It is one of the most unusual careers in Brazilian Spiritism: a young physician spends a decade psychographing books alongside Chico Xavier — books regarded as messages from the deceased — and then turns his back on the movement to declare the out-of-body experience its own, religion-free "science". Waldo Vieira (1932–2015) is the founder of projectiology and conscientiology — a sprawling edifice of doctrine with its own institutes, its own terminology and tens of thousands of followers worldwide. And, at the same time, a textbook example of where the line runs between research and self-declared science.
The physician at Chico Xavier’s side
Waldo Vieira was born on 12 April 1932 in Monte Carmelo (Minas Gerais) and studied medicine and dentistry. From an early age he was regarded as an exceptionally gifted medium. From 1955 to 1966 — from the age of 23 to 34 — he worked closely with Chico Xavier; together they published 18 psychographed books, including the extensive Evolução em Dois Mundos ("Evolution in Two Worlds") and Desobsessão — both attributed to the spirit author André Luiz. Chico wrote his chapters in Pedro Leopoldo, Vieira his in Uberaba over 400 km away; to Spiritists, the consistency of the texts was evidence of a shared spiritual source.
The break of 1966
In 1966, aged 34, Vieira made a radical cut: he ended his collaboration with Chico Xavier, left the spiritist movement and moved to Rio de Janeiro. His justification was programmatic: parapsychic phenomena, Vieira argued, did not belong in the hands of a religion but had to be investigated scientifically and independently. The medium of organised Spiritism became a "dissident" researcher who wanted to build his own system.
This ambition — to investigate the phenomena of Spiritism under the label "science" rather than "faith" — linked him in spirit with Hernani Andrade, who had founded the IBPP a few years earlier. The decisive difference: Andrade followed established international parapsychology; Vieira invented an entirely self-contained system of concepts and institutions.
Projectiology and conscientiology
Vieira divided his work into two "sciences":
- Projectiology: the study of the "projection of consciousness" — the deliberately induced and systematically recorded out-of-body experience (OBE), akin to what is described in near-death and OBE research.
- Conscientiology: the broader "science of consciousness" (consciência), uniting projection, energy, reincarnation and ethics into one overarching system.
The foundation was his diary Projeções da Consciência (1981, Projections of the Consciousness), followed by the monumental treatise Projeciologia (1986) and 700 Conscientiology Experiments (1994). In all, Vieira wrote around 41 books totalling over 20,000 pages and initiated an Encyclopedia of Conscientiology with more than 2,000 entries and hundreds of contributors.
The system of terms
Characteristic — and often baffling to outsiders — is Vieira’s thoroughly constructed vocabulary. Central terms:
- Holosoma: the totality of the "bodies" or vehicles of manifestation of consciousness — soma (physical body), energosoma (energy body/holochakra), psychosoma (emotional body, the vehicle of the astral journey) and mentalsoma (body of discernment).
- Thosene (Portuguese pensene): the smallest unit of manifestation, composed of thought, sentiment and energy (conscious energy).
- Bioenergy: the personal life energy one is meant to learn to control consciously.
- Cosmoethics: a "cosmic" ethics beyond conventional morality, serving as a yardstick for conscious action.
- Penta (personal energetic task): a daily individual energy task to assist others.
A notable hallmark is the "principle of disbelief" (princípio da descrença): one should believe nothing — not even what conscientiology itself claims — but verify everything through one’s own experience. Rhetorically this is a scientific-sounding promise; in practice, however, it points to subjective self-experience as the test, not to controlled experiments replicable by third parties.
The institutions
Unlike most spiritual currents, Vieira built a veritable apparatus:
- IIPC — the International Institute of Projectiology and Conscientiology, founded in 1988 in Rio de Janeiro, with offshoots in the US, Canada, the UK, Spain, Portugal and Argentina, among others.
- CEAEC — the Center for Higher Studies of Conscientiology in Foz do Iguaçu, in the purpose-named neighbourhood Cognópolis, with numerous "research laboratories" and a library of over 60,000 volumes.
- Plus its own publishing house (Editares), a Journal of Consciousness, and a federation of conscientiological organisations.
The movement understands itself expressly as non-religious, non-dogmatic and not bound to Kardec — a deliberate counter-model to classical Brazilian Spiritism.
The critical assessment
However confidently conscientiology uses the word "science", established science does not share that view. The reasons are methodological:
- Self-created terminology: a dense web of new terms (thosene, holosoma, cosmoethics …) does not substitute for connection to the testable concepts of other disciplines.
- No independent validation: the "research" takes place largely within its own institutes; the evidence rests on subjective OBE reports, not on controlled, peer-reviewed studies.
- Lack of falsifiability: central assumptions (psychosoma, astral travel, multiple past lives) are framed so that they can hardly be empirically refuted — a classic hallmark of pseudoscience.
Added to this, especially in the Brazilian media, are occasional accusations of cult-like structures — a tightly knit community with its own language, its own "Cognópolis" and intensive practice. The movement rejects this and points precisely to its "principle of disbelief" and its non-religious character. As with many such groups, the sober truth probably lies in between: no fraud and no classical religion, but no science in the methodological sense either.
What remains
Waldo Vieira is a double figure. As a phenomenon of the history of religion and ideas he is highly interesting: his break with Chico Xavier marks the attempt to detach spiritist experience from its religious frame and translate it into the language of research — an attempt that runs parallel to Andrade’s IBPP and belongs to the larger question of the relationship between consciousness and brain. As a science in the strict sense, however, conscientiology does not withstand scrutiny. It is precisely this tension — the serious claim to empiricism while lacking its tools — that makes Vieira one of the most instructive figures in the history of Brazilian spirituality.
Sources
- IIPC Internacional: Waldo Vieira (biography); en.iipc.org.
- Vieira W. Projeções da Consciência (1981); Projeciologia: Panorama das Experiências da Consciência Fora do Corpo Humano (1986); 700 Conscientiology Experiments (1994).
- Xavier FC, Vieira W. Evolução em Dois Mundos; Desobsessão (psychographed, attributed to André Luiz).
- Waldo Vieira, Wikipedia (English); CEAEC / Campus CEAEC, Foz do Iguaçu.
- Context: Chico Xavier and psychography; Hernani Andrade and the IBPP; Mediumship in Brazil.