holy man derived from his Catholic
piety and prediction that the world would end in 1900. With
20,000 followers, he refused to recognize the republic’s separation of
church and state and founded a utopian town based on religious
principles called Canudos. Catholic bishops regarded him as a
subversive, and regional landowners feared losing workers, so the
military decimated the settlement in 1897.
The northeast of Brazil, with
its infusion of African religions from the slave trade and relatively
rugged living conditions, spawned another Catholic leader who upset the
Church hierarchy. At the turn of the twentieth century, a parish
priest in the state of Fortaleza called Father Cícero earned
fame for the appearance of blood on the communion wafers he
distributed. When his parish in the town of Juazeiro became a
pilgrimage site, the local bishop suspended him from performing the
sacraments. Even this censure did not diminish the ardor of his
followers. In 1913, in response to a government attack on the
town, Father Cícero led his forces to repel the soldiers and
capture the state capital. His statue in Juazeiro still draws
pilgrims.
As the repressive actions of
the Brazilian military increased and the Roman Catholic Church
underwent reforms in the 1960s, two leaders seized on the Church’s
potential for promoting social justice. Dom Hélder Pessoa
Câmara endured the assassination of his associate as he
campaigned against the imprisonment of political dissidents. Dom
Paulo Evaristo Arns, Cardinal of São Paulo, organized an
ecumenical service to honor a tortured Jewish journalist whose death
the government called a suicide. Even as soldiers circled the
Cathedral, Arns turned his church into a place of refuge and resistance.
In the twenty-first century,
the most visible Roman Catholic leaders are those affiliated with the
Movement for Catholic Charismatic Renewal. Father Marcelo Rossi,
the most successful of a cadre of singing priests, appears on national
television and as a spokesperson for Brazil’s largest Internet service
provider. His compact disks have sold millions of copies.
Consumers can enter a contest whose grand prize is a trip to Rome and
an audience with the pope.
5MAJOR THEOLOGIANS AND AUTHORS
Leonardo Boff, a Franciscan
theologian, sparked a debate over liberation theology that reverberated
throughout the Roman Catholic Church. More than promoting a
preferential option for underprivileged Brazilians, Boff published
suggestions that the institution of the Church itself could benefit
from restructuring to favor the spiritual over the centralization of
power in Rome. In 1984, Cardinal John Ratzinger summoned Boff to
Rome, where he imposed a ten-month silence from writing and lecturing
on the friar. Brazilian bishops including Cardinal Arns came to
his defense, but the sentence constituted part of a larger Vatican
effort to squelch the political aspects of liberation theology.
In 1988, the Vatican divided Cardinal Arns’s diocese, previously the
world’s largest, into five.
6HOUSES OF WORSHIP AND HOLY
PLACES
The Church of Nosso Senhor de
Bonfim in Salvador, Bahia has earned a reputation for miraculous
healing. Cured believers leave offerings in the ex-voto room as
testament to their answered prayers. The same church is holy for
followers of Candomblé, who wash the steps every January in
honor of the deity Oxalá. Though Catholic leaders object
to this reinterpretation of their shrine, they are unable to stop it.
7WHAT IS SACRED
Popular Catholicism centers
devotion on saints, relics, and miraculous images. During the
long period of slavery in Brazil, dead slaves took on sacred
associations. One figure of a female slave known as Anastacia,
whose face is covered with a mask of torture, has become a national
holy symbol. She became popular as an intercessory figure among
Afro-Brazilians in the 1970s, then reached white, middle-class
followers in the 1980s. Soap opera stars declared their faith in
her; samba schools incorporated her image into the Carnaval
floats. Her example of stoicism in the face of suffering inspired
marginal peoples from street children to gays. Although the
Cardinal of Rio declared that Anastacia never existed and ordered an
end to her worship, sites related to her have become destinations for
pilgrims. Her image appears on medallions, prayer cards, and
dangling from rearview mirrors throughout Brazil.
8HOLIDAYS/FESTIVALS
The Catholic liturgical
calendar provides ample occasions for festivals. Saints’ days, in
particular, draw visitors to different regional celebrations. In
July, the Festival of St. Benedict takes place in the central-western
states. Traditional dances and foods such as bolinhos, balls of
deep-fried rice or cheese, accompany this holiday. In the state
of Pernambuco, cattlemen gather to celebrate an outdoor Cowboy’s
Mass. They remain on horseback during the ceremony and receive
blessings for their gear.
Every October, the northeast
city of Belém devotes two weeks to a celebration called Cirio de
Nazare. A statue of the Virgin leaves the cathedral in a
religious procession, and is not returned until the end of the
festival. October 12 is also the festival day dedicated to the
patron saint, Nossa Senhora Aparecida.
On New Year’s Eve, Catholics
join followers of Afro-Brazilian religions to honor Iemanjá,
goddess of the sea. Gathering on the beaches of Rio de Janeiro,
millions of people dressed in white toss offerings into the water,
hoping for blessings in return.
Carnaval, the pre-Lenten
celebration that Brazil is famous for, is only nominally a religious
holiday. Catholic leaders have become critical of the excesses of
the five-night bacchanalia that precedes Ash Wednesday. The
celebration in Rio de Janeiro culminates in a parade of elaborate
floats sponsored by samba schools with nearly 100,000 spectators.
Winning has become so costly, that some samba schools have sought
sponsors or sell spaces on their floats to affluent tourists.
Fifty days after Easter, a
Feast of the Holy Ghost takes place in the colonial town of Paraty
south of Rio de Janeiro. The week-long celebration includes
processions with flagbearers and folkloric dances.
9MODE OF DRESS
Urban Brazilians are known
for their skin-flashing fashion, short skirts, and colorful
clothes. Since the Brazilian population skews young, denim jeans
have become a de facto national uniform. Professionals dress in
Western style business suits. White clothing is associated with
practitioners of the Afro-Brazilian religion Candomblé.
10DIETARY PRACTICES
Catholic faith does not
restrict the dietary practices of its members. The Brazilian
national dish, feijoada, is made from black beans and pork. One
clear distinction between Catholics and Protestants is that Catholics
consume alcohol. A popular accompaniment to a leisurely meal is
the caipirinhai cocktail made with lime, sugar, and a white rum called
cahcaça. Brazilians are also fond of coffee, greeting
visitors with a tray of cafezinho. Guaraná, a Coca-Cola
substitute made from Amazon berries, is another popular caffeinated
drink.
11RITUALS
The central ritual of Roman
Catholicism is the Mass, where believers receive the symbolic body and
blood of Christ. As part of a movement to make the Church more
responsive to its black parishioners, Afro-Brazilian seminarians
devised an Inculturated Mass, which integrates African music, clothing,
and dance with the traditional dispensing of sacraments. These
African Masses explicitly invoke the orixás of Candomblé
and mimic the ecstatic experience of spirit mediums.
12RITES OF PASSAGE
Major life transitions have
traditionally been marked by Catholic ritual. Under the influence
of liberation theology, some of the baroque celebrations have been
toned down. Medical anthropologists have analyzed the phenomenon
of angel babies, infants who fail to thrive and are said to be called
to heaven by a saintly patron. With the routinization of infant
mortality and the deemphasis of mystical ritual, the Catholic Church no
longer holds ceremonies for dead babies.
13MEMBERSHIP
Infant children of Roman
Catholic parents enter the Church through the sacrament of
baptism. Protestant denominations, who baptize only adults,
criticize Catholics for never having made a conscious choice to join
their chosen religion. The Movement for Catholic Charismatic
Renewal does welcome former members of Afro-Brazilian religions,
engaging them in exorcism-like ceremonies to induct them into a new
religion.
14SOCIAL JUSTICE
From the time of the military
dictatorship through the advent of liberation theology, the Church has
intervened on behalf of the underprivileged and oppressed. The
Churches’ Council for Missions to the Indians (CIMI), founded in 1972,
offers support to indigenous leaders. Bishops protested the
displacement of rural workers from their land through the Pastoral Land
Commission (CPT), which in turn has lent support to the Landless
Workers Movement (MST). On National Day, the commemoration of the
country’s independence, the Church joins with civil organization in
rallies called “Cry of the Excluded” to remember the populations that
remain outside the Brazilian mainstream.
In 2000, the Church conducted
a national plebiscite on conditions imposed by the International
Monetary Fund to alleviate the country’s external debt. Over 95
percent of those voting disapproved of the economic arrangement.
The Bishops’ Conference sponsors an annual brotherhood campaign during
Lent, which has raised awareness of such issues as drug abuse, homeless
children, and racial discrimination.
15SOCIAL ASPECTS
Even under liberation
theology’s emphasis on social justice and equality, the Roman Catholic
Church has not modified its stance on female sexuality and
reproduction. Despite strict Catholic prohibitions against
abortion, most Catholics do use some form of birth control, either
pills or sterilization. In discussions with anthropologists, poor
Catholic women make a distinction between the religious prohibition on
killing life and the medical practice of preventing conception.
16POLITICAL IMPACT
While there is no explicit
Catholic caucus within the Constituent Assembly, the Roman Catholic
Church exercises power in politics discretely. Sympathetic
legislators work to defend the teaching of religion in public schools
and to prohibit the recognition of homosexual unions. The
Catholic Church operates a television channel, RedeVida, that
broadcasts their message directly into households.
17CONTROVERSIAL ISSUES
Even as Brazil confronts a
growing epidemic of HIV, the Roman Catholic Church remains staunchly
opposed to contraception. Catholic officials maintain strong
opposition to the free distribution of condoms and argue for limiting
abortions even in cases of rape. Influence from the Church also
made divorce illegal in Brazil until 1977.
18CULTURAL IMPACT ON MUSIC,
ART, LITERATURE
As with religious doctrine
and ritual, the Iberian influence mingled with indigenous and African
traditions, making it difficult to distinguish the specifically
Catholic contribution to contemporary art. Jesuits and other
early colonizers brought musical instruments from Portugal that still
shape Brazilian music: flute, clarinet, cavaquinho (a small,
four-stringed guitar), piano, violin, cello, accordion and the
tambourine. Once outlawed, samba expanded from its origins in
African religions to encompass members of the Brazilian upper class
eager to celebrate national traditions.
OTHER RELIGIONS
Between 1990 and 1992, 710
new churches opened in Rio de Janeiro, or about five a week. Of
those churches, 90 percent were Pentecostal denominations and only one
was Roman Catholic. As the proportion of Catholics in national
census figures drops, the number of Protestants in Brazil has
multiplied three times more quickly than the population itself.
European immigrants in the first half of the nineteenth century
established the first Protestant churches in Brazil, but did not embark
on a program of proselytizing. The first missionary groups
arrived in the 1850s. Converts to the new churches are called
crentes, or believers, and distinguish themselves by their formal dress.
Both the variety of
denominations and the number of followers proliferated in the twentieth
century. Growth occurred in three successive waves. The
first wave from 1910 to 1950 began with the expulsion of Swedish
laborers from their Baptist congregation for speaking in tongues.
Those interested in more ecstatic forms of worship joined North
American-based churches such as Assemblies of God. In the second
wave from 1950 to 1970, the growth of churches corresponded with
increasing urbanization and the development of mass media. The
churches that succeeded were Pentecostal congregations that emphasized
the gift of healing. Denominations like Brazil for Christ and God
is Love were domestic in origin. Beginning in the 1970s, the
final wave of churches espoused a doctrine of health and wealth that
gave divine sanction to material affluence. These churches, which
include the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, are often called
neo-Pentecostal.
The most visible of
contemporary Protestant leaders is Bishop Edir Macedo, founder of the
Universal Church of the Kingdom of God (IURD). A former
government employee, Macedo practiced both Roman Catholicism and the
Afro-Brazilian religion Umbanda before becoming a Pentecostal
pastor. In 1977 he bought a former funeral home in Rio de Janeiro
to headquarter his own church. To gain the attention of potential
converts, Macedo purchased air time on radio stations. In the
theology of IURD, demons are responsible for most physical and
financial problems. Church services include dramatic exorcisms
and constant pleas to contribute donations. By 1990 his flock had
grown sufficiently that he could afford to buy TV Record, the nation’s
third largest television network. During the pope’s 1991 visit to
Brazil, Macedo countered the massive public Mass the pope led with
several prayer meetings that drew even more followers. IURD
claims six million members worshipping in 46 countries. Migrants
to Europe and the United States carry the religion with them, often
turning abandoned movie theaters into spaces of worship. As IURD
expands, its opponents have grown more vocal, and Macedo was briefly
jailed for tax evasion. The group ensures government protection
by electing its own slate of candidates to public office.
Twenty-six IURD-affiliated federal deputies promote religious freedom
and advance a conservative social agenda.
The Pentecostal message of
self-help through faith healing has been especially attractive to
underprivileged urban Brazilians. In the northeastern city of
Belém, anthropologists have found an inverse relationship
between household income and the number of Pentecostal churches in a
neighborhood. To conquer pervasive alcoholism, poor Brazilians
have few options: most have no access to state health care and
participation in Catholic rituals often makes alcohol consumption a
virtual requirement. With the exception of the looser standards
of IURD, Pentecostal churches prohibit drinking, smoking, and other
harmful behaviors that exacerbate life in urban slums.
As converts become more
involved in their new churches, they find succor in a mutually
supportive community. Although some larger denominations have
become bureaucratized, all Protestant churches offer opportunities for
leadership and female participation that the Roman Catholic Church
denies. Protestantism has also served as the springboard for
political careers, not all of which are predictably conservative.
General Ernesto Geisel, a Protestant, served as president during the
military dictatorship. Benedita da Silva, a member of Assemblies
of God and the leftist Workers’ Party, became the first Afro-Brazilian
woman to serve in the national congress.
Although Pentecostalism is
generally hostile to the Catholic Church’s base communities and the
practice of Afro-Brazilian religion, all seek to channel supernatural
power to improve present-day conditions. They all place
individual misfortune in a larger framework that gives meaning to
suffering. However, Pentecostalism has achieved the greatest
following among Brazil’s large class of underprivileged. Scholars
have speculated that of all the religions available to the poor,
Pentecostalism “was the one that most encouraged people to face up to
the frustrations created by the absence of material resources and the
impossibility of increasing those resources” (Mariz 1994:151).
Statistically, adherents of
Afro-Brazilian religions represent only 1.5 percent of the Brazilian
population, but the Afro-Brazilian Federation claims that followers
total 70 percent of the country. The magnitude and duration of
the slave trade in Brazil left an indelible mark on religion. The
slaves themselves represented the diverse populations of west Africa
including Sudanese peoples from Yoruba, Dahomans, and Fanti-Ashanti
groups, Bantu peoples, and the Islamicized peoples of Peul, Mandingo,
and Hausa. Included in their numbers were animists, Muslims,
polytheists, and others who practiced ancestor worship. Some
historical accounts maintain that colonists prohibited slaves from
observing their religious practices for fear of promoting group
solidarity, while other interpretations stress that slave owners
encouraged the observance of African religions as a way to promote the
erotic dancing that they believed would stimulate reproduction.
In either case, the chaotic and disruptive nature of slavery ensured
that no religious practices survived intact from Africa.
The Afro-Brazilian religions
active in contemporary Brazil date from the late eighteenth and early
nineteenth century. Conditions of work in the sugar-growing
plantations of the northeast were more conducive to the nurturing of
African traditions than mining or cattle-raising regions. In the
large plantations, as many as one thousand slaves lived together under
minimal supervision. In the interest of evangelizing large
numbers of slaves, members of Catholic religious allowed the practice
of African customs as long as they were adapted and reinterpreted in
Catholic terms. Orixás are the intermediaries between
Olorun, the supreme god of the Yoruba, and humans. This pantheon
of deities came to be identified with the Catholic saints and addressed
as personal guardians in the same manner as saints. In different
parts of Brazil, an orixá can be paired with a different
Catholic saint. Xangô, for instance, is worshipped as St.
Jerome in Bahia, Archangel Michael in Rio, and St. John in Alalgoas.
Adherents of
Candomblé, the best studied of the Afro-Brazilian religions, are
also Roman Catholics and may be required to attend Mass as part of the
ceremonial cycle. Each terreiro, the home of an Afro-Brazilian
religion, maintains an altar for worship of both Catholic saints and
African deities and is independent of other cult houses. A
hierarchy of assistants, musicians, and priests and priestesses who
have undergone initiation rituals conduct the ceremonies. In
private rituals, initiates sacrifice animals to the
orixás. Drumming and Yoruba chanting accompany the public
rituals, which begin with an invocation of Exu, a troublesome
god. As the initiates, dressed in costumes, begin to dance some
enter into a trance possessed by his or her orixá. Outside
of Bahia, Candomblé worship goes by different names with
slightly different traditions.
While Candomblé
retains a strong African element, Umbanda has firm nationalist roots.
In the nineteenth century, the writings of Allan Kardec, a Frenchman,
influenced the development of Spiritism in Brazil. He posited a
rational theory of reincarnation that allowed contact with souls of the
dead. Umbanda rituals, conducted in Portuguese, combine African,
indigenous, Catholic, and Spiritist traits to forge a resolutely
Brazilian religion. It has eliminated the ecstatic trances
associated with Afro-Brazilian religion and reduced the expenses of
initiation. Umbanda adds to the pantheon of saints and
orixás locally significant spirits like the caboclo and the
preto velho, who can be manipulated to cure members’ physical and
spiritual ills. Its popularity has spread through the urban
middle and popular classes since its foundation in the 1920s and now
boasts radio programs and publications.
New Age centers have also
succeeded in incorporating several strains of religious tradition into
a coherent system for healing. In São Paulo, holistic
centers offering New Age services have attracted a predominantly
educated, Catholic following. Borrowing from indigenous
shamanism, New Age practitioners employ visualization techniques to
journey spiritually to the non-material realm. Some enhance the
effect with the hallucinogen ayahuasca.
More than 500 New Age centers
operate in the area known as Planaltina outside the capital city of
Brasília. One of the most successful is Valley of the
Dawn, a 120-acre site founded in 1973 by a clairvoyant woman known as
Tia Neiva. As many as 80,000 spirit mediums associated with
Valley of the Dawn attend to the physical and mental needs of the
residents of the federal district. The site itself has become a
tourist attraction, well-known for its powers of healing. Daily
rituals seek to channel forces from an invisible space ship that will
recalibrate the internal energies of the spirit mediums. They
believe that a two thousand year cycle is coming to an end, and members
must be prepared for a new planetary phase.
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Bastide, Roger
1978 The
African Religions of Brazil: Toward a Sociology of the Interpenetration
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and Luiz Carlos Susin, eds.
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Brazil: People and Church(es). Paul Burns, trans. London: SCM Press.
Burdick, John
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Looking for God in Brazil: The Progressive Catholic Church in Urban
Brazil’s Religious Arena. Berkeley: University of California Press.
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Blessed Anastacia: Women, Race, and Popular Christianity in Brazil. New
York: Routledge.
Cox, Harvey
1988 The
Silencing of Leonardo Boff: The Vatican and the Future of World
Christianity. Oak Park, IL: Meyer-Stone Books.
Mariz, Cecília
1994 Coping
with Poverty: Pentecostals and Christian Base Communities in Brazil.
Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Page, Joseph A.
1995 The
Brazilians. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company.
Scheper-Hughes, Nancy
1992 Death
Without Weeping: The Violence of Everyday Life in Brazil. Berkeley:
University of California Press.
Wafer, James William
1991 The
Taste of Blood: Spirit Possession in Brazilian Candomblé.
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
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