Behind Chico Xavier, Divaldo Franco and the whole of Brazilian mediumship stands not a medium but an institution: the Brazilian Spiritist Federation (Federação Espírita Brasileira, FEB), founded in Rio de Janeiro in 1884. It turned the doctrine of Allan Kardec into an organized, standardized and deeply charitable mass movement — and is the reason Brazilian Spiritism did not dissolve into esoteric chaos.
From Salon Circles to a Federation
Kardec's books reached Brazil in the late 19th century through the educated upper class. In Rio de Janeiro the first spiritist circles formed — but fragmented: some understood Spiritism as purely scientific-philosophical, others as religious. To unite these currents, the Brazilian Spiritist Federation was founded in Rio on 1 January 1884. The ground had been prepared a year earlier by the journal Reformador, founded on 21 January 1883 by Augusto Elias da Silva; it became the federation's organ and remains one of the oldest continuously published magazines in Brazil.
Bezerra de Menezes, the Consolidator
The formative figure of the early period was Adolfo Bezerra de Menezes (1831–1900), a physician, politician and writer, popularly called the "doctor of the poor" and later the "apostle of Spiritism". In the leadership from 1889, he took over the presidency in 1895 and led the FEB until his death in 1900. His historic achievement was uniting a divided movement: he introduced the systematic study of The Spirits' Book in the public meetings and, in 1890, built up an assistance service for the needy.
This consolidation came at a price still debated today. Bezerra brought the religious and charitable side to the fore — thereby cementing precisely what Kardec himself had viewed with reserve: the codifier had understood Spiritism as a science and a philosophy, not as a new religion. In Brazil, carried by the FEB, it effectively became both. The scientifically minded spiritists of the early days did not submit to this direction without dissent.
The Golden Pact of 1949
For a long time the FEB and the state federations were in tension with one another. The knot was untied by the Pacto Áureo (Golden Pact) of 5 October 1949: the regional federations joined under a federative umbrella (the National Federative Council). Only then did the Brazilian movement possess a unified national structure — and the FEB the moral authority to standardize doctrine and practice nationwide. It is no coincidence that this unification falls in the very years when mediums such as Chico Xavier were rising to national fame.
A Publishing House as Foundation
The FEB is not merely an administrative apparatus but one of the largest non-profit publishing houses in the country. It holds the rights to Kardec's works in Brazil — and, more importantly, it is the publisher of Chico Xavier: his very first book appeared with the FEB in 1932, and Chico transferred the rights to most of his more than 400 books to it free of charge. There is a logic to this: because spiritist services — sessions, healing treatments, counselling — must by statute be free, the federation finances its vast social work above all from book sales.
Study, Passe and Disobsession
What distinguishes the FEB from loose esotericism is standardization. With the ESDE (Estudo Sistematizado da Doutrina Espírita, from 1984) it created a multi-year, course-like study programme: hundreds of thousands go to the centres weekly to read Kardec's texts line by line. Mediumistic practice is regulated too — for instance the passe (a kind of laying on of hands for "harmonization") and disobsession (sessions meant to dissolve burdensome spiritual influences). This regulation expressly serves to ward off charlatanism — the same seriousness that sets Brazilian Spiritism apart from fairground esotericism. In 1984 the FEB moved its seat to the capital, Brasília; the historic headquarters in Rio remains.
Beyond Brazil
In 1992 the FEB, together with federations from other countries, founded the Conselho Espírita Internacional (CEI), the international spiritist council. Through it the standardized Kardecist doctrine was exported worldwide. Anyone who today visits a spiritist centre of Kardecist character in the German-speaking world will usually meet structures and curricula that originate with the FEB.
What Remains
The FEB is the institutional answer to a question on which Anglo-American Spiritualism foundered: how do you hold a movement together without losing it to showmen and frauds? While Spiritualism shrank to a niche religion, the FEB gave Spiritism a body — doctrine, publishing, curriculum, social work. Kardec supplied the idea; the federation made it into the structure that turned Brazil into the world capital of Spiritism.
Sources
- Brazilian Spiritist Federation (FEB), founded 1 January 1884 in Rio de Janeiro; journal Reformador (from 21 January 1883, Augusto Elias da Silva). Wikipedia, Brazilian Spiritist Federation; History of Spiritism in Brazil.
- Adolfo Bezerra de Menezes (1831–1900), president of the FEB 1895–1900; introduction of systematic study and the assistance service for the needy (1890).
- Pacto Áureo (5 October 1949) and the National Federative Council; Estudo Sistematizado da Doutrina Espírita (ESDE) and the move of the seat to Brasília (1984); Conselho Espírita Internacional (CEI, 1992).
- For context see the articles on Allan Kardec, on mediumship in Brazil and on the difference between Spiritism and Spiritualism.