Uberaba — Chico Xavier and the letters from the dead

OVERVIEW

Francisco Cândido "Chico" Xavier (1910–2002), born in Pedro Leopoldo, Minas Gerais, wrote some 490 books and around ten thousand letters by what he called psychography — writing dictated by spirits — and never accepted the money from their sales. His books sold an estimated 50 million copies. In 1959 he moved to Uberaba, which became an informal centre of pilgrimage, with thousands of people arriving every day hoping to hear from dead relatives.

HISTORY

His first book, Parnaso de Além-Túmulo (1931–32), gave 256 poems attributed to dead Brazilian and Portuguese poets. Letters he wrote on behalf of the dead to their families were declared genuine by many, and some were used as evidence in four criminal trials. His television appearances in the late 1960s and early 1970s helped make Spiritism one of Brazil's major religions. He died in Uberaba on 30 June 2002.

REPORTED ACTIVITY

He has been accused of fraud. In 2010 Kentaro Mori, in the Skeptical Inquirer, reported that Xavier's associate Waldo Vieira said staff at Xavier's centre gathered information about clients and faked letters; Xavier was also accused of using perfume in the séance room and was photographed in 1964 with a medium, Otília Diogo, who impersonated a spirit under a sheet. The entry records both — a practice of mediumship that shaped a nation's religion, and the accusations against it — and anchors them at the city.

VISITING

Uberaba, in the Triângulo Mineiro. The anchor is the city, not a single address.