A special moment for Spiritism in the world 

 
We read the leading article for October in the journal “O Imortal”: 

“As it was said by a confrere of ours, the moment has been auspicious for the Spiritist movement in Brazil and abroad.

Here, the three main magazines – Veja, Época and IstoÉ – highlighted the gross office success hit by the movie Bezerra de Menezes – The Diary of a Spirit. In the case of Veja, it has been said that the amount of e-mails sent to the magazine commenting on the film outnumbered all the others subjects concerning the week. If it doesn’t have for us a major significance, it is known that for the magazine it is quite important, once it points out a bigger conscience Spiritist-wise related to spreading Spiritist ideas.

The critics, as for the quality of the movie, have not been generous. According to the magazine Época, the success of the movie is amazing, which is, for them, unpretentious and lacks a “plot that drags on in the film”. But the thing is that, according to the magazine, the value of its cost for more than R$ 2 million was recovered in one month and a half. Up to September, the movie had attracted 262,461 spectators, which characterizes, according to Época, “a new phenomenon of Brazilian cinema”.

With effect, as the press has said, up to the premiere of the movie, the life of the doctor Adolfo Bezerra de Menezes was unknown for the great public. Even though, the film, the notable story of a doctor touched the public and has taken many of them to cry. What is the explanation? Época’s reporter tries to explain: “The empathy caused by the movie may not be in what it shows, but the subject itself: Spiritism. Brazil is the largest Spiritist country in the world. There are 20 million adepts, according to the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE). Loved by Spiritism followers, Bezerra de Menezes is an entity to whom prayers are addressed. In Orkut, there are more than one thousand communities which take the name ‘Doctor of the Poor, as Bezerra got known. “Most of them gather 33 thousand participants”.

In an expressive scene of the film, Bezerra de Menezes says: “Materialism doesn’t suffice existence”, an idea well taken by the public, mainly for those who went to the movies to watch the story of the greatest Spiritist Brazil has ever known. “It’s good to watch a movie about a guy who only did good things”, says to Época the student Giulianna Ciuffo, 17, who watched the movie in the first week. “I can’t’ stand going to the movies to see bullets poverty and traffic anymore”, the teen said, from a Catholic church and now following Spiritism.

In the story published by IstoÉ, which also highlights the success of the movie, the reporter recalls that Brazil is the largest Spiritist country in the world. “They are – according to the text - 20 million of adepts and followers, according to the Brazilian Spiritist Federation – in the last Census of the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) 2.3 million declared they follow Allan Kardec, the founder of the Doctrine.” The number of people who watched the movie was considered good by the magazine, since it was a national production.

To the euphoria caused by the success of the movie we should add an equally auspicious piece of news, which is the premiere on Rede TV, on October 5^th, by the confrere Divaldo Franco, with a program that is broadcast all over Brazil, on Sundays, from 15h to 15h30.

No one in the Brazilian Spiritist movement can be more prepared for such a task, which will surely have a great response, showing to the public what is, in fact, Spiritism and what its principles are.

Just like what happened decades ago with Chico Xavier on TV Tupi, fact which contributed positively for the expansion of the Spiritist movement in Brazil, we are sure that his sympathy, charisma and knowledge will contribute so that Brazilians can know a bit better the Spiritist teachings and can understand why Bezerra stated that materialism cannot fulfill man’s needs.” 

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