O espiritismo como herança francesa no Brasil: a cultura impressa como instrumento transnacional de inserção religiosa

Abstract

This thesis aims to demonstrate that spiritism was constituted as a heritage of French culture in Brazil, continuing the work developed in the master's degree. This heritage was constituted through the spiritist press and French cultural mediators who acted through an intense network of relationships. The documentary set chosen is composed of several international spiritist journals, to analyze how they defined who they were and what they were constituting. Being able to serve in the future for researchers interested in the theme. The theoretical-methodological authors used are: Norbert Elias, Roger Chartier, John Monroe, Laurence Bardin and Umberto Eco. From the analysis and description of the journals, we compose an international scenario of action from various aspects of spiritism, which acted in the configuration of its practices from specific contexts. We highlight characteristics of a French Kardecist spiritism, in force during the late nineteenth and early twentieth years; a Brazilian Kardecist spiritism, which started to be structured from the second half of the 20th century, outlining spiritism internationally; In addition to a spiritualistic spiritism with several options of priorities, according to each country. We consider that the insertion of spiritism in the Brazilian religious field was only possible due to the existence of 3 elements: the strong influence of French culture in Brazil in the 19th century, the French agents / immigrants and the network of relationships established by the Spiritist press. This spiritism from Brazil sets the tone of the international spiritist movement today, with, so to speak, an upside-down inheritance.