Rationality Revisited: Religion and Science within Spiritism in Brazil

• Main Author: Rios, Clarice Monteiro Machado
• Format: Dissertation
• Language: English
• Subjects: cultural anthropology; philosophy of science; religion
• ISBN: 1124558586; 9781124558585

This ethnographic study of a Spiritist center in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, inquires into the processes through which a spirit-based religion like Spiritism comes to be perceived as a scientifically rational doctrine by individuals who engage with it. While Spiritism is perceived as both a religion and a science by its members, most anthropological work about Spiritism has emphasized its religious aspect and overlooked or disregarded Spiritist claims regarding its scientific nature. The current study offers an emic perspective on the problem of science and rationality in Spiritism.
To accomplish that an ethnographic study was conducted over 16 months in a Spiritist center in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The study included a number of person-centered and semi-structured interviews with individual members and participant-observation during weekly activities at the Center such as public lectures, introductory classes, study groups, mediumship development meetings and spiritual healing sessions.
The notions of involvement and detachment, found in Norbert Elias' sociology of knowledge, were used as analytical tools to orient the discussion throughout the dissertation. According to Elias, different modes of thinking and producing knowledge imply different ways of relating to the world. As analytical categories involvement and detachment are relative and not mutually exclusive, so that even highly detached forms of knowledge such as scientific knowledge might present some level of involvement. Using this framework, it was possible to argue that individuals' perception of rationality and science in Spiritism is based on a relatively more detached and mediated relationship with the spirits and the spiritual realm.
Applying such notions in the context of Spiritism meant mapping and examining the forms of thinking, behaving and speaking that create, as well as index, detachment in the context of as Spiritist Center. Chapter one offers a description of the field site and a short review of the literature on Spiritism. Chapter two deals with one central aspect of Spiritism as experienced by the members of this center, i.e. as much as they seek universal knowledge about the spiritual realm and its laws, such quest is combined with the search for personal meaning through the application of such knowledge in their lives. Chapter two tries to grapple with that question by resorting to the use of words and expressions associated with the domain of mental activities to describe and make sense of inner processes and sensations related to personal growth, emotions and morality. The chapter also discusses how the semantic nuances in the use of these terms help individuals navigate between more involved and more detached forms of knowledge somewhat smoothly, establishing some continuity between them and reinforcing the idea that rational practices may lead to personal and spiritual development.
Chapter three deals with literacy and the specific meanings and configurations it acquires in the context of a Spiritist center. Serving as the main way of communicating with the spirits and of spreading knowledge about them, literacy has an important role in creating and reinforcing detachment in Spiritist practices. Individual members use the general formulas contained in Spiritists texts both to make sense of their personal problems and current life events, and to constantly instantiate the general laws established by the Spiritist doctrine. The navigation between specific events and more general spiritual laws is further facilitated by the extensive use of intertextuality both in these texts themselves and as a discursive strategy during literacy oriented Spiritist's activities.
Chapter four discusses the problem of rationality and detachment in Spiritism by focusing on the view of the world and of the individual that not only allows for but also invites a more rational and detached attitude towards the spiritual world. Given that Elias also relates more detached forms of knowledge to an increased ability to exert control over events, one of the main goals of this chapter is to examine how this idea is also present in one central aspect of the Spiritist world view, i.e. the tension between free will and determinism. For Spiritists a more rational and enlightened individual is better able to make use of his free will and gain some control over his own life events. The chapter then revolves around four individual narratives, examining some of the ways in which individuals play out these ideas in their lives and in their relationship with the Spiritist doctrine.
Together, these chapters discussed different aspects of rationality and science as experienced by individual members in a single Spiritist Center. In that sense, rather than evaluating Spiritists claims according to traditional scientific standards, the main goal of this dissertation was to offer a deeper understanding of the processes through which perceptions of rationality and science are constructed in a religious setting.