Our guest this week is Marcelo de Oliveira Orsini (photo), from the Brazilian city of Belo Horizonte, the capital city of the state of Minas Gerais. He is a retired electrical engineer who worked for the state power company between 1979 and 2010. He is an enthusiastic and experienced member of the local Spiritist Movement, volunteering at the Irmão Glacus Spiritist Centre. He is also a public speaker and the author of five Spiritist books, including one about the life of the great local medium, Ênio Wendling. 

When and how did you become a Spiritist?

I had already been to a Spiritist Centre, out of curiosity, at the end of the 1980s. But the decision to join a Spiritist Centre and study the Teachings properly only came in 1994, after two of my aunts passed away. I was very close to them and felt really low. Then I finally found consolation and relief in my heart. Because of my professional and academic background, in sciences, I needed to find rational and reasonable explanations for my questions. And that’s exactly what I found in the books of Allan Kardec. His writings are able to touch both our hearts and our minds. It became very clear to me then that Spiritism wasn’t a dogmatic religion, based on blind and illogical beliefs. It’s, instead, a spiritualist philosophy providing what we, human  beings, really need. 

Tells us a bit more about the Fraternidade Espírita Irmão Glacus (Spiritist Fraternity).

It was founded in 1976 by the medium, Ênio Wendling, and his friend, Adiraldo Vieira, with the aim of providing assistance to those in need. It was named after the Spiritual Benefactor, Glacus Flaminius, who had already been working with Ênio from the spiritual world, dictating prescriptions through his mediumship. Until the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, when we suspended our meetings and activities in person, FEIG, as it’s known, was one of the busiest Spiritist Centres in Belo Horizonte. 

Please tell us more about the materialisations and other amazing phenomena that took place in the city in an earlier phase of the Spiritist Movement.

From 1949 until the mid-1950s, the Spiritist Movement of Belo Horizonte was marked by frequent phenomena, with spirit turning into physical matter. Objects and spirits materialised, as we say, during meetings held by Jair Soares at his home in the Santa Tereza neighbourhood. That’s where the Grupo Scheilla was founded. Books about all that happened there have been published by Rafael Américo Ranieri and Dante Labbate. Those were amazing phenomena, which were witnessed not only by the mediums, but by all of those who attended the meetings. 

And what would like to tell us about Ênio Wendling, the great medium?

Ênio was born in 1925 and passed away in 2016, at the age of 90. In his daily life, he was a common man: honest, hard working and extremely dedicated to his family. He had financial difficulties during his lifetime and he suffered from illnesses, misunderstandings and temptations. But he managed to overcome all these problems as a true Christian. As a medium, he enjoyed many of the aspects that mediumship can offer: he could write what the spirits dictated, he could lend his voice to them, he could hear them, he could see them, he had the gifts of premonition and bi-corporeality and he could do materialisations. What made him stand out, however, was his behaviour as a medium: a humble and dedicated worker who put into practice the true mediumship of Jesus. He was described by the spirit, Erick Wagner, one of the benefactors who’ve been with us since those materialisations of the 1950s, as “the faithful disseminator of genuine mediumship.” After Ênio passed away, the Benefactors revealed that he was a rare case of a spirit who had succeeded in all that he had planned to achieve during his incarnation on the planet. 

How was the research work for your book on Ênio Wendling?

The advice to write the book came from Glacus, the Spiritual Benefactor, during a meeting we held in 2015. We set up a group of researchers, which included his brother, Vicente Wendling, and several people who knew Ênio personally for many years. We researched the minutes of old mediumship meetings, we collected testimonies and we gathered articles and interviews published and broadcast by Ênio and his brother. The book was published in May 2020, describing aspects of his personal life and his volunteer work as a medium. It makes revelations about discarnation and his activities in the spirit world. It contains spectacular descriptions of the phenomena that he was personally involved in. The book shows that he was a reference and an example to us all for his dedication working on behalf of Christ. 

Is there anything else you would like to add?

I would really recommend that you read the book Ênio Wendling - pela vereda mediúnica, published by Educere (http://editoraeducere.com.br). It’s the object of serious and rigorous research and the money generated by the sales will be donated to the Spiritist Centres where the great medium worked. I would also like to invite you to visit my YouTube channel, "Marcelo Orsini Espiritismo", which shows more of the work we all do here in the Belo Horizonte Spiritist Movement. And you may also check the Espiritismo BH Web Radio, which is available on a free app for mobiles and tablets and has been broadcasting for the past ten years, 24/7, great Spiritist content [in Portuguese].