“Brazil, heart of the world, homeland of the gospel”? – A critical analysis

“Brazil, heart of the world, homeland of the gospel”? – A critical analysis is produced by Leonardo Marmo Moreira and Jorge Hessen. The text below was extracted in full from the preface of the work, with the aim of safeguarding such an important study as this, replicating it on our website. The full text, which was the basis for this article, is available in PDF, on here.

PREFACE

Jorge Hessen

In my historical investigations I found confreres who assured me at the FEB headquarters that Chico Xavier never warned the so-called “Ismael's tent” (FEB headquarters in DF) about the possible and alleged ideological interpolations in “Brazil, heart of the world, homeland of the gospel”. We do not know any further details behind the scenes of this exchange between the medium and former FEB directors.

I found those who attest to Chico's consent to the insertion of Roustaing in chapter 22 of “Brazil heart of the world homeland of the gospel” demonstrating supposed correspondences between Chico and Wantuil de Freitas, contained in the work “Testimonies of Chico Xavier”. However, we discovered that only a few secondary sources were passed on to the author of the work Suely Caldas Schubert (who does not have a Roustanguist trajectory), typed fragments of the letters and intentionally selected and elaborated by docetists Zeus Wantuil and Francisco Thiesen.

An authenticity of Roustaing's insertion in the “sacred” book of the (im) “Golden Pact” was forged, when former FEB directors visited Chico Xavier so that a Minas Gerais medium could “authenticate” the book or the chapter page 22 of “Brazil heart of the world homeland of the gospel” to corroborate the authenticity of the original psychography (which was inexplicably incinerated by the FEB), but Chico “authenticated” chapter 22 with the “robust” confirmation: “With a hug from the minor server Chico Xavier.” In other words, it didn’t confirm anything! Chico knew that the work had been corrupted.

The coup of the (im)“Golden Pact” was an agenda with eighteen items, the first of which stated: “It is up to the spiritists of Brazil to put into practice the exposition contained in the book “Brazil, Heart of the World, Homeland of the Gospel”. Here we open a parenthesis because we understand that in this device there was a proposition that could have undesirable consequences, considering the focus of unity among spiritists. Now, the most reasonable thing would be to include in the first item that the spiritists put into practice the exposition contained in the Gospel According to Spiritism, in order to accelerate and consolidate the evolutionary march of the Gospel.

There are those who say that the adoption of the book “Brazil heart of the world homeland of the gospel” could have two pretexts, the first because a group of those who discussed the issue wanted to adopt “The Four Gospels” by Roustaing, the second because the “supporters ” of CEPA (Pan-American Spiritist Confederation) did not and do not accept the Gospel According to Spiritism, in this case, therefore, Humberto de Campos' book would be on the balance line and placed Brazil in a central position in the expansion of the Gospel.

Really? Was this what led them to sign without discussion the pact that Herculano Pires called the “papal bull”? Or had the excess of mysticism created a feeling of guilt and the parties to the agreement began to admit infallibility in the president of the FEB? Or would the autocratic presence of Wantuil (who was a kind of “sole owner” of the FEB) have dulled the conscience of the signatories? Or did all the parties to the agreement lack greater doctrinal maturity? One thing, however, we are absolutely certain of: if Herculano Pires, Deolindo Amorim, Júlio Abreu Filho had participated in the “enchanted” Febian meeting of 1949, another would have been the direction of doctrinal definitions for Brazil.

So it is! Let us return to the signatories of the Pact who concluded without further DEBATE and maturation that the book “Brazil heart of the world homeland of the gospel” contained interesting data and demonstrated what the mission of Spiritism in Brazil would be. However, the parties to the agreement were not concerned with the jingoistic and controversial details of the book, perhaps the “X” of the issue.

We do not raise this point to contest the original contents of the work (those that were not supposedly altered by the Febian Docetists). It is very obvious that it is difficult to physically prove tampering because the original psychography was incinerated by the FEB. It is important to emphasize here that we love the literature of Humberto de Campos (without the Febian insertions, of course!), and what's more, it is necessary to separate things well, as the naive enthronement of Roustaing by the supposed “spiritual author” contradicts Kardec's thought contained in Chapter XV of the work Genesis.

The point is that the supposed “Humberto de Campos” evokes “the traditions of the spiritual world”, as the spiritual author himself asserts in the Introduction to the book “Brazil heart of the world homeland of the gospel”. Obviously this “traditions from beyond” argument does not clarify, or even support, the work’s interference. And this becomes clear if we compare the book “Brazil, heart.do world…” with “Crônicas de Além-Túmulo” and “Boa Nova” written by the same Spirit, in which Humberto de Campos uses some information obtained from the so-called “traditions of the spiritual world”, but without committing the various lapses present in “Brazil heart of the world homeland of the gospel”. Regarding the work “Chronicles from Beyond the Grave” in chapter 21 entitled “The Great Missionary”, published before “Brazil, heart of the world…”, only the missionaries Camille Flammarion, Léon Denis and Gabriel are mentioned as collaborators of Allan Kardec Delanne, with no mention of Roustaing. This indicates likely malicious interpolation in the work “Brazil heart of the world homeland of the gospel”.

This is my opinion.

Brasilia, April 10, 2018

Jorge Hessen