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The Journal of Parapsychology
these have not been successful as yet. Since
its inception, however,
members of the Society have been very active in organizing numer-
ous educational activities and seminars at different universities. The
seminar offered by the president of the Society, Ramos Perera Mo-
lina, at the Universidad Autbnoma de Madrid in 1975 drew distin-
guished and prominent figures such as Prince Juan Carlos of Spain
and his wife and the minister of education.
Since
1975, the Society has
also published a biannual journal,
entitled
Psi
Comunicacion,
which
includes
English
abstracts. The
journal covers both the activities of the Society and a wide range of
topics in parapsychology, some of which have been mentioned. In
addition, their journal includes a section for national and interna-
tional news on parapsychological activities around the world. Mem-
bers of the Society have published several books summarizing its re-
search activities.
I have already mentioned the books by Fernandez
Briones (1983). Other books include an anthology, entitled La Nueva
Parapsicologia:
Introducci&n
a
la
Parapsicologia
Cientifica [The New
Parapsychology: An Introduction to
Scientific Parapsychology] ed-
ited by Fernandez Briones (1981a), a valuable introduction to the
field, and Mario Capel’s La Supervivencia Despuds de la Muerte: Evi-
dencia Espontdnea y Experimental [Survival after Death: Spontaneous
and Experimental Evidence] (1981) reviewing some of the research
and phenomena related to the issue of survival after death.
Althomrh naransvrbnlnorv has
nprrlinrihl*.
ir> 5nain until
T-*»_
o'-
i
r -j
o i
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““““
cent times,
it is important to point out that we are now witnessing a
boom in parapsychological activities in that country. Unfortunately,
even though the Society seems to be the best organized, and to have
the most resources in the Ibero-American world,
its members have
not participated in the broader international parapsychological con-
ferences, such as that of the Parapsychological Association, possibly
because of the language barrier. In addition,
it
is unfortunate and
disheartening to find that such a large, productive, and well-orga-
nized society has no member in the PA.
Brazil
At
the
1990
Parapsychological
Association
convention,
David
Hess, who has made several field trips to study Brazilian parapsy-
chology, presented a paper in which he described Brazilian para-
psychology in the following terms:
Brazil does not have a coherent community of academic parapsycholo-
gists, and there are few if any people in Brazil who research and publish
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Parapsychology in the Ibero-American World
181
at the standards of the Parapsychological Association. Instead, what
is
called “parapsychology” in Brazil
is largely defined by rival groups of
j
Catholic and Spiritist (Kardecist) intellectuals. (Hess, 1990)
!
To understand parapsychology in Brazil, we need to be familiar
;
with the cultural milieu from which
it has evolved, one that is dom-
‘
inated by Afro-Brazilian cults and Catholicism. On the one hand,
!
we have the Spiritist tradition that came from France through the
teachings of Allan Kardec; Spiritists believe that spiritual progress is
effected by a series of compulsory reincarnations. They believe that
mediumship provides opportunities to communicate with deceased
individuals. Moreover, Spiritism
is strongly influenced in Brazil by
the Afro-Brazilian cults such as Umbanda and Candomble derived
from the- African religions brought to Brazil through the slave trade
(Bastide, 1971; Giesler, 1985).
This spectrum of Spiritist
beliefs and Afro-Brazilian
religions
has crept in and mixed in Brazilian society (Hess, 1987), creating a
variety of belief systems from which Brazilian brands of parapsy-
chology have evolved. There are many interesting combinations of
the Kardecist type of Spiritism and
all sorts of Brazilian religious
|
movements that essentially accept possession, the influence of spirits
|
of deceased individuals, as well as the belief that divinities can pos-
sess individuals and can effect healing (Parra Alvarez, 1981).
On the other hand, there
is the Catholic tradition that has de-
veloped a system that uses parapsychology as an ideology with which
i
to fight and eventually destroy all the movements the church sees as
superstition and threats to the established Catholic dogmas (Hess,
1990). This system has been developed mainly through the work of
one of the most influential and respected “parapsychologists” in
Ibero-America, Father Oscar Gonzalez Quevedo, a Spanish-born
Jesuit priest living in Brazil. Padre Quevedo (as he
is known) and
Luis
Ferreira da
Silva cofounded the Latin American Center of
Parapsychology, CLAP, of the Anchieta College of Sao Paulo
in
1970.
The Center, which was closed down in 1982 and reopened in
i
1989 under reduced circumstances, used to offer clinical counseling
j
for people suffering from psychological problems related to
reli-
|
gious
experiences and
practices
(e.g., demonic
possession). The
|
Center
still has an impressive library® of books on parapsychology,
|
which used to be housed in huge facilities that also accommodated
j
an experimental and clinical laboratory and a museum of objects
[
8 One of the biggest parapsychology libraries in Latin America with approximately
4,000 volumes.
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