Chico Xavier and the Sacred Experience: a Semiotic and Ethnopsychological Perspective
International Journal of Latin American Religions December 1, 2022 Maurício S. Neubern 2 citations
The experience of the Sacred in the life of Chico Xavier, a prominent 20th-century Brazilian Spiritist medium, is examined through semiotics and ethnopsychology. Spiritism shifted from its philosophical French origins to a religiously dominant form in Brazil. Two narratives about Xavier are analyzed: one concerning his spiritual mission, emphasizing discipline and asceticism; the other about conversion and healing, highlighting reflexivity, coherence between belief and conduct, and transformative processes. The Sacred in Xavier's context involves musement, a dialogical language, collective and communal diffusion, consensual criteria for legitimacy, and psychic power linked to love and the future.