Arnaldo Rocha, who was married to the Spiritual Benefactor, Meimei, was a close friend of the great Brazilian medium, Chico Xavier. He reveals that Chico Xavier was the reincarnation of Miss Japhet, a medium who worked alongside Allan Kardec. Arnaldo Rocha (photo) was a materialist and atheist when he married Meimei, who went on to become of the best-known workers in the

Spiritual World after disincarnating in October 1946. He was born in Tiradentes, in the state of Minas Gerais, in 1922. For sixty-four years now Arnaldo Rocha, a generous, humble and yet very experienced Spiritist worker, has worked as a counsellor at the Spiritist Union of Minas Gerais. After Memei’s departure, he married Neuza Tófani, who has also disincarnated. His first contact with Spiritism was during a meeting at the home of his brother, Geraldo. He never looked back and went on to develop a close relationship with the Doctrine and the medium, Chico Xavier. In his private life, Arnaldo Rocha was an athlete. He kindly agreed to share his thoughts and experiences with us in this interview:

What would you like to highlight from all the time you shared with Chico Xavier? What were the most valuable lessons?

I became more tolerant and patient, and Chico Xavier showed me the beauty of the Spiritist Doctrine. 

By being so close to him for so long, you must have learned a great deal from the Spiritual World…

Regardless of what happened around him, Chico Xavier kept cool, he was a calma and simple man. And I’ve learned with him to be humble and tolerant – something that has really changed my life. 

How and when did you become a Spiritist?

I was an atheist and materialist. My siblings and my mother were Spiritist. They used to invite me to join study groups, their meetings, but I wasn’t interested. I got married when I was 22 and became a widower when I was 24. Meimei died on October 1^st 1946. On October 11^th, I was looking for shelter from a storm and, being close to my brother’s home – Geraldo Benício Rocha – I knocked on his door. Luíza, my sister-in-law, opened the door and I saw she was getting ready to start a Spiritist meeting with some other friends. I immediately felt like going away, but Luíza was so nice and insisted that I stayed. I sat next to a woman in her sixties, who looked old and wrinkly and spoke with a very strong Italian accent. After the opening prayer, the lights were dimmed and the lady next to me entered a trance state – something I’d never seen. She displayed all the symptoms and signs of someone suffering a lot, gasping for air, as though she was vomiting blood. (Meimei disincarnated due to a serious lung haemorrhage, caused by kidney problems.) 

How did you feel then?

I though the whole thing was very odd. My brother got up from his chair and started talking to that “thing”… He spoke soothing words and the unpleasant symptoms displayed by the medium began to dissipate. I looked into the woman’s face and was surprised by her new appearance, she looked young. My brother addressed the “thing” and asked whether she wished to talk to someone in particular. That’s when I got really surprised. I could hear clearly Meimei’s beautiful, melodious voice. And she said: “I would like to, really, but my lonely one won’t understand…” Irma de Castro Rocha, Meimei’s real name, could never pronounce the word really properly. 

What was the meaning of my lonely one in this context?

After getting engaged, Meimei and I read a Chinese book called The Moment in Peking. That’s where we found out that Meimei in Chinese meant fiancé, or fiancée, beloved. And we began to call each other Meiemi. When she got ill, she began to call me the lonely one, as she said that she would disincarnate and that I would be alone. 

What was your reaction after that meeting? After all, you didn’t believe in Spirits then…

After the meeting, my brother told me to study The Spirits’ Book and The Gospel According to Spiritism. 

Did you follow his advice?

Yes, I did. All that was so odd and needed to be understood. 

How were Meimei’s final days as an incarnate?

In the last three months of her illness, her vision deteriorated. We slept in separate beds. She used to pray at night, saying very often: “Grandma Antoninha, come and take me somewhere really beautiful…” I used to think she wasn’t really “all there”, as a result of the intracranial hypertension she had and that eventually led to her blindness. She died on October 1^st 1946, at around 4 in the morning. Ten days later, she communicated with me at my brother’s house, as I mentioned earlier. 

How about Chico Xavier? How did you meet?

Our first contact was on October 22^nd, in the same year. I was walking on a street of the state capital, Belo Horizonte, when I bumped into a man, modestly dressed, with a hat on and holding a briefcase. We both fell on the pavement. As I turned down to pick up the briefcase and the hat for him, I saw this smiling, friendly face. This man put his hand on my face gently and said: “Our little Princess is here. Meimei would be 24 today.” I got really scared. But how could I know what a clairvoyant medium was? I thought to myself that all Spiritists were a bit mad. The man had never seen me, and yet he called me Naldinho and spoke to me about Meimei. Once I recovered from the shock, I recognised him as Chico Xavier from an article published in one of the main magazines at the time. Chico Xavier and I then went straight to my brother’s house and, through Chico’s mediumship, Meimei spoke to me for over an hour. That was the beginning of my friendship with Chico. 

What else do you know about Meimei, apart from is already in the public domain?

In the book Entre a Terra e o Céu (Between Earth and Heaven), by the spirit, André Luiz, on chapter nine there is a passage showing that Meimei worked with her grandmother, Antoninha, assisting disincarnated children. On chapter 10, Meimei talks to Clarência and André Luiz about her duties in the Spiritual World and her job assisting the mothers who pray for the health of their children, for their recovery. Chico Xavier told me that when I got engaged to my second wife, Neuza Tófani, the Spiritual benefactor, Emmanuel, had revealed that Meimei had asked to return, to reincarnate. Emmanuel told her that she wouldn’t be able to come back as my wife, only as my daughter. But he told her off and asked her to stop getting jealous of me and focus on the hundreds of nurseries and children homes named after her, Meimei. “How could you abandon your responsibilities just because of a private matter? If I am consulted, I will advise against it.” She was told to carry on with her work in the Spiritual World, to think about the nurseries named after her across the country, to think about the desperate mothers praying to her for their children’s health, and Meimei accepted it. 

Arnaldo, it is important to talk about reincarnation. I read once that you took part in a meeting with Chico Xavier where it was revealed that the Brazilian musician Radamés Gnatali was the reincarnation of the Italian composer Rossini. Could you tell us more about that?

Chico Xavier’s brother-in-law, Pedro Quintão, phoned a Tuesday night inviting me to go to the town of Pedro Leopoldo. Chico was in his house there, with his great friend, Radamés Gnatali. We then joined for a Spiritist meeting, and Emmanuel communicated, saying that Radamés was the reincarnation of Rossini. Radamés and Pedro Quinhão went back to Belo Horizonte. I stayed on, as the next day was a public holiday. And later I remembered that there are two messages by Rossini in Allan Kardec’s Posthumous Works. 

There are rumours that Chico Xavier was the reincarnation of Allan Kardec, but you have said that he was in a previous life Miss Japhet, a medium who worked with Kardec. What can you say about this controversy?

There is a lot of fantasy and imagination among Spiritists, unfortunately. All the previous incarnations of Chico Xavier were as a woman – from 3,256BC, when he was born as the Egyptian princess Hutsepsup, to 1890, when he disincarnated in Barcelona, Spain. He is a female spirit. Only now, in his last existence, in the face of the responsibilities he had to bear, Chico was born as a man. It seems like once a month Kardec used to submit the material that was to be published eventually as The Spirits Book either to Mr Roustan’s home or Mr Japhet’s. The Spirit of Truth made the corrections and amendments and finally advised on its publication, on April 18^th 1857. At Mr Roustan’s, Kardec used to mention the medium (C). At Mr Japhet’s, he mentioned her name in full, Ruth-Céline Japhet. Chico corrected my pronunciation, saying the “ph” had a “p” sound, not an “f” sound: “It’s Japet!” It was a Jewish name. I then asked him who Ruth Japhet was. 

What did Chico tell you?

He replied with a smile on his face: “You’re speaking to her…” 

So Chico Xavier was contemporary to Kardec. He was Miss Japhet?

I heard it from him. 

What was Miss Japhet’s real role in Kardec’s work?

She was a medium and helped him from the beginning, when they met at Mrs Plainemaison’s house. Kardec used to get guidance from the spirits through her. 

Who came up with the idea that Chico Xavier was the reincarnation of Allan Kardec?

I’ve no idea, I don’t pay any attention to such silliness. It must come from people who don’t know the Spiritist Doctrine and come up with such nonsense. 

Do you think there will be an end to that controversy? What could put an end to it?

In other interviews I give, I avoid putting much emphasis on that. It belongs to the field of fantasy, and I don’t pay attention to it. It’s all a big diversion, which adds nothing to the Doctrine. 

What was your role in the publication and dissemination of the work of Chico Xavier, who wrote in trance hundreds of books?

When the Meimei Group was founded, we began to record the lectures we had at the end of our meetings. The spirits of Emmanuel, Teresa of Avila, Pedro de Alcântara, Dr. Camilo Chaves and others guided us through publishing two books: Instruções Psicofônicas and Vozes do Além. When Chico moved to the city of Uberaba, I gave him about 30 messages, already organised and ready for publication, but they got lost and we were never able to publish a third book. 

And what was your role in Chico Xavier’s work once he moved to Uberaba?

I just went there to see him, to visit him, nothing else. 

The Brazilian TV network, Globo, broadcast a mini-series about Chico Xavier’s life. I was intrigued by some aspects of it, as it depicted two very different “Chicos”. The first one was a simple man, not well dressed; with the humble and down to Earth approach we imagined Chico had. The other one, older, shows a man worried about his looks, vain and even somewhat arrogant. It’s inconceivable that Chico really would have changed that much. What do you think?

Neither the series nor the film about Chico Xavier’s life was made by Spiritists. Chico was very, very poor. His mother, Maria João de Deus, was black and all her children were dark skinned or mulattoes. Chico Xavier in the film was a white man. And there are other mistakes. Pedro Leopoldo, his hometown, is flat, but the opening scenes of the film show hills, roads going up and down. The older Chico in the film comes up as someone self-important, when it was exactly the opposite. Watch again footage from the famous television programmes he took part on in the early seventies, Pinga Fogo, and you will see what I am talking about. But there is always room for imagination… 

And yet, do you think the film was important to disseminate the Doctrine?

Yes. Many people who watched the film are coming to Spiritist Centres to look for more information. Spiritists need to study more in order to be able to help those who seek information on the basic principles of the Doctrine. 

In the Spiritist blockbuster, Nosso Lar – Astral City, Emmanuel is characterised as an inhabitant of that city. Is that correct?

No, that is the way the book was adapted, it’s what we call poetic licence. All Emmanuel did was the preface, the presentation of Nosso Lar, the book, as well as all the others in the series of works written by André Luiz. 

What is your assessment on the Spiritist Movement in Brazil? How do you see its future?

I believe Spiritism is moving forward, even though it depends so often on the work of so many slow-moving and pensive Spiritists. The future of Spiritism will be to enlighten humankind to the fact that we are all immortal beings. All Spiritist must be more aware about The Spirits’ Book, the most important of all Spiritst books, ignored by so many in the Movement. 

What is the best way, the best approach, to study the works of Kardec?

For beginners, the best books are What is Spiritism  and O Principiante Espírita (The Spiritist Beginner), which will provide the basis for the constant, endless study of The Spirits’ Book, The Gospel According to Spiritism, The Medium’s Book, Heaven and Hell, and Genesis. I always say Spiritism is not the same as Mediumship. Spiritism is a Doctrine, Mediumship is a tool that allows psychic communication.  

In a nutshell, how would you describe Chico Xavier and Meimei?

They are both people who educated me on the Spiritist Doctrine. I owe both of them so much and I am very grateful for that. 

Thank you very much for this interview. Please share with us your final thoughts…

I am now 88 years old. I work at the Spiritist Union of Minas Gerais twice a week. Om Monday’s, we have the systematic study of The Spirits’ Book. On Wednesday’s, I am in charge of a group of ten mediums who work on spirit attachment, or obsession. That makes my soul really happy. Let us all work for the dissemination of Spiritism. It is a gift from Jesus. Let us help those who ask for assistance. That way, we will receive so much every single day. 

Author’s Note:  

Click on http://vimeo.com/9098617 to see a lecture delivered by Arnaldo Rocha on October 9^th 2009 – “Chico, Diálogos e Recordações” – about the much-missed medium, Chico Xavier.