Parapsychology in Brazil: A science entering young adulthood

ABSTRACT: The origins and vicissitudes by which parapsychology or, as we say, psi research has gone through in Brazil have not always distinguished it from religion, alternative healing practices, superstition, and charlatanism, mainly because of the cultural complexity in which we live in the country. Consequently, to be a psi researcher in Brazil means not having any financial guarantee, living with an uncertain future, almost complete isolation from the academic world, and solitude in private libraries with books--the majority written in foreign languages--that were usually bought by the researchers themselves. However, despite these difficulties, psi research is advancing in Brazil. In this address, we focus on academic conquests, especially the development of research projects, master's theses, and PhD dissertations in some of the most important universities of Brazil. Other important advances include the creation of societies and associations, such as the Asociacion Iberoamericana de Parapsicologia, and the creation of university centers for the study of psi, such as the Inter Psi-Study Group of Semiotics, Interconnectivity and Consciousness (www.portalpsi.cjb.net). Several foreign researchers have been instrumental in improving psi research in Brazil and Latin America. The exchange of information with them has helped to overcome the language and cultural barriers in the field and has created good prospects for the future.

This is a very especial day for us. We were invited by Dr. Carlos Alvarado to give this talk because we were the winners of the Gertrude Schmeidler Student Award in 1998. We take this opportunity, first, to express our gratitude to the 1998 PA Board and, second, to present briefly the development of psi research in our country, Brazil.

No one expects to be recognized for being a psi researcher in Brazil. The origins and vicissitudes by which the field has passed have not always distinguished it from religion, alternative healing practices, superstition, and also charlatanism. To be a psi researcher in Brazil means almost complete isolation from the academic world, and solitude in the libraries, in which we have spent innumerable hours researching, essentially in a language that is not ours. To continue as a psi researcher in Brazil means not having any financial guarantee and living with an uncertain future. It means creating ways through which to meet interlocutors, who are few in number. It means transcending our own difficulties to do the possible out of the improbable. We believe that, because we have persisted and continued to be psi researchers despite these difficulties, we were chosen to win the award. At this moment, we want to represent all the psi researchers who have contributed with important parts of their lives to this cause . We want to represent, more than anything, those who have worked and still work anonymously, without even the opportunity of receiving such an invigorating stimulus as this. This award represents in part the inspiration their work has given us.

Let us tell you a brief history. In 1996, the City Council Building of Sao Paulo in Brazil was "haunted" by ghosts. Specters were seen in the library. Women wearing wedding dresses were seen appearing and disappearing in the daylight in the meeting room. File drawers opened and closed by themselves. One of the elevator operators claimed he saw some people disappear as soon as they entered the elevator. Odd sounds were heard in the long corridors. Doors locked themselves with no explanation. One of the councilmen was locked in his office and could not open the door. From his room, he said he could hear something like voices that seemed to talk in an incomprehensible language. Because these events took place in one of the most important public buildings of Sao Paulo, journalists soon took interest and reported on these events. Many individuals said they could explain the unusual "occurrences."

A "babalorixa"--a sort of priest of Candomble, an African religion-hastened to say that the occurrences were the result of the action of the souls of thousands of Black slaves who bad been tortured for almost four centuries in the past in that very place. Everything seemed to fit well with these beliefs. The building had been built next to the Anhangabau Valley. Anhangabau means, in Tupi-Guarani, an indigenous language, "valley of the spirits."

But a Protestant parson also visited the place. "It is the work of the Demon," he stated. He said that it would be necessary to pray a lot to move away the Evil definitively.

A Catholic priest was also in the place. He declared that the events happened because of the exteriorization of a physical force that, when out of people's bodies, could affect the objects and form human images.

We watched several of these explanations on television, but none were based on a scientific investigation of the case. We were absolutely indignant. So, we presented a research project proposal to the Board of Directors of the City Council. Immediately, the media became interested in our proposal because we represented another type of people different from the religious ones. We were "the scientists." The media covered the project extensively. For 1 month, we were interviewed by the main newspapers, television, and radio stations of the country. (And we also participated in a documentary filmed by Paramount Pictures, for the show "Sightings.")

A Brazilian journalist who was supposed to interview us at the City Council Building arrived at our office to pick us up and, looking at us very seriously, asked: "Hey, are you going dressed this way? And where is the equipment?" We did not understand why he was saying that and asked him what he meant, and he replied, as if it was obvious: "Television is image! Where are your special clothes and equipment to hunt ghosts?" We asked him to leave, because we were not interested in that kind of publicity. He came back the next day, because his boss wanted something about our work with or without the machine to suck ghosts in.

But you must be wondering, "What about the investigation? What about the results?" All this happened 5 years ago, and up till today, we have not obtained permission from the Board of Directors--which has already changed--to do the research. Recently, we obtained evidence that, despite some reports of anomalous phenomena in the City Council that were based on real personal experiences, some others were invented, and the massive publicity of the case and the stalling of the investigation involved political interests.

This real episode serves as an illustration to present you a panoramic view of the cultural complexity that involves the study of psi in Brazil, at least in what concerns field and case research. There are delicate religious, political, and financial questions involved.

This is just one side of psi research in our country. Now, we want to talk of another side. Of course we have to face a lot of difficulties to conduct psi research, but now we would like to focus on the conquests and progress of the field in Brazil. Despite the difficulties we mentioned and the cultural complexity in which we live, we can say that psi research is improving in Brazil. At the PA Convention in 1995, in Durham, North Carolina, we discussed the situation of parapsychology in Brazil and we argued that, in our country, parapsychology was in its adolescent stage. Today, we can say that parapsychology in our country presents its first signs of maturity. We would like to present some information to support our opinion.

Much of what we presented in 1995 continues to be the same. But we would like to discuss recent and important developments. In 1996, we earned our master's degrees with theses about parapsychological topics at one of the main private universities in Brazil: the Pontifical Catholic University of Sao Paulo. Dr. Stanley Krippner was a member of each of our committees, and we would like to thank him for his help. Fatima presented a study and analysis of the use of parapsychology with religious objectives in Brazil. She took as an example analyses and interpretations of poltergeist cases made by Spiritists and Catholics and compared them with the research procedures and interpretations of William Roll, as a representative of the scientific approach to this kind of research. In his thesis, Wellington defended the importance of the study of parapsychological experiences for a more comprehensive understanding of the religious phenomena. He studied Spiritism and its possible psychosocial and parapsychological aspects .

Besides these two theses, Konrad Lindmeier has defended his PhD dissertation in Medical Sciences at the State University of Campinas, one of Brazil's main public universities. Lindmeier conducted experimental research on clairvoyance, comparing performance using ESP cards and tarot cards as targets. Lindmeier found significant differences in the results of the tests with the distinct targets. When the tarot cards were used as targets, his results were above what was expected by chance; when ESP cards were used as targets, the results were those expected by chance. He interpreted the results from the point of view of the analytical psychology of Carl Gustav Jung. Lindmeier argued that the tarot cards chosen by the experimental participants would show an archetypal correspondence with their psyche, thus facilitating perception through ESP.

During the current year, 2001, Ricardo Eppinger, a Brazilian from Curitiba, Parana, earned his PhD at the Koestler Chair Unit of the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, with a dissertation comparing psi performance in dreams and ganzfeld.

Two master's theses and two PhD dissertations may not seem like much to some of you. But in the whole history of parapsychology in Brazil, there has been no master's thesis and only one PhD dissertation on precognition defended in 1972 by Adelaide Petters Lessa, at the University of Sao Paulo, the most important public university in Brazil.

There is more good news. There are two other PhD dissertations in progress and a postdoctoral research project related to psi. In addition, there are at least three psi research projects for master's degrees. We are the authors of the two PhD dissertations in progress. Wellington is analyzing affective and cognitive aspects of Umbanda mediums (Umbanda is a Brazilian religion) in the Post-Graduate Psychology Program of the University of Sao Paulo. Fatima is analyzing poltergeist case reports from a semiotic perspective, at the Communication and Semiotics Post-Graduate Program of the Pontifical Catholic University of Sao Paulo. The postdoctoral research project proposed by Luiz Carlos Bittencourt intends to analyze possible anomalous communication processes in reports of some occult practitioners. Elizabeth Dantas is working on her master's research project to analyze the concept of "intuition" from a psychoanalytical perspective and its implications to clinical practice Jose Zacarias de Souza and Cleber Monte iro Muniz are also working on their master's research projects. Souza's project is related to xenoglossy, and Muniz's is related to lucid dreams involving shared contents.

In addition to the academic development, in 1996/1997, we collaborated with Dr. Dean Radin in an experiment, presented at the PA convention in Halifax, Canada, in 1998. The experiment consisted of measuring possible effects that Umbanda's mediums in Sao Paulo, Brazil, tried to produce in the bodies of patients at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

It was a very good and productive experience of partnership with a foreign researcher.

Some of you must be wondering: "What has happened in Brazil?" "Why is there so much work in a short period of time?" "Why are there so many new projects?" We have some possible answers. Brazil has changed a lot in the last years. After 20 years of military regime that brought economic, artistic, and scientific stagnation in the country, nowadays we live in a society more open to a variety of cultural influences. Since the late 1980s, we have had greater freedom of expression, and a development of the press and of social institutions, especially the universities. The new generations of psi researchers or those psi researchers who were connected to universities have found more welcoming institutions to develop their studies. Relatedly, political and cultural openness influenced exchanges between Brazilian and foreign researchers. Every year, foreign parapsychologists go to Brazil and Brazilians attend the Summer Study Program of the Rhine Research Center. We had never had so much contact and possibilities to s tudy and learn as we have had in the last 10 years. The fruits of this are the creation of societies and associations, such as the Asociacion Iberoamericana de Parapsicologia, that has about 50 members.

The creation of university centers for the study of psi is the most important development in recent times. In 1999, Inter Psi, our research group, was incorporated into the Center for Peircean Studies of the Communication and Semiotics Post-Graduate Program of the Pontifical Catholic University of Sao Paulo. Its name now is Inter Psi -- Study Group of Semiotics, Interconnectivity and Consciousness. The importance of this group can be understood when you see that five of its participants are preparing their master's, doctoral, and postdoctoral research. In addition, Inter Psi is responsible for several projects that aim at the development of parapsychology in Brazil. In Portal Psi (www.portalpsi.cjb.net), the Web site of Inter Psi, people can participate on the Virtual Forum, a discussion list of nearly 50 participants that includes the main psi researchers in the country. Inter Psi also publishes a virtual journal of psi research, Revista Virtual de Pesquisa Psi, in which people can find articles, informatio n on recent publications, recommended and specialized bibliography, and news. In addition, we have organized the Grupos de Estudo de Pesquisa Psi. They are groups composed of those seriously interested in the study and/or in the development of psi research in Brazil and in Ibero American countries. These are distant groups connected to us through the Internet. Two new groups have already been created: one in Fortaleza, in the northeast of Brazil, and another group in Lima, Peru. Four other new groups are being formed as we speak. And last, but not least, we have maintained a 2,000-volume library, named Eileen Coly Library, in honor of the work Ms. Coly has helped to develop in parapsychology.

There are other important factors that have contributed to the development of psi research in our country. In Curitiba, there is the recently founded Center for the Study of Dreams, where Vera Barrionuevo and Tarcisio Pallu work. They attended the Summer Study Program in 1993. Also in Curitiba, at the Faculty of Biological and Health Sciences, Dr. Bezerra de Menezes offers a nonaccredited parapsychology program, with progressively more interest in conducting research. Currently, for example, Fabio Silva, who has also attended the Summer Study Program of the Rhine Research Center, is conducting ganzfeld research with a grant received from the Fundacao Bial, Portugal. The Institute of Psychobiophysical Research of Pernambuco, one of the oldest groups in Brazil, is working to increase its members' contact with the international parapsychological community. In 1998, in Recife, they organized the First Brazilian and International Congress of Parapsychology, with the presence of important representatives of intern ational parapsychology such as Drs. John Palmer, Ed May, and Stanley Krippner.

Visits of foreign researchers, like those mentioned above, and others like Drs. Carlos Alvarado and Kathy Dalton, and Nancy Zingrone, for example, have been very important to the interchange of information and an incentive to develop education and new research projects.

We believe that the examples we mentioned are enough to give you a panoramic view of the evolution of parapsychology in Brazil. Psi research in Brazil has a great potential for further development. To reach this goal, we must continue to have the help of our foreign colleagues, forging stronger ties between us.

In conclusion, we would like to thank the Parapsychology Foundation, and Eileen and Lisette Coly, for supporting our trip to New York and for helping in the development of our work. Special thanks go to Dr. Stanley Krippner, Nancy Zingrone, and Dr. Carlos Alvarado, who have always been instrumental in improving psi research in Brazil and Latin America. And, finally, thanks to all of you with whom we have been in contact, exchanging information. Your efforts have helped to overcome the language and cultural barriers in our field.

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