Chico Xavier

Chico Xavier was a great populariser of spiritism in Brazil and in the world. In 1931, at the age of 20, Chico Xavier claimed that he had come into contact with a spirit called Emmanuel, who dictated books to him. In this way, he wrote more than 400 works. Chico Xavier claimed that he was not the author of any of these books, but always wrote only what the spirits asked him to write. For this reason, Chico did not receive the money directly from the sale of his books, but through the Brazilian Spiritist Federation, an entity he created for this purpose. With the money from the sale of his books, he dedicated himself to helping poor people through the federation. He is mainly known for his welfare works in the city of Uberaba. From the 1970s onwards. He achieved great recognition in Brazil for his great works of charity.  

Chico claimed that for almost three hundred years Christians had been meeting in the open air. Chico was referring to the elitist meetings, frequent in the spiritist ranks, but he did not miss the opportunity to warn him about the same mistake that Christianity has made by metamorphosing into Catholicism. He added that closed meetings are also necessary, but we need to go to the simplest people so that everyone knows, and we too, that we are brothers and sisters to each other.  

From 1980 to 1985, every Saturday, Chico Xavier usually held an evangelical service in the shade of a leafy avocado tree, in the heart of nature, in Uberaba. Bacelli and his collaborators have handwritten what Chico said, intuited by Emmanuel. It is a collection of precious phrases and lessons delivered in the open air, for a heterogeneous public.  

Published works 

His first book was "Parnassus of the Beyond", with 256 poems attributed to dead poets, among them the Portuguese poets João de Deus, Antero de Quental and Guerra Junqueiro and the Brazilians, Cruz e Sousa and Augusto dos Anjos. It was first published in 1932. His best-selling book was Our Home - a text he attributed to the spirit André Luiz - which by 2005 had sold more than 1.5 million copies.  

Some titles are: 

• On the way to the light. 

• Action and reaction. 

• Children in the afterlife. 

• Disobsession. 

• Between two worlds. 

• 2000 years ago. 

• Jesus in the home. 

• Book of hope. 

• In the realms of mediumship. 

• Our home. 

• Our bread. 

• Parnassus of the beyond. 

Death 

He died in Uberaba (Minas Gerais) on 30 June 2002, aged 92.  

Chico Xavier film 

In 2010, the film Chico Xavier, with music by Egberto Gismonti, was released. Within 10 days, 1.36 million people had filled Brazilian cinemas to see it. The film was seen in cinemas by more people than any Brazilian production since 1995.