Parapsychology in Brazil: A science entering young adulthood

Journal of Parapsychology, The, Dec, 2001 by Wellington Zangari, Fatima Regina Marchdo

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 .