The Diaspora of Brazilian Religions International Studies in Religion and Society

Series edited by Lori G. Beaman and Peter Beyer, University of Ottawa

VOLUME 16

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/isrs The Diaspora of Brazilian Religions

Edited by Cristina Rocha and Manuel A. Vásquez

LEIDEN • BOSTON 2013 Cover illustrations: John of God healing event in New Zealand, 2006 (courtesy Cristina Rocha), soccer players’ changing room in Seville (courtesy Carmen Rial), Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, Rainbow Theatre, London (courtesy David Garbin and Manuel A Vásquez).

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

The diaspora of Brazilian religions / edited by Cristina Rocha and Manuel A. Vásquez. pages cm. -- (International studies in religion and society, ISSN 1573-4293 ; Volume 16) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-90-04-23694-3 (alk. paper) 1. Brazil--Religion. I. Rocha, Cristina.

BL2590.B7D54 2013 200.89’698--dc23 2013000442

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This book is printed on acid-free paper. CONTENTS

List of Illustrations ��vii List of Contributors ��ix Acknowledgements ��xv

Introduction: Brazil in the New Global Cartography of Religion ��1 Manuel A. Vásquez and Cristina Rocha

SECTION ONE BRAZILIAN CHRISTIANITY: CATHOLICISM AND PROTESTANTISM

Edir Macedo’s Pastoral Project: A Globally Integrated Pentecostal Network �� 45 Clara Mafra, Claudia Swatowiski and Camila Sampaio

Brazilian Churches in London: Transnationalism of the Middle �� 69 Olivia Sheringham

The “Devil’s Egg”: Football Players as New Missionaries of the Diaspora of Brazilian Religions �� 91 Carmen Rial

Brazilian Pentecostalism in Peru: Affinities between the Social and Cultural Conditions of Andean Migrants and the Religious Worldview of the Pentecostal Church “God is Love” ��117 Dario Paulo Barrera Rivera

Catholicism for Export: The Case of Canção Nova ��137 Brenda Carranza and Cecília Mariz

SECTION TWO AFRO-BRAZILIAN RELIGIONS

Umbanda and Batuque in the Southern Cone: Transnationalization as Cross-Border Religious Flow and as Social Field ��165 Alejandro Frigerio contents vi

Pretos Velhos across the Atlantic: Afro-Brazilian Religions in Portugal ��197 Clara Saraiva

Transnational Authenticity: An Umbanda Temple in Montreal ��223 Deirdre Meintel and Annick Hernandez

Japanese Brazilians among Pretos-Velhos, Caboclos, Buddhist Monks, and Samurais: An Ethnographic Study of Umbanda in Japan ��249 Ushi Arakaki

Mora Yemanjá? Axé in Diasporic Capoeira Regional ��271 Neil Stephens and Sara Delamont

SECTION THREE NEW RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS

Building a Transnational Spiritual Community: The John of God Movement in Australia ��291 Cristina Rocha

The Valley of Dawn in Atlanta, Georgia: Negotiating Incorporation and Gender Identity in the Diaspora ��313 Manuel A. Vásquez and José Cláudio Souza Alves

The Niche Globalization of Projectiology: Cosmology and Internationalization of a Brazilian Parascience ��339 Anthony D’Andrea

Transcultural Keys: Humor, Creativity and Other Relational Artifacts in the Transposition of a Brazilian Ayahuasca Religion to the Netherlands ��363 Alberto Groisman

Index ��387 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Figures

Carmen Rial 1. Soccer players’ changing room in Seville (courtesy Carmen Rial) �� 102

Ushi Arakaki 1. Umbanda ritual in Aichi Prefecture (courtesy Ushi Arakaki) �� 261

Cristina Rocha 1. Weekly ‘current’ session in a healing center in Sydney (courtesy Cristina Rocha) ��300

Tables

Dario Paulo Barrera Rivera 1. New churches IPDA between January and October 2007 ��123 2. Migrant population according to the four last censuses ��125 3. Serrano and Spanish words �� 129

LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS

José Claúdio Souza Alves is Professor of Sociology and Dean of Extension Programs at the Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro. He received his Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of São Paulo and is author of Dos barões ao extermínio: uma história da violência na Baixada Fluminense. Most recently, Alves has contributed a chapter entitled “Immigrant Regime of Production: The State, Political Mobilization, and Religious and Business Networks among Brazilians in South Florida,” which appeared in A Place to Be: Brazilian, Guatemalan, and Mexican Immigrants in Florida’s New Destinations (2009).

Ushi Arakaki earned her Ph.D. in Anthropology at Osaka University. She has been researching the Brazilian transnational community in Japan since 2002. She obtained a Master in Anthropology from Osaka University in 2005, a Master in International Cooperation from Universidad Complutense de Madrid in 2002, and the degree of Bachelor of Psychology from Federal University of Paraná in 2001. Her research areas are: globalization, transnationalism, religion and cultural identity. Recent publications include: “Toransunashonaru jidai no Umbanda (Umbanda in Transnational Times).” In Kokuritsu Minzoku Gakuhakubutsukan Chōsa Hōkoku (Senri Ethnological Reports) 83: 89–104 (2009). Osaka: National Museum of Ethnology.

Brenda Carranza is Professor at the Pontifical Catholic University of Campinas, Brazil. Her publications include: “Der katholische Pentekostalis mus Brasiliens im Wandel.” In: Pentekostalismus. Die Pfingstbewegung als Anfrage an Theologie und Kirche, Frankfurt: Verlag Pustet, 2012, pp. 34–56; “Il cristianesimo pentecostale: nuovo volto della chiesa cattolica.” In: Religioni e società. Rivista di scienze sociali della religione: cristianesimi senza frontiere: le chiese pentecostali nel mondo. Anno XXVII. 73. Maggio-Agost. Roma/Pisa: Fabrizio Serra Editore, 2012, pp. 46–58; “Juventude em movimento: polîtica-linguagens-religião”. In: Mobilidade religiosa: linguagem, juventude, polîtica. São Paulo: Paulinas, 2012, pp. 207–232; “Catholicism and Syncretic Religions”. In: Concilum International Review of Theology. London: SCMM Press, 2011/5, pp. 123–133; “Para compreender teológica e pastoralmente as novas comunidades”. In: Convergência, Ano XLV- Nº 433 julho/agosto, 2010, pp. 458–477; “Perspectivas da neopentecostalização católica.” In: As novas comunidades católicas: em busca do espaço list of contributors x pós-moderno, eds. B. Carranza, C. Mariz & M. Camurça, Aparecida, SP: Ideias & Letras, pp. 139–170.

Anthony D’Andrea has a Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Chicago and post-doctoral fellowships in Sociology from the University of Limerick and Lancaster University. His research interests lie in the emergence of new lifestyles and spiritualities at the intersection of global, mobile and countercultural processes. Among his main publications on religious diasporas are the book Global Nomads: Techno and New Age as Transnational Countercultures in Ibiza and Goa released under Routledge’s International Library of Sociology series (Routledge: London, 2007) and O self perfeito e a nova era: individualismo e reflexividade em religiosidades pós-tradicionais (Ed. Loyola: São Paulo, 2000).

Sara Delamont is Reader in Sociology at Cardiff University, Wales, UK. Her background is in social anthropology and she teaches a module on Brazil. She was the first woman Dean of Social Sciences at Cardiff and the first woman to be President of the British Educational Research Association. Her most recent book, written with Paul Atkinson and William Housley, is Contours of Culture, Rowman and Littlefield, 2008. She and Paul Atkinson edit the Sage journal, Qualitative Research. Her current research is on capoeira and savate. Her publications include: “The Only Honest Thing.” Ethnography and Education April 4/1 (2009): 51–64; “No Place for Women among Them.” Sport, Education and Society 10/3 (2005): 305–320.

Alejandro Frigerio received his Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of California, Los Angeles (1989). He is currently Tenured Researcher at the National Council for Scientific Research (CONICET) of Argentina and Professor in the Graduate Program of the Social Anthropology Area of the Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales, Buenos Aires. He has researched the expansion of Afro-Brazilian religions in the Southern Cone of South America for the last twenty years, as well as the history and development of Black culture in the area. His publications include Cultura negra en el Cono Sur: representaciones en conflicto; “Outside the Nation, outside the Diaspora: Accomodating Race and Religion in Argentina.” Sociology of Religion 63/3 (2002): 291–315 and “Re-Africanization in Secondary Religious Diasporas: Constructing a World religion.” Civilisations 51/1–2 (2004): 39–60.

Alberto Groisman is Associate Professor at the Department of Anthro pology and the Post-Graduate Program in Social Anthropology at the Federal University of Santa Catarina. He received his doctorate in social xi list of contributors anthropology from Goldsmiths College, University of London, in 2000. He was a post-doctoral fellow at Arizona State University. His publications include: Groisman, A. and Sell, A.B. (1996) “Healing Power: Neuro- Phenomenology, Culture and Therapy of Santo Daime.” Yearbook Of Cross Cultural Medicine And Psychotherapy, Berlin, v. 4, pp. 279–287; Eu venho da floresta: um estudo do contexto simbólico do uso do Santo Daime. Florianópolis: EdUFSC (2000); and “Trajectories, Frontiers and Reparations in the Expansion of Santo Daime to Europe.” In Thomas Csordas (Ed.) Transnational Transcendence: Essays on Religion and Globalization. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009.

Annick Hernandez has conducted research on Umbanda in Montreal and in Brazil. She is currently pursuing a doctoral thesis in anthropology at the Université de Montréal.

Clara Cristina Jost Mafra is Professor in Social Anthropology at the State University of Rio de Janeiro. She received her doctorate from Federal University of Rio de Janeiro and was postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Aberdeen and University of California, San Diego. She has carried out extensive ethnographic fieldwork among Pentecostals in Portugal and Brazil. She is the author of Na posse da palavra: religião, con- versão e liberdade pessoal em dois contextos nacionais. Lisboa. Imprensa de Ciências Sociais (2000) and co-editor of Religiões e cidades – Rio de Janeiro e São Paulo. São Paulo: Terceiro Nome (2009).

Cecília Mariz is Professor of Sociology at the State University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Her recent publications include “Pentecostalism and National Culture: A Dialogue between Brazilian Social Sciences and the Anthropology of Christianity” with Roberta Campos, (Religion and Society: Advances in Research, v. 2, pp. 106–121, 2011); “Missão religiosa e mig- ração: ‘novas comunidades’ e igrejas pentecostais brasileiras no exterior.” (Análise Social (Lisboa) XLIV, pp. 161–188, 2009); “À propos de l’inculturation dans le catholicisme brésilien contemporain.” with Maria das Dores Machado, (Social Compass 55, pp. 290–303, 2008), “Localizing and Globali zing Processes in Brazilian Catholicism: Comparing Inculturation in Liberationist and Charismatic Catholic Cultures” with Marjo de Theije (Latin American Research Review, v. 43, pp. 33–54, 2008).

Deirdre Meintel is Professor of Anthropology at the Université de Montréal, directs the Diversité Urbaine research group (http://www.grdu.umontreal .ca/) and co-edits the journal of the same name. She also co-directs the list of contributors xii

Centre D’Etudes Ethniques des Universities Montréalaises (http://www .ceetum.umontreal.ca/). Most of her past research has concerned migration, ethnicity and family, and ethnic identities; she has conducted fieldwork on these themes in Cape Verde, New England and Quebec. In recent years she has published extensively on Spiritualists and more generally on issues of religion and modernity in Quebec.

Carmen Rial received her doctorate from University of Paris V, Sorbonne. She is a researcher of the CNPq (National Council for Scientific and Technological Development), teaches anthropology at the Federal University of Santa Catarina, directs the Center for Visual Anthropology (NAVI), the Research Group for Urban and Maritime Anthropology, and is a member of the Institute of Gender Studies. Her work focuses on cultural globalization, transnational migration, gender, consumption and sport. Rial is the co- editor of Diásporas, mobilidades, migrações (2011), Fronteiras de gênero (2011), Diversidades: dimensões de gênero e sexualidade (2010). She co-edits the journal Vibrant: Virtual Brazilian Anthropology.

Dario Paulo Barrera Rivera is Professor at the post-graduate Program in Social Science and Religion at the Methodist University of São Paulo, where he also received his doctorate. He has been a fellow at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris. His publications include: Tradição, transmissão e emoção religiosa (2001 and 2010) and Evangélicos e periferia urbana em São Paulo e Rio de Janeiro. Estudos de sociologia e antropologia urbanas (2012); “Metropolitan Cultures and Religious Identities in the Urban Periphery of São Paulo” (2011). His research areas are: Protestantism, religion and migration with particular focus on urban peripheries.

Cristina Rocha is Research Fellow at the Religion and Society Research Centre and a Senior Lecturer at the School of Humanities and Communications, Arts, University of Western Sydney, Australia. She is the editor of the Journal of Global Buddhism. She was a Visiting Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Religious and Ethnic Diversity in 2011. Her research areas are: globalization, religion, migration, and transnationalism. Her books include: Zen in Brazil: The Quest for Cosmopolitan Modernity (Hawaii University Press, 2006); Buddhism in Australia: Traditions in Change (with Michelle Barker, Routledge, 2010).

Clara Saraiva is Senior Researcher at the Lisbon Institute for Scientific Tropical Research (Instituto de Investigaçao Científica Tropical- IICT) and Professor at the Department of Anthropology, Universidade Nova de xiii list of contributors

Lisboa. She was an invited Professor at Brown University (USA 2001–2002 and 2008). Her main fields of research are the anthropology of death and transnational religions, namely transnational therapeutic practices among migrants from Guinea-Bissau and Brazil in Lisbon, and the expansion of the afro-Brazilian religions in Portugal. She is one of the co-founders of the network on Migration and Health, established in Lisbon in January 2006.

Camila Alves Machado Sampaio is a Ph.D. candidate at the Postgraduate Program in Social Science/State University of Rio de Janeiro, where she received her Master in 2007. She wrote her dissertation on Pentecostal leaderships in a slum of Rio de Janeiro.

Olivia Sheringham is Researcher at the International Migration Institute, University of Oxford as part of the Oxford Diasporas Programme. She holds a B.A. in Modern Languages and an M.A. in Latin American Studies (Institute for the Study of the Americas, 2005). She received her Ph.D. in 2011 in Geography at Queen Mary University of London. She has published her work in journals including Portuguese Studies and Geography Compass and has written chapters for a number of published and forthcoming edited collections. She is on the executive committee of the Brazilians to the UK research group (GEB).

Neil Stephens is Postdoctoral Research Associate at the ESRC Centre for the Economic and Social Aspects of Genomics (Cesagen), School of Social Sciences, Cardiff University, Wales, UK. He is a sociologist of science, and has published on stem cell science as well as capoeira. Dr Stephens has a second dan black belt in Shotokan Karate and the third belt in Capoeira from the Beribazu Group. His publications include “Up on the Roof.” Cultural Sociology (2008) 2/1: 57–74; “They Start to Get Malicia.” British Journal of Sociology of Education (2009) 30/5: 537–548.

Claudia Wolff Swatowiski is Postdoctoral Researcher in Social Sciences at the State University of Rio de Janeiro. Between 2007 and 2008, she conducted a study in Portugal as a visiting researcher at the Institute for Social Sciences at the University of Lisbon. She has been studying religion in urban settings since 2003. Nowadays, she is collaborating in the International Research Project “Universal Church of the Kingdom of God in Angola” (CNPQ). Her publications include chapters in “Religiões e cidades: Rio de Janeiro e São Paulo” (Terceiro Nome) e “Cidade: olhares e trajetórias” (Garamond). list of contributors xiv

Manuel A. Vásquez is Professor of Religion at the University of Florida, Gainesville. His work focuses on the intersection among globalization, transnational immigration, and religion. Vásquez is author of The Brazilian Popular Church and the Crisis of Modernity (1998) and co-author of Globalizing the Sacred: Religion across the Americas (2003). He has also co- edited A Place to Be: Brazilian, Guatemalan, and Mexican Immigrants in Florida’s New Destinations (2009), Immigrant Faiths: Transforming Religious Life in America (2005), and Christianity, Social Change, and Globalization in the Americas (2001). ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

An edited collection of this scope, with contributions from scholars from all over the world, takes many years to be completed. During this period, several people and institutions provided invaluable assistance. Cristina is indebted to the Max Planck Institute for Religious and Ethnic Diversity for a fellowship in 2011 which allowed her time to write her chapter and sections of the introduction, and discuss them with fellow researchers. She is also grateful to Sidney Greenfield at Columbia University, and Bryan Turner, Mara Einstein and other members of the Committee for the Study of Religion, CUNY Graduate Centre, for being excellent sounding boards while she was a fellow there in 2012. Cathy McIlwaine at the Queen Mary College, University of London, was a wonderful host for her sabbatical in 2012. Finally, Cristina would like to thank the Institute for Culture and Society at the University of Western Sydney for internal grants which enabled her to bring Manuel to Australia twice so that they could work together on this project. Manuel would like to thank Vickie Machado for all her help editing and formatting the manuscript. Cristina and Manuel are grateful to Maarten Frieswijk, our Brill editor, for his support and assistance in the process of publication. They also want to thank the anonymous reviewer for his/her very detailed and helpful report on this volume. And last but not least, they would like to express their gratitude to all the contributors, not only for their outstanding work but also for their responsiveness and patience in seeing this project to completion. We offer this book as an example of value of collaborative scholarship in a globalized world.

INTRODUCTION: BRAZIL IN THE NEW GLOBAL CARTOGRAPHY OF RELIGION

Manuel A. Vásquez and Cristina Rocha

It is now clear, the claims of the secularization paradigm notwithstanding, that modernity does not spell the end of religion. If anything, late modernity, which involves the widespread dislocation of populations in response to the deepening and widening of capitalism, the autonomization of the cultural field, and the emergence of new transportation and communication technologies that allow for transnational livelihoods, has offered new means for the global spread of religions, old and new. This is not to say that things have remained the same. Whereas in the past, religion traveled with European explorers, conquerors, missionaries, and merchants to the Americas, Africa, and Asia, we are now witnessing the emergence of a new religious cartography in which the ‘Global South’ plays the protagonist role. Just to give one example, while Benedict XVI labors mightily to rekindle Christianity at the heart of a seemingly irredeemable secular Europe, Charismatic Catholicism and Pentecostalism are experiencing an explosive growth in Latin America and Africa. In fact, many Latin American and African Charismatic churches, which have become powerful transnational networks, now make Europe (and even the US) their missionary priority, setting up a process of ‘reverse missionizing’ (Jenkins 2011). In this introduction, we sketch the economic, political, cultural, and religious contexts that have contributed to the recent rise of Brazil as a key center of religious creativity and innovation within an emerging, polycentric global religious cartography. The reasons for the salience of Brazil in the new global religious cartography are, as we shall see below, diverse and complex, a mixture of socio-political and cultural processes, which have in the past decade re-inserted Brazil in the global system in a favorable position, operating in conjunction with what has been a historically variegated and dynamic national religious field. Nevertheless, there are identifiable vectors that have contributed to the worldwide construction, diffusion, and consumption of Brazilian religious identities, worldviews, and lifestyles. • Brazilian immigrants, who left the country in large numbers during the 1980s and 1990s, a period of great economic and political instability. 2 manuel a. vásquez and cristina rocha

In their attempt to make sense of their journeys, carve places to be, and sustain transnational relationships with Brazil, these immigrants have brought their religions to their societies of settlement. • The work of imagining and consuming Brazil and Brazilian culture and religions as exotic, sexy, exciting, transgressive, pristine, meaningful, and/or authentic against the shallowness, impersonality, monotony, and artificiality of everyday life in the Metropole. This work of imagination is often performed by pilgrims or religious tourists, who may travel to Brazil in search of healing or as part of a spiritual or existential quest. • The mass media and the Internet, which can globalize particular religious figures, practices, or ideas in and about Brazil. • Brazilian religious entrepreneurs who, drawing from Brazil’s “pluralist and fusionist socio-genesis” (Siqueira 2003: 151), that is, from an enor- mously diverse and dynamic religious field, have gone abroad with the explicit aim of spreading their religions.

These vectors roughly fit anthropologist Thomas Csordas’s typology of the means of establishing ‘transnational transcendence:’ migration, mobility, mediatization, and missionization (2009: 5–6). As the various case studies presented in this volume demonstrate, these vectors can be isolated for analytical purposes, but, on the ground, they often interact with each other, alternatively reinforcing each other or generating ‘zones of friction’ (Tsing 2005). For example, a chapter by Carmen Rial on Brazilian football players as born-again missionaries demonstrates that migrants can also be successful religious entrepreneurs. Moreover, these football players exploit a key dimension of the global imaginaire about Brazil – Brazil as the soccer nation par excellence, the country of the jogo bonito – to advance their transnational missionary work. Finally, global media and the global spectacle that is soccer are central to their public confessions of faith. Together with soccer and carnival, capoeira has historically come to be perceived as a quintessential expression of Brazilian identity. Its expansion out of Brazil has been occurring on the back of similar perceptions of Brazil referred above: a nation infused with energy, beauty, and excitement. Stephens’ and Delamont’s chapter on capoeira in the UK shows that while Brazilian teachers (mestres) may not overtly link capoeira to Afro-Brazilian religions in their bid to attract students, the notion of axé, the elan vital that according to Candomblé and Umbanda practitioners animates all things, from sacred object to humans and spirits, continues to be central to the culture of capoeira in London. There, it is constructed as “as good energy, introduction 3 which produces good capoeira.” Their chapter, in conjunction with Rial’s chapter on football players, demonstrates the ways in which religion and culture are not separate realms, as many scholars have by now argued (Maguire 2008; Orsi 1997, 2003; Vásquez and Marquardt 2003). As a set of practices and discourses embedded in everyday life, religion is an integral part of culture. According to Orsi, “religion is a form of cultural work” (Orsi 2003: 172). Given that capoeira is deeply implicated in the construction of ‘Brasilidade,’ it has become a quasi-spiritual Brazilian mystique that circulates globally and is often associated with desire, nostalgia, and exoticism. What follows is a discussion of the vectors behind the ‘diaspora’ of Brazilian religions. The term diaspora has been the subject of a rapidly growing body of literature (Boyarin and Boyarin 2002; Cohen 2008; Johnson 2007; Safran 2004; Weinar 2010). A key concern in this literature has been the tendency to extend the meaning of the term beyond its initial referent: the forced dislocation of a population from its homeland.1 Although unable to return to its original homeland, this people remain connected to it through the memory and the intense desire to return (Clifford 1994; Shuval 2000). The unfulfilled longing and the inability to feel at home in host societies create a strong sense of collective identity, which often involves religion as its main ingredient. The use of the term beyond this original connotation to mean simply the dispersion of peoples, languages, and cultures has led some scholars to worry about the term’s loss of rigor. Brubaker, for example, has complained about the “diaspora of diaspora,” as the category “becomes stretched to the point of uselessness. If everyone is diasporic, then no one is distinctively so. The term loses its discriminating power—its ability to pick out phenomena and make distinctions. The universalization of diaspora, paradoxically, means the disappearance of diaspora” (Brubaker 2005: 3). While mindful of this pitfall, in this volume, we use the word diaspora in another seminal sense: diaspeirein, a Greek term which literally means ‘to scatter the seeds’ but which designated the spread of Hellenistic culture through conquest, colonization, immigration, and mercantile networks in the ancient Mediterranean (Reis 2004). We will see that Brazilian religions are spreading precisely through two of these vectors: (religious) entrepreneurs and migrants. Moreover, often traveling with Brazilian religions are particular constructions of Brasilidade [Brazilianness], which,

1 Here, the paradigmatic model is the exile of Jews following the conquest of the Kingdom of Judah and the destruction of the First Temple by the Babylonians in the sixth century B.C.E. 4 manuel a. vásquez and cristina rocha although not integrated into a coherent and all-encompassing lingua franca as was Hellenism, involve memory, nostalgia, the invention of tradition, mythologizing, and the transposition of an imagined homeland abroad. We start our overview of the conditions that mediate the diaspora of Brazilian religions with an account of economic and political factors, including most prominently immigration, moving on to the ‘cultural’ dimensions such as spiritual tourism and exoticism. We then explore the dynamics of the Brazilian religious field and their interplay with globalization. Throughout the introduction, we will refer to our case studies to illustrate connections with larger processes.

The Giant Awakes

Throughout the twentieth century, Brazilians thought theirs was the ‘country of the future’ and ‘a sleeping giant.’ The rationale was that Brazil had a large territory, immense reserves of minerals, the world’s the largest tropical forests and freshwater supplies. In the 1970s, the military dictatorship embellished the narrative, touting the ‘Brazilian miracle,’ even as it engaged in widespread repression. The military added other endearing qualities to inflate nationalism: Brazil had no volcanoes, cyclones, or divisive internal wars. It was a blessed place, so people should ‘Love it or Leave it,’ as ubiquitous car stickers proclaimed. This miracle, however, entailed a rapid and unequal industrialization, which led to a disorderly process of urbanization, as many Brazilians flocked to cities like São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro in search of jobs in the growing industrial parks. In turn, this migration, as we shall see, was connected with drastic transformation of the Brazilian religious field, including the explosive growth of Pentecostalism. The ‘Brazilian miracle’ was wiped out by mounting debts inherited from previous decades and the oil crises of 1970s. By the mid-1980s, the economic crisis was fully blown, with annual inflation rates of 233.6 percent. The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank further deepened the crisis through loans and assistance packages that encouraged developing countries to comply with harsh neo-liberal economic reforms. These included currency devaluations, a freeze in wages, cuts in public spending, privatization of assets and tax breaks for the productive sectors. Between 1990 and 1995 inflation averaged 764 percent a year, hitting a staggering 2,489 percent in 1993. This picture of economic crisis was even more desperate, as it coincided with deep political turmoil. In the 1980s, Brazil underwent a transition introduction 5 from military dictatorship to a democratically elected government under a populist president Fernando Collor de Mello, who won the overwhelming support of the poor. One year into his term, surrounded by accusations of corruption, drug dealings, and embezzlement, he was impeached by the congress in the wake of mass public rallies. The next elected president, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, galvanized the hopes of many as he had a spotless record. He had been a professor of sociology at the prestigious University of São Paulo and, after being banned from the country during the military dictatorship, went on to lecture at the Sorbonne. Amongst his achievements in sociology was the development of dependency theory and studies on Third World poverty. However, although his economic policies and reform programs managed to contain inflation, economic output fell, giving rise to higher levels of unemployment. These two decades of economic and political crisis had many serious consequences. The first was a sense of chaos, followed by a general loss of faith in political and economic institutions. Second, since spending on public services was drastically reduced, many Brazilians were left to fend for themselves–private corporations took over health, education, and transport, and people had to pay for them. As the poor could not do so, they soon became further disadvantaged. Inflation and the subsequent stagfla- tion, escalating prices, unemployment, endemic corruption, nepotism, and the information revolution all helped to widen the gap between the very rich and the very poor. Brazilians became disillusioned. Cynically, they started saying that Brazil was to be eternally the country of the future, and that future would never come. Many migrated, first to the US, Europe and Japan, and then to other parts of the Global North. What started with a trickle in the mid-1980s became a diaspora of 3–4 million people in 2008 according to the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MRE 2009). However, to everyone’s surprise, the future seems to have arrived in the first decade of the twenty-first century. In 2001, Jim O’Neill, an economist at Goldman Sachs, coined the acronym BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) to denominate ‘emerging economic giants.’ His assessment seems to be accurate. In the past decade, Brazil’s economy has grown 5 percent a year, and in 2010 the economy grew 11 percent. In late 2011, Brazil overtook the UK to become the sixth-largest economy in the world. By 2025, Brazil is set to become the world’s fifth-largest economy, behind only the United States, China, India and Japan (The Economist 2010: 4) Currently, it accounts for 40 percent of Latin America’s GDP. Indeed, it is the world’s biggest exporter of coffee, sugar, orange juice, tobacco, ethanol, beef and chicken, and soya products (The Economist 2010: 6). In addition, in 2007 massive oil fields 6 manuel a. vásquez and cristina rocha were discovered 7 kilometers below the surface of the Atlantic. Its current position as the world’s sixteenth largest oil producer will improve as soon as the country starts drawing on these reserves. To be sure, the rise of this economic powerhouse is not only due to natural and mineral riches. Brazil’s technological innovation is also helping the economy. Brazil has also been working with clean energy since the first oil crisis hit, when it developed technology to produce ethanol from sugar cane to run its car fleet. At present around 30 percent of its energy comes from hydropower and another 15 percent from biomass. Embraer is the world’s third largest producer of commercial jet aircraft and the market leader in jets with 5–20 seats. Furthermore, Brazil has diversified its trade partners. China and is set to become Brazil’s top foreign investor supplanting the US. To this end, Brazil is building the world’s largest industrial port complex nicknamed ‘Highway to China’ in conjunction with Chinese investment. Iron ore, grain, soy and oil will be shipped through this port after it opens in 2012 on the Rio coast- line (Phillips 2010: 17). Tellingly, while the global financial crisis hit developed countries, Brazil was one of the last countries into the crisis and one of the first out. Indeed, in 2008, foreign direct investment (FDI) in Brazil was up 30 percent, while FDI inflows in the rest of the world fell by 14 percent (The Economist 2009). Brazil’s Central Bank has predicted that between 2010 and 2012 Brazil will be the third-preferred host economy for FDIs, behind only China and India (Campos Meirelles 2010: 17). Such is the excitement in Brazil that, in a press conference with the UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown in 2009, the then Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (2003–2010) mockingly quipped: “This economic crisis was caused by white blue-eyed bankers, who before the crisis appeared to know everything and now demonstrate they know nothing.” By white people he meant bankers and financial institutions in the Global North that had been dictating neo-liberal economic policies in the past decades. Economic success has gone hand-in-hand with political clout, as Lula has positioned the country as a powerful player in international affairs. He has taken the lead replacing the G8 with the G20, shifting power in global economic discussions from developed countries only to include the developing world. Furthermore, Brazil has started to play a diplomatic role in international issues, promoting mediation in the conflict between Israel and Palestine, in the Iranian nuclear question, in the Falklands/Malvinas dispute over oil reserves between England and Argentina, and pressuring Germany to bail out Greece out of its huge foreign debt. Finally, Lula worked to turn to South America into a new political bloc by driving the creation of UNASUR (Union of South American introduction 7

Nations) in 2008 (Cervo and Lessa 2010). Dilma Rousseff, his successor (2011), has followed on his footsteps. She has taken a keen interest in international relations and expanding Brazil’s influence in Africa (Romero 2012a), as well as in raising living standards of the poorest of the poor in Brazil, although she has supported large hydroelectric projects in the Amazons that threaten the livelihood of indigenous communities (Romero 2012b). Brazil’s booming economy and the newly found global political clout have been translated into a hype regarding the country’s future. The international media has followed suit, complemented by a rapidly growing Brazilian media that now include formidable transnational corporations, such as Rede Globo, which have become instrumental in manufacturing and selling Brazilian coolness abroad.2 There have been countless newspaper articles, magazine special issues and some books (Roett 2010; Rohter 2010) on the subject. For instance, Vanity Fair had a special issue on Brazil in 2007, while in 2010 Wallpaper Magazine, the bible of trendy designers and artists, dedicated a whole issue to cover what it called ‘the most exciting country on earth.’ From architects to interior decorators and fashion designers, Wallpaper praised the country for its creativity and fast pace. Its editorial read: “For a few magical weeks, Wallpaper shifted operational HQ to Brazil. We had a single aim: to produce as true a portrait as possible of an extraordinary country at an extraordinary moment of transition.” The icing on the cake came in 2010 when Brazil was chosen to host the 2014 World Soccer Cup and the 2016 Olympic Games. However, Brazil’s newest standing in the world order has not halted emigration. Massive social inequalities persist. For instance, according to the Brazilian Institute of Statistics (IBGE), in 2007 while the top 10 percent of the Brazilian population accounted for 43.2 percent of all individual income, the bottom 10 percent accounted for only 1.1 percent (Lage and Machado 2008). Accordingly, Brazil has the tenth most unequal wealth distribution according to the Gini index. The huge gap between the rich and poor has had as a consequence a high rate of crime and violence. This is clearly shown in a wave of movies made in Brazil in the past decade, such as City of God, Bus 174, and Elite Squad. Indeed, a report commissioned by NGOs involved in the United Nations Small Arms Programme of Action (Oxfam and Amnesty International,

2 For instance, TV Globo is now the fourth largest commercial television network in the world and one of leading exporters of telenovelas (soap operas), a key window into Brazilian everyday life. See http://www.museum.tv/eotvsection.php?entrycode=brazil. 8 manuel a. vásquez and cristina rocha

IANSA) in 2006, found that one in every two Brazilians was or knew someone who had been victim of firearms, and 94 percent of Brazilians feared this possibility (Uchoa 2006). Moreover, according to a report of the WHO, while the population of São Paulo accounts for only 0.17 percent of the world population, it had more than 1 percent of the 520 thousand homicides (not including deaths in war zones or suicides) that happened in the world in the year 2000. An average of 58 homicides per 100 thousand inhabitants in 2002 places São Paulo as the fourth most violent city in the world, after Medellin and Cali in Colombia, and Guatemala City and San Salvador (Bacoccina 2004). The situation in Rio de Janeiro is no different. As a result, while the poor emigrate in search of better working opportunities, many middle-class migrants have left the country escaping violence and fear in everyday life.

The Brazilian Diaspora

Brazil was traditionally a country that received inflows of migrants. However, since the mid-1980s, the flow has been reversed. The socio- economic crisis of the 1980s led to massive social inequalities, rampant crime and violence that motivated many Brazilians to emigrate. According to a 2000 census of foreign consulates undertaken by the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 1.5 million Brazilians left the country between 1980 and 2000. In 2009, a report by the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MRE, 2009) estimated that this number had doubled to 3 million. The largest communities are in the US (1.4 million), Paraguay (200,000), Japan (230,000) and in the UK (180,000) (MRE 2011). In addition, the Brazilian Ministry of Justice estimates that there are 4 million undocumented migrants, making the total number of Brazilians overseas 7 million people (Giraldi 2008). Given that the number of Brazilians residing overseas has increased by 20 percent annually since the 1980s, North American anthropologist Maxine Margolis argued that “to leave Brazil is no longer the isolated decision of individuals […] to try to better their lives in another country; it is a national trend” (Margolis 2003: 45). This trend has resulted in a vibrant, polycentric diaspora that has facilitated Brazilian the global circulation of Brazilian culture, including religious symbols, practices, and identities. Here, we will give a brief overview of Brazilian migration to the US, Europe and Japan, where the large communities are located and which are the focus of several chapters in this book. In the US, reliable numbers of Brazilian migration are hard to come by. This prompted Margolis to call introduction 9

Brazilians in the United States “an invisible minority” (1994). Even the 2010 US census offered few options for self-identification for those coming from Latin America – they are either Hispanic or Latino, categories with which Brazilians do not identify. Sensing the prejudice against, and negative stereotypes associated with Hispanics/Latinos, Brazilians are quick to distance themselves from them, emphasizing differences in “their work ethic, physical appearance, their social class, education, and language and culture” (Margolis 2007a: 217). The largest Brazilian communities are in New York, Boston, and Miami, but they can also be found in Los Angeles, Washington DC, San Francisco, and Chicago. In the past years, Brazilians have started to settle in the so- called ‘New South’ in search of work. They moved to Atlanta (the site of Vásquez’s and Souza Alves’s chapter), to work in the construction of the Olympic venues, while in New Orleans they worked in the reconstruction effort after Hurricane Katrina (Fussell 2009). Margolis (2007b, 2008) divides the Brazilian community into three groups according to time of arrival and social class. The first group is comprised of Brazilians who have lived in the US for the past 15–20 years, have a Green Card, speak English well, socialize with other non-Brazilians, many of whom have become citizens. These are mostly middle-class Brazilians. The second group is made up of migrants who arrived post 9/11 and entered the country through Mexico. These are poor, undocumented migrants from places such as Acre and Rondônia, in the top north of Brazil, or Goiás in the central highlands. After 9/11, US immigration and border procedures were tightly regulated, with the Federal and State governments approving several laws to clamp down on undocumented migrants. This made it more difficult to apply and obtain visas and, once migrants arrived in the country, to acquire or renew driver’s licenses. Without a driver’s license, people cannot open a bank account, get a credit card, get to work, or rent an apartment (Margolis 2008: 5). Given the difficulties they face, they stay in the country just enough time to save money. They then return to Brazil permanently. In the third group Margolis places those who arrived before 9/11 as undocumented migrants. According to her, they are in much worse situation than those in the two other groups because they find themselves in a limbo. In hope of an amnesty for undocumented migrants (which was squashed when new legislation was rejected in the US Congress in 2007), they established businesses, acquired a house, and had children in the US. The new tough restrictions and regulations together with the constant fear of deportation, vis-à-vis the roots they have put in the US, make them especially vulnerable (Margolis 2008:7). Vásquez’s and Souza Alves’s chapter on the Spiritist group Vale do Amanhecer shows 10 manuel a. vásquez and cristina rocha how religion can help to provide meaning and a sense of peace and stability in the face of this vulnerability. In the past six years, the direction of migration flows to the US has started to change. The higher level of surveillance after 9/11, the rising fear of deportation, the downturn of the American economy, and the drop in the value of the American dollar in relation to the Brazilian real all influenced a reshuffle in the global flows of Brazilians. Since 2005, more Brazilians left the US than arrived (Bernstein and Dwoskin 2007). Some decided to return home, many others decided to migrate to Europe, where the Euro was much stronger against the American dollar and no visa was necessary. Many Brazilians hold European passports because they descend from Europeans who migrated to Brazil in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries for work and/or to escape the two world wars (Souza 2010). The Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Relations estimates that the largest communities are in the UK (180,000), Portugal (136,000), Spain (159,000), Germany (91,000), Italy (85,000), France (80,000), and Switzerland (57,000) (MRE 2011). In addition to these traditional European sites of migration, up until the global economic crisis, Ireland became a new destination. Of the estimated 816,000 Brazilians living in Europe in 2008, 20,000 resided in Ireland (MRE 2009). In this volume, several chapters analyze the arrival and localization of Brazilian religions in Europe. Stephens and Delamont explore the connection between capoeira and Afro-Brazilian religions in the UK, while Sheringham compares and contrasts the roles that Catholic and Protestant churches play for Brazilian immigrants in London; Saraiva studies Afro-Brazilian religions and Mafra et al. examine Brazilian Pentecostalism in Portugal, Groisman explores the arrival of ayahuasca in the Netherlands, Rial investigates the ways in which Brazilian football players bring Pentecostalism wherever they move to, and finally Carranza and Mariz address the dissemination of a new Brazilian Catholic community movement in France and Italy. Nevertheless, Europe was also hit by the global financial crisis. This is particularly the case for some countries with large Brazilian communities such as Portugal, Spain, Ireland, and the UK. Since the Brazilian economy went through the crisis almost unscathed, as we saw in the previous section, many migrants have decided to return home. For instance, in Portugal, where Brazilians represent 25 percent of the number of foreign migrants and where the crisis hit especially hard, the number of those returning home tripled in 2009 (Rodrigues 2011). The International Organization for Migration (IOM), an agency associated with the UN, assisted 1,011 poor migrants in Portugal to return home in 2009, 78 percent of them Brazilians. introduction 11

Numbers have been increasing – from January to August 2010 alone the IOM assisted 1,177 migrants, 84 percent of them Brazilian (Rattner 2010). However, not only are Brazilian migrants returning, but the Portuguese themselves are migrating to Brazil. According to an official in charge of visas at the Brazilian Consulate in Lisbon, while in 2010 the consulate issued 1,500 working visas, it had already issued 500 in the first three months of 2011. That number does not include those working visas issued at the consulate in the city of Porto, or those migrants who have working visas because they are married to Brazilians. The Brazilian consul in Lisbon noted that those leaving are mostly university educated, including many engineers who intend to work in the newly found oil reserves in the country (Rattner 2011). As Brazil welcomes new migrants from Portugal, as well as from countries in the Southern Cone, such as Paraguay, Bolivia, Peru, and Uruguay, where Brazilian transnationals are becoming increasingly influential, new networks and flows are established through which religions can travel. Chapters by Frigerio on the spread of Umbanda in the Southern Cone, and by Barrera Rivera on the missionary work of the God is Love Church in the Peruvian highlands provide a glimpse of these growing networks and flows. Japan, another important destination for Brazilians, has also suffered the effects of the global financial crisis. Japanese Brazilians started migrating to Japan in the mid-1980s. In need of factory workers during the bubble economy of the 1980s and faced with a growing number of undocumented workers from the Middle East and Asia, the Japanese government revised in 1990 the Immigration Law of 1951. At the same time that it established criminal penalties for the recruitment of other foreign workers, it created a new ‘long-term’ visa exclusively for Japanese descendants. The reasons given were deeply related to race: descendants would maintain racial, ethnic and social homogeneity while helping Japan to overcome a dangerous shortage of factory workers in an increasingly middle class society. They would work in jobs that were avoided by the Japanese since they were considered kiken (dangerous), kitanai (dirty) and kitsui (hard). Later on, Japanese Brazilian workers themselves added two more Ks to the above three, describing their jobs as kibishii (strict) and kirai (loathsome). The first wave of Japanese Brazilian dekasegi (migrants) arrived in Japan in the mid-1980s, and was composed of post-war issei and nisei (first and second generations) who spoke fluent Japanese and had retained Japanese citizenship. However, when Brazil’s economic crisis worsened in the late 1980s and early 1990s, middle-class nisei and sansei (third-generation) who 12 manuel a. vásquez and cristina rocha spoke only Portuguese and had little first-hand experience with Japanese culture started leaving for Japan as well. By the mid-1990s, families with small children migrated on a more permanent basis. In response to the increasing numbers of Brazilians, new businesses were established to cater to this population. These included restaurants, clothing and grocery shops, newspapers, satellite TV, video rental shops with the latest Brazilian soap operas and, more recently, schools that will equip children to adapt once the family returns to Brazil (Ishi 2005; Sasaki 2002; Tsuda 2003). By the year 2000, of the 1.5 million Japanese-Brazilians living in Brazil, 18 percent of those of working age had left for Japan (Yamanaka 2000). In 2008, Brazilians comprised the third largest migrant population (317,000), behind only Koreans (635,000) and Chinese (335,000). However, the downturn of the Japanese economy has meant that by 2010 around 50,000 Brazilians had returned home. Presently, the Brazilian community in Japan is estimated at 230,000 Brazilians (MRE 2011). Although there was an expectation that Japanese Brazilians would behave like Japanese, both sides underwent cultural shock when they came in contact. In his Strangers in the Ethnic Homeland (2003), Tsuda conveys through numerous interviews the pain these legal migrants felt when they realized they were not accepted or regarded as Japanese in what they always thought was their motherland. The paradox of being labeled Japanese in Brazil, and becoming aware of the profound differences between themselves and the Japanese in Japan came to many as a loss and, subsequently, a transformation in their identity. Suffering also came from changes in status on two fronts: from being regarded positively in Brazil due to their Japanese ethnicity, they started to be perceived negatively in Japan due to their Brazilian origin; from middle-class and white-collar in Brazil, they held blue-collar jobs in Japan. In interviews with Tsuda, Japanese revealed that they tend to stigmatize Japanese Brazilians because of their past migration legacy, an assumption of their failure in Brazilian society, and their degraded social class status as unskilled factory workers in Japan (Tsuda 2003: 116). Feeling unwelcome, not speaking the language and thus not fitting in the society, Japanese Brazilians adopt an overtly Brazilian identity in Japan. As Tsuda puts it, they “perform a Brazilian coun- teridentity” (p. 263) by wearing colorful Brazilian clothes, dancing in samba parades (many for the first time in their lives), and speaking Portuguese in public. In her chapter in this volume, Arakaki demonstrates the ways in which Umbanda helps Japanese Brazilians to feel symbolically included in the Brazilian society, and functions as an antidote to their feelings of exclusion in Japan. introduction 13

To be sure, the diaspora of Brazilian religions is not only the product of Brazilians leaving Brazil and carrying their religions with them. Spiritual seekers who are attracted by religions and spiritual traditions of the Global South also play an important role. More often than not, they find Brazilian religions in their own country, and subsequently go to Brazil as spiritual tourists. In the following section we will explore this phenomenon.

Spiritual Tourism, Exoticism, and the Work of Imagination

In the past decades much has been written on spiritual tourism, that is, the intersection between pilgrimage and tourism. Starting with the well-known assertion by Victor and Edith Turner that “a tourist is half pilgrim, if a pilgrim is half a tourist” (1978: 20), many other scholars have argued that tourists may also travel for authenticity or in search of meaning and the experience of transcendence. In turn, pilgrims engage in leisure, consumption, and sightseeing activities and use the same infrastructure as tourists in their journeys (Cohen 1992; Coleman and Eade 2004; Graburn 1977, 1983; Preston 1992; Reader and Walter 1993). In this context, Badone and Roseman argued that “rigid dichotomies between pilgrimage and tourism, or pilgrims and tourists, no longer seem tenable in the shifting world of postmodern travel” (2004: 2). Together with others (Graburn 1977; Reader and Walter 1993; Reader 2007: 224), they have pointed out that the category ‘pilgrimage’ should also include travel not explicitly connected to religious sites, but which present a religious character such as devotion, healing, identity and roots (e.g., journeys to Ground Zero, Graceland, and Africa for African descendants). More recently, Coleman and Eade (2004: 3) have argued for the study of pilgrimage to focus not only on sacred sites, but also on “various forms of motion – embodied, imagined, metaphorical.” The chapters in this volume by Groisman, Meintel and Hernandez, Rocha, Saraiva, and Stephen and Delamont respond to this call by exploring concrete and symbolic ways in which adherents travel and engage in transnational connections, and the ways in which these alternative religions and practices are embodied, imagined and lived by Westerners in everyday life in their home countries. While ‘tourist’ and ‘pilgrim’ are not homogeneous categories in themselves, some scholars have argued that, as ideal types, tourists travel to the peripheries of the world, while pilgrims travel to the spiritual, political and cultural centers of their world (Cohen 1992: 52–54; MacCanell 1976). For these authors, the advent of modernity has meant that people are 14 manuel a. vásquez and cristina rocha increasingly alienated and wish to escape to the peripheries, where they believe people live ‘authentic’ lives, closely connected to tradition and spirituality. However, Cohen (1992: 54–55) has pointed out that these categories are empirically blurred. He divides the tourist experience into four modes organized in a continuum. On one pole he places tourists who travel to escape industrial society, but who do not engage with the Other (diversionary mode), on the other pole, those who adopt the Other’s lifestyle (existential mode). For our purposes, the existential mode is significant for it is the one adopted by the spiritual tourists in this book. In the existential mode, pilgrimage and tourism overlap, in that tourists have a mystical experience, they “transform the Other into their centre. By embracing it, they opt out spiritually from their society of origin” (Cohen 1982: 59). Spiritual tourists from Canada, the Netherlands, the UK, Australia, and Portugal, in this volume, have adopted religions and new alternative spiritualities and practices from Brazil because Brazil is imagined as a locale where the connection with the sacred was not eradicated by modernity. Indeed, these chapters demonstrate that spiritual tourism adds to the construction of a ‘transnational imaginary’ of Brazil overseas. Appadurai has argued that the intensification of the global flows of media and migration have had a deep influence on the “work of the imagi nation as a constitutive feature of modern subjectivity” (1996: 3). For him, “the work of the imagination is a space […] in which individuals and groups seek to annex the global into their own practices of the modern” (1996: 4). Indeed, through mediascapes3 as well as the influx of Brazilian migrants who strategically adopt essentialized ways of being Brazilian to carve their own place in the Global North (such as by teaching dance and capoeira classes or as spiritual leaders), we see that in the collective imagination of the West, Brazil becomes the primitive, traditional, exotic Other. The country is associated with, on the one hand, tropes of sensuality, passion, beauty, vivacity, sexual freedom, and on the other hand, with a pristine past which industrialized countries have lost, one in which spirituality is present in everyday life. The Amazon, its indigenous people and Afro-Brazilian culture contribute particularly to an imaginary of a deeply spiritual country.

3 According to Appadurai, “[M]ediascapes refer to both the distribution of the electronic capabilities to produce and disseminate information (newspapers, magazines, television stations, and film-production studios), which are now available to a growing number of private and public interests throughout the world, and to the images of the world created by these media” (1996: 35). introduction 15

Large cities like São Paulo rarely figure in this imagination. Such a disjuncture between the image and the reality derive from what Edward Said has referred to as the discourse of ‘Romantic Orientalism,’ that is, a nostalgic yearning for a pure and pristine past. This Orientalist discourse is paradoxical, exulting abstract appropriations of autochthonous cultures, while ignoring the precarious life conditions and systematic marginalization suffered by living indigenous Brazilians. Although Orientalism usually refers to representations of the geography and culture of large parts of Asia and North Africa, following Aparicio and Chávez-Silverman (1997) we suggest that the concept can be expanded to include Latin America.4 Romantic ideas about the developing world have been adopted and reinforced by the New Age movement starting in the 1980s.5 The expansion of new spiritualities is directly linked to modernity. Contrary to what was previously thought, today it is clear that modernity does not engender secularization. Instead, the breakdown of the ‘sacred canopy’ leads to increasing religious pluralism, the establishment of a religious marketplace, private religious choice, and turning to the self as a source of meaning. Some characteristics of modernity itself have shaped these changes. For example, the separation of state and church has made religious affiliation optional. Urbanization, migration, mass education and mass media, all intensified by the advent of globalization, have further increased pluralism and competition among different religious worldviews. The central feature of the religious marketplace is that ‘consumers’ are free to pick and choose among diverse religions. Saraiva and Meintel and Hernandez identify secularization, the Catholic Church’s loss of control of the religious field, and the forces of globali zation in Portugal and Canada respectively, as the starting points to a wider opening to “new ideas, new rituals, new healing practices” (Saraiva in this

4 Writing in relation to the ways in which Anglo culture in the US represents Latin American literature, Aparicio and Chávez-Silverman (1997: 8) coined the term Tropi calizations, and argued that to tropicalize “means to imbue a particular space, geography, group, or nation with a set of traits, images, and values that are circulated and perpetuated through official texts, history, literature, and the media”. 5 Undoubtedly, it is difficult to define the New Age movement, since it is a loose grouping of diverse beliefs, techniques, and practices, with no single central authority or doctrine that can indicate whether an individual belongs to it (Hanegraaff 1998). Having said this, there is a core of common beliefs which we can call New Age, such as “the evolution of the soul through successive incarnations, monism, karma, the basic goodness of human nature, the power of the mind to transform reality, and so on” (Lewis 2004: 12). According to York, the movement has its origins in the occult traditions of the nineteenth century, particularly in the Theosophical tradition and comprises a “blend of pagan religions, Eastern philosophies, and occult-psychic phenomena” (2004: 371–372). 16 manuel a. vásquez and cristina rocha volume). Corroborating that, Meintel and Hernadez write: “Santo Daime, Ayahuasca groups and Native-inspired shamanic groups have all attracted Quebec-born members from the social majority, many of them highly educated.” The allure of alternative spiritualities and practices from the developing world is also apparent by the fact that, as Groisman, Meintel and Hernandez, Rocha, Saraiva, and Stephens and Delamont in this volume observe, while spiritual leaders are Brazilians, most overseas participants are locals. Exoticism is part and parcel of this allure. Huggan has defined exoticism as a “particular mode of aesthetic perception – one which renders people, objects and places strange even as it domesticates them, and which effectively manufactures otherness even as it claims to surrender to its imminent mystery” (italicized in the original, 2001: 13). He argues that while in the nineteenth century exoticism worked as a control mechanism to conceal Imperial authority, in the late twentieth century exoticisms “are the products less of the expansion of the nation than of the worldwide market” (Huggan 2001: 15). Cultural difference is now for global consumption through tourism, shopping, and mediascapes. Although migrants may also bring these desired cultural practices to the Metropole and use them strategically to challenge and profit from consumer needs, power inequalities persist. The exotic other cannot ever be fully part of the center, cannot be fully assimilated, since it loses its symbolic capital once it does. Its appeal depends on its difference from the norm. To be sure, some degree of cultural translation is necessary so that the exotic other can become somewhat familiar and thus consumed. Nonetheless, Huggan notes that cultural translation means “not so much a process of convergence, mutual intellection… but rather the supreme position of a dominant way of seeing, speaking in thinking on to marginalized peoples and their cultural artifacts they produce” (2001: 24). However, we argue that this is not the whole story. The chapters which analyze the arrival of Brazilian religions and practices in the Global North carried by spiritual tourists evince a clear tension of who controls their expansion. More often than not Westerners understand these alternative religions through the lens of New Age, while Brazilian Umbanda and Candomblé pais and mães-de-santo (Saraiva, Meintel and Hernandez), the medium healer John of God (Rocha), ayahuasca religious leaders (Groisman), and Capoeira teachers (Stephens and Delamont) have all developed ways to maintain close control of the process of religious expansion overseas. This tension generates hybridizations. For instance, often local followers introduction 17 translate the Brazilian Spiritist word corrente (sharing one’s energy with spirits so that they can heal) in Rocha’s chapter, and gira or assentamento of the Umbanda ritual in Meintel and Hernandez’ chapter as ‘meditation’, a common New Age practice. Moreover, Meintel and Hernandez show that “while the pai-de-santo is respectful towards other religions and is aware of the hybrid trajectories of his followers, there is little room for local syncretism on the level of ritual. In at least one case involving an Austrian group, the temple was eventually removed from the Arán network because of repeated deviations from the ritual norms set down by the pai-de-santo.” It is noteworthy that the mãe-de-santo also strategically hybridizes Umbanda practices with New Age concepts. According to Meintel and Hernandez, she gives workshops in which she “teaches an approach that integrates ‘the spiritual wisdom of ancient traditions’ (as per her website) with psychotherapy so as to favor the ‘psychosomatic balance’ of the individual (the self).” Language plays an important role in the process of hybridization and the spread of brasilidade through religion. Some groups like União do Vegetal, known for its hierarchical organization, prefer to conduct their activities abroad in Portuguese, as a way to preserve authenticity, ensure orthodoxy, and establish ritual authority (MacRae 2004: 37). This may result in the sacralization of Portuguese, which now becomes the liturgical vehicle par excellence to establish efficacious and legitimate experiences of sacred alterity. Other groups like Santo Daime may provide simultaneous translation or may even conduct the bulk of their activities in the local language, chanting particular hymns in Portuguese or sprinkling in Portuguese terms when explaining a central religious worldview, concept, or ethos (Groisman in this volume). This combination allows the religious group to diffuse the message more widely, while maintaining a certain level of exoticism and authority predicated on Brazilianness. Finally, other Brazilian groups may adopt a hybrid language in order to missionize local populations. Such is the case of the Pentecostals Church ‘God is Love’ (IPDA), which is the subject of Barrera Rivera’s chapter. Taking advantage of the growing prestige that Brazil has South America and of the closeness between Spanish and Portuguese, IPDA pastors and missionaries use ‘Portunhol’ to reach Andean migrants in Lima, who find themselves discriminated for mixing Spanish with their indigenous languages. Even in those cases where Portuguese is the group’s dominant religious language, the role of the translator as a cultural intermediary or broker is crucial. Translators may be Brazilians who have lived in the society of settlement longer, or who have married a 18 manuel a. vásquez and cristina rocha local person (very often it is Brazilian women marrying local men6), or, for long-standing Brazilian diasporic communities such as those in the US, the second generation born abroad. In her chapter on Umbanda, Arakaki shows that translators may even involve religious actors: the exú, a spirit who stands for liminality, who is known for crossing the worlds of ancestors and the living, is summoned by Japanese-Brazilians to make sense of their struggle to integrate in a society that discriminates them (Japan), while remaining Brazilian. Cheaper and better means of communication and transport have had several consequences to spiritual tourism. First, spiritual leaders can exert stronger control of developments overseas through travel, email correspondence, and phone calls, while followers are able to travel to Brazil several times a year (if they have the means to do so) and contact spiritual leaders and other followers in Brazil and elsewhere through e-mail, Skype, electronic newsletters, and so forth. Second, Canadians, Europeans and Australians are able to localize their pilgrimage by constructing sacred sites in their own countries. The center is not only ‘out there’ accessible through travel, as Turner (1973) posited it, but where they live. In this light, Cohen’s assertion that the existential tourist “is not restituted to, or reconciled with, his own society but remains alienated from it; he may continue to vegetate in it, but his ‘real’ life will be at his elective centre” (1992: 60) does not hold true in these globalized times. As Rocha’s chapter in this volume shows, spirits travel and heal whenever people are taking herbs prescribed by John of God, having crystal bed treatments, watching movies of the healer operating on people, reading books or sitting in current. Chapters by Meintel and Hernandez, Saraiva, and Groisman also evince the ways in which people hybridize what they learn in Brazil with their own beliefs and culture. Many of them use Brazilian religions to make sense of their own lives and are looking for ways to experience meaning and transcendence where they live. Westerners seek Brazilian religions and practices for many reasons. The chapters in this volume show that Umbanda followers in Canada, John of God followers in Australia, Afro-Brazilian religions adherents in Portugal, ayahuasca users in the Netherlands, and Capoeira practitioners from the UK all have similar motivations for adopting Brazilian religions and practices and eventually traveling to Brazil. They are seeking personal development, healing for health (physical and mental illnesses) and social

6 See Wulfhorst (2011). introduction 19 issues (unemployment, divorce and loneliness), and ultimately a transformation of the self. In addition, they are attracted to being in a sacred place where spiritual leaders and spirits dwell, and where they can experience the sacred directly. According to Preston (1992: 33) sites of pilgrimage have “spiritual magnetism,” that is, “the power of pilgrimage to attract devotees.” For him, this magnetism is due to one or more of these four elements: “miraculous cures, apparitions of supernatural beings, sacred geography, and difficulty of access.” In addition, Eade and Sallnow, associate this magnetism to a particularly holy person (1991: 6).We suggest that visiting the sacred sites where their spiritual leaders dwell in Brazil is “an experiential way of ‘touching’ the numinous” (Tomasi 2002: 208). To be sure, as spiritual tourists, in their trips to Brazil they also seek plea- sure and leisure, and these trips also involve secular features. They may travel using tour guides and package tours, go sightseeing, purchase souvenirs, trinkets and sacred objects necessary for rituals (e.g., rosaries, crystal beds and blessed water for John of God followers, perfume, special clothes and incense for Umbanda followers, the plants to concoct the ayahuasca brew for Daime followers, musical instruments for capoeira practitioners), and bring back these sacred and secular mementos. Immigration, spiritual tourism, exoticism, and the work of imagi nation are all embedded within ‘globalization,’ a short-hand term scholars use to characterize complex dynamics of deterritorialization and reterritorialization. In order to understand how Brazilian religions spread throughout the world, we need to discuss briefly how globalization and religion interact.

The Globalization of Religion

The literature on globalization has experienced an explosive growth in the last decade. Despite this proliferation, the works of critical geographer David Harvey and sociologist Anthony Giddens arguably remain the best short-hand characterizations of this complex and dynamic phenomenon. In The Condition of Postmodernity, Harvey argues that the transition from a Keynesian-Fordist regime of production centered around the nation-state to a deterritorialized and flexible regime made possible by rapid changes communication and transportation technologies has led to a drastic ‘time- space compression.’ As the current economic crisis shows, processes in a particular locality may have almost instant worldwide implications, such 20 manuel a. vásquez and cristina rocha that what happens in Iceland, Greece, or Ireland may have potent repercussions not only for the European Union but for global capitalism. In a complementary fashion, Giddens noted in The Consequences of Modernity that globalization has also produced a radical distantiation, the disembedding of social relations and cultural patterns from their local referents and their circulation in dense global networks and flows. These unmoored social relations and cultural artifacts (i.e., images, narratives, identities, etc) can then become re-appropriated and re-signified in localities often far away from their ‘original’ source. Thus, despite the potential for anonymity and simulation, it is now possible to have more meaningful and intense relations on cyberspace, with people often separated by long distances, than through face-to-face encounters. The prime example here is social media such as Facebook.7 Together time-space compression and distantiation have unleashed powerful processes of deterritorialization and reterrritorialization that have challenged our modernist cognitive maps that “equated territory, culture, and polity. Widespread flows of people, capital, goods, and ideas make it increasingly untenable to map the world according to the tidy logic of one nation, one culture, one religion, one history, and one self-contained social formation” (Vásquez 2009: 3). Scholars have not always taken religion seriously as a key contributor to globalization. For example, anthropologist Arjun Appadurai (1996) fails to include religion among the cultural ‘scapes,’ the fractal and contested landscapes that he identifies as central to globalization.8 Nevertheless, before the concept of globalization was in vogue, scholars such as Peter Beyer (1994) and Roland Robertson (1994) had begun to theorize about the role of religion in the emergence of a global system and consciousness. Beyer (2006), for instance, focused on the relationship between globalization and the rise of the concept of religion and of world religions. Robertson, for his part, studied how religion contributes to the processes of individualization,

7 For an anthropological analysis of Facebook and everyday life, see Miller (2011). 8 Appadurai (1996: 33–37) identifies five overlapping-yet-disjunctive scapes: ethnoscapes, “the landscape of persons who constitute the shifting world in which we live: tourists, immigrants, refugees, exiles, guest workers;” financescapes, the almost instantaneous movement of capital across the globe; technoscapes, global technological changes and transfers; mediascapes, “the distribution of electronic capabilities,” from television and newspapers to film production and the Internet, which generate and disseminate information, particularly images; and ideoscapes, the narratives and myths connected to the articulation of collective (national, transnational, pan-ethnic, etc) and individual identities on local and global scales. introduction 21 societalization, internationalization, and humanization that made possible the rise of the globe as an imagined community.9 Robertson’s notion of glocalization and the dialectic between “the par- ticularization of the universal and the universalization of the particular” (1992: 178) have also influenced the work of scholars of globalization that have taken a more ethnographic approach, seeking to illustrate how the tension of the local and global plays out in particular settings, often leading to the construction of hybrid identities, practices, worldviews, and forms of organization (Robertson 1991, 1995; Rocha 2006; Vásquez and Marquardt 2003). This ethnographic focus has been enriched by a rapidly growing body of work on religion and transnationalism, particularly on the multiple roles that religion plays in the movement, settlement and integration of immigrants. These works show how religion provides the raw materials to build transnational social fields, linking and transforming societies of origin and settlement (Csordas 2009; Levitt 2001, 2004 and 2007; Levitt and Glick Schiller 2004; Williams, Steigenga, and Vásquez 2009). Drawing from Sarah Mahler’s and Katrin Hansing’s notion of ‘transnationalism of the middle,’10 Sheringham (in this volume) focuses on the transnational trajectories, pastoral practices, and theologies of religious actors – Catholic priests and Protestant ministers – as they build congregations that serve Brazilians in London. She argues that while both churches offer themselves as “a surrogate family where migrants can feel safe and ‘at home’ in an otherwise familiar environment, different theological outlooks lead to different attitudes toward integration and inclusion in the larger society.” Whereas the Catholic Church in London places the emphasis on maintaining Brazilian identity and culture, the Protestant church Sheringham studied stressed quick assimilation into the Anglo mainstream. Scholarship on religion and globalization has also benefited from studies on the impact of global media and computer-mediated communications.

9 Malcolm Waters (2003: 136) offers a good summary of the four processes Robertson sees as part and parcel of globalization: “individualization, the global redefinition of each person as a complete whole rather than a subordinate part of any localized collectivity; internationalization, the multiplication of inter-state inter-dependencies and arrangements; societalization, the establishment of the ‘modern’ nation-state as the only possible form of society; humanization, the global establishment of the view that humanity cannot be differentiated in terms of race, class, or gender in terms of its possibilities and rights.” 10 Mahler and Hansing (2005) use the term to describe an approach that focuses on “multiple social, temporal, and spatial scales, particularly those that articulate macro- and micro-forces and actors. We argue for a transnationalism of the middle that can bridge the global and the local and transnationalism from above [by state actors and corporations] with transnationalism from below [involving everyday life].” 22 manuel a. vásquez and cristina rocha

For example, Birgit Meyer (1999, 2006, 2008), Comaroff and Comaroff (2001), Marleen De Witt (2003, 2010), and Simon Coleman (2000) have explored the elective affinities between, on the one hand, Charismatic Christianity, particularly Neo-Pentecostalism, which posits a cosmic struggle between the Holy Spirit and a variety of demons that render people sick or cause economic failure, and, on the other hand, the spirit of late, neo-liberal capitalism, with all the uncertainties, speculation, desire for quick wealth, and exclusion it entails. This struggle for liberation, health, and prosperity is then staged for simultaneous local and global consumption through the expert use of various media like television, DVDs, films, and the Internet. Other scholars have pointed to the popularity of new religious movements or ‘alternative spiritualities’ made possible by the global mediatization and commodification of religions. These processes allow the individual to pick and choose cafeteria-style among disembedded, globally circulating religious and cultural products, such yoga, tai chi, reiki, or capoeira, to fashion themselves piecemeal as sacred selves or as virtual religious cyborgs (Hexam and Poewe 1997; Rothstein 2002). As Paul Heelas (1998: 5) puts it, globalization has contributed to a deregulation of the religious realm that “combined with the cultural emphasis on freedom and choice, results in intermingled, interfused, forms of religious – or ‘religious-cum-’secular’ – life which exists beyond the tradition-regulated church and chapel.” According to Dawson (2007: 6, 8), in addition to their hyper-hybridity, the new religions tend to be: (i) individualistic, placing “emphasis upon the self as the ultimate arbiter of religious authority and the primary agent of spiritual transformation;” (ii) instrumentalist, using “new era practical knowledge to the end of achieving inner peace, healing, enlightenment, or fulfillment; (iii) immediatist, valorizing “the ‘here and now’ implications of its practices (e.g. health, wealth, and happiness in contrast to the deferred transformations (e.g. paradise, heaven, the next life) promised by mainstream religions;” (iv) dissenting vis-à-vis both orthodox religions and modern culture because they fail to respond to specific spiritual needs of the individual; and (v) holistic, often holding that a universal principle or supernatural force or energy “pervade[s] the cosmos, uniting individuals with it and, by virtue of its mediating ubiquity, with each other.” Such a principle, energy, or force can be harnessed and manipulated to produce the desired perfected self. The Internet’s anonymous, decentered, spontaneous, and playful nature, only intensifies religious de-differentiation, erasing of the boundaries introduction 23 between sacred and secular, between orthodoxy and heterodoxy, and between official and popular religions, enabling the rise of New Age religions that blend faith, science, popular culture, and science fiction. The Internet also facilitates the emergence of alternative claims to religious authority, encouraging further religious innovation (Dawson and Cowan 2004). The vitality of rectificationist or fundamentalist movements, from Islam to Hinduism, from Christianity to the attempts to purify African- based religions such as Candomblé and Regla Lucumí (Santería), may represent a reaction against this bustling global post-modernist marketplace of religions, which followers of these movements perceive as inauthentic or even decadent. The essays in this volume build on this rich literature to challenge simplistic views of religious globalization as being primarily a process of McDonaldization, i.e., the one-directional spread of made-in-the-US religion as a complement to American geopolitical hegemony and preemi- nence in financial and media networks (Ritzer 1996). While the US continues to be a seminal node in what borrowing from Kristen Endress (2010) we may call global ‘spirit industries’ – the ministries of T.D. Jakes, Creflo Dollar, and Joel Osteen are still the models to imitate –, national and local actors across the globe are increasingly developing alternative religious styles, services, entrepreneurial strategies, distribution networks and markets. The result has been the emergence of a poly-centric cartography of religious globalization with multiple key nodes of religious production, circulation, and consumption. Sassen (1998) has noted that, despite all the talk that the hypermobility of capital has made the ‘world flat,’ globalization has, on the contrary, produced landscapes marked by deepening inequalities. In particular, global cities like New York, London, and Tokyo have emerged as ‘command points’ in the global economic system, heavily networked sites where financial and corporate services are concentrated and where innovation in the knowledge-based industries takes place (since the most powerful media corporations often have their headquarters in these global cities). The uneven spatial configuration of economic system dovetails to some extent with the new geography of global religious production. Because they are cross-roads to the world, topoi where immigrants, tourists, businesspeople, and cultural cosmopolitans interact, global cities in the North are indeed incuba- tors of great religious creativity (Orsi 1999). However, the dynamics of the global religious field cannot be reduced to those of the world-capitalist system. The religious field has its own architecture and spatial logics. 24 manuel a. vásquez and cristina rocha

Some of the ‘command centers’ in the new global religious economy, such as India and China, have already been central in the production and spread of age-old World Religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Con fucianism, and Taoism. Their new economic prowess reinvigorates their profile as producers and exporters of religious ‘goods.’ Others nodes like Brazil, Nigeria, and Ghana, although always connected in a subaltern position to the world capitalist system through slavery, colonialism, and the African diaspora, have only recently begun to play a leading role in the religious globalization. In recognizing Brazil as one of the major actors in the new global geography of the sacred, contributors to this volume highlight the proliferation of multi-directional and multi-scalar religious flows and networks, going not only from ‘North’ to ‘South’ but also in the opposite direction, as Brazilian immigrants and religious entrepreneurs ‘reverse missionize,’ (Adogame 2007; Gornik 2011; Jenkins 2011), exorcise demons, summon ancestor spirits, or clean karmic residues in the metropole, in the process contributing to religious diversity and vitality in places like London, Amsterdam, Atlanta, or Montreal, despite the pressures of secular late modernity. Furthermore, as the chapters by Rocha and Mafra et al. show, the new polycentric cartography of religion involves important South-to- South flows. Whether it is the proselytizing work of the powerful transnational Brazilian Neo-Pentecostal church Igreja Universal do Reino de Deus in Angola, Mozambique, or South Africa, or the popularity of Brazilian Spiritist healer John of God in Australia and New Zealand, these South- South exchanges are salient features of the new geography of the sacred and Brazil’s place in it. And, as Frigerio demonstrates in his chapter on the spread of Umbanda and Batuque in the Southern cone, South-to-South flows and networks are not unidirectional, from point A (Brazil) to point B (Argentina). Rather, they may involve alternative foci of production and circulation of ‘Brazilian’ religions. In this case, Montevideo, Uruguay has generated its own school of Umbanda and Batuque specialists, who, having introduced significant variations to these African-based Brazilian religions, take them to Buenos Aires. There, these Uruguayan specialists jostle for space and legitimacy with experts from Porto Alegre, Brazil, going as far as linking with Santeros in Mexico to demonstrate their purity. To grasp the intricacy of transnational flows and networks involving the new nodes of religious production like Brazil, we need to move beyond simplistic models of core-semiperiphery-periphery, which world-systems theorists such as Immanuel Wallerstein have used to map out economic and geo-political relations. Frigerio, in his chapter in this volume, urges us to acknowledge introduction 25 from the outset that the emerging networks can be “multi-directional and, far from being established once and for all, wax and wane, changing in intensity, extension, direction or focus.” Having characterized the broad contours of the current “globalization of the sacred” (Vásquez and Marquardt 2003), we would like to examine the specific contributions that Brazilian religions make in this process of globalization. In order to do that, we need to understand the nature and evolution of the Brazilian religious field. We shall see that, while Brazil has always been a religiously pluralistic country, the last half century has been an intense period of religious innovation and hybridization led by growing numbers of religious entrepreneurs who are now taking advantage of the tools of late modernity and of Brazil’s new geopolitical position to export their products.

Brazil’s Religious Field and Globalization

Despite the centuries-long cultural hegemony of Catholicism, a dominance buttressed institutionally by the Padroado Real (Royal Patronage),11 Brazil’s religious field has always been not only diverse and complex, but also characterized by great innovation and vibrancy. This is evident in the cross- fertilization among Portuguese Catholicism and indigenous and African religions which was part and parcel of the colonial experience. Luso Catholicism itself was characterized by a complex tension between a hierarchical, increasingly Romanizing church and a locally variegated popular Catholicism anchored around the cult of the saints and Marian devotions, with their associated miracles, apparitions, pilgrimages, penances, and festivals, which were often animated and organized by lay groups and leaders, such as brotherhoods, beatos and rezadores (blessers). This popular Catholicism interacted with indigenous traditions, such as shamanism and animism, and with African practices, including the veneration of the ancestors, spirit incorporation, divination, and animal sacrifice to give rise

11 The Royal Patronage of the West Indies was an arrangement between the Holy See and the Portuguese and Spanish Crowns, whereby the latter were made the vicars of Jesus Christ in the New World, charged with the financial and administrative aspects of the spread and maintenance of Catholicism in the region. In exchange, the crown received religious legitimation over its claim to the newly discovered lands and peoples. This arrangement effectively made Catholicism the religion of the state. 26 manuel a. vásquez and cristina rocha to a multiplicity of ‘hybrid’ religions such as Candomblé, Xangô, Batuque, and Umbanda. Brazil’s contemporary religious pluralism, thus, is not entirely new. Rather, it should be seen within a long history of religious dynamism and creativity. Nevertheless, in the last half century or so, Brazilian society has undergone major changes, which have radically increased the variety of religious options and have set the stage for the global circulation of religions originating in Brazil, as the country has become a key node in transnational financial and media circuits. As we saw above, these changes are closely connected with the restructuring of Brazil’s economy, as it moved for a predominantly rural, agricultural mode of production to an industrial, urban-based economic system that is now characterized by the emergence of a robust culture industry and mass media. The rural, agricultural mode of production was tightly intertwined with traditional popular Catholicism and its emphasis on a corporatist, patriarchal moral order. As Oliveira (1985) has demonstrated, in this agricultural mode of production, kinship- based power relations and political patronage dovetailed with the asymmetrical spiritual relations between the believer and his/her patron saint, and between the laity and the clergy. From the 1950s on, a rapid and uneven process of industrialization has challenged this economic, political, moral, and religious order, among other things leading large numbers of Brazilians migrate to growing cities in search of jobs. There, separated from their kinship networks, these migrants required new forms of religiosity to deal with challenges of dislocation and relocation. It is, thus, not surprising, that while Catholicism stopped being the official national religion with the rise of the republic in 1889, Protestantism only begins to challenge the hegemony of the Catholic Church from the 1950s on. This challenge comes primarily in the form of Evangelical Protestantism, particularly Pentecostalism. Indeed, the story of the introduction of Pentecostalism to Brazil in the early 1900s, just a few years following the revivals in Azusa, California and Topeka, Kansas, confirms the central role that uneven industrialization and urbanization have played in the increasing pluralism of the Brazilian religious field. In 1910, Gunnar Vingren travelled to Pará, an agricultural state in Northeastern Brazil that was undergoing major social upheaval after a series of booms and busts in the rubber industry, to found the Assemblies of God. A few years before, Vingren had arrived from Sweden to Kansas, moving to Chicago where he was baptized by the Holy Spirit and had a dream that told him that he had to missionize in Brazil. From his base of operations in Belém, the capital of Pará, Vingren and his introduction 27 associate Daniel Berg made frequent trips to Rio de Janeiro, eventually moving the AG’s headquarters there in 1930. Almost simultaneously, Italian immigrant Luigi Francescon, who had also lived in the United States and had been baptized by the Holy Spirit there, came to São Paulo to work in the city’s emerging industrial sector. Eventually, he founded the Christian Congregation in Brazil, the second largest Pentecostal church in the country. The ‘classical’ Pentecostal churches founded by missionaries and immigrants provided the basis for the rise of an ‘indigenous’ Pentecostal movement between the late 1950s and the early 1970s, a period of intense Pentecostal expansion which coincided with an accelerated process of urbanization and import-substitution industrialization. It is during this period that Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo emerge as Brazil’s two dominant metropolitan poles. Several highly successful churches and movements were formed at this time, beginning with ‘Brasil for Christ’ founded by Manoel Mello in 1956 and the Pentecostal Church ‘Deus é Amor/God is Love’ (IPDA), which is the focus of Barrera Rivera’s chapter in this volume, created circa 1962. IPDA has certain distinctive features: it incorporates elements of popular Catholicism, such as pilgrimage (which they call cara vanas), requiring its followers to travel to the church’s world headquarters in São Paulo at the end of the year. As Barrera Rivera shows, these features may facilitate the IPDA’s mission among indigenous peoples in the Andes, for whom pilgrimage to sacred sites has been a long-standing practice. Moreover, the church features a personalistic style of leadership built around the charismatic figure of founder David Miranda that dovetails with the ways in which indigenous people in the region understand the religious authority of shamans and other lay ritual specialists. Other features, however, may limit the global growth of the church. For example, the fact that the faithful are forbidden from watching television is arguably putting ‘God is Love’ at a disadvantage vis-à-vis other Neo-Pentecostal churches that have made this medium key in their evangelization efforts. However, the IPDA’s heavy use of radio may be well suited for more remote, rural areas, such as the Andean Highlands. Scholars of religion and society from Christian Lalive D’Epinay (1968) and Emilio Willems (1967) have documented the social and cultural roles of Pentecostalism as the old Catholic order built on tightly-knit patron-client relations gives way to the social differentiation and the individualism of large cities. They argue that the Pentecostalism’s success, particularly among poor Brazilians, is due to the fact that it re-articulates something of the corporatism of Catholicism through the tightly-knit 28 manuel a. vásquez and cristina rocha congregation, which is constructed on the basis of a strongly affective, pneuma-centric form of solidarity. At the same time, Pentecostalism’s strict ethos insulates the individual from the pathologies of everyday urban life – alcoholism, crime, and violence. It does all of this while stressing individuality, through the emphasis on personal renewal and salvation through an unmediated and intimate relationship with Jesus. The growth of Pentecostalism has become the major marker of increasing religious pluralism in Brazil. From 1950 to 2010, Catholics have gone from representing 93.5 percent of the population to 64.6 percent. During the same period, Protestants have increased their share of the population from 3.4 percent to 22.2 percent. Indeed, the number of Evangelicals grew 61 percent in between 2000 and 2010 (O Globo 2012). The great majority (75–80 percent) of these Protestants identify themselves as Pentecostal. The disorderly transition to civilian rule and the economic turmoil and uncertainties of the 1980s and 1990s have provided the context for the emergence of a vigorous new wave of home-grown Pentecostalism, one that – in contrast to classical Pentecostal churches, which made glossolalia (speaking in tongues) the first and main sign of baptism in the Holy Spirit – emphasizes divine healing and exorcism.12 This ‘Neo-Pentecostalism’ also advocates unabashedly a ‘prosperity gospel,’ a gospel of health and wealth that sees no contradiction between spiritual redemption, economic success and physical well-being. Because this gospel attributes illnesses and failures in finances and love to the work of the Devil and his minions, it draws from the transformative power of the Holy Spirit to engage in spiritual combat with these possessing demons. Once these demons are defeated, the faithful can enjoy health and wealth. Prosperity gospel appeals simultaneously to vast sectors of the population in Brazil who do not have access to healthcare and to an upwardly mobile urban lower middle class in search of financial success and wellbeing in uncertain economic times. It also appeals to immigrants, both Brazilians and non-Brazilians, who have left their home countries in pursuit of the American or European Dream. Indeed, the gospel of health and wealth is highly portable. Not only is the success of a particular church predicated in the ownership of the latest communication technologies to

12 According to the 2010 census, out of the 190 million Brazilians, 12 million were affiliated to the Assemblies of God, compared with only 1.873 million affiliated to the UCKG (Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, one of the largest Neo-Pentecostal churches in Brazil) and 845,000 to God is Love. introduction 29 spread its message, but also since Neo-Pentecostalism stresses a performative faith based of the spectacular spiritual battle between the Jesus and the Devil, its practices can travel with ease through an image-intensive global electronic media, from TV to the Internet. The most successful example of these Neo-Pentecostal churches is the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God (UCKG), which is the subject of Clara Mafra’s, Claudia Swatowiski’s, and Camila Sampaio’s chapter. Founded by retired lottery agent Edir Macedo in Rio de Janeiro in 1977, the UKCG has temples in more than 170 countries in the world, ranging from the United Kingdom and the United States to South Africa, Angola, and Japan. The UCKG is actively involved in spiritual warfare, engaging in public exorcisms of satanic spirits that ‘lean’ on people, producing failure and misfortune. These exorcisms are beamed globally through the masterful use of the electronic media. The UCKG, in fact, owns a major TV channel – TV Record – which produces videos for national consumption, as well as for missionary use in the Brazilian diaspora. Often the spirits that are exorcized are those of African-based religions such as Candomblé and Umbanda, which will be focus on section III of this volume. The UCKG is not the only prominent transnational Brazilian Neo- Pentecostal church. In addition, there is Igreja Renascer em Cristo (Reborn in Christ Church), which has the distinction of counting famous Brazilian soccer player Kaká among its members. The seamless mixture of Brazilian Evangelical Christianity, business, global sports, media, and popular culture is not unique to Kaká. Carmen Rial shows in her Chapter how Brazilian soccer players abroad, a ‘commodity’ that Brazil actively exports given its world-class prowess in the sport, have become the new missionaries in Brazilian transnational Pentecostalism. They are literally performers in a global spectacle that blends religion, sports, popular culture, entertainment, and mass media. As they score goals, they remove of their team jer- seys to reveal a ‘Jesus Saves’ T-shirt or bodies tattooed with crosses, in effect, using their bodies a billboards to deliver a holy message for millions of TV viewers. The growth of Pentecostalism in Brazil has not only resulted in erosion of Catholicism but in its ‘Pentecostalization.’ Political and economic changes at the national level dovetailed with the fall of the Berlin Wall and John Paul II’s and Benedict XVI’s re-interpretation of Vatican II along more conservative lines. The result has been a weakening of Brazilian progressive Catholicism from the mid-1980s on (Vásquez 1998). The confluence of national and global events and of intra and extra-ecclesial dynamics has particularly affected base Christian communities and Liberation Theology, 30 manuel a. vásquez and cristina rocha which had a vital transformative role during the military dictatorship and the democratic transition. With John Paul II’s call to engage in a ‘New Evangelization,’ the Brazilian church has shifted its focus from denouncing social injustices and political repression to the task of calling back into the church’s fold nominal Catholics. In this context, movements like the Catholic Charismatic Renewal (CCR), which place a strong emphasis on personal transformation through an intimate relationship with Jesus, expressed through charismas, gifts of the Holy Spirit, have grown rapidly. Like Pentecostalism, the Catholic Charismatic Renewal movement emerged in the United States. More specifically, the movement started in the mid-1960s among students at universities like Duquesne and Michigan State (Csordas 1997). In its early years, the CCR grew rapidly among urban middle-class Americans and spread into countries as diverse as Canada, Australia, Peru, and Brazil, where it has offered a ‘virgophilic pneumacentrism’ as a viable option to Pentecostalism.13 According to Chesnut (2003), the CCR allows Brazilians to experience the personal renewal and intimacy with the sacred that is the trademark of Pentecostalism, without breaking with the hierarchy of the Catholic Church and with traditions such as Marian devotions. This mixture of change and continuity, of communitas and structure, might serve well the Brazilian urban middle class, which is experience a period of transition. While the economic conditions have improved for this class, rapid social change still poses uncertainties and anxieties, most poignantly expressed by the widespread fear of crime and everyday violence. By the late 1980s, buoyed by its highly affective and par- ticipative style of worship, typified by singing, dancing, and intense emotions of joy, and by its expert use of electronic media, the CCR moved beyond its middle-class origins in Brazil, becoming a ‘mass movement’ that challenged progressive popular Catholicism (Carranza 2000). Since the 1980s, Latin American immigrants, who came to the United States in large numbers during the ‘lost decade,’ have played a central role in the life of the movement. In fact, recent surveys of US Latino religiosity point to the fact that the charismatic style of worship has become generalized beyond the CCR proper, spilling into the Catholic Church at large.14

13 Chesnut distinguishes between the CCR’s “virgophilic” focus on the Holy Spirit, which preserves the clerical authority of the church and puts a heavy stress on Marian devotions, and Pentecostalism’s “virgophobic” pneumacentrism, which rejects these aspects of Catholic tradition. 14 See the 2007 report on Latino religion by the Pew Hispanic Center: http://pewhispanic .org/reports/report.php?ReportID=75, accessed April 04, 2011. introduction 31

As Carranza and Mariz show in their chapter on Canção Nova (New Song), a charismatic community of communities founded by Salesian Monsignor Jonas Abib in 1978, Brazilian immigrants and missionaries are becoming important players in the spread of the CCR. Here, Canção Nova uses some of the very same tools and strategies that have been proven highly effective for transnational Neo-Pentecostal churches such as the Universal. Recent transformations in the Brazilian religious field are not restricted to Christianity. Following years of discrimination and even outright perse- cution, African-based religions, particularly Umbanda and Candomblé, have emerged as legitimate expressions of Brazilian culture. The rise of the movimento negro (the black movement) and the affirmation of Afro- Brazilian consciousness and identity have undoubtedly contributed to this legitimacy. In the 2010 census, a little over half a million Brazilians (0.3 percent of the population) indicated that they were affiliated with an African- based religion. It is safe to assume that the census has undercounted members of African-based religions, since many Brazilians may continue to identify themselves as Catholics, while actively participating in African- based rituals or consulting mães or pais-de-santo (the initiated leaders of ritual centers in African-based religions) for healing and advice. Indeed, the 2010 census found that 15 million Brazilians (about 13 percent of the population) have more than one religion. They are mostly Catholic and Umbandistas or Catholic and Spiritists (Castro and Duarte 2012). The relatively small numbers belie the significance of these religions in Brazilian history and culture, as they have influenced everything from music to sports and food. This is not surprising, given that 3.6 million of the estimated 10 million slaves who were brought to the Americas during the slave trade, came to Brazil. Postma (2003: 78) estimates that by the 1820s, slaves made up one third of the Brazil’s population, with another third constituted by former slaves who had purchased their freedom. One prominent example of the powerful influence of African slaves and their descendents on Brazilian culture is capoeira, a performative art form that blends music, dance, sports, martial arts, and spirituality. Scholars hypothesize that it originated in the sixteenth century among slaves in sug- arcane plantations and in quilombos, self-sufficient settlements in the hin- terlands formed by runaway slaves. Capoeira’s spirituality borrows heavily from key notions in African-based religions, such as axé, the vital energy that animates everything, including humans and ancestral spirits, and with which capoeiristas must be in tune in order to perform the right moves. As Stephens and Delamont show in their chapter, capoeira has become a vehicle to spread the Brazilian mystique globally. But this spread comes at a 32 manuel a. vásquez and cristina rocha price. Although Brazilian masters continue to make reference to notions like axé, Delamont and Stephens demonstrate how capoeira regional is stripped of its explicit religious connections, but without removing altogether the marks of purity and authenticity, in order to make it more accessible to audiences in the UK.15 As it becomes globalized, capoeira seems to be suffering some of the same transformations that Yoga underwent, as it went from bodily exercises linked to the pursuit of spiritual goals in Hindu traditions to being part of a deterritorialized therapeutic culture, a global culture industry built around self-improvement (Doniger 2010). Borrowing from Bourdieu (1977) and Mauss (1979), we can say that capoeira is becoming a religiously inflected vector of a Brazilian habitus, of ‘techniques of the body’ and notions selfhood and well-being imagined as part of Brazil’s global mystique. In addition to tracing the transnational networks and flows that facilitate the circulation of African-based religions countries as diverse as Canada, Japan, Portugal, Uruguay, and Argentina, the chapters by Frigerio, Arakaki, Saraiva, and Meintel and Hernandez also demonstrate the tension between the need to affirm authenticity, that is, to highlight the ‘Brazilianness’ of Candomblé and Umbanda, and to glocalize Afro- Brazilians religions.16 Because of its unabashed celebration of syncretism, Umbanda appears particularly suited for this process of glocalization.17 Whether it is a matter of including samurais among Pretos Velhos and Caboclos among the Umbanda spirits in Japan or blending Umbanda healing rituals with transpersonal psychotherapy in Montreal, Afro-Brazilian religions spread because they allow practitioners to assert continuity with an imagined tradition rooted in Brazil and, at the same time, to innovate by incorporating aspects of the various local cultures in order to respond to

15 It should be noted that there are two kinds of Brazilian Capoeira which are exported. Capoeira Regional, which is the subject of Stephens and Delamont and which is more widespread abroad, has been traditionally seen more as a sport than as part of a religious system. By contrast, Capoeira Angola is closer to Candomblé and often teaches about axé and the meaning of orixás to students. 16 Glocalization or global localization refers to the process whereby producers and consumers adapt global products, practices, and narratives to local conditions by the juxtaposi- tion and/or blending of authochtonous elements. As such, the concept highlights agency within structural and systemic constraints and the fact that globalization does not necessarily produce homogeneity. See Robertson (1995) and Vásquez and Marquardt (2003). 17 In contrast, Candomblé has witnessed recent high-profile attempts to purify it, to strip from it all its syncretic elements, particularly those incorporated from Catholicism and European Spiritism. Here, transnational connections not only point in the direction of Europe, North America, and Japan but “reach back” to origins in Africa, particularly Nigeria, Angola, and Congo. See Capone (2010). introduction 33 new audiences. As sites of encounter between traveling or immigrant Brazilian masters and native-born followers, Umbanda centers and temples also become spaces of trans-culturation where individual and collective identities are negotiated, where ideas of national identity and belonging are re-articulated. The same flexibility and ability to blend traditional religious rituals with modern self-help therapies into a holistic healing nexus characterizes transnational new religious movements originating in Brazil. Spiritism is a case in point. It came to Brazil in the mid-1860s, following the publication of the works of French educator Allan Kardec. He combined Hindu notions of karma and reincarnation with Enlightenment ideas of education and progress and with Christian ethics, particularly the emphasis on brotherly love and charity. This combination allowed him to posit that upon death, disincarnate spirits may remain attached to the material world, if they are weighed down by the effects of their bad deeds and ignorance, or if they are unwilling to leave their loved ones behind. These spirits may harm and interfere with the living, even causing psycho-somatic problems, which are called obsessões. Thus, the task of the medium is to help educate these spirits, so they can attain increasingly higher levels of wisdom until they become pure light, solving in the process the psycho-somatic illnesses that afflict the living. Furthermore, the medium may call on highly evolved spirits, who in an act of love, charity, and compassion, share their wisdom with the living, helping to lessen the effects of the karmic cycle. Today, Spiritists account for 2 percent of the Brazilian population, with a strong representation among educated urban middle class Brazilians (according to the 2010 census, 31.5 percent of them have tertiary education). Through various Spiritist centers and houses, these Brazilians can enjoy healing and a personal contact with the supernatural, without having to associate themselves with drumming, animal sacrifice, and the practice of incarnating African spirits or rogues and rough street spirits (such pomba gira or Zé Pilintra as in Umbanda), which still carry a strong stigma, being associated with lower classes and with Afro-Brazilians. With its Enlightenment-based appeal to reason, especially evident in the attempt to present its teaching as rational, even scientific doctrine, Spiritism can allow urban educated Brazilians to participate in Western modernity without totally disenchanting the world. According to Hess, [a]lthough the medical profession and university scientists generally frown on Spiritist ‘pseudoscience,’ it plays a key role in mediating between elite science and medicine on one side and popular religion and healing on the other (1991: 3). 34 manuel a. vásquez and cristina rocha

This mediating role is becoming more important in “an international world in which the non-Western and traditional are entering into increasing dialogue with the Western and ‘modern,’ a world in which local movements and communities have an increasingly sophisticated and even critical view of cosmopolitan science, medicine, religion, and political ideology” (Hess 1991: 3). Because of Brazil’s location at the crossroads modernity and tradition and because it encompasses multiple religions and cultures that operate with different spatio-temporal imaginaires and yet are co-eval,18 it is bound to be central in this global dialogue. In his chapter on the International Institute of Projectiology and Conscientiology (IIPC), D’Andrea argues that the rational or para-scientific animism behind this group’s cosmology may be well attuned to the cultural logic of a hyper-modern world in which commodities circulate at blinding speeds, generating new forms of fetishism, or “economies of the occult,” as Comaroff and Comaroff (2001) term them. However, despite this elective affinity, the IIPC’s excessive formalism and elitism has limited its global appeal. Still, IIPC has managed to develop small transnational networks in Europe and North America. To explain this contradictory phenomenon, D’Andrea coins the apt term of ‘niche globalization.’ Rocha’s chapter, by contrast, deals with a contemporary representative of Brazilian Spiritism who has found widespread popularity: João de Deus or John of God, ‘The Miracle Man of Brazil’ (this is the title of the first book in English written by an Australian follower in 1997, which since then has been translated into several languages). John of God has gained global notoriety for performing surgeries with no asepsis or anesthetics. Channeling evolved spirits such as Ignatius Loyola, King Solomon, and Dr. Oswaldo Cruz (a famous Brazilian physician and public health leader), John of God has invisibly dissolved tumors, cured people with cancer and AIDS, and treated drug addictions and clinical depressions. These reported miracle cures have landed him on ABC News, CNN, and the Oprah Show. Accordingly, John of God has become an important node in the global network of famous gurus and healers. Rocha’s chapter focuses on Australia, where John of God has gained a substantial following. Many of them have traveled to his Casa in Abadiânia in the state of Goiás in search for an alternative medicine with a personal touch, a holistic approach to healing that transcends the impersonality and commodification of modern Western medicine. She shows that the intense mobility of people, sacred objects,

18 For more on this, see Hess and DaMatta (1995) and Rocha (2006). introduction 35 ideas, practices and ‘spirits’ between the healing center in Brazil and Australia create a transnational spiritual community comprised of healers, the ill, those who seek ‘spiritual growth,’ and tour guides. The same reaction to the impersonality, anxieties, and stresses of modern life in late capitalism inspires the work of The Valley of Dawn in Atlanta, Georgia, which is the subject of Vásquez’s and Alves’s chapter. As one of the leaders of The Valley of Dawn puts it: the “US because of its wealth and attachment to material things is an especially karmic nation.” As such, the task of this mediumistic movement is to bring the teachings of Tia Neiva, the founder of The Valley of Dawn, to enlighten and heal Americans alienated by consumerism and immigrants obsessed with attaining the American Dream. To cut this ambitious task down to size, The Valley of Dawn has focused primarily on the plight of Brazilian immigrants in Atlanta, many of whom are undocumented and live and work in fear, in the shadows of the system. Here, the movement draws from the Tia Neiva’s own life history as a migrant. In particular, The Valley of Dawn appear to be deploying its practice of working with a pair of healing specialists, a man and woman who play distinct-yet-complementary roles, to help Brazilian women negotiate their gender identities and relations, both of which are redefined by the immigration process. Caboclos, the spirits of indigenous Brazilians, as imagined in popular culture, figure prominently in The Valley of Dawn. Their advice points to a much simpler, more natural, authentic, and harmonious life that stands in sharp contrast with the shallow consumerism, rational instrumentalism, unfettered individualism and greedy acquisitiveness of modern existence. This ‘primitivism,’ the powerful nostalgia and desire for a return to humanity’s pristine origins, as represented by indigenous Brazilians who live in communion with the spirits and forces of the Amazon forests, is also central in the global spread of ‘ayahuasca religions,’ such as Santo Daime, which is the subject of Groisman’s chapter.19

19 Armin Geertz (2004) identifies two distinct but intertwined versions of primitivism: chronological and cultural. Chronological primitivism is exemplified by E. B. Tyler’s evolutionism, the notion that contemporary cultures evolved from a common origin (thus, the idea of humanity’s ‘psychic unity’) and that they bear ‘survivals’ which can help explain who we are as a species. For its part, cultural primitivism emerges from civilizational ‘discontent.’ “A cardinal idea among cultural primitivists is that [a] simpler life has in fact been lived somewhere at some time (and thus has affinities with chronological primitivism). But the main characteristic of cultural primitivism is that the ideal mode of life is thought to be led by contemporary so-called primitive or savage peoples, especially in far-off exotic places. Thus, a basic motivating factor in cultural primitivism is the attraction of the exotic” (Geertz 2004: 39). 36 manuel a. vásquez and cristina rocha

Santo Daime can be seen as a creative reworking of indigenous shamanic practices and cosmologies, which often involve the use of psychoactive agents that help shamans to travel across time and space to communicate with the ancestral spirits or to experience the richness of the forest through the perspective of animals and plants. For generations, ayahuasca, a drink made of the mixture of Banisteriopsis caapi (a plant commonly known as cipo or mariri), and the Psychotria viridis (a leaf also known as chacrona), has been part of sacred shamanic rituals among indigenous peoples of the Western Amazon region. With the increasing development of the Amazon the knowledge of ayahuasca has been transmitted to outsiders, beginning with rubber tappers. One of these rubber tappers was Raimundo Ireneu Serra, a Brazilian of African descent who founded Santo Daime in 1930. The aggressive push by the military regimes to open the Amazonian frontier in the 1960s and 1970s coincided with search by urban, affluent young Brazilians involved in the countercultural movement to find ways to escape the authoritarian climate to bring ayahuasca to the large cities of southeastern Brazil. Many of these young, cosmopolitan Brazilians flocked to utopian communities at the edge of Rio de Janeiro and Belo Horizonte that made ayahuasca central in their collective rituals. In the 2010 census, 35 thousand Brazilians identified themselves as adherents of Ayahuasca religions. This same cosmopolitan group, with the means to travel abroad, has taken Santo Daime and other ayahuasca religions such as União do Vegetal and Barquinha to Europe, Japan, Australia, and the United States.20 Groisman’s chapter, which focuses on Santo Daime in the Netherlands, illustrates the dynamics of glocalization of a Brazilian religion. He shows how humor and playfulness help Dutch and Brazilian participants negotiate cultural, linguistic, and social boundaries, generating liminal spaces of translation and hybridization. The ludic aspects that Groisman observes involve the fusion of a uniquely Brazilian style of humor and playfulness, popularly known as brincadeira, and the legendary Dutch tolerance and openness to experimentation. This ludic and transgressive fusion is all the more crucial because of ayahuasca’s own liminal place as an illicit substance.

20 On origins and development of Santo Daime and other ayahuasca religions, see Labate et al. (2008). introduction 37

Conclusion

As this panoramic view shows, a diverse, dynamic, creative, and thoroughly hybridizing Brazilian religious field has interacted with processes at the heart of globalization, such as transnational immigration, technological innovations in communication and transportation, and the growth of culture industries associated with tourism, self-improvement, and the construction of identity, whether it be religious, spiritual, or ethnic, to make Brazil an important node of a new poly-centric cartography of global religious production. As such, beyond providing compelling case studies of particular religious flows and networks originating in Brazil, the chapters in this volume offer a window into the changing nature and place of religion in the present, global age. The picture that comes in to view is characterized by a dialectic of de-territorialization and re-territorialization, involving, on the one hand, widespread processes of glocalization and cross-fertilization among religions and among religion, consumer capitalism, and electronic media; and on the other hand, the need for sharp boundaries, as well as the nostalgia and quest for purity, authenticity, and meaning. It may be too early to declare that the Brazil’s time as the ‘country of the future’ has finally arrived. Despite inheriting a booming economy and country with a greatly enhanced geopolitical status, Dilma Rousseff, Brazil’s new president, confronts the dangers of a protracted global economic crisis that may affect Brazilian exports, inflation, and the possibility of de- industrialization resulting from country’s tightening relation with China, which is primarily interested in the extraction of raw materials to support its massive development. The Brazilian religious field is also experiencing the pressures of secularization, with many female and young Catholics abandoning the Church not to become Pentecostals or to join NMRs, but to declare themselves as not practicing any religion.21 There was an increase of 70 percent in the number of people who ticked the ‘no-religion’ box between 1991 and 2010. This group now represents 8 percent of the population (Castro and Duarte 2012). Nevertheless, it is safe to assume that

21 A 2011 study of the religious field in Brazil has found that the decline of Catholicism is due to an ‘exodus’ by women, youth, and the middle classes. It also shows that while in the 1990s many of those who left Catholicism moved to Pentecostal churches, this is not true for the first decade of the twenty-first century. The majority of those who leave the Catholic Church say they have ‘no religion’. In an effort to revert this trend, Pope Benedict XVI announced during the World Youth Day in Madrid in 2011 that the next global event will be in Rio de Janeiro in 2013 (Neri 2011). 38 manuel a. vásquez and cristina rocha

Brazil will continue to occupy a central place in the emerging map of the sacred, along with other countries like Nigeria, Ghana, India, and South Korea.

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BRAZILIAN CHRISTIANITY: CATHOLICISM AND PROTESTANTISM

EDIR MACEDO’S PASTORAL PROJECT: A GLOBALLY INTEGRATED PENTECOSTAL NETWORK

Clara Mafra, Claudia Swatowiski and Camila Sampaio

Introduction

This chapter analyzes how the thinking of a Brazilian Christian elite has shaped the pastoral project of a globally integrated Pentecostal network. Our approach is similar to those which bring anthropology into conversation with theology and use theological materials as “data that can inform us about the particular Christian culture that produces it” (Robbins 2006: 286). One of the most successful studies along this line is Susan Harding’s The Book of Jerry Falwell (2000). By presenting the trajectory of a single Evangelical leader, the book provides the reader with a panoramic and ethnographically rich view of the formation of American fundamentalist culture. Harding describes how Jerry Falwell first developed a specific way of approaching biblical language, which she characterizes through the concept of “speech mimesis.”1 Working with other pastors, Falwell overcame the Evangelical community’s pious tradition of self-imposed exile within secular society to place this “new Evangelical nation” at the center of national public life. Harding shows how Jerry Falwell’s pastoral project confirmed American exceptionalism precisely when the nation’s imperialist project was in crisis. Another important study is The Globalization of Charismatic Chris tianity by Simon Coleman (2000). In this book, the author contrasts the rational and moderate Swedish Evangelical traditional style with “Word of Life,” a charismatic church founded by Ulf Ekman. An analysis of Ekman’s theology allows Coleman to explore the linguistic ideology that established

1 “Speech mimesis” refers to the reiterative use of the Christian language among fundamentalist preachers and followers in the US. In Harding´s words, “Church people borrow, customize, and reproduce the Bible-based speech of their preachers and other leaders in their daily lives. Preachers appropriate each other´s sermons piecemeal and wholesale, while church people assimilate their preachers´ language at the level of grammar, seman- tics, and style” (Harding 2000: 12). 46 clara mafra, claudia swatowiski and camila sampaio the equivalence between “word and thing” that is at the core of Word of Life’s theology of prosperity (Coleman 2000, 2006). He also illustrates how the range of motives and practices that began in Sweden stimulated the dynamic expansion of an extensive international charismatic network (Coleman 2000). In light of these studies, the pastoral project of Edir Macedo, the founder of the Igreja Universal do Reino de Deus (hereafter “The Universal Church of the Kingdom of God,” UCKG, or “Universal Church”), one of the most successful Brazilian churches in terms of international proselytism,2 can be identified as a theological project undertaken from the global periphery that is similar to those constructed by Falwell, Ekman, and other religious elites in core countries. In fact, some authors who have analyzed Macedo’s pastoral proposal suggest that his project is merely a simple revival of notions coined elsewhere, such as the “theology of prosperity,” a “sacrificial economy,” rituals of deliverance, the demonization of African religions and even scandals and controversies (Campos 1997; Kramer 2001; Mariano 1999; Oro et al. 2003). As a lesser and later peripheral copy, some authors argue that the theology of Edir Macedo amounts to an extreme example of a “repugnant alterity”3 (Harding 1991). In this chapter, we want to go beyond these interpretations. Our argument is that the great triumph and originality of Edir Macedo lies in his ability to transform the “new Christian theology,” along with its liberal tendencies, into a popular theological project. Like Falwell and Ekman, Macedo has created a theological project well suited for a mode of organization

2 According to the official site of the Universal Church in Brazil (URL: , accessed on December 15, 2009), the international expansion of the denomination began in New York in 1980. However, according to the Church site in Portugal, the Universal Church was established in the United States in 1986. Freston (2001) indicates that the denomination in fact began to establish official temples outside of Brazil in 1985, when it opened a church in Paraguay. He also states that in 1989, in addition to arriving in Portugal, the Universal Church established itself in Argentina and Uruguay. The expansion became more intense in the 1990s. It is estimated that in 1995, the number of temples abroad was 221; in 1998 there were 500; and by 2001, 1,000. According to the Universal Church’s website, in 2009, the denomination now has more than 4,700 temples in 172 countries. Portugal is among the countries in which Universal has significant scope, in addition to Argentina, Venezuela, Great Britain, the Ivory Coast, Angola, Mozambique, South Africa and the United States (Oro et al. 2003). Portugal was considered a strategic port of entrance for Europe and for the Portuguese migrants spread through that continent (Aubrée 2000; Mafra 2002). 3 Here we call attention to a similarity between North American Fundamentalism and the UCKG. Both contain practices and discourses that are not only heterodox for mainline Protestants, but which are considered as “disgusting,” as a “repugnant other” by modern secular actors (Giumbelli 2002; Harding 2000; Mafra 2002; Mariz 1999). edir macedo’s pastoral project 47 based on transitory membership and weak affiliation. This mode of organization has great advantages over Christianity’s traditional pastoral work, which assumes that the social bond is strong evidence of good formation of the Christian person, i.e., the successful conversion. The advantage of the weak bond is connected with the general condition of globalization, which has intensified the level of mobility and transitoriness of identities, goods, and technologies. According to Urry (2006), within this fluid and shallow world, there is a proliferation of islands that operate as anchor- ages of order. As neoliberal economics intensifies, these islands have the tendency of becoming fortified enclaves of wealth and power. For the people who live in these enclaves and must defend their borders from destabi- lizing global flows, the UCKG’s weak affiliation is attractive because it may offer a safe space to consume the exhilaration produced by globalization. In this chapter, we argue that Macedo’s pastoral project is not only different from those of Falwell and Ekman, but also more complex in terms of the interplay between strong and weak affiliation. Falwell is internationally known as the founder of the Moral Majority, which established itself in the 1980s as one of most powerful lobbying groups for Evangelical Christians in the US. He drew from his charisma to mobilize Christian individuals, institutions, and technologies at key moments in the country’s political debates without demanding strong affiliation beyond these conjunctures. On the other hand, Falwell also relied on a nucleus of followers with strong affiliation, many of them members of the Thomas Road Baptist Church, which he led, or young students at Liberty University in Lynchburg, VA, which he founded. For his part, Ulf Ekman emphasized teaching and the transmission of his charisma. In addition to his church Word of Life, he founded several institutions that offer a range of services, from basic instruction to Christians curious about their tradition to training courses for active pastors to theological education in seminaries. Through these pedagogical interventions, which go hand-in-hand with an arsenal of media – CDs, DVDs, videocon- ferencing, Websites, etc. – Word of Life makes possible the reproduction of Ekman’s charisma “from Sweden in the west, through former Soviet Union, Central and Eastern Europe and Asia, especially, targeting India and China.”4 In other words, Word of Life is not concerned with the forming loyal institutions internationally, which can maintain a strong link with Sweden, although it is certainly interested in generating and disseminating

4 See www.ulfekman.org, accessed on September 18, 2012. 48 clara mafra, claudia swatowiski and camila sampaio new materials that echo Ekman’s words, as a way to reproduce his charismatic leadership (Coleman 2000). When it comes to Macedo, his vision entails the existence of vast network of tightly connected transnational institutions which serve as channels for the circulation of sermons, people, ritual objects, and “technologies of the self.” Regardless of their location in the network, UCKG temples offer virtually the same religious products, that is, spiritual experiences connected with common human privations – lack of prosperity, lack of (mental) health, family and marriage problems, vices, and insanity (Campos 1997; Freston 2001; Mafra 2002; Oro et al. 2003). Within the UCKG’s extensive network, external local dynamics such as economic crises, political instability, or natural disasters have little effect on the experiences of those who attended the church’s routinized spiritual campaigns. Those who come to the Universal feel safe in the re-enactment of patterned experiences guided by Brazilian pastors. A large part of this sense of security comes from the fact that these experiences are the same in Rio de Janeiro, Lisbon, or Luanda. Thus, Edir Macedo’s pastoral project does not depend on the formation of strong affective links among those who attend UCKG’s temples in different locations. Rather, the strength of the global network depends on the predictability, calculability, and patterning of religious experiences developed in Brazil and deployed in multiple times and spaces. But, under what conditions were these routinized experiences produced? To answer that question we must turn to Macedo’s biography and worldview. A Mark, “Revolt,” and Determination

As in the case of Falwell and Ekman, Macedo has constructed his authority by establishing a personal history of extraordinary events within the framework of an ongoing revelation of miraculous actions in his life. In keeping with the narrative structure of this type of media-oriented Evangelism (Harding 2000), the biographical narrative of the religious leader is ambiguous, eliciting either scorn and discredit or trust and faith. Followers and enemies find support for their alternative readings from the same narrative. In the only authorized biography of the leader of the Universal Church, “O bispo, a história revelada de Edir Macedo” [“The Bishop, the Revealed5

5 While we were writing this chapter, Macedo published an autobiography entitled “Nothing to Lose. Moments of Conviction That Changed My Life” – “Nada a perder. Momentos de convicção que mudaram a minha vida” (Planeta Editor). edir macedo’s pastoral project 49

History of Edir Macedo”], by Douglas Tavolaro, Macedo is described from the outset as a victim of a conspiracy. The first three chapters discuss his imprisonment. In São Paulo, in the early afternoon on May 24, 1992, federal and civil police cars surrounded the bishop’s BMW. The police were carrying heavy weapons, rifles, machine guns and revolvers. Inside the BMW were the bishop, his wife Ester, their daughter Viviane and one of her friends. They were returning from a Universal Church service in Santo Amaro, a suburb of São Paulo. When the police announced that he was under arrest, Edir got out of the car with his hands up and offered no resistance. The bishop was placed in a security vehicle and taken to the police station at Vila Leopoldina, where he remained incarcerated for 11 days. Recalling the scene nearly 20 years later, Macedo says “it was like a heart attack. Suddenly, terror. I began to experience a bit of hell.” (Tavolaro 2007: 20). The judge who issued the arrest warrant based it on charges of “charla- tanism”, “quackery” and fraud. For US$500,000, the church hired one of Brazil’s best attorneys, Márcio Thomaz Bastos, who got the bishop out of prison on a writ of habeas corpus. Macedo said the episode “was a great lesson in life, [I learned] to transform adversities… as they say, if you have lemons, make lemonade” (2007: 24). The arrest took place as Macedo and his church were negotiating the purchase of the television network Record. This was a battle of titans involving multi-million dollar negotiations. The arrest took place at a crucial moment in the negotiations over the purchase, when part of the amount had already been paid to the previous owners of the TV network, but the federal concession had still not been issued. The political aspects of the concession, which by law had to be approved by the President of Brazil, involved daring actions by those worried by the deal, many of whom were members of Brazil’s political and media elite. For church members, the arrest was a sign of divine justice, not because prison amends the faults of a citizen before the law, as the bishop’s “enemies” would have it, but because it made him a martyr. In his memoirs, Macedo recalled that he experienced the ordeal with bitterness and sobriety. This chapter will not explore the various dimensions of the narratives constructed by Macedo. However, it is important to call attention to their structure, which is evident in his sermons, preaching, reports, website, authorized biography, and in the statements of many of Macedo’s followers. All of these draw on the Judeo-Christian belief that “the humble will be exalted” (Luke 18:14 New International Version). 50 clara mafra, claudia swatowiski and camila sampaio

For an audience with “strong faith,” Edir Macedo’s arrest is described from the point of view of an unjustly accused victim. It is no accident that a photograph with the image of Edir Macedo seated in a jail cell reading the Bible has become an iconic image of the highest representative of the UCKG. The photo has been systematically reproduced by the Universal Church media in reports and documentaries about Macedo. In the church newspaper, Folha Universal, the picture is used to identify the bishop’s column. It is found in various pamphlets and on the cover of the bishop’s biography. We can summarize the sub-text that the image carries in the following terms: the Bishop is someone who knows humiliation personally, and for this reason he knows how to share his faith with people who experience it on a daily basis. Beyond the experience of his arrest, humiliation is an ongoing theme in the bishop’s biography. Macedo was born with a congenital problem – his index fingers and thumbs are deformed and have limited movement. This defect marked his childhood and he interiorized the stigma. “I was the ugly duckling. I had the sensation that everything I did would go wrong: a torn kite, balloons that caught fire. At times, I felt like an obstacle” (Tavolaro 2007: 59). According to his biography, Macedo apparently learned to control the stigma/deformity and became a confident, vivacious and hand- some young man, who eventually conquered the “woman of his dreams,” Ester, who is still his wife. Stigma, however, followed him longer than he could have imagined, as his first daughter, Viviane, was born with a cleft palate. The mark on the boy had been genetically transmitted to the new generation. Macedo’s reaction to the sight of his baby is recorded in the biography in the following words: It was a tremendous shock. She was horrible. I said to myself: “My God, I do not want this little monster!” Her face was terrible. I imagined the suffering that this child would have growing up. I knew what it was like to be deformed. Imagine her, a girl and certainly vain … I did not want this. I preferred death (Tavolaro 2007: 96). In the written record there is no contrition or bourgeois conventionality to smooth and sweeten memories. Edir Macedo is fixated on the violence of the event, on the notion that he had created a deformed offspring, a being who would have a tragic future because of a deformity that she did not ask for and could not hide. The father’s reaction was as brutal as the world in which Macedo lived: “I did not want this little monster!” He went on to say: edir macedo’s pastoral project 51

Ester and I cried a lot. It was painful. Amid the sobbing, I expressed my revolt6 and disappointment. I kneeled at the bed to pray, and in a fit of rage, repeatedly hit the bed. I decided, at that moment, that I would leave my church (Nova Vida) and help those who suffer, like myself (idem: 97). In this passage, Macedo makes the tragic birth of his daughter the inaugu- ral act of his new church, a church that would come to the world “to help suffering people like me.” Explicitly, Macedo stated that his message would be aimed at people who experienced great restrictions to their freedom, who were considered at one time or another incapable, who were excluded from the redemptive destiny promised by the dream of liberal capitalism.7 Drawing an analogy from his own emotional experience, in the new church the bishop would call on people to revolt, to taste the anger of recognition of their own situation and challenge God, thus “determining” an alternative fate. Through the experience of revolt, the taste of anger, the imperative in the relationship with the divine, and “positive confession,” Ekman’s assertion that the “word that does what it says” comes to resonate with the lives of those who have experienced modernity as privation. In that sense, the call to conversion within the UCKG fits within strain theory in the sociology of religion, which holds that “persons join a religion in order to satisfy conventional desires that unusual personal or collective deprivations have frustrated” (Bainbridge 1992: 178). But this is not the whole story.

Weak Ties and the Circulation of Objects, People, and Words

One of the peculiarities of the Universal Church in relation to other Pentecostal and Charismatic groups is that this church does not shun transitory membership. Unlike the classic Protestant congregational model, which is characterized by small congregations with strong ties of mechanical solidarity among its members (Bainbridge 1992), the Universal Church appears not only to coexist with, but to take advantage of a fluctuating attendance. Gomes (2011) has identified four ideal-typical categories of congregants in the Universal Church. First are the converted members,

6 In Portuguese the word revolt (revolta) is more polyvalent than in English. More than expressing a struggle, this word connotes mixture of repulsion, disgust, anger, rebellion, and indignation. 7 At the same time that capitalism offers a vast imaginary of possibilities, encouraging desires, it repeatedly frustrates these possibilities by the unequal distribution of opportunities. See, for instance, Jean and John Comaroff’s treatment of “millennial capitalism” (2001). 52 clara mafra, claudia swatowiski and camila sampaio the servants of God, the workers, who form the church’s “clergy.” They are people who undergo “Baptism of water” and of the “Holy Spirit,” and assume the identity of the Universal Church. Second come “the members in process of conversion,” that is, congregants who have still not been baptized by the Holy Spirit. Third are the sporadic members, those who seek the church in search of immediate blessing. Last on this list are the people “of the world” or the open horizon of diffusion and influence of the Universal Church’s message (Gomes 2011). It is the third category of members, the sporadic ones, who make Universal Church theology one of the most popular forms of Evangelicalism in a number of countries. Terms, themes, and mottos that appear in church sermons and campaigns are quickly transferred to the language of the street without a regard to how they fit within the Protestant worldview. In Brazil, for example, the word encosto, which the Universal Church has borrowed from African-based religions is now used widely throughout its network to identify an external malevolent entity that interferes in people’s life. In Portuguese-speaking African countries, the UCKG re-signifies the term macumba, also from the Afro-Brazilian context. In Portugal, the pastors identify evil as bruxedos – a term used in the context of popular Catholicism – to point out the acts done by the malevolent entity. How is it possible that a circle of sporadic participants may occasionally return to the Church without adhering to the idea of the “reform of the person” or without developing strong ties with people inside the church? In other words, if these churchgoers do not have a strong enough bond with the church to share its institutional pride, why do they return to the same address? Building on Macedo’s biography, the classic appeal of the Universal church is to “Stop Suffering.” This motto, used together with the image of a young man in contemplation, is written on the facade of many Universal Churches throughout the world. In his speech at the commemoration of the Church’s twenty-fifth anniversary and the inauguration of the majestic Cathedral in Del Castilho, in Rio de Janeiro, Bishop Macedo offered the following prayer: Holy Spirit I ask you. I beseech you. Plant in the heart of each one of these people the seed of revolt. Revolt. Anger. Holy Spirit, put revolt within these hearts so that they do not accept this miserable, decadent, petty situation, in which they are living (Gomes 2011: 108). Like other religious proselytizers, the message of the Universal Church is aimed at people deprived of a fundamental knowledge, that is, “ignorant edir macedo’s pastoral project 53 people.” The Christian tradition, in its long course of proselytism, has ascribed different meanings to the word ignorance, all with a moral sub- text. First, ignorance can be a synonym of “innocence,” a pure and morally praiseworthy person. A second meaning of ignorance is “lack of knowledge” or “inexperience,” such as a person who is unconscious of her situation, but who seeks, as soon as she becomes aware, to overcome it. A third meaning, the most morally severe, is that of ignorance as a “refusal to know,” the person who intentionally seeks not to understand something (Dilley 2010). Very often, Euro-American missionaries tend to oscillate between the two extreme definitions, attributing either innocence and blessedness or intentional ignorance and mortal sin to neophytes in the poor countries of the Global South. At the Universal Church, pastors learn to weave these three meanings of ignorance into a single one summarized as a “lack of knowledge or inexperience.” With no expectation of finding an innocent audience, the clergy of this church are dedicated to ostensive communicative keys to access a “God that works” (Tavolaro 2007: 132). In the church vernacular, the Universal churchgoer should insistently seek “active faith,” that is, should propose objectives to change his life, ask God for change and sacrifice himself. According to Bishop Macedo, in exercising reciprocity with the Divine, men and women will learn to know themselves and overcome their alienation. Sacrifice is the main gateway to an internal transformation by external manifestation. According to Macedo,

You will learn who you are from the time that you are taken to sacrifice. You will know yourself, or know your strengths, if you are led to sacrifice. You will know yourself, your faith, your relationship with God, when you are led to a situation that will require you to express that which is within you … exactly at that time of profound anguish and affliction, you will manifest your true character, your true faith (Gomes 2011: 111). This “sacrificial economy” is part of the contemporary Charismatic and Pentecostal Evangelical ethos. In the 1980s, televangelist Jerry Falwell was able to triple the volume of donations from his audience in one week by creating an open and interactive narrative with a specific final result as a sign of victory – in this case, the purchase of land to build an Evangelical university – in confrontation with the secular world. His performance as an apostle that week allowed for the active participation of his audience in a cosmic spiritual battle. More systematic and less performance-based, Ulf Eckman, the religious leader of the Word of Life, analyzed and operational- ized the elements of the sacrificial economy by perfecting the notion of 54 clara mafra, claudia swatowiski and camila sampaio

“positive confession” which presupposed, according to Coleman, that “words have object-like qualities that allow them to be removed from the person and retain a semi-autonomous existence” (Coleman 2006: 173). This version of Christianity, which Ekman was proud to disseminate through his Bible schools, brought together the Word of God and money. This association generates sharp criticism from more established Christian traditions, whose historic development is tied to the opposite process, that is, to the separation of money and transcendence. Macedo, in turn, recast many of his theological ideas which were already known and elaborated by other theologians, into a new type of “ritual sacrificial economy.” It can be said that Bishop Macedo built the most “Catholic” version of a theological elaboration, albeit with Protestant roots. To understand this specificity, we need to better describe the “sacrificial economy” implemented by the Universal Church, with its ritual routinization, which involves specific work with ritual objects and the development and incul- cation of self-discipline. Hardly anyone leaves a UCKG service without carrying one small gift, an object or little memento8 – they are the “points of contact”. The most common “points of contact” in the rituals of the Universal are rock salt, anointed roses, “fluidified” water, ribbons and brace- lets, and branches of St. John’s Wort (cf. Campos 1997; Gomes 2011; Kramer 2001). According to the Universal Church’s bylaws, the church clergy uses “objects” because of the problem of a “lack of knowledge” of the audience. People of “mature faith” are able to understand that the “power is in the Lord Jesus Christ and in the action of the Holy Spirit,” and these people are able to access Christianity in its total potential, as an abstract religious practice. Nevertheless, “people of immature faith,” implicitly those who most need to know the Christian message, are people who need “points of contact.” The bylaws continue: [N]ot all people need “points of contact” to awaken sufficient faith, but most do, which is why we conduct Campaigns [weekly ritual practices with specific goals] at the meetings and distribute items directly or indirectly, literally or symbolically linked to the Word of God free of charge, to bring to people confidence, at least a thread of hope, of faith, and thus lead them to be blessed (Estatuto, s/d: 66-67). In addition, at Universal Church services, scenes like the one described below are very common. Mafra (2002) witnessed it in her field research at

8 The UCKG clergy considers as points of contact any objects that can ritually material- ize and, thus, show the effectiveness of the power of the Holy Spirit. It may be a book, an envelope, a journal, a magazine, anointing oil, flags, and miniature boats, houses or cars. edir macedo’s pastoral project 55 the Universal Church in the Botafogo neighborhood in the city of Rio de Janeiro. At the pulpit, while rereading biblical passage John 10:9 (“I am the gate; who- ever enters through me will be saved.They will come in and go out, and find pasture.”) the pastor entered through the doorway. Then, he placed himself once again before the doorway. He simulated that he wanted to enter, but went to the side. Walking alongside the doorway, the pastor knelt down and moved furtively, like a thief. Then he turned to the public and asked, “did this person pass through the door?” The audience promptly responded “Nooooooo.” He returned with his body erect and head raised and passed through the doorway. “This is how one passes through the door of faith,” he explained. At the Universal Church services, highly abstract problems of Christian theology are turned into simple exercises with objects and simulations.9 Given these objects, pastors present some options for action – a door that can be entered through the center or the periphery, a wall that can be climbed, circled or destroyed, etc. The alternatives are not only mentioned, but illustrated by the pastor’s actions, in which not only words, but the body says something – a body that goes through it stooped, or a sneaky and morally condemnable body, or a proud body with confidence and righteous movement. UCKG pastors also invite the audience to participate in activities that refashion the environment: people are asked to come to the pulpit to break bricks made of paper, or they are encouraged to engage in a “collective hug,” or to go through a tunnel made by church ushers/workers (obreiros) dressed in wedding clothes, or to walk over a carpet made of salt. The use of enactments like this is a strong indication that Universal Church pastors are producing a pedagogy that supposes that the body, mind, and environment are closely entwined and reciprocally constraining. A visit to any UCKG temple around the world would reveal the same thematic organization of weekly activities. On Monday, there is a meeting dealing with prosperity and financial matters; on Tuesday, a session of spiritual cleansing dealing with health problems; on Wednesday, a meeting of the “children of God” and the spiritual growth group; on Thursday, an event called “love therapy” which focuses on the family; on Friday a session on

9 Along the same lines, Meyer (2003) shows how Pentecostals in Ghana de-fetishize objects of unknown origin, allowing them to consume safely the products of global capitalism. Following Kramer (2001) and Swatowiski (2009), we contend that the Universal Church offers a similar dialectic of “being possessed and possessing,” but here we are interested in the role that the circulation of objects plays in the preservation of weak or loose ties. 56 clara mafra, claudia swatowiski and camila sampaio liberation (exorcism); on Saturday, activities around impossible causes and (again) love matters; and on Sunday, encounter with God, as well as family encounters. Through the rituals built around this patterned schedule, the UCKG inculcates its sacrificial economy and its notion of contact points day after day. In this is way, even if one attends the church sporadically, one will not be disappointed with the anticipated services. Any day that one visits the church, one will be asked to follow a ritualized sequence of activities that begins at the church but that continues at one’s home and workplace, either by listening to the radio, watching TV, or going on the Internet. This integrated, patterned ritual sequence ensures controlled and predictable results for the followers of the UCKG. This format of controlled and predictable spiritual service regardless of the context generates anchored zones of order which are very attractive to groups that face conditions of rapid change and great cultural and religious diversity, or that are in constant flux due to processes of internal migration and global diaspora, or that are threatened by abrupt and unpredictable episodes of economic boom and bust. The other, no less important, advantage of this format is that it enables the UCKG to train its pastors and missionaries efficently and at a relatively low cost, since ability to deliver routinized services does not require high levels of theological qualification. To understand how the UCKG operates its impact, we now explore the church’s work in three nations – Brazil, Angola, and Portugal – where the Universal has achieved high visibility.

Brazil

In 1977, while Brazil was living under the repressive military regime of General Ernesto Geisel, three pastors, Edir Macedo, Romildo Ribeiro Soares and Roberto Augusto Lopes, founded the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God. Unlike in other Latin American countries, the Brazilian transition from a “state of exception” (as the dictatorship was described) to a democratic regime was “slow and gradual.” Upon founding a new church, Macedo broke definitively with the Nova Vida [New Life] church, the church that had trained him and that was a precursor of the Theology of Prosperity in Brazil. The pastoral project of Roberto MacAlister, a Canadian missionary who led Nova Vida, was clearly aimed at the urban middle class. He promoted the theology of positive confession and the rejection of failure to an audience with sufficient edir macedo’s pastoral project 57 resources to enter the competitive labor market. A pastoral project of entrepreneurship combined with social conformity resonated with the members of these social strata. In contrast, according to Campos (1997) and Mariano (1999), from the very beginning the focus of Macedo’s pastoral project was the lower classes through the appeal of a daring mixture entrepreneurship, “revolt,” and anxiety. In addition to being different from his Pentecostal predecessor, Macedo’s pastoral style was distinct from the Catholic project, which employed a notion of the “popular” to connote the traditional or rural. In Birman’s words (2003), in Catholicism the popular is associated with localism: “[in Catholicism] the representations of the popular promote a “clean” image of a symbolic order in which apparently disparate elements are found related by commonalities stemming from a territory embedded in traditionality” (2003: 242). For the Brazilian Catholic clergy, the “popular” applied to the poor masses, understood as an almost “pure” and “innocent” alterity. In contrast, Macedo conceives of the “popular” as a group which desires and seeks the signs of wealth, opulence, cosmopolitanism and globalization.10 The Universal Church is aimed at this audience, presenting itself as the social channel that efficiently guarantees access to and distribution of the signs of modernity “to those who seek it.” The IURD does not posit a relationship of opposition between the “popular” and “modernity,”11 nor does it relegate the popular to a place of social inferiority from a symbolic perspective. With this pastoral formula, Macedo became the leader of the Evangelical church that broke the Catholic hegemony after the dictatorship (1964–1985), a church that has achieved one of the largest membership growth rates in Brazilian history.12

10 In this conception, the “popular” are those who wish to get the same position and to have the same material conditions of the Other – it is a kind of mimetic approach. 11 The concept of modernity is contested and polyvalent. We follow Giddens (1998: 94), underlining these dimensions as central to modernity: “ (1) a certain set of attitudes towards the world, the idea of the world as open to transformation, by human intervention; (2) a complex of economic institutions, especially industrial production and a market economy; (3) a certain range of political institutions, including the nation-state and mass democracy. Largely as a result of these characteristics, modernity is vastly more dynamic than any previous type of social order. It is a society – more technically, a complex of institutions – which, unlike any preceding culture, lives in the future, rather than the past.” 12 According to the national census of 2010, the UCKG has lost 300,000 members in the last decade, putting the church’s current membership at 1.9 million. In our view, this loss might be a matter of classification because there was a significant rise in the number of people who declared themselves as “undetermined Protestant” (“evangélicos não determi- nados”). If we are right, it means that the weak bonds are highlighted and the people do not 58 clara mafra, claudia swatowiski and camila sampaio

Some brief ethnographic data are needed to understand better why the accumulation of economic and political power has been important to this pastoral project for the Universal Church. This association has allowed the group to create alternatives to the “message of prosperity” for populations that were previously excluded from the market. In the effort to bring the “modern” closer, locally situated institutional mediations are an essential addition to the Universal Church’s media apparatus. The data that we provide below was collected between 2005–2006 in the coastal city of Macaé, located in the northern portion of Rio de Janeiro State (Swatowiski 2009).13 Since it was discovered off the coast in 1974, Macaé has been catapulted to the center of a global economic, cultural and political dynamic. The construction of a base belonging to the national oil company Petrobrás has generated extensive changes. From 1980 to 2001, the population of the city increased from 59,000 to more than 120,000. Highly skilled professionals from various parts of Brazil and abroad became the city’s new elite, overlapping with the traditional elite. At the same time, many migrants with low levels of training came to Macaé in search of employment, attracted by the news that circulated in the media. There were many opportunities, but not for everyone, and the local population faced a competitive and demanding labor market. The number of poor people living on the city’s periphery grew substantially. In this climate, a large portion of the new population had limited access to the promises of modernity. The Universal Church arrived in Macaé in 1993, but only set a base of operations in 2002. The Templo Maior [Great Temple], with capacity for more than 1,200 people, was built with the institution’s own resources and received considerable attention in the local media. It was treated as an indication of the prosperity of the city and of its “modernization.” In addition, the church marked its presence among city residents by offering cosmological concepts and ritual mechanisms that prepared individuals to prosper on their own, encouraging “entrepreneurship” and autonomous labor. Nevertheless, unlike Petrobrás, which tended to discard “poorly qualified” workers, the Universal Church encouraged its audience to seek both the newest and the not so new options of “entrepreneurship” as

recognize their affiliation. Undetermined Evangelicals (currently at 9.2 million) mask the rise of transitory followers or people who have a weak link with the UCKG, attending its services as well as those of other Evangelical churches. 13 Although we focus here on Macaé, our findings are supported by fieldwork in other locations including Rio de Janeiro, Rondônia, and São Paulo. edir macedo’s pastoral project 59 demands for services and commerce grew in the city on the fringes of the oil industry. In this way, networks were created among the congregants of the Templo Maior through which church members of different social strata were encouraged to constitute small companies and initiatives in services and commerce. This resulted in the creation of new businesses like restaurants, barber shops, and other personal service enterprises. At the same time, the Universal Church’s discourse about “entrepreneurship” was nuanced by other discourses typical of other Evangelical churches. One good example is that of João, a congregant at the UCKG who had found a job on an oil platform. Working at the platform, João could have a good salary and access to the fruits of modernity. However, João could not stand the pressure of being apart from family for long periods (15 days of work and 15 days on holidays). In this case, the “entrepreneurship” of the Universal Church, with its emphasis on sacrificial work, did not encourage João to put “money” over and above the Christian value of family (Swatowiski 2009). These brief ethnographic references help us to suggest that in Brazil, “modernity” arrives either via the “old Catholic elite,” usually conformed to the standard of inequality, or via “international entrepreneurs” and the “new elite,” usually social actors who are not in touch with those excluded from the community. Given these traditional centers of economic, political and cultural power, a redistribution of the “benefits of liberal capitalism” to a vast population with few skills requires a religious institution that is also a business conglomerate and a significant countervailing political force. In other words, Macedo’s pastoral project demonstrates an understanding that in order for the theology of prosperity to be sustainable in the neoliberal period, the regional constraints on access to the benefits of modernity must be broken with a certain aggressiveness.

Portugal

The Universal Church of the Kingdom of God was established in Portugal in 1989. At first, due to the strength of the Catholic Church, which was given privileges by the State (guaranteed by the Concordat of 1940, and reformulated in 2004), the Universal Church found great resistance. The situation was made even more difficult when the Universal Church adopted an aggressive proselytizing strategy that resulted in social criticism and a rejection of “that Brazilian church” (Mafra 2002). Nevertheless, the Universal Church was able to attract a significant number of people in 60 clara mafra, claudia swatowiski and camila sampaio

Portugal, most of them immigrants from Brazil and Portuguese speaking African countries. Usually these migrants encounter widespread social and cultural prejudice and suffer from underemployment (Swatowiski 2010.). During the 1980s, Portugal experienced a period of economic growth stimulated by the country’s entrance into the European Union.14 These circumstances, in turn, triggered a significant increase in the flow of immigrants, initially from former Portuguese colonies and later from Asia and the countries of Eastern Europe (Malheiros 1996). Portuguese who had been living abroad also began to return to their native land, attracted by new opportunities. After a long period of being “left behind” (as the Portuguese refer to the time of the Estado Novo15), Portugal entered a process of gradual opening. In the first years of membership in the European Union, Portugal, a country peripheral to the European context, sought to recover “lost time.” The easy credit and access to consumer goods, the ability to circulate in neighboring countries and the flow of information generated euphoria among the Portuguese. But access to this new reality was not equal for everyone. With the enthusiasm passing after a period of considerable international investments, the Portuguese continued to find many obstacles. Today, the country’s media speaks profusely about “the crisis”: the difficulty the Portuguese have in paying debts, the lack of jobs, and the hardships suffered by the elderly.16 Qualified youth leave the country, attracted by good opportunities in other parts of Europe. Immigrants, who usually occupy low-skilled jobs, are subject to unfavorable labor conditions. The elderly have difficulty surviving on their retirement pensions and require personal care. As we have indicated throughout this analysis, the Universal Church has consistently sought to reach out to audiences that face “privation.” In campaigns organized by the Universal Church, the notion of revolt, which the faithful were encouraged to express as recognition of an unwanted

14 At that time, when Brazil was undergoing a transition to democracy, trying to achieve economic stability, many high skilled Brazilians migrated to Portugal. At the end of the 1990s, the profile of Brazilian immigrants changed to less skilled workers (Machado 2009). These found living in Portugal more difficult and became “potential members” of the Universal Church. 15 The Estado Novo [New State] began in Portugal in 1933 and extended until 1974 with the revolution of April 25. During this period, Antonio Salazar, a popular yet authoritarian leader, commanded a conservative nationalist government. 16 In recent decades, Portugal’s population is aging faster than those of other European countries (Barreto 2000). In 2001, 16.3% of the country’s 10,356,117 people were older than 65 (source INE). edir macedo’s pastoral project 61 condition, took on a connotation of justice and struggle. For example, in October 2008, the Church organized a national campaign in which workers wore black and the pastors and bishops called for them to demand justice.17 They recalled the biblical text that says, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled” (Matthew 5:6). The indignation expressed in these terms had several targets: unemployment, underemployment, illness, poverty, emotional, and family problems. The place of worship became a place to demand rights before God. It was not only necessary to declare one’s dissatisfaction, but to go into mourning for one’s entire experience as a rite of passage to a new condition. During the meetings, pastors and bishops established a parallel between the struggle for justice to be practiced by each believer and that undertaken by the church. The campaign was held at a time in which the Church began the construction of the Centro de Ajuda Espiritual [Spiritual Assistance Center] in Porto. The denomination collected funds for the construction, using the publicity slogan: “it’s not right to stop in the middle of the road.” The Center for Spiritual Assistance in Porto – a contemporary minimal- ist building that looks like a convention centre – could be considered the materialization of a new public presentation of the Universal Church in Portugal. Its architectural design reveals a distancing from the traditional religious imaginary and an approximation with modern and lay references. This means that in 1997, after confronting strong resistance to its activities from Portuguese society, the denomination opted to review its position in the public space. It abandoned the agonistic logic, the persecutory discourse and the declared confrontation with the Catholic Church and adopted a position of competition through a connection with hegemonic and “modern” references. In its search for legitimacy and for a new social place in the Portuguese context, the Universal Church reformulated the content and visual program of its media18 (now closer to the secular media agenda and with a sophisticated lay out), and adopted new names for the regular weekly meetings (“Chain of Prosperity” became “Financial Congress”, for example) and for its places of worship. This attention to local

17 Mafra did field work in Portugal in 1997 and 1998, while Swatowiski undertook her research in 2007 e 2008. Both focused on the cities of Lisbon, Porto, Coimbra, and Fátima. 18 In Portugal, the Universal Church maintains regular programming on TV Record International and on various local radio stations throughout the country. It publishes the weekly newspaper Folha de Portugal with 50,000 copies, and the magazine Plenitude (40,000 copies). 62 clara mafra, claudia swatowiski and camila sampaio realities and flexibility in response to the Portuguese context show that the UCKG is capable of adaptation, while maintaining its hierarchical structure anchored in Macedo’s originative experience in Brazil, as well as its routinized ritual agenda. Despite the fact that UCKG has reformulated its public image in Portugal, there is a tendency among its followers to hide any connection they have with the church. Many of them opt for a sporadic or seasonal participation or for watching or listening to the TV and radio programs produced by the UCKG. By establishing weak links, these followers may reap some of the benefits of the Universal’s prosperity message while avoiding associating with a stigmatized church, a church that demands submission to an authoritarian hierarchy.

Angola

The first advance of the missionary project of the Universal Church in Africa took place in 1991, with the church’s installation in Angola. Despite the civil wars, the Universal Church has invested in the country. Since 1998, it has counted on the retransmission of broadcasts of Rede Record television from Brazil (Fonseca 2003) and on the strong presence of AM and FM radio stations. The Universal Church also invested in a network of temples. The end of the wars facilitated expansion, and in 2004 church leaders announced that Universal had reached all of Angola’s 18 provinces through a national network of 124 temples (Freston 2005). Angola is a country with a long history of war. From 1961 to 1974, the Angolan people fought for independence from Portugal, which under the Estado Novo regime maintained the African colonies of Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde. The period was marked by the rise of a variety of organized and militarized political fronts. In 1975, the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) achieved independence and established a Marxist-Leninist inspired regime. But the victory of the MPLA did not produce political consensus and triggered a long period of wars from 1975–1991. Civil wars flared again from 1992–1994 and 1998–2002 in splits promoted by political and economic disputes. The wars have had devastating effects on the entire country. The country’s water, electrical, sewerage and basic education systems are still precarious and limited to a few regions. In recent decades, there has been edir macedo’s pastoral project 63 intense migration from the rural areas that were initially most affected by the wars to the already saturated capital of Luanda, which now holds one-third of the country’s population with approximately 4 million residents. If during the wars, Angolans migrated to Luanda in search of safety, now the city attracts new settlers seeking job opportunity and better life conditions. Although the majority of big businesses are concentrated in Luanda, the access to the formal economy is very restricted, with a large part of the population surviving through the informal sector of the economy. The city has undergone intense transformation in the last decades, including a very disorderly processes of settlement. For example, the neighborhood of Marçal, which is close to the city center, went from being a setttlement of scattered wood-frame houses in the 1970s to a crowded gathering of brick houses by 2000. Marçal’s oldest settlers remember with nostalgia the golden age of the neighborhood in the 1950s and 1960s. At that time, Marçal’s commercial and night life, particularly its restaurants and music and dance halls, attracted Angola’s elite. The neighborhood’s inhabitants were middle-class; they stood out from the rest of the population through their access to education and their Europeanized ways. Today, Marçal’s population profile is different: internal migrants and immigrants from other African countries. These new inhabitants struggle to re- construct a neighborhood marked by violence, prostitution, and criminality. They struggle to improve not only the neighborhood’s infrastructure but also its schools, health services, and public spaces. Marçal has one of the 32 UCKG temples in Luanda.19 This temple is, basically, a large hangar that can accomodate 250 people. Conducting ethnographic work at this temple, Claudia Swatowiski met obreira [usher/worker] Juliana,20 a young married woman with two daughters. She is temporarily living with her nuclear family in her father-in-law’s house. She sees this as a problematic arragement, since her father-in-law imposses unnecessary rules on her and her family. Juliana in effect has a triple shift. She works as an administrative techni- cian, is responsible for all domestic chores at home, including looking after

19 According to Lima (2010: 6), “IURD [UCKG] is present with large temples in central neighborhoods such as Alvalade e Morro Bento, as well in more modest regions like Samba, Benfica (with 3 temples), Gamek, and even Cacuaco. The church’s website states that there are 20 temples in Luanda. However, as we survey the entire city, we found 32 temples, many of which do not have their addresses listed on the website”. 20 To protect our informants’ anonymity, we have changed their names. 64 clara mafra, claudia swatowiski and camila sampaio her daughter, and attends the UCKG’s services every day. Although she is always exhausted, she plans to buy a house with her husband in the new neighborhood of Luanda Sul and, perhaps later, to travel to Brazil to go to graduate school. It is clear that UCKG helps Juliana sustain her willingness to work hard and fight for a better future, which might even include a trip to Brazil, seen as a land of opportunity. Her case illustrates how The Universal offers followers the possibility of connecting with the tantalizing modern global world. Wilson, a 34-year-old Angolan, offers another illustrative case. He attended the UCKG sporadically until he married in the church with the consent of its leaders. In March 2012, when we interviewed him, he was working with a foreign company providing customer service. Like Julian, Wilson has a very busy schedule, shuttling among work, family, and school. Although he attended other churches, both in Angola and in South Africa, where he lived for a time, Wilson told us that he chose The Universal because of its pragmatic theology, which appealed to his aspirations regarding a prosperous future and his less rigid moral views. In both cases, we see that the UCKG nurtures expectations vis-à-vis modernity, expectations that are butressed by the use of a veritable arsenal of the most cutting-edge media, the construction of modern, comfortable, well-equiped temples in Angola’s main cities. In fact, temples become spaces where those in attendence can have a foretaste of the life style of urban middle classes in Brazil and Portugal. Moreover, one can access TV Record International’s programs from one’s home and vicariously participate in rituals that are taking place simultaneously in Brazil, Portugal, and other African countries. In this sense, the UCKG is as much a sign of the arrival of modernity and progress as a gateway to a new social world whose boundaries do not stop with the local congregation but extend to a global “imagined community” (Anderson 1983).

Final Considerations

According to Bainbridge (1992), the sociology of conversion has operated with two major theoretical currents:

According to strain theory, persons join a religion in order to satisfy conventional desires that unusual personal or collective deprivations have frustrated. According to social influence theory, persons join a religion because they have formed social attachments with persons who are already members and because their attachments to nonmembers are weak (178). edir macedo’s pastoral project 65

In practice, the boundaries between these two theoretical models are not sharply defined, and many scholars apply both models to explain the same phenomenon or have even tried to combine them. In general, those who convert have usually suffered strong experiences of humilitation and frustration, which the new religion promises to attenuate, channel, or undo. However, after some time, converts may begin to doubt the effectiveness of the solutions offered by the new religion. This is the point at which the loss of relations with the larger world and the forging of new ones within the religious group are critical to guaranteeing the conversion’s enduring force (Sahlins 2005). It is important to hightligh that all these models consider weak link as disavantageous to the maintenance of the experience of conversion. In this chapter, we argued that one of the advantages of the theological and pastoral projects of Jerry Falwell, Ulf Ekman and Edir Macedo is the ability to take advantage of weak affiliations. These projects are better suited to the realities of the present age, a period that has been described as “late modernity” (Giddens 1998), “liquid modernity” (Bauman 2000), or “global emergence” (Urry 2003). It is a period in which people are densely connected via the Internet, navigating different spaces and time, a period of great dislocation of populations, with immigrants, refugees, tourists, or entrepreneurs moving from one country to another and sustaining transnational links. It is a time in which transnational companies put in global circulation people, commodities, and money, in which new communication technologies create a global time that obliterates distances and locations. We showed that the UCKG thrives in this context by articulating of a globally integrated Pentecostal network, which does not rely on traditional strong localized affiliations but in the personal experience of routinized spiritual services made in Brazil but which can be deployed in multiple spaces and times. In addition to responding to the widespread consequences of the contradictions of late modernity, these controlled and predictable services give a sense of security and certainty that is much needed in liquid modernity and that in the past was provided by strong affiliation. Although building on the theologies and practices of Evangelical Christians like Jerry Falwell and Ulf Ekman, the originality of Macedo’s church lies in setting an interplay between strong and weak affiliations that allows it to assert its hierarchical and centralized structure and to be globally networked. Translation: Jeffrey Hoff Revision: Naomi Haynes, Cristina Rocha, and Manuel Vásquez 66 clara mafra, claudia swatowiski and camila sampaio

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Jon Bialecki, Joel Robbins, our anonymous reviewer, and the editors of this volume for their comments on this paper.

References

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BRAZILIAN CHURCHES IN LONDON: TRANSNATIONALISM OF THE MIDDLE*

Olivia Sheringham

Introduction

It’s in a space like this that the cultural shock alleviates. I don’t know any other community that is like the church – whether it’s Catholic or evangelical – where people meet so regularly. Maybe there’s a football group or something, but the church is, without doubt, the most important organisation for the Brazilian community.1

While it is increasingly clear that Brazilians represent a highly significant ‘new migrant group’ in London, their strong presence is yet to be reflected within migration research or, indeed, the public consciousness. There are various explanatory factors for such ‘invisibility’ which include: the recentness of the flow; the fact that many Brazilian migrants are ‘irregular’ and so choose to keep a low profile (Evans et al. 2007); the tendency for migration research in the UK to focus on communities with direct colonial or historical links to the UK (Düvell and Jordan 2002); and the fact that, compared to many other migrant groups, there exist few examples of institutional or informal support networks to mobilize or unite the community (Düvell and Jordan 202). Moreover, echoing the findings of studies of Brazilian migrants in the US (Margolis 1998; Martes 2000), there appears to be a relative lack of solidarity among Brazilian migrants in London, and many refer to the ‘lack of trust’ or ‘disunity’ among them (Sheringham 2013; see also Margolis 1994; Sales 1999; Martes 2000). Yet despite the lack of visible interconnections among Brazilian migrants in London, a deeper look beneath the surface in fact reveals rich and complex networks of social interconnectivity.2 Particularly notable is the

* This chapter draws on research for a wider project, published as Transnational Religious Spaces: Faith and the Brazilian Migration Experience (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013). 1 Interview with a Brazilian member of an evangelical church in London. 2 See Vasquez (2009) for a critique of the notion of community and solidarity among Brazilian migrants and a call for a more nuanced approach to what he considers the more invisible processes of “infrastructural connectivity.” 70 olivia sheringham role of churches in providing spiritual and emotional support for migrants, as well as spaces for the carving out of a collective identity (Vasquez 2009; see also Martes 2000). Just as migrants face multiple challenges on arrival in, and in adjusting to, a new environment in host societies, so too religious institutions and their leaders need to negotiate the new socio-spatial context within which they find themselves. Moreover, as well as acting within specific localities, religious institutions act transnationally, as they are shaped by and shaping migrants’ lives that cross national borders, and as they impact upon both sending and receiving contexts. However, as this chapter argues, the transnationality of these Brazilian migrant religious institutions does not fit neatly into a theoretical dichotomy of the ‘local’ and the ‘global’, between transnational processes ‘from above’ or ‘from below’, or between ‘here’ (in London) and ‘there’ (back in Brazil). Rather, I argue, they operate through the intersecting agencies of diverse actors, thus occupying the ‘thick middle ground’ of what Sarah Mahler and Katrin Hansing refer to as ‘transnationalism of the middle’ (Mahler and Hansing 2005). Drawing on interviews with religious leaders in two churches in London, and with religious leaders and return migrants in Brazil (from November 2009 to September 2010), this chapter considers the ways in which religious institutions carve out transnational religious spaces ‘of the middle’ as they adapt and adjust to the challenges of a new context, negotiate spaces within an unknown environment and respond to the diverse needs of migrants. While concurring with many existing studies of migrant churches which highlight their supportive role, this chapter points to the need to ‘people’ these institutions and explore some of the ways in which they function through overlapping agencies acting across multiple scales, including the local, the transnational, the individual and the virtual. After briefly providing some background to the study upon which this chapter is based, the chapter discusses the initial challenges faced by religious leaders and argues that they themselves are migrants with their own migration narratives. The chapter then considers the ways in which the churches adapt in response to the new environment, and explores the contrasting positions of the two churches in the case study with regard to migrants’ immigration status and, finally, civic engagement and integration. While this chapter focuses predominantly on religious institutions, such a perspective does not overlook the fact that participation in a religious institution is, for many migrants, just one element of the expression of (religious) faith, which is experienced throughout their everyday lives, and an integral part of their migration experience. brazilian churches in london 71

From Brazil to London

In an analysis of the role of religion in the process of Brazilian migration to London, there are a number of contextual factors that need to be considered. Firstly, the religious field in Brazil, which has undergone important changes in recent years (Freston 2008; Pierucci 2004). While Brazil remains the largest Catholic country in the world, recent census figures reveal a significant decline in Catholicism over the last twenty years, coupled with a striking increase in Protestantism – and in particular Pentecostalism. Moreover, within the Catholic Church there has been a growing adhesion to more charismatic movements, in particular the Charismatic Catholic Renewal Movement, whose worship style is very similar to that of Pentecostal churches – with its emphasis on the Holy Spirit, and the individual’s relationship with God. A second important factor that needs to be considered is the receiving context. While there is still an absence of research into the lives of London’s Brazilians compared to other migrant groups, it is increasingly clear that they represent a significant ‘new migrant group’ in the UK. Unofficial estimates put the number in London alone at somewhere between 150,000 and 200,000 (Evans et al. 2011), and they represent a highly diverse group (Ibid; see also McIlwaine et al. 2011.). However, despite differences in of gender, social class, region of origin, or religious affiliation in Brazil, a high proportion of the recent flow of Brazilians to London are ‘economic migrants’, the majority employed in low-paid, elementary professions (Evans et al. 2011). London’s sizeable Brazilian presence is reflected in the growing numbers of shops, restaurants, beauty salons and publications that exist, established predominantly by Brazilians, to serve Brazilians. However, despite the presence of these commercial spaces, there is a relative lack of formal secular institutions that represent and mobilize the community.3 More significant, however, are the vast number of churches – of varying denominations – that seem to represent crucial spaces of support for Brazilian migrants. The emergence of a wide range of Brazilian churches in London in recent years has clearly had a major impact on the city’s religious landscape, contributing both to the revival of a waning Catholic church in some areas (Davis et al. 2006), and the appearance of entirely

3 Two exceptions are ABRAS, set up in 2007, and Casa do Brasil, in 2009, both with the objective of providing social support for Brazilian migrants. 72 olivia sheringham new religious institutions in unexpected locations. According to recent estimates by the Evangelical Alliance, there are at least seventy Brazilian Protestant evangelical churches,4 while Catholic Mass in Portuguese is held in eight different churches in London. Indeed, one of the most significant existing surveys of Brazilian migrants in London was conducted through distributing questionnaires among Brazilians attending religious services, as it was found that churches (Catholic and Protestant evangelical above all) were among the only spaces where large numbers of them would congregate (Evans et al. 2007). The ‘religious field’ among Brazilians in London reflects both change and continuity in relation to the situation in Brazil (see Freston 2008). The somewhat disproportionate number of evangelical churches, and in particular Neo-Pentecostal denominations in London also illustrates the argument held within much of the literature that evangelical Protestantism travels more easily (Freston 2008; see also Corten and Marshall-Fratani 2001). On the other hand, as in Brazil, the Catholic Church has responded to global changes and a more complex and multifaceted religious arena within which it finds itself. Significant here is the increased number of branches of the Catholic chaplaincy across London and beyond (which now encompasses eight branches), and the strong influence of the Charismatic movement. The following sections draw on empirical material from research in two Brazilian churches in London – one evangelical and one Catholic, which were used as case studies for a wider research project. While the Catholic Church is the base of the Brazilian Catholic Chaplaincy in London, the evangelical church is one among a diverse range of evangelical Protestant churches in London, ranging from the historical Protestant ones, to the more recent Neo-Pentecostal denominations; from intimate prayer groups, to imposing mega-churches, including several branches of the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God.5 The evangelical Protestant church selected for this study was chosen as it is one of the longest-standing Brazilian churches in London – established in 1991 – and has a large number of congregants. I use the generic term “evangelical church” when referring to it for reasons of confidentiality and also, as the founding Pastor explained, the

4 The Brazilian consulate also provides a list of Brazilian religious institutions, of which there at over fifty evangelical ones. See http://www.consbraslondres.com/_temp/ Representacaoreligiosa.pdf, accessed August 23, 2011. 5 Igreja Universal do Reino do Deus. brazilian churches in london 73 church defines itself as an ‘autonomous’ Protestant church, despite its Baptist and Pentecostal influences.6 Since establishing the church in London, the pastor has set up branches of the church in three different towns in Minas Gerais (Brazil), and in Amsterdam.7 All interviews were conducted in Portuguese and the citations in the text are my translation. All names have been changed to protect anonymity.

Transnational Religious Leaders

Peggy Levitt’s (2007) work on transnational religious institutions among migrants in Boston examines how religious institutions operate and are reconfigured within broader processes of globalization and transnationalism. She draws on theoretical concepts from the globalization literature to outline different patterns of transnational religious organization. These include the notion of the Catholic Church as a ‘transnational religious corporation’ comprising “discreet units that function independently and as part of the larger operation at the same time” (ibid: 117), and what she describes as the more ‘flexible specialization’ of some Protestant churches (124). While this use of economic language is helpful in differentiating between various organizational forms, there remains a sense of religious institutions as operating ‘from above’ and somehow separate from the actions of individual migrants and religious leaders themselves, whose transnational activities are seen as carried out ‘from below.’ My research findings were more in line with Vasquez and Marquardt’s (2003) notion of religion as occupying a space somewhere ‘in-between’ the micro- and macro- processes that characterise global shifts, and as thus enabling crucial connections between such processes and the multiple actors involved. Within such a framework, religious institutions occupy a more complex, unstable, “middle-ground” whose identities and practices, like those of individual migrants, are constantly refashioned and renegoti- ated in response to new circumstances. Similarly, Mahler and Hansing’s (2005) research into transnational religion among Cuban migrants

6 The term evangelical is used in its broader sense to refer to a broad spectrum of beliefs and practices that have emerged within Protestant Christianity within recent years, but which are linked through their emphasis on the Holy Spirit and religious “experience” (see Stalsett 2006: 1). 7 A long-standing member of the church in London moved to Amsterdam and, granted permission by the main pastor of the church in London, established a branch of the church there. 74 olivia sheringham

(or exiles) in Miami highlights the conceptual and methodological need for a ‘transnationalism of the middle’ since, they argue, “[m]ost people operate in and expand a very thick middle ground that links individuals to institutions” (128). While, in both cases, attention is drawn to the multiple scales within which transnational religious activities are carried out, they also highlight how such activities are ‘always situated’ (see also Vasquez and Marquardt 2003: 140). Unpacking and peopling these religious institutions themselves enables us to explore this ‘thick middle ground’ even further and reveals how they are constituted by the actions of their leaders and members, albeit within asymmetrical relations of power. An important level of analysis within this unpacking, or ‘peopling’ of migrant religious institutions is a consideration of religious leaders, themselves migrants with their own migration trajectories. Within existing research, leaders’ roles and experiences are often subsumed into discussions of their institutions and of more macro-level process of religious transnationalism. Yet closer attention to their migration experiences obvi- ates seeing them as synonymous with their institutions and, rather, enables a more complex reading of churches as spaces of ‘infrastructural’ interconnections (Vasquez 2009), as well as of more formal institutional ties. Thus, with regard to the churches in this study, the pastor who founded the evangelical church and the first Brazilian Catholic priest who established the Brazilian Chaplaincy had already been religious leaders in Brazil, and their reasons for coming to London were primarily religious: their aim was to serve the spiritual needs of the growing Brazilian community in London. The Catholic priests, however, were clearly part of a wider ecclesiastical framework and were sent to London to carry out important missionary work. Padre José, the first Brazilian Catholic priest in London, provided a brief history of the establishment of the Brazilian Catholic Chaplaincy. He explained how it was established in 1996 to celebrate Mass in Portuguese for Brazilian migrants across the city, and how, in May 2004, they obtained a more permanent base in a disused Catholic church in East London. While initially the priests working with Brazilians were not Brazilian, but rather a Portuguese-speaking Englishman and later a man from the Dominican Republic, in 2002 Padre José was sent over by the PBE (Pastoral for Brazilians Abroad), an organisation set up by the CNBB (National Council of Brazilian Bishops) in Brazil, to serve the rapidly growing Brazilian community. Since 2006, another four Brazilian priests have been sent to the UK, responding to the increasing demand for pastoral and social care among migrants. brazilian churches in london 75

For the Catholic leaders themselves, such dislocation has its challenges. As one priest, Padre Mauricio, described his experience of arriving in London and adjusting to the entirely new context: Here in London it was … it’s another world. Because in Brazil I had my routines, my way of living … but here it’s completely different. In my city … there are just 120,000 inhabitants, and everyone is from there. So coming here’s a real culture shock. Padre Mauricio also recalled how he had been ill during his first year of living in London, and people told him that he was suffering from banzo or saudade – ‘longing’ or homesickness – for his home and his family. The priests have to be prepared to move from one location to another as directed by the Brazilian Catholic Church (or the CNBB), and according to the perceived needs of migrants. One priest, Padre Omario, recounted how he came to London in 2002, having lived in the US for five years, working with Brazilian migrants in a suburb of Boston, where he had been sent by the PBE. He was supposed to go back to Boston again after one year in Brazil, but at the last minute was sent to London as one of the priests there was unwell and needed himself to return to Brazil. He described how difficult it was when he first arrived as, unlike his work back in Brazil and in the small community in Boston, London was a big city where Brazilians were dispersed and religion played a minor role in peoples’ everyday lives. He explained: (T)he city is completely pagan and it doesn’t have that … that religious aspect. There are churches, lots of churches – you know, the physical, visible element – but it’s different in that you live here with so many people anonymously … so for us as priests the religious aspect that you get in a small town or village is missing in a big city. The Catholic Church in this study thus to some extent exemplifies what Levitt (2004: 6) refers to as an ‘extended transnational religious institution.’ Like the Irish Catholic church in Levitt’s US-based research, the Catholic Church in London reflects the ways in which this already global institution is extended and localised as it enables migrants to simultaneously maintain transnational ties, while at the same time engage with the host society context. Yet despite being part of a global institution, the narratives of the Catholic leaders point to a more complex picture in which, as well as extending an already global institution, the church is also being constantly negotiated and reinterpreted through the intersecting actions and practices of leaders and members, as well as wider structures. Thus, while the 76 olivia sheringham

Catholic priests are part of this global institutional structure which may represent a form of transnationalism ‘from above’, they are still individuals moving between different contexts and facing many of the challenges and needs of migrants themselves. Pastor Marco, who founded the evangelical church, offers a contrast to the Catholic transnational pattern, although in both cases religious motivation plays a key role. He recounted his personal ‘call from God’, which brought him to London to establish a ‘community.’ He explained how at the time he was the vice-President of a large Baptist church in the city of Belo Horizonte, and he was earning the equivalent of ‘fifteen minimum salaries’, which in Brazil allow for a very comfortable living. So for him, coming to London had nothing to do with money and, moreover, the church he was working for refused to support, financially or professionally, his ‘decision’ to leave. Rather, his motivation came from God: “visions, messages from God, many things which confirmed” that his mission was to go to England. To explain this personal journey, Pastor Marco wrote a short history of the founding of the evangelical church, which is given to all new members of the church as a part of their training as members of the community. In it he explains how: “[t]hrough several means, God directed me towards England. So I began to get my things in order to obey the vision that God had given me.” Pastor Marco also recounted the challenges he and his family faced when they first arrived in the UK with regard to obtaining visas and establishing a space for the church. They began their mission by organising prayer groups for Brazilian migrants in their small flat in Bayswater (West London) before eventually, in 1991, they managed to find a more permanent space in a Baptist church, which they rent – for services and other activities – along with three other migrant churches one Filipino, the second ‘Latino’, and the third, the original British Baptist church. The evangelical church was thus established through the personal faith of Pastor Marco and it remains free of denominational links with any other Brazilian churches in London. Indeed, it appears that Pastor Marco wished to distinguish his religious community from some other Brazilian evangelical churches, whose motivations were often, in his view, more material than spiritual, influenced by the widespread ‘theology of prosperity’, a vision he did not share for his community. In contrast to the global framework of the Catholic Church, the presence of Pastor Marco’s church in London came from his extremely personal spiritual conviction, the consequence of an intimate accord with God. His decision to dedicate his life to God and the work of Jesus was something brazilian churches in london 77 beyond words, rather something embodied, felt “as deep as the last drop of blood in [his] body … right up to [his] last … breath”. Pastor Marco’s personal commitment to “God’s plan” led to the formation of a religious institution in a specific locale in London, and the subsequent expansion of this institution to localities in Brazil and elsewhere. In accordance with Levitt’s models, this evangelical church exemplifies what she calls a “negotiated transnational religious organisation”, which, she argues, “emerge from a set of personal and institutional relationships that emerge organically, in response to the challenges posed by a particular context” (2004: 10). Yet despite responding to certain contextual challenges, the evangelical church is fashioned according to Pastor Marco’s own individual spiritual journey, which shapes some of the ways in which the institution functions transnationally. Despite emerging more organically than the Catholic Church, the evangelical church has, in fact, assumed a centralised form as prerequisite for ‘extending’ elsewhere. Pastor Marco remains the head pastor – thus leader of the whole structure – while the leaders of the branches of the church become ‘auxiliary pastors.’ Once again, the boundaries between transnationalism ‘from above’ and ‘from below’ intersect and within a more blurred space in the middle. Bringing the personal and spiritual experiences of church leaders to the fore, as opposed to privileging the institutional aspects, thus provides valuable insights for the analysis of transnational religion. These church leaders represent important actors in this middle ground of transnationalism as they – neither poor migrants nor representatives of transnational elites – negotiate and the complex relationships between the local and the transnational, the personal and the institutional, the spiritual and the practical.8

Religious Institutions in New Environments

The above section reveals how a consideration of the experiences of religious leaders facilitates a more grounded approach to religious trans nationalism, revealing that, although the priests and pastors may be representatives of larger organisational bodies, they, as individuals, also contribute to everyday, meso-scale forms of transnational change.

8 See Conradson and Latham (2005: 229) for a discussion of what they call “‘middling’ forms of transnationalism” by which they argue that transnationalism encompasses more than merely “transnational elites” or “developing world migrants.” 78 olivia sheringham

Yet religious leaders need not only to adjust to new environments within host societies, they also to adapt to the diverse needs of the migrants who frequent their churches and who find themselves in very different situations from those ‘back home’. Thus, as has been noted in existing studies, far from merely replicating churches in Brazil, religious institutions in the receiving society need to be flexible and to take on different roles in response to the new context (Martes 2000; Levitt 2007; Vasquez and Ribeiro 2007). Padre José from the Catholic church described this process as a kind of “broadening”, not so much a theological broadening as a disciplinary one, whereby churches – and leaders – need to be open to different behaviours, both with regard to migrants religious practices within the church, as well as their everyday lives outside. He said that while the doctrines of the Church could never be changed, the ‘disciplina’ (discipline) had to be loosened so as to address some of the challenges facing migrants. These included the fact that many members were ‘irregular’ and that there were couples living together outside marriage, as they were unable to marry legally in the UK. These were things that would have been condemned by the Catholic Church in Brazil, but were everyday realities for large numbers of Brazilian migrants and thus had to be accepted. Furthermore, he remarked: “people come to church more here than in Brazil – out of need … The majority come to church because they feel a lack, be it of a sense of ‘Brazilianness’, of their language, of somewhere to live.” The fact that a lot of migrants were short-term residents was another challenge underlined by the Catholic leaders in the receiving context, making it difficult to carry out any long-term ‘religious guidance’. According to Padre Omario, many people who had never been churchgoers in Brazil, began to frequent the church in London because of loneliness, or even depression. As such, the role of the priest in the receiving context often becomes that of providing more immediate “psychological support and advice”: a listening ear for people to recount the difficulties they faced in London, or a shoulder to cry on. Padre Mauricio, by contrast, described his function for Brazilian migrants, who frequented the church in London as: something, well, truly Christian. It’s to provide – what’s needed … Today, for example, a woman called me – she never comes to church, she’s not from the church – but she\n badly into drugs, she can’t cope anymore. So – it’s the priest that she calls – it’s the priest who will listen to her. Thus, even within the same institution, two very different understandings of what religion is – or rather, what the role of a religious leader is in this brazilian churches in london 79 context – emerge. While, on the one hand, Padre Omario suggests that the priest’s role is broadened to engage with more secular needs and experiences, for Padre Mauricio, the new role involves an expansion of Christianity, or a more universal application of Christian values. In both cases the leaders are negotiating the boundaries between different scales of experience: transnational and local, institutional and individual, spiritual and practical. As mentioned above, Catholic leaders in London are also required to adapt to the growing influence of the Charismatic Catholic Renewal Movement among members of the congregation. While such a movement is increasingly popular in Brazil, the Catholic leaders, who described themselves as adherents of the more traditional wing of the Catholic Church, explained how they had had little contact with it in Brazil. In London, by contrast, leaders had to engage closely with the movement as many members of the church were keen ‘Charismatics.’ They provided space for a weekly charismatic prayer group, and for visits from Charismatic Priests from Brazil and elsewhere. When I asked why the movement was so popular among Brazilian Catholic migrants, Padre José responded:

[I]t works with your feelings. Although it is not explicitly social or political, it offers much more immediate answers to political and social problems – like if you want a miracle, if you want a cure.

The pastors at the evangelical church depicted the adaptation to the new context more in terms of a ‘theological broadening.’ Thus, while the church in London maintained ties with its sister churches in Brazil and Amsterdam and, indeed Pastor Marco was the ‘head Pastor’, he explained that these were ‘fraternal’, meaning informal, as opposed to institutional or denominational. Thus, the London-based church sought to remain theologically independent since, as Pastor Neilton commented, “We have a principle that all the churches that God gave the grace to my father to set up have no denominational link”. Thus, for example, although the church in London did not define itself as Pentecostal, the service style included elements of a Pentecostal service – such as speaking in tongues – and many of the new members had been Pentecostal in Brazil. As Pastor Neilton put it, members brought with them ‘theological baggage’ and the church needed to respond to their diverse expectations. Indeed, although Pastor Marco had been a Baptist pastor in Brazil, he explained that his church was not denomina- tionally Baptist, but rather modelled its style on the teachings of Apostle Paul and his concept of leadership. He explained that, while the Baptist church has a ‘democratic’ model of leadership in which everyone has a 80 olivia sheringham vote, Apostle Paul teaches that the leader must not be a “novice, so that they do not become proud and fall into the condemnation of the devil.” Reminiscent of the narratives of the Catholic leaders, Pastor Neilton also suggested that the main difference between the church’s role in London and Brazil related to the greater needs of migrants who were far from their families in Brazil. He said,

So peoples’ needs become greater here, because in Brazil, whether they like it or not they have their families … so that need for your family, you know, those things that have to do with the family – they are fulfilled by one’s own family there.

In London, the church thus becomes a surrogate family where migrants can feel safe and ‘at home’ in an otherwise unfamiliar environment.9 Pastor Marco explained that one of the main principles of the church (which was established for migrants) was the model of the Biblical family, in which the father figure ‘must be an example for people to follow.’ Members address each other as irmão/irmã (brother/sister), and, within the family structure, everyone has a role in what are called ministérios (ministries). There is a ministry of music (the largest and most important, which provides music for all the services), a ministry of multi-media (in charge of broadcasting the Cultos and maintaining the church’s website), and a ministry of teaching (in charge of organising English and Portuguese classes, although these were not running at the time of my fieldwork). The churches thus represent important ‘in-between’ spaces which enable migrants to forge links with their families “back home” and their local environments in London. Yet a notable difference between the discourses of the two churches was with regard to migrants’ legal status. While the evangelical leaders mentioned the necessity for a certain doctrinal and practical flexibility in response to migrants’ needs, the church seemed somewhat less open when it came to acceptance of members’ behavior in a different context. In contrast to the narratives of the Catholic leaders who seemed to be openly supportive of irregular migrants, the agreed line among the evangelical leaders was openly against migrants being undocumented, and congregants were encouraged to ‘regularize’ their situation. Pastor Marco explained to me how such a stance had its roots in the Bible

9 During the course of the Culto there is a big slide which states, in large script, “faça parte da familia”, meaning “become part of our family.” brazilian churches in london 81 and the teachings of the Apostle Paul under Caesar during the Roman Empire: Apostle Paul shows clearly that we must obey the authorities because there are no authorities that have not been established by God. So, based on these biblical teachings, we instruct people that they change their situations, that they regularize themselves. My interviews with some return migrants who had frequented the church in London seemed to reveal how such a discourse had strong resonance in the consciences of church members. Wagner, whom I interviewed back in Brazil where he frequented the Brazilian ‘branch’ of the church, explained that he had returned home as his visa had expired and he could not live with the guilt of living in London ‘illegally’ especially knowing that this was condemned by the church. Juliana, another return migrant, had in fact been deported, having lived in London as an irregular migrant for three years. She explained how she believed that her deportation was justified in the eyes of Jesus, as well as the authorities in the UK, and spoke of the guilt she had felt knowing the church had disapproved of her status. Back in Brazil, she frequented the Brazilian branch of the church and believed she was on a more honest path. Thus, despite creating a space for the forging of a new family within the migration context, migrants faced barriers to their inclusion within this family structure. Within the Catholic Church, leaders expressed a somewhat more compassionate attitude towards irregular migrants. As Padre Mauricio commented in relation to the number of people in the church who were irregular: I always need to take a human attitude – always. Nothing can shock me or scandalise me. I can’t be shocked by anything because it could be me – I can also make mistakes. I do. So, above all, I cannot judge anyone … So my function as a religious leader is to welcome people. Welcome them and show them the existence of God’s love, of the love of Christ – and make them feel this love in their heart. Any change will come from this discovery. Sister Rosita from the Catholic PBE, whose role included helping to train priests who were going to work among the Brazilian diaspora, outlined the church’s position with regard to irregular migration which was, she said: [T]o welcome the migrant and, within the pastoral work of the church, to facilitate their means to ensure a good quality of life and respect of their dignity as a human being. At the same time, the role and mission of the Church and its institutions is to create and/or communicate actions that can help the undocumented to get out of their “irregular” situation. 82 olivia sheringham

She also reiterated that the church’s function in the receiving context should be, “along with other organisations, to campaign to widen the legal framework so that migrants have better chances to ‘regularise’ their situations within the country.” The Catholic Church’s line thus seemed to be first and foremost to defend and support the rights of migrants to ensure their dignity and, second, where possible to help migrants to regularise their situation. The line of the evangelical church, in contrast, was above all to encourage migrants to regularise, which in turn would ensure their dignity and respect within a foreign environment. Perhaps not surprisingly, these different perspectives were reflected in the contrasting membership of the two churches, with far fewer ‘irregular’ members of the evangelical church compared to the Catholic one. As Pastor Neilton commented: [w]e don’t have a large number of illegals [his term] in the church. Because it’s something we don’t support. We have some, but we don’t support it. Thus we don’t have anyone who is illegal in a position of leadership in the church – this is one of our main principles. The divergent attitudes towards immigration status were also reflected in the leaders’ explanations of the political role of the two churches. Thus for Padre Mauricio from the Catholic Church, the church’s role was to represent ‘the voice of the voiceless.’10 This defence of “the voiceless” was, he believed, the essence of being a Christian, of loving God. He used the example of a recent campaign in London for the recognition of Brazilians as an ethnic minority, in which, he said, “the church should be the first to protest.” Furthermore, he explained how the Brazilian Catholic Chaplaincy was at the forefront of a campaign for an amnesty for irregular migrants, Strangers into Citizens, as part of their involvement in the London-wide coalition of civil society and faith-based organisations.11 By contrast, the evangelical church preferred to maintain its distance from the political sphere for, as Pastor Marco explained, “we feel that it is not part of our mission to get involved with politics. Jesus Christ called us to bring the Gospel.” Indeed, while he recognized that there may well be some “unjust” laws, their institutional position was that the Bible teaches

10 This expression became popularised by Latin American progressive Catholicism, and particularly the movement of Liberation Theology, to which Brazil contributed greatly. 11 Strangers into Citizens is a campaign led by the civil society organisation London Citizens. It calls for a regularisation for irregular migrants for long-term irregular migrants. See http://www.strangersintocitizens.org.uk/, accessed August 07, 2010. brazilian churches in london 83 that we must obey the authorities, whether we agree with them or not. He commented, “the Bible tells us that we must respect those who govern. Whether they’re good or not, God gave them permission to govern.” Such conflicting attitudes point to quite different interpretations of what it means to be Christian. While that of the Catholic Church was one of protecting, defending, welcoming everyone unconditionally according to Jesus Christ’s example, the evangelical church seemed to place more emphasis on teaching members to live their lives according to more specific teachings of the Bible which imply abiding by the rules prescribed by those in authority. Furthermore, while the discourse of the evangelical church draws upon a notion of being Christian based upon the teachings of Apostle Paul and paying taxes to Caesar, the statements of the Catholic leaders often refer to Jesus himself as a refugee. As Sister Rosita remarked: Important examples for Christians are the biblical narratives, which recount how Jesus himself experienced life as a refugee (when he was still a child and his family had to flee to Egypt), as well as his public life as a wandering preacher. The discourses of the two churches are to some extent reminiscent of Vasquez and Marquardt’s (2003: 170) observations in their ethnographic comparison of two Latino Churches – one Catholic and one Protestant – in a suburb of Atlanta. While the Catholic church in their study had, they suggest, “created an alternative public … that challenges the discourses being articulated around the table from which its members are excluded,” the Protestant church had created, “an alternative to public space that teaches its members ‘table manners’ […] in the hope that such lessons will help members make a place for themselves at the table.” These ‘alternative’ spaces provided by religious institutions are thus important for the articulation of transnational and local ties. Yet despite representing important bridges between local and transnational actors, it is important not to lose sight of the new forms of exclusion that emerge and the differentiated access to such spaces.

Integration, Solidarity and Inclusion

This notion of a ‘place at the table’ points to the much-debated issue of the role of migrant churches in integration and the extent to which they can represent a ‘pathway to civil engagement’ (Levitt 2006), or conversely, how they have the potential of creating new forms of exclusion (Ugba 2008). 84 olivia sheringham

In the case of both churches in this study, conducting services in Portuguese and creating a familial atmosphere was considered essential in order to support new migrants and help them to cope with the struggles associated with life in London. As one Priest explained, there are three things that a Brazilian has to do in his own language ‘brincar, xingar, e rezar’ (‘joke, swear, and pray’). While leaders from both churches felt it was important for Brazilian migrants to conduct their everyday lives in English, the church was considered a space in which migrants could come to relax, to replenish themselves, or to find solace. The evangelical church perceived itself as a ‘multicultural’, rather than a predominantly Brazilian, church. While the majority of its members were Brazilian, and such predominance created a strongly Brazilian atmosphere, Pastor Marco explained that there were also Portuguese, Cape Verdean, and even an Iranian member who had converted in London and consequently they made sure that the Cultos did not make exclusive reference to Brazil. Moreover, headphones were provided at the beginning of the service for simultaneous translation into English. Pastor Nielton explained that this was because there were some people who attended services at the church whose first language was not Portuguese, including English people married to Brazilians, or migrants from non-Portuguese speaking countries. The church thus sought to “reach out” beyond the Brazilian Community in London. As well as English classes, the evangelical church offers a course for new arrivals in London called ‘Survive’, which provides practical advice on how to settle in London. Thus, the church positions itself as somehow more than a migrant church, a space for attaining the necessary tools – spiritual, practical, moral – to assist migrants’ eventual integration into wider society and acquisition of a ‘place at the table’ within mainstream society (Vasquez and Marquardt 2003). Within the Catholic Church, by contrast, there was an emphasis on creating a specifically Brazilian identity, and thus enabling Brazilians in London to maintain close ties to Brazil. Indeed, this to some extent reflects the conflation of Catholicism with questions of national identity in Brazil, despite the declining numbers of adherents (see above). In the UK, on the other hand, the Catholic Church is a minority church, in tension with the Protestant mainstream. Such contexts thus strengthen the Catholic Church’s appeal to Brazilian migrant identity in the UK. Moreover, the position of the Catholic Church contrasts to the evangelical church since, as Pastor Marco explained, Brazilian Protestants do not see themselves in tension with the religious and cultural field in the UK. brazilian churches in london 85

At the Catholic church in London not only were the service style and songs very ‘Brazilian’, but traditional Brazilian celebrations took on great importance, and the church provided classes in Portuguese and Brazilian culture for children of Brazilian migrants. As Felipe, who worked at the church helping to organise Brazilian social events and Brazilian lunches after Sunday Mass commented, “the church becomes like a ‘little Brazil.’” During my fieldwork in London I attended a number of traditional Brazilian events at the church, including a day of celebrations themed around the state of Goiás – one of the principal sending states for Brazilian migrants. There was food and drink – including beer imported from Goiás – and traditional music and dancing, choreographed by some of the many Goiano (from Goiás) members of the church. Padre Omario explained how providing a cultural link with Brazil was a crucial element of the church’s role, especially for the children of migrants who may have been born in London, or been in London since they were very young. While they may go to school and speak English, coming to traditional Brazilian festivals at the church enabled them to keep up their Portuguese, and to maintain ties with their ethnic roots. Moreover, Padre Mauricio responded to the question of why the church placed such a strong emphasis on maintaining a Brazilian identity by remarking, “there’s no way you can remove your cultural identity … It’s your essence, no one can take that away.” Thus, maintaining one’s cultural identity was, in his opinion, inevitable and did not automatically imply an impediment to integration. Sister Rosita argued that:

Maintaining one’s own culture – and religion is part of this culture – is not contrary to integration. Rather it is a necessity and, moreover, it is enriching. It can even have a positive effect on integration if migrants are conscious of what their being part of the Brazilian community can offer the local community in terms of mutual enrichment.

Such discourses reflect some recent scholarly and policy debates into the relationship between processes of transnationalism and integration which, it is argued, can be ‘complementary’ rather than contradictory, and combined in different ways (Ehrkamp 2005: 361; see also Morawska 2003; Sheringham 2010). Thus, as Sister Rosita suggests, the promotion of Brazilian culture within the Catholic Church does not necessarily impede integration and can in fact facilitate the process. On the other hand, Sister Rosita did also point to the possibility of the church becoming an ‘escape’ from the local context, and thus contributing to a kind of self-segregation: 86 olivia sheringham

If a migrant isolates him/herself from the receiving society, or refuses to learn about the realities of the local society, frequenting a church – with a service and preaching in Portuguese – could represent an escape from society and this would have consequences for their integration. Hence the Catholic leaders were aware of the possibility of ethnic segregation, or what one respondent referred to as the ‘risk of a ghetto.’ They therefore emphasised the other key element of the church’s role, which was to facilitate migrants’ integration into UK society through providing free English classes ‘every day of the week’, as well as advice and information about jobs, housing, and visas. However, the extent to which the church represents the root cause of this self-segregation is somewhat questionable, especially if one considers the “profound inequalities that create nonreligious barriers to inclusion” (Foner and Alba 2008: 384). The majority of migrants attending the Catholic Church were employed in low-paid, service-sector jobs, often living in over- crowded conditions and, given the ‘irregular’ status of a high proportion of them, lacked access to basic forms of welfare. So rather than being a hin- drance to integration, or exacerbating migrant segregation, one could argue that the church may represent an alternative to other potential forms of ethnic isolation for those already living at the margins of society. Thus, one priest explained to me that the majority of people who come to London were young and single and that “if they didn’t find an atmosphere here in the church they would end up falling into prostitution, drugs, sex.” For him, the role of the church in this context became “as well as evangelization and mysticism, to create alternatives for leisure, entertainment and sociability in a community where people can feel welcome and protected.” In this sense, church membership was regarded not necessarily as a way of directly facilitating integration, but rather of avoiding the opposite, that is, Brazilians losing themselves in what is conceived as London’s potentially dangerous underworld. Once again, the notion of the church as an ‘alternative’ space emerges. In this case, however, as well as protecting migrants from the sense of loneliness or lack that migration entails, the church is depicted as providing a moral framework in a context in which migrants may otherwise ‘lose themselves.’ Moreover, as some scholars have observed, the amplified role of some churches is often in the absence of state or civil society organizations working to meet the diverse needs of migrants, who in many cases, continue to live invisibly, marginalized, and outside the official reach of the nation state. These churches thus represent spaces which challenge any neat dichotomy between transnationalism from above or from below, as brazilian churches in london 87 well as between the sacred and the everyday concerns and challenges of migrants.

Concluding Remarks

It is high time for a transnationalism of the middle. (Mahler and Hansing 2005: 141) Echoing existing studies of religiosity among Brazilian migrants in other contexts, this chapter has explored how churches – and by extension religious leaders – take on important, supportive, roles for migrants faced with the struggle of life in an unfamiliar, potentially hostile, city, and for their families back home in Brazil who are left to cope with the absence of their loved ones. Indeed, as the examples in this chapter suggest, religious institutions are required to be more flexible and open to the diverse needs of its new members, who not only represent a heterogeneous group, but who also have myriad needs that are very specifically related to the experience of being a migrant – and Brazilian – in London. I argue that rather than seeing migrant religious institutions as operating ‘from above’ and somehow separate from other migratory phenomena, it is important to consider how they are closely intertwined in such processes. The chapter has thus suggested that that it is important to consider how religious leaders themselves are migrants, whose experiences are often neglected in existing research on migrant religious institutions. Moreover, I argue that the spiritual conviction of religious leaders – neglected in much of the existing research on religion and transnationalism – needs to be considered as an important motivating factor. Thus, whilst the focus of this chapter is on the role of religious institutions in transnational processes, it suggests that the multiple activities and agencies that comprise them in fact blur the boundaries – both real and conceptual – between the institutional and the individual, the local and the transnational, the sacred and the practical. It also reveals the importance of a multi-scalar approach to the study of religious transnationalism. While I have focused on two specific case studies, the narratives of the church leaders and the discourses of the institutions they represent provide some important insights with regard to how religion travels across borders, and thus how broader transnational processes interplay with local contexts. Thus, the evangelical church avoids political engagement, emphasizing instead its commitment to serving God above all else. The Catholic example represents a global religious institution – the Catholic Church, 88 olivia sheringham centred in Rome – but, at the same time, creates a ‘little Brazil’ with strong cultural ties to the migrants’ homelands. On the other hand, both churches are embedded in local contexts, having to negotiate the very real borders and boundaries within the new social, cultural, and political environments within which they find themselves. Thus in the UK, where Brazilian migrants often work in precarious conditions and have to negotiate the complex and restrictive migration regime, churches take on particular roles for migrants – in these examples either openly contesting in the case of the Catholic church, or adhering to, in the case of the evangelical church, state policies. A study of the role of religious institutions in the lives of migrants thus requires us to explore in more depth the multiple agencies and actors at work within the somewhat murky ground of transnational religion in which global and local factors and actors intersect, converge or diverge.

References

Alves, J. C. S. and L. Ribeiro. 2002. “Migração, religião e transnacionalismo: O caso dos brasileiros no sul de Flórida.” Religião e Sociedade 22 (2): 65–90. Amorim, A., C. A. Dias, and S. Siqueira. 2008. “Igrejas protestantes como espaço de sociabili- dade e fé para os familiares dos emigrantes em Governador Valadares.” Fronteiras (Campo Grande) 10: 251–276. Conradson, D. and A. Latham. 2005. “Transnational Urbanism: Attending to Everyday Practices and Mobilities.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 31 (2): 227–233. Corten, A. and R. Marshall-Fratani. 2001. Between Babel and Pentecost: Transnational Pentecostalism in Africa and Latin America. London: Hurst. Cwerner, S. 2001. “The Times of Migration.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 27 (1): 7–36. Davis, F. et al. 2006. The Ground of Justice: The Report of a Pastoral Enquiry into the Needs of Migrants in London’s Catholic Community. Cambridge: Von Hügel Foundation. Düvell, F. and B. Jordan. 2002. Irregular Migration: The Dilemmas of Transnational Mobility. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Press. Ebaugh, H. R. and J. S. Chafetz. 2002. Religion across Borders: Transnational Immigrant Networks. California: AltaMira Press. Ehrkamp, P. 2005. “Placing Identities: Transnational Practices and Local Attachments of Turkish Immigrants in Germany.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 31: 345–364. Evans, Y., J. Wills, K. Datta, J. Herbert, C. McIlwaine, J. May, J. O. Araújo, A. C. Franca, and A. P. Franca. 2007. Brazilians in London: A Report for the Strangers into Citizens Campaign. London: Department of Geography, Queen Mary, University of London. Evans, Y., T. Tonhati, G. T. Dias, M. D. G. Brightwell, O. Sheringham, A. Souza, et al. 2011. For a Better life: Brazilians in London, 2010. London: Goldsmiths, University of London, Queen Mary, University of London and Royal Holloway, University of London. Her name is Maria das Gracas so I think M.G would be best. Foner, Nancy and R. Alba. 2008. “Immigrant Religion in the US and Western Europe: Bridge or Barrier to Inclusion?” International Migration Review 42 (2): 360–392. Freston, P. 2001. Evangelicals and Politics in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. brazilian churches in london 89

——. 2008. “The Religious Field among Brazilians in the US.” In Becoming Brazuca, Brazilian Immigration to the US, eds. C. Jouët-Pastré and L. J. Braga. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Hirschman, C. 2007. “The Role of Religion in the Origins and Adaptation of Immigrant Groups in the US.” In Rethinking Migration: New Theoretical and Empirical Perspectives, eds. A. Portes and J. DeWind. New York: Berghahn Books. Jouët-Pastré, C. and L. J. Braga, eds. 2008. Becoming Brazuca, Brazilian Immigration to the US. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Levitt, P. 2004. “Redefining the Boundaries of Belonging: The Institutional Character of Transnational Religious Life.” Sociology of Religion 65 (1): 1–18. —— . 2006. Religion as a Path to Civic Engagement and Civically Infused Religion. Boston: Wellesley College. Available from http://www.peggylevitt.org/pdfs/Levitt.Imiscoe4.pdf (accessed August 29, 2011). —— . 2007. God Needs No Passport: Immigrants and the Changing American Religious Landscape. New York: New York Press. Mahler, S. and K. Hansing. 2005. “Toward a Transnationalism of the Middle: How Transnational Religious Practices Help Bridge the Divides between Cuba and Miami.” Latin American Perspectives 32 (1): 121–146. Margolis, M. 1994. Little Brazil: An Ethnography of Brazilian Immigrants in New York City. Princeton: Princeton University Press. —— . 1998. An Invisible Minority: Brazilians in New York City. Boston: Allyn and Bacon. Martes, A. C. B. 2000. Brasileiros nos Estados Unidos: Um estudo sobre imigrantes em Massachussets. São Paulo: Editora Paz e Terra. Mcguire, M. 2008. Lived Religion: Faith and Practice in Everyday Life. Oxford: Oxford University Press. McIlwaine, C., J. Cock, and B. Linneker. 2011. No longer Invisible: The Latin American Community in London. London: Queen Mary, University of London; Latin American Womens’ Rights Service; Trust for London. Morawska, E. T. 2003. “Immigrant Transnationalism and Assimilation: A Variety of Combinations and the Analytic Strategy It Suggests.” In Toward Assimilation and Citizenship: Immigrants in Liberal Nation-States, eds. C. Joppke and E. T. Morawska, 133–176. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Orsi, R. A. 2003. “Is the Study of Lived Religion Irrelevant to the World We Live In? Special Presidential Plenary Address, Society for the Scientific Study of Religion, Salt Lake City, November 2, 2002.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 42 (2): 119–174. Pierucci, A. 2004. “‘Bye Bye Brasil’ – O declínio das religiões tradicionais no Censo 2000.” Estudos Avançados 18 (52): 17–28. Sales, T. 1999. Brasileiros longe de casa. São Paulo: Editora Cortês. Sheringham, O. 2010. “A Transnational Space?: Transnational Practices, Place-Based Identity and the Making of “Home” among Brazilians in Gort, Ireland.” Portuguese Studies 26 (1): 60–78. Ugba, A. 2008. “A Part of and Apart from Society? Pentecostal Africans in the ‘New Ireland.’” Translocations: Migration and Social Change 4 (1): 86–101. Vasquez, M. 2009. “Beyond Homo Anomicus: Interpersonal Networks, Space and Religion among Brazilians in Broward County.” In A Place to Be: Brazilian, Guatemalan, and Mexican Immigrants in Florida’s New Destinations, eds. P. Williams, T. J. Steigenga, and M. Vasquez, 33–56. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Vasquez, M. and M. F. Marquardt. 2003. Globalizing the Sacred: Religion Across the Americas. New Jersey: Rutgers University Press. Vasquez, M. and L. Ribeiro. 2007. “‘A igreja é como a casa da minha mãe’: religião e espaço vivido entre brasileiros no condado de Broward.” Ciencias Sociais e Religão 9 (9): 13–29.

THE “DEVIL’S EGG”: FOOTBALL PLAYERS AS NEW MISSIONARIES OF THE DIASPORA OF BRAZILIAN RELIGIONS

Carmen Rial

Enter my house Enter my life Change my constitution Heal all the wounds Teach me to be holy I want to love only You Because the Lord is my greater good Make a Miracle in me. – Regis Danese

Among the many remarkable tourist attractions in Munich’s central square, the ‘Brazilian’ Evangelical church1 is worthy of note.2 The quotation marks around Brazilian are justified. In fact, this is one of hundreds of churches in the Pentecostal movement, which originated in the US and introduced into Brazil in 1910 with the formation of Congregação Cristã [Christian Congregation] and Assembléia de Deus [Assemblies of God, 1911]. The movement became indigenized in the 1950s, with the emergence of the Igreja do Evangelho Quadrangular [Church of Foursquare Gospel, 1953], O Brasil para Cristo [Brazil for Christ, 1955], Deus é Amor [God is Love, 1962], which had a meteoric rise in the country, coinciding with the growth in urban population (Fry 1978). In the mid-1970s, Brazilian pastors created

1 I use Evangelical to refer both to historic Protestantism as well as Pentecostalism and Neo-Pentecostalism. The players refer to themselves as Evangelicals and not Neo- Pentecostals. Brazilian scholars refer to various Evangelical congregations, whether traditional or more recently created ones, as the “Evangelical field.” Within this field, they define Pentecostal congregations as being the denominations that “share the belief in a second and imminent coming of Christ and that believe they have access, in daily life, to the gifts and charismas of the Holy Spirit” (Novaes 1998: 7). Meanwhile, the Neo-Pentecostals are denominations that are characterized by: an “emphasis on war against the Devil and his entourage of fallen angels, seen mainly as part of the Afro-Brazilian and Spiritist cults; the preaching and promotion of the theology of prosperity; and greater flexibility in using visible stereotyped practices and habits of saintliness, which until recently served as symbols of conversion to Pentecostalism” (Mariano 1995: 28). 2 I thank fellow anthropologist Maria Amélia Dickie for calling my attention to this monument. 92 carmen rial what became known as Neo-Pentecostal congregations: Sara nossa Terra [Heal our Land, 1976], Igreja Universal do Reino do Senhor [Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, 1977], Internacional da Graça de Deus [International Grace of God, 1980], Renascer em Cristo [Reborn in Christ, 1986], Bola de Neve (Snowball) in 2000 and others. According to the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), one in every five Brazilians is now ‘Evangelical,’ representing 42.3 million people or 22.2% of the population (IBGE 2010). The church that has hitherto gained the most notoriety is the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, also known as IURD [UCKG]. In the 1980s, the UCKG began “the internationalization of its proselytizing, thus inverting the North-South direction of the missionary flow and Brazil’s former condition as a destination for European and US missions” (Mariano 2010). The first country in which UCKG was established outside Brazil was the US (1986), followed by Uruguay (1989), Portugal (1989), and Argentina (1990). The expansion abroad went hand-in-hand with the growing emigration of nearly four million Brazilians. At the same time, other Neo-Pentecostal churches (Reborn in Christ, God is Love), directed by Brazilian pastors and bishops, also went global and are now located in some 180 countries.3 They all share the belief that intimate contact with the Holy Spirit allows them access to Jesus, a contact that is interpreted as being the ‘possession of the Spirit.’ The churches share the mission of converting the world to the Evangelical faith, and in order to accomplish this, they are managed as businesses and make extensive use of the mass media. There is, however, something unique about the church in the Munich square: it was created by a football player, Jorginho, who has played a major role in the popularity of Evangelicalism among the players in the German Bundesliga. In addition to the predictable company of fellow Brazilians, including the leading striker Cacau, German players have also adhered to the Evangelical movement. Jorginho’s church was initially one among many prayer groups created by players around the world. I found a similar group in Spain among the players of Celta de Vigo during ethnographic

3 In 2000, the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God already had “franchises” in 172 countries. Its penetration is greater in Portuguese-speaking countries. In others, its temples are located within communities of Brazilian immigrants. It has confronted considerable resistance upon entering Asia (except in Japan where there are 300 thousand Brazilians), the Middle East, and Africa, where non-Christian religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, and Islam are hegemonic (Mariano 2010). the “devil’s egg” 93 research with Brazilian football players living and working abroad. My research draws from discussions with more than 60 Brazilian players and their entourages (families, friends, agents, secretaries, club directors, doctors) living or seeking to live in foreign countries. The contacts were conducted in Toronto, Canada; Almelo, Groningen, Alkmaar, Rotterdam, and Amsterdam, Holland; Tokyo, Japan; Lyon, Le Mans, Nancy and Lille France; Monaco; Charleroi, Belgium; Athens, Greece; Seoul, Korea; Marrakesh, Morocco; Montevideo, Uruguay; and Fortaleza, Salvador and Belém, Brazil, between 2003 and 2012.4 Most players I interviewed had only attended elementary school, around 15% had been able to finish high school, one had applied for college (and dropped out when he moved abroad), and only one had higher education. This was also the case for only three of their wives, although there is a general tendency for the wives to have higher schooling than the players. Furthermore, becoming a pastor now appears to be an increasingly frequent option after the end of footballers’ careers on the field. For instance, another former member of the Brazilian national team, Müller, has become a pastor after leaving soccer. Kaká has also expressed his desire to become an Evangelical pastor,5 not a coach, a team executive or a commentator. They may organize Bible study groups among players, open (or plan to open) churches, and wish to be preachers in the after-football future to support their Neo-Pentecostal denominations. However, these initiatives seem negligible compared to the mass audience achieved by their religious message propagated by them in the media and the amount of the donations they make. As Oro has argued (2005/2006: 320), “Brazilian” Neo- Pentecostal denominations are disseminated among the Brazilians diasporic communities and largely, but not exclusively, through mediascapes (Appadurai 1990: 9).6 For instance, during fieldwork, I noticed that players in Spain, Holland, France, Japan, Canada and Morocco watched Record

4 The ethnographic data was gathered mainly in Seville, Spain (where I lived for two months in 2003 and one in 2004), and Eindhoven, Holland (where I went several times between 2004 and 2008). 5 “I would very much like [to be a pastor], but it would be a long journey. It is necessary to study theology, take a course, go deep into Bible study, into Evangelicalism.” In “Kaká said that he was a virgin when he got married and intends to be a pastor,” Folha on-line, see http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/folha/esporte/ult92u355651.shtml, accessed on August 15, 2012. 6 Mediascape is the capabilities to produce and disseminate information and images of the world through global cultural flows created by electronic media. 94 carmen rial network television daily. Present in over 80 countries,7 Record is a powerful means to disseminate precepts of the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God. Along with the Women’s Network (Rede Mulher) and the 71 radio stations in Brazil that also belong to the UCKG, Record helps hold together a community of believers that in 2000 surpassed two million people (Oro 2005/2006: 324). Since football is the most-watched television program in the world, the Brazilian players of the national squad and Brazilian players living abroad have had an important role in the dissemination of Neo-Pentecostalism, acting as global ‘pastors,’ as it were. Even though the Fédération Interna tionale de Football Association (FIFA) prohibits religious (or ideological) propaganda,8 this has occurred since the 1970 World Cup.9 In fact, one image stands out from the many photos of Brazil’s victory in the 1994 World Cup: that of a circle formed by players and the technical staff of the Brazilian team, in a group hug, praying at the center of the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, in the US. The scene would be repeated with even greater intensity during the 2002 World Cup, with the players kneeling at the center of the field of the International Stadium in Japan. The image transmitted to the largest global audience ever promoted Brazilian faith worldwide and established itself as a visual topos repeated each time the Brazilian team won a tourna- ment. This evolution underlines a change in Brazilian football from being originally associated with the nation (through flags, national anthems) to strongly evoking religion. This was visible at the commemoration of the Brazilian team’s victory during the Confederations Cup of 2009, held in Johannesburg, South Africa.10 The players and the technical staff once again formed a circle, with

7 See http://noticiasdaigrejanomundo.blogspot.com/, accessed in April 2011. 8 “Players must not reveal undergarments showing slogans or advertising. The basic compulsory equipment must not have any political, religious or personal statements. A player removing his jersey or shirt to reveal slogans or advertising will be sanctioned by the competition organiser. The team of a player whose basic compulsory equipment has political, religious or personal slogans or statements will be sanctioned by the competition organiser or by FIFA” http://www.fifa.com/aboutfifa/documentlibrary/doclists/laws. html#laws, accessed in August 2012. 9 FIFA issued a note of clarification that acts of faith by players after the end of the game would not be punished. The first act was probably after a goal by Petras, from the former Czechoslovakia team against Brazil in the 1970 World Cup, which was commemorated by the player on his knees, in a gesture that was repeated by the Brazilian star Jairzinho a few games later. 10 Football does not have a monopoly on these expressions of gratitude to God. Similar scenes are observed at US football games. For example, at “Super Bowl XLI (2007) coaches of both teams had established public reputations as Christian gentlemen. The next Super Bowl brought more of the same” (Hoffman 2010: 5). the “devil’s egg” 95 their knees on the pitch praying. Moreover, most of the players wore white shirts that read I belong to Jesus, in English, in order to reach a greatest audience. When they reached the podium to receive their trophies, and were told that they could not go on wearing their shirts, they took them off, taking care to carry them in a visible place. Some held them in their hands, and Lúcio, the captain, placed it on his shorts in such a way that the words I love Jesus were visible when he raised the Cup. The message was thus shown on TV throughout the world. I was watching the scene in Athens, Greece. News reports about the return of the Brazilian delegation from South Africa written by reporters who shared the plane with them said the flight was peaceful, serene, and nearly silent, quite different from the party atmosphere, or the samba and dancing that were common after other Brazilian victories. The transition from a party mood to a more peaceful atmosphere appears to reflect the transformation in the ethos of the national team: a new religious hegemony is expressed in the players’ behavior. In the four years between the victory of the Confederations Cup of 2005 and 2009, the Brazilian squad traded a ‘partying’ (‘bad-boy’) captain, Ronaldinho Gaucho, for a Neo-Pentecostal one, Lúcio. The team was more likely to pray after victories and to listen to gospel music on their headphones than to celebrate intensely by dancing with pandeiros (tambou- rines) and atabaques (drums).11 At least one of these percussion instruments is not religiously neutral: although present in secular contexts, atabaques are largely used in Afro-Brazilian religious rituals (Carvalho 1984; Ferretti 1985; Lody and Sá 1997) and are avoided by Pentecostals. Pandeiros, even if absent in Umbanda or Candomblé rituals, are connected with another African-Brazilian cultural expression since they are widely used in capoeira along with berimbaus (single-string percussion instrument) and atabaques. Thus, there is nothing innocent about the absence of these musical instruments, since Neo-Pentecostalism sees itself in open combat with these Afro-Brazilian religions and traditions, which it sees as tools of the devil. For years prayers and pagode samba music lived together in harmony within the national team. While some degree of harmony still persists, the celebrations of 2009 clearly attest to the new ascendency of religion over samba. If Ronaldinho gave up the tambourine to raise the trophy, Lúcio lifted his I Love Jesus shirt in a gesture that has great significance in the

11 Brazilian footballers contacted during the study also played Brazilian religious music in their cars. 96 carmen rial football liturgy. To be sure, religious propaganda was not absent in 2005. In the photos of that event, Lúcio and six other Brazilian players appeared with shirts praising Jesus, but they were behind the stage where the players received the trophy, and the images were dominated by the pagode musical celebration commanded by Ronaldinho (the player voted the best in the world that year) and his wide grin. Music and dance prevailed in the televised images and photos. The team of Dunga, the Brazilian coach between 2006 and 2010, was the first to clearly place Neo-Pentecostal religion at the center of its collective expressions. While in 1994, captain Dunga raised the Cup while cursing the press, and in 2002, Captain Cafu did so expressing his love for his poor neighborhood and his wife,12 it would have been very likely that Lúcio would have instead praised Jesus, had Brazil won the 2010 World Cup. The television cameras and the photographic images would thus be transmitting a faith that through football reaches a planetary stage. In addition to bringing along their religious practices, attending Evangelical churches abroad along with other Brazilian immigrants and, in some cases, establishing their own temples, the diaspora of Brazilian players has significantly contributed to the promotion of Neo-Pentecostalism or, at least, of the words ‘Jesus’ and ‘God’ in the media. These symbolic gestures propagated through mediascapes promote their religious beliefs on a global scale, in a sort of ‘banal religiosity,’ to borrow a term coined by Billig (1995). Banal nationalism involves less organized expressions of nationalis- tic sentiments that nevertheless are vital in the reproduction of nationalism. In the case of the Brazilian players, propagating Neo-Pentecostalism in the stadiums, away from temples, preachers, and Bibles, is a powerful (and yet banal) Neo-Pentecostal propaganda. Like the flag ‘hanging unnoticed on the public building,’13 the constant references to God in their interviews with the press (the numerous phrases that begin or end with ‘God willing,’ or ‘Thanks to God’), the re-enactment of thanksgiving and the sacred words on T-shirts (‘Gott is meine Kraft’ [God is my strength], ‘Danke Jesus’ [Thank you Jesus]) constantly remind not only fans but also TV audiences of the importance of God. Banal religiosity is also present in the raising of hands to the sky in celebration of a goal

12 ‘100% Jardim Irene’ was written on his t-shirt (referring to his neighborhood) and he said “Regina, eu te amo” [Regina, I Love you]. 13 “The metonymic image of banal nationalism is not a flag which is being consciously waved with fervent passion; it is the flag hanging unnoticed on the public building” (Billig 1985: 8). the “devil’s egg” 97

(a gesture Brazilian goal keeper Taffarel made in 1994, which has been imitated by Kaká and many other players), in kneeling after a goal or saying a blessing after a play that barely missed the goal – a gesture that Romário made famous (Rial 2003). In addition to these expressions of gratitude, it is also common for Brazilians to use their right foot and say a blessing upon entering the pitch, and raise their arms to the sky moments before the match begins. Goalkeepers, meanwhile, may kick the posts and touch the crossbar while saying a blessing and asking for protection.14 These embodied practices go unnoticed by FIFA’s strict control as well as that the monitoring of authorities in Europe’s secular countries, which do not allow religious propaganda on television to silently infiltrate the daily lives of millions viewers. The presence of these Brazilian players on every continent and their central role in the clubs where they perform make them important channels in the global dissemination of Brazilian Pentecostalism. Of course, the players are not the only channel. With transmissions involving one hundred and fifty countries, the potential power of the football-Evangelical Christianity nexus lies in its capacity to spread banal religion semi-visibly, almost surreptitiously. Perhaps, we could say that we are facing a new deterritorialization of religious beliefs through the mediatisation of global sports and entertainment.

Prosperous Christ’s Athletes

The adhesion of football millionaires (and of other players who are not millionaires and have lifestyles similar to economic migrants in the Brazilian diaspora) to Pentecostalism coincides with the adoption by Brazilian Pentecostal churches of the Theology of Prosperity in the 1970s (Mariano 2010). Until then, Brazilian Pentecostal followers, who call themselves crentes (believers), were known for their adherence to rigid norms of behavior. They were prohibited from enjoying pleasures in this life, such as drinking alcohol, listening to music other than that during religious service, watching television and having sex before marriage. Sports and gambling were also prohibited activities. The soccer ball was even known as the ‘devil’s egg.’ Prosperity theology preached, however, that the faithful had the

14 Christianity no longer holds a monopoly in relations when it comes to religious expressions in football. Recently, players have appeared prostrated in a position common in Muslim prayer upon celebrating a goal. 98 carmen rial right to enjoy their happiness on Earth, and that they could and should seek financial success and enjoy it. This theology combined principles of self-help and ‘positive thinking’ with Biblical preaching. This sparked ethical changes among the faithful, who were now free to express themselves through consumer goods, music and sports and integrate these pleasures into their lifestyle. This also started an aesthetic revolution, as women could cut their hair short, wear jeans, etc. The Theology of Prosperity had such a strong impact that scholars argued it constituted a third wave of Pentecostalism in Brazil; ergo the term Neo-Pentecostalism. It is worth noting that the first explicit association between football and Neo-Pentecostalism took place through the Atletas de Cristo [Athletes for Christ] movement which rejected the Theology of Prosperity. As Nunes (2003) reports, the movement was created in Belo Horizonte in 1978 by a pastor and João Leite, a goalkeeper of club Atlético Mineiro. He sought to include athletes from different sports, but it was football that gained most visibility. Although João Leite insists the movement is neither a sect nor a church, nor a labor union, and does not have political affiliations and impose rules of conduct, its founders did have relations with the Baptist Church (Nunes 2003). Encouraging an ethic of discipline and hard work, the movement enjoyed popularity among players from some large Brazilian clubs, creating groups of Atletas de Cristo in different clubs, and even with members from the Brazilian national team. A Brazilian team of Atletas de Cristo, composed of former players from the Brazilian national team, now plays matches to spread the Evangelical message.15 Although Athletes for Christ still remain active, other congregations and denominations have quickly gained more following among players, such as the Snowball Church, which have brought a different ethos, one that stresses entertainment and participation in extreme sports. Snowball was founded by a former drug user who became Evangelical after contracting hepatitis in 1992, and who still surfs on weekends. The church targets young people with informal rituals that incorporate rock and reggae music, Bibles with images of radical sports on the cover, and a party atmosphere in their temples. Like Brazilian footballers-cum-missionaries abroad, Snowball Church is very savvy in the use of electronic media to spread an attractive mixture of religion, sports, and entertainment.

15 Formed by Jorginho, Silas, Tafarel, Paulo Cruz, Giovanni, Paulo Sérgio, Silvio, Axel, Paulinho Kobayashi, Deivid, Cléber Lima, Zé Carlos, Pereira, Guilherme, Daniel, Fábio Freitas and the coach Ricardo Ximenes. See http://www.overbo.com.br/portal/2009/01/30/ selecao-brasileira-de-futebol-’atletas-de-cristo’-visita-o-amapa-em-marco/ the “devil’s egg” 99

The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Football Playing

The association between sport and religion, is, however, much older. To better understand the context of this association, I draw from Putney’s (2001) work on ‘muscular Christianity.’ The origins of this Christianity can be traced to the New Testament, which prescribes virile force (Mk. 11: 15) and physical health (1 Cor. 6: 19–20). Although present in the early church, what came to be called muscular Christianity was not always an important element. The Church praised health and virility, but was more concerned with obtaining salvation, and preached that men could achieve it even without being healthy. This scorn for physical activities held sway over the Church for centuries, only to be contested consistently in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries by Protestant ministers who, in England and the US, preached their conviction that men could not claim to be truly Christian if they were not ‘muscular Christians.’ The expression ‘muscular Christianity’ appeared for the first time in English in 1857, in a novel by Charles Kingsley. One year later, it was used once again by Kingsley in another novel, to describe the life of a friend of Rugby. The press came to call him (and Thomas Hughes) muscular- Christian writers and also applied this label to the genre of their books: adventure novels full of Christian principles and virile heroes. Hughes and Kingsley were not only novelists, they were also social crit- ics who warned of the danger of asceticism and feminization as factors that weakened the Anglican Church. Before the Civil War, they exported to America their campaign in support of greater health and virility in religion, ideas that were not immediately well accepted due to the longtime Protestant opposition to games and sport, activities present in festivals of the Catholic Church (Baker 2007). In fact, the opposition to muscular Christianity in America never completely disappeared. But it became weaker in the heat of the Civil War, when changes in US society placed health and virility at the center of concern of many white Anglo-Saxon Protestants who saw sedentary work in offices – increasingly present in a society under accelerated urbanization – as a threat not only to health and masculinity, but also to their socially privileged positions. Muscular Christianity was thus defined as a Christian commitment to health and virility. Its defenders argued for an ‘arduous life,’ complete with athleticism and aggressive male behavior. They called for their churches to abandon the untenable principles of a Protestantism that they considered ‘feminine.’ For them, the feminine influence in the church led to an excess of sentimental hymns, an effeminate clergy and sickly sweet images of 100 carmen rial

Jesus. As proof that there was a ‘dangerous woman’ in US Protestant churches, they pointed to a supposed imbalance in the presence of men and women in the churches. ‘Real men’ were repelled and would only return to the church when ‘feminized’ Protestantism gave way to a muscular Christianity, a tough religion, in keeping with an arduous life. Thus, as Putney (2001) shows, the union between Christianity and sports was stimulated by a complex amalgam of anxieties around the decline of the virility of middle class Anglo-Saxon men, given their recent engagement in activities that involved less physical effort, fear of increasing juve- nile delinquency and a certain anguish caused by the growing feminist movement. The belief that a feminization of masculine bodies was taking place contributed to the creation of a plethora of organizations aimed at the reconfiguration of US masculinity, including the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) (Macleod 1983). In this way, since the 1880s, Puritan suspicions about the use of the body and leisure practices were rejected and substituted for a belief in athletic training, which came to be seen as an effective form of evangelization. As the Christian educator Lilburn Merrill summarized, boys “pray more easily and effectively running than kneeling” (Putney 2001: 123). The notion that sports can function like a religion is now fairly uncontro- versial (Higgs 1995; Putney 2001; Baker 2007; Hoffman 2010). Football and religion clearly have a close relationship and it would not be an exaggeration to say that contemporary football presents the world’s most widely watched religious performances: In fact, football has procedures that are similar to those of a church: its pro- tagonists have a rigid hierarchy; there are conventions and taboos; its special moment, the game, is held in a closed space, where there is a field, equivalent to the altar; it has a specific language and its calendar is somewhat liturgical; there is a moment of retreat, the concentration, which excludes the opposite sex, and a final result, which can lead to an examination of the conscience if there was a mistake, followed by contrition, or a moment of compensation and glory, for some, eternal, as Pelé would say. (Alvarez 2010) However, we must be careful not to reduce one thing to another. Da Matta (2003) made a compelling critique of Michael Novak’s affirmation in The Joy of Sports (1976) that sports are a type of religion. He argues that the reduction of one social dimension to another does not resolve the problem: Magic has already been reduced to a primitive science; rituals were seen as neurotic repetitions or as expressions of mysticism; kinship ties and terms were interpreted in their matrixes of ‘blood’ and sports were seen as the “devil’s egg” 101

sublimation for aggressive and bellicose impulses, in the same way that Novak sees them as a modality of religion. But this does not resolve the problem, because the task remains of explaining the social dimension to which the activity in focus was reduced. If sports can be reduced to religion, as Novak suggests, we now have to ask, what is religion? (Da Matta 2003: 21) Da Matta’s observation is appropriate and clarifies this point: football is above all a ludic and anti-utilitarian activity, although it is strongly influenced by economic and political interests. It does not need to be transformed into an activity that substitutes war, as Elias proposes (1992), or into religion to merit academic or artistic reflections. Such a perspective does not imply the complete absence of religion (and even of magic) in some of football’s practices, whether those of fans, or players. Perhaps it would be most appropriate to say that football (especially but not exclusively South American) and religion are easily and advantageously associated with each other. I found religious symbols in the locker rooms I visited in different places in the world. There were makeshift altars with images of Christ and especially of the Virgin Mary, at times simply stuck to the white tiles arranged in collages that revealed their multitude prove- nances. For instance, there were serene images of the Virgin Mary, as in the pitch of Payssandú club, in Belém, northern Brazil, and cruel images of Christ, bleeding under a crown of thorns in the locker room at the Sanches Pijuan stadium in Seville, in southern Spain. I was particularly startled during a visit to Madrid’s Vicente Calderón stadium. I thought I had entered a museum, like those that now exist in nearly all of the world’s big clubs. These are places impregnated with the sacred, where visitors come to worship the objects exposed whose auras (Benjamin 1987) stir emotions much more intensely than the art in our traditional museums. The stadium also houses the Memorial del Atlético Madrid, a space where the members and fans of the club could leave their ashes in small urns nestled in a space in one of the tiles that compose large mosaics with photos of the club and its emblem. This is nothing less than a cemetery installed in a broad and modern space inside the stadium, with a chapel to conduct funeral services. This sacred space was created to respond to the many requests from fans to have their ashes strewn on the stadium’s field, given that European law has prohibited such practices for alleged health reasons.16 One way to fulfill the fans’ wishes was to prolong, beyond life, their passion for football.

16 Created in 2009, the memorial already holds the ashes of about 150 fans, most of them men (20% are women) who do not rest there for eternity. The contracted time of permanence is 25 years, for which they paid €1,500. Many left this wish in their wills, along with 102 carmen rial

Figure 1. Soccer players’ changing room in Seville (courtesy Carmen Rial).

Are footballers the clergy of a new planetary religion? Are Brazilian footballers – among the religious virtuosi? It seems that certain players have risen to a sacred condition in the form of posters that populate the walls of bars and the bedrooms of youngsters throughout the world. ‘God lives in Catalonia,’ was the headline of L’Equipe, France’s most traditional sports newspapers. It was praising the performance of Barcelona forward Lionel Messi, the Argentinean who has been named by FIFA as the world’s greatest player four times. The consecration of Messi was echoed worldwide and the ‘secular’ epithets of praise (‘genius’ or ‘ace’) were exceeded only by the religious metaphors (‘God’ or ‘extra-terrestrial’) in various

the needed funds. According to the person responsible for the memorial, Ana, the visits are more intense on special days, such as All Saints Day, but occur throughout the year. One of the rooms in the memorial serves at times as a chapel: it is a place for prayer, with chairs, a pulpit and a high table that resembles an altar. If the families wish, or if it has been requested in a will, Ana conducts a brief ceremony that may or may not have prayers, music – such as the club hymn – or another mode of performance that may have been requested. The Argentine Club Boca Juniors also has its own cemetery, but it is located in a suburb of Buenos Aires. the “devil’s egg” 103 newspapers, including the highbrow Times of London. Anyone who has seen all the fans at Camp Nou stadium in Barcelona greet Messi with open arms, rocking back and forth and issuing a thundering ‘Mééééésiiiiii, Mééééésiii,’ cannot fail to think that the crowd is bowing down before a divine being. A god stimulated by the forces of his time, which disseminate his image to all corners of the planet, as they did with other gods before him: Pelé, Di Stefano, Ronaldo, Ronaldinho. These others, however, do not enjoy the phonetic coincidence of their name: stores and shops in Barcelona now sell a football shirt that reads: ‘I saw the Messiah play,’ with an image of the football star, his arms raised to the skies, circled by a golden aura. A ‘Messiah’ still without a church, except for that located in the mediatized ‘religioscape’ (McAlister 1998: 156), a transnational space that rede- fines the geography of the sacred. Another Argentinean player, in his time and at least in his country, received this level of consecration and even more – the formation of a sect around his personality cult, the Maradonist Church, which is clearly an expression of Argentinean national identity. Founded playfully in 1998 by a group of fans who began to celebrate Christmas on Maradona’s birthday, it now has some 200,000 fans, its own 10 commandments, prayers, rituals of veneration of his goals. They worship in particular the goal against England in the 1986 World Cup. Scored with his hand, Maradona himself considered it as divine intervention in a game marked by the memory of Argentina’s tragic defeat four years earlier in the Guerra de las Malvinas (as it is known in Argentina, or the Falklands War as it is known in England). Maradona’s number, diez (10) in Spanish, and Dios (God in Spanish) also have a phonetic proximity that helps sustain the myth. More than pursuing the question of whether or not football is something ‘sacred,’ I am interested in recognizing, as suggested by Talal Asad (1993), the materiality of certain practices related to football, and also to examine what makes certain practices desirable and mandatory. The point that I would like to make is that, football, through its most important protago- nists, enjoys planetary veneration, probably greater than that of any religion.17 Neo-Pentecostal Brazilian soccer players are fully aware of this phenomenon and they use Brazil’s recognized exulted place in the sport as a platform to disseminate their religious beliefs, engaging in a thinly veiled

17 “For all differences, religion and sport seem to have been made in the image of each other. Both are bathed in myth and sustained by ritual; both reward faith and patience. Both thrive on passion tempered with discipline” (Baker 2007: 2). 104 carmen rial proselytism as global pastors of a banal religiosity. This takes place, as we saw, without support from the FIFA, the entity that controls global football, which prohibits ideological or religious expressions. The press also prefers to report on players’ sensationalist activities rather than on the mundane activities of the faithful. Journalists tend to be more interested in impious actions of the non-religious players, the ‘bad-boys,’ as they call their professional colleagues who ‘go out at night.’ It is visits to the pubs of Manchester, or the nightclubs of Barcelona and Madrid, or to the funk dances in Brazilian favelas, and players’ trysts with call girls or transvestites that are covered in the media, almost never the pilgrimage to Pentecostal or Catholic churches. Only in exceptional cases involving big stars do religious activities gain space in the media, as with Kaká, who, when suspended from a game of the Brazilian squad, participated in the inauguration of a new temple, and appeared on the front page of Brazil’s two leading newspapers praying intensely alongside Estevam and Sonia Hernandes, the bishops who lead the Neo-Pentecostal church Igreja Renascer em Cristo.18 Based on news reports, in which Kaká is an exception, I expected to find ‘bad boys’ when I initiated my contacts with Brazilian players who had emigrated abroad. What I found was the opposite. Although Brazilian players generally command high salaries abroad, this wealth did not change radically their consumptions habits leading them to ‘bad boy’ behaviors. Indeed, what amazed me most was the large number of football players who read the Bible daily, attended religious services in Neo-Pentecostal temples, and prayed at home with other players, family members and other Brazilians living abroad, and even traveled to other cities to participate in religious services. With surprising consistency, interviews suggested that these practices are quite common, even among players of different social origins and educational levels (Rial 2008). If we look more closely at some of the players’ statements, beginning with Ricardo Oliveira, a globally recognized striker now playing at Al Jazira, a club of the United Arab Emirates, we can have a better sense of their

18 Kaká’s relations with this church have gained extensive media coverage. In 2007, he displayed the FIFA trophy he won as the world’s best player at church headquarters, and defended the bishops (whom he calls the ‘apostle and the bishop’) when they were arrested and condemned to 140 days of house arrest in the US for money laundering and conspiracy. Kaká was shown consulting the church’s websites during the World Cup 2006. A video available on the Internet (http://vodpod.com/watch/1938949-kak-ungido-a-presbtero) shows the moment when he was anointed as a presbyter in the US and reveals financial details of his sale to the Real Madrid club saying that his career success “is a conquest of the apostolic people.” the “devil’s egg” 105 reasons behind their religious involvement. Ricardo met his wife Débora Oliveira at a church when she was 14 years old. When I talked with him in Seville, Ricardo had already played for the Brazilian national team, was the leading scorer in the Spanish league where he played for Bétis, and was being courted by a number of major European clubs. He lived with his wife Débora who was 17- and their 8-month-old son, Anthony Richards, in a two-story house in Simon Verde, a luxury condominium in the city, and drove a BMW with leather seats and impeccable white carpets. He was extremely polite with me at all our meetings, even acting as a mediator with the other players. A generosity clearly related to the notion of ‘helping someone.’ Ricardo repeatedly told me stressed the importance of his relationship with Evangelicals. He saw his entrance into the church as a watershed marked by a ‘commitment to God.’ Like other players, Ricardo described his life as being divided by a before in the kingdom of evil and after when he entered the kingdom of God. In the before, these players ‘messed up,’ drank, took drugs (not Ricardo’s case) went out with lots of women (this is not usually mentioned to me because I am a woman, but I could understand it by their way of not referring to it), and as studies show, could be violent at home. In the after (‘when I came to know the Word.’19) there was self-improvement, not in the sense of having more money or being famous, but in a more spiritual and broader sense of ‘being a good person.’ Ricardo Oliveira told me that it was thanks to this ‘commitment to God’ that he was able to win as a football player. If the player was not born into an Evangelical family, conversion to the church takes place through friendship with other Evangelicals. Sometimes a future wife is religious and converts the player. It is more common for the player to emulate the behavior of Evangelical teammates. In these cases, conversion takes place much more through the caring behavior of people whom the players admire in their small circle of close friends than through proselytism. Ricardo Oliveira, told me, with tears in his eyes: It was at Portuguesa. There I was with many Evangelicals: Sandro, Simão, Sandro Fonseca, Cafu, Evandro, Élson, Tinho. When I was with them, I saw how they were, the way they cared for me. It was a very strong example, and this made me think “wow, the Evangelicals are different.” One day I was with the team in the hotel, on the eve of a game, and I saw on TV a fire in the neighborhood where my brother lives. I saw my brother, I saw people I knew,

19 ‘Word’ is often used as a synonym for the Bible. 106 carmen rial

I began to cry. And when I turned to my side, my friend was crying with me. And I asked myself “why is he crying? He doesn’t even know me well, he doesn’t know these people.” It was a strong example, sharing sadness with a companion. “Tell me, maybe I can help.” He saw me crying at that moment, he began to feel, in a way, the sadness that I was feeling. This example of com- panionship transformed my life. This ‘example of life’ is reflected in another vision of the world and another lifestyle. It is not so much the religion that matters, but the ‘Word of God’ that is important, as if the reading of the Bible were capable of establishing a direct dialog between two beings, one human, another divine. For them, the Bible is a support; it assists in establishing a conversation with a friend. “God is a friend who is always with me,” declared Edu (Betis/Seville, today at Colorado Rapids in 2012). Ricardo says that one must do the right thing to ‘please God,’ in order not to ‘make God sad.’ God, in return, “concedes these privileges that I can enjoy today.” Among global clubs as well as for smaller ones, I found players who considered the Bible, God, and prayer great allies. This was the case of Jeferson Luis Escher, a player on the Kawba Atletic Club of Marrakech, today at Wydad Casablanca. We spoke in a taxi (he does not have a car) that took us to the apartment, where we found his wife and one-year-old child who had just arrived from Paraná, Brazil. He told me:

I say that I am Catholic, but it is more the Bible, the word that the Bible gives me. It helps a lot. It gives me strength not to be so lonely, not be worried so much with what will happen later. It gives me security, I feel very good. Reading makes me much stronger.

The Bible was his most important support to withstand loneliness during the one year he lived away from his wife and son. Jeferson did not convert; he adopted the Pentecostal practice of Bible reading, and the accompany- ing ethics, more individual and autonomous. Ricardo arranged for Denilson (today a TV sports commentator) and Marcos Assunçao (at Santos in 2013) to meet with me. What was to be a quick contact ended up being hours sitting at an improvised table at the Betis training center until we were kicked out by club security. Denilson, who is Evangelical, and Assunção, who is Catholic, also said that God was very important in their lives. Denilson: I’m more religious (than Assunção). I’m Evangelical, a believer. Assunção: I accept anything; if you invite me to go to church, I’ll go. [laughter] You can’t argue over taste and religion. Each person has his own taste and religion, we have to have respect. I’m a Catholic and you’re a believer. the “devil’s egg” 107

Denilson: The importance of God. I think nothing happens by accident and everything has an answer: this answer can only be given by God. I pray all the time. Because there is evil, and if you don’t pray, evil will take a hold of you. I pray all the time, I ask for things, neither too much nor too little. It’s like a struggle, you know, between good and evil. Assunção: I try to thank Him [God] for everything He gave me. Thanks to Him I have a good life, even though I’m not [religious]. The statements by Denilson reveal more strict religious practices and two essential points in the theology of the Neo-Pentecostal churches: the enduring the struggle between good and evil and the permanent negotiation between the individual and God (‘I ask for things’). Their statements are similar to many others that I heard:

(i) Adriano (Seville, at Barcelona in 2013): “In Brazil, we would meet the day before the matches to sing hymns, read the Bible and use the Word. On the day of the match we would pray before taking to the field. Here, we don’t, because here most of them are not religious, so it’s a little harder. But I think we can’t judge the others, each person has his own religion and we have to respect it. It’s like the Bible says, “God gave everyone free will, so we are free to do whatever we want.” So who am I to judge?” (ii) Alex (PSV, at PSG in 2013): “For me he’s [God] super important. I got to know Him when I was 14 at an aunt’s birthday. My mom invited me to the church, and I liked it. To me God is what gives strength to my life. He has put me here, and I thank God every day for his support, his help to get here. But it’s not enough to rely on God; one has to struggle.” (iii) Dill (Bahia, has played in France and Switzerland, is today at FC da Foz): “I’ve converted. I’ve been an Evangelical since 1996, after my marriage. You ask me if I’m religious, and what I think is that God doesn’t like religion. He likes you to give yourself wholeheartedly. So, regardless of religion, I think the important thing is that we search for God. God is the touchstone, the basis of everything in our life. That’s what I think, and we always have meetings here at Bahia: me, Neto, Luciano, those who are Christians. Now Marcelinho has arrived, who’s also a Christian [Neo-Pentecostal].”

‘Belief,’ as the players say, is seen as an indispensible support to withstand the difficulties of a career and survive the ‘sacrifice’ of living abroad. This is the importance of the Word. We find it in appeals to a greater force by the players, for protection. Prayers in the locker rooms, the fact of asking for 108 carmen rial a blessing upon entering the pitch are indications of this significance. We also find that the Word expresses gratitude for the ‘gifts’ received – the arms raised to the sky after the goals, the group prayers conducted after victories. Aren’t these appeals to a greater force similar to the situation of the hunter that Mauss (1968) describes in his classic study ‘Techniques of the Body’? In one passage, in which he relates corporal practices to magic rites, Mauss reports that a hunter was able to remain in a tree for many hours, and that the strength and resistance to pain needed to conduct this vigil came from reciting magical chants. In another passage, when analyzing the super human ability of Australians near Adelaide to run with kangaroos and wild dogs, Mauss also attributes this competence, as well as that of grabbing a possum out of a tree, to the fact that the hunters endlessly chant a magic formula. Football players appear to find in prayer and in their practices of a religious character the extra strength that helps them to score or defend against a goal, or that pushes them beyond their bodily limits. It is for this reason that they touch the grass with the hand, or enter the pitch with the right foot, kick the goal posts, in addition to more explicit gestures such as raising one’s arms to the sky or making the sign of the cross before the opening whistle. These ritual acts are conducted in the hope of achieving a true material effectiveness, whether that of protecting against possible injury, of preventing the ball from passing a limit designated by a magic gesture, or, on the contrary, causing it to enter the goal. If the ritual element in football is important for the search for protection, it also has importance for giving thanks, as a counter-gift (Mauss 1990), a reciprocal exchange. But, as Alex (a defender on the Brazilian national team who is playing for PSG in France in 2013) put it, “it’s not enough to rely on God; one has to struggle,” one has to work hard at the club. Belief in God has a fundamental role in consolidating a righteous personal ethic, that of a disciplined, obedient, supporting man who cares about others, who ‘struggles.’ These are important characteristics in short careers in which the body is the main tool. It is especially important in the practice of a team sport, where coexistence with others is prolonged and not only when practicing the sport itself – the training and games – but in preceding moments: the long hours in ‘concentration,’ when the team is isolated in a hotel or training center, or when facing the tense waiting in the locker room and the unending hours traveling by bus, in airports and on flights. These periods away from families are generally seen as unpleasant, if not as veritable prison sentences, which are aggravated among players who live abroad. the “devil’s egg” 109

Thus, religion (or ‘faith,’ as they prefer) shapes a particular habitus (Mauss 1968 [1934]) that allows them to deal with the experience of hypermobility that is characteristic of their careers. Religion provides the technologies of the body (Asad 1993; Vásquez 2011) which are professionally appropriate. In addition, belief establishes and consolidates friendship with other Brazilian players. It provides support in an extremely competitive professional field. “The pressure comes from all sides: the club, the manager, the fans,” Ricardo summarizes the situation of a Hobbesian environment. For Brazilian athletes, religion appears to act as a way to discipline the body, creating a productive worker, at the same time as it constructs a sense of community that helps to overcome a world devoid of feelings, as Methodism did in England, as shown by E. P. Thompson in The Making of the English Working Class (1991). The fact that many of the players are inserted in more secular societies such as those of Central Europe could contribute to accentuate this trend, although this factor does not seem relevant, given that I found that religion occupies the same central place for players in countries like Brazil, Spain or Uruguay, which are less secular. Mediation from preachers is rarely emphasized in the player’s statements, with the exception of Alex. When I met him, at Eindhoven, where he played for PSV, Alex told me that he often went to Amsterdam to attend services of a Brazilian pastor. At times, he went in the company of the goalkeeper Gomes (Cruzeiro, the Brazilian national team, PSV, and Tottenham), but neither Gomes nor his wife highlighted the presence of the pastor, although they mentioned it. Both took their families in a sort of pilgrimage that combined religion and tourism. According to Alex:

Most (of the believers present at the church) are Brazilian, the pastor is also Brazilian. He doesn’t speak Dutch, it’s all in Portuguese. We talk to people there, they’re not players, but we make friends. I found out about it on the website of ‘God is Love,’ it’s www.deuseamor.com.br. It’s from Brazil. I called and spoke to the pastor. They are also in Belgium, Switzerland, England, I always go there. To me, it’s fundamental.

These churches are meeting places for Brazilian migrants, where in addition to religion, a banal nationalism, as Billig has termed it, is reaffirmed. Billig (1995: 6) distinguishes ‘nationalism’ from ‘banal nationalism.’ Both cover “the ideological means by which nation-states are reproduced.” But “there is a distinction between the flag waved by Serbian ethnic cleansers and that hanging unobtrusively outside the US post office.” For Billig, banal 110 carmen rial nationalism refers to “the ideological habits which enable the nations of the West to be reproduced” daily, in the everyday lives of its citizenry.20 Sports, through mediascapes, play an important role to remind readers and spectators about the nation they belong to, so that “they can be seen as banal rehearsals for the extraordinary time of crises, when the state calls upon citizenry, and especially its male citizenry, to make ultimate sacrifices in the cause of nationhood” (1995: 11). By meeting other Brazilians at Neo-Pentecostal churches, chatting about the Globo TV network’s soap-operas and TV Record’s programs, or by sharing cooking recipes adapted to local ingredients and exchanging addresses of Brazilian groceries, Brazilians in diaspora also stress banal nationalism. Indeed, just as other Brazilians abroad do, Brazilian soccer players display their nationalism daily – the Brazilian flag that I saw used as tablecloth at the entrance hallway of Gomes’s (PSV/Eindhoven, at Chelsea/London in 2013) house is just one example among many others. The father of André Bahia (Feyenoord of Rotterdam, at Samsunspor in 2012) invited me once to eat bobó de camarão, made possible by a ‘Suriname market.’ I had rice, beans, and picadinho de carne (beef hash) at Ari’s house (AZ/Alkmaar, at Spartak Moscow in 2013) with ingredients supplied by the ‘Turkish’ shop. In Japan, I saw a large roving lorry which shuttles between the Brazilian Embassy, Banco do Brasil (Brazil’s national bank), and other spots. Bra zilians were able to find on its shelves Perdigão chicken, Phebo soap, barbecue sausage, and even rice and Brazilian Playboy magazines. Players of the Tokyo Verdy interviewed (Hulk,21 at Zenit of St. Petersburg in 2013, Diego de Souza, at Lobos Buap, Mexico in 2013 and Zé Luis, at Paraná in 2013) were unanimous in affirming that they would rather consume Brazilian products, and that they do have easy access to them. In the Netherlands, even Brazilian steel wool (Bombril) may be purchased online, through the website ‘Finalmente Brasil’ (Finally Brazil), which also provides mail-in orders to other European countries. Its store in Amsterdam is supplied yearly by eight containers of Brazilian products (shampoos, Minâncora ointment, cheese roll, beers, Fanta Uva grape soda, meat, and so forth), as the manager told me. The restaurants to which these players go feature daily menus that include either Brazilian dishes or food which is similar to that in Brazil. Each time they visit the country, they bring many products in their luggage.

20 Being banal, as Billig explains drawing from Arendt (1963), is not synonymous with being harmless or innocuous, since nationalism can express itself in more violent forms, such as wars. 21 Hulk told me he was not religious. the “devil’s egg” 111

Alternatively, they may obtain these products through importers or traveling relatives and friends. Thus, items regarded as ‘national’ are not limited to the usual beans, manioc flour and other consumer items; also Tang juice (according to Edu’s wife) and various medicine (Gomes’s wife). The point is that there is a whole formal and informal economy built around the fact that these footballers have to work outside Brazil and they endeavor to recreate Brazilianness abroad. In an analysis of players’ regular consumption patterns, the national identity dimension is the most salient. Television, DVDs and cassette tapes of Brazilian music, and also the web22 bring them daily back to Brazil – or, perhaps more accurately, keep them there. All these products lend meaning to the players’ life experience, allowing them to share that imagined community even while abroad, stressing their nationalism through everyday consumptions. As with so many other emigrants of the Brazilian diaspora, these players and their families reinforce their Brazilianness through everyday consumptions. The commodities they consume continuously reassert their national identities and, in the process, spread Brazilian culture abroad. What would seem like a cosmopolitan consumption connecting them globally (cable TV, internet, other electronic media) is in fact an instrument of approximation with Brazil. It is a consumption that keeps them integrated with their original national community. Their consumption therefore manifests banal nationalism: their quotidian practices repeatedly, and almost unconsciously, reaffirm their Brazilianness, bringing them together while demarcating borders vis-à-vis the local ‘others.’ But this separation is itself part of the mystique of being Brazilian. The same is true in regards to their choice of church. Helinho (Toronto Lynx, today at Millonarios of Bogotá), who is not evangelical himself, attended a church in Toronto temple in order to meet other Brazilians. Gomes and Flávia did not like the style of non-Brazilian churches. Flávia explained she did not like them because in Amsterdam they were ‘too serious’ in contrast to Brazil, where things are ‘more cheerful.’ In reality, many players prefer to organize domestic services with other players and migrant Brazilians, as the players of Celta de Vigo do. The religious space, either houses or churches, thus serves to reaffirm a national identity in the diaspora.

22 I noticed that the younger players were more familiar with using internet tools, including smart phones. Those over 24 did not use them as often, and preferred the regular telephone. All of them gave me their email addresses, and I have exchanged messages with some players, therefore attesting to their intensive use of the web. 112 carmen rial

None of the players I contacted spontaneously mentioned tithing, and in general, avoided mentioning the delicate issue of their wages. It is quite probable that many of them are among the Evangelical churches’ largest contributors.23 To conclude this section, let us return to the words in the epigraph “Make a miracle happen in me,” which I heard sung by Felipe Mello, now at Juventus, the Italian club with the largest fan base, and who was also on the Brazilian national team.24 The song appears to include some of the maxims that allow us to understand why Neo-Pentecostal theology conforms so well to the life projects of the football players. This is a project of social mobility (“I want to rise/As high as I can”), which involves great transformation (“Change my constitution”) marked by a highly competitive professional environment that poses constant danger of work accidents (“Heal all the wounds”), and by warnings against hedonist appeals, seen as harmful to the body – the players’ principal work tool (“Teach me to be holy”). A career that can lead to such tremendous wealth is experienced as a divine gift (“Make a miracle happen in me”).

Final Considerations

Football joins religion in a perfect matrimony of interests. Everyone benefits. For the clubs, the players’ Pentecostalism guarantees good tools for profit: healthy bodies and sound minds. For the players (especially those

23 Neymar (Santos), a rising young talent is a faithful contributor to the Igreja Batista Peniel, of São Vicente. He donates 10% of everything he earns, as his father told journalist Debora Bergamasco: His first little salary was R$ 450. We signed his first contract with Santos and my wife took the R$ 45 and gave it to the church each month. OK, there was still R$ 400 left over to pay the bills. Then he started to earn R$ 800. Very good, he donated R$ 80… But God began to test, right? We got R$ 400,000. Caramba, oh my, how are we going to tithe R$ 40 thousand? It’s worth a car! Man! But then you think that God was faithful. Boom, he gives R$ 40 thousand! … My God, I don’t even want to know, ‘tithe’ this right away (smiling). That’s right… “God tests you in the little and the great,” exclaims the patri- arch of the Silva Santos family. And what does the player think of this …. Does it hurt giving up R$ 40 thousand? For God, nothing hurts. And I think it’s good. We know the pastor at Peniel very well. I’ve been there for ten years and now they are expanding the church. I think that if we believe in God, things come naturally. God gave me everything: a gift, success. [See http://blogs.estadao.com.br/sonia-racy/’quero-um -porsche-e-uma-ferrari-na-garagem’/#respond, accessed on April 26, 2010.] 24 TV Program: Expresso da Bola, de Décio Lopes, 9/04/2010, Sportv. the “devil’s egg” 113 who are Neo-Pentecostal), it offers a cosmology that orders their daily lives, prescribes what they should and should not do, differentiates good and bad, and thus keeps them away from the temptations of a lifestyle seen as harmful to their professional career. In addition, the Bible readings in particular, but also attending services in temples or meetings with one another, help them to remain serene in a field of great tension and competition with other players in the clubs, since they have the aid of a real and active God. At the same time, religion brings them closer to their fellow believers in contexts other than the professional field, which is a strong stimulant for sociability and the creation of networks. The Protestant ethic provides a perfect framework for the disciplining of the body and mind, encouraging daily self-control through the conscious and constant monitoring over the body and emotions. It also favors obedience to rules – and the daily activity of their profession is permeated by them – serving as a civilizing device (Elias 1986) that promotes a better insertion of individuals in modern institutions. Voluntary obedience, discipline, self-control, self-awareness and reflexivity (Giddens 1991), are some of the collateral effects, and are benefits for their profession and for their integration in contemporary-modern urban societies. Nevertheless, this asceticism has limits, given that success in their professional career is very likely to result in great prestige and substantial wealth for Brazilian soccer players abroad. Theology of prosperity provides a way to reconcile bodily and emotional asceticism and material consumption. Not only can practicing Neo-Pentecostals demonstrate their success from a material perspective, it is imperative for them to do so. The possession of goods is proof that they have a good relationship with God. Material wealth is seen as a compensation for living a life of obedience to God. Conversely, they need to become rich to donate more money, because those who donate large sums are good people. Finally, for those who live abroad, religion is also a great foundation to endure the sacrifice of being far away from their families and childhood friends, from an imagined Brazil, the nostalgia for solidarity and authenticity, which affirms their national identity. The hymns that the players sing or hear in their luxury cars speak of radical changes like those that these players experience in their daily lives, and for that reason they make sense. These hymns celebrate a life project of social mobility where the sports victories are associated with victories in the economic sphere. They make tolerable radical transformations in a short time and in strange spaces, because even those who remain in Brazil usually live far from their families of origin and their childhood friends. Religion, also offers football players 114 carmen rial extra strength, the ability to expand the limits of their bodies in endurance and strength, as Mauss has indicated. On the other hand, football offers religion nothing less than the largest and most important stage for its preaching, capable of simultaneously reaching billions of homes throughout the planet. It offers ‘selfless soldiers of the Word’, missionaries who demonstrate the faith globally (through slogans on tee-shirts, tattoos, and interviews), thus disseminating banal religiosity through mediascapes and increasing the contingent of believers. Footballers are ‘soldiers of the faith’ who also sustain it financially, tithing their millionaire earnings - when they do not themselves open a church, as entrepreneurial missionaries. Through the power of the images they transmit on the mediascapes, the Pentecostal denominations, recreated locally in indigenized forms in Brazil, gain impetus, facilitating the movement’s worldwide dissemination.

Acknowledgements

I am grateful for the reading and suggestions made by the external reader and four fellow anthropologists: Maria Amélia Dickie, who inspired this article, Maria Regina Lisboa, who helped me avoid slipping in the religious field, Miriam Grossi and Claudia Fonseca. I would also like to thank journalist and sociologist Jeffrey Hoff for the translation.

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BRAZILIAN PENTECOSTALISM IN PERU: AFFINITIES BETWEEN THE SOCIAL AND CULTURAL CONDITIONS OF ANDEAN MIGRANTS AND THE RELIGIOUS WORLDVIEW OF THE PENTECOSTAL CHURCH “GOD IS LOVE”1

Dario Paulo Barrera Rivera

In the last twenty years, the Brazilian “Pentecostal Church God is Love” – known in Portuguese as Igreja Pentecostal Deus é Amor (IPDA) – has been the fastest growing Pentecostal church in Peru, expanding mainly in the peripheries of major Peruvian cities, such as Lima, Arequipa and Trujillo. IPDA was founded in São Paulo in 1962 by David Miranda, a migrant from the Brazilian countryside, and caters for the disenfranchised sectors of the population. Miranda and a group of Brazilian religious entrepreneurs started their missionary work in Lima in 1989. Nowadays, it is one of the most widespread evangelical churches; their main vehicles of communication are radio and more recently the Internet. Unlike other Pentecostal groups, they reject the use of television broadcasts. Even in Brazil, where the largest Pentecostal churches depend on the widespread use of TV, IPDA forbids its followers from watching TV. Luckily for IPDA, in the hinterland regions of Peru, where there is no TV signal, radio continues to be widely used.2 Participant observation at worship services and analysis of the church’s radio broadcast and web pages show that most of IPDA followers are either migrants or the children of migrants from the Andean region of Peru who have come to the cities in search of employment, better education and a more promising future since the 1950s. This chapter analyses affinities between Andean indigenous culture (particularly their mythical religious view of reality and the power of the indigenous languages of Quechua and Aymara) and the Brazilian Pentecostal message, which pastors present through a mixture of Portuguese and Spanish that is popularly known as

1 Sections of this chapter were previously published in Estudos da Religião 23 (37): 104–128. However, my conceptual framework and argument were revised and reworked for this chapter. 2 On many occasions during field work, I heard IPDA leaders encourage followers to acquire radios and those who had TVs to sell them. 118 dario paulo barrera rivera

‘Portunhol.’ As a hybrid language, Portunhol is similar to the Spanish spoken by the migrants from the Andes, which is inflected by their indigenous mother tongue. I will analyze a unique convergence of three linguistic phenomena: the phonetic and grammatical similarities between Spanish and Portuguese, the boldness of Brazilian pastors to communicate in a language that they have not formally studied, and the fascination of Andean migrants for the Portunhol spoken by the pastors as a legitimate diacritical mark of difference. Other factors which make IPDA appealing include the socio-economic situation of the migrant residents in the peripheries of major cities and the missionary strategy adopted by the church, offering salvation and assets linked to their main social needs such as health, employment, and family wellbeing. Finally, I examine the fascination surrounding David Miranda’s image, which is built at worship services and through the radio and the Internet, as well as the mythology connected with the foundation of the original church in São Paulo, a site known as “Temple of the Glory of God.”

Andean Migration and Social Exclusion

In the first decades of the twentieth century, after struggling for nearly one hundred years to achieve independence from Spanish colonization, Peruvian intellectuals were just beginning to realize that it was impossible to understand Peruvian society without taking seriously the long period of military imposition upon the indigenous population. The population of the Andean region, its culture, history, resistance, and beliefs are the chief components of the national identity of Peruvian society. José Carlos Mariátegui (1894–1930) was undoubtedly the first to propose that it was not possible to think about the past and the future of Peru without recognizing the importance of the Andean population. Almost a century after his reflections, the majority of the country’s urban population is made up of indigenous migrants and children of migrants. Presently, after almost two hundred years of ‘Republican’ life, the major cities in the country, and especially the capital Lima, are teeming with Andean indigenous cultural diversity. Various social and cultural aspects make this reality evident: the physical traits of migrants, the use of indigenous language together with Spanish, their dances, customs, foods, beliefs, and forms of sociability. Elements of ancient millenarian Andean cultures still reappear in the third generation of migrants, as a mechanism to claim their rights denied by the white and mestizo political and economic elites in large cities. brazilian pentecostalism in peru 119

Peru is one of South America’s countries with the largest indigenous population with various indigenous spoken languages, such as Quechua and Aymara. The last census of 2007 found that in the town of Puno (located in the southern Andes on the border with Bolivia) 65% of the population spoke Quechua or Aymara, in Cuzco 51.4% of its inhabitants spoke Quechua, in Apurimac 70.6%, and in Ayacucho 63.1% spoke Quechua (INIE Censo Nacional 2007). An important part of Andean culture is its understanding of the mythical reality of the world. Beliefs in the supernatural, the inexplicable, and the power of ritual to change reality are central in the Andean cultural heritage. Nature is considered alive, full of spirits, often mysterious, and in all cases, very respected. Every time there is an earthquake - which is very common in this country – one is reminded of the mysterious force of nature. Diseases, misfortune, losses, or tragedies are explained through magical rites and beliefs. It therefore seems plausible to argue that these beliefs make it easier for the Peruvian Andean migrant to feel comfortable in the worship services of the Pentecostal Church God is Love, where the power of the spirit and the other worldly are present.3 This is also common in popular Catholicism, as Alejandro Ortiz Rescaniere found in his study Expresiones religiosas marginales: el caso de Sarita Colonia (Marginal Religious Expressions: the Case of Sarita Colonia) (1990). It appears also in new religious movements, which are very different from Pentecostalism, as in the case of La Misión Israelita del Nuevo Pacto Universal y su Composición Social (The Israelite Mission of the New Universal Pact and its Social Composition), studied by Ossio (1990).4 We shall see that, besides the indigenous language, other social and cultural aspects seem to facilitate the missionary work of Pentecostalism. IPDA’s message, values and ideas are geared to Andean migrants in large cities on the Peruvian coast. Many of the practices that IPDA requires its followers to observe bear significant similarities with customs among Andean groups. For example, just as the IPDA enjoins women to wear their hair long, Andean women too do not cut their hair and often braid it. In

3 In Latin America, connections between worldviews of evangelicals Protestantism and indigenous cultures are discussed in Conversion of a Continent (Steigenga and Cleary 2008). 4 La Misión Israelita is a millenarian and messianic movement founded by charismatic leader Ezequiel Ataucusi Gamonal in Peru in the 1950s. Ezequiel, as the founder is known, received a revelation that declared Peru as the locus of a New Jerusalem and Peruvian people as the new Israelites. According to Ossio, the membership of La Misión are ‘los marginales de los marginales’ (‘marginals within marginals’). 120 dario paulo barrera rivera addition, indigenous women’s clothes must always cover almost the entire body, coinciding with requirements of minimal exposure of the female body in Deus é Amor. These two examples – visible marks of cultural identity, discriminated in the urban context – become a matter of pride and social inclusion at IPDA. Andean women who migrate to the capital tend to change their habits related to clothing and hair over time. That does not happen to migrant women entering the IPDA, where the preservation of these cultural mores is strengthened because it has become religious requirement, recognized and celebrated by other female followers.

Andean Utopia and the Exclusion of Serrano (Mountaineer) in the Urban Context

The inhabitants of the southern Andean region did not produce a homogeneous or cohesive world, but one marked by the predominance of kingdoms and local governments. Only later was the Inca Empire able to integrate these local governments in a process of rapid and fragile expansion. The sudden victory of the Spanish conquest over the Inca Empire created the social and cultural conditions for the resurgence of various ethnic groups, with diverse languages, beliefs and customs. The Spanish, taking advantage of their military superiority and physical violence, concealed this diversity, reducing the inhabitants of the Andes to a single category: Indians. In the period that followed independence and throughout Republican life, Peruvian society built their identity on an imaginary of the Inca society before the arrival of the Spaniards. The Inca empire was imagined as an egalitarian society without hunger or injustice and this gave rise to the myth of Return of the Inca. This myth was carried by indigenous people when they migrated from the Andean highlands to the coastal cities (Ansión 1989; Soraya and Portocarrero 1991; Flores 1994). In the national memory, this mixture of myth and utopia is a reaction against racism towards indigenous peoples, which has been present in the practices and debates of government leaders and social elites at the capital city during the entire Republican period. In Lima, this racism comes to be expressed in the pejorative term serrano (mountaineer). The term serrano marks the otherness of indigenous people – they came down from the Sierra to the city. The term also shows the refusal of the urban dweller to accept the Andean who comes to the capital with their customs, languages and beliefs. The oppositional terms white-Indian, derived from colonial times, and ‘Limeño-Serrano’ (citizen of Lima-mountaineer), in brazilian pentecostalism in peru 121 contemporary society, are a structural component of social and power relations of all social practices (Marzal 1988). These historical facts are crucial for the analysis of religious institutions such as IPDA in Peru. Alberto Flores reaches the following conclusion on racism, important for the question that interests us: Indians are so despised as to be feared by those who are not Indians. According to him, indigenous culture disap- pears from public places and becomes clandestine. “It is the moment when racial differences take on an importance never before seen” (Flores 1994: 220). Paradoxically, by claiming the native as part of its nationalism, the Peruvian society needs to rescue the Indian. Inevitably, s/he appears, for example, in national symbols, in the currency, in hymns, but only in this abstract symbolism. The serrano is still viewed with disdain in Lima. By contrast, this is not what happens in worship services of IPDA, as we will discuss in the following sections. There, migrants find important linguistic and cultural affinities and are received as ‘brothers and sisters.’ In his 7 Ensayos de interpretación de la realidad peruana (1928), José Carlos Mariátegui wondered about the position and the persistence of native pre-European religious forms. According to him, “the native pagan- ism persisted under Catholic worship” (1928: 163). Because of the conquest, the official Inca state religion disappeared. But ancestral forms of worship survived – the same forms that gradually would migrate to the peripheries of large cities. Andean migrants who moved to the city seem to combine the traditional with the modern. The inhabitant of the Peruvian Andes believes, for example, that the Earth is alive and populated with all kinds of spirits. However, in formal education, schools teach them that the mountains do not have spirits, but only inert stones. There being no possibility of integrating these two forms to explain the reality, one of them prevails depending on the circumstance.5 When modern rationality does not offer explanations, the

5 Roger Bastide proposed a similar hypothesis to explain how black Brazilians took advantage of the two ways to understand and classify the reality – one religious, another secular. Bastide explained it from the ‘principle of scission’: splitting the cultures, black Brazilians defused inconsistencies among these two cultures, who remained as two domin- ions that did not mix. The ‘principle of scission’ not only permitted that the various sectors controlled by deities could coexist without triggering conflicts but also allowed the coexistence of systems of classification based on the religious division of sacred and profane forces, hierarchies that set apart the intrinsic qualities of beings and things. Bastide also questioned the assumptions about ‘culture shock’ that in sociology and in anthropology defined the ‘marginal man’ as a man internally torn apart between two antagonistic or conflicting cultures. He did not find this dramatic situation among Afro-Brazilians in spite of belonging their belonging to two different civilizations. See Roger Bastide “Le Principe de Coupure et Le Comportement African-Brésilien” (1955). 122 dario paulo barrera rivera indigenous Peruvians can appeal to the mythical world. In the Andean imagination, magic is pervasive, tightly linking the natural and the supernatural (Portocarrero and Soraya 1991: 17). The worship of God is Love Church involves miracles, the extraordinary, the supernatural, the inexplicable and magical healing. It has important affinities with Andean beliefs, which makes it attractive to the migrant. Participant observation in the churches of IPDA in Peru showed four indispensable elements in IPDA services: healing, miracles, glossolalia and exorcism. Reading of the Bible is performed only by the pastor or presbyter. Music and singing are also part of the service, but may not always happen. The Eucharist takes place once a month, and never as the center of worship, only as an added ritual. IPDA radio station reporters – with microphone in hand – often ask people who come to the temple, “Why did you decide to come to the Pentecostal Church God is Love?” The most common answer is: “because I had an illness and heard through the ´Voice of Liberation´ program that miracles happen here.” Talk of miracle and healing is widespread on radio programs. It happens repeatedly throughout the day and night (Gogin 1997). This is not surprising because migrants depend on public health when they move to the city. In their places of origin, health issues are dealt with traditional methods by the healer or shaman. The historical and anthropological literature has demonstrated not only the ineffectiveness of the ‘extirpation of idolatry,’ but also the continuity of such therapeutic practices and their adaptation in the urban context (Tomoeda et al. 2004; Marsili 2002; Polia 2001; Reagan 2001; Wachtel 1990, among others). In cities, particularly in Lima, shamans offer some of the same healing practices found in rural towns, announcing their service through small posters pasted on telephone poles or even through advertisements on some radio stations. Services aimed at solving marital problems are particularly popular. However, these practices have an air of clandestineness. While there are obvious similarities in the manner in which shamans and Pentecostals heal, Pentecostalism does not carry a stigma. This allows Pentecostal healing to be public, a fact that benefits the IPDA in terms of publicizing its services.

Andean Migration and Growth of “Pentecostal Church God is Love”

The censuses conducted in Peru continue to underestimate the category of religion. For example, the census conducted in 2005 did not include a brazilian pentecostalism in peru 123 question on religion and serious errors showed no consistent data. The 2007 census did include a question on religion, albeit restricted, as in the census of 1993: “What is your religion? Give only one answer: Catholic, Christian/Evangelical, Other, or None.” Here, the category of “Christian/ Evangelical” glosses over a great variety of churches and traditions. However, it is possible to analyze population growth and migration, focusing on cities where the Pentecostal Church God is Love has grown more: Lima, Trujillo, Chiclayo, Piura and Arequipa. The first four are coastal cities, experiencing intensive internal migration. Arequipa is in south of the country and in an intermediate region of traffic between the Andean region and the coast. These five cities have the largest number of churches and adherents. I conducted research in the worship services of IPDA in the last four years in Lima, Trujillo and Chiclayo. On its website, IPDA in Peru has made available its own statistics regarding the number of new churches opened between January and October 2007 (see Table 1). The cities studied here had 35% of IPDA’s growth in the country. It is also noteworthy that in Ayacucho and Cañete in the southern Andes, and Huánuco in the central Andes, IPDA had significant growth. Ayacucho is one of the poorest areas in Peru and was the focal point of the political and military violence between ‘Sendero Luminoso’ [The Shining Path] and the army and police, for more than two decades (1979–2002). Cañete is a gateway city to the capital and a forced crossing point. Many of those who fled from the conflict in Ayacucho have also settled in this city. The problem was similar in Huánuco: from 1984 to 2000, the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA), another insurgent group, was active throughout this region. In Ayacucho and in Huánuco, the war, which

Table 1. New churches IPDA between January and October 2007 City Churches in January Churches in October Total of new 2007 2007 churches Lima 396 478 82 Trujillo 32 50 18 Clichayo 27 35 8 Piura 23 28 5 Arequipa 29 32 3 Total 507 623 116 Source: www.ipda.com.pe 124 dario paulo barrera rivera resulted in a total of 70,000 dead according to the report of the ‘Commission of Truth,’ contributed to greater demand for religion. Residents of towns in the central and southern Andes regions had to migrate to other regions fleeing the war. Most of these migrants went to the main cities. Often those who migrated had a family member killed or missing. One of the findings of the report of the Commission of Truth was that the largest number of victims was composed of illiterate indigenous people, particularly women. One cannot say that the war explains the growth of the IPDA. But the hypothesis that migrants of this period – subjected to violent social uproot- ing – found solace and refuge in the Pentecostal discourse in general is plausible. The city of Lima, the country´s capital, attracts the largest number of migrants, followed by Arequipa, La Libertad and Lambayeque. The other coastal city with a significant number of migrants is Piura. The “First national headquarters” of the IPDA is in Lima, with the second in Trujillo and the third in Arequipa. In these three cities, IPDA developed aggressive work of proselytizing through the following radio stations: ‘Radio Victoria,’ in Lima, with national reach; ‘Radio Sintonia,’ in Trujillo, broadcasting throughout the northern Andes, and “Radio Amistad” de Arequipa, broadcasting throughout the southern Andes region. The three radio stations maintain twenty-four hours of programming. In the last three years, IPDA renewed its web site and now offers resources of audio and video that can be accessed from anywhere in the country. As the IPDA began its activities in Peru in 1989, the last two censuses of 1993 and 2007 (Table 2) are worth of special attention. The volume of migrants has increased in all cases. The census of 1993 and 2007 enquired about people’s spoken languages. It showed that 20% (1993) and 14.7% (2007) of the population spoke indigenous languages. Over 10% (1993) and 6.2% (2007) of the population of Lima and 19% (1993) and 17% (2007) of Arequipa had a native Indian language as their mother tongue – usually Quechua and Aymara. The percentage is smaller, but not less important, for Lambayeque 3% (1993) and 2.2% (2007) and Trujillo 1.6% (1993) and 0.3% (2007). One must assume that the percentage might be higher, because migrants in the city tend to conceal their Andean origin, due to discrimination. For the city of Lima it is worth mentioning that 71% (2007) are migrants from the Andean region. Of those migrants, 51.5% (2007) are women. These statistics are relevant because the followers of the IPDA in Peru are mostly Andean migrants, and approximately 70% are women. Indeed, the main temple of the IPDA in Lima is divided into three sectors, two of them are for women and one for men. brazilian pentecostalism in peru 125

Table 2. Migrant population according to the four last censusesa City/Year 1972 1981 1993 2007 Lima 1.398,315 1.818,103 2.392,014 1.412,212 La Libertad 110,004 142,744 194,739 173,582 Lambayeque 97,250 134,841 182,365 106,809 Piura 35,946 61,022 75,238 99,151 Arequipa 133,574 188,576 246,464 200,733 aThe 2007 Census asked questions on migration in last five years. So data for 2007 corresponds to new migrants. Source: own elaboration from data www.inei.gob.pe.

In the last two censuses, illiteracy increased in major cities. In the 2007 census, the percentage of people who had only completed the first grade was 25.8% for Trujillo, 28.7% for Chiclayo, and 22.6% for Arequipa compared to the national average of 31.3%. Piura exceeds the national average of 2007: 37.61% of its population is illiterate. These data are important because it was precisely in the 1990s that IPDA in Peru intensified its work in Trujillo, Chiclayo and Piura. In Lima, the increase of migrants has also contributed to higher percentages of illiteracy, particularly among women, which is significant since women tend to be the IPDA’s predominant clientele.6 In fact, I noticed that the women were the most involved in worship. They were the most active in rites of healing, in exorcisms, testimonies, in the more intense physical expressions that involved shaking, jumping, and screaming. Long skirts for women, such as those worn in the Andes, prevent exposure of the body despite sudden movements, turns and falls, and when some exposure occurs there was always a team of women with blankets in hand ready to cover the part of the body that was exposed. During healing and exorcism, the Bible is used as a symbol, not as a text. In worship, the faithful follower never reads the Bible and the pastors themselves rarely do so. However, the Bible is an object that has the power

6 The 2000 Brazilian Census showed that all the Pentecostal churches have a majority of women among its followers, especially the Igreja Universal do Reino de Deus (Universal Church of the Kingdom of God), the Igreja do Evangelho Quadrangular (Foursquare Gospel Church) and the Pentecostal Deus é Amor (God is Love). The average percentage of women in these churches is 57%. Nationally, the percentage of women is 50.7%. For more on this, see Barrera (2005). For the case of Peru, we do not have census data that discriminate the percentage of women in each church. 126 dario paulo barrera rivera to increase the effectiveness of healing or exorcism. During several sessions of exorcism that I watched, the pastor asked the audience to raise the Bible in situations when it was difficult to cast out the demon from people. In the few occasions when the pastor read the Bible, the vast majority of those present did not follow the reading, limiting themselves to listening only. This use of the Bible allows women who are illiterate to have full participation in the practices of healing, exorcism, and giving testimony which are central in the IPDA.

IPDA and Migrants in Urban Peripheries

In Peru, David Miranda started his missionary work in 1989,7 accompanied by three Brazilian families. He inaugurated the first church in Lima in a small spot of the Elio urban development. A month later, he moved to ‘El Rimac,’ one of the most popular districts of the city where he rented the former Star Theater (Cinema Estrella).8 Miranda also bought several hours of broadcasting on Radio Victoria, one of the most listened to stations in the country. Antonio Ribeiro, an IPDA Brazilian pastor, took over the responsibility for IPDA in Peru. Ribeiro remained as a pastor of the IPDA in Lima for almost a decade and was the first to rehearse the use of Spanish in his speeches. In 1993, Hernández (1994: 156) reported that the IPDA baptized 900 people in Lima.9 By 1995, the church had 103 congregations in Peru, of which 34 were in Lima. On ‘Radio Victoria,’ it broadcasts programs twenty-four hours a day, which are linked to other 20 departments of the country.10 According to recent information given on their official website, a new church headquarters is under reconstruction and the church is mounting a big marketing campaign to collect money for the “Temple of the Glory of God in Peru.” In Lima, and in the Brazilian cities of São Paulo and Salvador, IPDA prohibits members from watching television. From the pulpit, the leaders also forbid the believers from having a TV at home. However, IPDA has not been able to avoid the critical importance of images in modern communication,

7 In the same year, IPDA opened churches in Chile, Uruguay and Argentina. In the celebrations of its twentieth anniversary in Peru, the pastor’s speech recalled the revelation received by David Miranda “to initiate a great work in this country.” 8 Today, the theatre’s capacity of 1200 is insufficient, especially for Sunday services. 9 It is important to consider that the IPDA performs baptisms on a six-month basis, one in July and another in December. 10 Iglesia Pentecostal Dios es Amor. Gran Revista Evanngelizando ao Perú. Brochure published by PTI. brazilian pentecostalism in peru 127 recently investing in the use of Internet (Barrera 2005). The main issue IPDA has with TV is exposure of the body. IPDA’s rules forbid their followers to go to the beach or pool and even to wear clothing such as shorts or tank tops. On TV, there are images of exposed bodies for all kinds of marketing reasons. The rules against television and against short clothes are consistent with elements of Andean culture. Two aspects may be highlighted. First, climatic and geographical factors make Andean inhabitants to wear thick clothing that covers most of the body because of the intense cold. Also, clothes for bathing are alien to the Andean culture, because neither the sea nor the pool are part of their places of leisure. Second, Andean migrants in Peru are identified and socially discriminated by their clothes, and the TV reinforces this mechanism of discrimination by associating revealing clothes with modernity and progress. At IPDA, migrants are well received despite their habits concerning clothes and the body. The vast majority of people who attend the temples of IPDA usually dress very hum- bly; the poverty of the church followers is more evident than in other Pentecostal churches. The districts of origin are recorded in radio broadcast testimonials, in which the interviewer asks the name, address and the amount of the donation. In the cities of Lima and Trujillo, members of the faith who come from the Andean region are numerous. Many of them came to Lima, or to the nearest city, lured by the stories of miracles that they heard on the radio. Since the IPDA’s ethos is very strict, not all the people interested in religious services become members. Radio then becomes the key recruitment tool. The importance of radio to IPDA in Peru deserves an explanation. In Brazil, the use of television is key in the competition among Pentecostal churches. However, from the time of military dictatorship, Peruvian legislation has not allowed new TV channels. This might in part explain why the Igreja Universal do Reino de Deus (Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, UCKG), whose powerful television media in Brazil is well known, has been unsuccessful in Peru. UCKG opened a temple in the heart of the city of Lima in 2003 under the motto ‘Stop Suffering’ but did not gain followers. Even today, the UCKG presence in Peru is insignificant. Evidently, in a country like Peru the heavy reliance on electronic images carries great disadvantage. Pentecostal churches in Peru have little space on open-air TV. This means that Pentecostal competition on media occurs mainly in the space of the radio, where the IPDA has an advantage. The most common and significant religious services events are healings, speaking in tongues and exorcisms. IPDA does not need a systematic and rational speech to propagate its faith and attract its clientele. Two other 128 dario paulo barrera rivera aspects reveal the social status of the faithful: their poor health and the easy acceptance of simple speeches. The enormous legitimacy of magical practices in worship exempts pastors from explanations which are rational, systematized or grounded in theology or science. For example, the compelling testimony of a person who said she had cancer and is now cured is enough. The more amazing or inexplicable the fact narrated is, the more the speech of leaders becomes authoritative. The central place the devil occupies in the Andean imagery dovetails with IPDA’s practices of exorcism in its services. IPDA in Peru is not the only Pentecostal church that practices exorcism, but it is undoubtedly the one that most appeals to this ritual. A long and rich list of the scholarly works has demonstrated the importance of the Devil in Andean cultures as an explanation of the various social wounds or misfortunes of life.11 This is a consequence of long process of syncretism between pre-Hispanic myths, and the various versions of Christian doctrine (Catholic and Protestant). Andean animism, which perceives physical reality populated by spiritual beings, is reinterpreted by IPDA´s versatile and multifaceted Devil figure, always hidden behind any and all misfortune, disease, disaster, family problems, marital or economic problems. The Andean migrants living in the city, away from the landscapes of their birth, which may be full of hua- cas (sacred sites) where they can pray, find in the IPDA’s beliefs, particularly those connected to the devil, an explanation for their most pressing problems. The faithful follower of IPDA leaves the service convinced of divine intervention in their bodies. People who for many years attended Protestant churches assert that at the very first service of IPDA “they felt the power of God” as they had never experienced before in other churches. A woman, former follower of the Christian and Missionary Alliance Church, told me: “I’m from the God is Love Church because here I feel the power of God in every cult.” Along the same lines, a man, who had tuberculosis and who was a former follower of the Assembly of God Church, told me: “It was here that God revealed to me that I was with an incurable disease and now I’m clean.” Another woman, ex-follower of the Peruvian Evangelical Church, said in an interview: “I was disillusioned by many doctors and the first time I went to God is Love I was detected with cancer. The presbyter announced the revelation of God but I did not want to go up to him. It took me a few

11 In his study about the Andean malignancy, titled Imperfecciones, demonios y héroes andinos, Ortiz (1986) states: “No one but many are the Andean demons …. Some more than others, but all of us are susceptible to be gods or demons.” See also Taussig (1980). brazilian pentecostalism in peru 129 minutes, but I ended up going and now I am healed.” Testimonies of this kind and the bodily collective manifestations during the worship, such as dancing, shaking, screaming, clapping and various forms of ecstasy, leave no doubt to IPDA followers that they have access to divinity. All these factors become more significant for the Andean migrants heavily stigmatized by the Lima elites. IPDA offers not only symbolic compensation (Mendonça 1984: 9) through cultural acceptance, but material benefits that the believers are convinced come from God: miracles, health, economic improvement, and solutions to family problems.

Andean Culture and the Fascination with Portunhol

Like their beliefs, indigenous languages have not been eradicated. Their influence remains, even in people who have learned Spanish. The Andean migrant retains, despite the years, the influence of phonetic indigenous language, Quechua or Aymara, and exchange the ‘i’ for the ‘e’ and ‘o’ for the ‘u.’ This happens even when parents no longer speak their mother language. In Lima, serranos are quickly identified by their way of speaking and immediately subjected to disdain and marginalization. In my fieldwork at IPDA services in Lima, I saw good examples of the influence of indigenous language. Underlined letters in the left column are those that were changed. In the right column the correct way in Spanish: Table 3. Alternative pronunciations in Spanish are legitimized by Brazilian pastors who communicate through a mixture of Spanish with Portuguese, the ‘inter-language’ popularly known as Portunhol. This is an interesting linguistic phenomenon of ‘prestigious imitation’ (Mauss 1974). Peruvian IPDA leaders and the faithful imitate words and even phrases from Portunhol used by Brazilian leaders. For example, the Peruvian presbyters constantly

Table 3. Serrano and Spanish words mais fuerte más fuerte bendece bendice maravelloso maravilloso Cresto, santo to nombre Cristo santo es tu nombre espéreto santu de deos espíritu santo de dios me alma te glorefica mi alma te glorifica conferma grande melagro confirma grande milagro conferma tos redemedos confirma a tus redimidos 130 dario paulo barrera rivera use in their preaching the words ‘tá compreendendo’ (Do you understand?), of common use in Portuguese. During exorcisms, IPDA’s congregation follows the pastor’s voice screaming to expel the devil ‘Sai! Sai!’ or ‘Saia! Saia!’ (Out!) and ‘Queima! Queima!’ (Burn!). In Spanish these words would be ‘Sal!’ or ‘Salga!’ and ‘Quémalo!’ Another example is the omission of the preposition ‘a’ after the verb, obligatory in Spanish when the person is a direct object. This preposition is also mandatory in Spanish after a few verbs like ‘ir’ (to go). The following examples show how the congregation of IPDA, following the Brazilian pastor’s Portunhol, omits the preposition ‘a’ or replaces it with the preposition ‘para,’ rarely used in Spanish and frequent in Portuguese. Here are some expressions I collected at IPDA’s services, with the correct form in Spanish in parentheses: Confirma tus redimidos (confirma a tus redimidos) Vamos escutar el Servo de Dios (Vamos a escuchar al Siervo de Dios) El Señor habló para el Misionero David Miranda (El Señor le dijo al …) The Portunhol of Brazilian pastors facilitates the entry of Peruvians in the IPDA’s hierarchy in Lima, because it matches linguistic markers in the Spanish of Andean migrants, who make their preferred clientele. This matching effectively changes the valence of these markers, making them not the source of racial discrimination but of empowerment. In observations of IPDA worship services in Lima and Trujillo in January, July and December of the last four years, I found an increasing number of leaders from Andean origin. In the 1990s, during field research in the city of Lima, I found that it was common among Brazilian pastors to rehearse their Portunhol to communicate with the faithful. However, David Miranda initially did not engage in these linguistic exercises. When Miranda first transmitted messages by radio, or even when he visited Peru, Miranda always spoke in Portuguese and another person translated. In the last three years, I found that Miranda, little by little, is taking advantage of Portunhol. In early September 2007, I heard on the Internet a message from David Miranda speaking from São Paulo to the Peruvians, and coming via satellite to the station of ‘Radio Victoria’ in Lima. On that occasion, IPDA announced to the faithful in Lima that Miranda would be preaching the following Saturday from São Paulo and invited them to go to a coliseum near the center of Lima to hear his message. Miranda himself invited Peruvians for this event. Below is the text of Miranda’s message. I emphasize the words in Portunhol and set in brazilian pentecostalism in peru 131 parentheses its correct form in Spanish. I have also put in italics idiomatic expressions that cannot be literally translated. Hermanos, yo conheço (conozco) la fé de los peruanos. Tem (hay) que llegar temprano, devido (debido) o (al)fuso (uso) horário de Brasil. Nós (nosotros) temos (tenemos) que iniciar muy temprano em (en el) Coliseo Cerrado, no (en el) centro de Lima, ponte (puente) de (del) Ejército. Onze (once) de la mañana, nossos(nuestros) hermanos, hermanas, reporteros, reporteras. Concorram (concurran) temprano. Milagros sem (sin) limites (limites). Usted vai (va a) ver milagros como no (en el) Estadio Nacional, cento e setenta e três (ciento setenta y tres) paralíticos. O (el) estádio superlotou (se repletó). Não vai forçar (no insista) senão (sino) vai dar tumulto (va a haber conflicto). Se (si) chegar (llega) atrasado, a (a la) hora que o (el) misionero orar (ore), usted vai (va) fazer entrega total (va a entregarse totalmente). Em (en) tua (tu) vida vai (van) ocorrer (ocurrir) milagros sem (sin) limite (limite). Não fica nervioso (no se preocupe). Do lado de fora (afuera) o (el) milagre (milagro) está garan- tido (garantizado). Ustedes vão (van a) ficar (quedarse) maravillados. Até (hasta) este domingo hermanos. Estarei predicando (voy a predicar) la (el) mensaje para todos ustedes. Até logo mais (hasta muy pronto). Les hablo de San Pablo.12 In this message from Miranda, we detect similarities between his Portunhol and the Spanish of Andean migrants. When speaking Spanish, Andean migrants show several phonetic patterns, the most common of which are: (1) mixing vowels, particularly exchanging ‘e’ for ‘i’ and ‘u’ for ‘o’; (2) turning paroxytone words into proparoxytone words13 (e.g., ‘clínica’ for ‘clinica’), and (3) changing the gender of nouns from male to female. Another curious coincidence helps Brazilian leaders to be well understood by indigenous migrants. A large number of Portuguese words ending in ‘gem’ (garagem, reportagem, mensagem, engrenagem, bagagem, maquia- gem etc.) are feminine, whereas the equivalent words in Spanish end in ‘aje’ (garaje, reportaje, mensaje etc.) are masculine. However, Andean migrants

12 “Brothers and Sisters, I know Peruvians’ faith. You have to arrive early because of the Brazilian time zone. We have to begin very early in the Coliseum near the Army Bridge in downtown Lima. Eleven in the morning, our brothers and sisters, and reporters. Very early. Unlimited miracles. You will see miracles like those at the National Stadium, 173 handicapped people! The Stadium was full. Don’t force your way in, otherwise there will be problems and conflict. If you arrive late don’t try to get in. You must stay outside. When the missionary prays you have give yourself totally. In your life you will receive unlimited miracles. Don’t worry. Outside the Coliseum the miracles are guaranteed as well. You will be astonished. See you next Sunday. I will be preaching to all you. See you soon. I am speaking to you from São Paulo” 13 Words are classified into oxytone (stress on the last syllable, e.g., ‘papá’ or ‘café’), paroxytone (accent on the penultimate syllable, e.g., ‘árbol’ or ‘mesa’) and proparoxytone (accent on the penultimate syllable e.g., ‘lámina’ or ‘página’). 132 dario paulo barrera rivera do not say, ‘el garaje,’ but ‘la garaje,’ ‘el mensaje’ but ‘la mensaje’ (i.e., they use the feminine article). In a similar way, when Brazilian leaders of IPDA learn these Spanish words, they use feminine articles, as in Portuguese, thus using the Andean migrants’ way of talking even without realizing it. These examples lead us to conclude that Andean migrants in Lima may not only be attracted to the IPDA’s style of worship, but also may find appealing that they can express themselves freely and with legitimacy, as the Portunhol used in the church becomes a mechanism of enhance the reputation of their Spanish. Also, the campaigns with Brazilian pastors are the most disseminated by radio and the Internet. The prophets who do not speak Spanish correctly are most admired, revealing the fascination with a hybrid language that is both strange and familiar, that marks difference but also garnishes prestige. In other words, the linguistic liminality of the Brazilian leaders plays a major role in making them appealing. The use of Portunhol is advantageous for both groups – indigenous Peruvians and Brazilian pastors/missionaries – functioning as an in- between language that allows cross-communication. For Brazilians, it is not a matter of learning perfect Spanish to spread the Gospel, while for Peruvians, there is no need to learn Portuguese (Corder 1981; Ortiz 2002). We could say that Portunhol is like a ‘pidgin’ constructed with the intention of facilitating communication across two different languages. However, we should also take into account the fact that Brazilians pastors and missionaries really believe that they speak Spanish well. This is clear in the unin- hibited ways in which they use Portunhol not only in temple services but also on the radio and the Internet. No one corrects or even questions the Brazilian pastors’ Portunhol and, little by little, their phonetic and grammatical mistakes begin to ‘fossilize’ (Ortiz 2002), for it is precisely those mistakes, which are perceived as a different and privileged way of speaking Spanish, that contribute to making the speech of these pastors attractive to Andean migrants. In November 2009, I followed the messages and images on the website of the IPDA in Peru for a month. Two novelties called my attention. First, the Gospel concerts of the singer Ereni Miranda in Spanish. It is more difficult to detect Portunhol when she sings, but in the few breaks, when she asked for public participation, the mixture of the two languages became evident. For instance (the correct form is in parentheses): “vamos cantar todo mundo” (vamos a cantar todo el mundo), ‘mais forte’ (más fuerte), ‘mais uma vez’ (una vez más), ‘feche os olhos e sinta’ (cierre los ojos y sienta), ‘Jesus está aqui igreja’ (Jesús está aqui iglesia), ‘as mãos mais altas para Jesus’ (Las manos más altas para Jesús). brazilian pentecostalism in peru 133

The second innovation on the site is the presentation in the worship services of Peruvian ‘folk music groups.’ In Peru, it is very common for music groups among young indigenous people from the Andes to use the typical instruments such as the ‘bombo,’ the ‘sicuri,’ the ‘zampoña,’ and the ‘quena.’ Originally, these autochthonous instruments of Andes were not permitted in the services of IPDA. Recently, however, these groups have gained ground in worship and present themselves wearing the typical dark colored dresses and ‘ponchos.’ In other words, markers of indigenous identity, such as clothing and Andean instruments have gained legitimacy in the Peruvian IPDA, breaking the rigidity of the Western suit and introducing new rhythms into IPDA services. There is no doubt that the leaders have found that Andean migrants are very keen on their folk rhythms, important symbolic representation of national identity in Peru. One of the most common practices in the worship services of IPDA is ‘glossolalia’ or speaking in tongues. What would be the importance of this practice for a poorly educated audience, which suffers discrimination on account of their difficulties in speaking Spanish? The answer to this question lies in the relationship between speech and emotion. In IPDA, the speech is minimal, and emotion maximum. The rigidity and stress on logic that is part of a doctrine-heavy approach give way to a strong appeal to emotion. In this sense, speaking in tongues is an overvaluation of emotions that disrupts the speech, reducing it to phonetic forms without any fixed structure. This, in turn, opens spaces to express creativity and innovation among those engaged in the practice (Goodman 1972). The glossolalia practiced in IPDA is not intended to communicate through words. The importance of emotion is undeniable. One can notice it in the dramatic facial expressions, the uncontrolled movements of the body, and volume of the voice. Given the collective effervescence generated, glossolalia functions as ‘non-verbal communication’ (Samarin 1972). Just like the use of Portunhol, the centrality IPDA’s glossolalia is a mechanism of symbolic empowerment. Both are affirmation of linguistic freedom - evidently confined to services – by a silenced people, a people socially and culturally deprived from the power of expressing themselves. Migrants are recognized by their clothing and physical traits, as well as by their accents and obvious phonetic problems resulting from the strength of indigenous language. The migrant suffers from acute ‘social aphasia.’ Indigenous languages like Quechua and Aymara historically have been regarded as inferior in Peru and those who use them have been regarded as intellectually inferior due to their inability to master the official language, in the sense analyzed and criticized by Labov (2008). This sociolinguistic 134 dario paulo barrera rivera dislocation becomes stronger in the urban context. In this context, it makes sense to search for religious services providing an affirmative space of social expression that daily urban life denies. In that sense, the value of speaking in tongues is more than language retrieval; it is the recovery of freedom in the sense of overcoming the forms of behavior that clearly limit people’s sense of themselves, particularly of the place they occupy in modern Peru. In this case, it is the freedom to circumvent the minimum standards for the correct use of language. There are very few contexts in which Andean migrants are able to exercise this freedom. In their worship at IPDA, they have ample freedom, though fleeting, to express themselves. Glossolalia does not remove the marks of social discrimination, but is one of the elements of Pentecostal worship that constitutes a space where the impact of such discrimination is reduced.

Conclusion

In this chapter, I showed how certain affinities between, on the one hand, the IPDA’s teachings, modus operandi, and Brazilian identity, and on the other hand, Andean migrants’ worldview and ethos contribute to this church’s strong appeal among this growing population in Peru. While I focused primarily on sociolinguistic issues, there is a host of cultural affinities that are worth exploring. The IPDA’s vision of the world as populated with evil spirits and demons that cause illness, misfortune, and strife allow Andean migrants in large, baffling cities such as Lima to find a meaningful explanation within their worldview of the difficult and challenging realities they often face. Moreover, while the figure of the charismatic pastor is central in many Pentecostal churches, in IPDA David Miranda occupies a particularly exalted place, and serves as the point of reference for all the temples throughout the world. Miranda is considered a prophet with direct connections to God, who receives revelation on all aspects of church life even in the diaspora, including the transfer of a pastor to another church, town or country, the undertaking of any special campaign, and also the increase in certain types of disease in some cities. Local prophets on duty follow Miranda’s example during the services. What was ‘revealed by the Spirit’ cannot be debated. Such a view of revealed, spiritual leadership dovetails with the authority and prestige accorded to local religious healers and shamans in Andean religions. Ortiz found that in Peru there are experts in specific magical practices, such as those who do evil magic, those who heal brazilian pentecostalism in peru 135 with herbs, bone healers, fortune tellers who use the coca leaf, those who use corn grains, those who heal with cuy (Andean guinea pig), and experts in healing susto (fright), and the evil of shadow (Ortiz 1985: 65). According to Polia, “Today’s Andean healer, despite the long process of deculturation, osmosis and cultural syncretism suffered, is depositary and continuer of the theory and practice of the traditional shaman” (1989: 199). Cloudsley argues that “in Peru there is an infinite number of beliefs that range from indigenous communities in the mountains to the folk healers in urban areas, particularly in Lima and the cities near the coast” (1996: 175). Despite these multiple affinities, the role of language should not be underestimated, for in Peru it is one of the most important markers of marginalization which serranos, who are the IPDA’s main constituency in the country, experience in everyday life. Here, the similarities between denigrated Spanish of Andean migrants and the prestigious Portunhol of Bra zilian pastors offers a measure of symbolic empowerment, in much the same way glossolialia does for populations that have been excluded or silenced. In the context of IPDA, a socio-linguistic disadvantage is transform into religious power and social recognition. This is, then, not a case of passive reception of a new, Brazilian religion. Rather it is a case of the ‘glocalization’ of a Brazilian church, the creative adaptation of a transnational movement to local conditions, an adaptation in which both indigenous Peruvians and Brazilian pastors and missionaries play an active role.

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Marzal, M. 1988. Los caminos religiosos de los inmigrantes en la gran Lima. Lima: PUC. Mauss, M. 1974. “As técnicas corporais.” In Sociologia e antropologia. São Paulo: EDUSP. Pp. 212–234. Mendonça, A. 1984. O celeste porvir. A inserção do protestantismo no Brasil. São Paulo: Paulinas. Ortiz, A. 1985. “Símbolos y ritos andinos: un intento de comparación con el área vecina amazónica.” Anthropologica, 3: 61–85. Lima: PUC, Departamento de Ciencias Sociales. ——. 1986. “Imperfecciones, demonios y héroes andinos.” Anthropologica, 4: 191–224. Lima: PUC, Departamento de Ciencias Sociales. ——. 1990. “Expresiones religiosas marginales: el caso de Sarita Colonia.” In Pobreza urbana: interrelaciones económicas y marginalidad religiosa, ed. M. Valcárcel. Lima: PUC. Ortiz, M. L. 2002. “A transferência, a interferencia e a interlingua no ensino de línguas próximas.” In Congreso Brasileno de Hispanistas, 2, San Pablo. http://www.proceedings .scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=MSC0000 000012002000100039&lng=en&nr m=abn, Accessed June 27, 2012. Ossio, J. 1973. Ideología mesiánica del mundo andino. Lima: Ignacio Prado. Polia, M. 1989. “Contagio y pérdida de la sombra en la teoría y práctica del curanderismo andino del Perú septentrional: provincias de Ayabaca y Huancabanba.” Anthropologica, 7: 194–231. Lima, PUC, Departamento de Ciencias Sociales. ——. 2001. La sangre del cóndor. Chamanes de los Andes. Lima: Fondo Editorial del Congreso del Perú. Portocarrero, G. and I. Soraya. 1992. Sacaojos. Crisis social e fantasmas coloniales. Lima: Tarea. Samarin, A. W. J. 1972. Tongues of Men and Angels. The Religious Language of Pentecostalism. New York: Mac Millan. Steigenga, T. and E. Cleary, eds. 2008. Conversion of a Continent. Contemporary Religious Change in Latin America. New Brunswick, NJ and London: Rutgers University Press. Taussig, M. 1980. The Devil and Commodity Fetishism in South America. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press. Tomoeda, H., T. Fuji, and L. Millones. 2004. Entre Dios y el Diablo. Magia y poder en la costa norte del Perú, Lima. Lima: Instituto Francés de Estudios Andinos, PUC. Wachtel, N. 1990. Le retour des ancêtres. Les Indiens Urus de Bolivie XXe – XVIe siècle. Essai d’ histoire régressive. Paris: Gallimard. CATHOLICISM FOR EXPORT: THE CASE OF CANÇÃO NOVA

Brenda Carranza and Cecília Mariz

The last census (2010) in Brazil indicates that, despite declining as a percentage of the overall population, Catholicism continues to be the country’s dominant religion. 64% of the population—about 122 million— consider themselves Catholics, while Pentecostal Protestants represent 22.2%.1 According to a recent study by the Pew Forum (2006), the majority of these Catholics (57%) identify themselves as Charismatics.2 Officially, 10 million Brazilians are organized in 20,000 prayer groups and diocesan, state, and national coordinating bodies, as well as missionary projects and training programs for youths and leaders that are the backbone of the Charismatic Movement in Brazil.3 These numbers point to emergence of the Catholic Renewal Movement (CCR) as a major creative player in the revitalization of Brazilian Catholicism, a role that, given Brazil’s increasing global clout and the fact it is the country with the largest number of Catholics in the world, has potential implications beyond the nation. In 1968, nearly sixty years after American Protestant Pentecostalism came to Brazil, American Jesuit priests introduced the Catholic Charismatic Renewal in Campinas, in the state of São Paulo (Carranza 2000: 29). Like the Pentecostal and Neo-Pentecostal movements, CCR has preached a stern message of sexual and family morality and has engaged in direct combat with Afro-Brazilian and non-Christian religions, such as those in the New Age movement, accusing them of being evil (Mariz & Machado 1994; Machado 1996; Mariz 1999; Almeida 2003; Carranza 2005; Mariz 2009; Mariz and Aguillar 2009). Moreover, like its Pentecostal counterparts, the Brazilian CCR movement relies on mass evangelization through the media,

1 See http://www.sidra.ibge.gov.br/cd/cd2010CGP.asp?o=10&i=P, accessed September 1, 2012. 2 Spirit and Power: A 10-Country Survey of pentecostals. In A Project of Pew Reserch Center, 2006: 76. See http://www.pewforum.org/Christian/Evangelical-Protestant -Churches/Spirit-and-Power.aspx, accessed September 1, 2012. 3 Interview #10. M.V, September 2011, from the archives of the Center for the Study of Latin American Pentecostalism, coordinated by Paul Freston and supported by the Pentecostal and Charismatic Research Initiative (PCRI), University of Southern California (directed by Donald Miller). The interviewee is president of CCR-Brasil. 138 brenda carranza and cecília mariz large public events, and religious marketing. The core element of both Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianities is a global missionary project. Owing both to its pneumatic theology and spirituality and the peculiar interaction with society at large as well as with other religions, the CCR has initiated a process of ‘Pentecostalization’ within the Catholic Church. By igniting a liturgical modernization through the appropriation of a ‘gospel culture’ that has been traditionally associated with Protestantism, the Catholic Charismatic Renewal has expanded the religious market with a myriad of printed, audiovisual, and digital products that it has made available to Catholics, as they negotiate the increasing visibility of other (competing) religions. Furthermore, Charismatic Catholicism has attracted new generations of priests, creating new ways of living the priestly vows that have become quickly disseminated across dioceses throughout the country. Though led by laymen, this transformation in the clergy has aimed at strengthening institutional authority, not challenging it. In this vein, CCR stands in contrast to Protestant Pentecostalism, which tends to involve internal dissent and has a tendency to cause divisions in the churches where it has been set up. Despite tensions between the institutional authority and the prophetic leaderships of CCR, and within this lay leadership, the Catholic Church has managed to prevent schisms by establishing ‘relatively autonomous territories’ and by valuing the diversity of charismas of each new leadership. Within the CCR, these territories are called ‘new communities.’ Since the 2000s, several studies in Brazil have pointed to the importance of these new forms of religious congregation (Braga 2004; Oliveira 2004; Pereira 2008; Campos and Caminha 2009; Gabriel 2009; Portella 2009; Silveira 2009; Carranza 2011). The organizational model behind these new communities goes back to the ecclesial movements during the second half of the twentieth century. Then, as now, the goal was to turn the clock back on the process of loss of Catholic identity and practice produced by secularization. The new communities, however, take the additional task of holding off the advance of Pentecostalism. Still, in both cases, the method is the same: to evangelize the ‘structures of everyday life,’ shaping them according to the designs of a Neo-Christendom.4

4 Urquhart (2002: 7–29) identifies Opus Dei, Communion and Liberation, Focolares, and Neocatechumenates as part of this ‘Neo-Christendom.’ According to him, these movements played a key role in John Paul II’s papacy, giving infrastructural support to the massive events that characterized his international visits. catholicism for export 139

The more than 2,000 new communities officially registered throughout Brazil trace their origin and development to the CCR.5 Nevertheless, they are organically independent and vary according to the economic and human capital of their members. With names such as Pantokrator, Aliança de Misericórdia (Alliance of Mercy), Obra de Maria (Mary’s Work), Shalom, and Canção Nova (New Song), they engage in multiple pastoral works and social projects.6 The latter two communities deploy a considerable missionary thrust based on expert use of the means communication, serving as models to many other small new communities. Shalom was founded in 1980 in the Northeast of Brazilian by layman Moysés Azevedo, who is the representative of the new communities in the Vatican. Presently, it has more than 1,500 members, 45 mission houses in Brazil and 12 abroad. Canção Nova (CN),7 for its part, was founded in 1978 by Monseignor Jonas Abib and laywoman Luzia Santiago. With more than 1,000 members, CN operates in Southeastern Brazil but has dozens of mission houses throughout the country and abroad. Both communities have similar trajectories, growth strategies, and modus operandi in terms of the professional use of religious marketing and the accumulation of media outlets that enable the wide dissemination of their Charismatic Catholicism. In using the same missionary strategies abroad which focus on renewal, Shalom and CN fulfill the Vatican’s expectations of re-Christianizing the world and bringing back to the Church those Catholics that have distanced themselves from the institution.8 This is clear in the case of the Catholic Church in the US, where 54% of Charismatics are Hispanic while only 12% are non-Hispanic Catholics.9 In this context, groups like Shalom and CN can play a vital role, not only ensuring that immigrants do not lose their

5 Interview # 26. A.B. August 2011, from the archives of the Center for the Study of Latin American Pentecostalism, coordinated by Paul Freston and supported by the Pentecostal and Charismatic Research Initiative (PCRI), University of Southern California (directed by Donald Miller). The interviewee is the founder of the new community Pantokrator, which inaugurated its international mission in France in 2010. 6 They are known as covenant communities in the U.S, and communautés nouvelles, in France. The French Catholic yearbook points several of these communities: Shalom (from Brazil), L´ Emmanuel, Puits de Jacob, Verbe de Vie, among others. See http://mission .catholique.org/annuaire/311-communautes-nouvelles, accessed on December 27, 2010. 7 In the US, it adopts the name of New Song. 8 Carta Apostólica, Motu Proprio, Sumo Pontífice Bento XVI, Setembro, 2010, which instituted the Pontificial Council to promote the New Envangelization: Ubicumque et Semper, §1-3. www.vatican.va/…/motu_proprio/index_en.htm, accessed on September 1, 2012. 9 Pew Forum on Religion (2007: 31). 140 brenda carranza and cecília mariz

Catholic identity but in serving as an evangelizing bridge to other (American) Catholics. This explains the ‘reverse missionization’ process that has transformed a movement which began in the US in the 1960s and has now come back to North America through Latin American immigrants and missionaries.10 In addition to the international missionary activity of the new communities, Cardinal Odilo Scherer of São Paulo states that there are “more that three thousand missionaries—priests and laypeople—that are already operating outside Brazil.”11 In this chapter, we will focus on the Catholicism that Brazilians in the CCR export to the world, concentrating more specifically on Canção Nova. This particular focus is due not only to the fact there is more information about its activities abroad, but also because of CN’s significant impact through its use of various media. Among the new communities, Canção Nova has demonstrated a powerful ability to attract young people and to use its human capital to project itself to the world. Drawing on data collected from Canção Nova websites and interviews with members, we analyze discourses on missionary charisma and evangelistic calling. Our goal is to show how the expert use of global media is con- strued as a special calling by God for international expansion. The discourse on this call pervades the speeches of lay leaders and the preaching of the founder, Monsignor Abib.12 Further, we will demonstrate that CN’s evangelizing style and the content of preaching in Brazil follow a common pattern. The target audience and the type of project exported will depend on the bishop who invites CN to establish a community; they may support Brazilian immigrants or build up Catholic media to revitalize the faith among local Catholics. We also examine the ways in which CN responded to the exhortations of Pope Benedict XVI to engage in a ‘New Evangelization’ by becoming the leading voice in outreach to the youth and in the re-Christianization of Western society. Sexual morality, the secular rational world, and consumer culture are major concerns for CN. We pay specific attention to how Brazilian missionaries believe they are contributing to the Church in countries whose missionaries brought Christianity and CCR to Brazil in the past.

10 Pew Forum on Religion (2007: 32). 11 Cf. Youtube: Arquidiocese de São Paulo faz missão na Europa Available at: http://www .youtube.com/watch?v=0GbvUuRqOlA, accessed on September 1, 2012. 12 Coming from a Lebanese background, Mons. Abib was born in the countryside of São Paulo in 1936. For further details, access his biography at: http://www.cancanova.com/ portal/canais/pejonas/textos. Accessed on May 24, 2011. catholicism for export 141

Finally, drawing on texts, videos, and speeches available online, we analyze the experience of Brazilian missionaries in the US, France, Portugal, Italy, and Israel. We begin with an examination of the values and practices that inform CN’s outreach to young people, comparing two CN evangelistic projects that have been highly successful in Brazil and overseas: ‘Por Hoje Não, Por Hoje Não Vou Mais Pecar’ (PHN, Only for today, only for today I am not going to sin) and ‘Hosana Brasil.’

Appeal among Young People

These New Communities stirred the sympathy of Pope John Paul II, who affirmed in an official document: In our world, frequently dominated by a secularized culture, which foments and spreads models of life without God, the faith of many is put to a hard test and is frequently suffocated and stifled. In this context, there is urgent need for a strong proclamation and a solid and deep Christian formation. (…)We have [Church] movements and the new ecclesiastical communities: stirred up by the Holy Spirit they are the answer, to this tough challenge at the end of the millennium. You are this providential answer.13 This papal endorsement may be attributed to the fact these communities share John Paul II’s (and his successor Benedict XVI’s) concerns about the process of secularization and its impact on society. As illustrated below, the theology behind these communities is consistent with the discourse of John Paul II, who advocates that lay people should work to make Christian culture overcome the current secularism.14 CN’s headquarters are a huge media complex of over 450,000 square meters, located in Cachoeira Paulista, on a highway connecting Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. Having a Charismatic experience is essential to qualify for membership at CN. Article 18 of its bylaws states: “We are the Catholic Charismatic Renewal. We were born in it. We are formed within it. With it we grow. The person who feels called to Canção Nova must have had a previous experience with CCR.”15

13 John Paul II, 1998, no. 1123. Emphasis added. 14 These guidelines may be found in John Paul II. Encyclical Letter Redemptoris Mission on the permanent validity of the missionary mandate. See especially pp. 71–74; 77–80; 87–90. 15 http://www.cancaonova.pt/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id =474&Itemid=26, accessed on May 09, 2010. 142 brenda carranza and cecília mariz

Official pontifical recognition, which CN received in 2008, underpins Jonas Abib’s certainty that the movement was inspired by the Holy Spirit to cater to the needs of the contemporary society, John Paul II’s language, for “a strong proclamation and a solid and deep Christian formation.” For CN’s founder, this recognition is: “a marvelous starting point. God is always provident, as our bylaws were approved exactly by the thirtieth year of our history.”16 Momentous musical events help CN attract the youth’s strong support, serving as the movement’s technological and doctrinal advertising platform. One example is ‘Hosana Brasil’17 camp, a musical event which may be seen as the Catholic version of the very popular Rock in Rio concerts. Following this model, there are ‘Hosanas’ in other countries, such as the ‘Hosana London.’ No alcohol, drugs or violence are allowed. Many bands, singing priests, and lay people perform over several days, as young people dance and sing to the rhythm of the songs like the one by Dunga18: My place is heaven… It’s there where I want to live… And I know that money, power and fame aren’t worth it …. Because all of it will be left here behind …. The world wants to warp the way I live …. Every time I pray, I feel happy and regret what I did… Stop doing [things] wrong… Say it only for today… Only for today I am not going to sin. In these events, there are plenty of healing and liberation prayers, proces- sions, blessings of the Blessed Sacrament, testimonials of liberation, and official sermons, such as the one delivered by Father Fábio de Melo19: Every time that I allow vanity, selfishness and sexual desire to win me over, I am opening the door to the Devil. The Church teaches us that he is tied. The devil enters the world of people who are not willing to harmonize their inner conflicts …. Canção Nova is a space we recycle [your life] [um território de reciclagem], and here we are committed to your victory. Have the courage to get rid of alcohol, cigarettes, and your addictions.20

16 http://www.cancaonova.pt/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id =474&Itemid=26, accessed May 09, 2010. 17 The last Hosana Brasil drew 170,000 people to the headquarters of CN, and it was broadcast on WebTVcn, TVCN and RádioCN, between December 3 and 5, 2010. 18 José Francisco dos Santos—a consecrated layman in the community, married, and father of three kids—Dunga is a singer, preacher/composer, radio show host, writer and one of the icons of the Catholic music in Brazil. He stands as one of the most important international CN preachers. His music and lyrics are available at: http://letras.terra.com.br/dunga/, accessed on December 27, 2010. 19 Born in 1971, Melo is one of the singer priests who has attained great media attention in the country, serving as a model for the new generations of priests. 20 See http://hosanabrasil.cancaonova.com/pregacao/quebrar-as-desarmonias-interiores/ catholicism for export 143

The heavy reliance on various styles of music, including those available in the secular market, is very attractive to young people, who experience an emotional, affective and effusive inclusion. Modern and youthful rhythms are mixed with speeches filled with the captivating and traditional images of good and evil jousting in people’s lives. Evil and sin are identified in the sexual practices which diverge from official Catholic morality. Therefore, they must be combatted daily through the right prayers (Sofiati 2009: 122–126). On this account, CN’s most important evangelizing initiative is the PHN (“Only for today, only for today I am not going to sin!”), which sets out a strategy for fighting against the devil with daily efforts to “display quality in speech, thinking, feeling and acting by not leaving any space for the devil to spoil friendships, marriages, dates.”21 Inspired in the program for sobriety of the Alcoholics Anonymous, created in the US,22 PHN suggests a 24-hour watch to resist the temptations of addictions, drugs, sex, and consumerism. PHN advocates that, as Jesus has already paid for all our sins, everyone can and must be a saint. This discourse differs from the Catholic tradition described by Weber, that only special individuals (‘the religious virtuosi’) can aspire to sainthood. For PHN, being happy is being saintly and everyone can find the sainthood following CN’s own method. Characterized by a spirituality founded on the sacraments, on reading the Bible under the spiritual guidance of priests and members of CN, young people today may be ‘saints in jeans,’ avoiding sex outside marriage (Fabri and Carranza 2010: 458–477). The young participants of PHN must “live, promote and proclaim [their] chastity.” This is also understood as a way to prevent AIDS. They must use particular prayers as a resource, such as: “Saint Michael, the Archangel, defend us in battle. Be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil!”23 To keep “the goal of being saintly in modern times,” Canção Nova provides messages and practical advice during concerts using CN’s WebTVPHN or through mobile phones. As Dunga, the founder of PHN, states: “Each ‘no’ I say to sin equals to thousands of ‘YESSES’ to God… Many are the possibilities of being happy, but it is necessary not to link this desire to sin.”24

21 http://blog.cancaonova.com/dunga/?page_id=8, accessed on December 29, 2010. 22 It is worth recalling the Protestant roots of the 12 steps that inspire daily discipline among Alcoholics Anonymous. Cf. Christianity Today, July, 22, 1991: 14–21. 23 See http://blog.cancaonova.com/livresdetodomal/, accessed on November 08, 2010. 24 See http://blog.cancaonova.com/dunga/?page_id=8, accessed on December 29, 2010. 144 brenda carranza and cecília mariz

After ten years of activity, PHN is one of the most visible ‘export products’ of CN’s evangelistic style. Dunga declared on WebtvCN: Today, I convey this proposal to Brazil and to the world, and wherever I preach. PHN is a new option to help us find the beauty of our Church, its sacraments, dogmas, traditions, saints and God’s Word, with the straight forward intent of saying each day ONLY FOR TODAY …. I have already visited many countries, like the USA, France, Germany, Portugal, Italy, Canada, Japan, Israel, and I found Christians who got enthusiastic about this proposal in all of them.25 Dunga also believes PHN is important for Brazilians immigrants in New York. He asserts that “Here (…) immigrants live, struggling to make a living, and we can see … the ‘firm intentions’ of the Brazilians… PHN fits very well with them; it is just perfect for helping them attain a sound life… seeking sainthood, saying no to sin here in the US.”26 Both Hosana Brasil and PHN offer themselves as strong social support networks which make feasible a life-style that is in tension with the prevail- ing values in contemporary society. To negotiate the perils of this society, followers are advised to keep spiritually pure and sometimes to separate themselves physically by living in ‘holy’ places. CN, thus, becomes a ‘place’ for salvation. By building spaces where young people can express their Catholic identity, CN defends an inner asceticism grounded on a theology and morality of routine struggle against the devil. Under the motto ‘to make all things new,’ the movement legitimizes and enhances its capacity to operate as a corporation and to undertake simultaneously a number of projects which demand huge human and financial resources. The internal, corporate and hierarchical organization of members is precisely what allows CN to carry out these multiple projects.

Holy Communities in Pagan Contexts

We live in a society which declares independence from God and assumes a rebellious behavior. In this context, we must embody the opposition to this status and obey God’s will, forming saintly people by being role models. (Mons. Abib)27

25 See http://blog.cancaonova.com/dunga/?page_id=8, accessed on December 29, 2010. 26 See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwgtQkDXfTo, accessed on December 29, 2010. 27 Mons. Jonas Abib preaching on January 5, 2008. See http://www.webtvcn.com/video/ pjonas_rebeldia/p/&palestras&, accessed on December 20, 2010. catholicism for export 145

New communities are constituted by celibate and married laypeople, as well as priests, who, moved by the need for bringing God into the secular world, are consecrated to a life of poverty, obedience, and chastity. Currently, CN has 25 mission houses with 966 members, who may choose from two options: they may commit to a ‘community of life’ or to participate in an ‘alliance community.’ Members of ‘communities of life’ are exclusively committed to religious work and live in the same house. They may, for example, take care of mission houses, media projects, evangelistic activities, and fundraising efforts to support initiatives both in Brazil and abroad. The members of the ‘alliance community’ dedicate themselves to secular work, while living with their families and being employed in ordinary jobs. However, they share the same missionary spirit with members of communities of life, with whom they often collaborate. These new communities stand as centers for the radical experience of Catholicism, demanding ruptures with the secular world and the pursuit of the sainthood in daily life. Followers, then, must be very disciplined and obey their spiritual advisors, maintaining sexual chastity, both in celibacy and marriage, and taking vows of poverty. The members of the community of life depend on ‘Providence’ to subsist, i.e., donations. Because they provide an intimate and intense community experience that can change the lives of its members, Canção Nova communities are a new form of ecclesial organization that has proven very attractive. Obedience plays a fundamental role in the missionary work of the community. Consecrated followers give up their freedom of choice, as God chooses for them. As a young person puts it: “we do not decide the mission we will engage in. The Council [of Canção Nova] decides it through meetings called to determine the place where the missionary may go… we know that the Council is the voice of God, therefore we obey it” (M.S.A. Interview March 29, 2010). To satisfy this demand, the “new apostles of the 21st century” participate in the training program of Canção Nova missionaries. Before they are consecrated, all of them must go through pre-disciple, disciple, and junior stages, irrespective of aspiration to priesthood, celibacy, or marriage. The trainers arrange spiritual guidance, confessions, monthly meetings and ‘Good Death’ retreats (retiros da Boa Morte). In the words of a laywoman trainer: During this period, the missionaries strengthen the identity of the Canção Nova charisma and learn to deal with their own human development linked to the work of reconciliation of personal salvation. This training is more intense because the fewer the outstanding matters (affection, family, 146 brenda carranza and cecília mariz

community and spiritual life), the better it is for them [the missionaries] to identify deeply their calling (Vera Lúcia Reis).28

The decision to trust one’s personal subsistence and the stability of the organization only to Providence is part and parcel of the theological guidelines underlying the economic relationship of CN members, as expressed by the words of the founder:

God needs to be first. This is God’s system! The world fooled us and we fell for it. One has to abandon this system as soon as possible; it is killing our families, our children, our marriages… If you seek God in the first place, if you seek his Kingdom to be implanted as the first investment in your life, everything else will be given to you as a bonus. Life, health, food, clothing, present and future …. God is the provider!29

The constant invocation of Divine Providence is supplemented by marketing strategies for fund raising which support the media investments and by spiritual resources to avoid sinning (PHN), including a tight community of life that helps resist the ‘temptations of the world.’ With these strategies, CN members can confront the secular rationale of the individualism and mass consumption of contemporary society. However, although the discourse of CN criticizes consumerism, it embraces religious consumption. According to Eliane Oliveira (2009: 197), one of the tools that CN uses to oppose to this consumption society is the ‘life in the Spirit,’ i.e., the charismatic religious experience, the ecstasy of Pentecost lived in daily life. This experience of ecstasy helps unite the community and serves as a centrip etal force that keeps the movement closely connected to the Church. However, CN’s mission of re-sanctifying social spaces and competing with secular culture forces it to focus on the ‘world’ and use its tools, particularly the mass media. Furthermore, Canção Nova’s drive to evangelize transnationally requires raising large quantities of money. Thus, the community needs to foster religious consumerism, set up virtual stores and resort to corporate tools.

28 See http://comunidade.cancaonova.com/preparacao-para-a-vida-consagrada/, accessed on December 17, 2010. 29 Magazine Canção Nova. Year XI, n.110. Feb 2010: 05. catholicism for export 147

A New World within Reach

Canção Nova’s strength lies in the means of communication. The rest refers to structures which any community may have. We are grateful for having the means God provided us and for conveying a God which is alive and experienced by us. This is the gift the world craves the most to have, as it matches its major need (Mons. Abib).30 Animated by the belief that CN’s mission represents a technological modernization of the Church in Brazil, CN Radio System was founded in 1980, followed by TV Canção Nova in 1989. Over the following years, CN has diversified its means of communication with the goal of being at the cutting edge of missionary work. Canção Nova Communication System currently ranges from a magazine (with a publishing house), radio (AM and FM), TV, Portal, WebTV, and Mobile (including transmission of pictures, songs, images, videos and preachings through mobile phones, palmtops and IPods). The signal is transmitted by 86 Cable TV operators in Brazil, and via satellite abroad. In addition to producing and marketing books (over 1,500 titles), CDs, and DVDs (over 500), CN has a Call Center (which receives 120,000 monthly calls), an Audiovisual Department and a multi- channel marketing structure (retail, wholesale, door-to-door, catalog and e-commerce).31 The major concern of Canção Nova’s media production is to keep up with media innovations (webtv,32 blogs, second life, lifestream, wallpaper, ringtones, truetones, mp3, wik, podcast web radio, forum), as it seeks to disseminate its message nationally and internationally. The effort is always to provide a content which fulfills the desire of Pope John Paul II: “Internet is the third millennium evangelistic outlet,” and because of this, “the work of God cannot take it for granted.”33 By creating a virtual media community network and encouraging alliances through donations of amounts sufficient to develop costly technological projects, CN is one of the pioneers in the Brazilian Catholic arena.

30 See http://comunidade.cancaonova.com/palavra-do-fundador/, accessed on April 2, 2010. 31 Data available at: http://comunidade.cancaonova.com/meios-de-comunicacao/, accessed on December 18, 2010. 32 Data of the own community indicates that, in 2004, the WebCN was the first of its kind in the Catholic world, reaching over 350,000 people monthly. See http://comunidade .cancaonova.com/internet/, accessed on February 2, 2010. 33 See http://comunidade.cancaonova.com/internet/, accessed on: February 2, 2010. 148 brenda carranza and cecília mariz

It has also quickly become a strong international influence. In Portugal, CN was the first to broadcast activities at the Fatima Sanctuary through webtv.34 To support these kinds of broadcasts, CN relies on the ‘Listener’s Club’ (Clube do Ouvinte),35 a broad network of partners and contributors. According to the founder of CN, The Listener’s Club, known as the HEART OF THE WORK! … is Canção Nova Family Program, put together by benefactor partners, people who contributed spontaneously to Canção Nova, as we broadcast no commercials, which is to say that we live on Divine Providence! (Mons. Abib).36 The fundraising style is the same abroad, as reported by deacon Valdir, responsible for CN mission in France: [W]ith the help of Brazilian evangelist partners, we tried to take the Brazilian way of praising the Lord, the Brazilian way of preaching to French people… more and more people have access and enjoy our way of evangelizing with retreats of inner [purification] … All of it has to be made in French and is expensive. Nothing would have happened without you [donors]. You are the great investors of this evangelistic work. Over the nineteenth century, France sent missionaries all over the world. Currently, the European continent needs to be evangelized, and so you invest in the right work!37 Father Roger Araújo, a key figure in CN’s missionary efforts in Atlanta, Georgia, wrote to Brazilian Catholics thanking for their financial contributions and asking for help to upgrade digital equipment in the following terms: “Since I arrived in the USA, I have dreamed of having a radio for Brazilian immigrants. … This dream is in the heart of God and I am sure that we will soon have this gift for all of us. I expect your donations and prayers, so that this plan may be implemented in God’s name.”38 Using a corporate approach to raising funds from those who feel blessed (Braga 2004), CN encourages donation through a wide array of fundraising strategies and projects, such as the ‘Give me Souls’ (Dai-me Almas) campaign, which provides resources for the Canção Nova Communication System. The founder justifies these campaigns thus:

34 See http://www.cancaonova.com/portal/canais/tvcn/tv/mostramateria.php?id=2592, accessed on March 10, 2010. 35 For further details on the Listener’s Club, refer to: Ronaldo de Sousa (2010). 36 See http://blog.cancaonova.com/riodejaneiro/programa-clube-do-ouvinte, accessed on April 2, 2010. 37 See http://blog.cancaonova.com/franca/2008/09/29/a-cancao-nova-na-franca, accessed December 31, 2010. 38 See http://blog.cancaonova.com/eua/category/associados, accessed on December 21, 2010. catholicism for export 149

It is fair that we want much more money to rescue than to pervert. Look at how millions of dollars, Euros, and pounds are being invested in perverting people. That is the reason why it is fair that we have money in our hands, managing it for God, to rescue our brothers, because we cannot lose them (Mons. Abib).39 The ability to raise funds and use mass electronic means of communication is crucially important for success. The quest to expand, however, triggers a double movement. On the one hand, there is a centrifugal movement, as CN’s state-of-the-art media send its message beyond the Brazilian territory and targeting especially the US. Father Roger Araújo puts it this way: We are far from our country, but we are close to the heart of God. This website will help us with interactivity, spirituality, training and many contents necessary for our life here. We need your contribution and interactivity. We need you to make this website your home, the place of meeting of the Brazilian Catholic community here in the US.40 On the other hand, there is a centripetal force that benefits the community in Brazil. Through the international visibility of its charisma and the increased amount of information disseminated to Catholics abroad, CN reaffirms its legitimate place within the Catholic Church and also attains positive recognition from Brazilian society at large. In addition to this pay off, media play an important role in recruiting new devotees, as may be seen in the statements recorded in a video for the tenth anniversary of CN in Portugal. “I want to utter my Hosana to the Lord specifically because, over these ten years, the first Portuguese vocations have arisen, consistent with the way of life and alliance to the charisma of Canção Nova and this is the best fruit of our surrender.”41 As the following testimony shows, CN’s media helps to create a virtual sense of belonging and community. I took part in the Prayer Group in the parish. But I wanted something more. I went to the Canção Nova website … and related to the missionary proposal. I started the pre-disciple stage and the disciple stage through the Internet without having to leave my city or my family. I read the blogs of the mission houses and I want to become part of the Canção Nova family (D.S. Interview April 17, 2010).

39 See http://clube.cancaonova.com/materia_.php?id=11114, accessed April 06, 2012 40 See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7GZDEdVQZY, accessed on December 3, 2010. 41 See http://blog.cancaonova.com/tvpt/2008/08/04/hossana-portugal-10-anos-da-comu nidade-cancao-nova-em-portugal/#comments, accessed on January 20, 2011. 150 brenda carranza and cecília mariz

Despite all these centripetal and centrifugal advantages, CN remains a movement of Catholics addressing Catholics. In spite of the sizable investment of human and financial resources, CN has not managed to surpass denominational boundaries (Carranza 2011: 141–223). However, this inability does not seem to bother the community. Quite the contrary, it seems to add to its brand authenticity: TV Canção Nova, your 100% Catholic TV in Portugal, with shows grounded on Christian values and principles … our TV keeps without commercial advertisements, its shows have several formats, styles and subjects such as spirituality, journalism, interviews, children shows, events, culture, music, entertainment and much more. WebtvCN is your Catholic TV in Portugal.42 Knowing how to evangelize through the mass media outlets is the main charisma of CN. Camurça argues (2009: 71) that this special gift leads the movement to strike ‘bargains’ with the world it condemns, setting up relations of reciprocal influence between electronic media and faith. Media are not unbiased instruments; they have their own logic of interpretation and construction of reality, which follows the canons and values of modernity. Even if they are used for religious purposes, they are not free from this modern logic (Carranza 2011: 247–249). Once more, the Catholic Church’s ambivalent dialog with modernity is confirmed. If we accept the theoretical perspective of McLuhan, summed up in the saying ‘the medium is the message,’ CN is assuming and conveying some of the core values of contemporary society, which are at the same time the object of its criticism. Returning to the argument of Camurça above, maintaining an updated high-end communication system leads to significant increases in produc- tivity (measured as ratings or income), competitiveness, and the capacity to appeal to the masses and raise fund with speed and efficiency. These effects and dilemmas only increase when the community, impelled by the missionary ardor, goes beyond its territory and interacts with other cultures and values.

A Missionary Canção Nova

God is now sending Canção Nova on its public mission… We are not going to serve only in Brazil, because the Church approves of us and is opening doors for us around the world. Nowadays, evangelizing is the Church’s greatest need …. This [pontifical] recognition is not just ours [the members of the

42 See http://www.cancaonova.com/portal/canais/tvcn/tv/mostramateria.php?id=2592, accessed on April 10, 2010. catholicism for export 151

Community], but rather of the whole Canção Nova family. This success, this victory belongs to you who follow us and helps us (Mons. Abib).43 In keeping with the founder’s statement, Fernando Fantini, a missionary in the US explains how Canção Nova’s technology is the instrument to missionize overseas: CN has 200 operators which, via satellite transmission, reach the five Continents, 45 million receivers spread throughout the Americas, Europe, Middle East, North Africa, Eastern Asia and Oceania. To broaden its reach, the broadcasting station has a WebtvCN channel, the first Catholic web channel in Brazil … with distinctive content for the Internet users. The team bets on the interactivity via mobile phone, new ways of interacting via SMS … we take advantage of new tools through blogs, twitter, voice portal.44 Besides technological investments and contacts with the Church hierarchy, CN’s global vision is propelled by a supernatural interpretation of daily events. CN members feel they are in direct contact with God: [W]hen we were in the house of Canção Nova here in Rome, after communion, we said a prayer as thanksgiving. The Psalm which came to my heart was number 2: “Ask of me, and I will make the nations your inheritance.” We were brave and asked, not for us, but for Jesus Christ, nations as inheritance. We have the audacity of sons. Soon after, doors were open and we acquired the satellite. The reach of Canção Nova has gotten far. (Homily of November 5, 2008. Dom Alberto Taveira Corrêa)45 The divine appeal to carry out missionary work may be seen as the backbone of the proposal of Canção Nova. CN’s websites and documents do not make explicit calls for the missionaries to go abroad. Rather, like other new communities, CN advocates that all Christians are called to propagate their faith, a position in line with the Catholic Church’s official discourse. However, mission does not necessarily have to involve traveling to foreign lands. It may demand testifying one’s faith in one’s daily life. A missionary is someone “who announces the Gospel, making its words and the testimony of Jesus Christ one’s own …. The missionary is the person willing to go out into foreign and inhospitable lands, to open new paths in the desert or in the jungle … climb the mountain, pray … but also go down into the street and into the fields and connect with blemished men and women.”46

43 See http://comunidade.cancaonova.com/palavra-do-fundador/, accessed February 04, 2010. 44 See http://www.webtvcn.com/canal/international, accessed on December 15, 2010. 45 See http://comunidade.cancaonova.com/homilia-5, accessed September 08, 2010. 46 See http://wiki.cancaonova.com/index.php/Miss%C3%A3o, accessed on April 04, 2010. 152 brenda carranza and cecília mariz

Nevertheless, Canção Nova recognizes that its main mission is spreading the gospel to different parts of the world through media images and sounds. The idea of a geographically expansive mission becomes perfectly clear when Mons. Jonas Abib asserts in a thanksgiving speech commenting on CN’s pontifical approval that “we will not serve solely to Brazil.” Another important twist is the emphasis on the need of the Church to “evangelize in today’s world.” In contrast to missionaries who accompanied the coloniz- ers, the intent is not to speak of Christ to the ones who have never heard of him. The mission of new communities like CN is to bring wandering Catholics back into the fold, help them regain faith, bring them back to the institution and reconnect them with sacraments. Contemporary Catholic missionaries will also find in the lands of their missions already established hierarchies and communities and, therefore, they have to work on strengthening the local church, not erasing existing ways of being Catholic but opening up new possibilities. A CN mission may not be established in a new parish without permission from the local bishop, who must invite the movement. The leadership of the community may go to the bishop to negotiate this invitation or may request an invitation, but it may not arrive uninvited or unapproved, as “Canção Nova always goes after being called by the diocese… We never go without being called. The bishop of the city asks… the Council studies the possibilities… we open our heart and obey” (P.A.L.W. Interview on March 29, 2010). The CN website reports these invitations: After contact with Maronite Bishop, Reverend Paul Nabil Sayah… six members of Canção Nova were sent to the city of Bethlehem in Israel47; Dom Wilton Gregory invited Canção Nova and a priest to live and take the Good News to the capital of Georgia in the USA48; We are in France, at the Diocese of Fréjus-Toulon, under the careful eye of our bishop, Dom Dominique Rey.49 CN prioritizes its activities depending on the invitation received and the request of the bishop. For instance, the mission to the US, led by Father Roger Araújo, was invited to ‘accompany’ Brazilian immigrants. In turn, the prelate of Fréjus-Toulon in France invited Canção Nova, whose work has been coordinated by deacon Valdir, to reignite Catholicism in his diocese. In Portugal, CN seeks to support the development of communications technology and help revive the faith in the country. The missions of Italy and

47 See http://www.cancaonova.pt/casa-de-missao, accessed on April 04, 2010. 48 See http://blog.cancaonova.com/eua/sobre, accessed on April 04, 2010. 49 See http://www.cancaonova.pt/casa-de-missao, accessed on April 04, 2010. catholicism for export 153

Israel act as anchors in Portuguese for news and events in Rome and the Holy Land, while encouraging and supporting Brazilian pilgrims. The task is then to identify and recruit Brazilian Catholics who are intimately familiar with CN and can undertake the work of transplanting its various charismas. As they travel abroad, these Brazilians enter national and international networks vested in spreading a pneuma-centric Catholicism. In the next section, we address some of these missionary activities of CN in the diaspora in more depth.

Renewing the World Canção-Nova Style

Following the motto “Arrive at the four corners of Earth, beginning in the heart of Church,” Canção Nova began its expansion abroad in Rome, where it has now been established for thirteen years. The main mission in this city is to spread the word about the Pope’s activities for Portuguese language speakers, broadcasting papal audiences, pronouncements, trips and documents.50 While CN has tried to adapt to the host country, translating its portal to Italian, it has chiefly focused on encouraging Brazilian viewers to make pilgrimages to holy places and cities. The same occurs in Israel where: Since 2005, the house has achieved a number of victories, among them … the growing quality of the production of shows, documentaries and articles by the local television and Internet team; as well as the increasing number of pilgrims who, motivated by the shows broadcast by Canção Nova Communication System, have been visiting the Holy Land. No religious television does that here.51 In addition, by partnering with another new Brazilian Catholic community, the “Obra de Maria” (Mary’s Work),52 CN offers logistical and spiritual support for the Brazilian pilgrims visiting or planning to visit the Holy Land. Canção Nova also promotes special pilgrimages for Brazilian immigrants in the US, such as the one announced by Dunga in Long Branch, NJ: Have you ever thought of making a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, where Jesus walked? Canção Nova facilitates your pilgrimage across Israel, carrying with

50 See http://blog.cancaonova.com/roma/apresentacao-da-cancao-nova-em-roma, accessed on April 10, 2010. 51 See http://blog.cancaonova.com/terrasanta/historico-cancao-nova-na-terra-santa, accessed on December 05, 2009. 52 A community founded in Recife in 1992 by a lay couple that now specializes in religious tourism. See www.obrademaria.com.br, accessed September 4, 2012. 154 brenda carranza and cecília mariz

you the reasons and intents, prayers, requests of your family members. I said pilgrimage, not engaging in a religious tour, loitering, tourism. It is a daily mission, prayer inside the bus, meditation at holy places. We are going to be immersed in an atmosphere of meditation already in Brazil, to have an experience …. we will live again the life of Jesus… We will also hold a PHN, a radical experience for young people, climb the mountains on foot, ride on a camel, sleep in the desert … it will be awesome.53 Brazilians escorting other Brazilians who live abroad is another dimension of CN’s mission, specifically for the community in the US. As Dunga stated during an English version of Hosana, in May, 2010: “In my preaching, I spoke the word ‘diaspora’ many times. I had the opportunity to go to the US a few times to preach to Brazilians, and I got used to seeing the difficulties, the problems of an immigrant’s life and so forth. Brazilians who went there to work, make a living, but that made the church their refuge, not their hiding place.”54 In 2004, in response to Archbishop Wilton Gregory’s request to come to Atlanta to minister to the Brazilian community, CN’s local coordinator described the mission in these terms: I, Father Roger Araújo, work with the Brazilian brothers who live in Georgia … seeking to live with them the beautiful experience of the Gospel of Christ far from their country. I want you to count on me and on the whole work of Canção Nova in the US. We are at your service for meetings, missions, evangelical matters and with all the potential of communication through the media that God entrusted to us, so that you and your family will not feel alone.55 Interestingly, this accompaniment of Brazilian immigrants transfers to the US the conflicts that characterize the Brazilian religious context. This is illustrated when Father Roger Araújo alludes to the conflict between Pentecostals and Catholics in his homilies, like the one he delivered at a mass for Our Lady of Aparecida in Boston. Linking Marian devotions to national identity, Araújo told his audience: If you happen to go by a Protestant church, if your family is impacted by a Protestant mission, despite all the love I have for the Protestant brothers, I beg them to listen about Maria, but they do not seem to get a word of it. You need to learn one thing for the rest of life: loving Maria is not a sin.

53 See http://www.cancaonova.com/portal/canais/tvcn/tv/mostramateria.php?id=2592, accessed on December 29, 2010. 54 See http://www.cancaonova.com/portal/canais/entrevista/entrevistas.php?id=980, accessed on May 10, 2010. 55 See http:// blog.cancanova.com./eua/category/padre-roger, accessed on December 18, 2010. catholicism for export 155

The highest grace of the Brazilian people is having a statue of Our Lady of Aparecida … and then the enemy does not want you to have statues at your house, the enemy does not want you to identify as a Catholic in your car, as Brazilian.56 Does this discourse about the conflict between Pentecostal and Catholics, common in Brazil, have the same influence for the Brazilians who live in the U.S? For missionaries, it has, even when CN adjusts the content of speeches to the different realities Brazilian immigrants face abroad. Moreover, the same strategies carried out in Brazil for issues such as abortion are promoted among Brazilian communities in the US: I want to tell Brazilians here in the US not to be in doubt. Do not cooperate with abortion … wherever you are, fight it … whether holding your rosary, whether going to Holy Mass, producing pamphlets, handouts in Portuguese or English, or helping hesitant mothers. (Father Roger, Pro-life Vigil, Washington January 2009).57 The goal seems to be not only the translation of CN’s message and of Mons. Abib’s books (a translation into English is offered through New Song Media Website58), but also crafting the movement’s message in such a way that it responds to the specific requirements of foreign countries. The translation suggests that CN considers its evangelistic task, face-to-face or through mass media, not only to minister to Brazilians in the diaspora, but to reach native-born populations in their own language. Indeed, the invitation to go to France and Portugal was not to evangelize Brazilians but to engage in a ‘re-Catholization’ of these nations. Thus, in these countries, CN starts by getting close to those Catholics who attend masses in the parishes where it is being established. Missionary activities include holding different types of meetings and events (such as prayer vigils, healing and liberation masses), which reinvigorate the community, enlivening liturgies through new songs and music camps, as well as emphasizing the study of the catechism and Scriptures. According to Márcia Costa, CN’s first missionary in Portugal, “We worshiped every Thursday; had a course on Bible with the people. We had this huge challenge: to transplant the charisma of Canção Nova to a new people, to Portugal, which is the gateway to the Europe. From there, the Lord sends us to other peoples.” 59

56 See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8U5tw4O8IE, accessed on January 15, 2011. 57 See http://blog.cancaonova.com/eua/tag/comunidade-brasileira, accessed on January 15, 2011. 58 See http://www.cancaonova.net/channels/news/materia.php?id=18023, accessed on December 31, 2010. 59 http://www.cancaonova.pt/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id =3&Itemid=2, accessed on May 03, 2010. 156 brenda carranza and cecília mariz

CN understands the translation of its blogs into English, Italian, Spanish and French as a sign of ‘inculturation,’ that is, the process of insertion of the Gospel and the Church’s magisterium into the local, vernacular cultures,60 even though Canção Nova does not have an explicit theology of inculturation. Nevertheless, despite this global vision which is part of the New Evangelization, the content of CN’s message has a strong Brazilian flavor, reflecting the same subjects which dominate the movement’s evangelization work in Brazil, as already illustrated above in Araújo’s homily on Our Lady of Aparecida. In fact, the strategies of expansion are usually the same used in Brazil. Now we have a prayer group on Wednesdays, where we take the Brazilian way of praising the Lord and its way of preaching to French people. People come, they like our way of evangelizing … we hold retreats of inner healing, the rosary of misericordia [7-day vigils with specific topics] … all this evangelization happens in French. But we also have missions in Europe where we preach in retreats in Portuguese (Deacon Valdir).61 Deacon Valdir does not explain what the ‘Brazilian way’ is, but his statement offers clues about Brazilians’ distinctive missionary style. Dunga, quoting Pope Benedict XVI, suggests that Brazilian missionaries are to take the lead as the revitalization of the faith taking place in Latin America makes it way to Europe. So, regarding the statement of the Pope, I believe that we may see that many of the Brazilians who are there, before they went to England, were members of Canção Nova, were evangelized by Canção Nova, watched TV Canção Nova on the Internet. They are now taking this large evangelization of Latin America to the European Continent. This follows the words of Benedict XVI that this continent, mainly to the South, is a major hope for humankind.62 Dunga elaborated on the place of CN within the unique Latin American contribution to global evangelization during an interview in Uruguay on the reasons for holding PHN in the USA and in Europe: The great advantage that we have is that we are poor. Poverty is noble. Poverty is beautiful. Poverty is full of grace. We Latin people are poor, we are materially poor, but spiritually rich. We have a poverty which makes us

60 Doc. Aparecida, 2007: no. 4, 94, 99 [b], 479, 49. Known as Document of Aparecida, it is part of the conclusions of the V Conference of the Latin American Episcopal Council— CELAM—held in the City of Aparecida, Brazil. 61 See http://blog.cancaonova.com/franca/2008/09/29/a-cancao-nova-na-franca, accessed on December 31, 2010. 62 See http://www.cancaonova.com/portal/canais/entrevista/entrevistas.php?id=980, accessed on April 10, 2010. catholicism for export 157

evangelists. The Latin people currently, from South America up to Mexico … are not like the USA which impoverishes through the fear, of insecurity, of consumerism. … [South] America may be a new beginning for the world. Latin America is synonymous with a vocational and hope incubator. One day, it will be not only a hope incubator, it will be a reality, when Latin people are able to speak English, Italian, and French well, we the youth of PHN will rule.63 The movement is constantly looking for new ways to expand to bring about this vision of evangelization of secular Europe and the US. For example, CN has recently been invited to work on the development of Catholic media: “the community was welcomed by the Bishop of Dallas, with the disposition of serving the Church through the charisma of evangelization in the means of communication.”64 Beyond that, CN produces of a weekly newsletter in the US and maintains 24/7 TV programming for Europe, North Africa and Middle East (Hot Bird Satellite). It also offers spiritual guidance on the Internet in France, direct transmissions from the Fatima Sanctuary (Portugal), and online coverage of the audiences of the Pope (Vatican) and his visits to other countries, such as the one to Portugal in May 2010. The urgency to continue to update and expand the use of electronic communication in CN’s global missions is evident in the account of the foundation of a house of the diocese of Fréjus-Toulon in France: “Canção Nova was established on February 9, 2005, when five missionaries were then sent to this land with a different culture and language. After some months … our mission has begun, with a project of evangelizing through the Internet, by means of website webtvcn.fr. The biggest challenge was to write the entire website in French.”65 The heavy use of electronic media abroad is complemented by the production of catechism materials such as children’s books, prayer books, CDs and DVDs with preachings, guidelines for praying the rosary, homilies of Mons. Jonas Abib, and popular versions of the magisterium of the Church. For instance, in France the movement is “investing in producing postcards; we are recording retreats, translating books and messages by Father Jonas.”66 All of this production takes place in Brazil, performed by the David Ministry (equivalent to the Audiovisual Department).

63 Available at: Accessed on: 12.03.2010. 64 Available at: . Accessed on 05.14.2010. 65 See http://www.cancaonova.pt/casa-de-missao, accessed April 04, 2010. 66 See http://blog.cancaonova.com/franca/2008/09/29/a-cancao-nova-na-franca, accessed December 31, 2010. 158 brenda carranza and cecília mariz

With all these different transnational initiatives, it is fair to ask about the obstacles faced by CN. The movement’s Websites tell us nothing about failures or criticisms generated by these missions. However, Gabriel (2009: 236–237) has written about several problems and conflicts that have arisen between CN and the Catholics of Portugal, specially the members of the charismatic renewal. He describes how some Portuguese Catholics dislike CN’s liturgical performances, seeing them as breaking with tradition. In a news report, Stéphanie Le Bars focused on a group of Catholics in a diocese in the South of France which has criticized their bishop for inviting new charismatic communities, specifically from Brazil, to substitute the elderly French in the parish structure.67 These French Catholics complain that the young foreigners are not fluent in French and thus are not able to communicate or do their work. Complaints of this sort were common in the nineteenth century as priests from France came to Brazil to take care of monasteries and local parishes. However, the direction of the evangelization flow and tensions over language, tradition, and generation are increasingly reversed; they are now taking place in Europe.

From Brazil to the World

Brazil has been historically a target country for the missions from different religions. Only recently the dynamic has changed, with the country becoming the origin of transnational and global missions. A Catholic Brazilian lay person going on mission abroad, as part of the charisma of a national group, is still a rare phenomenon. Missionaries are typically associated with traditional religious orders, priests and nuns and/or third orders, originating in Europe and the US.68 Most of the times, laymen act as volunteers rather than representatives with the mission of founding communities. Canção Nova represents a break in this age-old pattern. Although CN missionaries in US, France, Portugal, Italy, and Israel number not more than 60, including members of communities of life and alliance communities, the movement has managed to develop several effective strategies of insertion in the countries where it is established,

67 Le Bars, Stéphanie. Avignon Le prélat de la discorde. See http://www.lemonde.fr/ cgi-bin/ACHATS/acheter.cgi?offre=ARCHIVES&type_item=ART_ARCH_30J&objet _id=1145038, accessed on July 01, 2011. 68 Religious orders within Catholicism divided according to gender. They also include associated laypeople who experience spirituality and engage in activities under the order’s supervision. These associated groups are known as third orders. catholicism for export 159 generating intra-ecclesiastical networks which are laying the groundwork for a greater impact at a later time, as seen in the dioceses of Atlanta and Fréjus-Toulon in France. These strategies and networks have made possible the performance of CN’s overarching call, socializing young people, whether Brazilian immigrants or native-born, into a mass charismatic Catholicism (although the calling is restricted to small groups). The networks also allow for the successful reproduction of formats which have been successful in Brazil. For example, PHN projects and the Hosana are similar to CN’s style of evangelizing in Brazil. Other events like Hosana Portugal, held to celebrate the tenth anniversary of CN in that country, and Hosana Londres, which gathered 1,000 youths under the auspices of the prayer group Messengers of Love of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal in close collaboration with CN missionaries,69 had the same contents and style of Canção Nova events in Brazil. This is confirmed by Flavinho, one of the two CN missionaries who participated in Hosana Londres: “Jesus wants us to get tall … the fight against sin is daily, taking on this salvation is a daily pursuit. Say aloud that you are a winner. No problem—nothing and no one in this world—can take you far from your Savior. Not this world of consumption and sin in this foreign land. God is bigger than all things … Amen.”70 Dunga makes the connection between CN’s work in Brazil and the missionary activities in London: “Then this [Hosana Londres] will come to the knowledge of the bishops, cardinals and even the Pope. For it is one thing to gather 100,000 people in Brazil—this has become common—but another thing is gathering a large number of people in London. This is positive news for the Church of London.”71 The discourse of CN, whether in Brazil or abroad, consistently emphasizes the perils of contemporary pluralism and secularization, and demands a defensive life-style (against the consumerist society, the Devil, and the Pentecostals), a life style that is sacramental (healing and liberation masses). For CN missionaries, these teachings are Catholic, in the sense of being universally valid, independent from where the followers are. We argued that the strategies of insertion in the country of a mission only vary

69 The event took place in Saint Anne Church, the focal point for Portuguese-speaking Catholic immigrants in London. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kywpfd9bY7s, accessed on December 30, 2010. 70 See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kywpfd9bY7s, accessed on December 30, 2010. 71 See http://www.cancaonova.com/portal/canais/entrevista/entrevistas.php?id=980, accessed on December 10, 2010. 160 brenda carranza and cecília mariz in accordance with the movement’s pursuit of benefactors and contributing partners, friends who donate to its mission. Grounded on Divine Providence theology and operating under the premise that “with your contribution, this mission may grow!” CN deploys the same campaigns held in Brazil abroad: Dai-me Almas (Portugal), Projets pour édifier l’Eglise (France), the Listener’s club (USA). The appeal on Websites is constant. They offer accessible ways to make bank transfers, credit card payments, and other contributions. CN sees itself as inculturating Catholicism, as part of the papal call for a New Evangelization. This ‘inculturation’ is supported by the Audio Visual Department (David Ministry), which is in charge of translating catechesis materials, sermons, and songs from Portuguese into native languages of the target countries. With the evangelist goal of ‘winning all nations.’ these materials are also disseminated through the sophisticated use of mass media. However, we saw that despite the claim of inculturation, CN’s modus operandi is one of adjustment to the context in which the movement is inserted, since its missionaries are often not familiar with the culture where they work. CN also carries distinctively Brazilian concerns and styles as it travels abroad. Moreover, the movement faces the paradox that, in spite of huge investments and considerable successes, it continues to be a community of Catholics reaching out to other Catholics, as it is done in Brazil. Just as Brazil has gained new visibility in the global stage, it has now becoming a central player in global revitalization of Catholicism, particularly in countries where the Church has experienced considerable decline, the same countries which many centuries ago brought this religion to the Americas. Within this larger tendency, CN has amassed an impressive amount of human and material resources to export a mediatized Charismatic Catholicism that relies on Brazil’s standing as the second most Catholic country in the world (after the Vatican).

References

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Camurça, M. 2009. “Tradicionalismo e meios de comunicação de massa: o catolicismo midiático.” In As novas comunidades católicas: em busca do espaço pós-moderno, eds. B. Carranza, C. Mariz, and M. Camurça, 59–78. Aparecida, SP: Idéias & Letras. Carranza, B. 2000. Renovação carismática católica. Aparecida, SP: Santuário. ——. 2005. Movimentos do catolicismo brasileiro: cultura, mídia e instituição. Doctoral Thesis, Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas. ——. 2008. “40 años de RCC: un balance societário”. Ciencias Sociales y Religión. Porto Alegre, (10): 95–116. ——. 2009. “Perspectivas da neopentecostalização católica.” In As novas comunidades católi- cas: em busca do espaço pós-moderno, eds. B. Carranza, C. Mariz, and M. Camurça, 33–59. Aparecida, SP: Idéias & Letras. ——. 2011. Catolicismo midiático. Aparecida, SP: Idéias & Letras. Documento de Aparecida. 2007. V Conferência Geral do Episcopado Latino-americano e do Caribe, Aparecida, Brasil. Fabri, M. and B. Carranza. 2010. “Para compreender teológica e pastoralmente as Novas Comunidades”. Convergência, Ano XLV – No 433 – julho/agosto: 458–477. Freston, P. 1994. “Breve história do Pentecostalismo Brasileiro.” Nem anjos, nem demônios, ed. A. Antoniazzi, 67–159. Petrópolis: Vozes. Gabriel, E. 2009. “Expansão da RCC brasileira: a chegada da Canção Nova em Fátima- Portugal.” In As novas comunidades católicas: em busca do espaço pós-moderno, eds. B. Carranza, C. Mariz, and M. Camurça, 233–240. Aparecida, SP: Idéias & Letras. John Paul II. 1996. “Exortação Apostólica pós-sinodal.” Vita Consecrata (19/março/1996). Vaticano: Libreria Editrice Vaticana. ——. 1998. “Messaggio ai partecipanti al Congresso mondiale dei movimenti ecclesiali pro- mosso dal Pontificio Consiglio per i Laici.” 27-V-1998. Insegnamenti di Giovanni Paolo II, Vaticana, vol. XXI. Vaticano: Libreria Editrice. ——. 2003. Carta encíclica Redemptoris Missio sobre a validade permanente do mandato mis- sionário. 6ª edn. São Paulo: Paulinas. Machado, M. das C. 1996. Carismáticos e pentecostais: adesão religiosa na esfera familiar. Campinas: Editora Autores Associados & ANPOCS. Mariano, R. 1999. Neopentecostais: sociologia do novo pentecostalismo no Brasil. São Paulo: Loyola. Mariz, C. 1999. “A Teologia da Batalha Espiritual: uma revisão da bibliografia.” Boletim Informação Bibliográfica, 1 sem, n. 47. 33–48. Rio de Janeiro. ——. 2009. “Missão religiosa e migração: ‘novas comunidades’ e igrejas pentecostais no exterior.” Análise Social, vol. XLI (1°): 161–187. Mariz, C. and L. Aguillar. 2009. “Shalom: construção social da experiência vocacional.” In As novas comunidades católicas: em busca do espaço pós-moderno, ed. B. Carranza, C. Mariz, and M. Camurça, 241–266. Aparecida, SP: Idéias & Letras. Oliveira, E. M. de. 2004. “O mergulho no Espírito Santo’: interfaces entre o catolicismo carismático e a Nova Era (o caso da Comunidade de Vida no Espírito Santo Canção Nova).” Religião & Sociedade, 24(1): 85–112. ——. 2009. “A ‘vida no Espírito’ e dom de ser ‘Canção Nova.” In As novas comunidades católicas: em busca do espaço pós-moderno, eds. B. Carranza, C. Mariz, and M. Camurça, 195–222. Aparecida, SP: Idéias & Letras. Pereira, E. 2008. O espírito da comunidade: passagens entre o mundo e o sagrado na Canção Nova. Dissertação de mestrado. IFCS UFRJ. Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life and Pew Hispanic Center. 2007. Changing Faiths: Latinos and the Transformation of American Religion. Washington, DC. Available at: http// www.pewforum.org/Race/Changing-Faiths-Latinos-and-the-Transformation-of -AmericanReligion.aspx. Portella, R. 2009. “Medievais e pós-modernos: a Toca de Assis e as novas sensibilidades católicas juvenis.” In As novas comunidades católicas: em busca do espaço pós-moderno, eds. B. Carranza, C. Mariz, and M. Camurça, 171–194. Aparecida, SP: Idéias & Letras. 162 brenda carranza and cecília mariz

Silveira, E. 2009. “Tarô dos santos e heresias visuais: um catolicismo new age?” In As novas comunidades católicas: em busca do espaço pós-moderno, eds. B. Carranza, C. Mariz, and M. Camurça, 107–136. Aparecida, SP: Idéias & Letras. Sofiati, F. 2009. Religião e juventude: os jovens carismáticos. Doctoral Thesis, Universidade de São Paulo. Sousa, R. J. 2010. Comunidade e sociedade informacional: o fenômeno comunitário contem- porâneo a partir da comunidade midiática Canção Nova. Doctoral Thesis, Universidade Campina Grande, Paraíba, Brasil. Souza, A. R. 2005. Igreja in concert: padres cantores, mídia marketing. São Paulo: FAPESP, ANNABLUME. Urquhart, G. 2002. A armada do Papa. Sao Paulo: Record. SECTION TWO

AFRO-BRAZILIAN RELIGIONS

UMBANDA AND BATUQUE IN THE SOUTHERN CONE: TRANSNATIONALIZATION AS CROSS-BORDER RELIGIOUS FLOW AND AS SOCIAL FIELD

Alejandro Frigerio

While Afro-Brazilian religions are now present in many countries, the River Plate region (Argentina and Uruguay) has indubitably the highest concentration of temples. In the late 1980s, almost five hundred temples were registered in the Registro Nacional de Cultos of Argentina – and these were only a fraction of the existing amount (Frigerio 2002b). Since then, unable to comply with the stringent normative standards set by the tightening of bureaucratic control of the state over non-Catholic religions (Frigerio and Wynarczyk 2003), several lost their legal standing. The actual amount of temples existing in the Greater Buenos Aires, however, has steadily grown. Although there is no registry that can provide their precise number, templos are now found all over the city and also in the capitals of most national provinces. An estimate of three to four thousand temples in the country – situated mostly around the city of Buenos Aires – is probably not unfounded. These religions arrived in Argentina in the late 1960s, experienced a rapid growth in the 1980s with the return of democracy to the country, and are at this moment witnessing a second phase of growth. This chapter will describe this evolution, analyzing it within a transnational frame of reference. I see the growth of Afro-Brazilian religions in the Southern Cone as an example of transnationalization from below, one that is not primarily caused by immigration, since these religions were not taken to Argentina or Uruguay by Brazilian migrants. Borders were crossed, but only for short visits for ritual initiations, either by Argentines going to Porto Alegre, or by Brazilian religious leaders visiting their initiates in Argentina. We will see that to the extent that immigration plays a role, it is connected with the presence of Uruguayans in Argentina who were more instrumental in the spread of the religion than Brazilian immigrants. Despite, or perhaps because of, the recent growth in transnational studies, there are no unequivocal ways of understanding this phenomenon. Thus far, transnationalism ‘from below’ has been conceptualized in two main ways: either as the circulation or flow of people and/or different 166 alejandro frigerio goods from one country to another or as the establishment of a social field composed by a variety of networks that transcend national boundaries. These ways of conceiving transnationalism are not mutually exclusive, but each of them highlights, different social processes and consequences. Here I shall try to employ both, in order to show how they shed light on different aspects of the transnationalization of Afro-Brazilian religions. I will argue for the need, especially in the Latin American context, for a more variegated and dynamic conceptualization of transnational social fields, acknowledging that the networks of relationships that constitute them are multi-directional and, far from being established once and for all, wax and wane, changing in intensity, extension, direction or focus. A diachronic view of the spread of Afro-Brazilian religions into Argentina will show this diversity and evolution, which may be explained by the spread of new technologies of communication, changing socio-economic conditions and costs of traveling abroad, as well as internal dynamics specific to these religious movements.

Transnationalism as Cross-Border Flow and as Social Field

Studies that conceive religious transnationalism primarily as the circulation of people, ideas and cultural goods across national borders are usually concerned with the disembedding of certain religious beliefs and prac tices from the national, historical-geographical, context in which they originated – and where they had certain cultural and political implications as well as for the identity of those who followed them – and their moving to or reappearing in another national context (Argyriadis and De la Torre 2008). This can happen due to the migration of their practitioners (in large numbers or, in smaller ones, as missionaries) or because people from another country and/or culture travel to their place of origin to learn them, or a combination of both (Oro 1999; Juárez Huet 2004). Within this perspective, adaptations to new societal contexts, the social reception they encounter and the modifications–resignifications they suffer or undergo are crucial (Argyriadis and Juárez Huet 2008; Oro 2004). Sometimes the ideas of deterritorialization and reterritorialization (Capone 2004; Dianteill 2002) or delocalization and relocalization (Vasquez and Marquardt 2003: 35; De la Torre 2009) are used to summarize or describe these processes.1 Also, to

1 Although according to some usages of the term, deterritorialization does not necessarily imply geographical movement, here we take it to mean “unbinding of culture from its traditional referents and boundaries and its reattachment in new space-time configura- tions” (Vasquez and Marquardt 2003: 35). umbanda and batuque in the southern cone 167 explain the differential success in the transnationalization of certain religions over others, analyses may pinpoint the characteristics that help them ‘travel well’ (Csordas 2007). Whereas this view seems to be more popular among European and Latin American scholars, a second perspective, favored in (North) American immigration studies, places the emphasis on the establishing of ‘social spaces’ or ‘social fields’ across national borders. In an attempt to establish “a research agenda for transnationalism” Mahler (1998) defines ‘transnationalism from below’ “as the creation of a new social space – one spanning at least two nations – that is fundamentally grounded in the daily lives, activities and social relationships of quotidian actors…” (1998: 67). Analyses emphasizing transnationalism from below show how the everyday practices of ordinary people shape rather than merely reflect new modes of urban culture (Guarnizo and Smith 1998), while transnationalism from above describes the efforts of multinational corporations, media or other powerful elite social actors to establish political, economic and social dominance in the world (Mahler 1998: 67). Levitt and Glick Schiller (2004: 1009) prefer the term ‘social field’ to social space. Building on Basch, Glick Schiller, and Szanton Blanc (1994), they define social field as “a set of multiple interlocking networks of social relationships through which ideas, practices, and resources are unequally exchanged, organized, and transformed. Social fields are multidimensional, encompassing structured interactions of differing forms, depth, and breadth …” In order to be transnational, they have to “connect actors, through direct and indirect relations across borders” (Levitt and Glick Schiller 2004: 1009). Glick Schiller, drawing on Bourdieu, has stated that she chooses the term ‘field’ in order “to call attention to the ways in which social relationships are structured by power. The boundaries of a field are fluid and the field itself is created by the participants who are joined in a struggle for social position” (2005: 442). The ideas of ‘fluidity’ and ‘struggle,’ as we shall see, are very appropriate for the understanding of the social fields established by the spread of Afro-Brazilian religions into Argentina. Thus, the emphasis on these studies is not so much on the disembedding/embedding or deterritorialization/reterritorialization processes that seem to call the attention of scholars whose perspective I described previously, but on the “interlocking networks of social relationships across borders” that make exchange of ‘ideas, practices, and resources’ possible. The first perspective seems to pay more attention to diachronic processes, the second to synchronic ones, to how the social field is maintained. I am 168 alejandro frigerio referring to relative attention and not disregard, since studies of social fields may be geared towards how they were created – how the networks of relationships were established – therefore also providing a more diachronic perspective, or to how and with what intensity they are maintained – needing a more synchronic one. In the pages that follow, I will employ both perspectives to analyze the transnationalization of Afro-Brazilian religions to Argentina.

Transnationalism as Religious Flow across National Borders

Translocalization – Diffusion of Afro-Brazilian Religions into Argentina Afro-Brazilian religions arrived to Argentina in the second half of the 1960s, mostly via Argentine practitioners, who were initiated in and around the city of Porto Alegre in the South of Brazil, and by Uruguayans who were initiated in Montevideo (where these religions had been present since the late 1950s) (Frigerio 1998a; Hugarte 1998; Oro 1999). This double origin of the religion in Argentina has given rise to what I call a ‘Brazilian school’ and a ‘Uruguayan school’ of religious practitioners (see Frigerio 1998a for a detailed account).2 Those enrolled in the first have Porto Alegre as their Mecca, while for those who partake of the Uruguayan school, it is the city of Montevideo. While everybody agrees that the religion originated in Southern Brazil, the founding fathers, pioneers and temples taken to be the main contemporary references for their religious practices differ according to the religious lineage vindicated. Leaders like Joao de Bará (from Porto Alegre) and mãe Teta (from Livramento) who initiated the well-known and remembered first generation of Uruguayan pais de santo are considered the founding fathers of the religion in Uruguay but mean little to those who were initiated in Porto Alegre. For them, a different and more diverse group of Brazilian leaders is their main reference. The fact that the initiation period seems to be shorter in the Uruguayan school has helped its influence extend greatly in the last decade – coupled with the stringent economic situation that made travel to Brazil more costly. Thus, if in the 1980s there was one main center of gravity for temples of Afro-Brazilian

2 These are not emic categories. Practitioners belong to religious lineages that can be traced to one city or the other, and the story they have received (if any) regarding the arrival of these religions in Buenos Aires is for them the whole picture. Thus, they are largely unaware that there are two main ways of telling the story. umbanda and batuque in the southern cone 169 religions in Buenos Aires and it was situated in Porto Alegre, nowadays there seem to be two, the other being Montevideo. There are some ritual and theological differences among practitioners belonging to Uruguayan or Brazilian lineages. The main one seems to be that in Montevideo a unique version of Umbanda (known as Umbanda Cruzada) using animal blood for initiation rituals developed. The practice of utilizing animal blood is considered abhorrent in Brazil. Also, spiritual entities like the africanos (young, rowdy Blacks) seem to have developed in Montevideo and became popular in temples of the ‘Uruguayan school,’ but are very rare or do not exist in temples belonging to the Brazilian one. In the most important case of transnationalization of Afro-Brazilian religions, therefore, migration has not played an important part, whereas short-term mobility across national borders has. Few Brazilian pais-de- santo have migrated to Montevideo or Buenos Aires, and the most important figures in this expansion process are the ones living in Porto Alegre, who used to go back and forth (see Frigerio 1998a; Oro 1999). Studies on the development of these religions show that it was Uruguayans who came across the religion near the Brazil/Uruguay border and took it to Montevideo and Argentines who learned the religion in (Southern) Brazil who opened the first temples in Buenos Aires (Frigerio 1998a; Hugarte 1998; Oro 1999). Brazilian pais-de-santo were brought in regularly to perform the needed initiation rituals, but they did not stay for very long. In the 1990s, these visits become more frequent, due to the presence of a critical mass of believers but especially because the rate of currency exchange made it very profitable for them to come to Buenos Aires, initiate filhos and filhas-de- santo and provide divination with cowrie shells to a clientele that went beyond that of religious believers.3 Migration plays a somewhat more important role if we consider the Uruguayan presence in Buenos Aires. Perhaps around two dozen Uruguayan pais-de-santo have settled in the city over the years and initiated many locals into the religion. They participated in all stages of the development of Afro-Brazilian religions in the city, since its beginning in the late 1960s. For this reason, many transnational families now see Montevideo and not Brazil as their point of origin. Members of these Uruguayan lineages know that their pais or abuelos de santo, as they are more commonly known in Spanish, were initiated into Batuque by a legendary Brazilian leader,

3 During the period 1992–2002, one Argentine peso equaled one US dollar, so this allowed for “First World” financial retribution for religious services. 170 alejandro frigerio pai Joao de Bará, who visited Montevideo frequently. After Joao de Bará died, members of this lineage have kept traveling to Montevideo, where their elders who initiated them live. Thus, the mobility that explains the growth of Umbanda and Batuque in the region involves crisscrossing networks among southern cities: Porto Alegre – Montevideo – Buenos Aires.4 Travel from Buenos Aires to Porto Alegre (twenty hours by bus or two by plane) is much cheaper than to Sao Paulo, Rio or Bahia and probably explains why it was Batuque and not Candomblé that crossed the borders. Transportation to Montevideo is cheaper, since the River Plate may be crossed by a variety of means with quite different prices. This, and the fact that Uruguayan migrants who were instrumental in the spread of Afro-Brazilian religions in Argentina lived mostly in the (comparatively poorer) second ring of the Greater Buenos Aires, explains the prevalence of the “Uruguayan school” among the low- middle class and more popular sectors of the city. In contrast, the first generation of pais and mães-de-santo initiated in the ‘Brazilian school’ lived in the more middle-class, Northern municipal areas of the first ring (primer cordón) of the Greater Buenos Aires. Social class therefore joins theology and history to help explain the differences between practitioners from both religious ‘schools.’ People who go to Umbanda temples in Buenos Aires are middle and low-middle class white porteños (as the inhabitants of the city are known) in search of answers to health, job and family problems (Carozzi and Frigerio 1992, 1997). These temples practice both Umbanda and Quimbanda, syncretic variants, with strong Spiritist and Catholic influences and Batuque. Batuque, also known as Nación or Africanismo, is a more African variant – similar to the better known Candomblé of Bahia or to Cuban Santería – that thrives in Porto Alegre and developed in Rio Grande do Sul (Corrêa 1992; Oro 1994). Despite its popularity in the Southern cone, Batuque has received surprisingly small attention both from scholars as well as the general public.5 This is due to the fact that Rio Grande do Sul has built its regional identity on the presence of European immigration and the

4 For the Uruguayan school, the Brazilian city of Livramento is also important, since it was there, at the house of mãe Teta, that several of the pioneers first encountered the religion. However, it was pai Joao de Bará from Porto Alegre who, at the bequest of mãe Teta, initiated them into Batuque (Frigerio, 1998a). 5 After a brief but pioneering work by Herskovits (1943), the best-known studies are Corrêa (1992) and Oro (1994, 1999) for Porto Alegre, and Hugarte (1998) for Montevideo. umbanda and batuque in the southern cone 171 culture of gaúchos, while the existence of a significant and culturally active Black population in the state has always been made invisible. In Argentina, as in Southern Brazil and Uruguay, most temples practice all three variants (Umbanda, Quimbanda and Batuque), because they constitute different stages in the same religious path that practitioners call “la religión” (the religion) (Frigerio 1989).6 Within this religious path, Umbanda and Quimbanda are seen as the first step towards Batuque, considered the core of the religious system.7 Individuals who want to join a temple are first initiated into Umbanda (or, increasingly Quimbanda) where they are socialized into the religious worldview and practices, and only after a year or two do they undergo the ritual initiations into africanismo, as Batuque is also known in the city (Frigerio 1989; Carozzi and Frigerio 1992). Umbanda, with its use of Catholic imagery and concepts, thus functions as a ‘cognitive bridge’ between folk Catholicism and the more alien body of practices and beliefs of africanismo, as we shall see next.

Relocalization: Expansion of Afro-Brazilian Religions in Argentina Translation: Frame Alignment with Folk Catholicism In a recent attempt to summarize the main characteristics of religions that ‘travel well’ (i.e., are amenable to transnationalization), Csordas (2007: 261) has stressed the importance of their having a ‘transposable message,’ so that “religious tenets, premises, or promises can find footing across a diversity of linguistic and cultural settings.” The degree to which a religious message is ‘transposable’ depends, according to this author, on “either

6 Since they are stages in a same religious path, the worldview that, in the country, sustains these variants is the same (Frigerio 1989). Differences between them are found in the practices, especially the rituals. Sesiones (ceremonies) de Umbanda or Quimbanda take place two, three or four times a month and drumming, dancing and songs in Portuguese call down the spiritual guides of Umbanda (pretos velhos and caboclos ) or the Exú and Pomba Gira spirits (if it is a Quimbanda) to enter into the bodies of mediums in trance who then give advice on the consultants’ economic, health and love problems. Feasts of Batuque take place about two to six times a year, songs are sung in ‘African’ and the mediums are possessed by the orixás. Orixás do not arrive mainly to provide consultations, as Umbanda spiritual entities do, but to dance and share a sacred space and time with humans. The night or nights before the feast animal sacrifices are performed. 7 In the past decade there have been some new developments that complicate the picture. The first is the increasing importance of Quimbanda that is rapidly replacing Umbanda as the most practiced variant. A second, somewhat less numerically important development has been the introduction of Cuban Santería and Palo Mayombe. A third and more recent one is the presence of African Ifá lineages, started by batuque priests who were initiated in Nigeria, and who now have their own disciples in the country, thus providing a new form of ‘re-africanization’ (Frigerio 2004). 172 alejandro frigerio its plasticity (transformability) or generalizability (universality)” (Csordas 2007: 260). Because of their marked ethnic and national origins, Afro-Brazilian religions would seem to be more ‘local’ than ‘universal,’ and therefore one could expect that, in order to expand beyond their place of origin, they should have to undergo significant transformations. I will argue, to the contrary, that they are certainly amenable to cultural translation – a possibility often disregarded in transnational studies. This is especially true in Latin American settings, due to the (pre)existence in these countries of Folk or Popular Catholicism, whose logic of relationship with the sacred is quite similar to Umbanda´s. The main similarity seems to be a core belief in the multiplicity of spiritual beings who, through proper offerings, prayer or direct communication can help individuals solve specific problems in their daily lives (Carozzi and Frigerio 1992). In popular Catholicism, these spiritual beings are the saints (santos, both officially sanctioned and folk ones like Gauchito Gil, Difunta Correa, San La Muerte and others), who are believed to be closer to humans than God or Jesus. In Afro-Brazilian religions there is a wide spiritual array that includes Batuque orixás (with which Catholic saints are syncretized), Umbanda spiritual guides and Quimbanda exú and pomba gira spirits. Efforts of translation of religious beliefs can be fruitfully studied using Snow et al.’s (1986) concept of frame alignment processes, i.e., creation of linkages between the (supernatural) interpretations of religious individual and groups and a set of values and beliefs in the society at large which are perceived as congruent and complementary.8 Following Goffman (1974: 21), they understand frames as ‘schemata of interpretation’ that enable individuals “to locate, perceive, identify, and label” occurrences within their life space and the world at large. By rendering events or occurrences meaningful, frames function to organize experience and guide action, whether individual or collective. So conceptualized, it follows that frame alignment is a necessary condition for movement participation, whether its nature or intensity” (Snow et al. 1986: 464). Of the four techniques of frame alignment

8 Snow et al. (1986: 464) refer to SMOs (social movement organizations) in their definitions. However, two of the four authors of the paper (Snow and Rochford) studied religious groups and present data from these studies to illustrate the frame alignment processes (1986: 465). I believe, following Lofland and Richardson (1984) that many religious organizations can be considered RMOs (religious movement organizations) and studied using concepts and insights derived from social movement resource mobilization theory (see also Frigerio, 2003). umbanda and batuque in the southern cone 173 described by these authors, three can be identified in the conversion efforts of religious leaders of Afro-Brazilian religions in Argentina (Frigerio 1999). Most beliefs and practices of folk Catholicism are not approved or appre- ciated by Catholic priests, who prefer to emphasize that saints are models for a Christian life and not mere performers of miracles -as most of their devotees actually see them. Further, Catholic priests are also not comfortable with the independent and idiosyncratic relationships that believers establish with them. Thus, they either try to change these beliefs and practices, or pretend that they are not there -in any case, they have no place in institutionalized religion. Argentine folk Catholicism can therefore be interpreted in terms of what Snow et al. (1986), following Mc Carthy and Zald (1977), call a sentiment pool. Translating their definition originally meant for social movements into one applicable to religious movements, we can define it as aggregates of individuals who share common interpretations regarding the possible interactions between humans and spiritual beings, but who lack the organizational base for expressing their worldviews and for acting in pursuit of their interests.9 When Umbanda religious leaders come into contact with these mostly nominal Catholics who actually have interpretive schemes not dissimilar to theirs, they effect a form of frame bridging; “the linkage of two or more ideologically congruent but structurally unconnected frames regarding a particular issue or problem” (Snow et al. 1986: 467). This bridging is mostly achieved by means of interpersonal networks through which individuals arrive at temples for private consultas with the pai or mãe-de-santo. Divination procedures in Buenos Aires vary: while juego de buzios (cowrie shell divination) is considered the most reliable method, several leaders prefer to reserve it for ritual matters and use Spanish or tarot cards for everyday consultations. In the 1980s, and perhaps even today, this made the experience less strange for clients, since most of them had previous experience with diviners (adivinos, parapsicólogos) or knew somebody who had (Carozzi and Frigerio 1992).10

9 I have argued that the social identity of ‘Catholic’ that most Argentines display in the few times when they are asked about their religion, is only a weak social identity that says little about their personal identities and about their religious beliefs. Most sociological and anthropological studies overrate the religious influence of the Catholic Church in the country (Frigerio, 2007). 10 Carozzi and Frigerio (1992: 78) show that 80% of a sample of 96 clients of an Umbanda temple were familiar with some preexistent magico-religious tradition. Thirty eight percent of them had previously consulted a curandero (healer) or a vidente (diviner) and were 174 alejandro frigerio

The common formula for first consultations in temples seems to be the following: divination of some aspect of the client’s life, diagnosis of the cause of the problem which took the individual to the temple, determination of the spiritual help needed, demonstration of affect and concern for his problems and the assurance that they will be solved through the temple’s intervention. Thus, the leader confirms that the individual who consulted him is correct in having (a varying degree of) faith in the possibility of magical or supernatural help in his daily problems. The client is still unfamiliar with the spiritual beings that will intervene and the procedures to be used, but contrary to what would have been the case in a visit to a Catholic priest or a psychologist, he has had his faith in the possible intervention of spiritual beings in his daily life confirmed and not ridiculed or stigmatized. Thus, similar interpretive frames of supernatural attribution are put in contact through the consulta (Carozzi 1993). The ayudas espirituales, rituals of ‘spiritual help’ that usually follow consultas are performed in front of the Umbanda altar, rich with Catholic saints. Albeit drums and songs in Portuguese are generally used, the experience is still well within the frame of Argentine popular culture, since it is similar to attending an adivino or a curandero. Only later, when a relationship of mutual trust with the priest or with the members of the temple has been established through the performing of consultas and ayudas espirituales, the potential devotee will be invited to the Umbanda sesiones de caridad, where he will see mediums in trance with their entidades espirituales. If needed, he may also undergo more complex trabajos espirituales involving animal sacrifices. Eventually he may also go to the Batuque orixá feasts. During this subsequent cycle of consultas – trabajos – attendance to Umbanda or Quimbanda sessions, leaders accomplish frame amplification, “the clarification and invigoration of an interpretive frame that bears on a particular issue, problem or set of events.” Through the establishment of interpersonal interactions, the leader and/or his filhos who help him, amplify, reinforce and express more clearly certain themes present in their clients’ interpretive frames regarding the causes for misfortune and their remedy that were not allowed to develop because of their stigmatization by the Catholic Church. Foremost among them are the belief in the existence devotees of some Catholic saint, thirty five percent of them had consulted one of these specialists but did not declare their devotion for a specific saint, and seven per cent were devotees of a saint but had not seen a magico-religious specialist before. Only twenty percent of the sample said that it was the first time they visited such a specialist and were not devotos of any saint. umbanda and batuque in the southern cone 175 and effectiveness of magic, of daños or spiritual damages sent or caused by a third party, the harmful effects of envidia (envy) or the possibility of mobilizing a protective spiritual entity on behalf of the consultee – or an evil one against him. In Umbanda temples, these ideas are not only welcome but there is also a formidable array of magical-religious practices that specify and codify the many rituals, offerings and spiritual beings that can be marshaled for the devotees’ benefit. Thus, the belief system of Afro- Brazilian religions amplifies and reinforces ideas already present on those who come to their temples regarding the supernatural causes of their problems, the possible antagonists who are responsible, and the efficacy of the spiritual cure. The strategies of frame bridging and amplification, while allowing religious leaders to reach out towards those who share a similar frame of attribution of supernatural causality, are only good enough to establish a working relationship with a clientele who consults them regarding a diversity of problems. But in order to recruit members who are committed to the religion, a deeper task of frame transformation is needed, so that individuals will come to interpret the world – and their own place within it- accord- ing to the theological tenets of the new worldview. This implies a gradual process of conversion to the new worldview. The transformation of previous frames, implying a real conversion, takes place gradually, exposing, as we have seen, the possible or future member from situations closer to his worldview to others more foreign to it, and using or explaining new religious concepts on the basis of the ones that are already familiar. Thus, especially in the first stages of his relationship with the temple, and even in his first months as a temple member, continuous references are made to concepts familiar to popular Catholicism like ‘God,’ ‘faith,’ ‘religion,’ ‘saints,’ ‘guardian angel,’ ‘temple,’ ‘spiritual retreat,’ ‘baptism.’ Only after an individual has been a member of a temple for a period of time will he learn the correct use of foreign Afro-Brazilian equivalents like Olodumare, orixá, terreiro, filho de santo, obligación, borí or asentamiento.11 Older, familiar terms are slowly redefined and new relationships between them, and with other tenets dear to these religions, are established. In practice, frame transformation is achieved by using Umbanda, with its use of Catholic imagery and concepts, as an intermediary step,

11 Practitioners use Portuguese terms as well as their Spanish translation, and oftentimes mix both languages. 176 alejandro frigerio a ‘cognitive bridge’ between folk Catholicism and the more alien body of practices and beliefs of Batuque or Africanismo. In most religious careers that I have studied, individuals were first initiated, socialized and developed their mediumnistic abilities in Umbanda, and only later when they were more versed in the intricacies of Afro-Brazilian cosmology, were they initiated into Batuque. The development of the ability to effectively enter into trance – having no equivalent in folk Catholicism- seems to be one of the main markers of frame transformation (for a detailed description of this process see Carozzi and Frigerio 1992; Frigerio 1995). If, through frame transformation new personal identities such as ‘hijo de religion,’ “hijo de (a certain orixá, like Xangô or Iemanjá)” are finally adopted by devotees, social identities such as ‘Umbandista’ are not necessarily expressed publicly in social interactions, a fact that is not surprising, given the high degree of stigmatization these religions suffer in Argentina.12

Social Reception –The Image of Afro-Brazilian Religions in Argentina After their arrival from Brazil in the mid-1960s, for approximately twenty years Umbanda and Batuque were not socially perceived as legitimate religious movements present in Buenos Aires. Many leaders were prosecuted under the accusation of “illegal practice of medicine,” an accusation which put them in the same category as ordinary folk healers (curanderos). With the return of democracy to the country in 1982, the practice of Afro- Brazilian religions was among the many previously suppressed social behaviors that gained visibility. In newspapers and magazines of the mid- 1980s, ‘Umbanda’ (the cover term for these religions) was mentioned in the context of the development of sects or of new magical beliefs in the country (Frigerio 1991a, 1991b) and was usually described as “a sect that practices black and white magic, as well as exotic rituals.”13 In this way, the religion was doubly stigmatized: for being a sect and because it was considered

12 For a discussion of the relationships between personal, social and collective identifications in Argentine Umbanda see Frigerio (2003). 13 This definition appeared in an important newsweekly (Somos, 3/5/1986) as part of a piece titled “The growth of the sects.” Almost the same definition was repeated in another article which appeared in the Sunday magazine of the prestigious journal La Nación: “Umbanda, an esoteric cult of Afro-Brazilian origin which includes black and white magic, sacrifices and exotic rituals” (“Religious sects: a world phenomenon that irrupts into Argentina” – 5/11/1986). As an example of the ambivalent status that this new religion had, it was also included as an example of the growth of magic and magical products in the article ‘The fashion of magic’ in Clarin (4/13/1986) the country´s bestselling middle class newspaper. umbanda and batuque in the southern cone 177 magical. Animal sacrifices had already become their main stigmatizing feature, with important newspapers echoing the denunciations of animal protection groups (Frigerio 1991b). At the beginning of the 1990s, Umbanda, which until then had not been one of the most stigmatized groups, became involved in the first of three moral panics (Goode and Nachmann 1994) over sects that rocked Argentine society (Frigerio 1993, 1998b). After a child was ritually murdered in the south of Brazil, and an argentine UFO cult group blamed for his death, a Catholic priest denounced that a young girl had also been murdered in an Umbanda temple in Buenos Aires. In the wake of this accusation, the media shone their harsh spotlight on Umbanda beliefs and practices. In several television programs ex-members described initiation ceremonies which included blood and animal sacrifices, trance possessions, and lent credibil- ity to accusations that Umbanda, as all ‘sects’ were supposed to, divided families and could lead to murders (Frigerio 1998b; Frigerio and Oro 1998). After the accusations – later proven false – animal sacrifice became considered a dangerous practice that could lead to human ones. The degree of societal concern was expressed in an editorial column of the prestigious newspaper Clarin (one of the two most important newspapers in the country). Entitled ‘Dangerous superstitions,’ it stated: Without even considering the matter of murders, animal sacrifices already offends our collective conscience. The appearance of groups or people who admit to these practices indicates grave disturbances that doubtlessly call for psychological or sociological analysis more than theological critique. Superstition, magic, divinatory practices and other similar behaviors are rejected and condemned by the great religions of mankind. They do not belong to the same dimension but to a more primitive, obscure and irrational one. (…) Sources of abnormal behaviors and crimes, they are a matter of concern and call for adequate responses on the part of society which pretends to call itself civilized. (Clarín 8/3/92, my emphases) With this scandal, the threatening activities of ‘sects’ became a topic worthy of national attention, encouraging the activities of an ‘anti-cult movement’ (Bromley and Shupe 1995; Frigerio 1998b). Umbanda’s image became irrevocably tied to this controversy. From that moment on, most articles in the print media dealing with ‘sects’ featured prominent photos of Umbanda ceremonies as part of their illustration. Television programs also frequently illustrated news on ‘sects’ or on a specific group with footage of Umbanda trance possessions and drumming, even if this religion had nothing to do with the group or the event that was being exposed. Umbanda thus became the visual example of a ‘sect,’ a role that Pentecostal groups had previously played in the 1980s (Frigerio 1998b). 178 alejandro frigerio

The degree to which the image of Umbanda was affected by the media controversy is evident in the results of a public opinion poll conducted under the auspices of a provincial Parliamentary Commission for the Study of Sects. In a guided question about which groups could be considered dangerous, Umbanda placed second, after The Family, the group that had been involved in the most recent moral panic over sects (Gutierrez et al. 1995: 2677). In the late 1990s the controversy over sects diminished, but the image of Umbanda had become irrevocably tarnished. Regularly, for the past ten years, newspapers and television news broadcasts have blamed ‘pais umbanda’ individuals for murders and criminal activities, and voiced their concern over ‘Umbanda rituals’ that led to crimes. Most of these accusations are unfounded, and suggest that the police are happy to blame the religion for any criminal activity that was found associated – oftentimes only tenuously – with colored candles or certain religious images. Sharing similar prejudices, journalists are prone to divulge these views that sometimes also find their ways into juridical processes. Although in Argentina the multicultural appreciation for cultural and ethnic diversity has increased in the last decade, the ever growing number of practitioners of Afro-Brazilian religions is still an invisible and stigmatized minority. This stigma explains the need for practitioners of Afro-Brazilian religions in Argentina to engage in translation, to stress frame bridging, alignment and expansion as a way to enable these religions to travel across borders and take root in a non-Brazilian context.

Relocalizing Afro-Brazilian Religions: Developing Narratives of Belonging The social suspicions raised in Argentina by the transnationalization of Afro-Brazilian religions are, of course, not new nor a unique local development. Practitioners of these religions in Brazil or Cuba had to withstand the same accusations at the beginning of the twentieth century (Argyriadis 1999; Capone 1999). As Afro-Brazilian and Afro-Cuban culture slowly came to be evaluated in a more positive light and considered part of the national heritage and not as a symptom of mental illness or social deviancy, Black religions found a place in the dominant narratives of the nation or of certain states within it (Dantas 1988).14 This position, however, was more

14 In Brazil, the country of origin of the religions that are the subject of this article, there are wide differences in their acceptance according to the state and the religious variants involved. After many struggles – and later than is thought – Candomblé found a place in the ideological construction of the state of Bahia, whereas Batuque, as I mentioned above, was umbanda and batuque in the southern cone 179 easily bestowed as ‘cultural heritage’ or ‘folklore’ than as a legitimate religion or spiritual quest. This was the case even in Bahia and in Cuba, at least until recently. The fact that these religions have been considered mostly ‘folklore’ or (Black) ‘culture’ has consequences for their transnationalization. This precarious place they held within the nation or the region in which they originated is resignified when they become transnational. Here their devotees must try to regain a place in the (new) nation. This is particularly the case when the number of practitioners and temples becomes significant and when these religions are practiced mostly by nationals (not migrants) and in countries where nation building is based on homogeniz- ing narratives that compel individuals to lose all ethnic traits in order to become citizens. Under these circumstances practitioners of Afro-Brazilian religions have to develop strategies of social legitimation and narratives of belonging within the dominant narrative of the nation. In Argentina, since these religions became visible twenty five years ago, three main strategies of legitimation have evolved in order to argue that ‘Umbanda’ – the umbrella name under which they are known – is not a ‘foreign sect’: a religious, a cultural, and a civil rights one (Frigerio 2002a, 2003). The first one, more popular in the mid-1980s, emphasized that ‘Umbanda is a religion’ and not a ‘sect’ and stressed the formal qualities that assimilated it to Catholicism. The cultural strategy developed in the late 1980s and became popular during the 1990s. It vindicated the African and Afro-American cultural heritage to which these religions belonged, and highlighted the Black presence in the nation’s past.15 The third strategy developed in the late 1990s and, noting the ineffectiveness of previous attempts, encouraged Umbandistas to approach local and national politi- cians, as well as government officers to claim their rights to religious equality. These strategies are not mutually exclusive, although one or another has been the master frame guiding attempts at collective mobilization in different periods (Frigerio 2003).

made invisible in Rio Grande do Sul – as was true of the Black presence in the state. Umbanda gained some social legitimation as a kind of unique ‘Brazilian religion’ (Concone 1987) but as long as it could channel the accusations of ‘sorcery’ towards its phantasmal and never recognized twin brother, Quimbanda. 15 During the period 1985–1995, especially, Umbandistas staged several public events, usually labeled ‘congresses,’ by means of which they tried to call the society’s attention to the ‘religious’ and later the ‘cultural’ values of their beliefs and practices. These events featured lectures by religious leaders, anthropologists, historians, Afro-Argentines as well as films, art exhibitions, and especially, live shows of several types of Afro-American music and dance performed by Black immigrants in Argentina (Frigerio 2003). 180 alejandro frigerio

The cultural strategy, which is still employed by different practitioners, provides a narrative of belonging within the Argentine nation. This local narrative legitimizes the presence of the religion in the country by tracing it to the historical Afro-Argentine population – and not to recent Brazilian influence. Thus, finding Black culture or religion in the country’s past, devotees are entitled to its practice in the present. This strategy was boosted after the visit of the Oní (King) of Ifé (the sacred city of the Nigerian Yorubas) to a Candomblé temple in Buenos Aires. This visit, as well as the subsequent support of the Nigerian embassy to several Umbanda public events prompted many of the leaders to publicly identify their religion as ‘African.’ Thus, the Brazilian origin which had always been minimized in order to avoid accusations of being a ‘foreign sect’ was further downplayed. By labeling them as ‘African’ religions, these religions were de-nationalized; they could be found in the national past of any society in the Americas where a Black population existed. These religions, it was argued, were not patrimony only of the countries where the present-day variants originated, but constituted a common heritage of all Latin American countries because of their Black populations – no matter how much a country’s dominant national narrative downplayed this heritage, as happens in Argentina (Frigerio 2002a). This rhetoric strategy attempted to convince the local society that Umbandistas were practicing a religion that had its own (distant) roots in the country and not in Brazil, a country with which Argentina has had a long-standing rivalry for supremacy in the Southern Cone (Frigerio 2002a, 2003). Autochtonization is thus a necessary part of the successful transnationalization of these religions and serves a threefold purpose: it finds them a place in the new nation (they are part of the unrecognized Black heritage of the country), it removes their stigmatizing foreign origin and frees the local religious movement from potential surveillance by Brazilian pais and mães-de-santo.16 This is particularly important when the transnationalization process is spearheaded not by foreign migrants (Brazilians, Uruguayans) but by local natives (in this case, Argentines) and when it has been going on for some time – long enough for local religious leaders to feel they can follow their own path. The practical results of these strategies were mixed. The group of a dozen or so Umbanda leaders who most forcefully deployed them by organizing

16 When arguing that Black heritage is relevant in Argentina, religious practitioners are actually presenting a counter-narrative of the nation, going against the dominant one that emphasizes the country’s whiteness (Frigerio 2002). umbanda and batuque in the southern cone 181 several public events that they hoped would call attention to the religion’s real nature had limited means at their disposal. The media did not always cover their meetings and their voices were not heard as loud as they would have wished. However, they created consciousness among their peers that social legitimation was a worthy goal, and managed to convince some government officials who attended their meetings that they practiced a religion that deserved as much respect as any other.17 Summarizing what we have seen so far, the efforts of Argentine Umbandistas to build cognitive bridges between their beliefs and those of their potential devotees can be said to have their correspondence, at a macro level, with the several strategies of social legitimation they have displayed. In both cases, there has been a crafty use of cultural resources within the society and an alignment, at micro and macro levels, of preexistent interpretive frames with those of their religion. At an individual level, Argentine Umbandistas try to recruit committed members by effecting forms of frame alignment, reaching out to the sentiment pool composed of individuals who harbor magico-religious beliefs that are dismissed, or only unwillingly addressed, by the Catholic Church. At a societal level, these Umbandistas strive to become respectable and legitimate in the society, first by asserting their conformity with the social model of what a religion is, later by the creation of narratives of belonging to the Argentine nation. Enacting strategies of micro and macro frame alignment, they try to embed their beliefs in Argentine society without modifying or changing them. They have, however, been more successful at an individual level than at a societal one: their religion thrives but is still socially stigmatized. In addition to running counter the dominant national narrative, their practices also contradict certain cultural themes (Gamson 1988) dear to Argentine society: the idea that the country is not only white but also a modern and rational (Frigerio 1996). These cultural themes are strong even in social sectors that oppose the excluding dominant national narrative. Practitioners of Afro-Brazilian religion are thus unable to build alliances with these post-colonial actors. The communication with the spiritual world through animal sacrifices continues to create a cognitive distance between the religion and most sectors of the host society (progressive or conservative)

17 Public events were also a means of socializing legitimation strategies among their peers, leading to their further enactment by other leaders in different social contexts: smaller events in municipios of the Great Buenos Aires, radio and cable TV programs, lectures, magazines and in meetings with journalists or government officials of the state or the municipalities. 182 alejandro frigerio that no effort of interpretive work seems able to bridge. Contemporary identity politics, in Argentina or elsewhere, has no place for ‘magicians.’18

Transnationalism as Social Field

So far, I have described the transnationalization of Afro-Brazilian religions, analyzing the processes that made possible their circulation across national borders and examining how they spread and were received in the new social context. In this part of the chapter, I will focus on the different transnational social fields established as a result of this expansion. I will argue that there is not one social field but several, and of different nature. The networks that constitute these fields do not go only in the direction of Brazil but, increasingly, that of Uruguay and in these last years have extended beyond the Southern Cone to include other Afro-American religious variants like Cuban Santería or Nigerian Ifá. With the expanding use of the Internet, social fields that take the form of transnational public spheres also emerge. Finally, I shall suggest that these fields wax and wane according to the changing social conditions, theological innovations and the communication technologies that become accessible to practitioners of Afro-Brazilian religions.

Ritual Lineages as Transnational Networks In Argentina, as well as in Brazil (Lima 1977), the familia-de-santo created around a pai or mãe-de-santo in a terreiro is the main unit of Afro-Brazilian religions. As the privileged spokesperson of the will of the orixás and the main administrator of their axé or spiritual power, whatever the pai- de-santo dictates must be obeyed unflinchingly by his hijos de santo.19

18 Their success in convincingly presenting an oppositional reading of the national narrative is further hindered by the fact that they are whites vindicating (and practicing) Black culture, which makes their arguments less credible. Although the current historical context is propitious for the proposal of multicultural constructions of the nation, it seems that this is the case only if it is the ethnic others who advocate their plight. This is clear in the positive reception that the resurgent Afro-Argentine movement has had in the media, as opposed to Africanismo’s negative media image and the accusations of quackery that white priests have to undergo. In Argentina, as in many other places, Black heritage and culture is seen as something that only Blacks can vindicate. 19 In Argentina and Uruguay, practitioners use the Portuguese expressions pai and mãe- de-santo (very frequently transforming them into pae or mai) but when referring to their religious offspring sometimes they use, interchangeably, filhos-de-santo or the Spanish form hijos de santo. When referring to their religious grandfathers, they use the Spanish forms umbanda and batuque in the southern cone 183

This family is rooted in a religious lineage, or what in the South of Brazil is called a bacia: an abuelo de santo, a bisabuelo, etc. going as high up as the leader´s knowledge may take him. Once his hijos de santo are ritually enabled to open their own temples, a pai becomes himself an abuelo de santo and the leader of an extended religious family. With the expansion of Batuque to other countries, some religious lineages became transnational: a leader in Porto Alegre would initiate ‘sons’ in Montevideo or Buenos Aires who continued his lineage in these cities, or, adding another level of complexity, s/he may initiate a son in Montevideo who, in turn, would later initiate “grandsons” in Buenos Aires. Members of these religious families can, therefore, be said to form a transnational community of worshippers, insofar as they recognize that a very important aspect of their lives – both ritual and daily – may be heavily influenced by what goes on in the house of their pai-de-santo or abuelo de santo, in another country, hundreds of miles away.20 It is believed that every temple has and mobilizes axé or spiritual power that has been transmitted down the religious lineage since its beginning. It is the responsibility of each temple in the lineage to maintain, and, if possible, augment spiritual power. However, the “mother house” is always considered as the strongest source of axé. It is therefore common for leaders to turn to their own pais or mães in another country if they are experiencing problems that they have difficulty solving. Similarly, the mother temple’s welfare is supposed to spill to its affiliates, and its problems are a source of preoccupation for all. For transnational lineages, as is true for local ones, the Batuque feasts in honor of the orixás that take place every two or three months are their main expressions of sociability. Here alliances are built and strengthened – or broken – and seniority in relationships is expressed and reinforced, with a frequency that depends on geographical proximity, economic resources and how close a pai and his foreign filhos or hijos are at a given moment. At least once or twice a year, however, several members of the religious family from different countries should come together to pay homage to the orixás or exú spirits of the founding father. As Oro (1999) has shown, the display of foreign filhos in the festivities of the pai-de-santo’s

abuelo or abuela de santo or en santo, and, similarly call their grandchildren nietos de santo, probably because of the difficulties in pronouncing the Portuguese forms. 20 Even if an individual’s padrino or pai-de-santo live in the same city, in all likelihood the ritual family of his mentor lives abroad – because these religions have only recently become transnational. Thus, almost any initiate in Batuque, Candomblé or Santería knows that he has an important ritual family in another city, which he will visit with some regularity. 184 alejandro frigerio orixá or exú spirit is one of the main ways in which prestige is created and accumulated. Relations with the Brazilian pai-de-santo are especially close during the first years, until the individual has finished all the steps in the process of initiations that enable him to continue the religious practice by himself. Once he has been ‘freed’ and allowed to ‘cut’ (sacrifice or offer animals) for his own orixás, geographical distance – and the money involved in traveling – contribute to their slowly growing apart. Even in Brazil, relationships between religious leaders and their sons are always fraught with conflict – they do not have to be transnational for this to occur. But when different nationalities are involved, the possibilities of misunderstandings due to stereotypical (mis)perceptions of individuals from neighboring countries increase (Oro 1999). It is very common for leaders in Argentina to have “passed through the hands” of more than one pai-de-santo, sometimes as many as five or six. Nationality may vary, but they try to remain within the same religious nation, or at least national ‘school’ (Brazilian or Uruguayan), although crossings of all sorts also occur.21 Beyond the lineage, religious families usually recognize that they belong to the same religious ‘nation’ (gege, gege-ijexá, oyó, cabinda) within Batuque, an acknowledgement that creates a vaster field of transnational identification.22 ‘Nations’ function as networks of networks, since they are comprised by many religious lineages. Further, transnational social fields created by religious ‘nations’ are mostly tri-national since they generally have members both in Argentina and Uruguay – whereas, as we saw above, many lineages form bi-national social fields. In terms of the nature of the transnational social field they create, however, religious ‘nations’ function more as imagined communities, creating an awareness of belonging to a larger network than the religious lineage but not necessarily enacting the web of possible relationships. Religious lineages make people travel back and forth across national borders to comply with rituals or be present at celebrations,

21 In at least two dozen cases, only one Argentine leader has remained faithful to his original Brazilian pai after many years of religious practice. 22 The real differences existing within nations are a topic of debate among practitioners. Those who have a better knowledge of several of them claim that, with the exception of Cabinda which is more idiosyncratic – and probably more recent-, there are only certain differences in the drum rhythms and in the order in which the orixás are sung to in Batuque feasts. Differences in ritual practice and religious belief are also important within the same nation, a fact that gives rise to the ever-present accusations of religious malpractice that pais and mães love to launch against their peers. umbanda and batuque in the southern cone 185 whereas religious ‘nations’ only make them feel part of a wider network of related temples, while not necessarily participating of it. Effective loyalty to a religious ‘nation’ is probably enacted more locally than transnationally, when pais or mães belonging to the same one visit each other’s Batuque feasts. Friendship among local pais and mães does not only run along the line of their ‘nations,’ although usually it is a variable to be considered, but also along with religious lineage, age group, or geographical proximity. The nación can also be considered a lineage of lineages, as in the case of Cabinda, whose origin is attributed to one specific and well-remembered individual in Porto Alegre. The founding fathers of other “nations,” however, are not so clearly identified. Transnational social fields created by religious lineages in the practice of Afro-Brazilian religions in Argentina can be pictured as two flat, superimposed, isosceles triangles: one with its upper vertex pointing towards Porto Alegre, a smaller one with its vertex pointing towards Montevideo. For some religious lineages Montevideo is seen as the apex and Mecca of their religious practices, for others, Porto Alegre. Over time, the triangle pointing towards Montevideo has become larger, equaling (or perhaps surpassing?) the one pointing towards Porto Alegre. Smaller triangles, corresponding to social fields created by other Afro-American religious variants present in Argentina, point towards Bahía (Candomblé), Cuba (Santería) or now also, after the development of a re-africanization movement, towards Nigeria. The number of individuals participating in these transnational social fields is much smaller than the one corresponding to Batuque. There are no more than a dozen Candomblé temples in Buenos Aires, perhaps twenty or thirty Santería ones, and another dozen who claim to practice, in addition to orixá worship, Ifá divination. The last two groups, notwithstanding their small numbers, have become symbolically important in the last decade, as shall be explained below.

The Internet and the Creation of New Religious Transnational Social Spaces Discussion Forums For the past decade or so, the widespread use of the Internet in Argentina made possible the existence of new transnational social spaces where practitioners can meet online and discuss the purpose and characteristics of their religious practices.23 Particularly important in this regard were the

23 These virtual spaces are transnational because they enable its two key features (as identified by Vasquez 2008: 162): “simultaneity across present-day localities” and “a strategic 186 alejandro frigerio debate forums made possible by the creation in the (Northern) summer of 1999 of the MSN Groups. The prior existence of temple web pages had allowed for the circulation of religious knowledge that had until then only been transmitted orally, or perhaps by books, which in Argentina and Uruguay were always hard to come by. These web pages, however, were a static form of communication allowing for little interaction between individuals who were far away from each other. When the MSN Groups were created, they found a warm-albeit-unequal welcome among Umbandistas in the Southern Cone and practitioners of other Afro-American religious variants living in other countries. Groups were easily managed by one, two or more individuals, and could accommodate thousands of members who were able to propose topics and then write threads of dozens or sometimes even close to a hundred messages debating them. Messages could be of very variable length, from one line to several paragraphs, and allowed for detailed discussions of serious themes – history, rituals, ethics – as well as the spread of gossip on individual behavior. Further, photo albums could be added to the group, or word documents attached to messages. The groups also sported chat rooms, for those who wanted more immediate contact. This variety of possibilities provided by one electronic media, its user-friendly and highly interactive character, made these groups extremely popular for a period of about five years (2003–2008, approximately) and extended Umbandista and Batuquero sociability in new directions.24 On the other hand, these media allowed for a much wider interaction among practitioners of Afro-Brazilian religions, challenging established hierarchies and forms of organization and sociability. Previously, sociability had been restricted to Batuque feasts that drew the largest crowds (until Quimbanda became popular) or to the periodic congresses that were organized to call society’s attention to the religion. Although these public events were common during the second half of the 1980s and the first of the 1990s, after 1995, approximately, they were discon- tinued due to the heavy costs they entailed. The smaller discussion forums lodged in MSN groups had from fifty to one hundred and fifty or two hundred members, probably the largest presentism, a multiple embeddedness in the now,” so that discussions have simultaneous and multiple effects in different countries. 24 Of course one could argue that it was mainly the more middle or low-middle class practitioners who could afford a computer and home Internet who participated in them. This is true, but the usage went far beyond this sector, because locutorios (places where people can rent PCs and internet use) became commonplace, even in the greater Buenos Aires, and were very cheap. umbanda and batuque in the southern cone 187 amount of people a Batuque festivity could gather. The ten largest ones sported from one to two thousand members.25 So these groups not only regularly brought together a larger amount of people than the usual ways of sociability had ever done, but they also made possible for people from all over the country to interact in an unprecedented way.26 A more important consequence was that these groups superseded the national level and became transnational Spanish-speaking public arenas that included many active participants from countries outside the Southern Cone. Foreign participants in this new social field were Spanish-speaking individuals who practiced not Afro-Brazilian but Afro-Cuban religion (mostly outside of Cuba). Probably because of language problems, very few Brazilian pais de santo participated or had a relevant role in these discussions. So to the traditional transnational field composed by Brazilian- Argentine-Uruguay pais de santo established by the spread of Batuque and Umbanda out of Rio Grande do Sul, a new one was superimposed that included mostly Argentines, Cubans from the diaspora living in Europe or the US, Mexican practitioners of Santería, and some Uruguayans who practiced Batuque. Through this new transnational field, novel alliances were wrought, fresh enemies found and previously unheard-of religious knowledge circulated. An initial friendly interest between participants in the specifics of each religious variant (mostly Batuque and Santeria) later gave way to accusations from practitioner of Afro-Cuban religions that Batuque was not pure or African enough. The role of Ifá, the system of divination that was lost in Brazil but not in Cuba, was also much discussed. This debate was spearheaded by Cuban and (Cuban initiated) Mexican babalawos, who strongly disagreed with the few Argentines who had been initiated in Nigeria in the African version of Ifá that allows for women to be diviners (iyaonifas), something strictly forbidden in Cuba. This served to create an unprecedented awareness of the existence and importance of Ifá, and even Batuque hardliners became more versed – although not initiated- in the subject. The Cuban and Mexican santeros tried to enforce their views that women and homosexuals were not allowed in Ifá and many discussions ensued over which of the two versions of Ifá, the Cuban or the

25 One of them, Nación Cambinda, had little over 4,000 members. The group with the wider transnational participation (Sociedad Yoruba II) had 2,400 members, and almost 25,000 messages posted (as of 16/2/2007). 26 One of the most popular groups was organized by a pai-de-santo from the Northeastern province of Corrientes. This provided him and other leaders in the area who wrote regularly a national visibility that they did not enjoy before. 188 alejandro frigerio

African Traditionalist (Tradicionalista Africana), was more compatible with Batuque practice. Through this new transnational Spanish-speaking social field, Afro- American religious variants that had been mostly unaware of each other were put in contact: Santería and Palo Mayombe, born in Cuba and spread throughout the US, Mexico and some South American countries like Venezuela; and Batuque and Umbanda/Quimbanda from Southern Brazil, in their Argentine and Uruguayan versions. The new social field decentered, to some extent, the predominant relation of the traditional Batuque networks: language trumped religious variant as the agglutinating factor in the transnational community and the importance of Brazilian pais–de- santo as the main foreign interlocutors of the religions was somewhat diminished. The widespread use of Internet boosted the influence of Cuban religions in the Southern Cone. It did not necessarily lead to an increase in the number of initiations to Santería or Palo but precipitated a widespread use of Afro-Cuban legends and descriptions of the orixás.27 Afro-Cuban orixá mythology is richer and quantitatively larger than the one preserved in Batuque and, being in Spanish and not in Portuguese, it is more easily understood and copied from the Internet than the Brazilian stories. So, through the establishment of this social field there was more influence of one variant (Santería) over the other (Batuque) than a reciprocal exchange. This was also due to the active participation in the debate forums of Cuban or Cuban-trained Mexican devotees who were eager to show and impart their religious knowledge -more so than Brazilians practicing Candomblé and Batuque. In February of 2009, the MSN groups were closed by the company’s decision. Several forums tried to migrate to other Internet groups and sites (Multiply, Live, Sonico, Google), but none of them had the malleable and accommodating capacities of the former media. The new transnational field folded and was disarticulated. The forums that managed to regroup (in Google or Sonico) had a smaller and much more local audience. International interest seemed to have been lost.

27 The number of Santeria initiates in Buenos Aires did increase in the last decade, but mainly because of the activities of a small number of Cuban immigrants in Buenos Aires, or through the initiation in Cuba of some Argentines. The switch to Santeria of several Batuque pais–de-santo – although not unrelated to the internet- can better be interpreted as one of the re-africanization pathways undertaken by dissatisfied leaders in their search for ‘stronger’ magical power and ‘deeper’ religious knowledge (Frigerio 2004). umbanda and batuque in the southern cone 189

If it is a truism that ‘the Internet’ provides a privileged arena for the establishment of transnational networks, more attention must be paid to the different characteristics of the many formats or media found in the web since they seem to favor certain types of expressions and interactions over others. As was discussed above, the MSN groups provided an arena with a user-friendly and malleable format that made possible the regular, relatively thoughtful interaction of a sizable audience of practitioners of Afro-American (not only Afro-Brazilian) religions over a four or five year period. When they folded, this transnational virtual community collapsed. At the same time, however, a different arena was developing on the net that eventually allowed for the establishment of a new transnational community, albeit with very different characteristics.

Photoblogs In the past two years a new kind of media has become popular among many Umbandistas, albeit of a different age-set and perhaps, social condition: the photoblogs. Locally known as Metroflogs – their Argentine version – they became popular with Umbandistas in 2008. With a metroflog account, an individual can post one photograph or image per day, and friends, colleagues or even total strangers can leave their comments on them. Comments are usually brief, of four or five lines, but can number up to twenty or even in rare case thirty. Umbanda practitioners post a picture on their own photoblog, and then ‘sign’ – making brief comments – those of others hoping that they will return the courtesy. The main goal seems to be to have a sufficiently large number of ‘visits’ in one’s own photoblog – most seem to set a maximum of twenty visible comments. However, as is usually the case on the Internet, and especially when Umbandistas are involved, visits and comments soon turned into gossip, slandering and bickering. By the end of 2009, a novel development called ‘flogs escrachadores’ had become a new fad.28 Photographs posted in these ‘flogs’ made fun of ceremonies, dresses, offerings and, especially, the performance of mediums in trance, as well as the purported ‘spiritual entities’

28 ‘Escrachar’ is porteño slang for ‘expose,’ ‘uncover’ the ‘real’ side of a person, showing him for what he is. The word gave name to a popular social movement protest technique implemented by a human rights organization called H.I.J.O.S, composed of sons of ‘disappeared’. The group performed ‘escraches’ – noisy public gatherings – in front of the houses of unpunished torturers of the military dictatorship so that neighbors would be aware of their presence. Subsequently, several other social movements have also made ‘escraches,’ and the term’s popularity probably influenced its adoption by Umbandista floggers who had an axe to grind. 190 alejandro frigerio that did not comply with what the owner of the photoblog thought was correct religious behavior. Very frequently, they also posted pictures of pais and mães de santo and made sarcastic or rude remarks about their religious and daily conduct. Their gender preferences also become a focus: transvestites and gays are favorite targets. Visitors sometimes defend the individuals whose photographs are posted, but more often agree with the exposé. Foul language is not spared. These flogs escrachadores seem to have originated in Montevideo, where the Internet became more widely available in the past four or five years, and soon also inspired Argentine practitioners belonging to the ‘Uruguayan school.’ When identifiable pais and mães de santo are targeted, they are always either from Montevideo, or if not Uruguayan migrants living in Buenos Aires. Most of the porteño leaders depicted likewise belong to the Uruguayan school. Brazilian leaders are scarcely mentioned, although general remarks of the kind “it was the Brazilians who started with the fiasco’ are not uncommon.29 Although much less elaborated than the previous one, this constitutes a new transnational arena where information regarding the behavior of religious leaders and the proper way to practice the religion is exchanged. Judging by the pictures placed and the language used in the postings and commentaries, the audience participating in this new field is somewhat younger and with less formal education than the one that participated in the discussion forums.30 The format does not allow for elaborate observations, but the pictures, especially those of ‘flogs escrachadores’ are nonetheless powerful commentaries by themselves. This transnational field, unlike the previous one, appears to be mostly bi-national, since participants live mostly in Argentina and Uruguay. Perhaps because of the admon- ishing nature of several of the ‘flogs,’ this arena seems also closer to the daily religious practice in both countries. In accordance with the dynamic development of Quimbanda in the past years, most of the pictures show ceremonies of this variant, and comment sarcastically on the clothes and

29 Fiasco is an accusation dear to Umbandistas, claiming that people possessed by spiritual entities are only pretending and not in a ‘true’ state of trance (see Frigerio 1995). 30 The number of Umbandistas participating of metroflogs exceeds, of course, the number of those who have or participate of ‘flogs escrachadores.’ The latter, however, are very popular. The three individuals (two Uruguayans and an Argentine) who seem to have started ‘flogs escrachadores’ implemented a blog version reproducing the original pictures and comments they posted and had almost 150,000 visits during the period January 2009–July 2010. A second blog, by an Argentine practitioner who imitated them, had close to 23,000 visits during September 2009–July 2010. umbanda and batuque in the southern cone 191 props (crowns, cloaks, capes, shawls, hats) used by those claiming to be possessed by Exú and Pomba Gira spirits, or by the increasingly popular ciganos (gypsies) and africanos. ‘Flogs’ pretend to be a disciplinary force for what is perceived as a growing amount of people practicing the religion without the proper knowledge, but cannot avoid being mostly an online, more graphic, visible and vaster version of the ubiquitous temple gossip that has always characterized the many variants of Afro-American religions.

Conclusion

Whereas much work on religious transnationalization has focused on activities of transmigrants or of church missionaries, this chapter shows how a vast process of expansion of religious beliefs and practices originating in Brazil can take place without a large presence of immigrants nor a deliberate missionary intent and with no economic patronage from abroad. It shows the effective presence of ‘multiple’ and ‘interlocking’ networks of social relationships through which “ideas, practices, and resources are unequally exchanged, organized, and transformed” as Levitt and Glick Schiller’s (2004) definition of social fields suggest. Afro-Brazilian religions have arrived in Argentina via Porto Alegre but also by way of Montevideo, so that the transnational social fields their practice has established go, at least, in two directions, and not just one as would be expected. More recent networks made possible by these previous ones go as far as Cuba or Nigeria, established by individuals who practiced Batuque but later desired a ‘purer,’ ‘more African’ version of these religions. No matter how ‘exotic’ or’ alien’ certain beliefs may be considered in a specific social context, they can be made adaptable to the new locale without major modifications by means of translation processes. Snow et al.’s (1986) ideas of frame alignment have been particularly useful to understand how practitioners translate their new beliefs starting from preexistent magico-religious traditions and developing a gradual conversion process that makes possible the expansion of the religion without significant changes to it. Practitioners have used frame alignment processes at the micro level geared to secure individual conversions, while deploying at the macro-level accommodation strategies that strived for social legitimation. These practices and strategies have altered the ‘Brazilian’ character of these religions without totally undermining it. The need for animal sacrifices that is so central to these religions has always been poorly understood in Argentina and still remains their main 192 alejandro frigerio stigmatizing feature. After undeserved media scandals, police and journalists are suspicious of crimes involving anything that could suggest ‘Umbanda ritual’ paraphernalia. For the last two and a half decades, practitioners have tried several accommodation strategies that included the formulation of narratives of belonging to the Argentine nation in an effort to de-nationalize these religions and relocalize them. By taking ‘Brazil’ out of ‘Afro-Brazilian,’ and including ‘Afro’ within ‘Argentina,’ they try to rework dominant understandings of the Argentine nation so that their practices can be considered part of the Black cultural heritage of the country. Frame alignment strategies have been more successful at a micro than at a macro level: temples grow quickly but social legitimation is not forthcoming. I have analyzed the transnationalization of Afro-Brazilian religions into Argentina and Uruguay using two interpretations of the concept: first as the circulation of people and beliefs across national borders and later as the establishment of a social field composed by a variety of networks that transcend national boundaries. Social fields, as we have seen, are multi- directional and change in intensity, extension and focus over the years. Religious lineages and ‘nations’ constitute the traditional networks through which they were established, going in the direction of Porto Alegre but also of Montevideo. The influence of Uruguayan networks grew over the years, as the exchange rates of national currencies fluctuated. During the 1990s the strength of the Argentine peso vis-à-vis the Brazilian real made possible a wave of visiting Brazilian pais and mães who initiated many Argentines into Batuque. The next decade the rate changed and many new leaders fell under the influence of the Uruguayan school, since travel across the River Plate was cheaper than going to Brazil. The traditional religious networks gave rise to at least two fields: one formed by lineages that produce factual and repeated transnational interactions, the other by ‘nations’ that give rise to more tenuous affiliations more akin to imagined communities. The expanding use of the Internet in the last decade has made possible the existence of different spheres of transnational discourse: the discussion forums spanning several countries and different religious variants and the bi-national photoblogs focusing on the more local ceremonies of Quimbanda and Batuque. Although gossip and antagonistic exchanges exist in both, one media allowed for broader and better argued discussions and the other for shorter, more specific comments. In both, however, religious knowledge circulates in unprecedented ways, new national and transnational identifications are formed and displayed, alliances are forged umbanda and batuque in the southern cone 193 and dismantled and new understandings of belief, ritual and history reached. In short, a diachronic view of the transnationalization of Afro-Brazilian religion shows that, even though it started in the late 1960s, it is an ongoing process (or better yet, processes), generating several multi-directional social fields whose density and intensity ebb and flow over the years.

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PRETOS VELHOS ACROSS THE ATLANTIC: AFRO-BRAZILIAN RELIGIONS IN PORTUGAL

Clara Saraiva

Introduction

In November 1995, I stepped onto a bus in the city of São Paulo. As I was trying to pay the bus fare, I was identified by the bus driver as a ‘portu- guesinha.ʼ1 I sat on the first rows of the bus a conversation started between the man sitting beside me, a mulatto male in his 70s, two white women in their 60s sitting in the second row, and the bus driver. They started by commenting on how much they loved Portugal and the Portuguese, going on to a discussion on how nice the Portuguese were and how they had such a great relationship with everyone. The talk went on as they expanded on how the Portuguese were not racists, had established great relations in Africa and Brazil, and how the relationship between Portugal and Brazil had always been such an exceptional and excellent one. When I stepped out of the bus, I thought about the comments of those passengers who had spontaneously engaged in conversation with me, and how, even though they had never read Gilberto Freyre, they seemed to share his ideas. Such an experience was not new to me (nor to many other social scientists working in Brazil), as I had often heard Brazilians talk about this subject and praise the great relationship between the two ‘sister nations.ʼ A whole series of texts critiquing and discussing Freyre´s ideology of Lusotropicalism and the positive qualities of the Portuguese colonization and miscegenation came to my mind.2 As I was on my way to

1 A gentle and caring way of calling a female ‘Portuguese.’ 2 Gilberto Freyre, a well-known Brazilian sociologist, is the author of Casa Grande e Senzala (The Masters and the Slaves), where he argued that Brazil was constructed as a nation by the Portuguese, Africans and native Indians. Furthermore, it was the Portuguese who were responsible for a special kind of colonialism which promoted miscegenation and harmony among this three ‘races.’ For him, it was the Portuguese adaptability to the tropics that prompted this situation. This argument has been much discussed and criticized over the years. See, among others, Castelo 1998; Almeida 2000; Feldman-Bianco 2001; Bastos, Almeida e Feldman-Bianco 2002; Machado 2002a, 2002b; Padilla 2003. 198 clara saraiva interview an Umbanda pai-de-santo3 who had connections with Portugal, I recalled the way the Portuguese themselves, in Portugal, conceptualized that relationship with Brazil, through the lens of their adherence to the recently arrived Afro-Brazilian religions. I will start this chapter by giving a brief account of how Afro-Brazilian religions have spread in Portugal in the last twenty years, and then move on to characterize this religious scenario from two different points of view. First, I interpret the way that Afro-Brazilian religious leaders (pais and mães- de-santo) conceptualize their religious work, and how they perceive the organization and function of Afro-Brazilian religions in Portugal, especially concerning healing and the improvement of individuals’ well-being. Second, I analyze it from the perspective of the Portuguese practitioners and ‘consumers’ of such religions, focusing mainly on how exotic religious alterity is mixed within an ideological repertoire and ‘tool box’ where such religions appear as a solution for life-crisis situations, where healing, well- being and self-improvement play crucial roles. I collected the data for this chapter through fieldwork I have conducted since 2006 in terreiros4 in Portugal. My fieldwork included interviews with ritual leaders and their followers, as well as research on the Internet and in Brazil (mainly São Paulo and Fortaleza in temples that have direct connections with Portugal).

Brazil and Afro-Brazilian Religions in the Old Metropolis

Portugal has had a long relationship with Brazil, starting with its role as a colonizer between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when Portugal—and Lisbon, its capital—was the metropolis. Brazil has always attracted the Portuguese, who emigrated to the New World in search of better life conditions. Brazil was a favorite destination throughout the nine teenth and twentieth centuries. In the second half of the twentieth century, after the 1974 revolution in Portugal, many Portuguese sympathetic with the old regime fled to Brazil, along with Portuguese returning from the former colonies in Africa, some of which (Angola and Mozambique) had engaged in ferocious civil wars.

3 Literally father and mother of the saint, the priest or priestess in the Afro-Brazilian religions. 4 In the Afro-Brazilian religions the word terreiro means both the physical space where rituals take place and the community of worshippers. pretos velhos across the atlantic 199

It was only with the social and economic changes that Portugal underwent after the 1970s, and especially with its entrance into the European community in the late 1980s, which coincided with a period of economic recession in Brazil, that the movement reversed and Brazilians started migrating to Portugal, along with many other migrants, coming from various continents.5 Brazilians are nowadays the largest group of migrants in Portugal, accounting for 24% of the migrant population in the country.6 The complex changes that Portugal underwent in the 1970s and 1980s concerned the political, economic and social spheres, as well as the religious one. Religious freedom came with the rights and liberalization brought along by the twenty-fifth of April revolution, and the country slowly opened up to new religions (Bastos 2001; Bastos and Bastos 2006) and new forms of dealing with affliction, as I have analyzed elsewhere (Saraiva 2010a, 2010b, 2010c; Sarró 2009). Among new religions, Afro-Brazilian Candomblé and Umbanda have been expanding fast. This phenomenon was identified by Ismael Pordeus Jr., the first anthropologist to work on the topic. In the late 1990s, he conducted a study of one of the first terreiros in Lisbon. This terreiro was founded by a Portuguese woman who had been an emigrant worker in Rio de Janeiro, had become initiated there, and, upon her return to Portugal after 1974, opened up her religious center (Pordeus Jr. 2000, 2009). Her followers (filhas and filhos-de-santo), who had similar life stories, later on founded their own terreiros after completing their period initiation, thus spreading the practice of Umbanda and Candomblé in Portugal (Pordeus Jr. 2009). With time, the Umbanda and Candomblé centers became known and spread all over the country, and seem to be expanding faster and faster: going from approximately 40 in 2008 to 50 terreiros or houses that practice divination within Afro-Brazilian traditions in 2010. Most of the terreiros are Umbanda ones, or practice some variants of Candomblé closer to Umbanda, such as Umbanda Omolocô, or even what the priests themselves call ‘Umbandoblé,’ meaning variants that mix, in different ways, elements from Candomblé and Umbanda. Such situation is certainly not new, as it also happens in Brazil, where, even if Candomblé Keto (related to the Bahia region and the Nagô/Yoruba tradition from Bénin

5 For an accurate overview of the dimension of immigration to Portugal from the 1980s on, see among others, Vala 1999; Machado 2002a, 2002b; Barreto 2005. 6 According to the 2008 data from the Service de Estrangeiros e Fronteiras (SEF 2009: 28–29). 200 clara saraiva and Nigeria) is often regarded as the ‘purest variant,’ the variety of African-based expressions is enormous, and each terreiro follows the forms dictated by its mãe or pai-de-santo (Capone 2004). Umbanda, known to be a ‘truly Brazilian religion,’ a synthesis of the Brazilian religious imaginary,7 seems to be a variant that appeals more to the Portuguese, acting as a ‘cognitive bridge’ (Frigerio 2004) between the traditional Catholicism and the more African variants, such as Candomblé, because their animal sacrifices and the manipulation of blood is less easily accepted (see Saraiva, forthcoming).8 If we try to systematize the different types of ritual specialists and the cult houses in Portugal, we can say that they can be organized into three different typologies, centered on migrating movements and connections between Portugal, Brazil and Africa (Pordeus 2009; Saraiva 2010a, 2010b, 2010c; Guillot 2009). First, there are the Portuguese who, in their movements across the Atlantic, brought the Afro-Brazilian cults with them. In this group are the Portuguese who were migrants in Brazil, were initiated in the Afro-Brazilian religions there, and brought them back to the old metropolis.9 The symmetrical situation is illustrated by the Portuguese who nowadays go to Brazil to be initiated or develop their religious career there, since they perceive Brazil as a sort of religious Mecca (Capone 2004). The second big group is composed of Brazilians, who either arrived to work in other areas, but once in Portugal see an opportunity to exercise and develop their religious expertise, or of those who arrived with the specific

7 Created in the beginning of the twentieth century, Umbanda incorporates some elements from Candomblé, from Oriental religions and various philosophies, but Catholicism, and especially Spiritism and Kardecism play a major role (Brown 1985; Brown 1999). It is thought of as a truly Brazilian religion because the entities that incorporate the mediums are archetypes connected to the history of the country: among others, the preto velho per- sonifies the old black slave, the caboclo the Indian or the mestiço (mixed race). 8 One of the main and most visible differences between Candomblé and Umbanda is the way people interact with the gods and the spirits, both coming from “the other world”. In Candomblé the gods (orixás) incorporate the mediums and enter into social intercourse with the followers through dance and music, but do not directly interact with them. In Umbanda, the entities—archetypes of the Brazilian society such as old black slaves (pretos velhos), or Indians (caboclos), for instance, are incorporated and directly interact with the individuals, offering them help and assistance in the resolution of their problems, by means of consultations. In the terreiros I studied thus far, even when they declare to follow Candomblé, they also include practices that integrate Umbanda rituals and include some sort of consultation of entities that incorporate the mediums. 9 As we saw above, this is the case of the first Portuguese women who migrated to Brazil and founded terreiros upon their return to Portugal. The importance of women and their role as cult leaders, a topic explored by many (see Amaral 2005; Landes 2002; and Maggie 2001) holds true also for the Portuguese case. pretos velhos across the atlantic 201 purpose of opening terreiros in Portugal. In this group are also Brazilians that come for a few weeks, to give consultations based on cowry shell divination, returning to Brazil without constituting religious communities.10 A third group is formed by Portuguese who have no direct connections with Brazil, but rather with Africa. They were born in one of the former Portuguese colonies or have African forefathers, and they invoke such relations to legitimate their religious authority. Nevertheless, their discourses take us back to the mythical construction of the Atlantic connection among Portugal, Africa and Brazil with which I started this chapter. I described the scene on the São Paulo bus, and its connection with Freyre´s ideas on lusotropicalism, as well as Gilroy´s concept of the Black Atlantic.11 It is important to state that the followers of Afro-Brazilian religions, including individuals who only go there as clients, are 99% Portuguese. Brazilians occupy core positions within the terreiros, as priest or pries tress or ogã.12 Amongst several reasons proposed for the success of the exportation of the Afro-Brazilian religions to traditional Catholic countries (Oro 1985; Frigerio 2004), there are two sets of related arguments I would like to expand on. The first one deals with the enchantment that such ‘emotional religions’ (Oro 1985) exercise upon the Portuguese. Several authors (Oro 1985; Pordeus Jr. 2009; Saraiva 2010a, 2010b, 2010c) see trance and possession as important factors that attract the Portuguese. In fact, both trance and possession can be looked upon as a continuation of forms of communicating with the supernatural and forms of mediumship, which took place in hiding during the dictatorship, and can nowadays be expressed freely. As such, these components of the Afro-Brazilian religions seem to continue former traditions of the southern Mediterranean countries, where popular religiosity incorporated manifestations of mediumship, and the recurrent communication between the world of the living and the world of the dead through mediators, such as the case of the ‘sor- ciére’ in France (Favret-Saada 1977), and of the ‘espírita’ or ‘corpo aberto’ in Portugal and Spain. Furthermore, they offer new forms of exercising one´s mediumship capacities, within a religious framework that individuals

10 Illustrating what Pordeus Jr. 2009 calls, “anti-communitas” following Victor Turner´s theoretical framework. 11 The idea of an historical and cultural connection across the Atlantic, linking Africa and the New World—in this case, Brazil—is certainly valid for the case of the Afro-Brazilian religions, as J. L. Matory has expanded on in his book Black Atlantic Religion (2005). 12 Most Brazilians in Portugal go to the Pentecostal and Neo-Pentecostal churches, also imported from Brazil (Mafra 2002). 202 clara saraiva conceptualize as offering more freedom and empowerment, as they are able to communicate directly with the divine: It is wonderful to incorporate and have a direct relationship with the supernatural. The Catholic Church never allowed that, and we always had the priest saying that seeing spirits was something of the devil (L. female, 35 years old).13 The second set of factors deals with the fact African-based traditions are religions of affliction that attend to life-crisis situations par excellence (Turner 1967).14 Most times the adherence to these religions starts with consultations to overcome situations of affliction related to health, love or financial troubles. Once started, people often end up more involved in the group, and eventually become initiated. In this perspective they tend to reinterpret their problems through the lenses of their new religious adherence. In this new approach, healing and the solution for crises are attributed to the conversion to the cult of the orixás (Saraiva 2010c). One follower told me: “As sick as I was, after running from doctor to doctor, I would be dead now if I had not encountered my orixás and had decided to follow this path” (M, 50 years old).

Expanding on Luso-Brazilian Relations? The Organization and Functions of the Portuguese Terreiros

Many ritual specialists that give consultations have advertisements in the Portuguese newspapers and magazines. Most terreiros and ritual specialists have Internet sites or some form of publicity on the Internet, which has become a powerful means of expansion and communication among priests and followers. The complexity and detail of the sites depend on the organization of the terreiro and its degree of fame. Some of them have both online and printed magazines, which function as a way to instruct the general public on the doctrine of Afro-Brazilian religions.

13 In spite of the critique to the Catholic Church, many individuals who attend the terreiro on Saturday go to the Catholic Church on Sundays. Many ritual leaders enforce the idea that holiness is a continuum, as Camargo (1961) noted, and that the Umbanda Pai Oxalá is the same as Jesus Christ, thus underlining the classical connection between Catholicism and Umbanda. 14 Life crisis situations have certainly always existed for the Portuguese; the new scenario is that nowadays they have more alternatives to turn to try to solve them; the Afro-Brazilian religions are now part of the options, just as it happens in Brazil (see Burdick 1996). pretos velhos across the atlantic 203

Most of the terreiros have chosen to become official non-profit associations, which involve some civic and legal rights under Portuguese law. Some of the leaders of these associations have taken a step further and created federations using the Brazilian Umbanda federative models, even if they fall more within the Candomblé line. Of the federations existing in Portugal, FENACAB is meant to be the Portuguese arm/branch of the original Bahia-based one, preserving Candomblé keto. Its president is a Portuguese Candomblé priest, invested in its role by the Brazilian head of FENACAB. Another association, CPCY (formerly named APCAB), competes with this one in the defense of the rights of the African Yorubá religion and culture; and a third one, FEUCA, is under the direction of a Portuguese Umbanda pai-de-santo, who intends to create a European- based federation for the Afro-Brazilian cultos. In 2010, both FENACAB and CPCY, along with another association (ATUPO) attained the status of official Portuguese religions for Candomblé and Umbanda, side by side with the Judaism and Islam. The way the associations and federations are created is directly related to the ties that the priest (or priestess) holds with Brazil;15 therefore, the Portuguese associations aim to be Portuguese branches of the original Brazilian ones. The “purity” and prestige of a terreiro very much depends on the degree of relationship and intimacy that the priest or priestess has with headquarters or federations that they belong to in Brazil.16 In the so-called globalized world of the twenty-first century, these religious specialists are aware of how their capacities can be used to heal and improve people’s well-being, and this becomes a major reason for their functioning. In Umbanda temples, giras take place at least once a week, and some of the cult houses have specific healing sessions. In the Candomblé temples, the collective feasts, xirê, happen less frequently, but through divination consultations the priest/priestess attends to the clients’ life-crisis situations. The principle of charity, one of the foundations of Umbanda, is a major guideline for all the work performed at the Umbanda healing sessions, but it is also used as a basis for the work of Candomblé

15 Even in the case of the associations that defend a closer relation with Nigeria and Yorubá culture, the model for the association is Brazilian. 16 The most complex case is a temple in São Paulo that has created a sort of a franchising network of branches in several European countries, such as Portugal, France, Holland and Germany. These branches have no pai or mãe de santo, but only someone ‘in charge,’ who reports directly to the headquarters in São Paulo. This is the case of the temple in the Lisbon area and of one in Paris. For the latter, see Capone and Teisenhoffer 2001–2002 and Teisenhoffer 2007. 204 clara saraiva priests. Among these priests, some try to remain more attached to the foun- dational principles of their religion and strive for ‘African purity,’ removing other esoteric principles. However, the great majority of the Afro-Brazilian ritualists practice Umbanda or some mixed from, as we saw above. The attraction the Portuguese have for these religions is also related to a wider opening to new things in general (new ideas, new rituals, new healing practices) in the last twenty years. For most Portuguese seeking help in their life crisis situations, Umbanda and Candomblé appear as one option, among others they have heard of or tried. Often the experience with the Afro-Brazilian religions follows a line of successive experiences, from New Age type of practices (reiki, palm reading), which are offered by the ritual specialists and advertised in their magazines and esoteric shops. For instance, Povo de Santo e Asé, a magazine published by ANACAB, had on the cover of one of its issues a large advertisement concerning feng-shui, under the title “The Secrets of the Body Revealed by Feng Shui.” In the same vein, ATUPO, another large Umbanda association based in Braga, a city in the north of Portugal, has regular articles on New Age and what they call ‘alternative healing practices.’ Let us take the case of a pai-de-santo who emphasizes his relation with Africa, namely through a father from Goa (India), and a Portuguese mother, who lived in Angola with their children. Pai C. stresses the power he received from Africa, and how, having been initiated by another Portuguese pai-de-santo (who was himself a filho de santo of one of the first female leaders) he never felt a real need to go to Brazil, as “Brazil, Portugal and Africa are connected; it is the same energy flow.” This priest illustrates the case of a religious leader that uses all sorts of techniques and pieces of religious esoteria to do his work. He told me: When I was a child, I was interested in all sorts of stories concerning mytholo- gies. I was initiated in Umbanda at the age of 18, and later on in Candomblé, later on also in Celtic cults and Kardecism and White Table. I have taken courses in aromatherapy, chromotherapy, gemotherapy, reiki, feng-shui, shenchin, skem, body-mirror, tarot, St.Germain florals, Australian florals, regression courses, shamanism, Astral voyages, astrology, palm reading, numerology…the last ones [I took] were ones on the magic of the fire and of the stones, and I will enroll next in another one on the magic of the leaves and angels. This is not an isolated case. Many such ritual leaders who do not have terreiros but give consultations are owners of esoteric shops that sell books on New Age practices, along with paraphernalia imported from Brazil to be used in all sorts of rituals. This incorporation of different principles and pretos velhos across the atlantic 205 techniques to heal the material and spiritual bodies does not go against what is considered balanced and healthy within the Afro-Brazilian religions, as we shall see next. That is the main reason they go along so well, both in the perspective of the ritual healers as well as in the perspective of the users.

Healing and Self-Improvement with the Help of the Orixás

People turn to consultations from ritual specialists to solve life-crisis situations. Besides illness itself, wealth, love, and work problems generally express themselves in and through the body. Thus, the visible face of such problems consists of health problems. This is one of the main reasons Portuguese start going to the terreiros. Certainly, life-crisis situations have always existed and have been dealt with by the Portuguese as elsewhere in the world. The point I want to make here is that what the Afro-Brazilian religions and therapies offer nowadays are alternatives to older practices such as the ones comprised in the traditional Catholicism and the notion of ‘popular religiosity’ which incorporate several forms of dealing with the supernatural and with life-crisis situations, as Jeanne Favret-Saada (1977) discussed on her work on witchcraft in rural France. There is a very practical side to the adherence to such religious systems that directly connects to the conceptualization of what an individual is and what ‘being well’ means.17 Healing is central to both Umbanda and Candomblé. Usually people explain how they encountered Afro-Brazilian religions by saying “if one does not come due to love, one comes due to pain.” Afro-Brazilian religions generally deal with life-crisis situations which have to be handled and overcome. Within this internal religious logic, much pertains to health. Illnesses and the ill are social categories explained according to the world view of Candomblé and Umbanda. Therefore, both illness and its diagnosis cannot be dissociated from their cosmology and magical/religious conceptualizations, reflecting the social relations and the basic principles of this universe (Barros and Lina Teixeira 1989: 41; Silva 1995; Brumana and Martinez 1991: 73). Most of the ritual performances are strategies to attain or restore a physical, mental and social well-being.

17 This aspect is also stressed by scholars who have studied the spread of these religions in other European countries; see Capone and Teisenhoffer (2001–2002) and Teisenhoffer 2007 for the French cases. 206 clara saraiva

The conception of wellness entails a holistic perception of the person, where body and mind are intertwined; being healthy means being balanced and, symmetrically, balance is identified with health (Silva 1995; Pordeus 2000).18 If a person is ill it means his or her balance has been dis- turbed. This may have several causes that directly pertain to failures in the accomplishment of one’s duties to the spirits of the dead, and can only be healed once such obligations are fulfilled, thus restoring the balance between the individual and her orixá. Sickness thus originates from an inadequate balance between forces that come from the supernatural and act upon the body. In the case of the Afro-Brazilian religions, the notion of axé is central to this conception. Axé may be defined as an invisible and sacred vital force and energy present in all deities, natural beings and things. This energy needs certain rituals to be dynamized. In the rituals, it is through the singing (pontos cantados), the beating of the drums and other performances that this force enters into action. The gods are thus summoned to come to the presence of the living.

Possession and the Body

Since illness and cure both have a supernatural character due to factors which are considered responsible for their occurrence in the human body, the human body becomes the most important locus for (passive or active) action. Thus, belief and feelings are concentrated there, while an ensemble of representations that go beyond the simple biological characterization of the human beings is constructed. If such principles are the basis for the Afro-Brazilian religions in their ‘home country’ (Brazil), they become a sort of ‘God’s law’ once they are displaced, and the individuals who perform the rituals are Portuguese. The phenomenology of the Afro-Brazilian religions is embodied by the Portuguese and becomes a ‘bible’ according to which not only life in the terreiros but everyday life should be guided by. What follows, therefore, comes from the conclusions I came to after hearing my informants’ interpretation of what they read in the books coming from Brazil or what they hear in the teachings of their pai or mãe-de-santo.

18 What attracts people to this approach is the holistic side of it, and the fact that, in the conception of the Afro-Brazilian religions, the individual and the social come together in the resolution of the problem. pretos velhos across the atlantic 207

For the followers of these religions, the role of the body directly relates to two aspects. One is the importance of the permanent and constant relationship that the living maintain with the world of the dead, who once had physical bodies but are now only beings without a concrete appearance. The fact that this relationship between the world of the living and the one of the dead is crucial is also visible in the conception of life, which entails not only the family relationship with the living relatives but also with the dead ones, who have become, in most cases, ancestors, spirits, or gods. Such relationship brings us to the second aspect concerning the importance of the body and the central role that incorporation by spirits plays in these religions. The phenomenon of possession being of the utmost importance, and the basis for the religious system itself, such religious systems operate by means of the systematic management the body as the locus for the manifestation of the sacred (Brumana and Martinez 1997: 11). The vehicle of communication with the gods and the spirits, conceptualized as representations of the forces of nature, is the human body, which becomes a ‘divine horseman’ (Deren 1970), a vehicle for the physical manifestation of the spirits and their communication with the living. Possession suppresses, even if temporarily, the distance between the world of the humans and that of the gods—or the world of the living and the one of the dead. As Marcio Goldman puts it:

In Candomblé possession overcomes the distance between the aie and the orum,19 allowing for the orixás to embody in human beings giving them some of their divine essence, while simultaneously some humanity is infused onto them by the believers who agree to receive them (1987: 111, my own translation).

Possession is only possible through life, and religions with possession cults are religions that celebrate life and communication. One can only experience possession, and therefore enter the sphere of high communication with the gods, through a complex initiation process in which the person’s body plays an essential role. The possibility of experiencing trance and possession is indeed one of the reasons that bring the Portuguese to these religions, as I explained above.

19 Aiê is the world of the living, orum the world of the supernatural, of the orixás. 208 clara saraiva

The Initiated Body

In Afro-Brazilian religions, a person’s capacity to become a medium and the need to have this capacity mastered and domesticated is expressed through physical ailments. For their followers, there is an imbalance that has to be corrected, otherwise the condition may worsen and it may even lead to the person´s death. Gods and spiritual entities are fairly cruel and rigid beings: becoming a healer implies that the chosen person has no free will. If a spirit decides someone is to be possessed it is because he wants to work ‘through’ her, and the person cannot refuse such a call, under the risk of dying or having someone in her family suffering severe retaliation if she does so. The trigger towards initiation is often associated with health problems, visible in disturbances in the body. It is often the recurrence of health disturbances that opens up the possibility that the person might have been chosen by the gods to be their ‘horse.’ Some examples taken from my fieldwork in Portugal illustrate this idea. A woman who later on became the mãe-de-santo of a Candomblé terreiro in Lisbon suffered from recurrent health problems directed connected with her mediumnic capacity. Only after she fully accepted this power and began her initiation process did she overcome her suffering and physical ailments. One of the young women who attend this terreiro is going through personal problems (she is now separated from her husband and supports her two children as a single mother) that directly affect her well-being. She suffers from anxiety, is often short of breath, feels suffocated and complains of acute chest pains. The pai-de-santo considers that this is also due to her latent mediumship powers, which need to be developed, but the process is long and difficult. She heals herself by means of herbal baths and is slowly learning to cope with her capacities as a medium.20 In another case a woman who had been put into a mental health institution, accused of hearing voices and almost having killed her own son was healed with the help of a pai-de-santo who made her accept her mediumship powers and go through the long and arduous initiation process. The initiation process and the establishment of a new terreiro also reveal the interpersonal and international aspects of the diffusion of such practices, as priests/priestess travel from Brazil to Portugal and other European countries to give consultations, but also to perform initiations.

20 Becoming a medium implies a long learning process, and getting used to this new capacity of dealing directly with the supernatural. pretos velhos across the atlantic 209

The initiation rituals in Portugal follow the process borrowed from Brazil. The preliminary rituals in the initiation process include the ‘washing of the beads,’ in which the person receives a necklace made of beads of the color the person´s orixá (previously identified by the pai-de-santo), and the bori, an initial ritual that reinforces the relation of the person with her/his orixá and the terreiro. This requires a period of seclusion and resting, the assentamento (when the representation of the person’s orixá is ritually acknowl- edged and certain objects that represent the association of the orixá with the person are sacralized). Finally, the feitura is when one becomes fully initiated. The initiation process thus formalizes the pact between the individual and the divinity; this relationship entails a direct connection with the gods but also the social integration of the individual within the religious congregation. Each orixá represents one of the four natural elements (water, fire, earth and air) and certain meteorological phenomena, colors, shapes, days of the week, animals, minerals and vegetable species; each of them is also related to certain activities, as well as patterns of personality and behavior. The disclosure of a person´s orixá, his/her dono de cabeça (“owner of his/ her head”) is generally made through a divination process in which the pai-de-santo throws the jogo de búzios (cowry shell game). But even before that, an experienced pai-de-santo may already define who the person’s orixá is through careful observation of the individual´s personality, everyday behavior, reactions.21 When the orixá of the person is identified, the entire body is mapped according to its relationship with the gods and a personal pantheon is thus constituted (Silva 1995: 127). The priest proclaims the person´s main orixá (the god that holds the person´s head), but also the juntó, the orixá that owns the person´s back, the one that holds the person´s chest. The body is thus conceived as a manifestation of the supernatural.22 As such, the head is seen as an essential locus of decision and behavior, where reason and emotion interface. ‘Fazer a cabeça’ (literally, to ‘make one’s head,’ the initiation process) means both the possibility of discovering oneself as a person and, at the same time, to establish permanent and serious religious

21 As a matter of fact, not only the person´s behavior but also his or her physical characteristics, the way he or she moves, how he or she talks, laughs, may also lead, or at least give clues, to the identification of her/his orixá. 22 Just as the several parts of the human body are related to different orixás, so too the various gods reside or are directly connected to each part. For instance, in the Fon pantheon (Bénin) the correspondent to the Yoruba Exu is Legba, who resides in the navel of the person, from where he insufflates his anger (Capone 2004: 56). 210 clara saraiva and social ties with the community.23 The body itself is full of significa- tions, becoming a book, which can be read and manipulated by the specialists. This ‘body mapping’ and reading is one source of interest and curiosity for the Portuguese newcomers in these religions, as a follower noted: “One feels that one really becomes connected to the divine, our head, our body… it is like the guardian angels, but better” (A, 22 years old). For instance, the front of the body is related to the future, and the back to the past; the right side is masculine and the left side feminine. The lower limbs are associated with the ancestors. In all rituals, the follower must be barefoot, since the soles of the feet must be in direct contact with the ground in order to establish the connection with important powers coming from the earth. The hands are a vehicle for entrance and exit of forces coming from the orixás. This way, open palms of the hands turned upwards in front of the body, express the willingness to submission, as one asks for the blessing of the pai-de-santo. Within the same logic, it is with the hands that the mediums, incorporating the spirits, perform ‘the passes,’ the ritual cleansing of the bad fluids. Charged with power and energy, they touch the body of the person, the hands of the medium following certain movements from the top of the head to the feet, thus cleansing and purifying the body. These bad forces are directed to the ground, which the entity touches or strikes, in some cases rather vigorously, in order to discharge them, and thus freeing the individual of all such negative energies.

Losing One’s Balance

The importance of keeping a balance and thus being healthy entails the presupposition of the importance of the relationship between the two worlds, one of the living and of the dead, or of the human and the supernatural worlds. Only if this relationship is kept can balance exist, otherwise problems arise. Since the body is conceived as the symbol of the social and religious pact that is installed between the god/spirit and the individual from the beginning of the initiation process on (Barros and Lina Teixeira 1989: 49), it is in the body that problems and disturbances are mostly visible to the humans. As such, different failures or actions have different consequences, all of them related to some sort of problem

23 During the initiation ritual, the cuts to place the oxú (a mixture of vegetal elements and sacrificial blood that is supposed to install the spirit of the orixá) in the person´s body is also in the head (Silva 1995: 133). pretos velhos across the atlantic 211 inscribed upon the body.24 Such principles, valid in Brazil, are all trans- posed to the Portuguese case. As we just saw, one of the possibilities is the sign that the person has been chosen by the gods to become a medium. This often comes through as physical problems and illnesses. By undergoing the initiation process the person feels better and her problems disappear gradually. A second cause of sickness is neglect of one’s social and/or religious obligations towards the gods or the ancestors. Sickness entails a loss of the individual axé, but, at the same time, once a person is part of a collective community such as the terreiro, also of the collective axé (energy, vital force). This means that what a person’s attitude affects not only herself but her social family, and can s/he only be healed by means of a rigorous accomplishment of the prescribed actions and rituals. The violation of rules, transgression of taboos (sexual, dietary) which have been established through the relations that unite the larger religious congregation may also be a cause for disturbances. In the measure that such violations may endanger the position of the individual as an obedient member of the congregation, they are seen as dangerous and need to be treated by the pai-de-santo, who generally defines sanctions and purification rituals that need to take place in order to reinstall the individual and social balance. Another cause of sickness is the contamination by spirits of the dead (eguns), which may come from an excessive proximity with the dead, as in cases where a recent death in the family has occurred, and disorder and pollution resulting from such a loss have not been properly addressed. That is, rituals have not been correctly or entirely performed. The dead need to find their way and if ambiguity remains the survivors may suffer; such ailments can only be taken care of through purification rituals or though certain ebós (ritual offerings) that will help in fixing the boundaries between life and death, and reinstall well-being. The contamination by natural elements may also be a cause for health problems. Although sickness appears because pathological agents exist, the fact is that they attack the person because the person is fragile, his/her inner strength (her axé) is very low or very weakened. Once again purification rituals must be performed in order to restore the person´s vital strength.

24 This enumeration of possibilities is adapted from the list given by Barros and Lina Teixeira 1989: 48–52. 212 clara saraiva

Healing in Portuguese

In a religious system that celebrates life through the use of the body, a healthy body is of the outmost importance. Therefore, all the therapeutic procedures must start with practices (such as the body cleansing rituals) that restore a good relationship between the world of the living (the individuals and their physical frame) and the world of the gods. All of the five mentioned causes for disturbances are directly connected to being a member of the religious congregation. But in many terreiros (in Portugal as in Brazil) there is an important category of people who come initially as clients, in search for relief to their life-crisis situations in which health problems are prominently visible. As we saw, this is one of the main reasons for the attraction of Afro-Brazilian religions to the Portuguese. One of my informants, a young woman in one of the Lisbon Candomblé terreiros who suffered from troubles since childhood, hearing voices and seeing spirits, was diagnosed in her adolescence as suffering from bipolar disorder, and underwent psychiatric treatment. Later, she started going to a Brazilian therapist and ended up in a Candomblé terreiro, where she started the initiation process to become a filha-de-santo. When she was diagnosed with breast cancer, she turned to a mixture of esoteric healing through magnetism, stone therapy and gemotherapy (Saraiva 2010a, 2010b, 2010c). But, most of all, she argued that what really worked was the help of the orixás:

When they first discovered the cancer, the doctors did not want to operate because the cancer was too big, and I had to undergo chemotherapy, and in four months the cancer went from 10 to 5 cm. When I started the chemo it was also when I paid the first obligations to my orixá. When I started the initiation ceremonies the cancer was 12 cm; in a few days it decreased to 10 cm, and the pain and bleeding ceased. After the operation the doctor told me I would never be able to move my arm again. Two weeks after I received Ogum (my head orixá) and from that day on I was able to move my arm in all directions, as if nothing had ever happened. I am sure I would have died if it was not for the orixás [Laura, 31, unemployed].

The diagnosis for the problems is then often connected with a bad relationship with an encosto (spirit of a dead person who has gone the other world), and purification is the starting point for cure. Often such persons come again to the terreiro and with time become believers and may even be diagnosed as someone in need to accept his/her mediunity and become a full believer. In any case, after the diagnosis done by the ritual specialist using the above-mentioned divinatory procedures, the cure necessarily entails the restoration of the wholeness fragmented by the loss of axé. The ritual pretos velhos across the atlantic 213 sequence may differ from terreiro to terreiro but basically entails a period of preparation, in which the person rests and disconnects him/herself from the mundane activities, followed by the first cleansing and purification rituals. These may include passes (laying of hands), body smoking, partial or entire libations and baths or other types of cure sessions. Plants, herbs and roots used in therapies all have a specific meaning and a particular relation to the gods. The same way that each god requires the sacrifice of a certain animal and the offering of a specific food, so too they have a direct relationship with the plant world. For instance, in the Afro-Brazilian universe certain orixás are meant to inhabit certain trees and plants. The plants are not only used in religious ceremonies but also in the actual treatment for illnesses in healing rituals performed in the terreiros or elsewhere. One of the recurrent aphorism in the terreiros, in Portugal as in Brazil, is ‘kosi ewe, kosi orixá,’ meaning “without the leaves, there is no orixá.” Most of the cleansing rituals used as purification rituals in the preparation of ceremonies or as healing libations require the use of herbs. Leaves are supposed to be one of the main sources of axé, representing the vital energy of the gods and thus used in liturgical and healing practices to restore or reinforce the person’s axé. Religious ritualists often state that by using the correct leaves they may heal or kill an individual. The ‘hot’ leaves (associated with the orixás of the fire and earth, as Ogum and Exú) agitate atmospheres, intentions, emotions and individuals and may cause harm, whereas the ‘cold’ ones (connected to the water and air orixás, as Oxum and Oxalá) appease and tranquilize. The knowledge of the right leaves for the cult and rituals is thus one of the most important qualifications required to become a respectable pai-de-santo (Silva 1995: 209). Often associated with the proclamation of certain words or sentences that trigger their efficacy, flowers, plants, bushes, leaves, roots, seeds and barks are used in the preparation of medicines and prophylactic beverages or libations (Camargo 1989). Many pais de santo and their followers who travel to Brazil come back with luggage full of herbs and leaves, hoping that customs will not bother them. When it is not possible to use the original ones, they are replaced by the local herb most similar to the original one, with the previous care to know about the medical properties of the plant. The final sequence is the offering of ebós (offers to the orixás), starting generally with an oblation for Exú, since he is the orixá conceived as messenger and mediator between the humans and the gods, thus personifying communication between the two worlds. The ebós de saúde (health offerings) are carefully prepared with specific ingredients, and following strict ritual rules, that respect the affliction it is supposed to handle and the orixá 214 clara saraiva it is intended for, since each one has its own preferred foods. For instance, Exú prefers rum and foods made of beans and dendê oil (palm oil); and Obaluaiê, being the orixá responsible for sickness, likes to receive popcorn, the ‘flowers of Obaluaiê.’ As with the other orixás, the type of food to offer is directly connected to the founding myths and life stories of each one of them. Thus, according to the myth, Obaluaiê was sick with smallpox and was healed by Iemanjá (the orixá associated with salty water, the sea), becoming the symbol for the transformation of sickness into health; the aspect of popcorn relates to the rough marks that smallpox leaves on the skin. The aesthetic appearance of the food is also important, since they are conceived as offerings to please the gods; therefore, sophisticated yam cakes made in the shape of a snake are given to Oxumarê (the orixá that symbolizes renewal and movement and is personified as a rainbow-snake), and nicely shaped cakes to the Exús. Certain healing procedures require specific elements; the indication of what should be used in the therapy has to do with several elements: the characteristics of the patient and his /her energies, the features of his/her orixá, the traits of the sickness itself.25 The therapeutic practices generally involve not only a curing objective, to treat the diagnosed ailments, but also a prophylactic purpose, such as preventing the evil eye, envy, and the appearance of subsequent problems. All preparations for treatment are supervised by the spirit: it is him/her that indicates which are the appropriate healing methods, the ingredients to be used, and it is also him/her that actually does the healing, since such actions only take place after the spirit incorporates: All the healing that takes place here is directed by the spiritual entities that direct the house. It was the house guide (guia), Mestre Pé de Vento who chose the mediums to work in the cure group and it is him who directs and

25 Illnesses are also connected to specific gods. Since each orixá is directly connected to certain aspects of the body and of human nature, they are also responsible for specific afflic- tions. Thus, Obaluaiê is responsible for sickness in general and dermatological problems in special; skin problems—such as allergies, rashes, and other dermatological problems, as well as epidemic ailments—as smallpox, measles, German measles, tuberculosis—are associated with this orixá. They are treated with a bath made from the maceration of certain herbs and offerings of popcorn to the god. The physical appearance of popcorn is associated with the pimples or bubbles provoked by such disturbances, and popcorn is therefore the primordial offering that must be made to the god in order to heal. Female venereal diseases, disturbances in the menstrual cycles, abortions, infertility and birth problems are marks of the two goddesses of femininity and maternity, Iemanjá and Oxum, also goddesses of the waters, the primordial element of all the cleansing rituals (Barros and Lina Teixeira 1989: 53) and Nãnã is often related to cancer and AIDS). pretos velhos across the atlantic 215

summons all the other entities that work with the mediums in the healing sessions (Cl, pai-de-santo). In fact, besides the giras, sessions where pretos velhos and caboclos give consultations and perform charity, helping people, there are specific healing sessions, which take place in private consultations with the ritual specialists, or in certain terreiros, with the presence of a group of mediums specialized in healing. Both on a private or collective level, healing sessions put together the principles of re-energizing and cleansing of Umbanda (and Candomblé), and a vast array of therapies and practices, as I have described, which are fairly new to the Portuguese. The first case can be illustrated by the above mentioned priest (C), who claims that, when individuals come for consultation (usually the cowry shell throwing divination game, jogo de búzios) he lets his instinct feel what is best for their treatment. As such, he may send them to a reiki session, or to a cleansing bath with herbs: I do the jogo de búzios and see what the complaints are; I can use any of these therapies to heal the person, depending on the case and what´s best for her. Although in Umbanda and Candomblé it is the entities that heal the person, the different spheres are all connected; for instance, when I am performing a reiki session I mentally ask the spiritual forces to send an entity (a guide, guia) to direct me. The important thing is to make people feel better. The same logic is followed in the terreiros where a more collective approach is used, as a mãe-de-santo that directs healing sessions, together with her mediums, states: The work in the terreiro is complemented with the cure sessions; most of the times individuals come with family issues or love problems that are soma- tized and create health problems. These situations are identified at the weekly sessions and redirected to the healing sessions (mãe V). In another terreiro where I have taken part in many of the healing sessions, the cure sessions use techniques of concentration, plants, crystals, and stone therapy in a quiet room with a very calm atmosphere. The sessions normally start with a previous talk between the head of the cure group and the patient which emphasizes the relationship between biomedicine and the healing, as well as the role of all other techniques to improve the individual´s well-being. For instance, in one of the consultations I attended, the patient explained that she suffered from chronicle hepatitis, and that the doctors recommended her to have a new biopsy, which she did not want to do. The healing session was directed to restore the balance of that person´s body, so that she would not need to take such a medical exam, as 216 clara saraiva the medium explained: “We will do complementary work to the doctors’, to help restore your balance so that you feel better” (Cr, healing group). In the room where the session took place the person responsible for the healing group called for concentration and upon the entities that would come down to help them. The session lasted for about twenty minutes, during which she placed her hands on top of the sick woman´s liver.

Saved by the Preto Velho

If we now look at the way the followers and clients of such religions perceive what happens to them, we can take Paula Montero´s (1985) notions of disorder as sickness, and how such notions are incorporated into Umbanda and Candomblé. As Montero explains, the boundaries between what is conceived as ‘material sickness’ and ‘spiritual sickness’ are very permeable. Followers complain that official medicine cannot ‘see the illness’ because ‘it is of a different nature,’ not able to be detected by the instruments used in western official medicine, and even if being able to identify it, cannot heal it, since the source of the problem lies elsewhere: I was very ill, but the doctors could not understand what was going on. It was the preto velho who told me there was something in my chest, which needed to be treated. It was him the first to understand what was going on, long before the doctors told me I had cancer (S., female, 29 years old, secretary). Often individuals looked for help in other therapeutic practices, and the finding of the Afro-Brazilian religions is perceived as the end of the path they had to go through to get better: First I went to a Brazilian therapist, who used aromatherapy and chromotherapy; from there I went to the terreiro, and discovered the strength of the orixás. When my breast cancer was diagnosed I did magnetism cure, but I would surely have died if it was not for my orixás (L., female, 31 years old, supermarket cashier). Nevertheless, most people share the view of Pai C., and see all the New Age practices that have arrived in Portugal together with the Afro-Brazilian religions as complementary. Lacking deep knowledge of all such practices, they tend to classify them in a way that reunites concepts of energy and well-being: The doctors said there was no cure and told me to go to the bruxo [sorcerer]. Very few people know Umbanda here. I was also advised to try other therapies. I went to a Japanese man who told me that he could do nothing for pretos velhos across the atlantic 217

me, as I was being treated in a sacred temple, and I was being well treated, since the temple has a very good light and energy. Of course he was referring to the Umbanda temple, but I had told him nothing about it…I think that in the other therapies they feel the energy from Umbanda, there is a very good spiritual connection between them (A., female, 49 years old, housewife). I was operated on disk hernia twice in a row. The doctor told me I would never again be able to sit for more than twenty minutes, and I would always have to exercise, to develop the muscles between the disks. But I have no time for exercise. Now I am public relations in a company and I drive around 200 km a day. When I leave the Saturday giras I feel well, and that gets me through the working week. Without the help of the Umbanda entities I could never cope, I would be in too much pain. With the amount of kilometers I travel and the stress, I am able to go on only with their help (T., female, 39 years old, public relations). In general, individuals report that the Afro-Brazilian religions and their healing practices give them a ‘great calm and peace.’ This would seem contradictory to the empowerment they feel for being able to incorporate and receive the supernatural entities and needs to be ‘worked on,’ as a ritual leader states: It requires a lot of work, so that the developing mediums understand that no one is more important than someone else, and that we are here using all possible techniques to make people feel better… that is our role. I am here to help the Portuguese and I cannot go back to Brazil, since people need me here (Pai Cl). This brings us back to the connections between Portugal and Brazil, and the need for further research on the symbolic construction of the relationship and the way that the individuals enact it—in my research case, the way Portuguese who go to Afro-Brazilian temples perceive it, as well as the way Brazilians pais e mães-de-santo in Portugal talk about it. For instance, one mãe-de-santo told me: Brazilians transmit a very good energy; that gives you good vibes. Because we are Brazilians we have a different view from yours, the Portuguese. The country itself (Brazil) has an energy that transmits this; it is a fast-paced country, a miscegenated country, racism is fought…here, in Portugal, people are very used to talking about their ailments, they talk about that all the time: you meet someone, and she starts talking about her illnesses, her problems. It is very heavy; in Brazil, everything is lighter (mãe V.). This discourse relates to the way the Portuguese think about Brazil as far as the new Afro-Brazilian religions are concerned. Brazil is praised as the ‘motherland’ of these religions. As we saw, many of the religious leaders do 218 clara saraiva indeed come from Brazil, and it is also to Brazil that most Portuguese who want to be initiated in these religions go to.26 In fact, Brazil appears here in a pivotal position as the origin of the Afro-Brazilian cults. From regular Catholic churchgoers, the Portuguese become assiduous frequenters of esoteric shops; they buy books on Umbanda and Candomblé, and dream of going to a terreiro in Salvador, Bahia.27 Having been there is a reason of pride and joy: I went there last year with my son! I had dreamt of doing this from the moment I started coming to this terreiro here in Portugal three years ago. I wanted to go to the source. It was a wonderful experience! (Sara, 55 years old, clerk). In a country with such a high number of Brazilian immigrants, my first assumption when I started my research was that such temples would be full of Brazilians, looking for practices in their diaspora that they eventually knew from their homeland.28 On the contrary, in the terreiros both initiated who incorporate the spirits (filhos e filhas-de-santo) and clients are almost exclusively Portuguese, and very few Brazilians frequent them, preferring to join Neo-Pentecostal churches. This is directly related to the stereotypes and stigmatization that Brazilians feel in Portugal. Brazilians state that the Portuguese would look down on them if they frequented Umbanda or Candomblé sessions: “The Portuguese would think we go to do feitiçaria [witchcraft], they would put us down even more.” In fact, Brazilians immigrants in general are often targets of racism by the Portuguese. Brazilian men are associated with ‘gayness’ in the Portuguese imaginary, and this is used to claim that the Brazilian men are very good as bar waiters, and Brazilian women are perceived are potential prostitutes, or at least thought to have sex with anyone (see Machado 2002a, 2002b; Padilla 2003). In this sense, the religion offers a joyful way out of such stereotypes, and turns Brazilian ‘gayness’ into an honorable objective. In a context of supposed ‘brotherhood’ and affinities between the two cultures (Feldman-Bianco 2001), it is striking how one stereotype mirrors the other and entirely inverts

26 In spite of the direct connection with Africa as the original setting for the ‘religion of the orixás’ that some Portuguese pais e mães-de-santo born in Lusophone Africa or descen- dant from Africans claim for (see Guillot 2009; Pordeus 2010; Saraiva 2010a, 2010b, 2010c). 27 City in Northeast Brazil, considered the home of the Afro-Brazilian cults, especially Candomblé. 28 As Luís Silva Pereira (2006) also notes. pretos velhos across the atlantic 219 the situation: both are attracted by the Afro-Brazilian religions, but it is the Portuguese who feel the appeal of Iemanjá and become its followers (Saraiva 2010a, 2010b, 2010c).

Final Considerations: Symmetries and Oppositions

The discourse praising the qualities of the Brazilians takes us to a symmetrical position from the ones we started this text with. On that bus, the qualities of the Portuguese were praised by the passengers. In that first case, the Brazilian sociologist’s argument on the exceptional qualities of the Portuguese to create a Brazilian society, were disseminated in everyday life in Brazil. In the second case, there is on-going religious hybridization by the Portuguese who choose to interact with religions coming from Brazil, which they praise as pure, strong and helpful for their lives. In Portugal, there are terreiros for all social classes, in different areas of the country and of the different cities, from the upper class neighborhoods to working class ones, and one cannot state that it is strictly a phenomenon of lower classes. Each terreiro is a sort of kingdom where the ritual leaders master their own rules. As it happens in Brazil, there is a high mobility of followers, who can move from one terreiro to another if they choose to. Going back to the reasons I enumerated as factors that attract the Portuguese towards the Afro-Brazilian religions, one can remark that the whole concept of ‘emotional’ religion ties in with a search for the solution for life-crisis situations, especially where health is concerned. The way these religions conceptualize illness opens up to a new way of feeling one’s own body as more holistic, authentic, more in touch with nature and with a spirituality that is felt to be more in direct connection with the supernatural world, in opposition to the hegemonic presence of the Catholic priest and of Catholic morality. All this brings us to considerations concerning the reconfiguration of the Portuguese religious field, which can no longer be conceived as a total hegemonic Catholic one. There is a space where nowadays Afro-Brazilian religions and many others live side by side with New Age practices and esoteric shops. This opening of the Portuguese to new perspectives and practices, indeed a phenomenon of the last twenty years, is expanding fast and developing into new forms of perception of life and of religiosity. The rapid expansion of the Afro-Brazilian religions in Portugal is thus central to this process, and part of a larger mosaic yet to be further studied. 220 clara saraiva

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Deirdre Meintel and Annick Hernandez

Introduction

It is a quiet February Sunday in Outremont, a prosperous township within the city of Montreal, and the new snow sparkles in the brilliant sunshine. We arrive at a solid-looking brick house. As directed, we go to an entry off the back garden that leads to the furnished basement. Once inside, we find ourselves in a room where a few rows of folding chairs have been set up. In front, an altar and a set of drums stand at the far end of a cordoned-off area. A bouquet of flowers and feathers, three candles, and a glass of water adorn the altar, along with other small objects including a little pot of honey, a piece of chalk, a small stone and a covered bowl containing water, eau de cologne, and flower petals. Further back, almost out of sight, is an alarm clock. Soon the chairs are filled and silence falls over the group. A young woman dressed in white is playing the drums. Other women dressed in white1 are singing (in Brazilian Portuguese) and moving to the music in the gonga, the sacred space near the altar. A tall, radiant woman enters the area around the altar singing and dancing to the music. She is wearing a long flowered skirt. The mãe (visiting from Brazil) has arrived and the gira2 has begun. How is it that this small group of Montrealers, none of them Brazilian,3 all highly educated, came to be singing in a language not their own, and in some cases, incorporating spirits associated with a culture and history some of them knew little about before encountering Umbanda? Indeed, these mediums did not discover Umbanda through Brazilian immigrants, nor had they visited Brazil, except in the odd case as tourists, before

1 The mediums now wear long, colorful flowered skirts for rituals. 2 Ritual in which certain spirits are incorporated by the mediums and where spectators may consult the incorporated spirits. 3 The one Brazilian medium in the group ceased regular participation because of the demands of her studies. 224 deirdre meintel and annick hernandez becoming Umbandistas. Rather, they encountered Umbanda via a complex process of transnationalization that began with the visit to Brazil of a few Swiss therapists. Since then, Umbanda has travelled, not only via Brazilian migrants but, in this case, through the migration of non-Brazilians between Europe and North America. Moreover, the development of the Internet and expansion of international travel has allowed this Montreal group to function as an integral part of the ‘Arán Temple,’4 whose leader (pai-de-santo) lives near São Paulo, Brazil. Mãe-de-santo and pai-de-santo are titles that roughly translate as ‘priest’; they refer to those who have been initiated into the more advanced levels of the ritual and who are responsible for guarding and transmitting the Umbanda tradition. The pai-de-santo referred to herein is the acknowl- edged leader of the temple; he addressed as ‘pai’ (father) and is often referred to by that term. Of modest, but not impoverished origins, the pai travels little and so far as we know, speaks only Brazilian Portuguese. He did not pursue his studies beyond the level of colegial (secondary school). He is, however, a talented musician. The ‘mãe,’ referred to in this chapter, is the sister of the pai who is also the coordinator of the international Arán Temple network. In her case, the title ‘mãe’ connotes respect for her ritual advancement and role as representative of the pai-de-santo but does not imply structural equivalence to the leader. Unlike the pai, she is often referred to and called by her first name, preceded by ‘mãe,’ as in ‘mãe Susana’ (pseudonym). She has a Master’s Degree in psychology, which she pursued after becoming involved in Arán Umbanda, seeking to better understand the trance experience of the mediums from a psychological point of view. She speaks French, English and Spanish fluently and travels frequently in her work as coordinator of the international Arán Temple network. Anthropologists overlooked Umbanda in favor of Candomblé for many years, though Bastide’s (1960) work on African religions in Brazil offered a description of Umbanda and situated it in the Brazilian religious context. Since the 1980s, Umbanda has attracted increased scholarly attention, not only as it appears in Brazil (Brown 1994; Motta 1993) but in bordering countries such as Uruguay (Moro and Ramirez 1981, cited by Brown and Bick 1987), Paraguay (Oro 1999) and Argentina (Muchnik 2006; Frigerio 2004). The spread of Umbanda to the US (Brown and Bick 1987) and Europe

4 Like all proper names used herein, this is a pseudonym. transnational authenticity 225

(Capone and Teisenhoffer 2001–2002; Teisenhoffer 2007) is also the subject of several recent studies. Much has been written about how migrants transport their religion to the host society, how their religion change over time, and how they may transform the host society’s religious landscape (Mossière and Meintel 2010), and yet also allow migrants to remain connected to the home country (Levitt 2008). Considerable scholarly attention also has been paid to the role of religion in sustaining diasporic global communities; for example, among Armenians. However, the process that brought the Arán Temple to Montreal was somewhat different from the foregoing cases in that it was not the result of migration or refugee movements. This is not to say that migration has not contributed to the spread of Umbanda beyond Brazil; for example, migration of Brazilians has played a role in the spread of Umbanda to the US (Margolis 1994: 218; Brown and Bick 1987: 74). However, the spread of the Arán temple beyond Brazil, as well as its presence in Quebec appears to be a factor of the more generalized mobility associated with globalization (Roudometof 2005). Furthermore, this case study exemplifies the recourse to symbolic resources generated beyond the local milieu that is becoming more and more common in our era. (We will return to this issue at a later point.) New communication technologies have made for innovative forms of leadership, religious transmission, and socialization throughout Arán Temple’s worldwide network. Indeed, we suggest, the Temple offers a vivid illustration of how globalization is leading to new forms of religious communalization. In regard to the latter, the transnational expansion of this line of Umbanda holds interesting religious and cultural implications for the religious community itself. While Umbanda is generally seen by its adherents as a universal religion, in practice this has brought certain social, cultural and spiritual challenges for the Arán Temple. Besides the obvious question of incorporation5 of spirits associated with Brazilian history and culture by non-Brazilians, we note issues around gender norms, the ritual use of tobacco and the importance of a specific natural environment. These questions will be taken up after we describe the origins and the transnational modus operandi of the Arán Temple in Montreal. First of all, we describe the research on which our analysis is based.

5 Umbandistas of the Arán temple do not speak of possession but rather ‘incorporation’ of spirits in their rituals. 226 deirdre meintel and annick hernandez

The Study

Annick Hernandez has had extensive contact with the Arán Temple in Montreal, first as a participant and later as a researcher/participant since September 2007. She has also made several visits to the Arán Temple in Brazil and has interviewed the representative of the Temple abroad, the mãe. Her research on the Montreal group was carried out as part of an ongoing broader study of contemporary religious and spiritual groups in Quebec directed by Deirdre Meintel.6 To date, some ninety groups have been studied and of these, thirty have been the object of ethnographic study over a period of some months. A common set of research instruments (observation grids and interview formats) is being used for all the longer- term studies, with adaptations for each particular group. Rituals, other religious activities, as well as non-religious activities involving group members are observed. Interviews are carried out with members and leaders on their own religious trajectories, current religious participation (some participate in various types of religious groups) and other issues regarding the group, its beliefs and practices and the role of religion in their lives. Hernandez has participated in three retreats7 in the São Paulo temple, and one meeting where the coordinators of all the temples – abroad or inside Brazil – were invited. Besides ongoing participant observation in the Montreal temple, she has interviewed the mãe and carried out many informal interviews with Arán Temple mediums in Montreal, Brazil and elsewhere. She continues to keep in contact with a number of mediums via the Internet. The research seeks, first of all, to discover the variety of religious groups and resources that have developed in Quebec since the ‘Quiet Revolution’ of the 1960s, a period of rapid, if tardy (compared to most Western democ- racies), secularization. The groups include those exemplifying new currents in well-established religions, including Catholicism, religions brought by immigrants or Quebecois who have sojourned abroad, as well as religions and new, usually hybrid, forms of spirituality developed in situ. Secondly, the study examines how religion is (or is not) articulated with

6 The research was funded by the Fonds de Recherche Sur La Société et La Culture (Quebec) and the Social Science and Humanities Research Council (Canada). Researchers include Marie-Nathalie Le Blanc, Josiane Le Gall, Claude Gélinas, Khadiyatoulah Fall, François Gauthier and Géraldine Mossière. Véronique Jourdain is coordinator. 7 These retreats were part of initiation into higher ritual levels and involve prayer, fasting and contact with one’s spirit entities. The details of the retreats are considered sacred and are not to be revealed to outsiders. transnational authenticity 227 ethnicity, and thirdly, how it figures in the daily lives of immigrants and non-immigrants alike. The study is also expected to allow a better understanding of the form and functions of religious groups in an era characterized by the ‘individualization’ of religion, as well as on new forms of religious communalization. In this regard, the Arán temple provides particularly interesting example of new kinds of religious transmission and sociality.

The Umbanda Tradition and the Arán Temple

The syncretic product of many influences – including African and Amerindian traditions, Spiritism or Kardecism, and Catholicism – Umbanda is generally seen as originating with Zélio Moraes, a Spiritist- influenced medium working in Niteroi, a city near Rio de Janeiro. Bastide (1960: 443) describes Umbanda as a kind of reinvention of macumba via Spiritism, one which retains African mystical associations among days, colors, forces of nature (Orixás), and plants and animals (1960: 450). From Christianity comes its emphasis on faith, hope and charity (Prandi 1990: 61) and its claims to universalism (Aubrée 1987: 154). The pantheon of spirits from African traditions was transmuted into forces of nature, while the Kardecist notions of progress and evolution, along with the belief in reincarnation, became part of Umbanda’s spiritual program (Capone 1999a: 96). Engler (2009: 555) describes Kardecism, or Spiritism, succinctly as a “rationalized French version of American Spiritualism,” a description with which we must agree based on Meintel’s brief fieldwork in Lyon, France, on Kardecism and in Montreal for over ten years on Spiritualism. The author cites two thousand census figures showing some 2.2 million Brazilians who self-identify as Kardecists, as compared with 387,000 Umbandistas. However, as Engler notes (2009: 556), many more seek healing through participation in Umbanda rituals. The two active Spiritist groups that we know of in Montreal are led by Brazilians and hold many activities in Brazilian Portuguese. Umbanda is highly diverse, with some groups being closer to Kardecist Spiritism, while others show greater African influence and resemble Candomblé more closely. Each temple, guided by the spirit entities of its founder, has its own particular way of interpreting the ‘Sacred Text’ of Nature, its own rules and philosophy. Fry (1978: 180) notes that some leaders established federations of Umbanda centers “in order to establish political and ritual hegemony,” this with limited success. Such federations 228 deirdre meintel and annick hernandez gave a degree of protection against police harassment during the years of the Vargas dictatorship (1930–1945), when Umbanda, along with older religious forms, was persecuted (Brown and Bick 1987: 78; Fry 1978: note 9). The Arán Temple defines itself as monotheistic and does not promote belief in demons; rather, negativity is what is out of place, what is not true to its own nature. This applies to human individuals as well. Nature is held sacred and the forces of Nature are central to Arán teaching. The preservation of life is a fundamental value; moreover, great emphasis is put on respect for the environment and biodiversity. The Temple eschews animal sacrifice (while being careful not to denigrate it as practiced in Candomblé) and advocates peaceful coexistence rather than domination of human beings over Nature. The orixás are considered the great forces of Nature and are fundamental to Arán philosophy and cosmogony. The ‘higher’ entities, those usually incorporated by mediums at giras, are caboclos (Amerindians) and pretos velhos (spirits of wise, old male house- or ex-slaves). These are consulted by spectators at rituals and give their counsel through the incorporating mediums. The exus (spirits of the night) and the pombas giras (their female counterparts) are considered ‘lower entities’ and though not sources of counsel, they are considered a necessary complement to the higher entities. Their presence assures the balance of the group and the individuals who compose it. (Incorporated entities speak Portuguese when they are communicating through mediums in Montreal.) In the Arán Temple, the xirê, or representation of the sequence of orixás, is the main frame of reference; every element of daily life can be situated in relation to the effects of the orixás. The xirê also determines where objects are placed on the altar and the sequence of chants during any ritual. Understanding the xirê is an endless learning process that the initiate comes to know level, by level, as though inside a spiral. In Schema 1, each element has its place; good and evil do not exist. Rather the question is one of balance or imbalance. Caring for oneself or others is a matter of understanding what is missing. As the mãe explains, “When someone is suffocating, we might ask, ‘Is it lack of air or too much earth?’” Like other Afro-Brazilian religions, Umbanda was the object of repressive policies under the right-wing Vargas regime that would go on until the early 1950s. In fact, its early leaders sought to dissociate themselves from Afro-Brazilian religions. This ‘whitening influence’ went so far as to find Indo-European origins for the name ‘Umbanda,’ until then assumed to be of African origin. In the later interpretation, the name supposedly transnational authenticity 229

North

ObáNaná

Earth Ossãe Water Oxum

Oxossi Iémanjá

Obaluaê Ewá West East Xangô Iansã

Oxumaré Tempo

Ogum Ifá Fire Air Elegbara Oxalá

South

Schema 1. Source: Hernandez 2010: 31. derived from ‘aum’ and ‘Bhanda’ meaning “‘the limit in the unlimited,’ the ‘Divine Principle,’ radiant light, the source of life and constant evolution” (Brown 1994: 42). Yet at the same time, Umbanda rehabilitated spirits seen as Afro-Brazilian and Amerindian in origin, such as the preto velho and the caboclo, which had been seen as inferior entities in Spiritism (Jensen 1999: 279). By the mid-1960s, Umbanda was no longer marginal and in fact enjoyed a certain protection under the military dictatorship of the period (Capone 1999a: 131). Since then, Umbanda has become something of a “national religion” (Ortiz 1975: 90), “a great synthesis of Afro-Brazilian and Amerindian religious traditions, Kardecist Spiritism, and Catholicism” (Jensen 1999: 279) whose hybridity reflects that of Brazilian society. Jensen (1999) traces tendencies toward re-Africanization back as far as the end of the Vargas regime. Since then, more ‘African’ forms of Umbanda have appeared, further stimulated by the counterculture of the 1960s. Engler (2007) describes a ‘spectrum of Umbandas’ where, at the white end, Kardecist elements have been absorbed into Umbanda in a unilateral process, while at the other, Umbanda and Candomblé interpenetrate each other. Moreover, as Jensen (1999: 286) notes, the re-Africanization of some 230 deirdre meintel and annick hernandez

Umbanda federations has led some pais-de-santo, or religious leaders, to seek initiation in Candomblé centers in Bahia; in some cases, whole Umbanda centers have been making a transition to Candomblé, a process that Capone (1999a; see in particular pages 132–138) describes in some detail.

The Swiss Connection

In the early 1980s, a group of psychotherapists in Geneva who used an approach called ‘therapeutic mediation’8 formed a group in Geneva to provide each other with mutual support for their clinical work and personal development. They sought to find ways to avoid burnout while developing personally and as clinicians. At the suggestion of a Brazilian participant, the group explored working with mediums and in the course of a trip to Brazil for this purpose, discovered the Arán Temple in São Paulo. Their experience of a forty-eight-hour retreat with the pai-de-santo led to a series of exchanges between Brazil and Geneva whereby the Europeans developed their spiritual practice of Umbanda through visits to Brazil and Brazilians from the São Paulo temple went to Geneva to help set up the Arán Temple there. Two Europeans have held the position of coordinator since then. At present the coordinator is a Brazilian medium who was involved in the initial development of the Geneva Arán Temple and who now resides permanently in Switzerland. Isabelle, the Quebec-born coordinator of the Montreal Arán Temple, first encountered Umbanda through working with this group as a therapist and then in their Umbanda endeavors. Though established in Montreal, she visited the Geneva group five or six times a year and made one or two trips to Brazil each year, allowing her to continue her development as a medium. Eventually she had to reduce travel for health and financial reasons. However, this left her without a context where she could continue her work as a medium, since mediums do not incorporate spirit entities without others present. Incorporation requires assistance and is inscribed in a well-defined ritual context. She formed a small group to practice Umbanda ‘meditation’ (assentamento9). In 1992, one of the regular participants decided to accompany her to Brazil and there began her own

8 This approach seeks to harmonize and balance the elements in any given situation (Ambrosi 2002). 9 The term means “sitting” in Brazilian Portuguese. transnational authenticity 231 development as a medium. At that point, the spirit entities of the pai-de- santo announced that from then on, public rituals (giras) could be held in Montreal. The first was held in May 1992. The group remains very small; at present, the five regular mediums include Isabelle, a physician, and her adult daughter, an artist, and a multimedia computer specialist, most of them born in Quebec and all women. A handful of spectators, mostly middle and upper middle-class, educated Québécois, and mostly women, attend the giras. Until now, word of the rituals has spread mostly by word of mouth in the personal networks of the mediums, such that those present tend to be professionals or students. Several have met Isabelle in a therapeutic context and accepted her invitation to come to an Umbanda ‘meditation’ (gira). One of them, a woman of European origin, recounts: I was fascinated by the music. I found there something of the songs of my childhood, an inner vibration and a sense of something greater than myself that was lacking in my life. When she talked about the idea of me going to Brazil with her, to Brazil, I didn’t hesitate for a minute. For Marie, also of European background, it was her adult daughter, Virginie, born in Quebec who invited her to the Temple. I think that Virginie had consulted Isabelle as a therapist and later on she told me they were doing rituals, would I like to come? She had been talking about it and I was asking myself, “What’s that all about?” So that’s how I came, and I must say, for a while I had my reservations. Nine years later, Marie was still active in the Temple and had made several trips to Brazil with her daughter. To deal with problems in her marriage, Beatrice began seeing a psychotherapist. After some time, her sister, Isabelle, invited her to the Temple. Beatrice says that, “She said she thought it would do me good. I figured, why not? Because at that time, I really wanted to get out of the trap I felt I was in.” Beatrice remained active in the Temple for years, but later returned to the religion of her childhood, Catholicism, and this with the blessing of the pai-de-santo. A Brazilian family now attends sessions regularly, having discovered the Montreal temple through friends in Brazil. To our knowledge there are no other regularly functioning Umbanda groups in Montreal, though some Brazilian psychotherapists in the city are said to be Umbandistas and there is an active Santo Daime group. The participation in the Temple of highly educated individuals, and in particular those engaged in therapeutic occupations, is intriguing, but is far from a unique case in the Montreal context. Religion has long been a 232 deirdre meintel and annick hernandez pre-eminent feature of Quebec society; until the rapid secularization of the 1960s, education, health and social welfare were mostly in the hands of the Catholic Church. Since then, many have stopped regular attendance at Catholic churches. At the same time, many religions new to Quebec have taken root in the province via immigration, returned travelers or in situ hybridization from diverse sources. Most of these religious currents recruit by word of mouth, via personal networks. Many, such as Buddhism, Spiritualism and Neo-shamanism, do not require conversion and indeed are often frequented for the spiritual resources they offer rather than to adopt new religious identities. Most Québécois still identify as Catholic, but many seek spiritual resources outside Catholicism and often develop hybrid spiritualities. It is not uncommon for individuals to frequent Catholic churches, at least occasionally, and one or several other types of religious groups. In most cases, individuals are seeking to make sense of life crises (divorce, illness, unemployment) and are looking for ways to experience meaning and transcendence (Meintel 2010). Healing, or at least improved wellbeing, is central in almost all the new religious currents studied by Meintel and her colleagues (e.g., charismatic Catholic congregations, Neo-shamanic groups, including Wiccans and those pursuing ‘Native’ [Amerindian] spirituality). This is typically accomplished via rituals (Meintel and Mossière 2011) that activate the body-mind unity that has been ruptured in what McGuire (2008) terms the ‘secularization’ of health and healing. A number of these new groups to Quebec attract well-educated members of the middle class and count a number of educated professionals (doctors, psychologists, lawyers) in their ranks. Others, such as the Spiritualists studied by Meintel (2003, 2007), are more working-class in flavor. However, it is interesting to note that the latter count a number of workers from the lower echelons of the health system (massage therapists, home caregivers) among their members.

The Montreal Temple

Unlike other Arán temples, the one in Montreal is very small and has not grown significantly in its nearly twenty years of existence though there has been some change of membership; moreover all its mediums have been women. Among other things, this temple’s small size makes it difficult to develop the social and charitable activities that are at the heart of Umbanda, at least as practiced in Brazil. Expressing her regret about this, transnational authenticity 233

Isabelle explains: “It’s our small number that makes it hard; one or two people are available (…) and the others are left out, or else it’s hard to synchronize.” Another difference from other Arán Temples is that the role of drummer (ogã de atabaque), usually male, is a woman, since there are no men among the mediums. This is done with the approval of the mãe and pai-de-santo. However, it is important to note that while women actually do the drumming, they do not have the formal ritual status of ogã de atabaque. Normally this status is held by a male who does not incorporate spirit entities. In the case of the Montreal temple, women take turns doing the drumming so that they can incorporate as mediums on the occasions when they are not playing the drums. For the rest, the Montreal group functions in much the same way as other temples in the Arán network. That is, its coordinator’s mandate derives directly from the pai-de-santo (and his spirit entities) and can be ended at any time.10 As Isabelle explains it, the coordinator’s responsibility is threefold: physical, ritual and mediumnic. Regarding the first, this person must assure the harmony, cleanliness and security of the ritual space. Secondly, the coordinator must see that the smallest details of ritual are correctly observed. Thirdly, the mediums should be in good shape physically and spiritually so as to be able to incorporate their spirit entities at the weekly gira. Other tasks are taken on by the other mediums of the temple; e.g., greeting those who assist at rituals, collecting contributions from members each month, obtaining other materials needed for rituals. In general, mediums help to prepare the altar, cleaning up after a ritual, and so on. In this temple, the important role of cambonô (i.e., the one who assists the coordinator and the entity she is incorporating),11 rotates among the other mediums. In Montreal, monthly contributions are fixed at $12 (they may be as much as 15 Euros in certain European temples). These donations cover rent as well as flowers and other materials needed for rituals. Other, more occasional, expenses are shared among members; for example, to pay travel expenses and a per diem when the mãe visits. To help cover the per diem, local mediums usually organize professional workshops for her work as a

10 See Teisenhoffer (2007) for a description of another temple in the same network situated in Paris; see also Capone and Teisenhoffer 2001–2002. 11 The cambonô helps the spirit entity (now incorporated by the medium) to put on orna- ments, provides him/her with materials he or she uses, such as candles, chalk, etc., and takes note of messages given to anyone present. 234 deirdre meintel and annick hernandez psychologist to offset costs. These workshops deal with themes such as sacred dance, elements of nature, harmonizing with nature but are not presented in specifically Umbanda notions; however, they often bring newcomers to the giras (rituals) and indirectly, lead to new recruits. Public rituals are held on Monday evenings, with each of them devoted to a certain type of Umbanda spirit. All singing is done in Brazilian Portuguese or in Yoruba, to drumbeats learned at the temple in São Paulo or during one of the mãe’s visits. Mediums meet monthly to discuss Temple matters, including ritual concerns, to clean the premises if necessary, to exchange information, and to plan for future events (a trip to Brazil, a visit from the mãe). Whenever possible, mediums meet on a weekly basis to practice the musical elements of Umbanda ritual – clapping, singing, drumming, and dancing. In preparation for the gira, the participating mediums prepare themselves to incorporate by abstaining from red meat and alcohol for twelve hours and from sexual relations for eighteen hours. Before the ritual, they shower, cleaning not only the physical body but the energetic space around it (seen as part of the body) by using an herbal soap made in Brazil. All this prepares the medium to receive his or her entities; once the ‘spiritual bath’ has been taken, the medium must avoid anything inappropriate for their spiritual state of being (words, subjects of conversation, handling garbage). Every medium has a personal home altar (pegi) with a glass of water to absorb negative energies, a river stone, honey and a stick of chalk (pemba) from Brazil. The water is replaced every three days, the honey once a week. The evening of the gira, the medium lights one or several white candles while performing a preparatory meditation, called the assentamento de eledá.12 At all times, mediums must be careful with the crown of the head which is considered sacred, being the portal of contact with their entities. For example, if they somehow get alcohol on their head, they must wash it off immediately. Every three months, at the same time as all the other temples in the Arán network, a ritual is held where mediums incorporate spirit entities of the ‘lower’ line, such as the exus (spirits of the night) and the pombas giras (female spirits who correspond to the stereotype of the prostitute13), so as to keep a balance between higher and lower planes.

12 These preparations are more complex for mediums who have passed higher degrees of initiation. 13 Kelly Hayes (2011) offers a much more nuanced view of the pombas giras than one usually finds in the literature, presenting them as a transgressive figure, the female transnational authenticity 235

These entities are complementary to those of the ‘higher’ line, such as pretos velhos and caboclos and are a necessary part of the same reality. Spectators at the rituals ask for help with problems or health concerns, and the entities respond to them via the mediums. Other rituals such as purification (defumação) may be held from time to time, such as one held to purify a space that would be devoted to a health care facility in 2008. On this occasion, the mãe happened to be present, but coordinators may also perform such rituals. After every ritual, the mediums meet and each gives her impression of the ritual, noted in writing by the coordinator. The teachings transmitted by spirit entities are also transcribed. The cambonô then transmits the relatório (report) on the ritual by email in Portuguese to the mãe, with a copy sent to the pai-de-santo. Though communication between overseas temples and headquarters in Brazil goes mostly via the mãe, the weekly reports allow the pai-de-santo to be kept informed about how rituals are being performed. This gives some idea of how closely the activities of the Temple are mon- itored from its spiritual center. The weekly relatório is but one part of the ongoing transnational contacts that are part of the life of the Montreal Arán Temple. In what follows, we will see how communication technology and travel (by members and by the mãe-de-santo) allow this temple to remain closely connected to its Brazilian center and to the pai-de-santo, while at the same time developing ‘horizontal’ relations with other temples in the Arán network. While the pai-de-santo is respectful towards other religions and is aware of the hybrid trajectories of his followers, there is little room for local syncretism on the level of ritual. In at least one case involving an Austrian group, the temple was eventually removed from the Arán network because of repeated deviations from the ritual norms set down by the pai-de-santo.

A Multi-sited Temple

That all Arán Temples should function the same way is part and parcel of the guiding notion that they are, in fact, all a single temple. This idea of one temple is meant to “guarantee the respect for the religious foundations (fundamentos), as well as to facilitate the circulation of the higher counterpart of the exus (p. 4), a “vehement passionate force that devotees rely on to bring clarity to troublesome situations” (p. 11). 236 deirdre meintel and annick hernandez authorities of the cult and the members between temples” (Teisenhoffer 2007: 6, our translation). The Internet is crucial for contact between “overseas temples” and the center of the network in São Paulo. The São Paulo temple maintains several websites in Portuguese as well as one in English, French and Portuguese that provides links to the sites of a number of the member temples. Email is used in the network for sending the weekly reports and other communications with the mãe. A mailing list of all temple coordinators is used to transmit information from Brazil to all the Arán temples. Thus, information about events at the São Paulo temple, initiations of mediums into higher levels, other rituals and social events is transmitted regularly from São Paulo to the other Arán temples, along with invitations to participate. With the organization and ritual functioning of all the temples based on the same model, the pai-de-santo, assisted by the mãe, oversees the spiritual development of all the mediums, no matter where they live. All are under the spiritual guidance and responsibility of the pai-de-santo in Brazil. While local coordinators may allow an individual to pass the first two steps of mediumship,14 it is the pai-de-santo together with his entities who determine when a medium will be initiated into any of the higher levels. This takes place at ceremonies called camarinhas,15 held in São Paulo. A number of ritual objects are not found outside of Brazil and so are purchased there by mediums travelling to visit the pai-de-santo who bring them back to Montreal. These include a certain type of chalk (pemba) used in ceremony, eau de cologne, incense, colored candles, mixtures of herbs used for purification, etc. T-shirts bearing the logo of the temple in Brazil, the sandals mediums wear with their ritual garments, and crinoline skirts are also bought in Brazil and brought back by mediums. Once a year, the “sons and daughters of the Temple” are called upon by the pai-de-santo to come to Brazil so as to continue their development as mediums. The mãe cannot perform certain rituals which are carried out in Brazil in her travels because the necessary ‘infrastructure’ is lacking (i.e., mediums with experience performing them, special music and so on).

14 These are (1) mediums ‘da assistência’ (i.e., mediums in the audience beyond the cordoned-off space around the altar), and (2) mediums ‘de corrente’ who participate within that space. 15 Literally, the term means ‘little room’, a reference to the enclosure where initiates make a retreat at the time of initiation. transnational authenticity 237

Travelling to São Paulo allows mediums to return to the source of their spiritual tradition and experience it in the context where it originated. They themselves see such visits as essential: one of Montreal mediums explains that when she goes to Brazil and meets ‘incorporated’ mediums (those whose bodies are inhabited by spirit entities during rituals), she is sure of their authenticity. “My own emotion is my barometer,” she says. In Montreal, she sometimes wonders, “What is coming from the entity, and what is coming from the medium?” She does not feel the same level of emotion as in Brazil, but rather a feeling of “harmony.” While mediums try to visit Brazil once a year, this is not always possible. Visits from the mãe allow those who are unable to travel to Brazil to experience contact close to the source of the Arán Umbanda tradition. Moreover, they provide an occasion for intensive learning as mediums: practicing new rituals and incorporating different types of spirits under her close supervision. The mãe is multilingual and speaks excellent French and English; in Montreal, she gave her teachings to the mediums in French. (Most of the mediums eventually study Portuguese.) Her visit in 2007 was the first in many years but she has come three times since then. When the mãe visited in 2007, the mediums went into retreat (camarinha) with her to further their development and learn more about ritual, the basic concepts of the temple, and the meanings of the various ritual objects. Her visits are also occasions for the mediums to share their concerns with her and discuss any questions or doubts. The end of the 2007 visit was marked by the public gira described in the Introduction. During one of the mãe’s visits to Montreal, the spirit entity that she was incorporating helped another entity being incorporated by one of the Montreal mediums to speak (in Portuguese). Thus, the retreats made by the mediums with the mãe help the mediums learn how to let entities come through (dar passagem). At the same time, according to members, they also give the entities opportunities for learning how to use the body of the medium so as to communicate with and help those present. In the spring of 2008, the mãe received the initiation necessary for officiating at baptisms, wedding and the bori16 level of initiation in overseas temples.

16 This is the level of initiation where mediums form an enduring relationship with their caboclo spirit; i.e., a protective Amerindian entity who symbolizes human spiritual awareness and who rules other spirits, allowing them to manifest or not. 238 deirdre meintel and annick hernandez

Beyond Brazil: Contacts between Overseas Temples

At present there are eleven temples in the global Arán network, mostly in the US (New York City, California and Washington, D.C.) and in Western Europe (Portugal, France, Switzerland, Austria, Belgium) besides at least five in the state of São Paulo, Brazil. All the temples are listed on the Arán website. Close connections have developed between certain overseas temples because of geographical proximity or historical relationships, such as those between the Montreal and Geneva temples. Initially, mediums from Montreal went to the Geneva temple to participate in initiation retreats where mediums passed from one level to another in their development. Over time, a close relationship has developed with the Washington D.C. temple, due to its size, importance (this temple has a permanent ritual space) and relative proximity. The mailing list of temple coordinators not only keeps them in touch with the São Paulo temple but also allows them to help and support each other. Isabelle has had many occasions to consult with other coordinators: If we are supposed to perform rituals that I’m not sure of, I ask someone. So I’m constantly in touch with other coordinators in other temples. For example, if I know they’ve held a certain type of event, or they were in the retreat (camarinha) with me when such a thing took place and there’s bits that I’m missing, I’ll get in touch with them. I can count on them for their ethics, too; (I know) that they will send (what I need) based on the ethics of the (Arán) temple. Montreal mediums have often visited temples in the northeast coast of the US to participate in rituals supervised by the mãe on a visit. Her trips to Montreal are less frequent, given the distance, small size and limited means of the group. As Isabelle explains, If Mãe comes to perform rituals in Washington, people at the temple … keep us informed. For us, it’s really important because we’re so far north and so few in number here. We go for the days of the rituals (vivência) and the people at the temple include us. They are very hospitable. People and information circulate constantly between the various Arán temples. However, it should be added that finances are kept separate; financial collaborations are rare and can be somewhat contentious. This said, relations between temples throughout the network are such that a medium visiting another city or country can participate in rituals there and incorporate his or her own entities without being one of the officiating transnational authenticity 239 mediums.17 Indeed this is part of the ‘universal’ aspect of Umbanda in the Arán temple, a question to which we return at a later point. Finally, friendships are often formed through the contacts with mediums from other countries during visits to the temple in Brazil and to other temples in the network.

The Globalization of the Arán Temple

In Evangelical and Pentecostal churches, proselytizing by missionaries has been a major factor in the global expansion of many churches (Mary 2003), along with migration of the already converted in some cases (Mossière 2010). By contrast, Umbanda’s expansion abroad is not the result of efforts to recruit new members, though Brazilian migration may play a role in some cases, as noted by Margolis (1994) and Frigerio (2004). On the local level in Brazil, the healing and charitable activities of Umbanda groups, including the Arán Temple, also attract new members; this is likely to be the be case as well for the Arán Temple in Washington, one of whose activities is to provide help and information to immigrants. Yet another factor seems to be at work in the expansion of the Arán Temple beyond Brazil; here, the main impetus has been from Europeans and North Americans, many of them in therapeutic occupations, in search of new personal and spiritual resources beyond those offered in their own sociocultural environment. Though the Montreal Temple remains smaller than any other in the Arán network, membership has changed over the years. Members occasionally speak of Umbanda with professional colleagues, friends who show interest and openness. Typically, such individuals are invited to a gira and after that, some continue attending rituals. It happens that the mãe’s workshops for professionals working in therapeutic occupations attract an occasional member; in these workshops she teaches an approach that integrates “the spiritual wisdom of ancient traditions” (as per her website) with psychotherapy so as to favor the ‘psychosomatic balance’ of the individual (the self). Speaking as a therapist, not a religious leader, the mãe’s workshops propose a heightened perception of relations between human beings and the elements of Nature that influence them on levels beyond ordinary

17 These are the mediums “de corrente”, a reference to the cordoned-off area they occupy during the ritual and that is reserved for those who regularly incorporate in a given temple. 240 deirdre meintel and annick hernandez awareness. On occasion, workshop participants seek to learn more about the spiritual tradition behind this approach, and so come to Temple rituals and, in some cases, to begin developing their capacities as mediums. In the broader study of contemporary religious groups directed by Meintel we see many other cases where indigenous spiritualities have attracted mainstream individuals in search of new symbolic resources. Haitian voodoo, Santo Daime, Ayahuasca groups and Native-inspired shamanic groups have all attracted Quebec-born members from the social majority, many of them highly educated. However, in all these cases, leadership is local, even when some contact is usually kept with spiritual figures in the societies whence these currents originate. In comparison, the Arán Temple is much more connected to its origins and by the same token it relies a great deal more on the Internet and travel across national boundaries for its members’ spiritual orientation and development.

A Transnational Religious Sociality

The spread of Umbanda can be characterized as a ‘diaspora’ insofar as it concerns the diffusion to various regions of the world from its origins in Brazil from its beginnings in Niteroi, near Rio, in the late 1920s and 1930s (Brown 1994; Brown and Bick 1987: 79). The spread of the Arán Temple of Umbanda from São Paulo to North America and Western Europe might also be seen in the same terms. The temple in São Paulo continues to function as a center in many important ways, as we have seen, notably for initiation retreats (camarinhas) and rituals. At the same time, the Arán Temple offers a particularly rich example of religious transnationalism whereby networks, information paths and religious actors crisscross national boundaries. The term ‘transnational’ is often used to describe the behaviors of migrants and, indeed, much of the conceptual development of this notion has been focused on migration (e.g. Glick Schiller et al. 1992). However, it is also true that, as Capone asserts in a discussion of religious transnationalism, that it is not only migrants who are concerned; even those who stay at home can develop transnational networks (2002: 11). Indeed, one can speak of ‘transnational religious spaces,’ following Roudometof (2005), constructed through practices that do not necessarily include migration. The use of the Internet and various forms of mobility other than migration also contribute to creating such spaces (Roudometof 2005: 119). To date, some six hundred mediums have been initiated at the Arán Temple (Brazil), according to the Temple website. transnational authenticity 241

The transnational flow of people and symbolic resources among Arán temples and the contact of each of the temples with the São Paulo center are not entirely unique. Capone (1999b) describes a chat room called “OrixáNet” that has become major point of reference for those interested in religions of African origin. In fact, transnational socialities are being created in many other religious systems; the broader study of contemporary spiritualities in Quebec study offers many such examples. Converts to Islam (Mossière 2008) and young Muslims (Le Gall 2010.) seek religious guidance from Internet sources and exchange with their peers in chat rooms. Wiccans search the Internet for new rituals and incantations (Roberts 2010); a shaman in the US has followers in Montreal who visit her every summer for the Sun Dance ritual and keep in contact by email the rest of the year (Meintel 2007). What distinguishes the global Arán Temple as compared with these examples is the degree to which its transnational character is organized by formalized practices. It comprises a particularly well-organized ‘transnational social field’ (Roudometof 2005). Such fields are constituted by “recurrent and formally organized transnational practices” (Roudometof 2005: 120). Some such ‘transnational practices’ are mentioned on the Arán website. For instance, regarding the financial autonomy of each temple, no money is to be transferred from one temple to another or from one country to another. Initiations into the higher levels of mediumship are held at the Temple in Brazil. In 2002, invoking the expansion of the temple to other countries, the pai-de-santo announced on the website that coordinators who were initiated in the contact with their orixá (ritos de feitura) would be able to hold ‘experiential retreats’ (vivências) focusing on the ‘cycles’ (a series of aspects or qualities18) of the elements of Fire, Earth, Water and Air. Overall, the pai-de-santo asserts the authority of the Arán Temple over the ritual and philosophical orientation of affiliated temples, and on the website, asserting its ‘readiness’ to restrain any action contrary to its ethical principles. The notion of the Arán Temple as a single entity that is presently rooted in many different nation-states is more than an image; it is a guiding principle of its governance. On the one hand, the Temple holds that its philosophy and teachings are valid beyond the frontiers of African- indigenous-Brazilian culture (as per its website); the mode of governance of the Temple assures ritual uniformity from one national context to

18 For example, water has four qualities: the feminine principle, the maternal principle, fertility and rebirth. 242 deirdre meintel and annick hernandez another, and in the process, conserves a certain cultural continuity. That is, ‘Brazilian’ spirits (caboclos, pretos velhos, etc.) speaking Brazilian Portuguese are incorporated by European and North American mediums. What of religious authenticity? How do mediums from different cultural backgrounds experience what appears to be a very Brazilian form of spirituality?

Transnational Authenticity

In her studies of Afro-Brazilian religions in several national contexts, Capone has found that “at the heart of the transnational, one finds also the ‘pure’ and the ‘authentic’” (2002: 14, our translation). As she points out, citing Clifford (1997: 10), the “authentic” is often linked to the national and transnationalism to the (inauthentic) hybrid. In this transnationalized Umbanda temple, authenticity is not simply a matter of liturgical correct- ness, though as we have seen, there is an impressive degree of conformity to the ritual norms determined by the pai-de-santo. More important is the personal meaning and growth members find in Arán Umbanda. ‘Greater tolerance,’ ‘greater respect for others,’ ‘inspiration for my goals in life’ are phrases that the Montreal mediums use to describe the changes that Umbanda has made in their lives. Despite cultural differences, several relate experiencing a kind of recognition when they first discovered the Temple: “When I went into the camarinha (in Brazil), it was as though I was in the place I was looking for all my life without knowing it.” Another says, Strangely, I think that my world view is connected to Umbanda, but I think I already had this view of the world on the inside without being able to give it a name, and so that’s why I practice Umbanda. Though the Temple emphasizes that it does not to violate the “essence of other cultures” (from the Temple website), it does not propose concepts such as ‘inculturation’ (Routhier and Laugrand, 2002) to accommodate the cultures of non-Brazilian participants. Religious and cultural traditions are not denigrated in Temple teaching. At the same time, Umbanda is seen as ‘universal’ by definition, according to the pai-de-santo. Rather than cultural differences, the notion of ‘individuation’ is given central place: each individual must be fully himself, distinct from all others and yet connected to them, to be in harmony with the world. Thus, there is a lengthy preparation for each initiation, a period of exploring the potential for ‘harmonization’ between the individual and the Temple at each level of spiritual development. transnational authenticity 243

The case of Beatrice (in her early 50s when she was part of the Montreal temple) illuminates in an interesting way how the individual and her background may affect her experience in Umbanda. Like most Quebecois of her generation, Beatrice grew up Catholic. When she discovered Umbanda, through a member of the Montreal Arán temple, she was going through a difficult time in her life and found the Umbanda rituals in Montreal helpful. Her meeting with the pai-de-santo on a visit to Brazil was a turning point: He touched me very, very much… I felt in him a spiritual depth that was very alive, very true… (He has) a disarming simplicity, because he’s someone who is very alive (mord dans la vie) and he has an incredible sense of humor. Beatrice underwent initiation and was an active medium in the Montreal temple for a few years. One evening, she was preparing to incorporate and suddenly asked herself, “What am I doing?” She returned to Brazil, met with the pai and confided that she needed to stop for a while. “I’m a believer, I believe in God, and all the folklore of this Temple, I’m not sure anymore if it all goes together for me,” “Take all the time you want,” he replied. “And if you want to come back, you’ll always be welcome.” Beatrice, who never stopped practicing Catholicism, is now deeply involved in a Christian meditation group. She does not see her departure from the Temple as a rejection of Umbanda. “I see it more as a process: there was Umbanda and after that, there was something else.” Umbanda would seem to be a religion that is not highly ‘portable,’ to use Csordas’ term (2007: 261), at least in terms of one of his criteria, that of ‘portable practice,’ i.e., involving little esoteric knowledge or paraphernalia, not limited to a particular cultural context. In fact, becoming an Umbandista in Montreal involves learning Brazilian Portuguese, using ritual objects and clothing that are obtained only in Brazil, and acquiring knowledge of a complex pantheon of spiritual entities. Moreover, he or she must form relationships with at least some of these entities. On the other hand, Arán Umbanda comes with what Csordas calls a ‘transposable’ message, one that can be meaningful in other cultural contexts than where it has originated. For example, it evokes a natural environment that might seem less relevant to non-Brazilians. There are several places in Brazil defined as ‘sacred’ to the Arán Temple. However, these are defined in non-historical, non-cultural terms as spaces that have been consecrated by many rituals and that are now conducive to developing a spiritual ecological consciousness in those who go there. They are defined as ‘magical’ spaces where people of different traditions may meet to meditate, chant or dance. 244 deirdre meintel and annick hernandez

Indeed it is significant that other Arán sacred spaces are being created or have already been by Arán temples outside of Brazil. Apart from the centrality of the elements (earth, fire, water, air) to the interpretative framework of Arán philosophy, where Nature is defined as ‘the Sacred Text,’ the natural environment is also presented in ecological terms that are meaningful to an international audience. In recent public statements the pai-de-santo has indicated his intention to remove Catholic references from the Temple. The relations between Catholic saints and the Orixás (similar to the case in Haitian Voodoo) are now presented as a product of history and not as fundamental to Arán liturgy. Frigerio sees such ‘re-Africanization’ as allowing the creation of an ‘interpretive’ frame that is particularly suited “to transcend nationality constraints and to provide the semblance of a world religion…Through this process Africa comes to be regarded not only as the remote origin of the religious tradition but also as contemporary model for its practice” (Frigerio 2004: 4). Frigerio notes that the trend toward re-Africanization is particularly evident in secondary diaspora settings such as the US. To paraphrase part of his argument, Arán Umbanda is moving closer to Candomblé and by the same token, is getting closer to an African base that is a relevant part of the historical heritage throughout the Americas. Frigerio also sees individuals moving from ‘less African’ to ‘more African’ variants of Afro-American religions over time. When religious leaders do so, this can affect the orientation of the religious collectivity. In the Arán case, Frigerio’s (2004) argument does not seem to apply as well as it does to other contexts, at least not at present. Most of the countries where the Temple has taken root outside of Brazil do not have a significant African component in their national histories in the same way as is true in the Americas and so its strategic value does not appear to be the same. (Indeed, in the Quebec case, it could conceivably make for a greater sense of distance between individuals – mostly raised Catholic – and Umbanda). Rather than to make it more amenable to other national narratives, removing Catholic referents seems more a strategy to distance the Arán Temple from churchliness, and to emphasize its non-sectarian, universal aspect. However, the implications of this change for the Temple in Brazil might well be to bring it closer to Candomblé, as Capone (1999a) and others have argued regarding similar changes in other Umbanda temples. Though the Temple does not propose ‘cultural’ accommodations to other national contexts, its teachings are presented in a discursive format that holds appeal for a broad international public and speaks to con temporary questions of value (non-violence, environmental conservation, transnational authenticity 245 biodiversity, etc.) and pays recognition to all spiritual traditions. In the words of the pai-de-santo, ‘Light recognizes light.’ Science is paid respect as well. The mãe, for example, says she studied psychology so as to better understand the experiences of mediums in Umbanda. Scientific research on mediumship and its effects on behavior are welcomed by the Temple. Certain changes of recent years which we have mentioned signify adaptations to the transnational reality of the global Arán Temple that promotes inclusion of the temples outside Brazil (rapid transmission of new information; invitations to events at the Brazil temples, initiations allowing mediums to hold vivências at their home temples). In a recent decision, the Temple has banned the ritual use of tobacco in overseas temples; given the importance of tobacco in Amerindian traditions, this is not a trivial decision and suggests an accommodation of other values and sensibilities besides the traditions that gave rise to Umbanda.

Conclusion

The Arán Temple has been expanding beyond Brazil over the last three decades. Nonetheless, Capone (2002) has observed that transnationalization does not necessarily lead to a syncretic free-for-all. Arán Temple groups tend to be composed of individuals of various national origins, such that no one national culture or religious tradition necessarily predomi- nates in the overseas temples though we note that, like the pai-de-santo himself, many Arán Umbandistas have been socialized in Catholicism. Arán Temple governance is such that individuals are free to create their own personal spiritual syntheses, but collective ritual life and teachings are unlikely to undergo unbridled syncretism in the new contexts where the Temple becomes established. At the same time, Hernandez’ field work in the Montreal temple shows that for its members, Umbanda as presented by this Temple is experienced as a spiritual path that gives meaning to their lives and allows them to feel more fully themselves. Though Beatrice’s case suggests uniting (via incorporation) with Brazilian spirit entities might produce a sense of cultural distance, this is not the case for others. Furthermore, other spiritual traditions that involve phenomena akin to ‘incorporation’ may also bring individuals to experience deep connection with spirits of alien cultures. Meintel (2003, 2007) has observed Spiritualist mediums channelling individuals of the opposite sex (a distance surely comparable to that between two cultures) and of other traditions, particularly Native Americans. Arán Temple 246 deirdre meintel and annick hernandez universalism is expressed in a religious discourse that, while infused with Brazilian elements, is articulated with cosmopolitan values that many of its potential adherents already espouse. Thus, it is possible for individuals from Montreal and other parts of the world to discover themselves in the Arán Temple of Umbanda.

References

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JAPANESE-BRAZILIANS AMONG PRETOS-VELHOS, CABOCLOS, BUDDHIST MONKS, AND SAMURAIS: AN ETHNOGRAPHIC STUDY OF UMBANDA IN JAPAN

Ushi Arakaki

Introduction

Umbanda was introduced to Japan by Brazilian Nikkeijin migrants.1 The first Umbanda groups appeared in Japan in the late 1990s, followed by a few centers established soon thereafter. Most Umbanda leaders migrated to Japan for economic reasons to work in the manufacturing plants. Only a few of them adhered to Umbanda prior to moving to Japan. Currently, there are about ten Umbanda centers in Japan. They are located in the Aichi, Mie, Gifu, Shiga, Shizuoka and Gunma prefectures, where there is a high concentration of Brazilian migrants. Accurate statistical data on the numbers of Umbanda followers is difficult to locate in Japan, given that migrants tend to be a fairly mobile population, frequently moving in search of better wages and in some cases returning to Brazil. While religious identities can transcend one or more nation-states, they can also become emblematic of specific social segments once they assume relevant local content. This is the case of Umbanda, which has been rein- vented by, among other things, adopting Japanese cultural icons to satisfy its followers’ demands. This study presents a peculiar case considering that the Brazilian Nikkeijin migrants’ demands are shaped by their original Japanese heritage and background. Although ethnicity2 tends to be significant in the lives of every transnational migrant, it has a special meaning for ethnic return migrants such as the Nikkeijin. This research will show the ways in which Umbanda may become an important instrument of ethno-cultural renegotiation for Japanese-Brazilians due to its capacity for reflecting Brazilian society and for transforming popular characters into symbols of Brazilianness. Umbanda is flexible enough to incorporate in its

1 Nikkeijin means a person of Japanese ancestry. 2 Ethnicity is a subjective belief in common descent experienced by a social group whose members share similar cultural customs and physical appearance (Weber 1961). 250 ushi arakaki cosmology the socio-cultural context of Japanese-Brazilians in Japan so that these immigrants can feel they belong to Brazil. The ethnographic data for this article was collected from 2002 to 2010, while I conducted fieldwork in the Brazilian community in Japan for my Masters Degree and Ph.D. at Osaka University. During this time, I conducted participant observation for four years in three Umbanda centres (one in the town of Karya and two in the town of Toki). I also conducted over five hundred interviews during the eight years of research in Japan.

More Than a Century of Migratory History

The migratory history between Brazil and Japan needs to be taken into account when analyzing the Brazilian Nikkeijin migration to their ancestors’ homeland. The first Japanese immigrants arrived at the port of Santos in 1908, and many others came later due to the serious economic crisis in Japan (Shindo 2001). Japanese emigrants went to Brazil planning to make money and return to their homeland as soon as possible. However, returning to Japan became an impossible dream for most of them because Japan had lost the Second World War and because they were unable to save enough money. After a long period in Brazil, their descendants started calling Brazil home. The most relevant push factor impacting Brazilian Nikkeijin immigration to Japan is the same that inspired Brazilians to emigrate to developed countries in the late 1980s: a serious economic crisis in Brazil. The pull factor was the rapid economic growth of Japan which resulted in a shortage of labor. Subsequently, the flow of migrants between Brazil and Japan was reversed, with the descendants of the Japanese in Brazil starting to migrate to their parents’ and grandparents’ homeland. This process of ‘return migration’ (Takahashi 1995; Sellek 1997; Tsuda 1999; Brody 2002) gained currency following a revision of the Japanese government’s Immi gration Control Law in 1990 which granted formal residence status to Nikkeijin up to the third generation and their spouses, thus paving the way for them to live and work in Japan legally. According to the Immigration Bureau of the Japanese Ministry of Justice (2012), in June 2011 there were 221,217 Brazilian migrants living in Japan.3

3 During the period I conduct most of my fieldwork over 300,000 Brazilian migrants lived in Japan. The global financial crisis of 2008 and 2009 meant that many Brazilians returned to japanese-brazilians: an ethnographic study of umbanda in japan 251

Many current studies classify the Nikkeijin as one of six main minority groups in Japan: Ainu, Burakumin, Chinese, Koreans, Nikkeijin and Okinawans (Weiner 1997). Brazilians are the third largest group of foreigners in Japan after the Chinese and Koreans. Most Brazilians are concentrated in non-metropolitan areas where manufacturing industries predominate. They can be found in all the prefectures, but the largest communities are in Aichi, Shizuoka, Kanagawa, Nagano, Gunma, Mie, Saitama, Gifu, Tochigi and Ibaraki. They are welcomed by the Japanese government because they help to make up the shortage of unskilled labor. They do the ‘5K’4 jobs, which are rejected by young Japanese (Sasaki 1999; De Oliveira 1999; Ninomiya 2002), mainly in automobile, electronic and food- processing factories. Although the Nikkeijin ethnic background granted them formal residence status in Japan, these migrants face a number of tough challenges in their ancestral homeland, such as downward social mobility and identity renegotiation. These circumstances influence their self-image, their ethno- cultural notion of belonging and their relationship with the host society. One way in which the Brazilian Nikkeijin handle their identity renegotiation is by isolating themselves within the transnational community where they have access to the type of services and goods that they were used to in Brazil. In this respect, the Japanese-Brazilian community helps the Nikkeijin to retain strong links with Brazil. In addition, religion, particularly Umbanda, plays a significant role in the identity renegotiation of the Brazilian Nikkeijin due to its strong Brazilian ‘local’ character. Below I analyze two of the main challenges faced by the Brazilian Nikkeijin in Japan so that we can understand the ways in which Umbanda helps them cope with these.

Downward Social Mobility The majority of Brazilian Nikkeijin hail from urban areas in Brazil (Yoshino 1996), and many are middle-class. This immigration process therefore is not as an attempt to gain upward mobility within Brazil’s socio-economic

Brazil due to the lack of jobs, particularly in the car industry, where most of them worked. In this two-year period, the Brazilian community in Japan lost 14.4% of its population. According to the Japanese Ministry of Justice, the number of Brazilians in Japan went from 312,582 in 2008 to 267,456 in 2009. The nuclear crisis after the March 2011 earthquake contributed to a new wave of returnees to Brazil. 4 5K refers to the five Japanese words: kitsui, kitanai, kiken, kirai, kibishī (tough, dirty, dangerous, disagreeable, and hard). 252 ushi arakaki hierarchy, but as an effort to maintain the relatively privileged position that many Brazilian Nikkeijin have already achieved. (Ishi 2003; Tsuda 2003a). This can be illustrated by the following statement heard from one of the Nikkeijin: “We had a comfortable life in Brazil. I had a good job, a nice car, but suddenly I was unemployed and few months later my husband also lost his job.” Many tertiary-educated Brazilian migrants feel uncomfortable about doing unskilled jobs. Such dissatisfaction has implications both for these migrants’ adaptation in the host country and for the nature of their relationship with the education-focused Japanese culture5 (Ishi 2003). In addition to their lack of familiarity with blue-collar jobs, the Nikkeijin are not accustomed to Japan’s hierarchical society. They notice this especially in the factories where they spend most of their time. In Brazil, the Nikkeijin occupy a relatively high status in Brazil’s social hierarchy as a ‘positive minority’ (Tsuda 2003a). As members of the Brazilian middle- class, they are accustomed to looking down on poorer people as inferior. In Japan, the Nikkeijin experience the opposite situation since they are effectively at the bottom of the Japanese social hierarchy. The downward social mobility of Brazilian Nikkeijin migrants has an impact on the way they regard themselves and their host society.6 The low position occupied by the Nikkeijin and their lack of Japanese language skills also affect the image the Japanese have of these migrants. Brazilian Nikkeijin are seen by the host society not as a co-ethnic but as a foreign. This situation has strongly influenced their ethno-cultural notion of belonging (Ishi 2003; Linger 2001; Tsuda 2003a; Roth 2002).

Being Japanese in Brazil and Brazilian in Japan The physical appearance of the Nikkeijin always differentiates them from mainstream society in Brazil, where they are called japonês (Japanese). The ethnic differences between Brazilians and the Nikkeijin are not limited to their perceived racial features. They also extend to their experience of socio-cultural distinctiveness, regarded as a product of their Japanese heritage and upbringing. Their ‘Japaneseness’ becomes the focus of their identity in Brazil because, as mentioned before, they are a ‘positive minority’ whose ethnic qualities are regarded favorably by Brazilian society (Lesser 1999, 2007; Tsuda 2003a). Being associated with Japan in Brazil

5 This is also true for Brazilian society, where any kind of manual work is looked down upon due to the history of slavery in the country. 6 It also influences the way they raise their children. For more on this, see Arakaki 2004. japanese-brazilians: an ethnographic study of umbanda in japan 253 carries a certain prestige, since Japan is a developed country. As a result, many of them take pride in their ethnic background and have developed a transnational Japanese ethnic notion of belonging, while generally distancing themselves from what they perceive as the negative aspects of being Brazilian, such as government corruption, socioeconomic instability, and lack of seriousness (Tsuda 2003a). It is not unusual to hear Brazilians praising the positive features of other countries in detriment to their own. By developing a transnational ethnic identification with Japan, the Brazilian Nikkeijin are able to distance themselves from such negative images (Linger 2001; Lesser 1999, 2007). Because of the Nikkeijin ancestry and appearance, Japanese managers and co-workers tend to expect them to behave and speak like the Japanese. Nevertheless, the Japanese soon realize that most Nikkeijin are not the Japanese they had expected, but foreigners who neither speak Japanese nor conform to Japanese behavior in general. Having grown up as a japonês in Brazil, the unexpected chilly welcome in their ancestral homeland seriously undermines their self-perceived ethnic identity (Sam 1999). As a result, they begin to distance themselves psychologically from the Japanese. They come to see themselves as foreign Brazilians rather than Nikkeijin. Ironically, they are called gaijin (foreigner) by Japanese society, the same word the Nikkeijin use in Brazil to denote non-Japanese-Brazilians (Maeyama 1996). Although the word gaijin has lost much of its original meaning to recent generations, its use still designates the majority of Brazilians as ethnic outsiders, thus clearly indicating who is japonês and who is not. Through contact with Japanese society the Nikkeijin become aware of their Brazilianness for the first time (Hashimoto 1995; Sasaki 1999; Linger 2001; Tsuda 2003a). Indeed, the contrast between “us” and “the others” forms the basis of the organization of ethnicity. The Japanese avoidance behavior is sometimes provoked by latent ethnic prejudice against the Brazilian Nikkeijin. This prejudice is based on both a negative preconception of their migration legacy7 and social status, and unfavorable opinions regarding their ‘Brazilian’ cultural behavior (Tsuda 2003b). On the other hand, the Brazilian Nikkeijin also respond to ethnic rejection by withdrawing into their own social groups and isolating themselves in an act of ethnic self-segregation. Japanese-Brazilians tend to live

7 Many Japanese believe that the Nikkeijin parents or grandparents abandoned Japan when the country was undergoing economic and social turmoil and most needed them (Tsuda 2003a). 254 ushi arakaki inside a bubble, especially in those cities where transnational networks are quite well developed and where no substantial relationships between the Japanese and the Brazilian community exist. The statement below can illustrate this point: We have no Japanese friends, we just work together. We always hang out with Brazilians, we go out to Brazilian restaurants, we host barbecue parties. Our daughter is studying in a Brazilian school because someday we are going back home. (Personal communication, Chiryu 2008). They are in a state of liminality (Turner 1969) – as marginal people caught between two societies without truly belonging to either. They live in Japan dreaming about returning to their Brazilian homeland. Consequently, the parents with children enrolled in Brazilian schools try to prepare them to live in Brazil. Nikkeijin children do not feel completely at home in Japan because they grow up hearing their parents saying that their home is in Brazil. But they are not familiar enough with genuine Brazilian daily life to feel fully at home in Brazil either. It is important to note that if in Brazil the Nikkeijin distance themselves from what they perceive as negatively Brazilian traits by developing a ‘Japanese’ identity, in Japan they do the opposite. They start to see themselves as Brazilians (perceived as flexible, lively, warm people with joie de vivre), and they distance themselves from the negative image they have of the Japanese (perceived as cold people).

Umbanda Abroad

Umbanda’s dynamic and flexible character allows for innovation and attracts followers from around the world. Umbanda was exported first to Argentina and Uruguay in the 1950s (Frigerio in this volume). In Paraguay, Umbanda first appeared in the 1970s and in Venezuela in the 1980s (Pollak-Eltz 1995). Nowadays, Umbanda is practiced in Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia, France, the Dominican Republic, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, the USA, Canada, Portugal, Japan, Australia, Israel and Austria. It is impossible to estimate the number of Umbanda adherents abroad because, except for some countries such as Argentina and Uruguay, little research has been conducted. In Argentina, there are thousands of centers and hundreds in Uruguay (Oro and Frigerio 2007). It should be noted that there is no standardization of Umbanda in the diaspora. Propagation of religious knowledge is performed most orally. Consequently, each center is japanese-brazilians: an ethnographic study of umbanda in japan 255 guided by different norms according to the pais-de-santo.8 This lack of standardization facilitates the adaptation of Umbanda to other cultural environments. Another important characteristic that helps to attract followers abroad is the fact that Umbanda does not require exclusivity from its followers. People do not need to abandon their own religions to adhere to Umbanda. The expansion of Umbanda outside Brazil is a case of transnationalization of popular cultural practices produced from below (Smith and Guarnizo 1998). This international expansion follows two basic patterns. It is taken abroad either by Brazilian migrants or by foreigners who go to Brazil to be initiated by Brazilian pais-de-santo. In the first category there are, for example, European countries, the USA (Pordeus 1995) and Japan, while the second category is found especially in Portugal, Canada and South American countries such as Argentina and Uruguay (see Meintel and Hernandez, Frigerio, and Saraiva in this volume).

The Umbanda Pantheon

This section explores the ideological elements of Umbanda: its cosmology and pantheon. This discussion is useful for understanding the develop ment of Umbanda in Japan. The main role played by Umbanda – to preserve the Brazilian ethno-cultural heritage of the Brazilian Nikkeijin migrants – is closely connected to Umbanda’s worldview. The Umbanda cosmos is a complex formal system of three levels: the astral spaces, the Earth and the underworld. The Orixás, powerful spirits with dual identities, African and Catholic, inhabit the astral spaces, together with less evolved spiritual entities such as caboclos and pretos-velhos. The Earth forms an intermediate plane that offers a temporary residence for spirits passing through their various human incarnations at lower stages of spiritual evolution. It is also visited by several categories of spirits, such as the spiritual entities who return during rituals at Umbanda centers to visit and to further their own evolution through performing works of charity. Evil and ignorant spirits from the underworld also visit the Earth and are chief causes of harm. The underworld is the realm of potentially harmful spirits, the exús.

8 Pais-de-santo means “parents of saint.” It is used to designate the priests of Afro- Brazilian religions. 256 ushi arakaki

Following Christian dualism (good and evil), the spirits that come to Earth are divided into two groups: linha da direita (right-hand side line, or ‘line of good’) and linha da esquerda (left-hand side line, or ‘line of evil’). The spirits from the astral spaces belong to the first group. They only do good deeds, while the spirits which come from the underworld belong to the second group. Exús are not necessarily evil, but because they are morally ambivalent they can be mobilized to cause harm. Umbanda draws heavily on French Spiritism (or Kardecism) and follows its laws of evolution and reincarnation. As a result, in Umbanda spirits are believed to evolve slowly upwards from a state of spiritual ignorance to enlightenment through a succession of incarnations. In the process, spirits move gradually away from the Earth’s orbit. Yet Umbanda’s supernatural entities are different both from those of Afro-Brazilian religions (such as Candomblé)9 and from Spiritism. In Candomblé, the African tutelary gods of a clan or city become personal gods. Each person receives in his/her body a god as his/her protector. In Spiritism, the spiritual entities that possess the mediums are the spirits of the dead, who lived on Earth and come back to perform charity. These are the spirits of doctors, artists, priests, and writers. Umbanda entities are a synthesis of Candomblé and Spiritism in that their Orixás are evolved spirits, a mythical category distant from human beings. They rarely come to Earth, and when they do they do not possess the mediums as in Candomblé. Only their ‘vibration’ can be felt (Silva 2005). As in Spiritism, the most popular spiritual beings of Umbanda are spirits of dead human beings, who are less evolved than Orixás. To be sure, Umbanda’s most visible spiritual entities were not intellectuals in their previous lives, as in Spiritism, but belonged to marginalized segments of Brazilian society. The myth of the origin of Umbanda elucidates this point. Its origin is connected to Zélio de Moraes, in the early twentieth century. Zélio was seventeen years old when he was possessed by the spirit of a caboclo for the first time. His family thought he had some sort of mental illness. However, since the doctors did not find any psychiatric illness, he was taken to a priest to be exorcised without result. He was finally taken to the Spiritist Confederation on November 15, 1908. During the Spiritist session Zélio was possessed by the Caboclo of the Seven Crossroads, and some of the other

9 Candomblé’s rituals involve the possession of the initiated by Orixás, offerings and sacrifices of the mineral, vegetable and animal kingdoms, healing, dancing/trance and percussion. Candomblé draws inspiration from a variety of African peoples that were taken to Brazil as slaves. japanese-brazilians: an ethnographic study of umbanda in japan 257 mediums were possessed by spirits of pretos-velhos and caboclos as well. The president of the Confederation called them backward spirits and asked them to leave. At that point Caboclo of the Seven Crossroads defended those spirits and decided to create a religion where everyone (spirit or human) could be part of it regardless of race, color, beliefs, gender or social class.10 Although the story above is considered by many authors the founding myth of Umbanda as a religion (e.g., De Oliveira 2007) and the fact that adherents celebrate November 15, 1908 as the founding day of Umbanda, many authors reject this version of facts. For instance, Diana Brown (1985) argues that Umbanda was established only in the 1920s. For Emerson Giumbelli (2002) this founding myth started to be disseminated after Zélio de Moraes’ death in 1975. Renato Ortiz (1978) argues that Umbanda emerged independently and spontaneously in three different places: the cities of Rio de Janeiro and Niterói, and the southern region of Rio Grande do Sul state. A discussion of Umbanda’s origin would call for more detailed historical research and falls outside the purview of this chapter. True or not, Zélio’s story is a good starting point to understand the universalistic character of Umbanda. Zélio emphasizes in his discourse that Umbanda was created to include spirits that were marginalized. This marginalization represents the social exclusion suffered especially by Afro-Brazilians and indigenous people. In Umbanda cosmology, pretos-velhos represent the spirits of old African and ex-slaves who worked and lived in Brazil. They have well- defined characteristics: they belong to the linha da direita, which means that they only do good deeds. They practice charity by providing magic- religious services and by using their wisdom to help those in need. They are patient, tolerant, good, and wise. They are humble spirits: they often claim to know nothing and apologize for their lack of formal education. Caboclos represent Brazil’s indigenous peoples. They are represented as proud leaders and warriors with natural abilities and possessing powers derived from the forces of nature and who have never be subjected to the yoke of servitude. Umbanda’s spiritual entities are typically Brazilian characters, which reinforces Umbanda’s local origin and its ability to reflect the social and political structure of Brazilian society (Fry 1982). These entities represent the historically constructed ethnic matrix of the Brazilian population (indigenous peoples, black and white), as well as Brazilian

10 The data referring to the events that led to the establishment of Umbanda were taken from an interview with Zélio de Moraes conducted by the journalist Lilia Ribeiro in 1972. This interview was published in the magazine Gira de Umbanda No. 1 and it was later reproduced by several other authors including Diamantino Trindade (2009). 258 ushi arakaki miscegenation. Because Umbanda represents the ethno-cultural diversity of Brazilian society, some experts (cf. Silva 2005) argue that Umbanda’s mission is the fraternization of all ethnic groups and social classes that make up the Brazilian people as a whole. Spiritual entities, such as caboclos and pretos-velhos play the role of pro- tagonists during the ritual, which demonstrates an inversion of their social status. Thus, Umbanda reinterprets these Brazilian characters in a more positive way. This feature attracts Brazilian Nikkeijin migrants who are also marginalized for doing the work rejected by the well-educated Japanese and for being culturally different from them. In Umbanda’s spiritual hierarchy, God presides over the astral spirit world. Below him there is a complex hierarchical system of spirits based on the number seven.11 There are seven lines, each of them under the command of a high spirit, an Orixá or Catholic saint.12 The lines are divided into seven phalanxes and, further, into seven legions. The spiritual entities such as caboclos and pretos-velhos are located among the lower echelons of the seven lines of Umbanda, at the ranks of phalanxes and below.13 Spiritual entities are said to be associated in these lower ranks because, unlike the Orixás, who are commonly interpreted as deities, they are disincarnate spirits of individuals who have lived in Brazil during several historical periods. Another spiritual entity relevant to this study is exú. In Africa, exú is often described as being “susceptive, violent, irascible, astute, rude, vain, indecent” god (Verger 1999: 119). The first Europeans that had contact with the Yoruba worship of exú associated him to the phallic god of Greek mythology Priapus and the Judeo-Christian devil. The association with the devil is the result of the mythology that describes him as an Orixá who breaks all social rules. In the African context, exú is more like an intermediary than an evil being. He is the messenger of the gods who interprets their will for the people and conveys the desires of the people to the gods. That is why he is considered the lord of the crossroads, with one foot in the realm of the spirits and the other in the world of the living. In

11 Umbandists claim that seven is a mystic number. They associate it with several things such as seven days of Creation (from the Bible), seven chakras, seven days of the week, seven colors in the rainbow, and seven notes in the traditional western musical major scale. They believe seven is a powerful number that can somehow stress the connection with the spiritual world. 12 Not all Orixás have an equivalent Catholic saint. 13 It is worth noting that not all the followers are aware of Umbanda’s doctrine. Many of them are occasional attendees that go to Umbanda centers just looking for “magical” solution to their problems. The explanations they receive from the spiritual entities are their only source of information about Umbanda. japanese-brazilians: an ethnographic study of umbanda in japan 259

Umbanda, the African Orixá exú lost his divine character and became closely associated with the imperfect human being. They belong to the linha da esquerda: they practice evil when requested to do so, and they are responsible for the defense of the Umbanda centers from attacks of other exús. Umbanda has always showed a high level of receptivity to all kind of foreign practices and to combinations of symbols and expressions. There are all kinds of spirits: the docile and wise preto-velho, the brave warrior, and also the prostitute, the seducer-devil, and the intellectual (Prandi 1991: 88). Umbanda possesses a universe replete with spiritual entities that manifest themselves in the ritualistic trance. It has a dynamic capacity for reinventing itself according to the particular socio-cultural context and this results in a constant flow of spiritual entities into the Umbanda pantheon. Some Umbanda centers in Brazil, for instance, work with the ‘linha do oriente’ [oriental line] that includes, among others, Turkish, Chinese, Japanese, Indian, Tibetans, Arab, and Egyptian entities that often deal with health issues. Although Japanese entities are not a new addition to the Umbanda pantheon, there is a big difference between the role played by the Japanese from the ‘linha do oriente’ in Brazil, and the Japanese entities in Japan. In the latter these entities play a stronger symbolic role in the followers’ lives in response to their ethnic situation and local conditions in the land of their Japanese ancestors.

Umbanda Followers in Japan

Most followers are Brazilian Nikkeijin blue-collar workers who used to have different religious practices in Brazil. This does not mean, however, that they converted to Umbanda, since this religion does not require exclusivity from its adherents. In fact, many migrants who frequent Umbanda centers also attend Pentecostal or Catholic services in Japan. Umbanda followers can be divided into three categories: (a) members: who have knowledge of Umbanda doctrine and rituals, (b) participant attendees: habitual attendees that comprise the congregation and have limited knowledge of Umbanda and its rituals and (c) occasional attendees: who attend the centers from time to time looking for solutions to deal with problems that they cannot solve elsewhere. They do not know the doctrine and have very little understanding of the rituals. In the three centers I studied there were 450 participants, of whom 65 were members and 385 participant attendees. Around 60% of the attendees are female. Some men and women come alone, but many families attend the centers 260 ushi arakaki together. The age of the attendees varies. Most of them are adults aged between 20 and 65. Children and teenagers come with their parents. In addition to spiritual problems such as obsessão (‘obsession’) by spirits,14 people attend the centers seeking solutions for problems of adaptation, relationship, illness, addiction, and emotional instability. The number of Japanese attendees in Umbanda centers is minuscule. They are taken by Brazilian friends, often co-workers. It is noteworthy in this respect that the religious leaders have no strategy for recruiting Japanese followers. On the contrary, they contend that the work of Umbanda spiritual entities is directed mainly to the Brazilian migrants who need support in handling their lives as unskilled workers in a foreign country. Hence, Umbanda centers in Japan emphasize their ‘local’ character in the sense that they work for the preservation of Brazilian migrants’ ethno-cultural heritage.

Preto-Velho, Caboclo, Buddhist Monk and Samurai: Umbanda’s Cosmology in Japan

Umbanda’s dynamism and its capacity for reinventing itself to meet local demands has meant that new Japanese spiritual entities are created in Japan. This explains its significance to Brazilian Nikkeijin followers. Every Umbanda center in Japan has been, at different levels, influenced by Japanese society. Umbandists believe that the spirits that practice charity are not only those which ‘possess’ the mediums and give consultation to the attendees but that there are legions of spirits working in the spiritual world. The influences of Japanese society on the Umbanda pantheon are particularly strong in this spiritual world. The inclusion of Japanese entities is closely linked to the reality of the Brazilian Nikkeijin in Japan. The host society represents them as foreigners and thus they regard themselves as such. However, Brazilian Nikkeijin are also foreigners in Brazil. Japanese spiritual entities symbolically help these migrants to deal with both issues: their ethno-cultural identity renegotiation and the obvious cultural distance between the Brazilian Nikkeijin and the host society.

14 Obsessão takes place when a less evolved, disincarnate spirit interferes with one’s path and bodily energies. japanese-brazilians: an ethnographic study of umbanda in japan 261

Figure 1. Umbanda Ritual in Aichi Prefecture (Courtesy Ushi Arakaki).

Umbanda leaders mentioned two categories of Japanese spirits: evolved spirits and the not so evolved spirits that I call ‘spirits in need.’15 In this chapter, I will only focus in the former. There are at least three groups of Japanese evolved spirits mentioned by Umbanda followers in Japan: doctors, Buddhist monks, and samurais. According to spiritual leaders, the spirits of Japanese doctors deal basically with three kinds of problems: obsessão, mediumistic problems, and spiritual and physical illness. The healing process is divided into two phases: first, the spirits seek the origin of the karmic problem that leads to illness, subsequently these spirits search for solutions to solve the problem. Spirits of Japanese Buddhist monks, like those of doctors, usually deal with medical treatments such as surgeries, or with cases in which a Japanese spirit needs orientation. In regards to this, one of the leaders told me:

15 Spirits in need are spirits of dead people who were unable to make the passage from their physical body to the spiritual plane when they disincarnated because they were too attached to the material world. These spirits remain on Earth, obsessing people. 262 ushi arakaki

Japanese entities come according to the case. For example, when a caboclo is giving a consultation and the caboclo sometimes leaves, the medium may then incorporate a Japanese spirit that can better deal with the Japanese spirits in need (Personal communication, Kariya, 2007). Members of the centers declare that on many occasions Japanese and Brazilian entities work together. Spirits of samurais are often reported to work with exús. Like the exús, the samurais are also in charge of the protection of the centers. However, unlike the exús who occupy a lower position in terms of spiritual development, samurais occupy the same position of more evolved spirits, such as the pretos-velhos or caboclos. One of the leaders told me: The samurais are warriors with a strict code of behavior. They are evolved spirits that could work to cure people or treat cases of obsessão, for example, but they prefer the task of protecting the center because this task fits in well with their way of thinking. If we look back to Japanese history, the samurais were always warriors responsible for the protection of the shoguns’ land. They used to protect the land from the invaders. They have the same function here (Personal communication, Toki, 2007). This leader mentions another reason to have the samurais as guardians of the center. He argued that more than 90% of the spirits that are wandering around are Japanese and not Brazilians. These are the spirits in need who obsess people and sometimes try to disturb the spiritual work that is being done at the center. He went on to say: Exú and pomba-gira16 are not able to protect the terreiro17 alone because they don’t know how to deal with spirits culturally different from them. A medium who is clairvoyant will see exú accompanied by a samurai. Some people ask who the spirits beside the exú are because they do not recognize them. We usually explain that they are the samurais and that they defend the terreiro; without their permission we wouldn’t be able to establish the terreiro because they own the place (Personal communication, Toki, 2007). In addition to this ‘invisible’ task of the samurais (i.e., the protection they give to the centers in the spiritual world), in one of the three Umbanda centers I studied, the spirits of samurais and Buddhist monks manifest themselves by possessing the mediums during the rituals. An Umbanda leader described one such episode:

16 Pomba-gira is a female exú. 17 Terreiro are Afro-Brazilian religious centers. japanese-brazilians: an ethnographic study of umbanda in japan 263

Two mediums were possessed by the spirits of samurais. They sat in each cor- ner and asked for their katana [Japanese sword]. They came to protect the work that another Japanese spirit, a monk, was doing. The monk spirit had been a samurai before being a monk. After finishing his tasks, one of the samurai stood in front of the altar and introduced himself, talking in Japanese. He occupied a high position since he was the leader of one group of samurai (Personal communication, Toki, 2007). In another Umbanda center, where the possession of mediums by spirits of samurai is not common, the leader emphasized that one of the exús that worked in the center is actually a Japanese spirit of a samurai. He explained that this spirit went down to the darkest region due to excess of pride, where he stayed until his ‘exunização’ (i.e., until he became the Exú Carranca). He was chosen because of his capacity for leadership. Here we have a fusion of a spiritual entity typical of Umbanda, the exú, with an icon of the Japanese traditional culture, the samurai. The spirit that possesses the medium is a samurai ‘dressed’ as an exú. Exús are spirits originally from the linha da esquerda, spirits from the ‘dark world’ that through spiritual development can change to the linha da direita, where the spirits only do good deeds. Exú Carranca is reported to be one of these spirits. The only difference is that he is not Brazilian but Japanese. The adoption of local characters, such as the samurai, indicates the adaptation of the Umbanda pantheon to the Brazilian migrants’ new cultural environment. The migrants certainly do not find samurais walking on Japanese streets, but this icon is part of Japanese folklore and closely connected to the romantic image Brazilians have of Japan.18 Exú Carranca is at the same time a Brazilian spirit and a Japanese samurai. This duality is expressed by the languages spoken by him. When this spirit possesses a medium he communicates in both languages: Portuguese and Japanese,19 depending on the circumstance. For example, if he has to conduct a Japanese spirit that is obsessing an attendee to a spiritual hospital or school, he will speak Japanese. If he has to talk with a Brazilian spirit he will speak Portuguese. The duality of this spiritual entity can be linked to the identity renegotiation of Brazilian Nikkeijin migrants: they are Brazilians with ‘Japanese bodies.’ The case of the Exú Carranca is the opposite: he is a Japanese spirit wearing a ‘Brazilian garment.’

18 Umbanda tends to adopt in its pantheon romanticized characters, such as the wild caboclo and the docile and humble preto-velho. 19 Even the mediums who do not speak Japanese, during trance seem to develop the ability to communicate in Japanese language when possessed by Japanese spirits. 264 ushi arakaki

The Socio-Symbolic Role of the Evolved Japanese Spirits

Evolved Japanese spirits play two significant roles for Umbanda followers in Japan. At a local level, they represent an important member of the transnational community: the tsuyaku (interpreter), and at a transnational level Japanese spirits symbolize the inclusion of the Nikkeijin in Brazilian society. Let me explain these two socio-symbolic roles, beginning with the tsuyaku.

Tsuyaku: The Cultural Intermediary Evolved Japanese spirits act as cultural intermediaries between the Japanese and the Brazilian spirits who do not master the Japanese cultural code. Icons of Japanese culture such as the samurai are brought by the Brazilians to the religious space, where they effectively become religious symbols. In this context, in a simplistic way, the Exú Carranca is a Japanese spirit of a samurai ‘naturalized’ Brazilian. True to his nature as the lord of the crossroads and the go-between worlds, Exú Carranca’s most significant feat is to have mastered both the Brazilian and Japanese cultural codes. This characteristic allows him to transit between two different cultural universes. This said, let me focus momentarily on Brazilian Nikkeijin migrants in Japan. Brazilian Nikkeijin only become aware of their Brazilianness when they move to Japan because Brazilian society constantly reinforces their ‘Japanese’ identity. When they arrive in Japan they realize that they are not sufficiently familiar with the necessary cultural codes to be recognized as Japanese. One of the biggest obstacles faced by these Nikkeijin is the language. In this respect, those few Brazilian Nikkeijin who master the Japanese and other cultural codes occupy a position of leadership in the Brazilian community. They become cultural intermediaries like the Exú Carranca (who was chosen for his leadership skills), that is, people who have made the transition between two cultural universes. These intermediaries are called to solve the ordinary day-to-day problems that cannot be solved by those lacking the knowledge of Japanese cultural codes. These people are known by the Brazilian migrants as tsuyaku (interpreter). I contend that the samurai, or any other Japanese spirits (such as Buddhist monks) who play the role of cultural intermediaries, are a symbolic representation of the members of the Brazilian community in Japan who master the Japanese cultural codes – in short, the tsuyaku. There are three types of tsuyaku: the ones who are hired as interpreters of govern- mental organizations; those who are freelance, charging to accompany japanese-brazilians: an ethnographic study of umbanda in japan 265 people to medical appointments, police stations, etc.; and those who help friends and relatives free of charge and whose level of Japanese language skills is not necessarily high. This third category is the most common among Brazilian migrants. In this connection, it is worth stressing the symbolism behind the fusion between the exú and the samurai. The exú is considered to be the intermediary between the Orixás and humans. As we saw above, exús are connected with the trickster archetype that in many cultures functions as the intermediary between the creator and humans. The samurai plays the role of the intermediary between the Brazilian and Japanese spirits. The similarity between the roles played by them reinforces their fusion. The exú is also a border crosser, an anti-structural figure that may allow (in Turner’s sense) integration into societas. This religious construction reflects the Brazilian migrants’ reality. Brazilian Nikkeijin migrants tend to feel vulnerable in Japan for not being able to decipher the Japanese codes. Their lack of language skills excludes them from an important means of communication. A Brazilian Nikkeijin once told me: I feel terrible in Japan because I depend on other people for almost everything. I had to ask a friend to accompany me to buy a cell phone. I can’t go to the doctor alone. I don’t know what is happening in Japan because I can’t read the newspaper and I don’t understand what they say on the TV news either. If something happens to me, such as a car accident, I don’t know how to call the police and, even worse, I don’t know how to explain what happened. I feel vulnerable because I can’t defend myself. I need a tsuyaku to express myself. That’s awful! There are many things I don’t understand in Japan, and would like to ask… but I can’t! (Personal communication, Kariya, 2008) This feeling of vulnerability is shared by most Brazilian Nikkeijin who live in Japan. The lack of knowledge of the language can become a serious problem in the lives’ of the Brazilian migrants. The following is another typical case: In the second factory where I worked there was an obāchan [an old woman] that didn’t like me. I don’t know why, I’d never done anything bad to her! One day my boss started to yell at me with no reason and for a couple of weeks he was rude to me. Then I realized that this obāchan was telling lies about me to my boss. I felt really bad at work and I wanted to defend myself, but I couldn’t because I only spoke a few words in Japanese. Then I decided to quit the job. At that time it was easy to find a new one. If I were fluent in Japanese or if I had a friend that could speak with my boss in Japanese on my behalf, people would not harass me like that at work! (Personal communication, Chiryu, 2009) 266 ushi arakaki

This Brazilian migrant’s lack of Japanese language skills made her defenseless against her Japanese co-workers. This situation could have been avoided if she were fluent in Japanese or if she had someone able to mediate between her boss and her. The protection samurais provide against the Japanese spirits is the symbolic representation of the support given by the tsuyaku to deal with the problems the Brazilian migrants are unable to solve. Umbanda leaders place emphasis on the need for cultural mediators in the spiritual world to solve the communication problem between the Japanese and Brazilian spirits is a way of expressing and solving a real situation that affects the Brazilian migrants collectively in the religious space. Hence, as in Brazil, Umbanda in Japan is also capable of bringing socio-cultural situations from the profane world to the sacred sphere. Japanese entities come to solve a problem that is experienced daily by Brazilian migrants – their isolation from the Japanese society. Just as they help the Brazilian entities to communicate with the Japanese spirits that disturb Umbanda followers’ lives, the tsuyaku assist Brazilian migrants to communicate with the Japanese in order to solve their quotidian problems. There is another similarity between the sacred and mundane spheres. Japanese entities are respected by the Umbandists who are aware that they own the place. Nonetheless, the protagonist roles in the terreiro belong to the Brazilian entities who perform on the main stage of the rituals, while the Japanese spirits, for most of the time, act only in the spiritual world. Furthermore, Brazilian entities use magic to intervene in the lives of the humans and possess the power to satisfy the followers’ demands. The Japanese spirits make the connection between the Brazilian spirits and the other Japanese spirits and help in spiritual health treatments. The tsuyaku are also respected people inside the Brazilian community in Japan for the important social role they play. But, like the Japanese spirits, they do not have the power to solve the Brazilian migrants’ problems. They are intermediaries between the migrants and the Japanese that can potentially solve their problems or meet some of their needs. The inclusion of Japanese spirits in the Umbanda pantheon is important for the development of Umbanda in Japan in the sense that it provides followers with the possibility to act in a ‘spiritual-cultural’ context with which they are unfamiliar. By being able to rely on the strong spiritual protection of the samurais (in addition to the traditional guardian exú) Brazilian entities and Umbandists feel safe from the ‘bad’ Japanese spirits that could perhaps disturb the rituals and their lives. Moreover, by counting on the cultural intermediation provided by the Japanese evolved spirits, they are able to practice charity helping the Japanese spirits in need of spiritual support. This religious construction is a symbolic solution japanese-brazilians: an ethnographic study of umbanda in japan 267

Umbandists give to the adaptation problems most of the Brazilian migrants experience in the host society. Regardless of the importance of the Japanese spirits, Brazilian entities continue to occupy the central role in the rituals, establishing rapport with the attendees. They are also the ones who have the power to intervene on their behalf in the spiritual world.

Nikkeijin, the Brazilian Samurai Besides playing the role of tsuyaku in the spiritual world, evolved Japanese spirits have become a symbolic instrument of self-inclusion of the Brazilian Nikkeijin in the Brazilian society. To clarify this idea I first focus on a number of points that I have already addressed. One of them is the ethno- cultural identity of the Nikkeijin in Brazil where they are seen by Brazilian society and feel themselves to be japonês mainly owing to their Japanese phenotype. When these Brazilian Nikkeijin arrive in Japan and realize that they are not Japanese they experience a process of identity renegotiation in which, I suggest, Umbanda plays an important role by helping them to strengthen their links with Brazil. Another point that I have already emphasized is that the Umbanda pantheon symbolizes Brazilian ethno-cultural diversity given that it comprises spirits that represent the ethnic matrixes of the Brazilian people and the miscegenation forged by these groups. Taking into account these two points, I propose that the inclusion of the Japanese spirits in the Umbanda pantheon in Japan symbolizes the self- inclusion of the Nikkeijin in Brazilian society, which becomes all the more critical in their liminal condition in diaspora. Japanese-Brazilians redefine their collective identity and sense of belonging by deploying Umbanda as trope for an ethnic formation that allows for diversity and creolization and that places them high in the Brazil’s ethnical and cultural hierarchy. This trope can serve to counter the discrimination and isolation they face in Japan, which has an altogether different ethnic formation. This inclusion is the result of their identity renegotiation and acknowledgment of their Brazilianness. At first sight, it may appear contradictory that Japanese cultural icons such as the samurai should symbolize the self-inclusion of the Nikkeijin in Brazilian society, especially when they feel themselves to be Brazilians and not Japanese. Nevertheless, this contradiction is explained by the fact that this inclusion can only be legitimated by Brazilian society if the Nikkeijin’s representation corresponds to the image that this society has of them. In that respect, Japanese cultural icons are the best choice. Another contradiction that should be highlighted is the fact that unlike other spiritual entities of Umbanda, the Japanese ones do not belong to marginal groups. On the contrary, samurais, Buddhist monks, and doctors 268 ushi arakaki are (or were in the case of the samurai) part of a prestigious segment of the Japanese society. To understand why these spirits were chosen to represent the Nikkeijin we should consider the social status they have in Brazil as members of a ‘positive minority.’ They are called japonês (Japanese), which is almost a synonym for intelligence, hard work and honesty. Therefore, it is natural that they choose Japanese characters that have high social status to represent themselves. In addition, the tsuyaku, also represented by Japanese spiritual entities, has a high social status within the Brazilian transnational community as well. Hence, the adoption of the Japanese spirits in the Umbanda pantheon conveys two important meanings. At local level, the tsuyaku symbolizes the search for inclusion as in a community that associates Japanese-Brazilians with the 5K, while transnationally it represents the self-inclusion of the Nikkeijin in Brazilian society. By making the samurai so central in Umbanda, Japanese-Brazilians seem to be valuing their own liminal character in a society that is tightly structured. In this way, they carve a legitimate place for their hybrid identities, affirming a romanticized notion of Brazil as a racial democracy. Both inclusions are facilitated by the capacity of Umbanda to absorb socio-cultural changes. By bringing together quintessential characters of the Brazilian (pretos-velhos, caboclos, exús) and Japanese cultures (samurais and Buddhist monks), religious leaders are in fact expanding the ethno-cultural Umbanda’s cosmos and simultaneously reinforcing Brazilianness abroad. It is worth mentioning that this kind of creolization has also happened in Brazil with the religious world of Japanese migrants that has been influenced by Afro-Brazilian religions. Koichi Mori (1998), for instance, analyzed the role of Japanese and Brazilian possession of Okinawans in Brazil as a way of integrating them into Brazilian society. In this case, like the one focused on this chapter, Umbanda cosmology is modified in order to meet ethnic demands of transnational migrants. In both cases, Umbanda serves as a bridge between two different religious and cultural worlds and it changes from a national to an ethnic religion that reconciles the tension between nationality and ethnicity.

Final Considerations

The process of identity renegotiation experienced by Brazilian migrants in Japan creates a demand for religious symbols that are able to meet this need. In this respect, the Brazilianness of Umbanda and its capacity for japanese-brazilians: an ethnographic study of umbanda in japan 269 reflecting the Brazilian socio-cultural context are what attract most of the followers in Japan. Umbanda succeeds in meeting Brazilian Nikkeijin’s demands in several ways: (1) it helps them handle their identity renegotiation by strengthening their connection with Brazil; (2) it assists them with adaptation problems by creating, at least in the symbolic/spiritual sphere, an environment where the Brazilian spirits work together with the Japanese spirits playing the role of tsuyaku. This partnership reinforces the idea that the same kind of integration can occur in the mundane world; and by doing so (3) it legitimates the Nikkeijin’s Brazilian identity by including Japanese spirits in its pantheon together with other ethnic groups which comprise Brazilian society.

References

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Neil Stephens and Sara Delamont1

It is 9.40 p.m. on a hot June evening, in the English city of Cloisterham.2 The year is 2008. There are various activities in progress in the building of the students’ social club: rehearsals for a play, a meeting of the French Society, and several bars are open, with cricket and soccer games on their giant TV screens. The largest room in the building, where bands play gigs, and the dirty wooden floor smells of stale beer, is very, very hot, although every door is wedged open in defiance of the fire regulations. Most of the eighty or so people in the hall are seated on the floor in one of four circles (rodas), watching two capoeira players in the centre of their circle, clapping, and waiting to play in the roda themselves. Sounds of singing, drumming and an unusual stringed instrument can be heard seeping out of the room. It is the first evening of a four-day capoeira festival called a Batizado.3 This part of the event is due to end at 10.00 p.m., so people can adjourn to a local night club for a Samba and Forró Party due to start at 11.00 p.m. The capoeira teachers and students present have been training since 6.30 p.m. There are seven people seated on chairs in the centre of the hall, playing instruments, one of whom is singing the verses of songs in Brazilian Portuguese. Everyone else in the room sings the short choruses, making a call and response pattern. The man leading the singing, a tall Pole, has chosen a song with the chorus ‘Bahia axé, axé Bahia’. At 9.45 p.m. there is a shuffle among the musicians in the band (bateria): some players hand over their instruments to other people. An African- Brazilian woman takes over the drum and begins to lead the singing, changing the song. The chorus, picked up quickly by Cloisterham students and more hesitantly by others because it is not one of the commonest songs: ‘Mora Yemanjá, Mora Yemanjá.’ A few capoeiristas ask their neighbour what

1 The authors are both sociologists: of science (Stephens) and education (Delamont). We do not speak or read Portuguese. Our research is on capoeira regional in the UK, especially the classes of Contra-Mestre Achilles taught in two British cities. We use English language academic sources, either written in English, or translated from the Portuguese. This would be wrong for a study of capoeira in Brazil, but is acceptable for a study of capoeira in Britain, because there is no literature in Portuguese on diasporic capoeira in the UK. 2 All the names of places are pseudonyms, except London, where there are at least fifty capoeira teachers from many different groups. All the capoeira teachers have pseudonyms from Greek and Roman mythology. 3 Most regional groups in the UK have two festivals a year, with the baptism (batizado) of new members, the graduation of others to higher belts, and classes by visiting teachers (See Stephens and Delamont 2010b). 272 neil stephens and sara delamont

the words of the chorus are, and gradually try to join in. Soon at least fifty people of many nationalities and several races, and many religions or none, are singing praise to an African Brazilian orixá, a sea goddess, to enthuse the capoeira play.

Among the eighty people are two sociologists, a man in his early thirties with the capoeira name of Trovão (Thunder), and a woman in her sixties with the capoeira name of Bruxa (Witch).4 Trovão, in black street trousers and a faded t-shirt from the 2005 winter Batizado, is playing the agogô in the bateria. Bruxa is seated in a roda made up mainly of Contra-Mestre Achilles’s students from Tolnbridge, where he teaches twice a week. She is clapping and singing out of tune wearing black linen cut offs and a t-shirt that says, in Portuguese, “I love capoeira.” The two authors of this chapter are Trovão and Bruxa, and that session of that festival is typical of our ethnographic fieldwork on diasporic capoeira. Such scenes are played out all over the UK on many weekends of the year. We opened the chapter with an extract from our ethnographic fieldwork to show how there can be apparent overlaps between the Brazilian dance and martial art capoeira, and the African-Brazilian religion Candomblé. However our central argument is that the vibrant, and geographically widespread, culture of capoeira in the UK uses the term axé as a central concept although it does not embed capoeira in Candomblé belief or practice, but rather creates its own embodied and performative meaning of the term. In the capoeira classes that are the focus of our research, axé is characterised as good energy, which produces good capoeira play and is, in its turn, generated by the singing, the clapping, the instrumental music and the physical capoeira, such as we have described from the 2008 summer festival in Cloisterham. The chapter begins with a brief account of capoeira itself, explores the landscape of capoeira in the UK, outlines our research, and the habitus of diasporic capoeira regional in the UK, and then focuses on the concept of axé in that capoeira habitus. To heighten the paradox, we chose, as our title, the chorus line of a capoeira song that does have a clear link to Candomblé because it greets an orixá, the Sea Goddess (Robben 1989), although it is only occasionally sung in the UK; usually when women are leading the

4 We both have real capoeira nicknames given to us by Achilles, but use pseudonymous ones, Trovão (Thunder) and Bruxa (Witch), to help protect the confidentiality of our informants. mora yemanjá? axé in diasporic capoeira regional 273 singing. ‘Mora Yemanjá’ is not a commonly sung chorus line, like ‘Paranauê, Paranauê’; ‘Zum, Zum, Zum, Capoeira mata um,’ ‘Vou dizer a meu senhor, que a manteiga derramou’ or ‘Bahia axé, axé Bahia.’5

Capoeira in Brazil and the UK

Capoeira is the Brazilian dance, fight and game done to music that has deep roots in African Brazilian culture. Its history is undocumented and dis- puted (Holloway 1989; Assunção 2005). For those unfamiliar with the art form there are English-language anthropological accounts of capoeira in Brazil (starting with Landes 1947, and leading on to Lewis 1992 and Downey 2005) and books by famous masters (mestres) translated into English (e.g., Almeida 1986; Capoeira 1995, 2002, 2006). Scholars of dance (Browning 1995, 1998) and ethnomusicologists (Schreiner 1993) have also written on capoeira. Briefly, capoeira developed in Brazil among male slaves, and after the abolition of slavery, it was a street pastime for African Brazilian men. The authorities feared its practitioners, and it was illegal from the late nineteenth century until 1932. After legalisation capoeira remained a male activity in Brazil, and when practiced by African Brazilians was still regarded as somewhat disreputable. In the 1970s some capoeira practitioners began to teach it in the US and Europe. They found that many of their keen students were women, and so capoeira outside Brazil became mixed. Women in Brazil then took up the game publically. Today capoeira classes can be found all over the world, in what Assunção (2005) terms a diasporic expansion. Since the 1930s there have been two main traditions of capoeira, regional developed and was codified by Mestre Bimba in the Vargas era, and angola revivified by Mestre Pastinha (Assunção 2005). Any distinction is an over- simplification, but, for those without any knowledge of capoeira, regional is played faster, standing upright when kicks are delivered and looks a little like a South East Asian martial art such as karate or Muay Thai; while angola is played slower, much closer to the ground, and to the uninitiated does not look like a martial art at all. In Brazil, especially in Salvador in the state of Bahia, there are purist angola groups, who eschew regional; and there are

5 Paranauê refers to a province of Brazil, ‘Capoeira mata um’ means ‘capoeira killed one,’ and the third chorus says that the master will be told that an unknown someone spilled his butter. That song refers to the necessary deceptions practiced by slaves in order to survive. 274 neil stephens and sara delamont purist angola teachers leading classes in many places outside Brazil. However diasporic capoeira generally draws upon both the regional tradition of Mestre Bimba and the angola tradition of Mestre Pastinha (Assunção 2005). Capoeira classes can be found throughout the British Isles, usually taught by Brazilians. There are groups that practice capoeira angola in an exclusive way (such as the London-based Kabula group) but the majority of clubs are hybrid, so capoeira is taught explicitly celebrating and playing all styles in an inclusive way. In larger cities there can be several teachers, and a student can choose a capoeira style as well as a club and a teacher, whereas in smaller places the discípulo (student) does whatever the core teacher offers. In Tolnbridge, for example, there is only Contra-Mestre Achilles, so an angola devotee either has to take his classes, which feature both regional and angola, or not attend a capoeira class at all. In our ethnography the research focus has been on regional classes in which some angola is covered, not on purist angola teachers and their classes. The ethnic and national make up of the students in capoeira classes varies across the UK. In the big cosmopolitan cities discípulos come from many ethnicities: in university towns they reflect the nationalities recruited by the university, in areas with Brazilian and Portuguese immigrants there are many Portuguese speakers in the classes; in small towns far from the big metropolitan areas, such as Inverness and Aberystwyth, most students are white British and few people understand Portuguese. London classes have more African-Caribbean British students, and more Brazilians, than those in Cloisterham and Tolnbridge.6 Capoeira regional teachers usually give all their students a capoeira name, and we have given all our student informants pseudonymous nicknames.

The Ethnographic Research

We (Trovão and Bruxa) are two white British sociologists, whose research is on capoeira in the UK, where it has been taught to increasing numbers of

6 These are university towns in England and in Wales respectively, each with an ethni- cally mixed population. In our research period Tolnbridge has had mainly Welsh and English students, including Asian and African-Caribbean Welsh people, but there have been Brazilian, Portuguese, Italian, Spanish, American, Australian, French, Swiss, Polish, Malaysian, Japanese, Finnish and German discípulos too. In Cloisterham Achilles has taught mainly English students including Asian and African-Caribbean English people, but there mora yemanjá? axé in diasporic capoeira regional 275 students since 1985. This paper draws upon nine years of fieldwork to reflect on the ways in which the concept of axé is deployed in the capoeira groups we have studied. At no point in our fieldwork, which we have described elsewhere (Stephens and Delamont 2006a, 2010b), have we ever set out to focus on religion: rather we concentrate on how the teachers enculture their discípulos, on embodiment, the teaching and learning of tacit skills and knowledge, and on methodological issues. Contra-Mestre Achilles has taught a capoeira club in Tolnbridge since May 2003. Trovão joined that club in its early days, and got his first corda (belt) in November 2003. He had previously done karate to black belt level. Bruxa began to do nonparticipant observation of the classes in October 2003. Initially Bruxa used Trovão as her key informant, because he had the social science insight and the embodied experience of a discípulo. In 2005 we began to write together and have done so ever since. The project became a partnership. Bruxa observes capoeira being taught and played, writing fieldnotes, and we then discuss those data and formulate the social science argument. The data are primarily ethnographic; that is, based on Bruxa’s observations and Trovão’s participation. Informal conversations aid our understanding, but the project includes very few data from formal interviews. The topic of the ethnography has its own social order which affects the fieldwork. Classes are noisy, for example, so much of the interaction is non- verbal, or if it is verbal, hard to hear. It would be unacceptable for an untrained, non-playing ethnographer to get too close to the action, because capoeira can be dangerous. The players should be focusing on each other not keeping an eye on an observer in case she gets kicked. Because discípu- los are required to choose one teacher in one group and remain loyal to him (or her), Trovão learnt most of his capoeira from Achilles. Bruxa has observed Achilles teach more than 400 times, but because she is not restricted by the custom and practice of discipleship in the same way she has observed other teachers, five of them over twenty times each. To date, the database contains fieldnotes from over 2,500 hours of fieldwork on more than sixty capoeira teachers. The capoeira club in Tolnbridge, taught by Achilles, the Contra-Mestre who also runs the Cloisterham club featured in our opening extract from the fieldnotes, is primarily focused on capoeira regional: there are probably 10–12 regional classes for every angola lesson

have been discípulos of all the nationalities found in Tolnbridge plus also Greek and Chinese students. 276 neil stephens and sara delamont delivered.7 Trovão, as a discípulo of Achilles, has experienced more regional than angola classes.

The Habitus of Diasporic Capoeira Regional

The main focus of the research has been to understand the habitus of diasporic capoeira in the UK. Bourdieu (1962, 1977) brought the concept of habitus into the mainstream of cultural sociology, from his early writing on bachelors in the Bearne, through Outline of a Theory of Practice (1977) and in his study of photography (Bourdieu et al. 1965). Bourdieu, like Mauss, understood habitus to be socially produced: that is socially produced bodily postures, tastes, thoughts and feelings (which he called dispositions). Dispositions are closely linked to stratification and social class, and that link is central to grasping what Bourdieu meant by the classic definition of habitus: Systems of durable, transposable dispositions, structured structures predis- posed to function as structuring structures, that is, principles of the generation and structuring of practices and representations which can be objectively ‘regulated’ and ‘regular’ without in any way being the product of obedience to rules,…..Collectively orchestrated without being the product of the orches- tration of a conductor (1977: 72). Bourdieu’s concept of habitus, along with practice and field, is central to his theoretical project. Scholars in many empirical areas such as education, professions, the arts, mass media, consumption and the family have used the idea of habitus to ‘explain’ everyday life, social reproduction, and the perpetuation of the status quo. Sociologists of sport, dance, and of the body have been particularly enthusiastic about deploying the concept of habitus. Crossley (2004, 2006), Britain’s leading exponent of sociology of the body and carnal sociology, has explored the embodied habitus of gym users and Muay Thai learners, while Wainwright, Williams and Turner (2007) write of the embodied habitus of ballet dancers. Their mandate came from Bourdieu (1999) in which he focused on sport.

7 Achilles explicitly values angola, and he teaches angola classes when the venue is small, when the hall is warm enough for slower moves, and whenever he decides that the club need to learn and practice angola. His festivals always include some angola teachers. However a novice could train in Tolnbridge for several weeks before experiencing an angola class. mora yemanjá? axé in diasporic capoeira regional 277

Bourdieu (1999), focusing on sport, argued that “the teaching of a bodily practice” was an important site to study: “a set of theoretical question of the greatest importance” (p. 166). Wacquant (2004) followed Bourdieu’s ideas in his ethnography of boxing in Chicago: a study of what he called the ‘pugilistic habitus’ (pp. 98–99). Our use of habitus parallels Wacquant’s (2011). We are interested in a pugilistic, a dance and a musical habitus, that of UK diasporic capoeira (Delamont and Stephens 2008; Stephens and Delamont 2012). Capoeira’s habitus is acquired by learning and practicing some knowledge and skills that are taught explicitly, and by absorbing others that are left tacit, indeterminate, and even inchoate, which are not taught (Stephens and Delamont 2009, 2010a). The aspects of capoeira that are taught explicitly by drill and practice, by instruction, by demonstration, and by individual coaching are the physical moves (such as kicks, escapes and acrobatic flourishes), the words of songs, the etiquette of, and safety in, the roda (how to enter and leave, how to play beginners, masters, strangers), the playing of the musical instruments, and the basic rhythms of the music. Other behaviours and qualities teachers value, such as loyalty, turning up for demonstrations and performances, doing work for the group such as managing its Facebook page or collecting visiting teachers from the airport, working cheerfully with novices to coach them and help them feel integrated, are demonstrated by advanced discípulos and publically praised by the teacher. The core elements of the habitus are the tacit skills and knowledge, which are not taught, but gradually acquired over several years. Key tacit aspects of the habitus of diasporic capoeira are malícia (trick- ery, deceit or deception), playing with style, developing a flexible waist, recognising when the axé of the capoeira is strong and when it is not, and understanding how to contribute to creating and raising the axé (See Delamont and Stephens 2008; Stephens and Delamont 2006b, 2009a, 2010a, 2010b; Rosario, Stephens and Delamont 2010). Understanding malícia, developing a good style of play, changing one’s embodiment to have a flexible waist, and recognising good axé are all necessary for discípu- los to become enculturated in capoeira: that is, acquiring the habitus of diasporic capoeira. Teachers rarely offer explicit instruction in these elements; rather they are the tacit knowledge and skills that students who take capoeira seriously gradually acquire as they are socialised into the art. Axé is a vital component of capoeira in the UK, so it is a recurrent motif in our research. Achilles has explained to us his four main goals for his serious discípulos (Rosario, Stephens and Delamont 2010). He wants his students to develop strong social cohesion, to become aware of, and 278 neil stephens and sara delamont enthusiastic about, Brazilian culture, to develop flexible waists and become comfortable in their bodies whether playing capoeira, dancing or moving through life, and to play capoeira not only with good style but with strong axé. Rosario et al. (2010: 115) argue that: Treating capoeira in the UK as a field, in Bourdieu’s sense, the extent to which Achilles’s advanced students play with style and axé is one way in which he can gain status in the contested field as their teacher, and displays his qualities as an instructor to his mestres. The symbolic capital Achilles has in capoeira is made visible to other experts if his advanced students have become properly enculturated. We explain how axé is invoked in a regional group, how it is embodied, performed and (re)created sui generis as a fundamental element of capoeira in the next section.

Invoking Axé in “Normal” Classes

A typical class lasts ninety minutes or two hours. A brief warm up and stretching session is followed by the teacher demonstrating moves, and short sequences of moves, which the students practice either individually in lines, or in pairs. Towards the end of the lesson there may be a roda, but not all teachers have a roda in every lesson. Some clubs always have a music practice, for part of the class; some do that only occasionally. If the club is going to do a public performance of capoeira, or of other African-Brazilian folklore dances such as maculelê (a martial display with sticks), a portion of the class time may be spent on a rehearsal for the event.8 Generally, though, a student trains 2–3 times a week, and spends 3–5 hours in a class drilling capoeira moves and perhaps 10–30 minutes involved in a roda. ‘Involvement’ here meaning standing singing and clapping, or playing an instrument, with perhaps one game of less than a minute per class. A great deal can be learnt by novices while standing in a roda (Stephens and Delamont 2010a). The changed embodiment comes from the drill and practice, as does the acquisition of the explicitly taught skills. The tacit skills, such as using malí- cia in a real game, or playing with ‘good style’, or feeling when the axé is high come through the paired practice, and especially in the roda.

8 In Brazil, Travassos (1999) found that white middle class capoeira groups did not embed their capoeira in the African-Brazilian folklore manifestations of maculelê, puxada de rede, coco, and the Bumba meu Boi (Mukuna 1999), while classes for African Brazilians did. In the UK all groups embed capoeira in these other manifestations when celebrating, or doing public performances. mora yemanjá? axé in diasporic capoeira regional 279

Axé is generally invoked, but rarely explained explicitly, in routine classes. The fieldnotes from a typical Tolnbridge class on a Wednesday evening in 2010 show the ‘routine’ nature of the use of axé. The class had twenty-six people in it, twenty of whom had been training regularly for over two years, while six had not yet been attending long enough to get their first belt (i.e., less than six months). At 9.25 p.m. Achilles stopped the class practicing the routine they were training, and called “Let’s pay the lesson and have a roda!” This is a signal for the most advanced students to run to get their money and pay quickly, so they can form the bateria to play for the roda. While Achilles collected the last of the money, the bateria had formed, and Lunghri9 began to sing a chorus. The roda began to form, and Yegasuri called out “Roda everyone, roda”. The people in the seated roda began to sing the chorus of Lunghri’s chosen song. Achilles signalled that the game could begin, at 9.32 p.m., and the first two players squatted under the berimbau and on Lunghri’s sign, cart- wheeled into the ring and began to play. The roda continued from 9.32 p.m. until 9.50 p.m. At that point Achilles began to orchestrate the end of the class and the roda. 9.50 p.m. Achilles, now playing the lead berimbau, switches to the fastest rhythm, begins to sing one of the ‘closing’ songs, and calls to the ring two of the most advanced men, to play the alto ligeiro. This very ‘high fast’ game, which consists only of kicks without escapes delivered at top speed, is potentially dangerous, and only the most advanced and skilled students are allowed to go into the roda to play it. The five or six ‘top’ students enjoy this exhilarat- ing end to the roda. Achilles leads the class in the closing song ‘Boa Viagem’, and then begins the countdown. He sings ‘capoeira’ and the class count from ‘one’ to ‘twenty’ as a chorus. On the count of ‘twenty’ the music stops, the game stops, and everyone yells ‘Cobra Verde’ (the name of the capoeira group).10 Achilles then seats everyone and makes some announcements about a performance on Friday, the dates of his trip to Brazil, and urges everyone to buy proper kit and to come to training more regularly and to practice more at home. Then he signals for everyone to stand again, asks rhetorically “Did you have a good time?” and then instructs them to “Put your hands together”. Everyone in the roda puts their right hand into the middle of the ring in one large ‘pile’, low down near the floor, and then everyone raises their hand simultaneously shouting out ‘Axé!’ Class is over. Someone calls out “Let’s go to the pub”.

9 All students have been given pseudonymous nicknames: men from The Jungle Book, women’s names are those of flowers and plants – these are not sources drawn on by real capoeira teachers in the UK. 10 This, too, is a pseudonym. 280 neil stephens and sara delamont

This is a typical ending to a normal class, in which we have participated hundreds of times. Axé is invoked that way at the end of nearly every lesson taught by Contra-Mestre Achilles. In routine classes that shout is not taught or explained. New students would need to ask more experienced ones what the word is, and what it means. In Mestre Hermes’s London classes the jogo de capoeira (game) ends, and everyone moves very close to the bateria to sing a final song, and then they too call out ‘axé’ to end the session. All the groups we have seen have some version of a climatic end and a shout of axé is normally part of it. The only time we have seen the concept of axé clearly explained was when Achilles’s predecessor in Cloisterham, Patrokles, returned for a few weeks in the summer of 2005, primarily to attend his PhD graduation. He taught a class in the university that contained, unusually, some explicit explanation of axé. Patrokles said “You need petrol to drive an engine. Axé is the petrol that drives capoeira. You create the petrol.” Normally if the concept is explained by the teacher at all, and there seems not to be a useful English word for it, the instructor translates it as ‘good energy,’ and leaves novices to learn about it by participating in rodas, or asking fellow students. An analysis of our fieldnotes shows that when either of us, or other advanced students in Tolnbridge are asked to explain axé, the term ‘good energy’ or one of two analogies are used. Novices are told that axé is “like The Force in Star Wars” or “axé is related to Chi or Qi” the mystical energy in Shaolin Kung Fu. There is one additional analogy sometimes offered by advanced capoeiristas to novices in Wales. Welsh-speaking students relate axé to hwyl, a Welsh word for the mystical force that drives great rugby football or good singing. Such a parallel is unhelpful for newcomers to Wales, who have never heard of the word hwyl, or the idea that the Welsh rugby team wins when it plays with hwyl. Gradually, the novice student will recognise the word axé in Achilles’s class embedded in the choruses of songs, especially ‘Bahia axé, axé Bahia,’ but is mostly likely to begin to understand what it means in capoeira lessons when the teacher decides that its absence is a problem.

The Absence of Axé

Occasionally, if the roda seems particularly lacklustre, Achilles will stop it, and explain that capoeira needs axé, and that strong axé creates good capoeira. Everyone needs to work to create axé, he will stress, because the singing and clapping are a vital part of capoeira, so everyone must sing and mora yemanjá? axé in diasporic capoeira regional 281 clap louder and with more energy. He will usually teach or reteach the chorus of the song and therefore reinforce the singing, before allowing any capoeira play to resume. Similar exhortations are ‘normal’ in UK capoeira classes. It was the perceived absence of axé that led to Patrokles’s explanation about ‘petrol.’ On one occasion in Mestre Hermes’s advanced class in London, Bruxa saw him dissatisfied with the effort being put into the roda. He stopped the play, and said that the level of singing was so low that everyone might as well leave. He then reminded them that the chorus of the song was very simple (“Saint Anthony is my protector”) they all knew it, and they must sing loudly and enthusiastically, clap hands, and work to raise the axé. They did. The singing after Hermes’s outburst was very loud and clear. Capoeira instructors are particularly concerned that the students generate good axé for the rodas, and the ceremonial capoeira play that is part of the award of the belts, at festivals. If the teachers feel that the axé is not intense enough one of them runs round the inside of the roda clapping exuberantly and singing the words of the chorus clearly, signalling that everyone needs to put more energy into the circle. Typically, at the Artinswell Autumn festival in 2009, celebrating thirty years of Mestre Theseus’s group’s work in the UK, the local teacher Harmodias said on the Sunday (the third day),

I know you are tired, but we have the Batizado for our new friends now. They will get their first belt, and we need good axé. I want all you guys seated in the roda, not wandering off. Clap, sing, pay attention. They are the future of capoeira, give them your axé.

A big seated roda of over sixty people was formed, and when the bateria began, the clapping and singing were loud. After the thirtieth novice had played a teacher, when another fifteen beginners were still waiting to play, the noise had dropped noticeably: the axé level had fallen.

Harmodias stopped the bateria, and said “Come on guys! Let’s have more axé! Everyone stand up! You all know the song (sai, sai, Catarina).” He signalled to the bateria to strike up again, and one of the visiting teachers ran round the inside of the roda several times clapping above his head and singing the words very loudly. Only when the noise was loud again did the next mestre and the next novice come into the roda to play.

Exposure to such events will gradually enculturate the novices into what axé is, by drawing their attention to its absence, and requiring them to regenerate it. 282 neil stephens and sara delamont

Axé and the Individual Student

There are two aspects to the individual student’s deployment of the concept of axé and their understanding of its possible connections outside capoeira regional. As discípulos become capoeiristas they start to use the term axé about themselves, as well as the general play, when it is missing. So, for example, in the Autumn of 2010, one night Begonia turned up for class obviously suffering from flu. She started to train, then sat in the bateria for a bit, sneezing. At 8.40 p.m. Begonia got up from the bateria, said to Bruxa “I’m going home: I feel awful. I thought training might blow away the flu but it isn’t: I’ve got no axé tonight.” She went home. Students will use the term as a shorthand way to characterise classes and even festivals that were successful or not. So when Willow moved away to Wivelsdon she reported that she did not like the only capoeira group there, because “there’s no axé: its very flat.” Azalea and Vyasa left Tolnbridge for Longhampston, and reported that Mestre Perseus’s group was not very welcoming, and, they complained, “the rodas don’t have any axé.” All the students in their regular Tolnbridge class nodded sympathetically and obviously understood Azalea and Vyasa’s judgement. We too are asked to report on events and other groups in this way by Achilles or students. When Bruxa watched a group in New Zealand, or attends another group’s festivals, Achilles asks “Was it good? How was the axé?” Students too ask whether the axé is good or strong elsewhere in capoeira regional groups, and expect reports in those terms. When Bruxa reported on an event in London at which an internationally famous mestre was present, the advanced Tolnbridge students asked what the axé had been like in his lessons. All students in capoeira regional use the term axé as a shorthand for their own engagement with classes, rodas and festivals, and for pronouncing how enjoyable they were. There is, however, a wide range of student engagement with the other Brazilian phenomenon in which axé is central: the African Brazilian religions of Candomblé and Umbanda. Advanced students, while at a similar skill level in the game, the music and their singing, vary a great deal in their engagement with the history, philosophy and politics of capoeira in the UK and in Brazil. Some read widely and know a great deal about Brazil, African Brazilian culture, and see capoeira embedded in other phenomena, including Candomblé. Others, equally skilful players, have not engaged with such phenomena and treat capoeira as a pleasant form of exercise. This was brought home to us in 2007 when we conducted a group interview over a meal with four discípulos. Sanjaya, a Belgian man who had been mora yemanjá? axé in diasporic capoeira regional 283 doing a PhD in engineering in Tolnbridge was about to go home. He had trained with Achilles for about eighteen months and the meal was a farewell gesture. Also present were Lunghri, Jagai and Bariaan, three British men who had, like Trovão, been training since 2003. A conversation about what these men liked about capoeira took place, steered by some open- ended questions. During the evening, a contrast between Lunghri and Jagai’s understanding of capoeira became starkly apparent. Lunghri revealed that he had a longstanding involvement with African American music, especially Delta Blues, and a fascination with Robert Johnson’s religious beliefs. He had read Lewis (1992), Assunção (2005) and Downey (2005) as well as the books written by Mestres such as Almeida (1986) and Reis (2005). He began to discuss the links he saw between capoeira and Candomblé, focused on the songs, the music, the Bahia novels of Jorge Amado (1993) such as The War of the Saints, and the similarities between Candomblé and Robert Johnson’s American Hoodoo practice. He also revealed that he asked capoeira teachers he met about their religious practices and located instructors known to Bariaan and Jagai as practitioners in Umbanda, Kardecism or Candomblé. Jagai, an active protestant, who was known by his friends to go to Chapel on Sundays, and attend a prayer group regularly, became visibly distressed. It transpired that he had never heard of Candomblé, Umbanda or Kardecism; and had no idea that anyone located capoeira in such contexts. He asked if Achilles was, as he had always assumed, a Catholic. He had not realised that capoeira words he ‘knew,’ like axé, and mandinga, could have ‘pagan’ (even evil as he saw them) connotations. Because the topic was obviously distressing for Jagai, we changed the focus of the discussion. Subsequently we learnt from Jagai, and from Achilles, that Jagai had sought reassurances from Achilles that he was a Catholic and that Jagai’s own Christianity was compatible with capoeira. Achilles succeeded in convinc- ing Jagai he could stay in capoeira, and he still practices in 2012. These two British men had developed contrasting understandings of capoeira’s positioning in the history and culture of African Brazilians while they had reached a similarly advanced level of technical mastery of the body movements, tactics in rodas, music and singing. Our fieldwork shows similar differences among non-Brazilian students in regional classes in the UK. The level of knowledge about capoeira’s possible relationships, or congruences, with African Brazilian culture, especially religion, is higher among Brazilians who train capoeira regional in the UK, but they vary a great deal in their interest, or involvement in African Brazilian religion. Alongside Lunghri and Jagai in the Tolnbridge class are two white Brazilians, 284 neil stephens and sara delamont one of whom, an engineer, explicitly says ‘all’ religions are nonsense; the other, a pharmacist we call Mowgli, is a Candomblé initiate, who comes to class on Fridays having fasted all day, dressed all in white. In summary, we have observed throughout our participation in capoeira that while axé is mentioned in popular songs, and invoked in rodas in many classes, its possible connections with the ‘same’ concept in Candomblé are not mentioned in the public teaching. Our experience is that discípulos who are interested in the history or philosophy of capoeira will ask their teacher and visiting teachers about Candomblé, Umbanda, quilombos, malícia, mandinga and other matters in private conversations; but other committed capoeiristas can practice seriously for several years and be entirely unaware of the existence of Candomblé as a Brazilian religion. Matters of religion, whether Christian or African Brazilian are not publically ‘present’ in capoeira regional class in the UK. This separation is an explicit policy of the teachers.

The Teachers of Capoeira Regional and Capoeira Angola

The capoeira regional teachers we know best say, when asked, that capoeira is not connected to any religion. Achilles said in a formal interview that capoeira is open to “Buddhists, Muslims, Hindus, everyone!” Occasionally, perhaps twice a year, he makes a similar pronouncement in public when someone asks if capoeira is related to a ‘Brazilian’ or ‘slave’ religion. Achilles is a Contra-Mestre who has been teaching for about twelve years. His position on the separation of capoeira and religion is expressed equally clearly by Mestre Theseus a world-famous teacher with thirty-five years’ experience all over the world. At a Batizado in the autumn of 2009 he asked Bruxa how the research was going and what we were writing. When Bruxa mentioned this paper, Mestre Theseus was quite firm. “That’s wrong” he said firmly “capoeira has nothing to do with Candomblé, nothing at all! Capoeira axé has nothing to do with Candomblé – they’re quite separate.” That is a clear message that we are given by regional teachers if we ask about capoeira and Candomblé. Capoeira regional teachers vary a good deal in the amount of time they spend in class, and with their students outside the classes, explicitly explaining capoeira’s philosophy or history, rather than teaching its moves and the music. We have both experienced a teacher, Mestre Perseus, who explores capoeira as an intellectual practice much more than Contra-Mestre Achilles does, although both teach a mix of regional and mora yemanjá? axé in diasporic capoeira regional 285 angola moves. The limited fieldwork done in the classes of capoeira angola specialists leads us to believe that students in purist angola groups are given much clearer explicit instruction in the overlaps between capoeira axé and the African Brazilian religious heritages. Bruxa has done a small amount of fieldwork in London on one purist angola group. Our tentative conclusion is that purist angola groups in the UK would be more likely to explore and explain the African, and Candomblé, origins and connotations of the term axé, than those where both regional and angola capoeira are taught. Angola groups and angola mestres more commonly include explicit instruction in the history and philosophy of capoeira, and therefore explore the spiritual meanings of axé and its Candomblé meanings more frequently, and in a more explicit way. The National Geographic TV programme on capoeira, in the Deadly Arts (2006) series, for example, features Mestre Jogo de Dentro a famous angola master from Bahia, who explicitly links his capoeira to his Candomblé faith, while the regional teachers in the programme are not shown making any such connections. In 2009 Bruxa watched a small angola class in London. The last forty minutes were spent on music, and each student present had come with a song they had prepared. That is, each student had learnt the ladainha (the long solo part) of a song, and taught the class the chorus of it. One young woman who introduced herself to Bruxa as ‘a Nigerian’ before the lesson, told the mestre and the other three students present that she was proud of her African descent. She tied up her long hair in a Nigerian woven cloth before training, and let it out before singing her chorus. It transpired that she had prepared a song that the Brazilian Mestre Tiberius, an African Brazilian who is not only a capoeira angola mestre, but also a university lecturer in theatre studies with a PhD, said was ‘really’ a Candomblé invocation. He was not critical or censorious, but said that when he was young capoeira groups did not sing Candomblé invocations. Rather such songs were kept strictly for Candomblé ceremonials. He went on that he personally was not keen on ‘using’ Candomblé songs outside terreiros. It was, he said, ‘dangerous’ to invoke the orixás if you do not know what you are doing. Mestre Tiberius’s comments led to a brief discussion of how ‘everyone’ sang capoeira songs invoking St Benedict, St Anthony and St Barbara, who were actually orixás masked behind Roman Catholic saints, and did not realise what they were ‘really’ singing about. The teacher made no further comment about danger, but moved on to another student’s song. It was not possible to explore the incident with either the mestre or the students at the time, and Bruxa has not been able to watch that mestre teach since, so 286 neil stephens and sara delamont we do not know if he regularly tries to keep Candomblé songs out of capoeira classes. However, it was absolutely clear that all four students understood what Mestre Tiberius was talking about, what his concerns were, and that potential overlaps between Candomblé and capoeira were a proper subject for a teacher to speak about. In order to gain another perspective Bruxa discussed that incident with the Brazilian man who is a Candomblé initiate, Mowgli, who trains with Achilles. He said to us that in Rio his teacher did not let the bateria play with their bare feet on the earth, because that could invoke the orixás; they had to wear shoes for capoeira. That was, he explained, how his capoeira teacher in Rio kept his religion and his capoeira symbolically, and practically, separate. In other words, he had been trained in Brazil in the same tradition as Mestre Tiberius: to enjoy capoeira but be careful not unwittingly to trespass into Candomblé territory. Occasionally, we have seen a connection between capoeira angola and Candomblé made at a public event, which never happens with regional. In 2007, a London Candomblé temple staged a public fundraising event in a secondary school in Islington. Portuguese speakers could have their fortune told by a mãe de santo using cowry shells, there was African Brazilian food to eat, and stalls selling CDs, clothing, jewellery, craft items, candles, statues and devotional pictures. There was a capoeira display by one of the London angola groups. The event organisers linked capoeira and Candomblé, but as we have shown, the reverse is not generally the case in capoeira classes in the UK.

Conclusion

Students who learn capoeira regional in the UK are introduced to the concept axé as a core element in capoeira regional: as part of the habitus. The habitus of capoeira regional in the UK is acquired by students through formal pedagogic instruction, and through a gradual enculturation into its tacit knowledge and skills which are not taught. Among the elements that are not taught is capoeira axé. Instructors call upon students to work hard to generate it, and want them to experience it in class, but do not explain it explicitly. If a teacher of capoeira regional in the UK can run classes where the axé is good and strong, he or she will attract and retain more students (which helps the teacher’s financial survival), and will have a reputation among other instructors, and among other people’s discípulos. So creating and maintaining good axé in class, in rodas, and at festivals when guests mora yemanjá? axé in diasporic capoeira regional 287 and visitors are present is a goal in itself, and also creates a virtuous circle, while not alienating any religiously devout students from any ethnic or racial group in Britain. Regional students are ‘free’ to embrace capoeira as a Brazilian art form, in which axé is good energy. The habitus of capoeira regional in the UK is one in which the axé of good capoeira is not associated with the axé of the orixás. We have argued that it is ‘easier’ for discípulos with strong religious beliefs of their own, such as Jews, Muslims, or Orthodox Greeks, to participate in regional capoeira classes than angola ones, and that teachers of regional groups downplay the spiritual meanings of axé to encourage discípulos from many cultures to participate in capoeira. The paper locates this argument in the practical necessity facing most teachers of diasporic capoeira: they have to make a living by maximising recruitment to capoeira in multicultural British cities.

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Robben, A. C. G. M. 1989. Sons of the Sea Goddess. New York: Columbia University Press. Rosario, C. C., N. Stephens, and S. Delamont. 2010. “I’m Your Teacher! I’m Brazilian!.” Sport, Education and Society 15 (1): 103–120. Schreiner, C. 1993. Musica Brasileira. London: Marian Boyars. Stephens, N. and S. Delamont. 2006a. “Balancing the Berimbau.” Qualitative Inquiry 12 (2): 316–339. —— . 2006b. “‘Samba no Mar’: Movement and Idiom in Capoeira.” In Body/Embodiment: Symbolic Interaction and the Sociology of the Body, eds D. Waskul and P. Vannini. Aldershot: Ashgate. —— . 2009. “They Start to Get Malicia.” British Journal of Sociology of Education 30 (5): 537–548. —— . 2010a. “Roda Boa, Roda Boa.” Teaching and Teacher Education 26 (1): 113–119. —— . 2010b. “Vim De Bahia Pra Lhe Ver.” In Mobile Methodologies, eds. B. Fincham et al., 85–102, London: Palgrave. —— . 2012. “Each More Agile Than the Other.” In Fighting Scholars, eds. R. S. Garcia and D. Spencer. London: Anthem Press. Travassos, S. 1999. “Mandinga.” Estudos Afro-Asiatcos 35: 67–79. Wacquant, L. 2004. Body and Soul. New York: Oxford University Press. Wacquant, L. 2011. “Habitus as Topic and Tool.” Qualitative Research in Psychology 8 (1): 1–12. Wainwright, S., C. Wiliams, and B. S. Turner. 2007. “Varieties of Habitus and the Embodiment of Ballet.” Qualitative Research 6 (4): 535–558. SECTION THREE

NEW RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS

BUILDING A TRANSNATIONAL SPIRITUAL COMMUNITY: THE JOHN OF GOD MOVEMENT IN AUSTRALIA

Cristina Rocha

Introduction

We are in a house in one of the upmarket beach suburbs of Sydney, Australia. As the evening meditation time gets closer, people start to arrive. We all wear white, as people frequenting the Casa de Dom Inácio, a healing center in central Brazil headed by the Brazilian Spiritist healer John of God (João de Deus), are supposed to. We hang around the kitchen and living room areas. Some drink tea, others blessed water, and others yet have blessed soup and bread. Meanwhile, some people, who have finished their treatments on crystal beds set up in the two bedrooms, come into the kitchen. Denise, the owner, lives next door with her family. She bought this house with the idea of dedicating it solely to activities related to John of God. Finally, the time comes for us all to sit in the living room and meditate. The room is decorated with pictures of the healer, the entities/spirits he channels, St Mary MacKillop (an Australian nun recently canonized), and of a statue of Mary from St. Mary’s Cathedral in Sydney. On the mantelpiece and on several shelves there are candles, crystals and two laptop computers showing movies of John of God operating on patients. Music from the Brazilian healing center is playing on an iPod connected to speakers. This is all done, they tell me, for people to connect with the energy and entities of the Casa de Dom Inácio. We all close our eyes and Denise starts the meditation by saying the Lord’s Prayer and Hail Mary. I follow with the same prayers in Brazilian Portuguese, as she instructed me to beforehand. A Dutch man, who has been living in Australia for ten years, and has been to Brazil for extended periods of time, prays aloud with me in Portuguese.1 After a period of silence, in which we listen to the Casa de Dom Inácio’s religious songs in Portuguese, Denise asks us to invoke the entities John of God incorporates

1 He now lives in Abadiânia (where the Casa de Dom Inácio is located) and is a tour guide for foreigners who want to visit the John of God healing center. 292 cristina rocha in trance. Each of us says the name of one entity from the more than thirty- three he incorporates. Some invoke other significant figures in the Theosophical movement (and later appropriated by the New Age movement) such as Saint-Germain, Serapis Bey, Kuthumi, and El Morya,2 or Catholic saints such as Padre Pio, Saint Francis of Assisi, and the Australian Mary MacKillop. She tells us they are here now to help us heal. We sit with our eyes closed for an hour listening to the Casa music, while from time to time she reads prayers from the Casa prayer book (English version – there are versions in several languages). More than a meditation, this is a corrente (literally ‘chain’ as well as ‘current’). According to the Brazilian spiritual center, a corrente is a chain of meditators who create a current of energy that helps the entities heal people from their physical, emotional, mental or spiritual ailments. Denise ends the ‘current’ session (as foreigners call it) with a visualization which recurs, although in slightly different formats, across the three sites where John of God groups get together for current sessions in Sydney. She tells us:

I wonder if you can imagine yourself above Sydney. I wonder if you can see the lights of the city. Now fly a little higher and see New South Wales. Fly a little higher and see Australia. Go even higher, see the Earth. Now look down and see the brightest spot, that’s the town of Abadiânia. Send love and light to medium João, to his family and the entities. Now imagine yourself sitting there in current and feel the healing. Bring your family and loved ones to the current; see them sitting there next to you receiving the healing. See now the light connecting Abadiânia to Australia, to New South Wales, to Sydney. Imagine this energy connection. So many people have been to the Casa, with all this back and forth, we are creating a tunnel of energy between the two places. Send energy to the entities so that it makes John of God’s trip to Australia effortless.

We then finish our current with the Lord’s Prayer and the Hail Mary, and are served a little glass of blessed water from the Casa. It is 9 pm and we start to chat. Again, we have tea, biscuits, blessed soup and a slice of baguette, in a similar fashion to what takes place at the Casa de Dom Inácio after the morning current session. We exchange stories of our time(s) at the Casa, of guidance from the entities, of miraculous healings or people’s passing, of when we plan to go back to Brazil, of who is going to New York and Europe for the next John of God international healing event, and of the latest news

2 The Theosophical movement considers them ‘Ascended Master’. For more on this, see Johnson (1994) and Hanegraaf (1996: 200–201). building a transnational spiritual community 293 on the plans to bring the healer to Australia. Two hours later, I leave with the last guests. I will meet many of these people and participate in the same ritual next week in a current session organized by another follower in a different location. Currents like this happen on a weekly basis in private homes and hired halls in Sydney, Melbourne and Perth, and in some other locations in the countryside of NSW. They also take place in the two official branches of the Casa in Australia (in Mullumbimby and in the Southern Highlands, both in NSW). All rituals are the same, as they follow closely what takes place in the Casa de Dom Inácio in Brazil.

*** In this chapter, I analyze the transnationalization of the John of God movement. I argue that the intense flows of people, sacred objects, ideas, practices and ‘spirits’ between the Casa de Dom Inácio and Australia create a transnational spiritual community comprised of healers, the ill, those who seek ‘spiritual growth,’ and tour guides. While scholars have used the concept of transnational community to analyze transnational migration, this chapter calls for the expansion of its scope to encompass other transnational communities, such as those of transnational spiritual adherents. As I described in the vignette with which I started this chapter, this transnational spiritual community is created and supported not only by concrete flows of people and material culture, but by flows of energy and spirits who, according to followers, are present and heal in Australia as well. I will show in this chapter that when people connect to them, such as during current sessions, they are able to be in Brazil and in Australia simultaneously. It is noteworthy that this transnational community is porous since it, at times, includes followers of other ‘global gurus.’ Indeed, while John of God and his healing center were not well-known until a decade ago, now the medium is an important node in the global network of famous gurus and healers.3 I have been researching the John of God movement since 2004, when I first went to Abadiânia. Since then, I have been to Abadiânia almost every year and lived there in the first half of 2007. Since 2004, I have also been doing participant observation in John of God events and current sessions at the Australian Casas in Mullumbimby and the Southern Highlands and

3 Australian followers may also be devotees of the recently deceased Sathya Sai Baba and the ‘Hugging Saint’ Amma (Mata Amritanandamayi). Both of them are gurus from India who have a global following. For more on Sai Baba and Amma in the West, see Srinivas (2010) and Warrier (2005), respectively. 294 cristina rocha in several locations in Sydney. In addition, I have been to the four international healing events John of God conducted in New Zealand (2006 and 2007) and in Germany (2011 and 2012). In all these locations I have conducted a total of 45 in-depth interviews. In Abadiânia, I have interviewed local authorities, hotel managers, cooks, cleaners, taxi drivers, and foreign tour guides and visitors. In Australia and New Zealand, I conducted interviews with tour guides, followers, and people who have been to Abadiânia but do not consider themselves followers. So far, there has been no research on the John of God Movement apart from my own, as it has only developed in the last decade. Although the literature on Spiritism4 in Brazil is vast, to my knowledge there is only one preliminary study on the globalization of Brazilian Spiritism (Lewgoy 2008).

John of God

João Teixeira de Faria – or João de Deus, as his Brazilian followers later called him – was born in a small town in the state of Goiás in central Brazil 1942. He grew up in poverty and had very little schooling. João de Deus started prophesying at an early age, and recalls having his first vision at sixteen. He tells of how while bathing in a river, Santa Rita de Cássia, an important saint in the Brazilian Catholic pantheon, told him to go to a religious center in Campo Grande, now the capital of Mato Grosso do Sul state. There, for the first time, he maintains that he took on the entity of King Solomon and healed many people while oblivious to what he was doing. This was the first of the over thirty-three entities he now channels. In this religious center, he was also introduced to the Spiritist doctrine. Eventually, João de Deus saved enough money to follow the instruction of his spiritual guides to buy a small house near the highway in Abadiânia, a small town 100 km southwest of Brasília. Some years later a follower donated a large plot of land on the other side of the highway where he established Casa de Dom Inácio (Cummings & Leffler 2007; Pellegrino-Estrich 2002; Póvoa 2003).

4 Spiritism is also known in Brazil as Kardecism due to the pen name of its French founder Allan Kardec (1804–1869). It is a synthesis of many religious practices such as Catholicism, Protestantism, and occult philosophies that flourished in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Europe such as Swedenborgianism, Mesmerism, Rosicrucianism, Freemasonry and Theosophy. At the core of the Spiritist doctrine is the possibility of communication with the dead through mediums. For more on Spiritism, see for instance, Hess (1994). building a transnational spiritual community 295

John of God calls himself a Catholic, although his own healing practices are a hybrid of popular Catholicism, Umbanda5 (see Frigerio, Saraiva, Meintel & Hernandez, and Arakaki in this volume) and French-Brazilian Spiritism. The mantra “the Casa is a spiritual hospital which is open to all religions” is often repeated by staff on the stage in the main hall and the healer himself. Nevertheless, whenever foreigners inquire into the Casa ‘beliefs’, staff and volunteers direct them to read Alan Kardec (the nineteenth-century French codifier of Spiritism) and Brazilian Spiritist authors, such as Chico Xavier. In addition, the Casa de Dom Inácio Guide for English-Speaking Visitors has a chapter on Spiritism in which it is described as ‘the philosophy of the Casa’.6 João de Deus asserts that he is the medium of the spirits of deceased doctors, surgeons, healers, saints or people who were remarkable in their life- times. He takes on these entities in a trance and does not remember his acts when he becomes conscious again. John of God is part of a small but significant group of medium healers who use kitchen knives, scissors, and scalpels to operate on patients while in trance.7 In the past decade João de Deus has become John of God, as his name and fame have reached global proportions. John of God has been travelling overseas, conducting healing events in many countries such as the US (annually), Greece, Germany, Austria, New Zealand, and Peru. After each of these international events, there is a strong flow of attendees who travel to Casa de Dom Inácio in Brazil. Many of them are responding to John of God’s actual request during the event for them to go to his healing center; others become curious or believe they have received a spiritual calling to go. His story has been told on North American TV (60 minutes, the Discovery Channel and the ABC Primetime), and on British TV (BBC Wales). In Australia, John of God and his surgeries were featured on TV in June 1998 (60 Minutes), October 2003 (A Current Affair), and March 2005 (SBS). Documentaries on the healer have been made by directors from several countries. Most of these TV programs and documentaries have been uploaded by followers on You Tube. On this Internet site, there are also several home movies of the healer and his surgeries. Moreover, foreign tour guides advertise tour packages on the Internet. Some tour guides have also written books about him which they sell on their websites. Celebrities such

5 For a good analysis of Umbanda in Brazil, see Brown (1994). 6 See chapter 4 of http://www.friendsofthecasa.info/uploads/A_guide_to_the_Casa _de_Dom_Inacio_V2.3.pdf. 7 For an analysis of other healers, see Greenfield (1992, 1991). 296 cristina rocha as Shirley MacLaine and North American spiritual gurus Ram Dass and Wayne Dyer 8 have been to the Casa and spoken positively about it. In November 2010, Oprah Winfrey interviewed people who had been to his healing center on her TV show, and the editor-in-chief of her O, The Oprah Magazine wrote a piece on her own healing experiences there for the magazine (Casey 2010). More recently, in March 2012 Oprah herself flew in to interview the healer and seek answers to personal and professional issues (Winfrey 2012: 202). These media appearances have created a new wave of North Americans arriving in Abadiânia.

Weaving Transnational Connections: The John of God Movement in Australia

Vertovec defines transnationalism as ‘sustained cross-border relationships, patterns of exchange, affiliations and social formations spanning nation- states’ (2009: 2). Transnationalism, of course, is not new. Foner (1997) has demonstrated that European migrants in New York City kept transnational ties with their homelands and travelled back and forth frequently. However, new and cheaper means of transport and communication have meant an increase in speed and intensity of transnational connections. Scholarly work on transnationalism and religion has mostly focused on the ways in which migrants bring their religions and spirits with them when they settle in another country (Kumar 2006; Levitt 2007; Vásquez and Marquardt 2003). Even when they explore the mobility of spiritual entities, Hüwelmeier and Krause are interested on “their effect on migrant life” (2010: 2). Here, I analyze the ways in which locals from the Global North import religious practices and spirits from, and engage in, transnational ritual practices with the Global South. In this chapter, I show how John of God followers

8 Ram Dass (Richard Alpert) is part of a generation of Westerners (such as Timothy Leary, Aldous Huxley, Allen Ginsberg and others) who was interested in exploring the consciousness in the early 1960s. In 1967 he travelled to India where he met Neem Karoli Baba, his spiritual guru who gave him his new name. He wrote several books which became best- sellers, starting with Be Here Now in 1971. He has worked with a variety of spiritual traditions such as yoga, Sufism, and Buddhism. In 1997 he suffered a stroke which left the left-side of his body paralyzed and in 2003 visited the Casa seeking a cure. Similarly, Wayne Dyer is a well-known self-development author and motivational speaker. He was diagnosed with Leukemia and had long-distance surgery from John of God while he was at his home in Hawaii in April 2011. Subsequently he gave interviews to Oprah Winfrey and others describing his surgery. See http://www.oprah.com/own-super-soul-sunday/ Sneak-Preview-Wayne-Dyer-on-Living-with-Grace-Video. building a transnational spiritual community 297 continuously work to establish and maintain their connection with the Casa de Dom Inácio and its spirits and by doing so, they are able to be simultaneously embedded where they are and where they desire to be. Indeed, there are several ways in which John of God and his followers assist in “the constitution and reproduction of transnational networks through material and symbolic exchange” (Smith and Guarnizo 1998: 6). Since 2002, when I first heard of John of God, I have come across a number of Australians and other foreigners organizing tours/pilgrimages to the center, building homes there, publishing books about it, and taking his healing methods to their homelands. Some are learning Portuguese, others can already pray in the new language like the Dutch man in the vignette which opened this chapter. Many live between two countries, spending part of the year in Abadiânia. In their frequent trips they take back sacred objects (rosaries, crystals, and blessed water), DVDs, books on Spiritism and John of God, T-shirts and photos of John of God and the entities, all of which they buy at the Casa souvenir shop. Medicine is also part of the flows between Australia and Casa de Dom Inácio. On the casa grounds there is a registered pharmacy. For some of the people who come to see him, John of God ‘in Entity’ (i.e. in trance) prescribes herbs (passiflora alata/passion fruit). Although they are the same for everyone – powdered passion fruit in a capsule – they are said to work in different ways according to the person’s needs. They are believed to be vehicles for the healing energy and entities of the Casa; a vehicle that enables people to bring the entities with them when they return home. Furthermore, if people cannot come to the Casa, they can send their picture (usually through a friend or the tour guides) in lieu of their actual presence. Pictures may be sent as email attachments to be printed in one of the several new internet cafes around the Casa. The picture will be shown to the John of God in Entity. If he draws a cross on the picture, the person will need to come to the Casa for healing eventually. Pictures are kept in the Casa to be prayed over. Everyone who sends pictures is prescribed herbs, which are then taken back by their friend or guide. This practice generates quite a transit of pictures in one direction and herbs in the other. People may send pictures many times in a year in hope of receiving constant healing and being in contact with the entities. Another means of keeping the transnational connection is through crystal beds. Crystal beds consist of a chromotherapy-type treatment using a quartz crystal placed over each of the seven chakras while the person is lying on a bed. Previously, crystal beds were only found at the Casa. But in the last decade the Casa started selling them to foreigners. First it sold to 298 cristina rocha healers and guides only but now it sells to mostly anyone who asks for them. Accordingly, crystal beds have appeared in many cities of Australia. The fact that most of the crystal beds are placed in healing centers where there are other healing modalities (reiki, massage, naturopathy) helps disseminate information about John of God and the Casa in Brazil. People may come for the usual massage, and their practitioner tells them about the crystal bed treatment. They then learn about the Brazilian healer. Some owners of healing centers are also tour guides and frequently take their clients to Abadiânia. Indeed, in the past decade, many foreigners have become tour guides, travelling to the Casa several times in a year. Tour guides advertise their trips in healing centers, New Age magazines and newsletters, and on the Internet. Travel packages usually include airfare, some days for tourism in Brazil (more often than not in Rio), a two- to three-week sojourn at the Casa (including accommodation, meals, debrief- ing with guide and talks by Casa volunteers and expats who have been living there for a long time), and on days when there are no activities in the Casa, tours to Abadiânia’s surrounds and to Brasília’s New Age/spiritual circuit (e.g. The Temple of Goodwill). Having a crystal bed, many people told me, is a way of always being connected to the Casa entities and hence continuing the healing process even when people return home. I interviewed a man just after he arrived in Australia with one. He told me that he took the box of crystals to John of God before departing because, I wanted his blessing. I wanted him to bless those crystals, tune them to me, whatever. I don’t know; I just needed some kind of connection established between myself and the crystals, the crystal bed and him (Personal communication, Sydney, 2006). His desire to ‘tune’ the crystals to him and John of God departs from the belief that once people connect with the Casa and its entities, they can continue this connection anywhere they go. An Australian couple who has been to the Casa several times and the husband is now a tour guide told me they connect with the Casa everyday through meditation, listening to Casa music, watching DVDs and using the crystal bed they have at home. Indeed, many followers believe that while reading or watching DVDs, they connect with the Casa entities and thus may receive operations on the spot. An Australian man, who has been to the Casa several times since he first went in 1998, observed: I’ve been watching [DVDs] as much as possible. The … reason I like to watch them is that quite often when I do watch video footage of him doing surgery, I feel healing taking place on me. I feel energy work on my body. Because in building a transnational spiritual community 299

the spirit world, it’s all thought! The vehicle of travel is thought! So when we view a surgery and a physical operation on the screen, we’re tuning in to those entities at work. They’re tuning into you and if you need some kind of healing, they come to your rescue (Personal communication, Sydney, 2006). It is clear from those assertions that one does not need to travel to be at the Casa in Brazil. Entities/Spirits move easily between the Casa and any location where adherents are. One could perhaps compare this community with a diaspora. Although the concept of diaspora “has historically referred to displaced communities of people who have been dislocated from their native homeland through movements of migration, immigration or exile” (Braziel and Mannur 2003: 1), John of God adherents feel that they belong to a community dispersed around the globe that feels and thinks together, and have a spiritual homeland orientation. In addition, adherents maintain connections not only with this spiritual homeland but also with other adherents around the world. The community is built around the axis mundi of a charismatic figure and a sacred land – Abadiânia. Sacred objects in this view work as ‘portals’ or gateways through which one can access their spiritual homeland, the spirits and the healing they offer. In this context, current sessions are one of the most important ways of being here and there simultaneously, as we will see in the next section.

Holding Current: Simultaneous Transnational Connections

It’s called “holding Current for Medium João” and you’re aiding him – he’s been doing it for about fifty years – you’re aiding him to be able to keep the spirit in his body to be able to do the healing that he needs to do (Personal communication, Sydney, 2009). As this follower explained, to hold current is about sharing one’s energy with the entities and John of God so that they can heal people who come to see them as well as those who are sitting holding the current. In a sense, during current people profoundly commune with the entities, since the former’s and the latter’ energy mixes. When people hold current overseas, they endeavor to do the same. In their reasoning, the most effective way to share their energy with the entities and the healer is to hold current at the same time as it happens in Brazil. Accordingly, most currents in Australia take place in the evenings (to account for the 13-hour time difference) of the weekdays they happen in Brazil (Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays). Australians who frequently hold current have told me that the energy and the consequent healing are much stronger when both currents take place simultaneously. 300 cristina rocha

Figure 1. Weekly ‘current’ session in a healing center in Sydney (courtesy Cristina Rocha).

The vignette with which I started this chapter shows the ways in which this intense and simultaneous embeddedness in both locales is established. As in the Casa de Dom Inácio, the session opened and closed with the Lord’s Prayer and the Hail Mary, creating a sacred period of time. The fact that both prayers were said in English and Portuguese generated a first building a transnational spiritual community 301 connection between Brazil and Australia. The large pictures of John of God, the entities, the Australian Mary MacKillop, and sacred places like the Sydney Cathedral glued to the walls, the DVDs showing John of God operating on people, the candles, the iPod playing Casa music, and the actual invocation of Brazilian entities, Catholic saints and New Age Ascended Masters all helped maintain this connection. Furthermore, the simultaneous transnational connection was made concrete when Denise (and other Australians who direct current sessions) asks people to actually imagine themselves and their loved ones sitting in current at the Casa, and later on to see a tunnel of light/energy connecting Abadiânia to Sydney. The session ends as it does in Brazil: everyone is served water blessed by the entities so that the healing can continue after people go home. While following closely the Casa rituals connects Brazil and Australia (and many other current sessions which take place around the world, as we will see in later this section), there are hybridizations that are particular to Australia. In the early days of transnationalism studies, it was thought that transnational flows would be free from the restrictions imposed by national borders. However, research has shown that transnational practices “while connecting collectivities located in more than one national territory, are embodied in the specific social relations established between specific people, situated in unequivocal localities, at historically determined times” (Smith & Guarnizo 1998: 11). Australians have started localizing the John of God movement.9 For instance, just as the media were discussing the expectation that Mary MacKillop was going to be canonized, followers started glueing pictures of her on the walls, and invoking her during current sessions. Many discussed her canonization intensely while we had blessed soup and tea after current sessions. They had a very clear explanation of how she fit in the John of God cosmology. They told me that she belonged to the same spiritual family as John of God’s and his entities because she was a devotee of St Ignatius of Loyola. Loyola is the most important entity John of God incorporates and that which lends its name to the healing center.10 It is commonly understood that John of God and the entities (including St Ignatius of Loyola) have known each other for many incarnations because they belong to the same spiritual family.

9 For a more detailed analysis of the ways in which the John of God movement is being localized in Australia, see Rocha (2011, 2009). 10 John of God called his healing center Casa de Dom Inácio (House of Don Ignatius) due to his devotion to St Ignatius of Loyola. 302 cristina rocha

In the past five years the number of current sessions in Australia has visibly increased. Besides the three current sessions in Sydney, there are a host of monthly sessions in country towns in NSW, Victoria, Queensland and Western Australia. In rural NSW, current sessions are being established by Henry, an Australian who believes he was healed from a serious back injury. He travels every week to different towns to hold session in private homes, church halls, and town halls. At the start of each healing session, he usually gives a testimonial telling everyone how he got healed, then he explains who John of God is, and what the current session entails. He also shows documentaries on John of God made overseas. After the initial meetings, local people take over their organization. Henry keeps in touch with all these followers thorough an email newsletter. When asked how the current sessions in the countryside were going a year after they had been established, Henry told me:

Things are going very well. For instance, the current in Wagga is very strong. Two people had invisible surgeries the other day. They were skeptical, but they sat down for current. Well, halfway through the current, they felt sick and had to lie down! Other people told me that they felt a lot happening in their bodies during current. Even a Catholic priest came to one of our sessions. I talked to him for three hours and he was pretty open about it (Sydney, January 2009).

Like other Australians who have a strong connection to the Casa, Henry tells me that he has started channeling the entities and healing people himself. When he was in Abadiânia, in 2007, the entity gave him permission to do healing in Australia, telling him: “You have a lot of work to do there.” The entity also told him to buy a male and female crystal, which Henry says “are even stronger than the crystal bed because the energy is concentrated.” Since receiving these crystals, Henry affirms that his healing powers are stronger. Currents are also taking place in several locations in the US. Like in Australia, tour guides frequently give talks to community groups to disseminate knowledge of John of God and Casa de Dom Inácio. In these talks they show movies about the Casa and talk about their own experiences. For instance, according to a tour guide online newsletter current sessions were established in Cincinnati, Ohio, in July 2006. In these sessions, people dress in white, sit in current and drink blessed water following the Casa procedures. Like Denise, during current the facilitator reads prayers the Casa prayer book. The article describes the sessions with these words: building a transnational spiritual community 303

Once everyone is seated, we explain that we are a human current. That our bodies are the vehicles the Entities use to amplify the healing energy within the collective gathered. Just as at the Casa, we ask that people not cross their hands, arms, legs or feet as this blocks the current. … Many people have had extraordinary experiences in this Community Current Meditation. In fact, we now feel confident that the healing energy will consistently be strong. People have psychic surgeries during meditation just like they do at the Casa. In the weeks between our sessions people note many life changes related to the healing they have asked for in current (Sellars 2007). In Boulder, Colorado, they also feel that while sitting in current in the US, they are helped by and help the Brazilian entities’ work: As the power of prayer and intention goes way beyond distance and boun daries, our group aims to connect and support the work of the Entities, while being able to receive the benefits of their holy presence and love (Verde n/d) It is clear that new nodes in the network of people, ideas and ‘energy’ within the John of God movement are being created by word of mouth by people who have been to the Casa. These can function as a first point of contact before going to Brazil. The number of these sessions is likely to grow, as the author of the article on the Cincinnati current session exhorts people to follow the calling: Honor the seen and unseen process at the Casa Dom Inácio and if you are called, then trust the calling…and bring the Current Meditation reverently, joyfully and blessedly to your community! It leads to a wonderful group experience which brings healing and deepening to your spiritual lives (Sellars, 2007). Henry corroborated this when he told me, on the day the Australian branch of the Casa de Dom Inácio opened,11 that current sessions at the Australian Casa were not enough: We still need the meetings out there. We’re still carrying on with them, and we’re still expanding that. So there’s a need for that, and there’s a need for us to still go to groups or churches or just people…our hairdresser wants to get some girls together [to invite me to] come and give a talk. So there’s still a need for [current sessions], as well as this [current at the Australian Casa], and it all works in together (January, 2008).

11 There are four official branches of the Casa de Dom Inácio in the world: two in Australia (Mullumbimby and Southern Highlands), one in New Zealand (Wellington, the capital city), and one in the USA (Sedona, Arizona). 304 cristina rocha

Indeed, as Portes has argued in relation to migration and transnationalism, “once started, the phenomenon of transnationalization acquires a cumulative character expanding not only in numbers but in the qualitative character all its activities” (1998: 15).

A Transnational Spiritual Community: Living between Abadiânia and Australia

The networks created by followers (be they tour guides, healers and people who are ill) employing a vast array of tools to establish and sustain the connection with John of God, Casa de Dom Inácio, and its entities allow for the creation of a spiritual community that spans national borders. The concept of transnational community was created to understand the ways in which migrants become embedded simultaneously in the host and home societies (Glick Schiller et al. 1995; Basch et al. 1994; Portes 1998). Kastoryano has defined transnational communities as,

[C]ommunities made up of individuals or groups that are established within different national societies, and who act on the basis of shared interests and references (which may be territorial, religious or linguistic), and use their networks to strengthen their solidarity beyond national borders (2000: 353). Similarly Portes was referring to transnational migrants when he conceptualized transnational communities as, [C]haracterized by dense networks across space and by an increasing number of people who lead world lives. Members are at least bilingual, move easily between different cultures, frequently maintain homes in two countries and pursue economic, political, and cultural interest that require a simultaneous presence in both (1998: 16). Transnational communities are imagined (Anderson 1983), in the sense that members will never know everyone who is part of the community face-to-face, nonetheless they consider others who share common interests and beliefs as members of the community. Although Anderson was writing in regards to the formation of nation-states and the literature on transnational communities refers mostly to migrant communities, I argue that followers of John of God form a transnational spiritual community. In saying that, I am aware that the concept of community has been criticized by Rouse (1991), because for him it implies an identifiable group which occupies a single bounded space, where they share a similar way of life and beliefs. He also argues that the concept fails to capture the power relations building a transnational spiritual community 305 that crisscross transnational formations. In this chapter, ‘community’ is an emic concept – my own informants use it every time they talk about their experiences in Abadiânia. I suggest this is due to adherents’ nostalgia for an imagined traditional way of life in which everyone trusts, knows and are generous to everyone. This is the kind of life they, in a way, find in Abadiânia, where the healing center and the guest houses where they stay are located in an area of no more than four or five streets. However, this community is not bounded and overlaps with other communities of followers of other global gurus, and there are clear power relations within it, which I have referred to elsewhere (Rocha 2008). Furthermore, this multi-sited collective connects through powerful emotions and thoughts, by the work of transnational imagination. In Appadurai’s words, they form a ‘“community of sentiment”, a group that begins to imagine and feel things together’ (1996: 8). Appadurai points out that while Anderson (1983) argued that print capitalism was important for the formation of the nation-state, in that people started to imagine a horizontal comradeship with people whom they never meet face to face, other forms of electronic capitalism can have similar, and even more powerful effects, for they do not work only at the level of the nation-state. Collective experiences of the mass media, especially film and video, can create sodalities of worship and charisma … These sodalities are often transnational, even post-national, and they frequently operate beyond the boundaries of the nation (1986: 8). As we saw, magazine articles, TV programs, documentaries sold online, videos posted on YouTube, and tour guides’ websites, together with actual travel and sacred objects and souvenirs bought on the casa shop help followers establish and sustain transnational connections between Australia and Brazil. In this section, I explore their feelings of belonging to this spiritual community. Indeed, people who regularly go to Abadiânia told me (and I have often experienced this) that they are amazed how they meet the same people in Abadiânia every time they travel there. With each trip they deepen their friendships with locals and foreigners; consequently they feel a stronger sense of community each time they go. They may also catch up with these friends in international events or in other healing events not connected to John of God, as we will see in this section. Martin is a good example of an Australian who lives between Abadiânia and Australia and feels that he is simultaneously embedded in both societies. Martin is fifty years old. Some years ago he started having problems with his back. One day his back seized and from that moment on he had 306 cristina rocha chronic back pain. He went to the hospital and he was not happy with the doctor’s treatment as he prescribed only painkillers, which made him sleepy and feeling drugged all the time. Through a friend, he met a woman who alleged she had been cured from breast cancer at the Casa. After hearing about her experience, he decided to go to Brazil. From 2002, when he first went to the Casa, to 2006, when I interviewed him, he had been to the Casa six times. In his first time at the Casa he had an invisible operation, during which his chronic back pain disappeared. He told me, When I came back [to Australia] I just wanted to go back [to Brazil]. I didn’t want to leave. I just wanted to stay there. I felt it was my home. I came back and I just wanted to be there all the time. … I don’t know what it is – it’s my spirit, my soul or what, just wants me to go there. I just want to live there… I feel like I’m healthy there (personal communication, Sydney, November 2006). He returned to periods of three months and now has started to stay there for six months at a time. In the beginning he rented houses to live, but some years later he bought a house. He divided the house into two flats and rents one of them to other foreigners. He told me he cannot live there because he has his wife, children and grandchildren in Australia. However, he says that every time he goes to Brazil, he feels better. The arthritis and back pain are gone. But he is still diabetic, and has some sciatica pain. He believes that the longer he stays there, the better, for healing “takes time. Everything takes time.” He feels that every time he goes back to Abadiânia, he feels some change, either for the better or for the worse, which means that the entities are working on him. He notes that at the Casa he became “more spiritual, more connected with the Casa, the entities, and probably with God” Another Australian who has been there several times and organizes large fundraising events in order to send donations to the Casa and to Abadiânia, has given clearer reasons for returning there frequently. She told me: If you wanna have a holiday… You could offer me a seven-star hotel for a month or Brazil (Abadiânia) for a month. There is no comparison. Brazil would definitely be it, because everything else is so empty. You go there [to the Casa] and you get spiritual nourishment, you get physical nourishment, you make friends. People there are all the same. [They are] people that you can talk to. If someone sees a fairy flying down the street, it is normal. You don’t think: ‘God, she is off,’ you know, loopy. Everything is so normal there. And the gifts you get there. See, there is nothing there that has a dollar value. If you go to a big hotel, it is all about money exchange. There it is about spiritual exchange. And not only that, you learn. It is the learning for your soul [which helps it] become so much richer. You start to realize that when you die building a transnational spiritual community 307

you are not going to take your check book, you are going to take your soul (Personal communication, August 2008). This woman’s sense of not fitting in with people who have not been to Casa de Dom Inácio is typical of transnational communities. In reference to transnational migrants, Glick-Schiller argues that ‘multi-stranded relationships place transmigrants in a different kind of social and cultural space than their neighbors, co-workers, and friends who do not share this experience’ (Glick Schiller 2000: 1). Like Martin, this woman felt that the she belonged in Casa de Dom Inácio and that it was a place where she had a sense of community. She went on to tell me that: You meet people [there]. You share the most wonderful stories. And people are kind. There is a generosity of souls, of human relations, that you just won’t see anywhere else. You go there on your own, and you’ll never be lonely for a moment. You learn from the humbling of the environment. You see what some people have gone through in their journeys; it is an extremely humbling experience. I don’t think you can ever go back there enough. Where else in the world could you get that amount of growth? (Personal communication, August 2008) Likewise, many other people visiting the Casa told me how they were impressed with the kindness and love they found in the country. Given that Brazil has one of the highest indices of crime and homicide in the world, as discussed in the introduction to this book, this picture of the country is highly idealized. Because many followers do not speak Portuguese and live mostly in Abadiânia, they imagine Brazil as a mythic place, trapped in an enchanted past where humanity was connected with spirits in everyday life. Brazil is then a place of human connections, generosity, peace, warmth (as one experiences in one’s family) in contrast to the commodified, imper- sonal, callous, chaotic outside world.12 As I showed elsewhere (2012), Abadiânia has changed very much in the past years as it becomes part of the circuit of sites of spiritual tourism in the world. Furthermore, as we see from these two examples, people maintain a transnational connection because they feel that the Casa is their spiritual home. Such sense of belonging can be stimulated not only by sharing a sense of community with other foreign visitors, but also by John of God and the Casa workers themselves. For instance, when in trance, John of God always calls people who come to see him ‘son’ or ‘daughter’. People respond

12 For more on this, see Rocha (2006). 308 cristina rocha by referring to the ‘entity’ as ‘father.’ The Entity (John of God in trance) may also declare that a person is a ‘son/daughter of the Casa,’ meaning that they have a special soul connection with the healing center. These receive a name tag with the title of ‘Son/Daughter of the Casa’ written under their picture. This metaphor of a spiritual family was also emphasized by a staff member leading a Sunday prayer when I was there in 2007. He told his audience in English: “Here it will always be your spiritual home. You go back home, you want to be here.” These words clearly echo Martin’s. If the feeling of being at a spiritual home and a sense of community keep Australians going back to Abadiânia, this does not mean this community is bounded. Beatrice, a young woman who first met John of God in the 2006 healing event in New Zealand, and subsequently went to Brazil and lived there for the most part of the next two years, told me she also found community elsewhere. When I came back to Australia to set down roots and make it home, I was looking for community and grace, which were things that were always with me at the Casa. I didn’t find them here. I have now this intuition to go back to the US and do a workshop on matrixenergetics13 in Denver. That’s where I did a workshop early this year. I had such a great time there. There was an intense feeling of community there. On the weekend of the workshop, we laughed and laughed – I hadn’t laughed so much in a long time! It is so healing! Beatrice noted that in her first workshop she had met many people who had been to Abadiânia. She was astonished to have sat down for meditation next to a woman who had been there. Beatrice reasoned that the energy in both places must be similar. Beatrice heard about these workshops from an American tour guide and the author of a book on John of God who has herself been to these workshops. Just as word of mouth is more often than not the first way people hear about John of God, information about other healers is also conveyed by word of mouth. It is thus clear that this transnational community intersects with other transnational communities, as John of God has entered the circuit of gurus who attract international followers. As mentioned before, some Australians who are part of John of God movement are also devotees of other global gurus such as Amma and the recently deceased Sai Baba. For instance, Andrea, an Australian devotee of Sai Baba who leads another current meeting in Sydney, told me:

13 Matrix Energetics was established by Richard Bartlett, a North American chiropractor, in 2004. He now sells his books on healing and promotes his workshops all over the US. For more on this see www.matrixenergetics.com. building a transnational spiritual community 309

“Baba is always at the Casa. It is the same energy, the same thing.” In the same vein, Ram Dass, the North American turned spiritual guru, affirmed in an interview on his visit to the Casa in 2003 that “he had not felt that kind of spiritual energy since he had been in India with his guru” (O’Brien Ely 2003). This transnational community is also not homogeneous. Many who go to Abadiânia do not fully subscribe to the healing beliefs espoused by the Casa. They go there as a last resort, for Western doctors have told them that there is no cure for their ailments. They may convert somewhat if they feel they have received some kind of healing, but many times they do not consider themselves fully part of this transnational community. These multi-directional and flexible networks of followers, healers, tour guides, and the ill who go to the Casa can be described as a rhizome.14 Drawing on the idea of rhizome developed by the French poststructuralist theorists Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari (1987), Appadurai asserts that the West is just one of the nodes from which global cultural flows emanate. Like a rhizome, the global cultural economy does not spread from one particular center, but moves around in a chaotic and unpredictable pattern (1996: 29). While this movement originated in Brazil, a network of flows of people, material culture, beliefs and practices has been expanding globally in a more or less haphazard way. However, it is noteworthy that the healer works hard at controlling the potentially chaotic and unpredictable ways in which these flows are localized. For instance, people need his permission to become tour guides, write books, set up current sessions, buy crystal beds, and establish branches of the healing center overseas.

Conclusion

In this chapter, I demonstrated the ways in which Australian followers of the Brazilian Spiritist healer John of God establish and maintain transnational connections between Australia and Brazil. I argued for the expansion of the concept of transnational communities beyond the usual analysis of migrants’ transnational lives. John of God’s Australian followers form a transnational spiritual community since they are embedded in both sites

14 Rhizome is a botanical term that describes the way in which certain plants (e.g. grass) spread across the ground rather than putting down a central root system. Deleuze and Guattari note that ‘unlike trees or their roots, the rhizome connects any point to any other point, and its traits are not necessarily linked to traits of the same nature’ (Deleuze and Guattari 1987: 21). 310 cristina rocha simultaneously. By spending long periods of time in Brazil, or going back and forth several times a year, buying houses there, learning Brazilian Portuguese, befriending locals and other foreigners, undergoing healing, and holding current, they engage deeply with the beliefs and daily rituals of the Casa de Dom Inácio. However, followers do not need actual mobility to do so. It is believed that while they are overseas they can sustain transnational connections with the entities and John of God. In order to do so, they may watch DVDs of John of God operating on people, read books about the healer, have a crystal bed treatment, take herbs prescribed by the healer, and sit in current. All these tools enable followers to dwell simultaneously at the Casa and where they actually are. John of God also contributes to the creation and maintenance of this transnational spiritual community. While in trance, he may indicate that followers are sons and daughters of the Casa, meaning that they are part of a spiritual family who has been together for many incarnations. In addition, whenever he travels overseas for international healing events there are often discussions and articles in the local media, attracting the attention of new potential followers. The healer may also tell people during the event to come to Abadiânia for the completion of their healing. Followers’ feeling of belonging to a transnational spiritual community is also reinforced because they meet fellow adherents and tour guides from all over the world in these healing events, many of whom are old acquaintances. This chapter also demonstrated that this transnational spiritual community is not bounded, but overlaps with other spiritual communities formed by followers of other global gurus. The intensification of the traffic of ideas, people and commodities between Brazil and Australia culminated in the establishment of two official branches of the Casa de Dom Inácio in Australia in 2008 and 2012. This latest development, in conjunction with the new current sessions being established in several Australian towns, has created flows within Australia. Together with New Zealand and the USA (where the only other branches of the Casa are located), Australia is one of the central nodes in the expansion of the John of God movement.

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to the Australian Research Council for funding this research and to the Max Planck Institute for Religious and Ethnic Diversity for a visiting fellowship which allowed me time to write this chapter. building a transnational spiritual community 311

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Manuel A. Vásquez and José Cláudio Souza Alves

The temple of O Vale do Amanhecer [The Valley of Dawn] in Atlanta is located in a non-descript, grungy industrial park in the outskirts of Marietta, a town that until recently was best known for its ‘Gone With the Wind’ museum than for being a new destination for Latin American immigrants, including a large Brazilian community. On the outside, there is nothing to mark the presence of a sacred space – there is a parking lot scarred by potholes and bordered by a few pine trees that provide a thinning cover for a decrepit picnic table where workers from neighboring offices often have their lunch. However, immediately upon entering the temple one is struck by the cleanliness and tranquility of the place. In contrast to the hustle and bustle of nearby I-75, one of the major north-south highways that cut across Atlanta, one only hears the hushed voices of the clients, who have come to receive advice and healing from the spirits, and of the nymphs, the mediums in training, who are ushering people in. The air of solemnity, peace, and purity is enhanced by white walls, upon which the colorful portraits of various indigenous and Afro-Brazilian spirits hang, and by the white velvet and veil that make up the triangular mesa evangé- lica. Surrounding this table are benches, from where clients and temple frequenters, mostly Brazilians interspersed with a few Euro-Americans, observe female mediums incorporate spirits, while a male doutrinador [‘doctriner’] stands behind them giving instructions and restraining potentially unruly spirits. What accounts for the presence of The Valley of Dawn, a religion that originated in the interior of Brazil, in Atlanta? What do the temple’s practitioners and clients find in this ‘alternative spirituality?’1 In this chapter, we

1 We use the term alternative spiritualities to describe new religious movements that “encompass a diversified constellation of teachings and practices that address metaphysical, therapeutic, psychological, and/or ecological concerns” (Carpenter 1999: 236). These spiritualities may borrow from Eastern traditions, such as Hinduism, Buddhism, and Taoism, and/ or from indigenous religions (shamanism, divination, and animism), as well as from pagan- ism, the occult, astrology, and popular psychology. Generally, these new religious 314 manuel a. vásquez and josé cláudio souza alves will show that the cosmology and ritual practices of The Valley of Dawn offers Brazilian immigrants a way to frame meaningfully the perils and contradictions of the process of immigration. In particular, the temple’s therapeutic practices and its mixing of traditional and modern symbols help Brazilians navigate the uncertainty and stress of a fast-paced life in Atlanta – the Los Angeles of the US. South – particularly at a time of widespread economic crisis and increasing hostility toward immigrants. Moreover, The Valley of Dawn’s principle of gender complementarity, which is central to the religious movement’s vision of successful mediumship and healing, plays an important role in helping Brazilian women mediate the conflict-ridden domestic relations they have with Brazilian and Euro- American men as their gender roles and status change with the process of migration. The chapter begins with a brief characterization of the origin, cosmology, and ritual practices of The Valley of Dawn. We will then discuss the history and the dynamics of the Brazilian immigrant community in the Atlanta metropolitan region, focusing particularly in the challenges this new urban destination poses to immigrants. Drawing from in-depth interviews with the two leaders of the temple in Atlanta,2 we will then explore how The Valley addresses these challenges, highlighting its contributions to the process of integration into an American society that is deeply ambivalent about immigration, particularly undocumented immigration.

Brasília: O Vale do Amanhecer and the Dialectics of Modernity and Tradition

Like Umbanda, a religion from which it heavily borrows, The Valley of Dawn is an unabashedly syncretic religion. As Dawson (2007: 52) puts it: Perhaps nowhere are the hybridizing tendencies of neo-esoteric repertoires more evident than The Valley of Dawn. Cosmologically, architecturally, and practically, The Valley of Dawn is a unique blend of indigenous spirituality, ancient near-eastern and classical themes, traditional European esoterism, popular Catholic religiosity, Brazilian Spiritism, Afro-Brazilian practices, oriental concepts, and new age preoccupations.3

movements tend to be focused on the pragmatic and experimental improvement or cultiva- tion of the self. See the volume’s introduction. 2 The research team conducted and tape-recorded interviews in Atlanta in August 2006 and 2007. 3 See also Pierini (2008). the valley of dawn in atlanta, georgia 315

Although this blend has a uniquely Brazilian flavor, with caboclos and pretos velhos, the spirits of indigenous people and old male house slaves as imagined in Brazilian popular culture,4 serving as the healers par excellence, practitioners see the sheer diversity of elements that are hybridized as legitimizing The Valley of Dawn’s claim to be a truly universal religion. O Vale do Amanhecer was founded in 1969 by Neiva Chaves Zelaya in the outskirts of Planaltina, a satellite city of Brasília, the country’s capital. Tia Neiva, as she is known in The Valley of Dawn, was born in 1925 to a household of limited means in Sergipe, a poor state in northeast Brazil that has traditionally sent many migrants to the more developed areas of country. Following the death of her husband, Tia Neiva began to work as a truck driver, a very unusual occupation for a 24-year-old widow by even today’s standards. Unable to support her four children and tired of driving long distances across the country, she moved to Brasília, where she first secured a job as a bus driver and later on drove her own truck for Novacap, the company behind the construction of the new city. Built in the late 1950s under the initiative of reformist president Juscelino Kubitschek, Brasília embodied the ideal and promise of Brazil as the country of the future. Kubitschek saw the relocation of the capital from Rio de Janeiro in the country’s southeastern coast to the interior as a way not only to integrate the country through massive westward migration and development but to ‘create a new era for [Brazil’s] progress.’ Making reference to the pioneers who in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries ventured into the country’s interior in search for precious minerals, Kubitschek (1975: 9) understood Brasília as the instrument ‘to unleash a new bandei- rante cycle.’5 Indeed, his declaration inscribed in the Praça dos Três Poderes [The Plaza of the Three Powers] best illustrates his dreams for the city: From this Planalto Central, from this loneliness that soon will become the brain of the highest national decisions, I behold once more my country’s tomorrow and foresee this dawn with unbreakable faith and a certainty without limits about its great destiny.

4 The term caboclo is polysemous. It may also refer to mestiços, people of mixed ancestry (Amerindian and European), as well as to indigenous persons who have become assimilated to Portuguese-based Brazilian culture. What is important to highlight here is that in Umbanda and related NRMs, caboclos and pretos velhos represent spirits of Brazil, in contrast to orixás, who are a reworking of spirits brought from Africa. 5 Bandeirantes were explorers who during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries ventured inland in search of mineral riches and in the process spurred the settlement of Brazil’s interior. In the national imagination, bandeirantes are seen as pioneers and fron- tiersmen, braving the elements to bring civilization and development and expand Brazil’s territory. 316 manuel a. vásquez and josé cláudio souza alves

This vision of Brasília as breaking with traditional spatial and temporal arrangements, which became enshrined in the city’s orderly layout in the shape of a soaring airplane and its angular and symmetrical architecture, was meant to fulfill Brazil’s motto – order and progress – for a new age. According to Siqueira (2003: 28–29), Brasília was “born from two great creation myths: the utopian city and the promised land. The first one was inscribed in its urban planning and futuristic architecture …. The founders of the city were imbued with the dream and mission of inaugurating a new time and a new civitas for Brazil, founded on beauty, equality and universality.” Kubitschek, in fact, was fond of quoting Yuri Gagarin, the famous Soviet cosmonaut, to characterize the essence of the city: “upon seeing Brasília for the first time, he told me: ‘the idea that I have, president, is that I am disembarking in a different planet that is not Earth’ ” (Kubitschek 1975: 11). Brasília was, thus, Brazil’s contribution to the dawn of the space age: if the country was not yet able to compete with the USA and USSR in the race to put a man on the moon, it was capable of bringing another planet to earth through Oscar Niemeyer’s and Lúcio Costa’s adaptation of Le Corbusier’s modernist urbanism.6 As anticipated, Kubitschek’s vision of Brasília spurred significant internal migration, including the arrival of as many as 80,000 workers primarily from the poor states in the northeast, to build the city. The workers, known pejoratively as candangos,7 did not have long-term residential rights in Brasília, having instead to settle illegally and precariously at the periphery of the modernist city. As a result of this spatial segregation, Brasília became from the outset one of the most stratified cities in Brazil (Holston 1999: 616), notwithstanding Kubitschek’s utopian dreams. The city that was meant to be ‘the negation of existing conditions in Brazil’ ended up reproducing and contributing to those conditions – the city became the paradoxical ‘negation of the negation’ (Holston 1989: 23). Nevertheless, despite the sharp contradictions, the tropes of city as the dawn of a new egalitarian era and an ultra-modern, almost extra-terrestrial utopia fired up the imagination of countless religious visionaries and leaders like Tia Neiva, who chose to live, work, and heal precisely at the periphery of the city, among the candangos.8 Brasília’s location on the highlands

6 See Le Corbusier (1987). On Brazilian modernist architecture, see Lu (2011). 7 Meaning literally an ignoramus; a low-class, uncultured hobo. 8 In fact, the land where The Valley’s main complex stands was initially settled illegally. Only in 1987, after many threats of expulsion, did the federal government recognized the movement’s right over the land. Holston believes that this recognition came because the valley of dawn in atlanta, georgia 317 in central Brazil, near what many considered one of the planet’s chakras, only added to its attraction to a variety of mystico-esoteric groups in search of self-knowledge and self-improvement and a new relationship with nature. These groups include not just The Valley of Dawn, but Cidade Eclética (Eclectic City), Cidade da Fraternidade (City of Fraternity), and Cavaleiros de Maitreya (The Knights of Maitreya) (Siqueira and Barbosa Lima 2003). In the midst of the personal crisis generated by the death of her husband and the uncertainties of the move from Sergipe, as well as suffering a debili- tating bout of tuberculosis, Neiva began to receive communications from Pai Seta Branca (Father White Arrow), a spirit of light whose previous incarnations include St. Francis of Assisi and an Inca chief during the time of the Spanish conquest. At first, she resisted the visions, thinking that she was going crazy. After visiting a psychiatrist who failed to help her, Neiva decided to consult a Spiritist medium, Dona Neném, who began to look after her spiritual development. Relations with Dona Neném were tense: The greatest difficulty that Dona Neném had with me had to do with my rebellion against all discipline. I was a simple truck driver and most of my life I had been independent economically and had my own trucks. As a widow and mother of four children, I had the double role of father and mother and that had given me an attitude of taking only my own decisions. With the opening of my mediumship and my total lack of knowledge of Spiritism, I fell into a state of dependence on people who surrounded me.9 Eventually, Tia Neiva would meet Mario Sassi, the grandson of Italian immigrants who had settled in São Paulo and was a public relations consultant for the University of Brasília’s high administration. Sassi became Neiva’s long time companion until her death in 1985 and “the theorist of her history, the one who classifies, names, and organizes the extraordinary phenomena [she experiences], constructing the doctrine and institutional- izing, in his own way, the movement” (Muel-Dreyfus and Martins-Rodrigues 1986: 125). We shall see that Tia Neiva’s story of the loss of her husband, migration, illness, hardship, empowering self-sufficiency, and partnership with a supportive man will serve as a powerful narrative through which Brazilian women in Atlanta, a city with its own history of segregation and exclusion

“The Valley had become renowned for its cures and had attracted an enormous following. It had become a famous attraction, a place of spectacular ritual, and as such part of Brasília’s fame as itself a spectacular place” (1999: 610). 9 Tia Neiva’s testimony as reported by her partner Mario Sassi in Muel Dreyfus and Martins-Rodrigues (1986: 122). Translation from French by the authors. 318 manuel a. vásquez and josé cláudio souza alves and its own futuristic imaginaire, make sense of their own journeys and the changes in gender roles brought about by the process of migration. In his on-going communications with Tia Neiva, Pai Seta Branca began to reveal The Valley of Dawn’s complex cosmology and ritual practice. According Pai Seta Branca’s teachings, humanity descends from an advanced alien race called the Equitumans who came to the Andean region on a spaceship about 32,000 years ago from the planet Capela. The Equitumans controlled the region for two thousand years until the arrival of a new race of extra-terrestrials, the Tumuchys, whose leader was Pai Seta Branca. As the new extra-terrestrial spacecraft in the shape of a star arrived at Lake Titicaca, in the border between Peru and Bolivia, it produced a cat- aclysm that buried most of the Equitumans under the lake. Pai Seta Branca gathered the remaining Equitumans and, together with Tumuchys, gave rise to the great civilizations, building intricate religious and astronomical structures like Machu Picchu and the pyramids in Egypt and Mesoamerica. However, as they spread throughout the world and mixed with other peoples like the Jaguars, creating diverse civilizations, these alien races began to forget their history and knowledge. To enlighten and gather the descendents of Equitumans and Tumuchys, Pai Seta Branca chose Tia Neiva. She was to found a community – The Valley of Dawn – that can recover and teach the doctrine and prepare humanity for the impending end of another civilizational cycle. Central to this preparation is the gradual liberation – through healing, mediumship, and charity – from negative karmic residues accrued over several reincarnations and from unenlightened disincarnate spirits bent on interfering with the living. O Vale can then be classified as a millenarian movement, one that stresses the apocalyptic end of the corrupt present age and the coming a new era of harmony, abundance, and well-being. According to Pessar (2004: 2), followers of millenarian movements imagine this era as “collective (i.e., enjoyed by the faithful as a group), this-worldly, imminent, total, part of a supernatural plan, and dependent on supernatural intercession.”10 We shall see how members of O Vale in Atlanta emplot their migration trajectories within a supernatural plan that involves the redemption of America through the Brazil’s spiritual and healing powers as the nation of the future. The Valley is also a prophetic and messianic movement built around a charismatic figure who presents herself as an emissary of or a bridge to the unseen and derives her authority from revelation.11 In fact,

10 On Brazilian millenarianism, see Monteiro (1974) and Pessar (1981, 2004). 11 On messianism in Brazil, see Myscofski (1988), Negrão (2001), Queiroz (1965). the valley of dawn in atlanta, georgia 319

Holston (1999: 607) places The Valley of Dawn within the long tradition of millenarian and messianic movements in Brazil that have sought to ‘establish their Kingdom of Heaven in the backlands.’ These movements include Antonio Conselheiro’s Canudos (1893–1897), the Muckers in Rio Grande do Sul (1872–1898), Contestado in Santa Catarina (1912–1916), and Padre Cícero’s Juazeiro (1872–1934), Pedro Bastista in Santa Brígida (in the 1930s).12 However, Holston recognizes that The Valley has significant differences with other millenarian and messianic movements. For one thing, as a new religious movement, O Vale is pragmatic and focused on individual self-improvement. Further, it does not reject or overturn modernity, har- kening back to a pre-modern order disrupted by the rapid change or to a Kingdom of God in the beyond. Rather, O Vale creatively borrows from modernity notions of progress, the affirmation of the value of reason and science, self-realization through human efforts, and immanent utopia, blending them with shamanism and imagined ideas of pre-Columbian and African-based spiritualities. “The Valley of Dawn manages to live within and accommodate the existing order of differences through its synthetic symbols, rituals, and curing practices while at the same time it prepares for an apocalyptic transformation based on its revealed doctrine” (Holston 1999: 610). This tensile-yet-productive capacity for both immanence and transcendence leads Holston to claim that O Vale is not the negation of the modernity animating Brasília but its counter-part.13 We shall argue that this capacity to hybridize tradition and modernity is also what allows Brazilian immigrants to draw from The Valley’s practices, symbols, and worldviews to find meaning in their journey and agency in the increasingly hostile reality of Atlanta. As with candangos in Brasília, Atlanta’s hostile environment also involves the some degree of exclusion and illegal presence of migrants. Today, The Valley of Dawn is headquartered in a sprawling community in Planaltina. With a population of over 20,000, this community is structured

12 On Canudos, see Levine (1995); on the Muckers, see Biehl (2008); on Contestado, see Diacon (1991); on Padre Cícero, see Della Cava (1968); and on Pedro Batista, see Pessar (2004). 13 While recognizing the distinctiveness of The Valley of Dawn, particularly its incorporation of New Age mysticism and esotericism, we should be careful not to overstate differences with other millenarian movements. Scholars have tended to see millenarian movements, such as Canudos or Contestado, as throwbacks to pre-modern times, as desperate or even pathological defensive reactions by backlanders to drastic transformations introduced by modernity. However, as Pessar (2004: 115–118) argues, these movements involved ‘practicality and pragmatism’ and some degree of negotiation with and adaptation to modern technologies and institutions (ecclesial and secular). This explains the enduring vitality of romerias (pilgrimages) to Juazeiro and Santa Brígida. 320 manuel a. vásquez and josé cláudio souza alves around a series of colorful buildings, monuments, and statues, the most important of which are the stone Temple of Dawn built in the shape of an ellipse and a lake in the shape of a star known as the Estrela Candente [Burning Star] with an ellipse in its center. The symbolism of the star points to the arrival of Pai Seta Branca in Lake Titicaca, while that of the ellipse represents the dialectical unity of ritual and doctrine which is central to O Vale’s therapeutic work. The productive tension of ritual and doctrine is gendered. Following a dualistic-yet-holistic cosmology, The Valley of Dawn works with pairs of mediums – aparás and doutrinadores. Apará are mediums who incarnate the healing spirits. Since they work with ‘the ectoplasmic charge’ in the solar plexus, the navel region, they represent the body, emotion, intuition, and practice (healing and nurture). Because they are open to receiving multiple spirits, apará are vulnerable and open to heterodoxy. This is where the other pole of the dynamic complementarity comes in: the doutrinadores, who work with the ectoplasm accumulated particularly in the head, using their brains as literal ‘spiritual filters.’ Doctriners, thus, stand for rationality, science, objectivity and theory. They do not incarnate spirits but are in charge of providing instruction. They are the holders of orthodoxy and are key to the movement’s continuity and stability. In principle, anyone can be an apará or a doutrinador. However, according to Sassi, “because of its emotional tenor, incorporation is more frequent among female mediums. And because the medium who teaches the doctrine tends toward rationalism, one finds the greatest number of doctriners among men” (Rodrigues & Muel-Dreyfus 1984: 126). This gendered division of spiritual labor, in effect, inscribes Tia Neiva’s life story in The Valley’s doctrines and rituals. The resolution of her domestic dilemmas and her liminal status as a widow who can support herself, someone who is both a ‘mother and father,’ as she put it, is ‘cosmicized,’14 such that the productive complementarity of female apará and male doutrinador becomes an expression of the relationship between Tia Neiva and Mario Sassi. Making this dynamic complementarity key to its therapeutic and pedagogical work, O Vale recalibrates traditional gender

14 We borrow the term from Berger (1969) to characterize the construction of meaningful and taken-for-granted social order (nomos) as a reflection of the laws of nature, the order of the universe. In Berger’s words, “Cosmization implies the identification of this humanly meaningful world with the world as such, the former now being grounded in the latter, reflecting it or being derived from it in its fundamental structures” (1969: 27). By embedding or entwining human history and practice in cosmic time and space, cosmization enables religion to legitimate any human enterprise, including society. the valley of dawn in atlanta, georgia 321 relations, allowing women to become leaders and empowering them to receive spirits and heal, while, at the same time, making them interdepen- dent with authoritative men. What we have here is recognition of the value and effectiveness of female agency without overturning the structures of male domination.15 Just as this recalibration allowed Tia Neiva to organize her trajectory and find her proper place in the spiritual world, we shall see that this recalibration also enables Brazilian women in Atlanta to negotiate effectively changes in the domestic and public sphere generated by the process of migration and incorporation. Beyond its headquarters, O Vale claims to have over 250 affiliated temples and 450,000 followers across Brazil (Martins 1999).16 Abroad, there are three temples in Portugal, one in Frankfurt, Germany, as well as in Cambridge (UK), the highlands of Bolivia, Guyana, and in Trinidad and Tobago. Until the creation of a temple in Atlanta, which eventually led to a schism and the rise of a second one, O Vale had only one temple in the US, in Framingham, Massachusetts, one of the oldest and largest Brazilian communities in the US (Martes 2000). What led to the creation of a temple in Atlanta of all places? Is there something about Atlanta that provides a particularly fertile ground for the seeding of a Valley of Dawn temple?

Atlanta: Brazilians in the Capital of the New South

In contrast to Brasília, Atlanta is a city that predates the dawn of the space age. However, like Brasília, it is also a city marked by spatial segregation and deep inequalities simmering under its gleaming surface. Founded in 1837, Atlanta did not have a long history of entwinement with the planta- tion economy that cities such as Charleston, SC and Savannah, GA had. This relative newness enabled Atlanta to present itself after the Civil War as a ‘city of progress.’ Nevertheless, thanks to Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind, the city also came to stand for the gentility and splendor of a by- gone era, when racial hierarchy were clearly delineated. Following its destruction in 1864 by Union General William Tecumseh Sherman, Atlanta

15 Some scholars have made a similar argument regarding Pentecostalism’s ‘reformation’ of machismo in Latin America, while reaffirming gender hierarchies. See Brusco (1995) and Gill (1990). 16 Holston (1999: 617) reports claims by the movement that there are as many as 80,000 mediums in the Federal District. These sources also estimate 30–40,000 members in 70 temples throughout the Brazil. 322 manuel a. vásquez and josé cláudio souza alves was reconstructed to preserve white privilege. A ‘commercial-civic elite’ made up ‘self-made’ Euro-American men, returning Confederate veterans and newly-arriving white immigrants, controlled the city, setting an agenda of industrial and urban development fueled by capital from the north (Mixon 2005). The city benefited from its strategic location, “far enough south of the Appalachian Mountains to be accessible to all points in the southeast as well as to both the Midwest and Northeast,” making it possible for the city to become a major railroad hub (Hartshorn 1976: 2). As the train lost ground with the rise of new transportation technologies, air travel picked up the slack from the 1930s on, while the “truck-auto-freeway tril- ogy added a third dimension to the crossroads function in the 1960s, helping make Atlanta a leader in developing suburban office and industrial parks …” (Hartshorn 1976: 2). The coming of the age of the automobile and massive highways solidi- fied white privilege by keeping African-Americans at a distance and regulating their mobility. Spatial segregation intensified, following the Civil Rights Movement, the struggles of over school desegregation, and the racial tensions of the late 1960s. The city did not experience the violent riots that scarred cities like Birmingham, AL and Little Rock, AK, a fact that contributed to the city’s progressive image. Nonetheless, from the late 1940s on, as African-Americans increasingly asserted their claims to economic and political self-determination, Euro-Americans fled the city toward the northern suburbs, out of the reach of the city’s inadequate public transportation system (Kruse 2005). This is why Bullard, Johnson, and Torres (2000) use the term ‘transportation Apartheid’ to characterize Atlanta’s spatial logic, which is marked by uncontrolled suburban and exurban sprawl loosely connected by huge highways. As political power in city hall shifted to African-Americans in the mid- 1970s in the wake of the void left by Euro-American flight to the suburbs and as the city began to position itself as alternative to the northern rust- belt, with abundant cheap labor, low rates of unionization, and more lax regulations, it started attracting African-Americans. They saw Atlanta as a place to achieve the American Dream that had eluded them up north and in the rural south. The construction of the international airport in the 1970s, an airport that would eventually become the busiest in the world, marked the insertion of the city into global circuits. Global companies such Coca- Cola, CNN, Home Depot, and Fed-Ex eventually made Atlanta their headquarters, giving rise to Euro and African-American managerial classes that would be able to afford an affluent life-style that involved increasingly larger houses in the suburbs. By 1987, The Christian Science Monitor declared the valley of dawn in atlanta, georgia 323

Atlanta ‘the mecca of the black middle class’ (Ingwerson 1987).17 More over, the city began to assume the mantle of the ‘capital of the New South,’ a utopian place that had totally transcended its racist past, a city of the future that nevertheless kept the best traditions of the South: it hospitality and warmth. As city boosters put it: Atlanta is ‘the city that is not too busy to care.’18 Immigrants from Latin America came to Atlanta attracted by the opportunities in its segmented economy, working in the rapidly growing service and construction sectors. The construction sector expanded explosively with the 1996 Summer Olympics, which cemented Atlanta’s status as an emerging global city and as a new immigrant destination. A large number of Mexican laborers were recruited to build the infrastructure for the games, settling in areas such as Doraville and along the Buford Highway corridor, in very diverse, heavily immigrant neighborhoods just north of mid-town Atlanta. The construction boom and real estate bubble would continue up to 2005, attracting increasing numbers of Latin Americans, who also gravitated toward the northern suburbs such as Smyrna, Sandy Springs, Norcross, and also Marietta, searching for space and affordable housing. For example, in Cobb County, where Marietta is located, the Hispanic population went up 400% in 1990s, while the overall population grew only by 36%. This growth has continued even after the economic crisis: between 2000 and 2010, Hispanics which grew by 79.6%, compared to an overall population growth of 13.3%. Marietta as well as Roswell, Sandy Springs, and Alpharetta are the northern suburbs that have the highest concentration of Brazilians in the Atlanta metropolitan region. Brazilian immigration to Atlanta came in basically two waves. The first one took place in the late 1970s and 1980s and it included principally middle-class and upper-class professionals and businessmen hailing from Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, and Rio Grande do Sul. Many came to work at Coca Cola, Delta, and CNN and, given length of their stay and conditions of arrival, most are legal residents or US citizens. While this group comprises

17 In fact, “between 1970 and 1996, the black population in the Atlanta region increased by 158%, while the white population increased by just 78%” (Sjoquist 2000b: 1). Simulta neously, the poverty rate among African-American Atlantans went from 29% in 1970 to 35% in 1990, making the city’s poverty rate the fifth among key cities in the US. These data lead some scholars to speak of the ‘Atlanta paradox’ (Sjoquist 2000a). 18 This is a reworking of Mayor William Hartfield’s characterization of Atlanta as a ‘city too busy to hate.’ 324 manuel a. vásquez and josé cláudio souza alves only a small proportion of Brazilians in the city, they are the community’s economic and political leaders. The second group came in the 1990s, coinciding with the growth generated by the Olympics. While more differentiated in terms of region of origin in Brazil and socio-economic status, this wave brought a large number of rural, low-skilled single men and families from Goiás. Men in this group are employed primarily in construction (particularly working with dry wall, roofing, and floor installation) and land- scaping, while women work in the hospitality industry, providing personal care services, or cleaning houses through dense informal networks. The great majority of Brazilians in this group are undocumented. Estimates by community leaders place the total number of Brazilians in Atlanta at 30,000 prior to the economic crisis.19 According to Tomas, a prominent Pentecostal pastor in the Brazilian community, the flow from Goiás was facilitated by the location of the Federal District, which split off from that state. Goianos have had relatively easy access to passport services and the US consulate in Brasília. Whatever the reasons and channels behind the migration of Goianos to Atlanta, their large numbers have inflected the Brazilian religious field in the city in particular ways, the most prominent of which is the presence of followers of The Valley of Dawn. The rapid influx of Latin American immigrants to cities such as Atlanta, which do not have a long history of immigration, has predictably generated tensions. According to Robert Putnam, who has researched the relation between social capital and democracy, increased racial, ethnic, and cultural diversity leads at least initially to retrenchment, with each community looking inward rather than reaching out and trusting the unknown others.20 Ethnic and racial tensions have only been exacerbated by the persistent economic crisis that started in 2005, a crisis that has hit particularly hard the construction sector in which, as we saw, many Brazilians are employed. Given these conditions, and the general concern for homeland security following the September 11 attacks, there has been a growing hostility toward immigrants, particularly toward Latin American immigrants who are often perceived as being in the country illegally and taking advantage of entitlements without paying taxes. This climate has translated into a host of local ordinances in new destinations that range from those that “penalize employers who knowingly employ illegal immigrants, laws preventing undocumented residents from receiving driver’s and businesses

19 The 2000 Census puts the number of Brazilians in the city at 4,600. 20 See Putnam (2007). the valley of dawn in atlanta, georgia 325 licenses, and laws excluding undocumented students from in-state tuition benefits at public colleges” (Varsanyi 2010: 3).21 Maxine Margolis, a long-time scholar of Brazilian immigration, has documented the impact of the post-9/11 stress on border security and immigration enforcement. According to her, many Brazilians in the US “are caught in a vice. Since it has become difficult to come and go from the US, they are afraid to risk returning to Brazil only to find that they cannot get a job or otherwise support themselves and would then be barred from re-entering the US” (Margolis 2008: 8). She continues: “This feeling of entrapment has caused profound depression in some Brazilians, a feeling that they have ‘lost their place,’ that they ‘don’t have a world,’ that they cannot return to Brazil because if they return they cannot survive and if they stay in the US, they cannot live” (Margolis 2008: 8). While the economic situation in Brazil has improved tremendously, it is still very difficult for many Brazilians to return, since they may have borrowed heavily or sold their houses or land to pay for the trip to the US. With the crisis of the American economy, these Brazilians may not be able to make the money necessary to pay their debts or re-start their lives in Brazil. The feelings of depression, dislocation, and uncertainty are exacerbated in Cobb County, where Marietta is located, because it has been one of the first communities to sign a memorandum of understanding with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) that deputizes local authorities to act as federal immigration officials and check the legal status of detained people. As a result, many of the Brazilians we interviewed in Atlanta told us that they live in constant fear of being stopped by the local police for minor traffic violations, arrested, and reported to ICE.22 A trip to the store buy groceries, or to pick up children at school, or to go to church – all of which require the use of a car, given Atlanta’s persistent ‘transportation Apartheid’ – may result in their deportation and the loss of the piece of the American Dream that they have been able to achieve after years of hard work. More recently, the state of Georgia passed a law modeled after the draco- nian and controversial SB 1070 in Arizona. Among other things, this law requires private businesses with more than ten employees to use E-Verify, a

21 According to Varsanyi (2010: 3), in “2006, 500 bills were considered, 84 of which became law. In 2007, 1,562 immigration- and immigrant-related pieces of legislation were introduced, and 240 became law. And most recently, in 2009, approximately 1,500 laws and reso- lutions were considered in all 50 states legislatures, 353 were ultimately enacted.” 22 See Marquardt et al. (2011) 326 manuel a. vásquez and josé cláudio souza alves database that checks a job applicant’s identity against Department of Homeland Security records, despite complaints that from employers that the system is not totally reliable. “The legislation [also] enables state and local law enforcement officers to arrest illegal immigrants. It also imposes prison sentences of up to one year and fines of up to $1,000 for people who knowingly transport illegal immigrants during the commission of a crime” (Valdes 2011). Despite its image of a ‘city of progress,’ the capital of a new global, cosmopolitan South, the daily reality for Latin Americans, and more specifically for undocumented Brazilian immigrants, in Atlanta is one of uncertainty, fear, isolation, hostility, and increasing marginality. The tensions generated by the sudden influx of Latin American immigrants to communities hitherto defined by a Euro-American-African-American bipolar racial formation, the dominant conservative (at times nativist) politics of the South, and decentered spatial reality of Atlanta combine to heighten the pressures and anxieties experienced by undocumented immigrants. Like the candangos who went to Brasília to build a city that they could not inhabit, many Brazilians who contributed to Atlanta’s construction boom are forced to live in the shadows. Given the limited resources available to immigrants in new destinations such as Atlanta, these immigrants have to rely on their own forms of sociability and identity to help them navigate this perilous environment. This is where religious institutions play a crucial role. In the next two sections, we discuss some of the symbolic, moral, spiritual, and social resources that O Vale do Amanhecer provides to Brazilian immigrants, using the story and testimony of Glória, which mirror Tia Neiva’s own history of migration, hardship, and success.

Migration and Mission: Living in and Purifying a Karmic Country

The first temple of The Valley of Dawn in Atlanta was founded by Glória in 2006. She had come to the US in 1999 from Goiás, where she had grown up in a Catholic household and had been educated by nuns. When she was 25-years-old, she became interested in Kardecist Spiritism, an interest that lasted for fifteen years, until her husband suffered ‘um desequilíbrio,’ literally an imbalance produced by alcoholism which spiritists could not treat. In 1975, Glória and her husband went to The Valley’s Mother Temple in Planaltina. “And then my true life really started. With my life linked to Amanhecer’s doctrine, I started to live intensely. All my life revolved the valley of dawn in atlanta, georgia 327 around [The Valley]. My husband was cured, he found balance and there I also raised my daughters.” Nine years after Glória’s first visit to O Vale, her husband died. Following the example of Tia Neiva, the migrant widow, Glória decided to travel to Atlanta to visit one of her daughters. This daughter had come to Florida in the mid-1990s but moved to Atlanta upon hearing that jobs were plentiful. About a year after her arrival in Atlanta, Glória started holding meetings at her home with a small group of people. In her own words: “I decided to open a temple because I witnessed many tears, many dramas, many suicide attempts, even without telling people that I was from O Vale…. There was so much suffering, so much pain and so few mediums that I embraced that cause, that moment.” As the group began to grow, they rented an apartment in Kennesaw, north of Marietta. However, according to Rosa, one of the temple’s members, very soon the neighbors started “to complain because it got crowded. There was no place to park and there was noise too, because although [the Temple] does not use drums, there are caboclos [the spirits of indigenous Brazilians] who are sometimes unruly.” After moving back to Glória’s house for ninety days, they finally rented the current location: “we took down the walls and transformed a commercial space into a temple.” They also started to organize, aided by transnational and intra-national networks. “We were helped by the arrival of workers [mediums] from other states, who joined us and by the visit of people from Brasília, which is our sub-coordination. They came to find out how work was done here in the US…. Leaders from Brazil came to learn in loco our work conditions. And it was in that moment that other workers came to give classes. Brazilian masters came, instructors with all the material, slides and everything about the doctrine. It was a period of sedimentation, of [laying down] the bases.” By late 2007, the year we conducted our interviews, the temple had a core of fifteen mediums, most of them women, who performed a variety of activities. Our work is urgent spiritual help [pronto socorro espiritual] in which everybody who comes goes through individual work, individual attention … by a medium of incorporation and a doctriner. It is as if it were a consultation [consulta], where the person has the freedom to talk about their problems, make their requests, ask for orientations and then and there the person is advised about his needs. We manipulate, we disintegrate the negative energies, transmuting them into positive energy. The [incorporated] entity gives orientation about other types of works that the person needs to undergo. 328 manuel a. vásquez and josé cláudio souza alves

We also do defumação23 … the tenor of the work at O Vale is trabalho de desobsessão,24 which is specific to material life which involves jealousy, envy, wickedness. It is done for one’s business, love life, for material life. [The person] unburdens himself [desembaraça] … of the things that are creating difficulties. When asked why this work is necessary in Atlanta, Glória explains that “the US is a very karmic country … particularly in the South. Georgia was … first when it came to slavery in the US. So, we have a lot of karma with this land, in Georgia and Atlanta.” All this negative karma affects people profoundly: “I go to the homes of these Americans … and see that they are taking medicine for depression. They have everything and at the same time have nothing. They are depressed and anxious and many times I ask God to give me the means to speak fluent English to be able to help them.” According to Glória, Brazilian immigrants are also vulnerable to the US’s negative energies: and the Brazilians who are here, to be here, they must also have a spiritual karma of past lives. They [want to but] cannot come here, collect dollars, go back to Brazil and have a good life there. That is not going to happen. They go, but become frustrated when their efforts are in vain [dão com os burros n’água]. Then they come back and there they stay in that ping pong – they go to Brazil and come back. Then I tell them: “take it easy [se acalmem]. You are here to work out your karma to have a better life. Hold on to God, with Jesus … go do [good] works, do charitable work.” Here Glória is drawing from The Valley of Dawn’s worldview to cosmicize, to draw from Berger, the process of immigration, and in doing so it allow immigrants to gain not only a measure of understanding of the trials and tribulations they face but, more importantly, to achieve some control over the circumstances by acting in the world. That Brazilians are in Atlanta is part of a cosmic plan to work out their accumulated karmic residues by undertaking good deeds. Drawing from The Valley of Dawn’s millenarian and messianic themes, Glória goes even further. She claims that her presence and the work of O Vale do Amanhecer in the US is part and parcel of missionary work in preparation for the end of the present time and the dawn of a new era.

23 Defumação is a common procedure in Umbanda to remove negative energies or to do away with unenlightened spirits that interfere with the living, using smoke, generally incense, myrrh, or tobacco (cigar or pipe). Some spiritist centers remove negative spiritual forces by lighting a blessed candle and waving it – along with a glass of purified water – across the room or over the person that needs to be cleansed. 24 Expulsion of vengeful, polluting spirits. the valley of dawn in atlanta, georgia 329

The US is a prodigal country. Spiritism was born in the US and then it unfolded [desabrochou] in France with Allan Kardec. But why was the tree of Spiritism transplanted to Brazil? Brazil is the granary of the world [o celeiro do mundo]. It is the country of the [Spiritist] gospel. It was a new nation, strong, not com- promised, not stained by the blood of the great wars, of the conflicts of the old world. Spiritism was transplanted [to Brazil] and it is now coming back to the US as a new sapling [seiva nova] because the US is under the aegis of Rome once again, under the Roman Empire.25 While Glória ignores the centuries of slavery, racism, class exclusion, and gender inequalities that have marked Brazil’s history, she is articulating the same utopian narrative informed Juscelino Kubitschek’s project of building Brasília as the capital for a new era, an era in which Brazil would emerge as a geopolitical leader. In light of ‘America’s winter’ [o inverno dessa America], Brazilian missionaries will play a key role in converting or cleansing and, thus restoring, the developed world. In effect, this millenarian narrative turns the tables on those who see undocumented Brazilian immigrants as ‘illegals’ who must be deported because they are an economic burden to the native-born. Quite the contrary, these immigrants are in the US to ‘unburden’ the native-born and other immigrants taken in a thoughtless materialism that has weakened the country’s standing. The US is a country that has a very strong energy, a great weight. Because money is an energy, a positive energy to a certain extent. The fact of the person comes here to make money … gives him a positive energy to some extent, but there comes a time that it saturates you. There comes a point when the person sees that money and endless work are not the only thing, that [material things] don’t satisfy anymore. There are many times when Brazilians come here anxious to build a house, to gain financial independence in Brazil, and he achieves it with a lot of work, but he achieves it. However, as he is achieving, as he is in the middle of that struggle, he is asking himself: Is this the only thing I wanted? I know many people who become so anxious that they tell themselves: was this what I really wanted? Is this all there is to life? The Valley of Dawn’s emphasis on spiritual development and on the missionary plan to rid the US of its karmic past and the negative energies generated by its rampant consumerism offer Brazilian immigrants a way to deal with chaos and uncertainties of the ‘city that is too busy to hate.’ Following the motto of The Valley’s Website – “a place of peace and

25 Implicit here is Glória’s critique of the US, which in her eyes has abandoned its mission of advancing civilization and has resorted to the use of military power, like the Roman Empire. 330 manuel a. vásquez and josé cláudio souza alves healing” – the temple in Atlanta offers narratives and practices that emphasize tranquility, equanimity, and harmony. Since one’s current predicament is part of one’s destiny, part of a larger spiritual plan, one can assume a detached, balanced perspective. The situation for immigrants has worsened and that is demanding [exigindo] a lot of us. Those of us who drive, the majority do not have driver’s licenses and one does not know when they are turning a blind eye. But if they begin to require [documentation], for example, to rent an apartment, I wonder to whom they will be able to rent? In my own case, I would not be able to [rent legally]. But I don’t worry about that … I may be invited to leave this country, but I’ll wait for that to happen. I think about it this way: everyone has an objective. If you have reached it, then it may be better to return. I am very calm when it comes to this because my house is the universe. Wherever I go I will be fine. It is not because I have a house and the resources to live in Brazil … but it is because I feel tranquility. The people of this temple are not alienated; we are hopeful and confident and have the doctrine that strengthens us. Of course we recognize and respect the laws of this country. It is one of our principles to respect the laws. Our people are orderly. We do not [create] a situation for which we can be punished and wait for tomorrow with hope. As Glória’s testimony reveals, the emphasis within The Valley on calmness, detachment from the material world, and hope in a better future, are invaluable for Brazilians in Atlanta, where their desire for financial success is likely to be frustrated by the deepening economic crisis or where the over-present possibility of being detained and deported generates a great deal of anxiety and uncertainty.

‘Like Tia Neiva, We Are Pioneers’: Gender and The Valley of Dawn

One of the most striking features of the temple of The Valley of Dawn in Marietta is the fact that it is ‘commanded’ by women, with the exception of Luiz, who serves as the doctriner. When we inquired about this, Luiz told us that

Women in the US are much more organized that the men. They earn more and then there is conflict and separation. The woman buys a car, a nice car, a shiny Toyota, while he keeps the old Honda. Brazilian [couples] separate because women begin to have independence. She earns more than he does by cleaning houses. While men make $100 per day, she makes $300, cleaning three houses for $100 a pop. So, she has her independence. The guy may yell at her two times, but by the third time he is out. Because she can pay for the apartment, she can have her own car, and have a good life on her own. the valley of dawn in atlanta, georgia 331

Glória agrees with Luiz and adds that life in the US “almost turns us into Tias Neivas. Like her, we are pioneers here.” Life in the US, changes the person, opens her perspectives [abre a cabeça da pessoa]. When [Brazilian] women come to America, they gain an unprecedented freedom that did not exist in Brazil. She goes to a boate [nightclub]; she leaves the boate at 3 or 4 in the morning, goes to her house alone, since she feels secure in a country such as this. Women have many more opportunities. They can study. The person frees herself [se liberta]; she is free of all the ties that hold her. And then you have many separations on account of this. Luiz’s and Glória’s impressions are confirmed by the literature on gender and migration. This literature shows that “women’s regular access to wages and their greater contribution to household sustenance frequently lead to more control over budgeting and other realms of domestic decision making. It also provides them with greater leverage in appeals for male assistance in daily household chores” (Pessar 2003: 27). However, the changes in gender relations brought about by immigration are not always unequivocally positive. For “immigrant women’s enhanced social status (won variously through jobs, social network resources, or new interactions with social institutions) often goes hand in hand with immigrant men’s loss of public and domestic status. In the US, immigrant men may for the first time in their lives occupy a subordinate position in class, racial, and citizenship hierarchies” (Hondagneu-Sotelo 2003: 8). In response, men may “turn to drinking out of frustration at failing to fulfill their socially expected role. This creates conditions ripe for domestic violence” (Menjívar 2003: 109). Among Brazilians in the US, Margolis (1994: 237–238) observed that some women “leave dependence behind because of what one immigrant called their ‘executive power’ (poder executivo) – their newfound status as breadwinners.” However, while “women’s employment can reduce dependence on men and enhance self-confidence, their new financial authority also can lead to greater antagonism between the sexes, particularly among married couples.” In light of the potential for conflict produced by the changes in gender relations during the process of immigration, The Valley offers a doctrine built upon Tia Neiva’s experience with Mario Sassi, a doctrine that values a woman’s pursuit of personal spiritual progress and while defining effective female agency and leadership not oppositional terms but as complementary to man’s authority. It is only when this complementary, this gender balance, is observed that a marriage is successful. This framework allows Brazilian immigrant women to recalibrate their relations with their 332 manuel a. vásquez and josé cláudio souza alves husbands or partners, gaining a measure of independence and recognition for their abilities and contributions, while ensuring the stability of their marriages, which is threatened by their capacity to ‘have a good life on their own.’ In Glória’s words: There were people who said: wow! [poxa!] O Vale separates couples. But it is not that at all. [Because] in reality no one separates no one, no one can decide for someone else, no one can take [things] from no one. Each one is responsible for one’s own choices. One has to walk with one’s own legs. As the saying goes, “we … teach how to fish, but everyone fishes his own, each one of us takes care of his balance [equilíbrio], takes care of one’s mental house, takes care of one’s conversion. [So] when one has to readjust with another person, one must do it. It does not matter where you are, you understand? I remember the doctrine of our apostle Francisco Xavier. He used to say the following: “it is better to have a separation when there is no more reason to be [in a relationship],” and when the person is beginning to turn into a delinquent, because you come to such a serious point that you may want to hurt or kill the other, a point where hatred is all there is. There comes again the issue of divorce. But remember that divorce is a human law and what God really intended, what He joined in heaven on earth will never be separated. The seemingly contradictory affirmation of individual responsibility and the sacred unbreakability of marriage can be seen as a way to negotiate the tension between two ways of understanding and living gender relations. Following Spiritist doctrine, it is necessary to take responsibility for one’s karma in order to transmute it. However, in the context of hostility against immigrants and of a persistent economic crisis, it is also essential not to let that recognition of individuality undermine immigrant women’s proxi- mate social networks and leave them isolated and vulnerable, virtually in a liminal state between gender formations.26 Despite The Valley’s attempt to recalibrate evolving gender relations to achieve harmonic complementarity, separations and divorces continue to take place. At the temple, we met some Brazilian women who were ‘fed up’ [de saco cheio] with the sexism of Brazilian men and were dating or had married Euro-American men. These cross-cultural relations facilitate

26 In fact, Muel-Dreyfus and Martins-Rodrigues (1986) argue that Tia Neiva’s involvement with Sassi served to resolve her liminal status. “It all seems as if [migrant and self- supporting] widows are on the side of ‘anti-structure,’ to retake Mary Douglas’s theme, on the side of ambiguity, within those ‘troubled’ zones in the social and symbolic space where the converging structures are disorganized: [here] the danger would be the transition” (124). By having Sassi organize rationally and systematically Tia Neiva’s embodied experience of mediumship, she is able to tame her ‘rebelliousness,’ to avoid charges of witchcraft, which are often reserved for those at the margins of society. the valley of dawn in atlanta, georgia 333 recognition of Brazilian women’s agency and authority, but they generate other tensions. The most common complaint we heard was that Euro- American men are too individualistic, “it is a culture more of each person than of union, as for Brazilians.” They are also want everything in “its proper place [tudo certinho], like, ‘OK, now it is time to kiss,’ ‘now it is time to go.’ They never understand our passion.” O Vale works with these women to resolve these tensions, drawing again from its notion of dynamic gender complementarity, stressing the need for the emotional, passionate, spontaneous, and warm Brazilian women to seek their productive complement in the more rational, detached, orderly, and cool Euro-American partners. Wulfhorst (2011) found that Brazilian immigrant women married to Australian men also ‘use their Brazilianness strategically.’ “Australian men … see a clear distinction between Brazilian and Australian women, where the former is more ‘feminine,’ ‘caring,’ and ‘loving’ and the latter as independent and less affectionate. Brazilian women, regardless of their background, are aware that their image as feminine, docile and nurturing is something that Australian men recognize … [and] although [they] commented on their efforts to break down such monolithic categories, they do make strategic use of specific aspects of the Brazilian image” (Wulfhorst 2011: 199). The Valley goes beyond this strategic use of gender complementarity, cosmicizing a modern re-articulation of Brazilian femininity and masculinity. It allows Brazilian women in Atlanta to deal with the liminality of transcultural relations by blending tradition and modernity in manner that legitimates their ‘executive power,’ without forcing a potentially costly deconstruction of gender hierarchies. However, unlike Tia Neiva, who found in Sassi a willing supporter and collaborator ready to join the movement, many of these women in Atlanta have not been able to convince their husbands to come to the temple.27 Still, as Glória sees it, the temple is a place “to turn all those problems into positive energy. It is the only way to survive in this land, in this strange land.”

Conclusion

In this chapter, we explored the dynamics that led to the creation of a temple of The Valley of Dawn in Atlanta. We argued that this creation was the result of the transplantation by Brazilian immigrants of a Brazilian

27 Further research would have to be conducted among the partners of women in the temple to understand how they are reacting to The Valley’s notion of spiritual gender complementary and why they are not coming to the temple. 334 manuel a. vásquez and josé cláudio souza alves millenarian and prophetic vision in sync with the paradoxical conditions of Atlanta as an emerging global city. The Valley is a fragment of Brazilian ‘modernity at large,’ to draw from Appadurai (1996), created out of the utopian hopes and contradictions of a new era dawning in and through Brasília. The unfulfilled narratives of futurity and progress enshrined in Brasília and cosmicized by The Valley found fertile in Atlanta, another mythical urban landscape that, while presenting itself as a city of progress, a city that has transcended its past, contains some of the same conflicts as the Brazilian capital. With the emergence of Brazil as a new economic, cultural, and religious power and the decline of the US, Brazilian narratives of futurity, order, and progress, such as that embraced by The Valley, are likely to gain plausibility. Particularly, at a time of great economic uncertainty and turmoil, we may expect the global circulation of these Brazilian ‘ideoscapes’28 to intensify, carried by vectors such Brazilian religious entrepreneurs, immigrants, popular culture, and electronic media. As in Brasília, The Valley of Dawn in Atlanta offers the alienated builders of urban utopias, those who cannot fully enjoy the fruits of their labor – be it candangos or ‘illegal’ immigrants – an alternative way to negotiate creatively the tensions and unfulfilled promises of hypermodernity, particularly the dislocation, socio-economic exclusion, and marginality that are the underside of globalization. In the face of the chaos, anxiety, and existential insecurity that Brazilian immigrants face in Atlanta, The Valley offers a cosmicized sense of purpose and mission, as well as therapeutic discourses and practices that de-toxify, leading to inner peace, gradual personal improvement, strategic detachment from an all-consuming materialism, and domestic harmony. In this sense, The Valley offers unique resources to Brazilian immigrants that its competitors in the ‘religious market’ cannot provide. As in the case of Brazilian Neo-Pentecostal churches like the Igreja Universal do Reino de Deus, which Mafra et al. discuss, The Valley of Dawn seeks to redraw the geopolitical map, highlighting the ‘winter of America’ and the emergence of Brazil as the ‘granary of the world,’ the new spiritual super-power. Also like Neo-Pentecostals, O Vale do Amanhecer recognizes the importance of the pursuit of money and material well-being. However, The Valley of Dawn does not deal with the perils of Atlanta through tropes of spiritual combat, of defeating the Devil and taking territories and souls for the Lord. Rather, it relies on narratives

28 Appadurai (1996: 33–37) uses the term ‘ideoscape’ to refer to the global flow of discourses connected to construction of national and individual identities. the valley of dawn in atlanta, georgia 335 and practices that emphasize peace, tranquility, equanimity, and balance. This non-sectarian, non-combative, low-stress approach is particularly valuable for Brazilians in Atlanta who are submerged in all pervading fear, anxious about losing their job or about the over-present possibility of being detained and deported. In other words, while The Valley protects and heals Brazilians from the contradictions and shortcomings of hypermodern Atlanta, it does not demand that they abandon modernity for some irrational otherworldly utopia. Rather, its flexible-yet-internally coherent cosmology re-signifies positively the immigrants’ embeddedness in modernity, emplotting the migration journey within a narrative of mission and progress. Like Catholicism, O Vale presents itself as a universal religion, in relatively low tension with the existing social order. Nonetheless, as Sheringham notes in her chapter, Catholicism among Brazilians abroad tends to focus on the affirmation of their language and cultural identity as way to deal with the loneliness, nostalgia, and depression that often accompanies the process of immigration. Here, Catholic pastoral agents are simply relying on the historical association of Catholicism with national identity in Brazil. A priest in London summarizes Catholic approach well when he affirms that “there are three things that a Brazilian has to do in his own language: play, curse, and pray” (Sheringham in this volume). In contrast, even though The Valley of Dawn is an autochthonous religion, a religion that originated in Brazil, it works with a hyper-hybrid cosmology and therapeutic system that enables it to be at ‘home in the universe,’ as Glória put it, at home even in the midst of an unruly late modernity. It remains to be seen whether this hyper-hybridity and its Brazilian brand of millenarianism will enable O Vale to hitch a ride to other locations around the globe, traveling along with the trope of Brazil as the imagined country of the future, a country whose time may have finally come.

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank Lúcia Ribeiro, who was part of the research team that conducted fieldwork in the Atlanta metropolitan region.

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THE NICHE GLOBALIZATION OF PROJECTIOLOGY: COSMOLOGY AND INTERNATIONALIZATION OF A BRAZILIAN PARASCIENCE

Anthony D’Andrea

Introduction: Structure and Agency in Organizational Growth

In 1986, psychic and physician Waldo Vieira self-published a nine-hundred- page treaty titled Projectiology: Overview of Out-of-Body Experiences (in Portuguese) proposing a “science for the study of the phenomenon of consciousness and energies beyond the boundaries of the physical body” (Vieira 1986). Following regular weekly lectures in Rio de Janeiro’s upscale neighborhood of Ipanema, Vieira and close associates founded the International Institute of Projectiology in 1989. A few years later Conscien tiology is introduced with an equally sized treatise 700 Experiments of Conscientiology, defined as “the study of consciousness by means of a holistic, holosomatic, multidimensional, bioenergetic, projective, self-conscious and cosmoethic approach” (Vieira 1994: 11). The organization is accordingly renamed as International Institute of Projectiology and Conscientiology (IIPC, in Portuguese). Vieira inflates the status of Projectiology from a “sub- discipline of parapsychology” (1986: 13, 25) to the “practical application of Conscientiology” (1994: 64), while both disciplines become depicted as ‘neo-sciences of consciousness’. Over the following twenty-five years, IIPC grew into a network of regional branches and spin-off associations operating across Brazil and several countries. In 2002, Vieira and a few hundred Projectiologists moved to the new campus-like Center of Higher Studies of Conscientiology (CEAEC in Portuguese) located in the continental hinterland of Iguassu Falls and kick- started a radical restructuration of IIPC. In this process, all international affairs were transferred to the newly created International Academy of Consciousness (IAC, originally in English), a small and nimble non-profit organization run by a team of mobile teachers crisscrossing Portugal, UK and the US. According to an internal report (IIPC 2004), over 100 teachers, 500 volunteers and 12,000 students are annually involved with Projectiology and Conscientiology. They are mostly white, college-educated, urban middle-class Brazilians interested in developing their psychic, spiritual and personal abilities. 340 anthony d’andrea

These figures are very modest when compared to other parasciences, such as Transcendental Meditation, Neuro-Linguistic Programming, Scientology or Osho Meditation, what begs the question of why and how such a difference in scale could take place. Upon the case of Projectiology, this chapter therefore develops a research framework that can be usefully employed in the analysis of other new religious, spiritual and parascientific groups undergoing internationalization. As its more basic task, this chapter summarizes the organization, cosmology and ethos of Projectiology, focusing the analysis on the main conditions, barriers and mechanisms shaping its international expansion to this point. The working premise set forth in this study argues that IIPC’s organizational dynamic is determined by cosmological representations and behavioral dispositions that Projectiologists hold towards spirituality and society at large. For the careful testing of this premise, primary data sources used in the study include: internal literature, ethnographic fieldwork in former IIPC headquarters in Rio de Janeiro (from 1986 to 1991) and branches in Barcelona and Madrid (summer 1998), content and ethnographic analysis of online resources (IIPC websites, social media updates and videos, email-based discussion lists), in addition to unstructured interactions with Projectiology teachers, volunteers, sympathizers and so-called ‘dissidents’ carried out over the years until present day 2012. For the sake of economic writing, any reference to ‘Projectiology’ also includes Conscientiology, unless otherwise noted. A ‘Projectiologist’ refers to anyone who studies and practices either or both parasciences, is influenced by its ideas at a significant level, and is or has been involved with the organization as a student, teacher or volunteer. The ‘IIPC network’ refers to a range of organizations including IIPC, CEAEC, IAC and spin-off associations. In particular, IIPC and CEAEC are main references of activities in Brazil, whereas IAC relates to international operations. This study does not address other organizations that may incorporate Projectiology teachings but are not formally related to the IIPC network. The chapter is structured as follows. The next section reviews key issues intersecting globalization and new religious movement studies in order to outline a conceptual framework that guides the examination of Projectiology’s internationalization patterns. In the second section we investigate how its cosmology and ethos directly affect the organizational culture, strategies and practices of the IIPC network, which, in turn, shape the nature of its internationalization. The third section illustrates this point, by focusing on how this internationalization is directly affected by the niche globalization of projectiology 341

Projectiology locality-making representations, its leadership views about the role of Projectiology in society, and the intrinsic difficulties of culturally translating Projectiology in foreign cultures. In this chapter, I argue that the expansion of Projectiology is defined by a mix of structural and agency factors. Projectiology expresses and amplifies new and old developments in Brazilian religious culture and society: a direct inheritor of the national belief in spiritual communication, yet emphasizing a rationalistic view historically upheld by the nation’s mod- ernizing elites, Projectiology also embodies an instrumental culture of self- development that has more recently took hold in urban middle classes. In addition to these historical, social and cultural foundations, the internationalization of IIPC is affected by idiosyncratic preferences that its leadership, impinging on its pedagogical and organizational possibilities. It could be remarked that such idiosyncrasies coherently reflect those wider religious technocratic traditions, thus reaffirming the structural side of the coin. However, the popularity achieved by several parascientific groups around the world suggests that individual choices, while continuously made through an ongoing negotiation with external circumstances, may, in fact, affect the growth dynamic of an institution in novel and unpredictable ways. The chapter then concludes with a final review of key findings, and pon- ders over alternative institutional scenarios as topics suggested for possible future research. An embryonic trend towards highly flexible organizational arrangements seems to constitute a viable direction for Projectiology initiatives, one in which new digital and mobile technologies are integrated with local presence in selected urban centers and connected with amenable campus-like resorts. Upon this spatial arrangement, translation – not just as speech but as cultural semiosis – will probably remain a critical factor in defining the balance between identity and expansion in Projectiology. More widely, observations and lessons derived from this ethnographic study can be helpful in the examination of other alternative groups seeking to grow in transnational settings.

Out-of-Body Experience, Parascience and Niche Globalization

In its most dramatic version, the ‘out-of-body experience’ (OBE) is sometimes termed ‘near-death experience’ (NDE) by the medical community, when resuscitated patients provide extraordinary reports of seeing 342 anthony d’andrea themselves outside the physical body and in otherworldly dimensions. Some physicians have suggested that NDEs can more ordinarily occur during ordinary sleep (Harvey 2007; Mauro 1992; Gabbard and Twemlow 1981). In classical anthropology, the ability to leave the body is the distinctive feature of the shaman (Mauss 1904). According to Projectiology founder Waldo Vieira, OBE is a universal human function (part of its ‘para- physiology’) for reports can be found across all cultures: in the Bible (Revelation 1:10–11, 4:2, Ezekiel 3:14, II Corinthians 12:2), Plato’s Republic, Balzac’s Louis Lambert, etc. Over the years, Vieira compiled a sizeable library on the topic, including thousands of popular and scientific references in various languages. In this context, Projectiology repackages concurrent discourses about the temporary split between body and spirit into a systematic discipline that claims the objectivity, universality and instrumentality of these experiences with important repercussions over one’s existence. The goal of Projectiologists is not only to study OBEs but to induce them voluntarily. They deem ‘projectability’ (the ability to leave the body) to be a highly efficacious instrument of self-discovery and access to the spiritual world. By dutifully practicing ‘bio-energetic’ exercises (body- centric visualization and cognitive practices), they seek to increase their psychic (extra-sensorial) perception as well as the quantity, quality and duration of OBEs. In reality however, most Projectiologists report only a few vivid OBEs (in statements, such as “I had a really conscious projection only once”), besides minor perceptual experiences (e.g., “I saw energies” or “I felt energies flowing through my body”). Very few practitioners can claim the status of a full-blown psychic, comprising regular OBEs, interactions with spirits, and other psychic skills, such as seeing one’s past or the future, diagnosing people’s spiritual companions, etc. In fact, the most prominent case in Projectiology is Waldo Vieira himself, consensually recognized as the most advanced projector in this community as well as by large segments of spiritualists, Kardecists and parapsychologists. Vieira is deemed to possess highly developed animist and medium capabilities, dating back to his childhood and medium writer with Chico Xavier in Brazil’s highly popular Spiritist Movement, until his departure in the late 1960s. Resonating with Vieira’s valuation of a highly autonomous self-centric spirituality, Projectiologists’ utopia is a hypothetical situation of full-time awareness. In this state, the practitioner remains conscious all of the time, with no memory lapses across wake and sleep states. The notion emblazes Vieira’s original organization Centro da Consciência Contínua, a the niche globalization of projectiology 343 tiny personally-funded office located in Ipanema, replaced by larger IIP in 1988. Yet, Projectiologists admit that such state of ‘continuous consciousness’ is virtually impossible to be attained due to biological, psychological and spiritual constraints. Because of such intrinsic limitations, this topic appears to have been largely sidelined from Projectiological concerns and discussions. Still, it must be seen as the underlying theme that sustains their efforts to maximize individual performance toward optimal self- development, meaning: rational, ethical and psychic evolution at high speed. However, when pushed to the extreme, such an approach hinges on a virtual Taylorization of existence, insofar as all spheres of life collapse under an ironclad discipline imposed on one’s thoughts, desires and behavior. The stereotype of a model Projectiologist is that of a diligent spiritual worker, dutifully measuring and improving one’s own spiritual, personal and altruistic performance at all times. Correspondingly, this community frowns upon mundane forms of entertainment and philanthropy due to their largely emotional, irreflective nature, and instead they value ‘spiritual assistance’ to special individuals committed to overcoming one’s spiritual emergencies, which is a rude awakening of one’s psychological and psychic capabilities (Grof and Grof 1990). According to Vieira, awakening episodes are often symptomatic of larger spiritual plans unbeknownst to the individual, and must be dealt with in a straightforward and incorruptible manner. In a review of scholarly studies, Projectiology hybridizes scientific, religious and spiritual themes derived from deep dialogic exchanges across séance Spiritism (particularly its ‘scientific’ derivations), psychological therapy culture, and New Age individualism (D’Andrea 1997, 2000). Symbolically structured upon the category ‘projectability’, Projectiology is populated by mostly white, college-educated, middle-class individuals who seek to make sense of secular individualization trends penetrating a national religious culture marked by the generalized belief in spiritual interaction and hierarchy (Velho 1994; Warren 1968). Other scholarly studies have similarly described Projectiology as a case of ‘New Age indigeniza- tion’ crystallized in a “new organization that merges New Age themes with Brazilian versions of psychological development” (Heelas and Amaral 1994: 180; see also Stoll 2002; Magnani 1999). Anthropologist David Hess has described Waldo Vieira as a ‘Spiritist intellectual’ who broke ranks with Kardec-based Spiritism in order to develop independent research, and “compiled an impressive bibliography expressing the Spiritist belief that these [out-of-body] experiences are not merely subjective, but rather that the spirit actually leaves the body” (Hess 1987: 97). 344 anthony d’andrea

Main historical developments that have engendered Projectiology include:

a) the privileged marginalization of medical and scientific celebrities within a predominantly sentimental, faith-based Spiritist movement throughout the twentieth century (Stoll 2004; Giumbelli 1995; Damazio 1994); b) the rise of a middle-class psychology (‘psy’) culture, characterized by an often narcissistic or solipsistic focus on the ‘self’, following the decline of orthodox psychoanalysis in the early 1980s (Russo 1993); and c) the boom of New Age spiritualities in the context of plural redemocratization of the Brazilian public culture in 1980s onwards (Soares 1989).

Projectiology, in sum, embodies processes of negotiation, struggle and hybridization across key religious and professional traditions that were imported and indigenized in Brazil, and more recently re-exported internationally. Projectiology thus provides an excellent case study illustrating religious diasporic processes as the core matter being examined in this book collection. The concept of parascience can be usefully employed to understand Projectiology and other similarly structured groups. It refers to any fringe system simultaneously rejected by the religious and scientific establish- ments (Champion 1993; Hess 1993; Boy and Michelat 1986; Chevalier 1986). Popular examples include astrology, tarot, ufology, ‘deep’ parapsychology, Neuro-Linguistic Programming, Transcendental Meditation, Scientology etc. “Closely linked to occultism for its logic and worldview, a parascience differs by claiming a status of science, and by seeking legitimacy by means of science. It tends to blur the institutional boundaries of scientific practice, thus constituting an ambiguous region between science and knowledge” (Chevalier 1986: 205). Gaining popularity since the 1970s, they are expressions and agents of a ‘new religious consciousness’ which, arising from the 1960s counterculture (Bellah 1979), signifies the retooling of ancient traditions according to individualistic, reflexivist and experimen- talist drives that have become central in high modernity, reflecting the notion of ‘post-traditional’ (Giddens 1991; Luckmann 1991; Bellah 1985). In a world marked by increasing transnational flows of peoples, goods and ideas, it is worth noting how new forms of spirituality and parascience interrelate with globalization trends (Urry 2003; Beyer 1994). Though often the niche globalization of projectiology 345 positioned as reactionary forces, traditional religions actually are the repository of long processes of diffusion, exchange and resignification of practices, symbols and beliefs imported from alien cultures and periods. Paradoxically, even when they oppose secular effects of globalization, fundamentalist practitioners often adopt new media technologies that help promote conservative agendas (Appadurai 1996; Urban 1996; Beyer 1994). The key difference between ancient and contemporary exchange forms resides in the speed, intensity and scope of such cross-cultural flows, eventually leading to a leap or rupture in identity formation (Hannerz 1996; Giddens 1991). The resulting situation is contingent, depending on structural and circumstantial arrangement of forces, processes and agencies taking place locally. Conceptualized as ‘glocalization’ (Robertson 1995), the interplay between global forces and local agencies may unravel in two opposite directions (Hannerz 1996): it may take the shape of an ongoing process of negotiation whereby external influences intermin- gle more or less harmoniously with local traditions, and with some mutually (even if unequally) beneficial consequences (scenario of maturation). Conversely, local traditions can be swept away under the sheer pressure of commoditization forces stemming from powerful alien structures that radically penetrate and alter the local fabric of social and cultural life, usually with disruptive, if not traumatizing effects (scenario of saturation). In considering these two scenarios to new spiritual and parascientific systems, it can be suggested that the dissemination of these groups refers less to a model of mass-market homogenization imposed by foreign political economies, and more to a model characterized by localized exchanges taking place according to the needs of interacting agencies and by which local social-cultural formations can incorporate foreign elements more or less in their own terms of negotiation and translation. In the latter scenario (maturation), as an alien spiritual system enters a different social environment, its meanings, practices and strategies may begin to differ from the contents and intentions originally devised at the headquarters. Frontier missionaries are, therefore, continuously probing the practical, ethical and axiological boundaries of the teachings that they deliver in foreign lands, expressing an ongoing effort to calibrate expansion with authenticity. In this light, as a basic observation and hypothesis of studies on religious diasporas, contemporary forms of transnational dissemination rarely correspond to the mass conversion of local audiences, but instead denote usually highly specialized, modular and pragmatic forms of religious appropriation 346 anthony d’andrea that can be here appropriately termed ‘niche globalization’. The remainder of the chapter examines the internationalization of Projectiology as an illustrative case of niche globalization.

Secular Spirituality: Organization, Cosmology and Ethos of Projectiology

As stated by a cofounder, the International Institute of Projectiology and Conscientiology (IIPC) is “an independent, private, nonprofit organization founded by individuals who decided to formalize their experiences and discoveries in the parapsychic (sic) field” (Alegretti 1995: 21). The same spirit inspires the Center of Higher Studies of Conscientiology (CEAEC), main hub of a complex organizational network comprising the IIPC and its branches, spin-off associations and directive councils, in addition to the International Academy of Consciousness (IAC) and its overseas branches. The expressive multiplication of branded groups, terminology and technical jargon in a relatively small-scale parascience deserves careful consideration. It is, in part, consequence of administrative decisions over IIPC’s operations and group dynamics. Since the late 1990s, its growth was based on logistical efforts leading to increasing financial difficulties. Internal grievances among its highly dedicated volunteers were not always harmoniously managed. In 2001, IIPC directive board decided to take advantage of a new piece of state legislation streamlining the status of non-profit organizations, and a radical restructuration ensued to solve financial and political problems. While adopting the administrative model of autonomous cost units, IIPC’s main functions (teaching, research, press, practice, youth and operations, often doubled in Projectiology and Conscientiology programs) became semi-independent and financially responsible ‘associations’ (legal term). These units were integrated in a decentralized system coordinated by regulatory boards (‘collegiates’) in charge of arbitrating over proposals, competencies and guidelines. Within the restructuration, the newly created International Academy of Consciousness (IAC) took over international activities, duties and offices formerly run by IIPC. The latter was refocused on teaching activities within Brazil, whereas IAC (currently headquartered in a suburban compound in Portugal) coordinates offices in New York, Miami, London, Lisbon and Madrid and also run eventual seminars in other international cities. Registered as a US-based non-profit organization, the IAC enjoys a high the niche globalization of projectiology 347 degree of administrative autonomy, and coordinates the work of a small cohort of Projectiologists jet-setting across the northern hemisphere. But the multiplication of subgroups and terminology antecedes the 2001 organizational restructuration, and can be understood as expressing deeper processes of identity formation. Projectiologists overvalue a ‘scientific’ ethos of strict rationality and professional demure which is projected onto internal and external audiences. This emphasis signals their strong opposition to religious explanations which dominate the Brazilian supernatural imaginary. Drawing from Weber’s characterization of modernity, the instrumental rationality of Projectiology promotes the disenchantment of spirituality, by which learnable techniques can help explain, manipulate and control the spiritual reality. However, Projectiologists propose rationality in ways that undermine their efforts toward scientific legitimacy. While it must be recognized that the intangible nature of psychic phenomena represents an intrinsic challenge to scientific protocols of measurability, objectivity and replicability, an additional problem resides in Waldo Vieira’s staunch critique of ‘conventional science’. Eventual collaborations with the academic establishment have been largely unfruitful, and younger Projectiologists pursuing scientific careers are being inadvertently alienated (several IIPC ‘dissidents’ have left the group and earned post-graduate degrees). Apparently, the majority of Projectiologists accept Vieira’s anecdotal approach, as he stands as the sole empirical and ideological authority in that parascience. Efforts to foster a research culture in the IIPC have thus resulted in a pastiche of science, insofar as Projectiology remains unable to extricate itself from the religious and scientific traditions it claims to overcome. All in all, the tension between science and religion is a central feature of a parascience by definition. As an analytical window, press interviews by IIPC teachers follow a recurrent narrative structure that sheds interesting light into the parascience. Always wearing white or muted colors, they convey a professional image marked by calm, persuasive argumentation, coolness, and systematic explanations. In a pivotal interview to nationwide ‘Jo Soares’ TV talk show in 1991, Waldo Vieira declared that “the main objective of the organization is to increase the proportion of the population with psychic awareness” (Vieira 1991). He estimates that 1% of human beings are aware of their out-of-body experiences. Projectiologists also explain that OBEs are a ‘physiological function’, for everyone leaves the body even if unconsciously. In a step further, they suggest that OBEs can be voluntarily induced by means of ‘techniques’ (similar to meditation, relaxation and 348 anthony d’andrea visualization exercises). At a normative level, Vieira and his colleagues add that to experience the ‘multidimensional reality’ with ‘rationality’ and ‘cosmoethic’ is highly beneficial to one’s ‘consciousness evolution’. By becoming cognizant of spiritual realities, the person ‘speeds up their evolution’ towards higher levels of self-awareness, emotional balance and psychic control. At this point, as it can be recurrently seen, the interviewee scales down any further elaborations in order to not convey proselytism or enter polemical grounds. As explained in advanced classes (but rarely on mainstream media), the process of self-development takes place over the course of innumerous lifetime cycles (reincarnation) gradually but inexorably moving towards a state of full awareness. This is a permanent Buddha- like state which Vieira has termed ‘serenity’. He claims that only a handful of human beings (alive or in spirit) have achieved this state. These ‘serenões’ or ‘homo sapiens serenisimus’, as Vieira calls them, monitor and influence world issues with their extraordinary psychic powers, altruistically yet anonymously. As he is regularly inquired, Vieira remarks that, although serenity is his favorite research topic, he is not a serenão and that only rarely he comes across such magnificent entities during his OBEs. Most people stand anywhere within the range of ‘pré-serenismo’, or humanly states. As a remedy to the obviously fantastic nature of such statements, Projectiologists evoke rationality and empiricism as guiding remedies. In every lecture, the Socratic motto is repeated: “Do not believe in anything, have your own experiences.” As they emphasize, the spiritual world must be experienced (by means of OBE ‘projective’ skills) and ultimately confirmed at a personal level. Such claims resonate with the widely popular valuation of ‘experience’ over ‘orthodoxy’ which became a basic trait of contemporary religious practice in the wake of the 1960s cultural upheaval (Luckmann 1991; Bellah 1979, 1985). Projectiologists place great emphasis on exercising one’s psychic and psychological skills as means to produce OBEs. Nevertheless, most Projectiologists present limited psychic and intellectual skills comparatively to Vieira’s authoritative charisma. The resulting picture is that of a subcultural community that is paradoxically rationalist yet totally dependent on its leader’s authority. Its ethos is thus significantly influenced by a view of spirituality that seeks to empower the individual through a rigorous instrumental rationality, but at levels that promote a suspicious, even cynical take towards outside society, its emotional sociabilities, and mundane pleasures. While informing the life conduct of Projectiologists, these cosmological guidelines are also ingrained in the daily administrative life of the IIPC the niche globalization of projectiology 349 network at multiple levels: from modes of interpersonal interaction and organizational culture, to strategic planning and decision making. Offices are orderly and functional with a predominance of classic décor and white clothing, evoking a neutral, sterile and thaumaturgical ambience, as visitors may report relaxing sensations of wellbeing. At the entry hall of a typical office, the institutional logo (a yellow body sliding diagonally from a vertical body in black) is displayed by a board featuring schedule of events, announcements and taglines promoting Projectiology’s core notions of ‘awareness’, ‘reason’, ‘evolution’, ‘self-improvement’, etc. Work in the IIPC network is carried out by a contingent of volunteers. They are predominantly white, middle-class, college-educated or college students, individuals who often report psychic experiences ranging from one-time involuntary OBEs, up to dramatic life upheavals or ‘spiritual emergencies’ (Grof and Grof 1990). Volunteers must follow a few administrative directives, such as spending at least one full day in the organization each week. No one is remunerated monetarily, with the exception of a few full-time receptionists and two teachers (one in Brazil, the other in Europe). Legal, accountancy and IT services are provided pro bono by a variety of sympathizers across an informal network overflowing the institution. As its leadership states, the bond between the individual and the organization must be ‘conscious and not material’ or otherwise risk tarnishing the ‘energetic-spiritual balance’ highly cherished by the group. Their motivation in dedicating free time to the IIIPC is propelled by their hope to accel- erate their personal and spiritual capabilities: to ‘evolve faster’ as a recurring trope in their discourses and intentions. As time passes by, they may report to be developing some sensitive skills or experiences. Overall, they believe that such psychic experiences may help illuminate some invisible aspect of their life trajectory in grand terms, disclosing unknown, deeper meanings in their existence. Moreover, they wish to be assisted by advanced spirits that assist the IIPC network ‘energetically’ from the spiritual side. In their search for such invisible clues and connections, some Projectiologists manifest a compulsive orientation toward referring every action, thought or interaction to a superior causality (located in the spiritual world). This attitude exemplifies a type of cognitive behavior termed ‘primitive thought’ in anthropology, a holistic thought-pattern rooted in magic causality, frequently as a response to anxieties derived from unpredictable environments in nature or society (Levi-Strauss 1962). When ‘primitive thought’ is replicated at a group level, much of what happens in the IIPC network is believed to be predicated in a dual physical- spiritual hierarchy. This idea is regularly evoked to validate organizational 350 anthony d’andrea decisions, to answer questions of causality, and even to diffuse dissent. Volunteers seen as possessing superior psychic skills will inadvertently draw higher ground in the organizational dynamic. As a way to mitigate tensions and improve group dynamic, meetings involving volunteers have played an important role in the daily life of the organization. Beyond administrative issues, these meetings contribute to socialization and conformity processes. In this light, any fractional proclivity in the IIPC is merely performatic, as Vieira’s leadership, claims and thinking are never questioned. Schematically, the IIPC displays a societal and a communal function: while providing formal teaching services to external audiences (societas), it also cultivates its own identity to internal audiences (comuni- tas) by means of consensus, conformity and even outbound dissent. In this section, we examined how cosmological beliefs engender a certain ethos that affects daily life in the IIPC network. The limits of science to address intangible experiences are compounded by Projectiologists’ own psychic limitations as well as by Vieira’s excessively iconoclastic attitude. Despite the rhetoric on rationalism and experience, they rely on Vieira as the main source of spiritual information and moral guidance. Having assessed main mechanisms, patterns and effects involved in its internal dynamic, the point then is to examine how this parascientific cosmology informs organizational growth strategies in foreign contexts where the tenets of Brazilian Spiritism are unrecognized.

From Ipanema to China: Spaces, Channels, and Barriers to Projectiology

Place and architecture play an important role in the life of religions, expressing their spatial projection under cosmological representations that grant meaning to the communities they represent. Associations between space and spirituality are particularly important to parasciences and other spiritual groups, because they reinforce the social status, values and aspirations of practitioners, while also engendering singular valuations and even perceptions of space and time. In our case study, these representations over space inform how Projectiologists shape the physical spaces they inhabit, and account for the trajectory of individuals, groups and even nations. Projectiologists claim that one’s personality and psychic pursuits can be influenced by the physical and spiritual properties of the surrounding environment, its history and ecology that impregnate the site with a the niche globalization of projectiology 351 specific ‘energetic imprint’ which is conducive to certain experiences and behavioral patterns. Beautiful natural settings scarcely populated by peaceful creatures are deemed beneficial for spiritual pursuits, whereas regions and peoples marred in histories of violence correspondingly affect its future inhabitants negatively. Projectiologists remark that such energetic patterns may change over time, according to the presence of new forces and circumstances at play. Inadvertently, when taken too literally, such assumptions may contribute to a sectarian disposition on the part of the believer. Although generally averse to mass gatherings and promiscu- ous sociability, Projectiology leader Waldo Vieira has historically valued the city as a catalyst of self-development due to its density of human interactions and experiences enabling one to ‘evolve faster’ – a recurrent trope throughout this chapter. As he regularly admonished during his lectures in Rio: “It is easy to meditate alone in the mountain. Try to do that in a city. That’s the real forefront of evolution, where you can really test and expand your existential abilities way faster.” He reminisced about his upbringing in a rural area in the state of Minas Gerais, loathing it as materially and culturally backward. In contrast, he enthused about the cosmopolitan diversity of experiences enabled in a big city, particularly as he resided in Ipanema (uptown neighborhood in Rio de Janeiro), where he practiced as a cosmetologist physician until early retirement in the late 1970s. Nevertheless, the big city also imposed some negative challenges to the spiritual aspirations of Projectiologists. Originally IIPC was headquartered in noble neighborhoods of Rio de Janeiro, but the perceived decline in the quality of life in that city (with problems of criminality, corruption, stress, urban violence, etc.) gradually led the group to reconsider moving to a different region. The opportunity arose when an affluent sympathizer donated a 22,500 square-meter land plot in Iguassu Falls to the organization. A tourist region in the Brazil-Argentina-Paraguay tri-national border, Iguassu is renowned for its beautiful natural landscapes. Though somewhat tarnished by cross-border smuggling issues, its problems were indeed quite modest when compared to Rio’s felt ‘urban chaos’. In 2002, Vieira and several Projectiologists moved to the recently opened Center of Higher Studies of Conscientiology (CEAEC), and since then a community of over 500 people from around the country grew in the area that was officially renamed Cognópolis. According to inside estimates, around the year 2010, there were about 60 psychologists, 40 physicians, 30 engineers, 15 lawyers, 15 administrators, and 15 biologists living in Cognópolis, indicating relatively high levels of education among Projectiologists, seen by 352 anthony d’andrea the group as an expression of its intellectual skills applied to spiritual questions. Since the mid 1990s, IIPC (and later the IAC) has been opening branches throughout Brazil and other countries (Argentina, USA, Portugal, Spain, England, Italy, Angola, etc.). These typically are small and modestly maintained offices, opened by dedicated volunteers who have often relocated due to a combination of family, professional and spiritual decisions. Advertised via direct mail, word-of-mouth and limited publicity, IIPC offices offer workshops, classes and books generating enough income to cover operational costs. Week-long or weekend classes may typically hold from 10 to 20 students, special lectures may attract any number between 20 and 200 people, and international events may gather several hundred Projectiologists. The small scale of its operations and audience sizes does not seem to bother Projectiologists. Quite the contrary, it is seen as an indication that high quality is being met. Beyond this basic profiling, it is important to understand how the transmission of this parascience actually takes place in foreign lands. Interactions between Projectiologists and local students provide an interesting window into the topic. As evinced in ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Spain and USA, local students bring their own notions and expectations about the spiritual, in ways that do not fully resonate with the Brazilian spiritual imaginary (e.g., communication, influence and hierarchy of spirits). They are often familiar with basic notions of parapsychology, occultist or New Age systems, but only a few convey a more systematic account about the spiritual. Most are self-identified as newcomers timidly exploring the spiritual field, usually motivated by some odd experience or, still, the realization of one’s own mortality. As illustrated by a Projectiology teacher,

When they come to us, it is not in the vacuum, because they have already had some experience or were involved with some group in their past. Our difficulty lies more in explaining the range of psychic phenomena through the multi-dimensional paradigm of Projectiology and Conscientiology. This can be overwhelming to them, so we have to slow it down.

This observation is confirmed by international students: “It is a lot of information to be absorbed but gradually it starts to make sense. Several Projectiology claims make sense as plausible and, at the very least, are quite rational.” The challenge for teachers in these cross-cultural settings lies less in describing psychic phenomena under individualist notions of spiritual development, but rather in ensuring that Projectiology may be internalized the niche globalization of projectiology 353 as the general language for understanding and navigating the spiritual world. As an illustration of translation efforts that are required in the process, although notions of ‘self-development’ are ingrained elements of Western culture, Projectiology teachers must be skillfully when tying it to the category of ‘evolution’ as a teleological, linear and multi-episodic narrative by which self-development is understood. As a solution, they make tangential references to international celebrities of quantum physics, parapsychology and New Age thought (Stanley Krippner, Robert Monroe, Charles Tart, Stanislav Grof, Fritjof Capra, Stephen Hawking, Lobsang Rampa, Carlos Castañeda, etc.). Mentioning these popular views of spirituality seem to help as provisional steps toward more complex teachings of Projectiology that integrates Spiritism and positivism. The question, therefore, is to what extent this pedagogic strategy is effective and, in the eyes of Projectiologists, satisfactory enough for engendering a comprehensive understanding – and internalization – of Vieira’s Projectiology by foreign audiences. At the organizational level, even as internationalization is stamped on its brand name, there is little strategic or investment planning in the transnational growth of the IIPC. Historically, initial explorations took place in Argentina during the early 1990s facilitated by Vieira’s former contacts from this time as an independent researcher. Later on, US offices were opened by an American-Brazilian couple relocating from Rio de Janeiro. Branches in UK, Spain and Italy were then opened by Brazilian dual- citizens helped by local contacts. As a general pattern, such outreach initiatives are prompted by the will of trusted individuals who propose the possibility to the IIPC leadership. As migrant teachers, they must test foreign grounds, delivering lectures and workshops, escalating up to the opening of a permanent branch. A few become ‘itinerant instructors’, regularly traveling to attend to IAC duties. In any case, a formalized top-down systematic approach for international growth is rarely, if ever, the case. This rather contingent approach is, in part, a response to economic constraints faced by the organization; nevertheless, cosmological beliefs also play a role on how the IIPC/IAC seizes expansion opportunities. Pro jectiologists hold a paradoxical view of evolution: though it is a universal capacity of all living creatures (humans, animals and spirits), the general population is not interested in disciplined efforts to engage with the spiritual truths and techniques availed by Conscientiology. Agreeing with the New Age criticism, they blame mainstream religion, politics, materialism, pop entertainment and psychological inertia for prolonging the disjuncture between humanity and spiritualism. Tautologically, Projectiologists point at IIPC’s slim audiences as a proof of such apathy. 354 anthony d’andrea

Yet, they also oppose populist proposals to adapt the parascience to the general population. Though occasionally giving press interviews, Vieira vehemently opposes pedagogic simplification. He indicates that his focus lies on refining a technical science of the consciousness, not its popularization per se. The hermetic terminology he incessantly multiplies over the years creates additional difficulties to newcomers, and is deemed by some an unnecessary, even preposterous exaggeration. Moreover, his elitist statements give strength to this sectarian bent: “I am not interested in the masses of people. I only compromise with the consciously aware minority.” As it is here implied, this special minority is comprised of Projectiologists and other individuals experiencing OBE-induced spiritual awakenings. Even the exceptional plan for a nationwide TV advertising had the fundamental goal of reaching a very small number of geographically scattered individuals deemed spiritually ready for embracing Conscientiology. Whether as a cause or a consequence of its limited (niche) internationalization, the IIPC leadership has no intention of making efforts to become a popular movement at any level or rate. Animist beliefs also contribute to the limited marketing of the IIPC network. Similarly to the spiritual ecology of location (above outlined), Projectiologists claim that the level of intellectual, spiritual and emotional affinity among individuals may remotely bring them together by means of an ‘energetic’ connection or pull (for discussions about animism, see Levi- Strauss 1962; Durkheim 1912; Mauss 1904). This magnetic affinity can be manifested in the form of improbable coincidences (synchronicity). Projectiologists believe that whenever someone is ready to engage with spiritual matters, he or she is bound to come across with the IIPC. This blend of animism and mysticism does not render marketing communications unnecessary, but retools it as a catalyst for the probabilistic encounter between those individuals in a spiritual search and the community of Projectiologists. Therefore, despite their solipsistic ‘conscious-centric’ ideology, Projectiologists concede that not everything is subject to the willful mastery and control of the individual. There are ‘per-course accidents’, as Vieira puts it, denoting the certain degree of unpredictability involved in the interplay of wills, predispositions and circumstances. Decades prior to emerging as a global economic power, China already was positively valued by Waldo Vieira as the civilization relatively providing the best conditions for spiritual development. He recurrently stated over the years, China has some big problems, with communism and overpopulation. But, generally, it is the civilization that knows most about working with energies the niche globalization of projectiology 355

and serenity matters, with many highly qualified people mastering these issues, because it has been part of their tradition for a very long time. And we have some very good Chinese entities [spirits] here working with us in our assistance group; really very positive energies.

This is no small remark given Vieira’s unapologetic critique of virtually any historical celebrity, group, religion or nation he is regularly queried about. His notions about China somewhat resonate with Weber’s classical essays on religion. Predicated on Confucian values and Taoist practices, Chinese millennial civilization is characterized by a basic orientation towards orderly universal balance and temperate wisdom, encompassing (though not unproblematically) the magic manipulation of cosmic forces (Weber 1911). As Vieira and Projectiology psychics have noted, these Chinese mandarin-styled entities provide ‘energetic support’ to the spiritual practices regularly conducted by Projectiology teachers and students in the premises of the IIPC network. According to Vieira, these Chinese-looking spirits are very influential, for they have spent several past lives reincarnat- ing in China where they honed powerful skills on energy manipulation and healing. In several occasions, Vieira has discretely indicated his intention to reincarnate in China in his next life. In fact, he has personally paid for the translation of Projectiology (1986) into Mandarin, and sent two thousand free copies of the book to main libraries in China. In addition to bringing a ‘leading-edge neo-science’ to Chinese audiences, this editorial endeavor fits Vieira’s own personal goals, as he expects to come across this book in a future life, helping him to recall his spiritual trajectory sooner in life. This project anteceded the widespread commercialization in Brazil of the Internet, a technology that Vieira has been ambivalent about. Whether or not the book has reached Chinese libraries, it can be speculated that future generations of Projectiologists will be tempted to locate Vieira reincarnated as a Chinese student of Projectiology, in a fashion perhaps resembling the traditional Dalai Lama identification protocol. Given the relevance of China since Projectiology has formed in the mid 1980s, it is somewhat surprising that an IIPC/IAC branch has not been opened in that country as of early 2010s. Besides the book initiative, institutional efforts to take Projectiology to Asia have been quite slim. As noted, Vieira believes in the providential appearance of volunteers who propose taking Projectiology overseas. In line, a couple of ‘itinerant teachers’ residing in New York obtained permission from the Chinese government 356 anthony d’andrea to deliver lectures, which have been more recently repackaged within cultural exchange seminars in tourist fashion. From the online videos available, these were lectures delivered to an apparently homogeneous, predominantly male audience of around 100 people. The communication was facilitated by an English-Chinese interpreter in a formal yet modest setting. Comparatively, these seminal efforts are not unlike international tours of Asian gurus across Western societies, precariously interpreted events symbolically expressing a sincere intention and curiosity rather than an effective instance of substantive debate. Language barriers may also hinder the dissemination of Projectiology at some level, as currently no Projectiologists speak fluent Chinese, and the mostly Brazilian teachers are not quite fluent in oral or written English. Yet, translation is not only about speech but primordially involves a semantic and cultural process. Despite the popularization of paranormal and New Age since the 1970s, Projectiology teachers are thoughtful when communicating with foreign audiences. Adopting a tactic often seen in various spiritualist groups, they avoid lecturing on religiously sensitive topics (e.g., reincarnation or mediumship) in public appearances and introductory lectures. As observed in introductory videos aimed at American, Japanese and Chinese audiences available at YouTube as well as in classes I attended in Spain and Brazil, Projectiology teachers focus on descriptive aspects of psychic phenomena, such as body sensations, mind states and sensorial exercises, and often refer to basic parapsychology and psychology scholarship. As tropes of ‘energy’, ‘experience’ and ‘self-development’ have wide currency in Western societies, they also abound in Projectiology speeches, resulting in a more amenable approach for attracting and engaging foreign students. Conversely, whereas New Age systems are highly malleable to suit local needs and commoditization processes, Projectiology seems way less flexible to adaptation. This is only partly related to Vieira’s criticism of mainstream society, but also stems from Projectiology’s own internal ideological structure tightly binding notions from medium spirituality, positivist doctrine and therapy culture. Two examples may illustrate how challenging the work of translation is for Projectiology teachers operating in foreign environments. Although the notion of ‘serenity’ has a commonsensical understanding, its Projectiological definition presupposes familiarity with notions of reincarnation, evolutionism and animism, merged in ways that are very unique comparatively to the mainstream religious landscape. Similarly, the concept of ‘self-development’, which has become a hegemonic tenet of wok and life in modern societies, is seen in Projectiology as the niche globalization of projectiology 357 a proxy of ‘evolution’, a linear, measurable and cumulative eschatology of spiritual progress linked with a supernatural claim of reincarnation. Thus, while central for Projectiologists, Kardecist Spiritists and New Agers alike, notions of ‘serenity’ and ‘evolution’ are enmeshed in a singular web system of meanings whose acceptance require a considerable interpretive effort on part of new audiences, or otherwise risk a fragmented and superficial grasp of this parascience, broken into discrete practices and ideas. Teachers are thus faced with a dual challenge: adapting a singular spiritual worldview (which they see as natural) to foreign audiences while maintaining its internal coherence as forged by Waldo Vieira. The cultural globalization of Projectiology, therefore, unfolds between two opposite extremes. In one pole, there is the proficient conversion of Brazilian migrants to the systematic view of Projectiology, because, although residing overseas, they have been primarily socialized in a national culture that takes for granted spiritual communication as an ordinary aspect of reality (Damazio 1994; Velho 1994). In the other extreme, there is the fractured appropriation of Projectiological bits and pieces by foreign individuals whose interests, needs and worldviews are shaped by diverse cultural, religious and material backgrounds. In the middle-ground and comprising a wide palette of possibilities, Projectiology students demonstrate a prior familiarity with OBE/NDE phenomena and use their intellectual skills to learn and rethink parascientific systems in ways that actually broaden their horizon of experience. It is worth noting that OBE is not a Projectiological invention but has become a regular feature of popular imaginary and experience in contemporary societies. Future research can thus compare how subjects that undergo such psychic experiences actually signify spiritual-positivistic discourses, such as those of Projec tiology and Kardec Spiritism, when socialized in cultures that have largely ignored these. The presence of foreigners in the ranks of a parascience provides an interesting topic of research, and can be here suggested for future studies. In the case of Projectiology, the very few present ones may seem to enjoy a relatively distinct status, which derives less from the common hospitality that post-colonial subjects typically dispense to metropolitan visitors, and more from the need that Projectiologists have in verifying the universality and instrumentality of OBE phenomena. To date, there are no Chinese Projectiologists in the IIPC network, but it can be hypothesized that their presence would be highly valued (perhaps anxiously so) due to the positive assessment that Projectiologists confer to that millennial civilization. 358 anthony d’andrea

Conclusion: National Cosmologies and Transnational Possibilities

The primary audience of Projectiology is the 1% of the general population who, according to Projectiologists, can vividly recall an out-of-body experience; still, Projectiology could be very appealing to anyone interested in parascientific approaches to the paranormal and spirituality. However, its modest growth as indicated in basic stats does not indicate that Projectiology is arising as a ‘natural’ or ‘obvious’ explanation of the spiritual world. Much of Waldo Vieira’s popularity is circumscribed to Brazil, and significantly stems from his period as a medium writer during the 1960s Spiritist movement. This past attribute could have been successfully capitalized under a different organizational model. As seen, based on quantitative and discursive indicators, Projectiology does not manifest expansionary drives such as those found in popular parascientific groups, such as Neuro-Linguistic Programming, Transcendental Meditation, Osho Meditation or Scientology (D’Andrea 2007, 2006; Urban 1996). In outlining its trajectory ‘from Ipanema to China’ as our basic refrain, we examined how the cosmology and ethos of Projectiology shape the practices and strategies of the IIPC network. On the one hand, its organizational planning is formal and jargon-ridden, expressing efforts to emulate science and professionalism. On the other, its outreach strategies are conservative and opportunistic, based on individuals who willfully volunteer to take Projectiology overseas. The small scale of operations is only partly related to financial or linguistic barriers, but also stems from elitist assumptions Projectiologists hold toward society. While claiming that OBEs and spiritual evolution are universal human features, they maintain that only a minority of special individuals are interested in such an effortful, disciplined and rational approach to spirituality. In addition to organizational and idiosyncratic factors, Projectiology’s moorings in Brazilian national religious contexts represent another major constraint upon its internationalization. Although the paranormal has been gaining visibility and even acceptance in global pop culture, the markedly Kardecist-like dispositions of core Projectiologists lead them to naturalize a cosmological view that is very specific to certain segments of the Brazilian middle class in its struggles for modernization throughout history. As seen, this form of spiritual positivism does not seem to be easily adaptable to just any other international culture indistinctively. Yet, although rejecting proactive marketing techniques, Projectiology teachers emulate a common pedagogic practice of not discussing polemical topics during public or introductory encounters. the niche globalization of projectiology 359

While ‘projectability’ operates as its practical category, ‘conscious evolution’ stands as the fundamental tenet of Projectiology, or, paraphrasing Max Weber, the ‘irrational core’ that structures this cosmological rationalization meaningfully (1905: 52). Projectiologists seek to maximize their performance and rewards toward higher levels of spiritual awareness, emotional balance and psychic power. Speed is particularly important, as ‘to evolve faster’ is an expression recurrently heard across the IIPC network. In valuing change over permanence, Projectiology expresses middle-class aspirations for legitimizing autonomous individualism in an age of modern compression, as the myth of the self-made person reflects the paradoxical social construction of idiosyncrasy (Russo 1993; Bourdieu 1979). All in all, nothing is as modern as the accountancy-like rationality of karma, often translated as a mathematical calculation of the vicissitudes of life: “The most formally perfect solution to the problem of theodicy is the Indian doctrine of ‘karma’, the so-called belief in the transmigration of souls. The world is an ethical cosmos of uninterrupted retribution [by which] the individual is responsible for creating its own destiny” (Weber [1913]: 354–5). In technocratic societies, this rationalization is epitomized in measurement constructs, such as Vieira’s ‘conscienciograma’ (1996), a structured questionnaire for quantifying one’s spiritual evolution in terms of ‘cons’ (‘units of consciousness measurement’). Despite the universalistic claims of instrumental rationality, the expansion of Projectiology has been characterized by very specific modes of interaction in quite localized socio-cultural sites. These are groups of expa- triates, occultist experts, university students, psychologists and therapists, quite often individuals with an interest in psychic experiences who demonstrate some knowledge of parapsychology and New Age spiritualities. The patterns of dissemination identified in Projectiology outreach efforts overseas are quite different than the homogenization processes involving mass conversion to a material or ideological commodity as often proclaimed about globalization. Instead, they involve very specific audiences, channels and translation efforts configuring a type of specialized diffusion that I have here termed niche globalization. Future studies about the growth of Projectiology and other parascientific and new spiritual groups should consider examining the impact of physical and digital mobility on organizational practices, structures and strategies. The recent boom of Projectiology materials in digital media (websites and social media) would, at least theoretically, dispense with the financial and logistical burden of managing a number of physical offices around the world. The ‘itinerant’ model of nomadic teacher, delivering events as needed, seems to be working as a cost-effective manner to 360 anthony d’andrea promote Projectiology internationally. Despite post-9/11 surveillance and environmental costs, air travel is expected to continue trend upwards in years, even decades to come. Due to their relatively high levels of education, professional skills and support networks, Projectiologists seem to enjoy favorable conditions to move internationally. In the digital realm, the adaptation of Internet resources to local and global audiences is a point to be considered. Most online materials of Projectiology are provided by Brazilians in Portuguese (or highly-accented English). But beyond language, the possibility of striping, tweaking or calibrating Projectiology’s harsher moralist, nativist (made in Brazil) and positivist edges is a point which future generations of Projectiologists may need to confront. Increased digitalization and mobility have not dispensed with spatial concentration, and, in some cases, are promoting it, as paradoxically detected by globalization studies (Florida 2008; Massey 2007; Sassen 2006; Beaverstock 2005). ‘Global cities’ are a striking example of how certain urban centers have harnessed major command-and-control functions of the global economy, thus attracting dynamic groups of people: executives, artists, students, tourists and migrant workers (Hannerz 1996). In this context of increased mobility and concentration, Projectiologists need to make decisions about where to work, live and teach (Florida 2008). In line with the niche globalization of Projectiology examined throughout this chapter, the IIPC network is already moderately expanding across a few dynamic urban centers which are, in turn, connected with pleasant campus-like amenities in the periphery. This spatial arrangement seems to provide desirable conditions for the immersive practice and research of Projectiology, and is also found in other gentrified spiritual groups, such as Siddha Yoga and Osho Meditation (D’Andrea 2007). This is very much aligned to the tastes and needs of a new middle class of knowledge and creative professionals caught in between secular and spiritualist trends. In ethical or commodity forms, there seems to be a demand for hybrids of self- spirituality and human development strategies that may add value, plea- sure and meaning to their lives.

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Alberto Groisman

Introduction

This chapter retakes the central ideas of a paper I presented at the 30th Conference of the International Society for the Sociology of Religion in Santiago de Compostela (Spain) in July 2009. It expands the analysis of the social and cosmic dimensions of a process of ‘re-ritualization’ in urban- industrial societies, inspired by the knowledge of ‘traditional populations.’ Originally, my aim was to show how humor and creativity, as relational artifacts (Groisman 2006), may provide what I am calling ‘keys’ to deal with cross-cultural difficulties in contemporary multicultural contexts. I follow Geertz’s (1978) notion of culture as a symbolic system that organizes and regulates cognition, and orients human action. In this sense, I regard ‘frontiers’ in cultural terms, as those interlocutory-relational limits people from different backgrounds encounter and need to overcome to promote the free flow of their social and cosmic relations. The ‘global’ expansion of the so-called Brazilian Ayahuasca Religions2 offers an instructive case study of cultural-boundary negotiation in multicultural contexts. The presence of these religious systems in many different countries enables us to explore the role of religion, particularly of ritual, in

1 This a second revised and expanded version of a paper originally presented to the 30th Conference of the International Society for the Sociology of Religion, Santiago de Compostela (Spain), July 27–31, 2009, with the title ‘Jocosity and creativity as strategies to turn off boundaries in a Ayahuasca Religion’. The first revised version of that paper became an article entitled ‘Cosmic and Comic: jocosity and creativity as strategies to turn off boundaries in a Ayahuasca Religion in The Netherlands’, published in Religie en Samenleving, v. 5, p. 54–72, 2010. 2 There are Santo Daime-CEFLURIS organized groups in Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, US, Canada, The Netherlands, UK, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Germany, Belgium, France, Italy, Japan, Israel. Organized groups of União do Vegetal are in Brazil, US, UK, and Spain. 364 alberto groisman transcultural communication. I regard ritual language, in the terms Douglas (1976) defined ritual, as a special communicative device that permits participants to access and express contents of social and cosmic relations which cannot be expressed in another way. In this chapter, I will not tackle issues such as rite as performance, ritual efficacy, rite as agency, complexity, embodiment, and reflexivity, because I would like to focus primarily on providing a textured ethnography of role of religion and culture in the negotiation of alterity. My analytical framework has jocosity, creativity, humor, and charisma as its central themes. Many in religious studies have not considered dynamic aspects of participants’ lives that do not fit the ‘religious representations’ model. This model takes theological discourse as the only legitimate source of analysis. In contrast, I take jocosity and the search for a ‘culturally localized knowledge’ as part of the language of rite and as a strategy to relativise expectations and conditionings and improve experience. While endeavoring to teach/learn Santo Daime rituals, the participants in my case study had to resort to what they understood ‘Brazilian culture’ to be. This chapter’s epistemological thrust is to deconstruct the need for a circumscribed and unified analytical framework that makes religion an autonomous reality in favor of an open search to understand the Others’ experiences in their own terms. Therefore, if enjoyment or native hermeneutics seem to motivate participants, these have become fundamental concepts in my analytical framework. By using classical authors such as Mary Douglas, Victor Turner and Clifford Geertz, I hope to implicitly criti- cize religious studies’ lack of attention to the everyday life of participants of religious systems. Although some authors consider religious experience as performance, they mostly focus on discourse, representation, and structure, as if these were enough for an understanding of phenomena associated to praxis. In this context, creativity is considered a kind of ‘charismatic strategy of domination,’ an understanding derived from a creative reading of Max Weber. In particular, I follow Victor Turner, perhaps one of the first researchers to situate creativity as a phenomenon which emerges from an explicit or implicit resistance to convention. I believe the ethnographic events presented here are representative of the need to have a more open approach, such as the one Turner developed, which considers the participants ways of dealing with a globalized society legitimate. Therefore, this chapter aims not so much to build a systematic analytical framework, but to inscribe these events in something other than the so-called ‘new religious movements’, which I do not find productive. transcultural keys 365

To develop my approach, I will analyze two Santo Daime ‘works’ (ritual meetings) I witnessed in the Netherlands during fieldwork for my PhD dissertation. Between 1997 and 1998, I collected data in three regions of The Netherlands, in Den Haag (The Hague), Amsterdam and Alkmaar. I participated in religious services, followed the daily life of Daime practitioners and conducted interviews in each Santo Daime church. I focused on the construction and maintenance of orthodoxy (cf. Groisman 2000), especially with the intention of ‘preserving’ Santo Daime ideo-cosmology and liturgy from their particular perspective, and as manifested in particular styles of ritual performance. I set up this field research in 1995, when I met two Dutch daimistas, Hans and Gerard, in the Santo Daime church of Florianópolis, Céu do Patriarca. At that occasion, the receptivity of these two members of Céu dos Ventos – which I will refer in detail later – was very enthusiastic. They were interested in sharing their experience and trajectory, as they sought to gain ‘official’ recognition for Santo Daime in a European country. At that time, they were associated with one of the best known ayahuasca religious organization, CEFLURIS (Centro Eclético de Fluente Luz Universal Raimundo Irineu Serra – Eclectic Center of Fluent Universal Light Raimundo Irineu Serra). CEFLURIS was established by Sebastião Mota Melo, and has its headquarters in the state of Amazonas, Brazil. They were also associated with a branch known as Umbandaime, a line of spiritual work which combines Santo Daime and Umbanda traditions in their ritual and doctrinal activities.3 In a very broad view, Santo Daime is a religious system that emerged in the beginning of the twentieth century in Brazil. In the second part of that century, three different ‘spiritual lines’ working with Daime were established: Alto Santo, Santo Daime-CEFLURIS, and Barquinha. All their ritual services are sustained by the use of a so called ‘psychoactive sacrament’, or entheogen. The word ‘daime’ emerged from the experiences that Brazilians (who were circulating at the borders among Brazil, Peru, and Bolivia in the beginning of the twentieth century) had with the psychoactive beverage known as ayahuasca.4 These loosely-knit groups served as the basis

3 In 1989, Santo Daime-CEFLURIS formally established an alliance with a Umbanda group led by Baixinha, a mãe-de-santo (as the spiritual leaders of Umbanda centers are known). From then on, a segment of Santo Daime started to call itself Umbandaime. Umbandaime, therefore, articulates the ritual use of daime with Umbanda spiritual entities. See Guimarães 1992. 4 Ayahuasca means vine of the souls in Quechua, the idiom traditionally used by indigenous population in South America and particularly in Peru. It is a beverage usually made by indigenous and riverside population in the Amazon. It derives from the ritual preparation of two alkaloid-containing plants, Banisteriopsis caapi and Psychotria viridis. Immemorially, 366 alberto groisman for the emergence of a new collective organization. These groups regard ayahuasca as originating from ‘sacred plants’ that must be treated with respect and used in a ritual context. The generic expression ‘Santo Daime’ became popular when the religious groups which used daime in their rituals expanded to urban Southeast Brazil. Eventually, participants and the media came to use the generic term Santo Daime to refer to the groups whose doctrine and ritual inspiration derived from the experiences of Raimundo Irineu Serra, who systematized the experiences and knowledge of those initial Amazonian groups. Santo Daime’s ritual format was developed primarily under the leadership of Serra (later known as Mestre Irineu). Serra was a descendent of African slaves born in Maranhão, a state of Northeast Brazil. In the period between the 1910 and 1920, Serra went to the Amazon rainforest to work in the occupation and guarding of the Brazilian borders. There he experimented with ayahuasca, and according to oral tradition, ‘received’ from the spiritual plane sacred songs which he called hinos (hymns). From his and others’ experiences, a ritual model developed, which includes collective singing and a synchronized form of dancing, known as bailado. This format, the details of which I will discuss later, has been maintained through decades, with very few modifications made by his followers. One of those followers was Sebastião Mota de Melo, who re-designed the rituals and founded the organization known as Santo Daime-CEFLURIS (Centro Eclético de Fluente Luz Universal Raimundo Irineu Serra). This adaptation sought to open the religious organization, permitting (and perhaps) aiming to gain the adherence of people from different backgrounds. However, despite the modifications, the Santo Daime-CEFLURIS ritual still has the same basic form: members wear ritual uniforms, male and female participants are kept apart, the ritual is considered a spiritual work, and the main activities participants may perform are the singing of hymns, bailado, concentração5 and the use of daime. Santo Daime-CEFLURIS also included cannabis in its plants pantheon from a vision Mota de Melo had. He called cannabis santa maria, as a gendered complement to ayahuasca. The sacraments are used in order to contact the spiritual plane.

local Amazonian population discovered that the preparation of these two plants together produces a very potent substance with psychoactive properties. 5 Concentração (concentration) is a procedure of Santo Daime rituals. It was incorporated to the ritual structure from the relationship daimistas established with Brazilian exo- teric organizations in the 1940s and 1950s, such as the Círculo Esotérico de Centro de Comunhão do Pensamento. transcultural keys 367

In this chapter, I focus on two ritual events I participated in Den Haag (The Hague) and Alkmaar. In both, I noticed the importance of humor, creativity, and the questioning of religious life as constituting legitimate and useful ways to improve social relationships and also of expanding knowledge. I was also able to study religious leadership at work, particularly when it affirmed or challenged common sense statements, as a legitimized way to overcome what I call heuristically ‘idiomatic-cultural’ obstacles or frontiers.

Suspending Formalities: A Way to Explore Ritual and Transcendence?

In his significant contribution to the analytical treatment of ritual, Victor Turner stressed the communicative qualities of the nexus between ritual and transcendence. Turner approached the dynamics of ritual in terms of transformation and drama (1967, 1969). In particular, he recognized the dense role of jocosity in promoting transformation and self-consciousness. Turner also explored the individual’s insertion and positioning in society through the ritual process, and how people dealt with the implications of jocosity. He highlighted the importance of creativity in this process, as pointed out in Lavie et al. (1993). Turner sought out social situations that enhanced human encounters and understanding. He found that a range of ritual processes produced transformations that allowed participants to rework their past and move toward a renewing of their expectations about the future. Furthermore, Turner remolded the case history method central to his school of anthropological thought by developing the concept of ‘social drama’ (Turner 1969). The concept invokes a process of unfolding perspectives of human relations, regarding characteristic phases: breach, crisis, redressive action, and reintegration or schism. As Turner tells it, the notion of social drama came to him not in the serious solitude of his study, but in the jocular give-and-take of conversation in a pub. For Turner the most creative human spaces were on the margins or along interstitial zones; these were sites of frolicking, play and joking, as opposed to those of ear- nest workaday routines. For him – as a person and a theorist – significant human contact and creativity flowed from the margins to the centers more often than the reverse (Lavie et al 1993: 1–2). Following this argument, we can consider that creativity may be associated with a process of suspension of formalities. As defined by Lavie et al. (1993: 1–2), creativity is related to the “human activities that transform 368 alberto groisman existing cultural practices in a manner that a community or certain of its members find of value.” Further, the promotion of transformation, humor, and jocosity may be also relevant in the re-articulation of dispositions, roles, and identities. Except for the classic approach of Marcel Mauss (1979) in treating jocose relations as central in the process of establishing social positioning, social scientists have not given humor sufficient attention. If we consider the relationship between humor and religion, this interest is even rarer. Common sense would tell us that religion implies seriousness, graveness, and pathos. In fact, if we consider the anti-structural role in Turner’s sense (1976), humor and laughter are daily life activities, placed frequently ‘at the margins’ of empirical approaches, which disguise their importance to religious practices, mainly regarding their implications for social positioning and power relations. Importantly, one of the ethnographic events I analyze in this chapter evokes Bakhtin’s brilliant consideration of ritual laughter and the gro- tesque in Rabelais’ times (Bakhtin 1994). Bakhtin argues that laughter rituals, as carnival, are strategies to invert the dense and rigid process of power reinforcing. This power reinforcing dimension is based on events in which pomp and rigidity were fundamental and characteristic elements for legiti- mization. Laughter and humor in general provide counter-weights to that density. However, the inversion which I consider here was not expressed in a ritual diametrically positioned in terms of time and space, but inserted in the formal or ‘official’ ritual process itself, perhaps as a way to express how close the divine is to the ritual. Huizinga’s (1971 [1955]) approach to playing is also relevant here. In contrast to Huizinga’s affirmation that play is a kind of comic and humor exploration with its ludic quality, what I will consider below suggests that creativity and play may not challenge seriousness in social relations, but it provides a sort of intimacy with the divine which strengthens these social relations.

A Note on Humor, Knowledge, and Power Relations

In his book The Name of the Rose (1983), Umberto Eco offers a helpful reflection on humor and religion and their repercussion on power relations. Eco’s narrative presents humor as a threat to faith. In brief, the story tells of a hypothetical possession of the legendary and lost Aristotle’s book on comedy by Benedictine monks in an Italian monastery. A monk commits a series of crimes in his efforts to hide that paradigmatic book because it has power to challenge the seriousness of religious thought. The book is seen by transcultural keys 369 the Church as a threat to Catholic common sense, which stated that Christ had endured pain, abuse, and death for our sins. But was Jesus Christ also not capable of happiness and laughter? According to Eco, the threat of happiness and laughter is so radical that the murderous monk is willing to ‘eliminate’ accumulated knowledge, burning the whole Benedictine monastery’s library rather than letting Aristotle’s book on comedy become popular knowledge. Eco is actually arguing that for some people in power, and in particular to the Medieval Catholic Church establishment, the best way to intercept undesirable or uncontrollable situations is to annihi- late them. Branko Bokun (1986) elaborates further on the role humor may have in social life, particularly to challenge ‘fear and obedience.’ In Bokun’s words, Perhaps, it would be easier to explain the nature of humor if we were first to define the comic. The comic is whatever helps us to liberate ourselves from mind-created fears and worries. Whenever physical laws or cosmic order degrade our mind’s abstractions or beliefs, whenever nature deflates super- nature, whenever reality debases our pretentiousness, capricious expectations, or wishful assumptions, whenever material objectivity brings ethereal subjectivity and its poses, affectations or self-deceptions, to the ground, briefly, whenever our mind’s world is shaken, the comic comes into existence (1986: 43).

This sort of phenomenological approach suggests that comedy is also a way to promote reflexivity, providing a sense of ‘earthiness’ and an affirmation of the flesh, despite its flaws. In other words, comedy and laughter affords the human condition the possibility of self-awareness and affirmation. Max Weber adds another perspective on the theme of power and religion: the concept of charisma. Weber saw the correlation between the sacred and the social as a sort of relationship between a social ‘in need of’ collective self-expression and order. As part and parcel of this need, there is the emergence of charismatic individuals who, powered by their special abilities, establish and conduct religious practices in the context of institutionaliz- ing their power. Weber (1976) associated charismatic phenomena with asceticism and ‘non-rationality’ establishing a sharp analytical frontier between rationality and the attribution of power in religious contexts. While Weber recognized that charisma had a creative aspect and could work as an engine for transformation, most of the scholarly work which followed used the concept of charisma in order to understand maintenance and imposition of religious tradition and domination. Social researchers, even those working on pragmatic Protestant groups, have rarely analyzed the dialectically dynamic relationship between rationality and charisma. 370 alberto groisman

Charisma is usually seen as misguiding, and is rarely taken as a way to negotiate power and social volition. In fact, the emergence of religious practices in the twenty-first century has shown that rationality may not be found in charismatic groups in terms of theological matters. However, the fluidity of social relations in religious contexts motivated by charisma often point to the use of rationality and symbolic negotiation by religious actors, with reciprocity and performance as two sides of the same coin. Religious agents are extremely efficient in their prerogative of animating religious life beyond constructing dominance and dependence, but as a sort of relativization of the monopoly of the sacred. Furthermore, if I question a Weberian statement on the tension between charisma and rationality, my perspective here is to present and discuss the articulation, performance and social relationships involved and expressed among Santo Daime participants in the Netherlands. My approach may contribute to the reflection on ritual performance as a communicative event, which is dynamic and constructive, in terms of a ‘rational’ establishment of sociability and fluidity of social relations. It also aims to consider the expansion, or diasporic dislocation, of Brazilian ayahuasca religions as way of amplifying the possibilities of a mission to disseminate a peculiar point of view about the world which challenges the common sense treatment of transcendence.

Santo Daime Ritual: ‘Design’ and Contextual Dynamics

Any synchronic description of Santo Daime rituals (at least among groups associated with CEFLURIS) has to take into account that contemporary ritual forms are the result of decades of experimentation and openness, in response to Raimundo Irineu Serra’s adoption of Ecletismo Evolutivo (Evolutionary Eclecticism) as a core dimension of the tradition (Groisman 1991). Furthermore, ritual is considered a ‘spiritual work,’ which involves the disciplined performance of activities, such as singing hymns, dancing (bailado), concentrating, and using the psychoactive sacraments, in order to contact the spiritual plane. The ritual format basically seems designed to enable participants to focus on some thematic contents. These contents are taken from the participants’ personal experiences and emotions, for example, a moral reflection, a memory from the past, a revision of a personal act, a bodily perceived event. In turn, these events evoke beings from the spiritual world, a cosmic vision about the nature of existence or about the future transcultural keys 371 of the planet. In general, those themes are stimulated by the performance of singing and the contents of the hymns. The contents, the instructions of the ritual leaders (sometimes called ‘commanders’6) and ‘fiscals’ (people responsible to help, instruct, and organize participants), are expected to follow the guidelines established by tradition and the spiritually developed experts. Thus, relevant and legitimate knowledge is accumulated through experience in the tradition. Individual interpretation is therefore considered valid when it does not threaten tradition and the order of the ritual. The power of religious experts is, in this way, reinforced. The common format of the ritual is a concentric square or hexagon, all participants turned to the center of the place, where a table is placed. This spatial arrangement stimulates mutual comparison and scrutiny. Reinforcing a view of Santo Daime as a spiritual school, rituals are treated as didactic events, in which the rite is an established frame allocated to the learning process. In this sense, the ritual is a space where it is expected that a ‘contact’ with a ‘master,’ or with the teaching and healing spiritual forces may be established to benefit all participants and, by extension, the whole humanity. Santo Daime membership is demarcated by the term fardado(a). Fardado(a) is a term in Portuguese which refers to farda (usually in Brazil to designate military uniform), although Santo Daime liturgical clothes are not military-like. There are two types: one that is white and blue for men and women, and another one for special occasions is white for man, and white and green with a crown (related to the Forest Queen) for women. The use of the term farda is considered a residual influence in the liturgy of the military trajectory of Santo Daime founder, Raimundo Irineu Serra. In the past, Santo Daime members wore signs of their hierarchical position in spiritual terms. However, nowadays, hierarchical positions are expressed in terms of the ritual function and spatial position arranged by the leaders. The arrangement of participants during ritual allows them to share their experiences. In this way, the visible dimension of the ritual works as a reference for the collective performance, and it is a ‘physical’ manifestation of the spiritual forces. In the sacred presence of these spiritual forces and in the sequence of ritual events, a process involving memory, moral values,

6 Some Santo Daime churches resist the use of the word ‘commander’ because it is considered ‘authoritarian.’ 372 alberto groisman social performance, rather the hermeneutics of a solitary elaboration, pre- dominates. Also implied is a conviction about the existence of a totality, formed by humans and divine beings, both of whom are searching for communication and knowledge. In evoking the idea of providing a way to deal with different dimensions of human interaction, the ritual constructs an arena in which, as Douglas (1978) has pointed out, unspeakable things can be expressed. Santo Daime rituals comprise a program of hinários, or specially selected hymns. The hymns are considered to have been received from the spiritual plane, and are treated as sacred songs. They are sung from small books, printed or photocopied. Daimistas are supposed to collect and carry them and may also be expected to have a basic collection of books containing the hinários of the principal leaders (the hinários which are performed in the official dates), and books with a selection of the most frequently performed hymns.7 The hierarchy in the church (and in the ritual) is represented through the positioning of the ritual participants. Those who are placed at the central table or in the front lines are usually those in higher hierarchical position. Another feature of positioning in Santo Daime ritual is the call to direct attention to what is ‘beautiful,’ what is ‘harmonious,’ thus normally it may be only the successful performers, as musicians or singers, who are encouraged to show their skills.8 A good performance can be recognized and fiscals monitor expressions of suffering, divergence or inability to concentrate in order to avoid disturbance of the ritual. Participants usually experience multi-meaning visions and perceptions and the variation of sentiments and moods is considered to have ‘healing effects.’ Participants are expected to deal with unresolved or traumatic memories and subjects, as well as to encounter beautiful visions of divinities, angels, wonderful places, mythical beasts, and guardian spirits. Daimistas attribute this variation to the quality of social and ritual performances, which may interfere in what daimistas, following other religious traditions, call ‘karma.’ In this sense, the effects of the substances and the ritual performance are directly associated as two sides of the experience. They can only be separated for heuristic purposes. The Santo Daime ritual dynamics involve constant shifts in the perspective of participants. People are encouraged to look ‘inside.’ Good control of the experience is given by a ‘right’ preparation for the ritual, which may

7 For example, books with hymns sung in cura works (healing rituals). 8 For example, it is an honor for a visitor from another church, musician or not, to be invited to play or to participate at the central table. transcultural keys 373 include reading or exchanging experiences with other participants. This sharing allows for the establishment of personal contacts and the reciprocal exchange of expertise, creating a whole system of ‘internal’ communication. All participants can be considered ‘performers,’ producing various inputs for the ritual setting. Therefore, the variability of experiences is also the result of different combinations in the perception of these inputs. Daimistas say that ‘each ritual is different.’ Difference is sometimes described didactically by leaders, as a result of the preparation of participants, and their dedication to improving ritual performance. People have to practice the ritual skills, such as singing and dancing, regularly in order to improve performance.9 According to daimistas, a successful ritual performance is one that enables the contact with the spiritual beings who protect, teach, and heal the participants. Thus, improving ritual performance is an issue of self and social control.

Bringing Santo Daime to the Netherlands

Santo Daime was introduced to the Netherlands in the beginning of the 1990s, when the Brazilian Santo Daime organization CEFLURIS started consolidating its international expansion. This expansion started in mid- 1980s, after foreigners went to Acre (in the Amazon) to participate in the ayahuasca services of non-indigenous religious systems. At first, individuals were allowed to organize Santo Daime rituals in the US and in Europe, and later they were allowed to established centers. The first ‘official’ Santo Daime center abroad was established in Boston. However, it was soon closed because of legal problems related to the immigration status of its leader.10 In 1996, Santo Daime-CEFLURIS organized the First European Meeting of Daimista Centers in Gerona, Cataluña. There, European leaders of established groups discussed their situation and established general rules and policies to consolidate the presence of Santo Daime-CEFLURIS in Europe (Groisman 2000). In the Netherlands, one of the Santo Daime pioneers was a Dutch woman who had been diagnosed with a brain tumor and was skeptical about the biomedical possibilities of curing it. While participating in New Age healing activities in the Netherlands, she met an Italian who told her about

9 Churches in Brazil organize ensaios (rehearsals), and the Dutch churches have the introductie avond (introductory evening) or ‘training session’. 10 For more see Groisman and Dobkin de Rios 2007. 374 alberto groisman

Santo Daime. She traveled to Italy and Spain, where she participated of her first Santo Daime services. She then decided to go to Brazil to ask permission to start bringing people together in Amsterdam to share daime. Her initiative gave rise to the Céu da Santa Maria (Heaven of Saint Mary) Santo Daime church of Amsterdam. In parallel, a group of people in Wassenar, who had been involved in alternative therapeutic communities and had been using psychoactive substances in their communal experiences, also learned about Santo Daime. They contacted participants from the Amsterdam group, to organize their own Santo Daime church in Den Haag, which they called Céu dos Ventos (Heaven of the Winds). In the mid- 1990s, a Brazilian daimista, after a vision, decided to move to the Netherlands to found his own church, which later he called Céu da Luz da Floresta (Heaven of the Light of the Forest), in Alkmaar. During the period of my fieldwork, from 1997 to 1998, these three Santo Daime churches were active, promoting their religious services supported by Brazilian instructors, who traveled periodically to the Netherlands to teach and supervise rituals and doctrines. The rituals were performed combining the format that Santo Daime-CEFLURIS had developed during its trajectory as a religious organization and an idiosyncratic approach each church established from the experiences and particular worldviews of its participants (Groisman 2000). Despite these idiosyncrasies, the performance of Santo Daime rituals in the Netherlands has maintained the basic format in terms of its constituent elements - using the sacraments, singing, dancing, praying – but with significant adaptations. Ritual innovation in Santo Daime, however, is not exclusively a matter of religious inspiration, but also an issue of attraction and social inclusion. The more the group can include new elements from different religious traditions, more people are likely to join and find a place within. This is not to say that Santo Daime is a ‘mass religion,’ but even in the small scale of its development, the groups have an inclusive thrust which necessarily leads to internal diversity. Thus, on the one hand, ritual rules and moral codification are applied to establish social order, and promote cohesion; on the other hand, there is the possibility of incorporating local elements. The end result is that Santo Daime presents a consistent strategy to support the expansion of its ‘cultural frontiers’, as newcomers may find a place in the whole set of possibilities. The two events I witnessed in my fieldwork in the Netherlands will illustrate how ritual performance creates the conditions for sharing and promoting social relationships. For each event, I begin by presenting a brief description of the religious groups involved, Céu da Luz da Floresta and Céu dos Ventos, I then will portray in vivid terms what transpired. transcultural keys 375

The Santo Daime Church in Alkmaar: Linking Ritually the ‘Forces of Nature’ with Other Forces

I start with the Céu da Luz da Floresta (CLDF), the Santo Daime church of Alkmaar.11 Most members of the church were residents of the same area of Alkmaar, six of them living close to the CLDF ‘commander,’ a Brazilian from an important daimista family in Brazil, who decided to come to the Netherlands after having a vision (Groisman 2000). He lived in Alkmaar, on the outskirts of the city, near Rekerhout Park, an area crisscrossed by placid and narrow canals. A quiet place, it evokes the contemporary urban design of the periphery of the big cities in Europe: a huge set of patterned houses, surrounding a shopping area, where there are supermarkets, small shops, photo-services, libraries and pharmacies. The name of the church refers to the CLDF commander’s worshipping of the ‘forces of nature,’ frequently mentioned in his narratives, both in rituals and in other meetings, but particularly evoked in his hymns: Viva o Sol, viva a Lua e as Estrelas, viva o Vento, viva a Terra, viva o Mar, viva a Céu da Luz da Floresta e viva Deus eternamente a brilhar (Viva the Sun, viva the Moon, viva the Stars, viva the Wind, viva the Earth, viva the Sea, viva the Light of the Forest, and viva God eternally shining). The name of the church also indicates his relationship with santa maria (as daimistas call and divinize cannabis in their plant pantheon), which is metaphorically mentioned in a Santo Daime hymn for ritual closing, as the ‘light in the forest.’ The church funding, in the end of the 1990s, came from donations and payment of monthly fees (at the time 70 Dutch Guilders for non-fardados and 60 for fardados). The fees were charged at the beginning of rituals.12 The tasks of the church were divided informally. Members were expected to volunteer for the practical arrangements of rituals. The CLDF commander was responsible for the supervision, serving daime and santa maria, and for conducting the ritual. In rituals, his Dutch wife translated his instructions, lectures and jokes, from Portuguese to Dutch and sometimes to English. In the rituals, the Santo Daime hymns were usually sung in Portuguese. The service that I witnessed was the Easter ritual. This CLDF ritual has the same basic elements of all Santo Daime rituals: praying, using daime

11 Alkmaar is on the ‘peninsula’ of Holland, north of Amsterdam and Haarlem. Its population is about 100,000, and it is an urban center serving a region with over 500,000 people. 12 This system of funding is one of the reasons why Céu da Luz da Floresta is not connected formally with CEFLURIS. 376 alberto groisman and santa maria, and singing. It was around five o’clock in the afternoon when I went to the site with a member of the church. On the way, I was told about the difficulty in finding an adequate place to do rituals in that town. Apparently, it was not easy to find a landlord who would provide a space for a religious ritual whose background they did not know, and in which psychoactive substances were used. We arrived on time to see CLDF people starting the construction of the ritual space. The walls were covered with white sheets. The central table with chairs around it was arranged and decorated. The ritual started in the early evening. The rosary (Catholic prayer composed of a set of Ave Maria and the Lord’s Prayer) was recited in Portuguese, with a part in Dutch. After that, CLDF commander positioned himself behind the daime table and his wife started to sing a ‘daime hymn.’13 The hymn says: “O Santo Daime, veja como é, é maravilha para todos tendo fé” (“Santo Daime, see how it is, it is wonderful, for all, who have faith”). Although participants were not fluent in Portuguese, they knew what the hymn was communicating: this is ‘daime time.’ CLDF commander humor- ously scolded those who were not moving by asking them to ‘let go’ of their weakness, laziness and fear. The climate contrasted with the more formal atmosphere of the rituals at other Dutch churches. While people were still drinking daime, the commander announced that the hinário to be sung was ‘by Germano Guilherme’, changing a previous plan. In doing so, he forced people to search for the appropriate book, testing if they had followed his instructions to have all books of hymns on hand. At some moment, the commander announced that this would be a dancing ritual. Concentrating on singing correctly, and in tune, the Dutch participants showed expressions of bewilderment. Eventually, the hesitant music playing and the eloquent singing blended with the firm and repetitive performance of a maracá14 and a tambourine. The periodic percussion suggested an army marching in the battlefield. After the second serving of daime, everybody sat down, the CLDF commander then said in Portuguese: “Agora silêncio que eu vou fazer a ligação com a santa maria” (“Now, silence I will connect with santa maria”). His wife translated it into Dutch. He said again: “Agora silêncio que eu vou tele- fonar prá nós podê pitá, tá?!” (“Now silence, I will phone so that we can smoke, ok?!”) Another instant of tension, then the sound of a telephone

13 The Daime hymns are a set of hymns considered to be directly related to daime itself. This is an arrangement influenced by the expansion of Santo Daime. 14 Maracá is percussion instrument made with a can with metallic spheres which daimistas say sounds like an army marching. transcultural keys 377 ringing is heard. He lit the pito (joint) up and inhaled deeply, laughing. The solemn atmosphere was transformed. People laughed and smiled. Some of the tension dispersed. The pito went around. At some other times during the ritual, the commander repeated his humorous and paradigmatic performance. He was relaxing the serious and grave participants, bringing alegria (happiness) to the ritual. “Viva a santa maria! Viva o padrinho!” He shouted, inviting the others to answer: “Viva!” Suddenly, a sharp strident sound was heard – the smoke alarm. The commander did not lose the opportunity for a joke. He suggested in Portuguese: “Vamos trazer um ventilador prá na hora que tiver pitando tiver direto aí, ou então nós saí pitá noutro canto que não é debaixo!” (“Let’s bring a fan, by the time we smoke it will be switched on, or we have to smoke in another place, which may not be below the alarm”). His irony was quickly understood. His jokes were directed at the person who rented the place. He laughed abundantly and asked a male participant: “Tá com mêdo?” (“Are you afraid?”), and finished: “Homem fraquinho…” (“Weak man!”) His irony and tranquility contrasted with the apprehension of some of the other participants. The alarm sounded loudly. Again, he said ironically: “Sopra aí!” (“Blow it!”). The thirty-first hymn came – O Mestre Que Me Ensina (The Master Who Teaches Me) – the alarm was forgotten and the ritual went on. Like a benign and inexorable whirl, the hymn said: “As portas estão abertas, deste divino poder; Enxerga quem procura, quem não enxerga não vê” (“The doors of this divine power are open; he who searches will see, he who does not search does not find”). A feeling of belonging and complicity marked the scene. Those depressed or excessively concerned with the sacredness of the ritual and the plants or with the risk of a bad experience could relax. The unexpected action of ‘ringing’ santa maria produced relaxation and the feeling of alegria (happiness) the commander was pursuing. Santa Maria should be respected, but with happiness. Viva a Alegria! (Long live happiness!), shouted the commander enthusiastically. A few faces continued to look serious, but the Brazilian commander seemed to be satisfied because he had given his lesson on “santa maria and happiness” successfully. This ritual performance shows that there are moments in which social interaction is focused on instructing people about the parameters of mutual and institutional ‘acceptance.’ This ritual didacticism at same time socializes participants and reinforces the authority of the ritual experts. However, ritual authority is constantly subject of social scrutiny, giving its ‘didactic’ quality a level of imponderability which can prevent leadership from being absolutist. 378 alberto groisman

Céu dos Ventos Church: From Therapeutic Community to a Santo Daime Church

The Den Haag Santo Daime church is called Céu dos Ventos (Hemel der Winden or Heaven of the Winds), and as a civil organization it is called Kerk (church) genootschap (society) Céu dos Ventos – Hemel der Winden. It is also called, as a CEFLURIS affiliated, Centro Eclético de Fluente Luz Universal Osho-CEFLUOSHO (Eclectic Center of Fluent Universal Light Osho). Céu dos Ventos was established as a Santo Daime church in 1995. However, its founding members had congregated for a long time. At the time of my fieldwork, the church was supported by monthly payments from its members, ritual fees paid by non-members and donations. Its bud- get supports basically rituals costs, part of leader’s financial maintenance and travel costs, mainly the costs of the trips of Brazilian Santo Daime representatives to the Netherlands to visit, perform, train, and monitor ritual skills at the local groups. These Santo Daime representatives from Brazil are invited by the local church, or they are sent by the Santo Daime- CEFLURIS leaders. Members or other ritual participants undertake most of the church activities as voluntary work. The official rituals of Céu dos Ventos were performed in the end of the 1990s in Capel, a former ‘abandoned’ church administered by a well-known Christian movement and charity, which rented space for meetings with a general religious inspiration. Most of CDV group’s social dynamic and lifestyle have been consoli- dated by its trajectory as an organized community. The narratives I collected from Céu dos Ventos members showed different dimensions of this process: the construction of a therapeutic and explorative community (cf. Groisman 2001). In this sense, in organizing chronologically the different accounts, in order to establish continuities and particularities of the process, I gather that the group comes from a long-term project of collective living. At the end of the 1980s, the group had a rupture with the Osho movement, which was shortly followed by the death of Osho on January 20, 1990.15 Group members came to know about Santo Daime in 1991, through an interview with Alex Polari de Alverga (a Brazilian SD leader) published in the North American magazine Shaman’s Drum. This magazine was launched towards the end of the 1980s to spread the so-called neo

15 Osho was how Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh was also referred by his disciples. He started a spiritualist movement in India and had a controversial trajectory after moving to USA in the 1980s. See Groisman 2001 for more on this. transcultural keys 379 shamanism. The interview was framed by the appealing assertion that: ‘During an era when destruction of the Amazonian rainforest makes daily newspaper headlines, surprisingly little attention is paid to the rainforest’s magical-esoteric realms. Nevertheless, a small but articulate group of Brazilians believe that the best solution for saving the rainforest lies within the magic of its strongest medicine and purest essence – Santo Daime’ (Shaman’s Drum, 1991:30). Gary Dale Richman, the interviewer, defined Santo Daime as a new shamanistic religion. In his introduction, Richman summarized his view on the SD doctrine:

By championing ways of living in harmony with the rainforest and encouraging an appreciation for the ecological and ethnobotanical knowledge of the Amazon’s ancient shamanic traditions, the Santo Daime Doctrine may help preserve both the rainforest and her inhabitants. As a continuation and evolution of these shamanic traditions, the Santo Daime Doctrine offers living proof of the ancient wisdom inherent in the region’s indigenous cultures. In these times when drug abuse has become rampant in most societies, undermining community morals, ethics, and heath, the Santo Daime Doctrine offers a message that certain natural sacraments, or psychoactive substances – when properly used, as in the shamanic traditions – not only encourage high moral standards but can actually help people end drug abuse (Shaman’s Drum 1991: 30).

The idea of ‘living in harmony with the rainforest’ and preserving ‘ecological and ethnobotanical knowledge of the Amazon’s ancient shamanic traditions’ had a strong appeal to those Dutch citizens who were participating in New Age circuit exploring Osho’s dynamic meditation and looking for more secure ways to use psychoactive substances, or ‘natural sacraments’ as mentioned, for therapy and spiritual development. In 1993, when a group of them went to the fiftieth anniversary of LSD discovery conference in San Francisco, USA, they met a German daimista, who had a SD group in Stuttgart. He introduced them to the SD religion, and invited them to come to Germany to participate in the rituals. Although not a unanimous collective decision, the idea of ‘prospecting’ Santo Daime was a consensus. Therefore, a group went to Germany and participated in a few rituals. The tales of the trip to Germany sparked the interest of other members, and although not completely convinced about Santo Daime, they agreed to go on with this project because of personal curiosity, but also as a search for new relationships and forms of maintaining and sustaining the group collectively. An opportunity to contact Brazilian SD representatives to discuss their engagement was arranged in a trip to Spain, when a Brazilian comitiva (group) was performing rituals. 380 alberto groisman

The story behind the foundation of Céu dos Ventos as a Santo Daime church points to the existence of a segment of the population in contemporary urban-industrial societies which is consistently interested in exploring globally ‘new approaches’ to ‘spiritual development,’ ‘self-awareness,’ and ‘cosmic reparation,’ drawing from proliferating spirituality-focused networks (cf. Groisman 2007). This search may be seen as a response to the desire to preserve the planet in its symbolic and environmental dimensions. It is also inspired by a ‘more symmetrical’ – in the sense of pursuing ethical principles like fairness and reciprocity – appropriation of the so- called ‘indigenous knowledge’ from remote parts of the planet.

Mamãe Jurema: Interrogation and Symbolic Exploration

Céu dos Ventos leaders planned periodical sessions to practice and consolidate their knowledge of what they view as ‘traditional’ Santo Daime. This, in turn, would allow the group to participate more actively in the Santo Daime network and improve their ritual skills. In these sessions, participants were encouraged to learn the exact pronunciation of Portuguese key- words in order to and sing Santo Daime hymns properly. Leaders went as far as sometimes interrupting the singing to discuss the meaning of the lyrics, stressing what they heard from Brazilians: the hymns are a ‘calling’ of the invisible forces or energies of the Cosmos that can transmit knowledge, power, protection, and health. In one of the ‘practice’ sessions I participated, they sang a hymn which almost all considered particularly beautiful and inspired in musical terms. The hymn was a reference to Mamãe Jurema (Mother Jurema), a spiritual entity from African-Brazilian religions. The lyrics of the hymn are16: MAMÃE JUREMA (Maria Alice) Mamãe Jurema Na cachoeira Lavando as vestes De Oxalá Seu Sete Flechas Seu Pena Verde

16 This hymn is included in the set of hymns received by Baixinha, principal leader of the segment Umbandaime, which articulate Santo Daime and Umbanda traditions, called Hinário de Fé. It also was included with the title ‘Lavando as Vestes’ in the set of hymns which are sung in the ritual session called Mesa Branca de Cura e Estudos Esotéricos e Mediúnicos Professor Antônio Jorge. transcultural keys 381

Luar de Prata Seu Pena Branca A vigiar Na aldeia Rufam os tambores Lá na Umbanda Salve o Rei Tupinambá17 When the participants finished the singing of the hymn, there was a deep silence which suggested that they were waiting for someone to do something. The leader of the Céu dos Ventos then started to talk about the beauty of that hymn and how inspiring it was. But directing his attention to me, said that he could understand many words in Portuguese, but was unable to comprehend what it means to mention sete flechas (seven arrows), pena verde and pena branca (green feather and white feather), and particularly luar de prata (silver moonlight) from the hymn lyrics. For me, who had an almost prosaic information on Afro-inspired Brazilian religions, it was so simple. Immediately, I answered: those are references to spiritual entities caboclos, which it is possible to find in any Umbanda curimbas or pontos,18 which evoke or call these entities ‘to work’ in a ritual. After I said that, the faces of participants were relieved and joyful, as if they had figured out something they had been asking themselves for a long time without any consistent response. They thanked me very enthusiastically and the work went on. This opened a gate for me, and in the following days many of the participants started to ask me other questions and in many levels, making me feel even more welcomed than before. This passage of my fieldwork suggests how transcultural communication [or translation] is critical to the ways in which Céu dos Ventos participants understand Santo Daime. There is a gap between what we may call ‘literal meaning’ or a ‘dictionary knowledge’ and ‘doctrinal hermeneutics.’ I am not sure if they were only testing me, or if they really were searching for the theological and political basis for their own interpretation of the Santo Daime tradition from a Brazilian, fluent in SD’s worldview. What is clear is that the transcultural exchange of information had an impact on the fluidity of our relationships.

17 Literal translation: Mother Jurema, at the waterfalls, washing the clothes of Oxalá; Mr. Seven Arrows, Mr. Green Feather, Silver Moonlight, Mr. White Feather on watching; At the village, the drums rolls, at the Umbanda, salve the King Tupinambá. 18 Curimbas and Pontos are forms of referring ritual songs which are considered as ritual calling for the spiritual entities in Umbanda. 382 alberto groisman

Closing Remarks

The tension between keeping traditional features and performing rituals in a specific cultural context is one of the key dynamics of the Dutch religious field, as observed by Watling (1999). In his PhD thesis on reli giosity in the Netherlands, Watling demonstrated that the Dutch are particularly attracted to the possibility of experimentation on both the ideological and social fundaments of religion. In this way, ritual exploration is influenced by an interest on innovation and creativity. This tension between authenticity and innovation helps us understand the social construction of a sacred dimension for the use of daime and santa maria, as it is proposed by Santo Daime. Santo Daime Dutch participants were actually configuring a sort of agency that is characteristic of the Dutch religious field. As I demonstrated, in the Netherlands, Santo Daime religious services are performed with a general preoccupation to reproduce what is considered ‘traditional’ ritual format, but mediated by the interest in how the traditional may transform ‘what is established’ locally, and point to and produce new forms of social relationships and spiritual awareness. In other words, what is recognized as ‘traditional’ may actually influence social relationships as a stimulating novelty. Although each Santo Daime church in the Netherlands had its own interpretation of ‘what’ in the traditional is to be kept (Groisman 2000), local diversity and adaptation did not challenge the basic ritual format. Nevertheless, this diversity led to openness for particular versions, which we can call ‘styles of conduction.’ These styles may express the ‘institutional’ intention and project of the church’s leadership and the background and choice of participants in the specific setting in order to optimize their experience of Santo Daime. On the other hand, Santo Daime rituals can be considered ‘at the margins,’ given that the daimistas use a psychoactive brew which modifies states of consciousness, and which gathers small groups of people in religious services that do not have public visibility. The events described here took place in private spaces and the participants had been through processes of admission and acceptance. In sum, I was able to observe a religious ethos which included some general characteristics of a Dutch religious ambience, in which differentiation and hierarchy were combined with a search for stimulation and novelty. In addition, I noted that long periods of conviviality and self-knowledge made Daime groups into event- spaces in which the exploration of the self and the collective experience transcultural keys 383 allowed for enjoyment and curiosity. In this way, they were also legitimate strategies for spiritual development and for communication with people from different socio-cultural backgrounds. I cannot generalize from events I witnessed to characterize the whole of Santo Daime abroad, or in Europe, or even in the Netherlands. However, my ethnography suggests that orthodoxy, tradition and exploratory experience may play a central role among the Santo Daime churches as the movement spreads. In this sense, it was important to stimulate creativity in order to deal with the tension between tradition and innovation, as a ludic strategy to attract participants, given that it was expected that there would be an openness of the ritual services to idiosyncratic situations. This may allow potential participants in the Netherlands, who from their own religious-spiritual trajectories may expect seriousness from religious services, to legitimize and facilitate participation in rituals that involve the potentially transgressive use of ‘hallucinogenics.’ However, innovation and ritual exploration within tradition becomes a paradoxical but promising way to show flexibility and accessibility. In this chapter, I followed Turner’s approach to creativity, which establishes that it may be often associated to its condition of belonging to the margins or liminal. The tension of being at the margins of a particular imagined context (Céu da Luz da Floresta is actually situated in the outskirts of Alkmaar, but all Dutch Daime churches are at the margins of the Brazilian religious center of production) stimulates creative solutions to deal with the lack of mutual full idiomatic and ‘cultural’ understandings. This case study is also related to what we have seen in contemporary forms of religious expression, mainly among the so called New Ager networks, in which the frontiers between the human and the divine are established, but not from institutional commitment and formal construction of hierarchical structures. It is actually established much more from the facili- tation of experience, through the elaboration and fluidity of personal and collective performance, aiming basically the construction of informality, intimacy and control of spiritual forces. Particularly in the Céu da Luz da Floresta ritual style of conduction, ‘transgression’ is regarded to overcome a sort of obsolete distance between the human and the divine as part of the sacred. It is in this sense possible to play with the divine and, in doing so, bring relaxation and intimacy to social relations. Seriousness, responsibility and perfection, in many senses expected by religious agents, are dissolved in jocosity in order to empower and legitimize leadership but also, and perhaps more relevantly, to provide conditions for the flow of 384 alberto groisman relationships between Brazilian and Dutch practitioners. In this route, authority is not in seeking to promote structure, but in the personal ability to dissolve structure, personalizing in this way the fluency and efficacy of power relations. The impressiveness of the performance in Céu da Luz da Floresta ritual, the ‘search for happiness’ and the interest to ‘play the game’ by other participants leads to a tension from the fusion of the serious and the jocose, constructing the sacred and the expression of power from this tension. Regarding this tension, when Dutch groups started to perform their own rituals in the beginning of the 1990s, a trend to restrict innovation was already at work in the Santo Daime network. However, still motivated by a more explorative ethos, Céu da Luz da Floresta church, the ritual setting focused in this article, made innovation a marker of its distinctiveness Holland’s pluralistic and competitive religious field. Every ritual had a new element added and every member was expecting novelty at ritual performances. This was in a paradox because the Céu da Luz da Floresta leader’s agenda was composed mainly by a goal of showing his ‘traditional’ knowledge, and by doing so promoting tradition through the introduction of unknown ritual techniques. In Céu da Luz da Floresta, the divine is close and treated personally. It is ‘relational’ in the sense that the notion of human is constructed in relation to the divine. But this relationship is also dynamic, since humans must also recognize the divine. With this motivational content, a sort of ‘familial,’ or paternal atmosphere is constructed to address this relationship, and the sacred is not absolutely distinguished from the profane. There are demarcated frontiers but they are not related to the theoretical attribution of a divine quality, but to the successful achieve- ment of happiness. Regarding the second event narrated, I observe that the way Céu dos Ventos participants diligently and scrupulously sought to achieve a full understanding of the main elements of Santo Daime’s traditions invokes the complexity of the process of transposing a whole set of ‘external’ values and procedures with their own trajectory to a new environment. In contrast to other Brazilian religious systems which have expanded in Europe, particularly Kardecism and Neo-Pentecostalism, which attract mostly Brazilian and Latin-American immigrants, Santo Daime has attracted the local population, which demands more indirect and perhaps particular treatment of forms of ‘translation’ and transposition. In sum, articulating workshop style of sharing knowledge and experiences (characteristic of their connection with Osho movement, New Age transcultural keys 385 and particularly with psychonautic19 circles) with exploring and applying an expected Santo Daime ‘orthodoxy’, is a peculiar but productive combination, at least as an answer to the therapeutic or self-awareness needs of Dutch members. In addition, this mixing has political implications. CDV participants expressed the strong desire to acknowledge and even compen- sate, in their terms, the ignominies perpetrated by colonialism against indigenous populations (Groisman 2009). 20 Their attitude of looking for precise understanding of meanings – rendered opaque by the lack of knowledge of Portuguese – may be seen as a reflection of a sort of scholarly inspired exploration of spirituality, a characteristic that have been observed by researchers when dealing empirically with New Age networks participants (Heelas 1996). Finally, the analysis of the two events proves the need to develop dynamic and flexible approaches to religion and spiritual searching that take seriously processes of religious translation and global transposition, often associated with the New Age search for ‘spiritual development’. We saw how the humor, playfulness, and performativity in Santo Daime, enables participants to generate intimacy with the divine, the spiritual plane, and each other, while building competence, authenticity, and authority. On the other hand, ritualized forms and ritual communication itself may be seen as devices to overcome the difficulties of cross- cultural communication, deploying a religious agency that is much more a explorative search than an institutionalized, controlled common sense.

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Erik Sengers, the participants at the ST 47 in Santiago de Compostela, and Lammert Gosse Jansma for their comments and support; the Santo Daime informants for their availability and kindness in the

19 The word psychonautic has been used by researchers to categorize people and agencies which in contemporary society are recognized as associated to a more systematic and extensive exploration of the so called modified states of consciousness usually in ritually controlled settings. 20 As part of this reparation struggle, in 1998, CDV promoted and supported the coming to the Netherlands of a group of Brazilians which included a mãe-de-santo known as Baixinha, leader of Umbandaime, as mentioned above, a ‘line of spiritual work’ which associates Afro-inspired religion Umbanda and Santo Daime to open the Gira, which is the most central Umbanda ritual. For more on this, see Groisman 2009. 386 alberto groisman course of this research. I am also grateful to CNPq and CAPES in Brazil, and my colleagues at Department of Anthropology, UFSC, Brazil, for funding and support.

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Abadiânia 34, 291n, 292–310 socio-economic condition 8, 118, 166, Abib, Jonas 31, 139–144, 147–152, 155, 157 251, 324, 334 Africa 1, 7, 13, 23–25, 29–33, 36, 46, 52, Brazilian diaspora 8, 29, 81, 97, 110 60–64, 92n3, 94–95, 151, 157, 169–171, 176, 179–182, 185–188, 191, 197–204, 218n26, caboclo 32, 35, 171n6, 200n7, 200n8, 215, 224, 227–229, 241, 244, 255–259, 271–274, 228–229, 235, 237n16, 242, 255–263, 268, 278, 282–286, 315n4, 319, 322–323, 326, 315, 327, 381 366, 380 Canada 14–15, 18, 30, 32, 93, 144, 226n6, Afro-Brazilian religions 2, 10, 14, 18, 32, 52, 254–355, 363n2 91n1, 95, 137, 165–182, 185–187, 191–193, Canção Nova 31, 139–159 198–208, 212–213, 216–219, 228–229, 242, see also New Song 256, 262, 268, 313–314 Candomblé 2, 16, 23, 26, 29–32, 170, 178n14, Angola (Capoeira) 273–276, 285–287 180–188, 199–208, 212, 215–224, 227–230, Angola 24, 29, 32n15, 32n17, 46n2, 56, 244, 256, 272, 282–286 62–64, 198, 204, 285, 352 capoeira 2–3, 10, 14, 16, 18–19, 22, 31–32, Appadurai, Arjun 14, 20, 93, 305, 309, 95, 271–287 334, 345 see also angola, mestres Arakaki, Ushi 12, 18, 32, 249–270, 295 Cardoso, Fernando Henrique 5 Arán Temple 224–246 Carranza, Brenda 10, 30, 31, 137–162 see also Umbanda Casa de Dom Inácio 291–295, 297, 301n10, Argentina 6, 24, 32, 46n2, 92, 103, 126n7, 303, 307, 310 165–173, 176–186, 190–192, 224, 254–255, Catholic Charismatic Renewal 1, 30, 45, 351–353, 363n2 71–72, 79, 119, 137–141, 158–160, 232 Atlanta, Georgia 9, 24, 35, 83, 148, 154, 159, Catholic Church 10, 15, 21, 26–27, 30–31, 313–314, 317–335 57–61, 69–88, 99, 104, 106, 137–144, Australia 14, 18, 24, 30, 34–36, 291–333 147–160, 170–177, 181, 202, 218–220, 232, Authenticity 13, 17, 32, 37, 150, 237, 242, 244, 258–259, 283, 285, 294, 301–302, 345, 382 314, 335, 369 axé 2, 31–32, 182–183, 206, 211–213, 272–287 CEFLURIS 363n2, 365–366, 373–375n12, 378 ayahuasca 10, 16, 18–19, 35–36, 240, 363, see also Santo Daime 365–366, 370, 373 charisma; charismatic 1, 22, 27–31, 46, 51, 53, 71–72, 119, 134, 137–141, 232, 299, 318, Barrera Rivera, Dario 11, 17, 27, 117–136 364, 369–370 Bastide, Roger 121n5, 224, 227 Charismatic Christianity 1, 22, 39, 45, Batuque 24, 169–191 66, 138 Benedict XVI 1, 29, 37, 140–141, 156 China 5–6, 24, 37, 47, 354–355, 358 Beyer, Peter 20, 344, 345 community 9–12, 31, 35, 69, 74–76, 84–86, body 32, 55, 77, 100, 108–109, 112–113, 120, 94, 109, 139n5, 145–160, 188–189, 211–225, 125, 127, 133, 171, 176, 204–215, 219, 232, 250–254, 264–268, 293–324, 342–343, 234, 237, 256, 261n15, 276, 298–299, 320, 348–354, 378–379 339, 343, 347, 349, 356, 358 Conscientiology 34, 339–340, 346, 351–354 Bourdieu, Pierre 32, 167, 276–278, 359 corrente 17, 236n14, 239n17, 292 Brasília 294, 298, 315–317, 321, 324, see also current 326, 329, 334 cosmopolitanism 23, 34, 36, 41, 57, 111, Brasilidade 3, 17 246–247, 274, 351 Brazil Csordas, Thomas 2, 21, 30, 167, 171–172, 243 religious field 1–2, 4, 15, 23, 25–26, 31, 37, current 18, 292–293, 299–303, 308–310 71–72, 91n1, 114, 324 see also corrente 388 index

D’Andrea, Anthony 34, 339–362 globalization da Silva, Luis Inácio (Lula) 6, 205–206, niche 34, 340–364 209, 210n23, 213, 218n28, 256, 258 of culture 20, 32, 37–42, 111, 203, 287, 358 Delamont, Sara 2, 10, 16, 31, 32, 271–288 of religion 9–25, 45, 56–57, 73, 225, deterritorialization 19–20, 32, 97, 166n1, 239, 294 167, 193, 269 glocalization 21, 32, 36–37, 135, 345 Deus é Amor 27, 91, 109, 117, 120, 125n6, God is Love 11, 17, 27, 28n12, 91–92, 109, 117, 126n10 119, 122–123, 125n6, 128 see also God is Love see also Deus é Amor diaspora 3–5, 8, 13, 24, 29, 56, 81, 96–97, Goffman, Erving 172 110–111, 134, 153–155, 187, 218, 240, 244, Groisman, Alberto 10, 13, 16, 17, 18, 35, 36, 254, 267, 299, 345 363–386

Ekman, Ulf 45–48, 51, 54, 65 habitus 32, 109, 272, 276–277, 286–287 emergent Brazil 26, 71, 91, 137, 334 Harvey, David 19 Engler, Steven 227, 229 healing 2, 13, 15, 18, 22, 28, 31–35, 122, Evangelical Church 26–29, 45, 47, 52–53, 125–127, 135, 142, 155–156, 159, 198, 57–59, 65, 69, 72–84, 87–88, 91–93, 202–205, 221–217, 227, 232, 239, 261, 96–98, 105–107, 111–112, 117, 119, 123, 128, 291–314, 318–320, 330, 355, 371, 372n7 137n2, 239 Hernandez, Annick 13, 15, 16, 17, 32, evil 52, 105, 107, 134–135, 137, 143, 214, 228, 223–247, 255, 295 256, 258–259, 283 hybridization 16–18, 25, 36–37, 219, 232, 301, exoticism 3–4, 13, 16–17, 19 314–315, 319, 343–344 Exú 18, 171n6, 172, 183–184, 191, 213–214, 258–259, 262–266 Iemanjá 176, 214, 219, 229 see also Yemanjá faith-based organizations 82, 344 Igreja Bola de Neve 92 Falwell, Jerry 45–48, 53, 65 see also Snowball Church footballers 2–3, 10, 69, 91–94, 95n11, 96–105, Igreja Universal do Reino de Deus 24, 46, 108, 111–114, 280 72n5, 92, 125n6, 127, 334 France 10, 93, 102, 107–108, 139, 141, 144, 148, see also Universal Church of the 152, 155–160, 201, 203n16, 205, 227, 238, Kingdom of God 254, 329, 363n2 imaginary 14, 51n6, 61, 120, 200, 218, Freyre, Gilberto 197, 201, 347, 352, 357 Frigerio, Alejandro 11, 24, 32, 165–195, 200, imagination 13–15, 122, 305, 315n5, 316 201, 224, 239, 244, 254, 255, 295, incorporation 25, 204, 207, 225, 230, 245, Fry, Peter 91, 227, 228, 257 320–321, 327 Internet 2, 20, 22–23, 29 56, 65, 104n18, 111, gender identity 21n9, 35, 71, 158n68, 190, 117–118, 127, 130, 132, 147–153, 156–157, 182, 225, 257, 314, 318, 320–321, 329–333 185–192, 198, 202, 224, 226, 236, 240–241, Geneva 230, 238 295–298, 355, 360 Germany 6, 10, 144, 203n16, 254, 294–295, Israel 6, 119, 141, 144, 152–153, 158, 321, 363n2, 379 254, 363n2 Giddens, Anthony 19–20, 57n10, 65, 113, Italy 10, 141, 144, 152, 158, 254, 352–353, 344–345 363n2, 374 gira 17, 33, 171n6, 172, 191, 203, 215, 217, 223, 228, 231–234, 237, 239, 257n10, 262, Japan 5, 8, 11–12, 18, 32, 36, 92–94, 110, 144, 385n20 249–269 Glick-Schiller, Nina 21, 167, 191, 240, Japanese Brazilians 11–12, 18, 249–251, 304, 307 253, 268 global financial crisis 6, 10–11, 250n3 João de Deus; João Teixeira de Faria 34, 291, Global North 5–6, 14, 16, 296 294–295 global religious cartography 1, 23–24, 37 see also John of God Global South 1, 13, 53, 296 John of God 16, 18–19, 24, 34, 291–312 index 389

see also João de Deus; João Teixeira Neo-Pentecostalism 22, 24, 27–29, de Faria 31, 72, 91n1, 92, 93, 94–96, 98, John Paul II 29–30, 138, 141–142, 147 103–104, 107, 110, 112, 113, 137, 201n12, 218, 334, 384 Kaká 29, 93, 97, 104 Netherlands 10, 14, 18, 36, 110, 363, 365, 370, Kardec, Allan 294n4, 295, 357 373–375, 378, 382–383, 385n20 Kardecism 200n7, 204, 227, 256, 283, Networks 1, 3, 11, 17, 20, 23, 24–25, 26, 294n4, 384 32, 34, 37, 45, 46, 48, 52, 59, 62, 65, 69, see also Spiritism 113, 144, 147, 148, 153, 159, 167–168, 170, 173, 182–185, 188, 189, 191, 192, 224, 225, Levitt, Peggy 21, 73, 75, 77–78, 83, 167, 191, 231, 232, 233, 234, 236, 238, 240, 254, 293, 225, 296 297, 303, 304, 309, 324, 327, 331, 339, 340, Liberation Theology 29, 82n10 346, 349, 360, 380, 383, 385 London 2, 10, 21, 23–24, 69–87, 103, 110, New Age 15–17, 23, 137, 204, 216, 219, 292, 142, 159, 271n2, 274, 280–282, 285–286, 298, 301, 314, 319n13, 343–344, 352–353, 335, 346 356–357, 359, 373, 379, 383–385 New Song 31, 139, 155 Macedo, Edir 29, 46–59, 62, 65 see also Canção Nova Mãe-de-Santo 17, 173, 182, 206, 208, 215, 217, new religious movements 30, 33, 119, 166, 224, 235, 365n3, 385n20 313n1, 318–319 Mafra, Clara 10, 24, 29, 45–67, 201n12, 334 Mahler, Sarah 21, 70, 73, 87, 167 Orientalism 15 Margolis, Maxine 8–9, 69, 225, 239, 325, 331 orixás 32n15, 171n6, 172, 182–184, 188, 200n8, Mariz, Cecília 10, 30, 31, 137–162 202, 205–217, 218n26, 227–228, 244, Mauss, Marcel 32, 108–109, 114, 129, 276, 255–258, 265, 285–287, 315 342, 354, 368 media 2, 7, 14–16, 20–23, 26, 29–30, 37, pai-de-santo 17, 183–184, 187n26, 198, 47–50, 58, 60–61, 64, 80, 92–93, 96–98, 200, 203–204, 208–215, 224, 230–236, 103–104, 110–111, 114, 127, 137, 139–142, 241–245 145–157, 160, 167, 177–178, 181–182, Paraguay 8, 11, 46n2, 224, 254, 351 186–189, 192, 213, 276, 296, 301, 305, 310, parascience 340–341, 344, 346–347, 350, 334, 340, 345, 348, 359, 366 352, 354, 357 mediumship 201, 208, 236, 241, 245, 314, Pentecostalism 1, 4, 10, 22, 26–30, 71, 317–318, 332n26, 356 91n1, 94–98, 112, 119, 122, 137–138, Meintel, Deirdre 13, 15, 16, 17, 32, 223–247, 139n5, 321n15, 384 255, 295 Peru 11, 30, 117–135, 295, 318, 365 mestres 2, 273, 278, 283 photoblogs 189, 192 see also capoeira pilgrimage 13–14, 18–19, 25, 27, 104, 109, migration; migrants 153–154, 297, 319n13 Brazilian 1–37, 60, 69–80, 84–88, 92, pomba gira 33, 171n6, 172, 191, 228, 96–97, 109–111, 117, 140 144, 148, 155, 234, 262 165, 224–225, 239, 249–268, 314 Portugal 10–11, 14–15, 18, 46n2, 52, 56, from the Andes 17, 117–135 59–64, 144, 148–160, 197–219, 238, undocumented/irregular/illegal 8–9, 69, 254–255, 321, 339, 346, 352, 363n2 80–82 Portuguese (as liturgical language) 17, 153, millenarianism 118, 119n4, 318n10, 319, 155–160, 171n6, 174–175n11, 182, 291, 297, 328–329, 334–335 375–376 Miranda, David 27, 117–118, 126, 130–131, 134 Portunhol 17, 118, 129–135 modernity 1, 13–15, 19–20, 24–25, 33, 51, preto-velho 32, 71n6, 200n7, 200n8, 57–59, 64–65, 127, 150, 319, 333–335, 215–216, 228–229, 235 242, 255–263n18, 344, 347 268, 315 Montreal 24, 32, 223–247 Projectiology 34, 339–360 multi-sited research 235, 305 Prosperity Gospel 28, 46, 55–62, 76, 91n1, Munich 91–92 97–98, 113 390 index

Protestant 10, 21, 26, 28, 46n3, 51–54, 71–73, Switzerland 10, 107, 109, 230, 238, 254 83–84, 91, 99–100, 113, 119n3, 128, 137–138, Sydney 291–294, 300–302, 308 143n22, 283, 294n4, 369 psychology 224, 245, 313n1, 339, 344, 353, techniques of body 15, 32, 108, 172, 204–205, 356, 359 215, 217, 347 terreiro 175, 182, 198–219, 262, 266, 285 Quebec 225–226, 231–232, 241, 244 therapy 17, 32, 55, 204, 212–216, 239, 297, 343, 356, 379 religion in everyday life 3, 13–14, 28, 70, 75, see also self-improvement 78, 84, 138, 206, 307, 364 Tia Neiva 35, 315–321, 326–327, 330–333 Renascer em Cristo (Reborn in Christ) 29, translation 16, 36, 84, 155–156, 171–172, 175, 92, 104 178, 191, 341, 345, 353, 355–356, 359, 381, reterritorialization 19, 166–167 384–385 Rial, Carmen 2, 3, 10, 29, 91–115 transnational religion 2, 29, 31, 33, 48, 70, Rio de Janeiro 4, 8, 27, 29, 36, 37n21, 48, 52, 73–88, 103, 135, 158, 165–172, 182–192, 55, 58, 141, 199, 227, 257, 315, 323, 339–340, 240–245 351, 353 transnational spiritual community 35, 268, Robertson, Roland 20–21, 32n16, 345 293–310 Rocha, Cristina 1–42, 291–312 transnationalism Romantic Orientalism 15, 263 from above 21n10, 76–77, 86, 167 Rousseff, Dilma 7, 37 from below 21n10, 86, 165, 167 of the middle 21, 70, 74, 87 Sampaio, Camila 29, 45–67 tropicalism 15n4, 197, 201 samurai 32, 261–268 Turner, Victor 13, 18, 201n10, 202, 254, 265, Santo Daime 16–17, 35–36, 240, 363n2–366, 276, 364, 367–368, 383 370–385 see also CEFLURIS Umbanda 2, 11–12, 16–19, 24, 26, 29, São Paulo 4–5, 8, 15, 27, 49, 117–118, 126, 31–33, 95, 169–180, 187–189, 192, 130–131n12, 137, 140–141, 170, 197–203n16, 198–200, 202n13, 203–205, 215–218, 224, 226, 230, 234–241, 317, 323 223–234, 237–246, 249–269, 282–284, Saraiva, Clara 10, 13, 15, 16, 18, 32, 197–222, 295, 314, 315n4, 328n23, 365, 380n16, 255, 295, 381, 385n20 Sassi, Mario 317, 320, 331, 332n26, 333 see also Arán Temple secularization 1, 15, 37, 138, 141, 159, 226, 232 União do Vegetal 17, 36, 363n2 self-improvement 32, 37, 105, 198, 317, United Kingdom 2, 5, 6, 8, 10, 14, 18, 29, 32, 319, 349 69, 71, 74, 76, 78, 81–88, 271n1, 271n3, see also therapy 272–279, 281–287, 321 Serra, Raimundo Ireneu 36, 365–366, United States of America 5, 9, 27, 370–371 29–30, 36, 46, 144, 148, 152, 156–157, shamanism 25, 204, 232, 313n1, 319, 379 160, 254–255, 303n11, 310, 316, 352, Sheringham, Olivia 10, 21, 69–89, 335 378n15, 379 Snowball Church 92, 98 Universal Church of the Kingdom of God see also Igreja Bola de Neve (UCKG) 24, 28n12, 29, 31, 46–64, 72, 92, Southern Cone 11, 24, 165, 170, 180, 182, 187 94, 125n6, 127, 334 Spiritism 32–34, 200n7, 227, 229, 256, see also Igreja Universal do Reino de 294–295, 297, 314, 317, 326, 329, 343, 350, Deus 353, 357 universalism 227, 246, 257, 359 spiritual tourism 4, 13–19, 37, 109, 153n52, Uruguay 11, 24, 32, 46n2, 92–93, 109, 126n7, 154, 298, 307 156, 165, 168–171, 180, 182–192, 224, spirituality 14, 31, 138, 143, 149, 158n68, 219, 254–255, 363n2 226, 242, 313–314, 340–344, 347–350, 353, 356–360, 380, 385 Vale do Amanhecer 9, 313–315, 326, Stephens, Neil 2, 10, 16, 31, 32, 271–288 328, 334 Swatowiski, Claudia 29, 45–67 see also Valley of Dawn index 391

Valley of Dawn 35, 313–330, 333–335 Weber, Max 143, 249n2, 347, 355, 359, 364, see also Vale do Amanhecer 369–370 Vásquez, Manuel 1–42, 69n2, 70, 73, 74, 78, Winfrey, Oprah 34, 296 83, 84, 109, 166n1, 185n23, 296, 313–337 Vieira, Waldo 339, 342–343, 347–351, Yemanjá 271, 273 354–355 see also Iemanjá