Revista Espírita 
Revue Spirite 
Caracter of the spiritual revelation 
Mensajero Espirita 
The Spiritist Messenger 
Interview with Divaldo Franco in the United Kingdom
Interview with Divaldo Franco at the end of his activities with BUSS, in the UK, on the 15th June 2005.
Q 1 – Divaldo, we notice there has been an awakening from humankind to the spiritual side of life, to what do you attribute that?
A 1 – Science and technology have resolved numerous problems of the human mind but has not yet found an answer to the problem of peace. Modern man, who has gone to the galaxies and to the micro-particles, has not yet succeed in going into the core of feelings. Modern cultures have established aims through immediatism, which once reached they lose importance. That is why those beings, who adventure into a journey about reincarnation in our days, feel a great emptiness in their hearts, longing for eternity. In this way, according to their personal levels of consciousness, human beings are searching for spiritual answers as well as going towards immortality. This is the fundamental reason for the large search for spiritualism, in all of its denominations, on earth today.
Q 2 – Mediumship is also within Spiritualism, so what is its purpose in general?
A 2a – It is only through the mediumistic phenomena that we can have the scientific proof of the immortality of the soul. Orthodox religions from the past and some from the present have removed the gifts attributed to human beings by the apostle Paul and also mentioned by Jesus when he affirmed that we could do everything he did if we only had faith. Thus, mediumship’s essential objective is to prove the death of those who left Earth is not the end of life.
A2b – Mediumship’s main purpose is to give the spirits the opportunity for communicating, thus, giving evidence of their survival after their memorial services. It has always been present throughout history, as prophecies, in the revelations of the sibyls, in the hierophants, mediums via which the spirits have always given communication. Thanks to Allan Kardec, mediumship has acquired “cultural citizenship” becoming an instrument by which the life that remains after the grave may be studied in laboratory.
Q 3 – How does it occur?
A 3 – According to Allan Kardec we all have the capabilities for mediumship. Some are called obvious mediums, those in which mediumship appears without previous notice. Others are called natural mediums, those that Charles Richet, called the sixth sense; the vibratory loop in which once leaving material senses one goes into the phenomenon of a supernatural nature. Its education, similarly to that of intelligence or memory, is achieved by exercising the knowledge of its functions, by deep contemplations, by meditation and prayer.
Q 4- Are there special techniques to acquire mediumship?
A 4 – When mediumship does not happen spontaneously, each one of us can exercise inner concentration, which by bringing our thoughts deep into the core of our beings, enable us to capture paraphysical vibrations. As it happens, we slowly have our fields of perception amplified until the phenomenon becomes obvious and more vigorous. Therefore, it is through exercising it that we educate mediumship and amplify its possibilities. We can employ a technique, particularly in the Spiritist mediumship, which demands from us an inner reform by adopting the postulates of Jesus to better synchronise with high spirits.
Q 5 – How can we know whether a spiritual attachment is a disorientated mediumship?
A 5 – In the roots of every spiritual attachment there is a spirit in debt. In order to have a spiritual attachment, one needs to have a mediumistic faculty. It can be a well tuned intuition allowing the adversary’s telepathy, or a clairaudience where the spirit can attach itself to the perspirit of the patient, so transmitting the sensations compatible to its condition; ill-feeling, vengeance or compensation for the wrong suffered in the past, which always is madness. That is why it is said that in the tormented mediumship there usually is a spiritual attachment, and that spiritual attachments happen when the spiritual adversary can interfere due to a mediumistic faculty not yet disciplined.
Q 6 – What is your advice in how to deal with Spiritual Attachment for those people who observe such phenomena within their families?
A 6 – Allan Kardec in the “Mediums’ Book”, chapter 23, reassures us that the best treatment for liberation from the afflictions is, prayer accompanied by patience and charitable actions, which give the person merits to compensate for the wrong done in the past. Patience with the disturbing entity is needed in order to show that the person has changed. Meanwhile, between the crime and the retaliation there has been a huge moral transformation. Of course, the family can get together to study the Gospel and to pray, what is of salutary importance. Spiritism employs yet another tool of great importance; specific and therapeutic mediumistic works called Spiritual Release. Here the spiritual enemy presents itself and receives guidance compatible to its own happiness, being induced to let go the person believed to be its adversary and to leave the matter to be resolved by the Divine Law, since it is not his/her assignment to ask for compensation. Once it is understood that by doing wrong the spirit is harming itself, the spirit gives up and when it happens the patient recovers. However, the patient needs to retract from the wrong doing and from a careless life engaged in mistakes and disturbances, to prevent the worst.
Q 7 – Is it possible to receive guidance from the Spiritual Guide to keep away the harassing spirits?
A 7 – There is no doubt, as the Spiritual Guides are the mentors of our existences. These are elevated entities who have been accompanying us for a long time with the responsibility of working with us towards our progress. They know our past as well as the past of those who come in their personal search for justice. Their advices are efficient and must be followed since due to their words and guidance the person can get a faster rehabilitation and the adversary can give up its intent more rapidly.
Q 8 – What is the reason for them to persecute the incarnated ones?
A 8 – Allan Kardec heard from the Spirits themselves that it can be due to envy, spitefulness, sorrow, resentment or hate for events from this or from past lives. We must keep in mind the spirits that communicate with us are the souls of those who lived on Earth and have transferred themselves to another vibration loop while keeping their habits and intentions. If they were less developed, they remain ignorant; if they were perverse, they remain cruel, if gentle, good and noble they remain elevated. That is why in the classification of Spirits, there are the inferiors and the superiors. The inferiors compound the large majority of the unhappy, disturbed and disturbing, hateful and etc. Thus, they persecute us due to their inability to forget the wrong we caused them; other times because they envy our existences and also because they find in us the psychological resonance that allows their disturbing mental waves to reach us.
Q 9 – Divaldo, can you tell us what are your mediumistic faculties and which ones you use most in favour of Spiritism?
A 9 – We all have variable mediumistic faculties. In time one or another prevail as more useful to the assignments we work on. In my case, the first manifestations were audio and visual during childhood. Later on, due to a spiritual attachment with my own brother, I started to have physical phenomena. After starting to study Spiritism the phenomena of automatic-writing and clairaudience became active, followed by other physical phenomena, including releasing of aroma from the physical body. Currently, the most constant are clairvoyance, clairaudience, trance and automatic-writing. Indeed, one gift complements the other in the work of disseminating the Spiritist Doctrine.
Q 10 – We were told that you have received more than 200 books, how is the process of receiving so many books through automatic-writing?
A 10 – Taking into consideration the little time I can dispose of, when I was working full-time, 8 hours per day, and now after retirement when the number of trips have increased, more than 200 days per year, it was needed to come up with a very strict timetable. Some books are collections of messages which I receive in mediumistic sessions in our group, where we have a specific session of letters from the beyond, in the presence of the public. Others are the result of Joanna De Angelis inviting spiritual friends during my trips, to discuss on themes that have been in discussion that night under a different angle and we start putting together the books under the guidance of this generous entity. For books which are revelations from the beyond such as the works of Manoel Philomeno de Miranda, the romances of Victor Hugo, the books of Amelia Rodrigues, we reserve several days when I am not travelling so I can devote 16 to 18 hours per day only to receiving such books; and thanks to God, in only 20 to 28 days the benefactors manage to write a book that is soon published.
Q 11 – How many Spirits have written through your mediumship?
A 11 – Dr. Washington Luis Nogueira Fernandes, who has been my biographer and putting together statistics for my activities, based on the documentation I keep, counted 263 which have already been published. However, as I have received letters from the beyond to people who for obvious reasons, do not published them, I believe I have received from more than 400 Spirits.
Q 12 – Recently, at the 4th World Spiritist Congress in Paris, in 2004, you received by automatic-writing a message in mirror-fashion way in French in front of an audience of 1,800 people. Does it happen often?
A 12 – No. My first experience was in a TV programme in the city of Uberaba in Brazil, when I received the title of “Citizen of Uberaba”. In the day following the ceremony, a programme called “The Anvil” simply because at the programme it was as if the guests were hit with anvils by the questions of the interviewers. Amongst them were the materialist, the university professor and famous personalities who interviewed me in a hot debate. At the end, the programme’s mediator asked me if I could perform some automatic-writing. I explained to him that it did not depend on me, but as I saw my mentor Joanna De Angelis, I agreed to try. To my surprise a message came in English in a mirror-fashion way. The surprise was total, Chico Xavier, who was still incarnated, told me later on that he had followed the programme on TV. Later in life, in a small gathering at the house of Mr. Haddad, at the Ellon College, in North Carolina, I received another message via automatic-writing. Later on, it happened again in a church in San Antonio, Texas, during a meeting organised by Dr. John Zerio, again the message was received in English. The case you mentioned in Paris, last year, was a surprise. Even though, I had received linear messages in French, Italian and even in Arabic, which originals we keep with care.
Q 13 – You have written many books of a psychological theme that are utilised by many students of psychology. What is the position of Science in regards to mediumistic works?
A 14 - Thanks to Transpersonal Psychology there is nowadays a most dignified view of the works coming from beyond due to the view and observation of researchers. When Joanna De Angelis started writing a psychological series of 12 books in total, it caught me by surprise and I asked her how having she disembodied in 1822 could she write about contemporary issues, refers to authors and writers, psychologists, psychoanalysts, psychiatrists of the 20th Century. She, in the clarity of her reasoning, explained to me that knowledge comes from the spiritual world to the material world, not the other way round. Joanna had not been an academic psychologist, but in the spiritual world many of those who came to Earth bringing psychology were with her and others debating themes and putting together concepts. Those reincarnated on Earth under hers and the group’s assistance. When they returned to the spiritual world, they were evaluated, comments were made and other missionaries of the thought came to Earth. In this way Joanna is very familiar, especially with the theory of Karl Gustave Jung, since he opened in his deep psychology a wider possibility to Transpersonal Psychology. The wish of our dear benefactor is to have a “bridge” between Psychology and Spiritism, showing that Allan Kardec was the first non-academic psychologist, as he penetrated in the heart of human conflicts and offered adequate answers and more edifying therapies. Thus, nowadays, psychologists, not only the ones specialised in transpersonal therapies, examine mediumistic workings and, with the understanding exceptions, accept it. There are some, in Brazil, that are adopting some of the works of Joanna De Angelis in their university’ courses as well as groups of psychologists studying her works. I have received the names of more than 30 Spiritist Institutions who kindly informed me that they are studying Joanna De Angelis under the orientation of psychologists.
Q 14 – Please tell us about the Educational Institution you founded and preside in Brazil and how can someone pay a visit.
A 15 – The “Mansion of the Way” is a sui generis experience which was born out of a psychic vision I had in 1949 and was established, according to the models of that time, as a home for orphaned children. In 1952 we had the inauguration but it was in 1955 that a friend found the plot of land I had seen in my psychic vision and where we are up to today. It was due to hard efforts that we acquired half of that plot of land and later on the rest of it, and built this sui generis work, these were the first substitute homes in Latin America. A community of houses, each house having 8 children of both sexes, to diminish the enchantment of sexual torments so common in those times. As these were abandoned children with no parents, we kept the father image in the persons of Nilson and me, as well as, having an “aunt” in each home. We avoid using the titles of mother and father in order not to break the bloodline ties, so we are all uncles and aunts, as if they were all orphans from our own families being transferred to our homes. We had up to 125 children at one time. To give a better service we created a community, first with a crèche, then a kindergarten, then a fundamental school and later the technical schools. Around 1982 Joanna De Angelis, the mentor, told us that such method was not compatible with the view of modern psycho-pedagogy in the view of the fact that to take children away from their environment was to give them an artificial world because at a certain point the children would have to go back to their own roots and to their society and in such closed environment they were being over-protected. It was not possible to have an open environment since we would need security and it would be anti-psychological. Therefore the work needed to be expanded; the child would arrive in the morning having the day with us and coming back to their families in the evening. Even in the case of the orphans, there is always a member of the extended family, an uncle, a grandmother, and we would be responsible for their maintenance but at their own homes. Thus, we finished the substitute homes as the children in there grew up by not replacing them. Nowadays we have 3,190 children and youngsters who arrive at 7a.m. for the breakfast, mid-morning lunch, lunch, mid-afternoon lunch and the youngest ones get dinner before going back home. As we observed that the neighbourhood is in great need, all children take bread, coffee and milk back home. This is a way to reach the family who is in need as well. In this way, our children get into our crèches when they are 2 months old and leave at 2+ years old, then they go to kindergarten to learn how to read and write, and soon after, they enter the Fundamental School. As our neighbourhood is a needy one, we have a Medical Centre attending from 400 to 500 people a day. The Medical Centre has 14 doctors, 2 dentists, a laboratory for clinical analyses and we try to give all the prescribed medicines for free since the biggest problem is hunger. If people have no money to buy food they have even less to pay for medicines. And because there are too many pains, we also attend 92 HIV sufferers as well as victims of tuberculosis and leprosy. We attend 250 families who live below the poverty line and 150 upgraded. The later refers to the families which their children are under our care and whose parents need to work. We pay their rents, we give them a basic pack of food for the week and take care of their children but the parents have to go to work. After 6 months under such assistance they are socially upgraded and give their place to another family. In this way, we have a net of help for almost 5,000 people per day. From the Spiritist side, we have fraternal help given everyday from 9am to 11am and from 2pm to 5pm. We have 5 public meetings; meetings for spiritist studies, public talks and evangelisation lessons for the children and teenagers on Sundays. We have 8 mediumistic sessions in different days of the week in different rooms at the same time; we try to be ready to help those in need every time there is a problem. We have a team of visitors because sometimes someone gets ill and needs a friendly word, a magnetic or a bio-energetic treatment. They give us a call and we send the request to the department which send someone to pay that person a visit. The community is large and we have more than 400 volunteers, 200 paid workers, 7 kitchens to meet such a large requests for food. Any person arriving in Salvador, Bahia, and wishing to visit can call 3393 2018; and will be very welcome during weekdays between 8 to 11a.m. and 2 to 5p.m. by a Reception Committee who gives information and leads guided tours.
Q 15 – Would you like to say anything else?
A 16 – I am not sure if I mentioned receiving messages in Italian and German. I have two messages in German, one in public and the other while in Salvador, to the Engineer Andre Studer who published the message in the book, “Manur”, he was writing. It was a curious situation because Andre Studer is a very dear soul, a great friend and benefactor. One day Joanna De Angelis came and said she wanted to send him a message, which I thought would be in Portuguese. She wrote in ancient German about a book he was writing which only him and his wife knew about, nobody else did. I sent him the message not knowing the contents of it and later on he confided me that it was the biggest evidence of the excellence of his book and of mediumship. He knows I do not speak German and that I did not know about his book. He included in the book how the message came to him, who is Joanna De Angelis, etc. I have received a message in Italian at the Comunità Vita Nuova in Milan, Italy, from Ernesto Bozzano who wrote in Italian during a meeting surprising all people present. Soon after I received another one intended to Mr Antonio Rosa Spina, then President but disembodied nowadays.
Interview by Elsa Rossi
Translated into English: Elsa de Almeida
Revision: Publio Lentulus
Q 1 – Divaldo, we notice there has been an awakening from humankind to the spiritual side of life, to what do you attribute that?
A 1 – Science and technology have resolved numerous problems of the human mind but has not yet found an answer to the problem of peace. Modern man, who has gone to the galaxies and to the micro-particles, has not yet succeed in going into the core of feelings. Modern cultures have established aims through immediatism, which once reached they lose importance. That is why those beings, who adventure into a journey about reincarnation in our days, feel a great emptiness in their hearts, longing for eternity. In this way, according to their personal levels of consciousness, human beings are searching for spiritual answers as well as going towards immortality. This is the fundamental reason for the large search for spiritualism, in all of its denominations, on earth today.
Q 2 – Mediumship is also within Spiritualism, so what is its purpose in general?
A 2a – It is only through the mediumistic phenomena that we can have the scientific proof of the immortality of the soul. Orthodox religions from the past and some from the present have removed the gifts attributed to human beings by the apostle Paul and also mentioned by Jesus when he affirmed that we could do everything he did if we only had faith. Thus, mediumship’s essential objective is to prove the death of those who left Earth is not the end of life.
A2b – Mediumship’s main purpose is to give the spirits the opportunity for communicating, thus, giving evidence of their survival after their memorial services. It has always been present throughout history, as prophecies, in the revelations of the sibyls, in the hierophants, mediums via which the spirits have always given communication. Thanks to Allan Kardec, mediumship has acquired “cultural citizenship” becoming an instrument by which the life that remains after the grave may be studied in laboratory.
Q 3 – How does it occur?
A 3 – According to Allan Kardec we all have the capabilities for mediumship. Some are called obvious mediums, those in which mediumship appears without previous notice. Others are called natural mediums, those that Charles Richet, called the sixth sense; the vibratory loop in which once leaving material senses one goes into the phenomenon of a supernatural nature. Its education, similarly to that of intelligence or memory, is achieved by exercising the knowledge of its functions, by deep contemplations, by meditation and prayer.
Q 4- Are there special techniques to acquire mediumship?
A 4 – When mediumship does not happen spontaneously, each one of us can exercise inner concentration, which by bringing our thoughts deep into the core of our beings, enable us to capture paraphysical vibrations. As it happens, we slowly have our fields of perception amplified until the phenomenon becomes obvious and more vigorous. Therefore, it is through exercising it that we educate mediumship and amplify its possibilities. We can employ a technique, particularly in the Spiritist mediumship, which demands from us an inner reform by adopting the postulates of Jesus to better synchronise with high spirits.
Q 5 – How can we know whether a spiritual attachment is a disorientated mediumship?
A 5 – In the roots of every spiritual attachment there is a spirit in debt. In order to have a spiritual attachment, one needs to have a mediumistic faculty. It can be a well tuned intuition allowing the adversary’s telepathy, or a clairaudience where the spirit can attach itself to the perspirit of the patient, so transmitting the sensations compatible to its condition; ill-feeling, vengeance or compensation for the wrong suffered in the past, which always is madness. That is why it is said that in the tormented mediumship there usually is a spiritual attachment, and that spiritual attachments happen when the spiritual adversary can interfere due to a mediumistic faculty not yet disciplined.
Q 6 – What is your advice in how to deal with Spiritual Attachment for those people who observe such phenomena within their families?
A 6 – Allan Kardec in the “Mediums’ Book”, chapter 23, reassures us that the best treatment for liberation from the afflictions is, prayer accompanied by patience and charitable actions, which give the person merits to compensate for the wrong done in the past. Patience with the disturbing entity is needed in order to show that the person has changed. Meanwhile, between the crime and the retaliation there has been a huge moral transformation. Of course, the family can get together to study the Gospel and to pray, what is of salutary importance. Spiritism employs yet another tool of great importance; specific and therapeutic mediumistic works called Spiritual Release. Here the spiritual enemy presents itself and receives guidance compatible to its own happiness, being induced to let go the person believed to be its adversary and to leave the matter to be resolved by the Divine Law, since it is not his/her assignment to ask for compensation. Once it is understood that by doing wrong the spirit is harming itself, the spirit gives up and when it happens the patient recovers. However, the patient needs to retract from the wrong doing and from a careless life engaged in mistakes and disturbances, to prevent the worst.
Q 7 – Is it possible to receive guidance from the Spiritual Guide to keep away the harassing spirits?
A 7 – There is no doubt, as the Spiritual Guides are the mentors of our existences. These are elevated entities who have been accompanying us for a long time with the responsibility of working with us towards our progress. They know our past as well as the past of those who come in their personal search for justice. Their advices are efficient and must be followed since due to their words and guidance the person can get a faster rehabilitation and the adversary can give up its intent more rapidly.
Q 8 – What is the reason for them to persecute the incarnated ones?
A 8 – Allan Kardec heard from the Spirits themselves that it can be due to envy, spitefulness, sorrow, resentment or hate for events from this or from past lives. We must keep in mind the spirits that communicate with us are the souls of those who lived on Earth and have transferred themselves to another vibration loop while keeping their habits and intentions. If they were less developed, they remain ignorant; if they were perverse, they remain cruel, if gentle, good and noble they remain elevated. That is why in the classification of Spirits, there are the inferiors and the superiors. The inferiors compound the large majority of the unhappy, disturbed and disturbing, hateful and etc. Thus, they persecute us due to their inability to forget the wrong we caused them; other times because they envy our existences and also because they find in us the psychological resonance that allows their disturbing mental waves to reach us.
Q 9 – Divaldo, can you tell us what are your mediumistic faculties and which ones you use most in favour of Spiritism?
A 9 – We all have variable mediumistic faculties. In time one or another prevail as more useful to the assignments we work on. In my case, the first manifestations were audio and visual during childhood. Later on, due to a spiritual attachment with my own brother, I started to have physical phenomena. After starting to study Spiritism the phenomena of automatic-writing and clairaudience became active, followed by other physical phenomena, including releasing of aroma from the physical body. Currently, the most constant are clairvoyance, clairaudience, trance and automatic-writing. Indeed, one gift complements the other in the work of disseminating the Spiritist Doctrine.
Q 10 – We were told that you have received more than 200 books, how is the process of receiving so many books through automatic-writing?
A 10 – Taking into consideration the little time I can dispose of, when I was working full-time, 8 hours per day, and now after retirement when the number of trips have increased, more than 200 days per year, it was needed to come up with a very strict timetable. Some books are collections of messages which I receive in mediumistic sessions in our group, where we have a specific session of letters from the beyond, in the presence of the public. Others are the result of Joanna De Angelis inviting spiritual friends during my trips, to discuss on themes that have been in discussion that night under a different angle and we start putting together the books under the guidance of this generous entity. For books which are revelations from the beyond such as the works of Manoel Philomeno de Miranda, the romances of Victor Hugo, the books of Amelia Rodrigues, we reserve several days when I am not travelling so I can devote 16 to 18 hours per day only to receiving such books; and thanks to God, in only 20 to 28 days the benefactors manage to write a book that is soon published.
Q 11 – How many Spirits have written through your mediumship?
A 11 – Dr. Washington Luis Nogueira Fernandes, who has been my biographer and putting together statistics for my activities, based on the documentation I keep, counted 263 which have already been published. However, as I have received letters from the beyond to people who for obvious reasons, do not published them, I believe I have received from more than 400 Spirits.
Q 12 – Recently, at the 4th World Spiritist Congress in Paris, in 2004, you received by automatic-writing a message in mirror-fashion way in French in front of an audience of 1,800 people. Does it happen often?
A 12 – No. My first experience was in a TV programme in the city of Uberaba in Brazil, when I received the title of “Citizen of Uberaba”. In the day following the ceremony, a programme called “The Anvil” simply because at the programme it was as if the guests were hit with anvils by the questions of the interviewers. Amongst them were the materialist, the university professor and famous personalities who interviewed me in a hot debate. At the end, the programme’s mediator asked me if I could perform some automatic-writing. I explained to him that it did not depend on me, but as I saw my mentor Joanna De Angelis, I agreed to try. To my surprise a message came in English in a mirror-fashion way. The surprise was total, Chico Xavier, who was still incarnated, told me later on that he had followed the programme on TV. Later in life, in a small gathering at the house of Mr. Haddad, at the Ellon College, in North Carolina, I received another message via automatic-writing. Later on, it happened again in a church in San Antonio, Texas, during a meeting organised by Dr. John Zerio, again the message was received in English. The case you mentioned in Paris, last year, was a surprise. Even though, I had received linear messages in French, Italian and even in Arabic, which originals we keep with care.
Q 13 – You have written many books of a psychological theme that are utilised by many students of psychology. What is the position of Science in regards to mediumistic works?
A 14 - Thanks to Transpersonal Psychology there is nowadays a most dignified view of the works coming from beyond due to the view and observation of researchers. When Joanna De Angelis started writing a psychological series of 12 books in total, it caught me by surprise and I asked her how having she disembodied in 1822 could she write about contemporary issues, refers to authors and writers, psychologists, psychoanalysts, psychiatrists of the 20th Century. She, in the clarity of her reasoning, explained to me that knowledge comes from the spiritual world to the material world, not the other way round. Joanna had not been an academic psychologist, but in the spiritual world many of those who came to Earth bringing psychology were with her and others debating themes and putting together concepts. Those reincarnated on Earth under hers and the group’s assistance. When they returned to the spiritual world, they were evaluated, comments were made and other missionaries of the thought came to Earth. In this way Joanna is very familiar, especially with the theory of Karl Gustave Jung, since he opened in his deep psychology a wider possibility to Transpersonal Psychology. The wish of our dear benefactor is to have a “bridge” between Psychology and Spiritism, showing that Allan Kardec was the first non-academic psychologist, as he penetrated in the heart of human conflicts and offered adequate answers and more edifying therapies. Thus, nowadays, psychologists, not only the ones specialised in transpersonal therapies, examine mediumistic workings and, with the understanding exceptions, accept it. There are some, in Brazil, that are adopting some of the works of Joanna De Angelis in their university’ courses as well as groups of psychologists studying her works. I have received the names of more than 30 Spiritist Institutions who kindly informed me that they are studying Joanna De Angelis under the orientation of psychologists.
Q 14 – Please tell us about the Educational Institution you founded and preside in Brazil and how can someone pay a visit.
A 15 – The “Mansion of the Way” is a sui generis experience which was born out of a psychic vision I had in 1949 and was established, according to the models of that time, as a home for orphaned children. In 1952 we had the inauguration but it was in 1955 that a friend found the plot of land I had seen in my psychic vision and where we are up to today. It was due to hard efforts that we acquired half of that plot of land and later on the rest of it, and built this sui generis work, these were the first substitute homes in Latin America. A community of houses, each house having 8 children of both sexes, to diminish the enchantment of sexual torments so common in those times. As these were abandoned children with no parents, we kept the father image in the persons of Nilson and me, as well as, having an “aunt” in each home. We avoid using the titles of mother and father in order not to break the bloodline ties, so we are all uncles and aunts, as if they were all orphans from our own families being transferred to our homes. We had up to 125 children at one time. To give a better service we created a community, first with a crèche, then a kindergarten, then a fundamental school and later the technical schools. Around 1982 Joanna De Angelis, the mentor, told us that such method was not compatible with the view of modern psycho-pedagogy in the view of the fact that to take children away from their environment was to give them an artificial world because at a certain point the children would have to go back to their own roots and to their society and in such closed environment they were being over-protected. It was not possible to have an open environment since we would need security and it would be anti-psychological. Therefore the work needed to be expanded; the child would arrive in the morning having the day with us and coming back to their families in the evening. Even in the case of the orphans, there is always a member of the extended family, an uncle, a grandmother, and we would be responsible for their maintenance but at their own homes. Thus, we finished the substitute homes as the children in there grew up by not replacing them. Nowadays we have 3,190 children and youngsters who arrive at 7a.m. for the breakfast, mid-morning lunch, lunch, mid-afternoon lunch and the youngest ones get dinner before going back home. As we observed that the neighbourhood is in great need, all children take bread, coffee and milk back home. This is a way to reach the family who is in need as well. In this way, our children get into our crèches when they are 2 months old and leave at 2+ years old, then they go to kindergarten to learn how to read and write, and soon after, they enter the Fundamental School. As our neighbourhood is a needy one, we have a Medical Centre attending from 400 to 500 people a day. The Medical Centre has 14 doctors, 2 dentists, a laboratory for clinical analyses and we try to give all the prescribed medicines for free since the biggest problem is hunger. If people have no money to buy food they have even less to pay for medicines. And because there are too many pains, we also attend 92 HIV sufferers as well as victims of tuberculosis and leprosy. We attend 250 families who live below the poverty line and 150 upgraded. The later refers to the families which their children are under our care and whose parents need to work. We pay their rents, we give them a basic pack of food for the week and take care of their children but the parents have to go to work. After 6 months under such assistance they are socially upgraded and give their place to another family. In this way, we have a net of help for almost 5,000 people per day. From the Spiritist side, we have fraternal help given everyday from 9am to 11am and from 2pm to 5pm. We have 5 public meetings; meetings for spiritist studies, public talks and evangelisation lessons for the children and teenagers on Sundays. We have 8 mediumistic sessions in different days of the week in different rooms at the same time; we try to be ready to help those in need every time there is a problem. We have a team of visitors because sometimes someone gets ill and needs a friendly word, a magnetic or a bio-energetic treatment. They give us a call and we send the request to the department which send someone to pay that person a visit. The community is large and we have more than 400 volunteers, 200 paid workers, 7 kitchens to meet such a large requests for food. Any person arriving in Salvador, Bahia, and wishing to visit can call 3393 2018; and will be very welcome during weekdays between 8 to 11a.m. and 2 to 5p.m. by a Reception Committee who gives information and leads guided tours.
Q 15 – Would you like to say anything else?
A 16 – I am not sure if I mentioned receiving messages in Italian and German. I have two messages in German, one in public and the other while in Salvador, to the Engineer Andre Studer who published the message in the book, “Manur”, he was writing. It was a curious situation because Andre Studer is a very dear soul, a great friend and benefactor. One day Joanna De Angelis came and said she wanted to send him a message, which I thought would be in Portuguese. She wrote in ancient German about a book he was writing which only him and his wife knew about, nobody else did. I sent him the message not knowing the contents of it and later on he confided me that it was the biggest evidence of the excellence of his book and of mediumship. He knows I do not speak German and that I did not know about his book. He included in the book how the message came to him, who is Joanna De Angelis, etc. I have received a message in Italian at the Comunità Vita Nuova in Milan, Italy, from Ernesto Bozzano who wrote in Italian during a meeting surprising all people present. Soon after I received another one intended to Mr Antonio Rosa Spina, then President but disembodied nowadays.
Interview by Elsa Rossi
Translated into English: Elsa de Almeida
Revision: Publio Lentulus
Source: The Spiritist Messenger, 13th Year, Number 66, September 2005
