Divaldo Pereira Franco. He is a Brazilian professor and writer, recognised as one of the greatest mediums and Spiritist speakers of today and the greatest disseminator of the Spiritist Doctrine or doctrine of the Spirits throughout the world. He was the representative of Spiritism as a delegate to the United Nations from August 28-31, 2000, at the World Peace Summit of Religious and Spiritual Leaders. After the death of the Brazilian medium Chico Xavier in 2002, Divaldo has become the most representative figure of Spiritism in the world. 

Divaldo was born on May 5, 1927, in the city of Feira de Santana, Bahia, Brazil, better known as Divaldo Franco or simply Divaldo, since his childhood he has communicated with the spirits. He attended the Normal Rural School of Freira de Santana, receiving his diploma as a primary school teacher in 1943. He founded the Spiritist Centre Camino da Recenção on September 7, 1947. 

As an educator, he founded in 1952, in the city of Salvador, Bahia, together with Nilson de Souza Pereira, the Mansion of the Way, an institution that welcomes and educates children under a semi-boarding and day-care regime. He adopted and educated more than 600 children (currently emancipated and with a constituted family), and has more than 200 grandchildren and great-grandchildren. In the 60's, he started the construction of schools, professional workshops and medical centres. He participated in more than thirteen thousand lectures in more than two thousand cities all over Brazil and in sixty-five countries in the five continents, and gave 1.500 interviews for radio and television, in Brazil and abroad. 

Mediumship activities

As a medium, he has published two hundred and fifty-five books, with over eight million copies, featuring two hundred and eleven spiritual authors, many of them occupying a prominent place in universal literature, thought and religion. These works, there were seventeen language versions (Albanian, Catalan, Danish, German, Esperanto, French, Dutch, Hungarian, Italian, Norwegian, Polish, Spanish, Czech, Turkish, Russian, Swedish and Braille). There are also seventeen books written by other authors about his life and work. Proceeds from the sale of these works, as well as royalties were donated to the office, the Manor of the Way and other charities. Notable among them are: 

• Joana de Angelis: (considered in the Spiritist milieu as the spirit of Juana de Cusa and Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz and spiritual guide of Divaldo) who is credited with about 72 works focused on psychology in which she establishes a bridge between Spiritism and the currents of modern psychology, especially transpersonal and Jungian psychology. 
• Manoel philomeno de Miranda: with 14 novels dealing with mediumnity, madness and obsession.
• Amelia Rodrigues: who is credited with 11 poetic and evangelical works dealing with the life of Jesus of Nasareth.
• Victor Hugo: Of which 8 romances stand out, characterised by their literary style and their strong humanist, segregationist and spiritistic content.