Atlas›Domain XIV · Western esoteric, divinatory & new spiritual movements›Guide 100
Guide XIV-100

Kardecist Spiritism and passe healing

Allan Kardec (Hippolyte Léon Denizard Rivail)1857Paris, France
A 39 · L 44 · M 1718 interventions in the Trinity explorer
Client cardCompare
[source: …] where a claim comes from[uncertain] not confirmed in a primary source[synthesis] the writer's reconstruction

1. Introduction

Version followed: Brazilian Kardecist Spiritism (Espiritismo) as the Federação Espírita Brasileira (FEB) sets out centre activities in Orientação ao Centro Espírita (FEB, 2021, approved by the Conselho Federativo Nacional on 6 November 2020, revising guidance from 1980 and 2007), Allan Kardec's own works as Spiritist training texts cite them, and scholarly accounts of Spiritist psychiatric hospitals (Moreira-Almeida and colleagues; Facchinetti and Jabert; Bragdon, ed.). [source: FEB 2021; Kardec via LibriVox; scholarly sources listed below]

This is a religious and healing movement, not a psychotherapy. Spiritism was codified by Allan Kardec (pseudonym of Hippolyte Léon Denizard Rivail, 1804–1869). The Spirits' Book (Le Livre des Esprits, Paris, 1857) is the first of a five-book canon. It is written as questions and answers attributed to spirits, with Kardec's commentary. Its core teachings, as the movement states them, are belief in God, the survival of the soul after death, reincarnation, and moral progress of the soul through successive lives. [source: LibriVox, The Spirits' Book] The other basic works cited in training material include O Livro dos Médiuns, O Evangelho segundo o Espiritismo and A Gênese [source: Atendimento Espiritual pelo Passe; publication years [uncertain: not verified]].

In Brazil the movement works through local Spiritist centres (centros espíritas) federated under the FEB. Healing, in the movement's terms, is moral and spiritual: a person is helped through welcome and dialogue, explanation of the Gospel in the light of Spiritist doctrine, the passe (a laying-on of hands or hands held near the body, understood as a transfer of "fluids" or psychic energy), magnetised water, prayer at a distance (irradiação), study, and home Gospel reading. [source: FEB 2021; Atendimento Espiritual pelo Passe] Spiritist training texts describe the passe, after Kardec's A Gênese (ch. XIV), as action of thought and will on "spiritual fluids", and one widely quoted Spiritist author calls it a "transfusão de energias psíquicas" (a transfusion of psychic energies). These are the movement's own explanations, not established facts. [source: Atendimento Espiritual pelo Passe]

The movement also founded psychiatric hospitals. In these, Spiritist practices have run alongside conventional psychiatry, usually under physician directors. [source: Facchinetti & Jabert 2018; Moreira-Almeida et al. 2005; Bragdon 2011] Spiritist surgery, Arigó and João de Deus are covered in 101. Mediumship circles are covered in 098, and stage mediumship and grief in 099.

Evidence status (one line): there is no reliable evidence that passe or magnetised water treat any disease. A 2011 systematic review by authors linked to a Spiritist medical association called the evidence "indirect": laying on of hands showed some positive associations, while magnetised water and spirit-release work (disobsession) were poorly studied. [source: Lucchetti et al. 2011, abstract] Nothing here is presented as treating physical or mental disease.

How change happens, for the psychotherapist: the therapist does not give or endorse passe. The work is to understand what Spiritist practice means in the client's life (comfort, community, a moral frame, a way of understanding suffering and death), to support informed and autonomous health decisions in coordination with the client's doctors, and to tell culturally normative experience apart from disorder without pathologising belief. [synthesis]

2. Framework

2a. The path through a Spiritist centre (as FEB describes it). These are activities rather than therapeutic phases. FEB lists them as:

  • Atendimento Espiritual (spiritual care): reception; fraternal dialogue (atendimento fraterno); explanation of the Gospel in the light of Spiritism; passe and magnetisation of water; irradiação; and encouragement of Evangelho no Lar (Gospel at home). [source: FEB 2021]
  • Public lectures (palestras públicas): given by trained speakers, who are checked for fidelity to Spiritist principles. [source: FEB 2021]
  • Study: introductory study, study of Kardec's basic works, the Estudo Sistematizado da Doutrina Espírita (ESDE) and advanced study, for all ages. [source: FEB 2021]
  • Mediumship: study and practice of mediumship as preparation. Mediumship meetings (reuniões mediúnicas) give assistance to disembodied spirits described as needing guidance. Communications from "spiritually ill" spirits are kept to private meetings, not public sessions. [source: FEB 2021]
  • Spiritist education of children and youth (evangelização): requires written parental authorisation. [source: FEB 2021]

The published sequence for a newcomer runs: welcome, then a private dialogue, then referral within the centre to the Gospel explanation meeting, passe, study and Evangelho no Lar. [source: Atendimento Fraterno pelo Diálogo] FEB states that all doctrinal activity must be free of charge. It discourages bingo and raffles, and it prohibits collections during doctrinal meetings. [source: FEB 2021] The movement's sources give no session counts or durations for passe. Training material warns against "the habit of giving passes without need". [source: Atendimento Espiritual pelo Passe]

2b. The psychotherapist's work: phases [synthesis]. No source gives session counts for this work. Pace it to the presenting problem.

  1. Engagement and cultural assessment. Goal: learn how Spiritism fits the client's identity, family and help-seeking, using the Cultural Formulation Interview (CFI) and its supplementary module on spirituality, religion and moral traditions [uncertain: DSM-5-TR wording not verified]. Move on when you can state in the client's own terms what the centre gives them and what they want from therapy.
  2. Differential assessment and safety. Goal: tell normative Spiritist experience (mediumship in a supervised group, felt presence of the dead, comfort after a passe) apart from psychosis, mania, dissociative disorder, complicated grief or OCD. Check medical care, medicines, and any children involved. Move on once the risks are mapped and medical coordination is agreed.
  3. Meaning-centred work on the presenting problem, using the client's frame where helpful (charity, moral progress, continuing bonds), alongside an evidence-based treatment for any disorder. Move on once symptoms or goals are improving.
  4. Coordination and consolidation. Spiritist practice continues as the client chooses, with the medical treatment plan intact, family conflict addressed, and a relapse plan that names both kinds of support.

2c. Spiritist psychiatric hospitals (as scholars describe them). Spiritist hospitals were founded by local Spiritist movements and directed by biomedically trained physicians. At the Spiritist Sanatorium in Uberaba (records from 1934 to 1948), the two therapeutic approaches had to be adapted and negotiated to coexist. [source: Facchinetti & Jabert 2018] Hospitals whose archives scholars have used include the Hospital Psiquiátrico Espírita Allan Kardec (Franca, SP), the Hospital João Evangelista (São Paulo) and the Hospital Espírita Américo Bairral (Itapira, SP). [source: Almeida & Moreira-Almeida 2023] An English-language edited volume describes Spiritist therapies in centres and psychiatric hospitals: mediumship, "energy work", prayer, homeopathy, past-life regression and spiritually informed counselling. It also covers how centres and hospitals are founded and funded. [source: Bragdon (ed.) 2011, publisher description] The total number of such hospitals and how they integrate today [uncertain: not verified]. A paper titled "Spiritist psychiatric hospitals in Brazil: integration of conventional psychiatric treatment and spiritual complementary therapy" (Lucchetti et al., 2012) is cited in the literature [uncertain: not verified].

In the first half of the twentieth century many Brazilian psychiatrists treated Spiritism as a cause of mental illness ("loucura espírita", Spiritist madness). They read mediumistic experience as a symptom, a cause of illness or fraud. Historians link this partly to the Catholic or materialist commitments of those psychiatrists. [source: Moreira-Almeida et al. 2005, abstract; Almeida & Moreira-Almeida 2023] This history is a reason not to pathologise belief today. [synthesis]

3. Guiding principles

  • Describe, do not adjudicate. Use the client's terms (passe, fluidos, obsessão, desencarnado, a disembodied spirit) with a short gloss. Practical meaning: never tell the client the passe "works" or "is nonsense". [synthesis]
  • Healing claims are the movement's claims. Practical meaning: say "in Spiritist teaching, the passe…". The movement's own federation advises against using the words "cura" (cure) and "terapia" (therapy) for its activities. [source: FEB 2021]
  • Complement, never substitute. Training material places the passe "a par da medicação ordinária" (alongside ordinary medication). FEB says any prescription or medicine distribution in a centre should happen under legally qualified professionals. Practical meaning: support the client in keeping medical and psychiatric treatment. Never advise starting, stopping or changing a medicine. [source: Atendimento Espiritual pelo Passe; FEB 2021]
  • Free of charge is the movement's own norm. FEB states doctrinal activity "deve ser gratuita" (must be free). Kardec's Gospel (ch. XXVI) teaches that a healing gift is not to be sold. Practical meaning: a charge for passe, readings or "treatment" is a departure from FEB norms worth exploring. [source: FEB 2021; Atendimento Espiritual pelo Passe]
  • Lay volunteers are not clinicians. FEB-based guidance says fraternal-dialogue volunteers should avoid counselling and acting as psychologists, even when they are qualified. Practical meaning: the centre and therapy are different roles, and either can say so. [source: Atendimento Fraterno pelo Diálogo]
  • The therapist is not a passista, medium or healer in therapy. Practical meaning: no passe, prayer-healing or spirit interpretation in sessions, even if you are Spiritist yourself. Keep any personal practice entirely separate. [synthesis]
  • Do not repeat the "loucura espírita" error. Practical meaning: mediumship within a supervised group, with no distress or impairment, is not a symptom. Assess function, distress, control and context. [source for history: Almeida & Moreira-Almeida 2023; clinical stance: synthesis]
  • Do not over-correct into collusion. Practical meaning: a spiritual explanation (for example "obsession" by a spirit) can sit alongside a psychiatric one. Never accept it as a reason to skip assessment of psychosis, suicidality or medical illness. [synthesis]
  • Respect autonomy and the family. Practical meaning: decisions belong to the client. Address mixed-belief family conflict openly, and involve community leaders only if the client wishes. [synthesis]
  • Spiritual and religious competence. Practical meaning: know the basics of the client's tradition, examine your own attitudes, and consult where unsure. Vieten et al. (2013) list such competencies [uncertain: not verified]. [synthesis]
  • Children are safeguarded independently of belief. Practical meaning: children's attendance at evangelização needs written parental authorisation under FEB norms. A child's medical care is never replaced by spiritual care, and your jurisdiction's child-protection duties apply. [source: FEB 2021; remainder synthesis]

4. Intervention inventory

Part A covers the practices of the movement as its own sources publish them, in outline. The therapist does not perform any of them. For each, the steps are how the client meets the practice and what the therapist does with it. Part B covers the psychotherapist's own interventions.

A1. Atendimento fraterno pelo diálogo (fraternal dialogue)

  • Purpose (movement): to welcome people coming to a centre, especially first-time visitors, and to offer support, guidance, comfort and encouragement grounded in the Gospel as Spiritism reads it. [source: Atendimento Fraterno pelo Diálogo; FEB 2021]
  • How it runs (outline): a warm reception, then a private and confidential conversation ("em caráter privativo e sigiloso"). The volunteer listens, identifies needs, and encourages inner renewal and the person's own change of attitude, with spiritual support. A coordinator trains and supervises the volunteers, and an average length per conversation is set locally. The volunteer then points the person to lectures, the passe, study, children's and youth classes and Evangelho no Lar. Volunteers are told to avoid counselling or acting as psychologists. [source: Atendimento Fraterno pelo Diálogo]
  • Therapist steps [synthesis]: (1) Ask what the client brought to the dialogue and what they were told. (2) Note any advice that touches health, medicines or relationships. (3) Separate the roles: the centre gives spiritual welcome, and therapy gives clinical assessment and treatment.
  • Example language (illustrative): "When you went to the centre the first time, what did the person who talked with you say that stayed with you?"
  • Watch for: guidance that conflicts with medical advice. This departs from FEB norms, so ask who said it. Watch also for shame ("they said I must change my thoughts") turning into self-blame. Signs it is working: the client describes the centre as one support among several.

A2. Public lecture and explanation of the Gospel

  • Purpose (movement): talks for the general public on themes treated in the light of Spiritist doctrine, given by trained speakers who are checked for doctrinal fidelity. [source: FEB 2021]
  • Therapist steps [synthesis]: ask which themes have helped (charity, forgiveness, the meaning of suffering, survival after death). Use them as resources for values work. Explore themes the client experiences as burdensome, such as suffering read as karmic "atonement".
  • Example language (illustrative): "You said the talk on forgiveness helped. What would forgiveness look like with your brother, in your own words?"
  • Watch for: suffering framed only as deserved, which can deepen depression or guilt. Explore with curiosity, and do not argue doctrine. [synthesis]

A3. Passe (laying-on of hands)

  • Purpose (movement): in Spiritist teaching, a transfer of "fluids" or psychic energy for spiritual and moral support. Training texts cite Kardec's A Gênese (ch. XIV), The Spirits' Book (q. 424) and O Livro dos Médiuns. They describe three kinds: magnetic (the passista's own fluid), human-spiritual (spirits acting through the passista) and spiritual (spirits acting directly). [source: Atendimento Espiritual pelo Passe] All of these are attributed beliefs. Evidence status: see Section 1.
  • How it is practised (outline only): given at the centre as part of Atendimento Espiritual. The recipient sits quietly in a prayerful, respectful frame of mind. Trained volunteer passistas (mediums) are chosen for doctrinal knowledge, emotional balance and a habit of prayer. They hold their hands over or near the person; sources differ on whether physical contact is used. A coordinator handles referrals and emergencies such as fainting, seizures or intoxication. Passe outside the centre is exceptional: at least two mediums, family agreement for home visits, and a scheduled visit. Training material warns against giving passes without need, and FEB requires it to be free. [source: Atendimento Espiritual pelo Passe; FEB 2021] Duration and room set-up are not specified in these sources.
  • Therapist steps [synthesis]: (1) Ask what the passe feels like and means: calm, being cared for, a ritual of hope. (2) Ask whether anyone has suggested it replaces medical or psychiatric care. (3) If touch is part of the client's experience, ask how comfortable they are with it, especially if they have a trauma history.
  • Example language (illustrative): "Many people tell me the passe helps them feel calmer and looked after. What is it like for you, and how does it sit alongside the treatment your doctor recommended?"
  • Watch for: stopping medicines or delaying medical review "because the passe is working". Watch for compulsive repeat attendance to relieve anxiety (reassurance-seeking), touch that feels unwelcome, and any fee. Signs it is working, from the client's point of view: it eases distress and medical care continues.

A4. Magnetised ("fluidic") water

  • Purpose (movement): water "magnetised" during Atendimento Espiritual. FEB lists "magnetização de água" among its components. The movement understands it to carry beneficial fluids. [source: FEB 2021] Evidence status: poorly studied. [source: Lucchetti et al. 2011, abstract]
  • How it is practised (outline only): offered at the centre as part of spiritual care. No preparation steps are given here, and it carries no health claim here.
  • Therapist steps [synthesis]: treat it as a devotional practice. Check that it is not being used in place of prescribed treatment, or in place of fluids or medicines for a sick child.
  • Example language (illustrative): "Is the water something you take as a prayer, alongside your medicines, or has anyone suggested it could take their place?"
  • Watch for: substitution for medical care. Route physical health questions to the client's doctor. [synthesis]

A5. Irradiação (prayer at a distance)

  • Purpose (movement): a component of Atendimento Espiritual in which a group directs prayer and good thoughts to people who are absent. [source: FEB 2021; detail [uncertain: not verified]]
  • Therapist steps [synthesis]: explore it as a source of felt support and connection. When a family has "put a relative's name in" for irradiação, the relative may not know or agree, so explore consent and family dynamics.
  • Example language (illustrative): "How does it feel to know the group is praying for your mother? Does she know about it?"
  • Watch for: magical thinking turning into scrupulosity, for example believing one's "bad thoughts" harm the person prayed for. If it looks like OCD, assess, and consider ERP as the IOCDF describes it [uncertain: not verified].

A6. Evangelho no Lar (Gospel at home)

  • Purpose (movement): regular home reading of the Gospel in the Spiritist reading, encouraged by the centre. [source: FEB 2021; Atendimento Fraterno pelo Diálogo]
  • Therapist steps [synthesis]: treat it as a family ritual. Ask who takes part, whether participation is voluntary, and whether it eases or fuels conflict in families of mixed belief.
  • Example language (illustrative): "When the family meets for the Gospel at home, who joins, and what is that time like for you?"
  • Watch for: pressure on reluctant teenagers or a spouse. Watch also for the ritual becoming a forum for blame. Signs it is working: the family describes it as connecting.

A7. Systematic study (ESDE and the basic works)

  • Purpose (movement): regular, methodical study of Spiritism for all ages, from introductory groups to advanced study. [source: FEB 2021]
  • Therapist steps [synthesis]: treat it as a source of meaning, community and cognitive engagement. Ask which ideas (reincarnation, moral progress, survival of the soul) shape how the client understands the presenting problem.
  • Example language (illustrative): "How does what you've studied about life continuing after death affect how you're coping with your father's illness?"
  • Watch for: rigid use of doctrine to suppress grief or anger ("I shouldn't cry, he's in a better place"). [synthesis]

A8. Mediumship study and mediumship meetings (including disobsession)

  • Purpose (movement): to prepare and guide people in mediumship. Mediumship meetings offer assistance to disembodied spirits described as needing guidance. Communications from "spiritually ill" spirits are kept to private meetings. [source: FEB 2021] In Spiritist usage, "obsessão" refers to a persistent harmful influence attributed to a spirit, and "desobsessão" refers to work to relieve it [uncertain: gloss not verified in a primary text]. This guide gives a public outline only, with no procedure. Disobsession ("spirit release") is poorly studied. [source: Lucchetti et al. 2011, abstract] For mediumship development, see 098.
  • Therapist steps [synthesis]: (1) Ask about experiences in or after meetings: voices, presences, trance, loss of time. (2) Assess control (can the client start and stop it?), context (only in the group, or intruding into daily life?), distress and function. (3) If the client says they have been told they have an "obsession", ask what it means to them and what the centre recommended, and assess in parallel for depression, psychosis, dissociation and OCD.
  • Example language (illustrative): "When you sit in the mediumship group, what happens for you, and does any of it carry on once you've gone home?"
  • Watch for: experiences that are uncontrolled, occur outside the group, or come with sleep loss, grandiosity, command voices or self-neglect. Assess urgently for psychosis or mania. Watch also for dissociative episodes, and for spirit explanations of suicidal thoughts, which still require a full risk assessment. Spirit-release frames can generate suggested "memories" (cross-refer Domain VI 110). [synthesis]

A9. Spiritist education of children and youth (evangelização)

  • Purpose (movement): planned, welcoming activities for children and young people, guided by Spiritist principles, with written parental authorisation required. [source: FEB 2021]
  • Therapist steps [synthesis]: ask what the child is taught about illness, death and spirits. Check the child's understanding and any fears, and that health care is not being replaced.
  • Example language (illustrative, to a parent): "What has your daughter been learning at the centre about why people get sick? How does she talk about it at home?"
  • Watch for: fear of spirits, guilt framed as karma, or a developmental or medical problem attributed only to spiritual causes and left unassessed. Follow safeguarding duties (see Section 5).

A10. Spiritist psychiatric hospitals and Spiritist hospital chaplaincy

  • Purpose and context: Spiritist-founded psychiatric hospitals, historically directed by biomedically trained physicians, have combined psychiatric treatment with Spiritist practices. [source: Facchinetti & Jabert 2018; Bragdon 2011] In a general hospital, Spiritist chaplaincy guided by a Spiritist medical association recorded 41,914 visits to 13,983 inpatients over 2012–2016. That study measured visits, not clinical outcomes. [source: Anefalos et al. 2018, abstract] The Brazilian Federal Council of Medicine (CFM), as a secular body, declined to rule on passe, fluidic water or the Spiritist medical association. It holds that faith and science can coexist provided the basic principles of good medical practice are respected. [source: CFM Parecer 2/2011]
  • Therapist steps [synthesis]: for a client discharged from such a hospital, get the psychiatric discharge plan through the usual channels with consent. Ask what Spiritist care they received and what meaning it held. Make sure the medication plan and psychiatric follow-up are clear.
  • Example language (illustrative): "In hospital you had both the doctors' treatment and the Spiritist care. Which parts helped, and what did the doctors ask you to continue?"
  • Watch for: the client's belief that the psychiatric part was optional, and confusion about who is responsible for follow-up. [synthesis]

Part B: the psychotherapist's interventions. These are general clinical practice adapted to this movement [synthesis] unless a source is given.

B1. Cultural and spiritual assessment (Cultural Formulation Interview)

  • Purpose: to understand Spiritism as the client lives it, and to avoid misreading normative experience. Use it at intake and whenever the client brings Spiritist material.
  • Steps: (1) Ask how the client defines the problem and what they think causes it, including spiritual causes (for example "obsession" or karma from a past life). (2) Ask what help they have sought, including the centre, passe, doctors and family. (3) Ask what the centre gives them: community, meaning, moral guidance, comfort. (4) Ask what would count as help from you. (5) Ask whether they want a centre leader involved, and agree what is shared. The DSM-5-TR CFI and its supplementary module on spirituality, religion and moral traditions structure these questions [uncertain: DSM-5-TR wording not verified].
  • Example language (illustrative): "Some people understand what they're going through in spiritual terms, some in medical terms, many in both. How do you understand it?"
  • Watch for: the client testing whether you will mock or convert them. Signs it is working: the client uses Spiritist terms freely with you.

B2. Differential assessment without pathologising belief

  • Purpose: to separate normative mediumistic or spiritual experience from psychosis, mania, dissociative disorders, complicated grief and OCD (scrupulosity), so that disorders are treated and beliefs are left alone.
  • Steps: (1) Gather the phenomenology: onset, voluntariness, context (in the group or everywhere), content, insight, and whether the community recognises it as normal. (2) Look at function, distress, sleep, mood, and drug and alcohol use. (3) Ask a member of the client's community, with consent, whether this is typical (the community acting as cultural informant). (4) Screen for suicide risk in the usual way, whatever explanation is given. (5) Where a disorder is present, explain your view of the treatment as additional to, not in conflict with, the client's spiritual care. Where a religious or spiritual problem that is not a disorder is the focus, consider Religious or Spiritual Problem, Z65.8 [source: ICD-10-CM Z65.8 (Unbound Medicine)]; DSM-5-TR wording [uncertain: not verified].
  • Example language (illustrative): "You've told me what the centre says about these voices. I'd also like to check your sleep and mood, because some of what you describe can also happen when the brain is under strain, and that's treatable alongside your spiritual care."
  • Watch for: historically, Brazilian psychiatry over-diagnosed Spiritist experience as madness. [source: Almeida & Moreira-Almeida 2023] The opposite error is missing a first psychotic episode framed as "mediumship unfolding". [synthesis]

B3. Medical coordination and autonomy-respecting decision support

  • Purpose: to keep medical and psychiatric treatment intact while respecting the client's spiritual choices. Use it whenever a client links passe, water or disobsession to a health problem.
  • Steps: (1) Ask what treatment the client is having and whether any spiritual advice has touched it. (2) Reflect the movement's own position: complement, not substitute (Section 3). (3) With consent, liaise with the client's doctor or psychiatrist. (4) Use a values-based decision conversation (what matters, options, consequences) and leave the decision with the client. (5) Never advise on medicines yourself: route medication questions to the prescriber.
  • Example language (illustrative): "Your centre's own guidance treats the passe as something alongside medical treatment. Would it help to talk with your doctor together about how you're feeling on the medication?"
  • Watch for: a client stopping medication after a passe or a mediumistic message, or delaying investigations. Escalate to the prescriber promptly. Spiritist surgery and "psychic surgeons" are covered in 101. The CFM rejects incision practices as medical treatment in any circumstances, citing delayed treatment and infection risk. [source: CFM Parecer 2/2011]

B4. Meaning-centred work within the client's frame

  • Purpose: to use Spiritist values (charity, forgiveness, moral progress, continuity of life) as resources for change, alongside evidence-based treatment.
  • Steps: (1) Identify the values the client already draws on. (2) Link them to goals, for example charity as behavioural activation in depression. (3) Gently explore beliefs that increase suffering, such as illness as deserved "atonement", by asking how the client's tradition also speaks of compassion. Do not dispute doctrine. A 2021 review found evidence that how people use religious beliefs, positively or negatively, shapes mental-health outcomes. It recommends that clinicians ask which aspects of spirituality and religion matter to their patients. [source: Lucchetti, Koenig & Lucchetti 2021, abstract]
  • Example language (illustrative): "You've said charity matters a lot in Spiritism. Is there a small way of helping someone this week that would feel right, even with low energy?"
  • Watch for: the therapist drifting into teaching doctrine, and the client using therapy to seek spiritual verdicts. Redirect to the client's own reflection.

B5. Grief, continuing bonds and mediumistic messages

  • Purpose: to support bereaved clients for whom Spiritism offers survival of the soul and the hope of contact, and to tell continuing bonds apart from complicated grief and exploitation.
  • Steps: (1) Invite the story of the death and of what the client believes about where the person is now. (2) Ask whether they have sought messages from the deceased through mediumship (including written messages attributed to the dead) and what those meant. (3) Support healthy continuing bonds: rituals, memories, values carried forward. (4) Assess complicated or prolonged grief, depression and suicide risk, including wishes to "join" the deceased. (5) Map costs, frequency and dependence, and note that FEB-affiliated activity is supposed to be free. Stage and paid mediums are covered in 099.
  • Example language (illustrative): "When the message came that seemed to be from your son, what did it give you, and what has it been like waiting for more?"
  • Watch for: life organised around waiting for messages, spending on readings, a message that directs major decisions, or a message that brings guilt. Also watch for passive suicidal ideation framed as reunion. Signs it is working: the bond feels like part of the client's ongoing life rather than a substitute for it.

B6. Family conflict and mixed-belief households

  • Purpose: to help when family members disagree about Spiritism (for example Catholic or Evangelical relatives) or about medical versus spiritual care.
  • Steps: (1) Map each person's position and fears. (2) Separate belief disputes, which need no resolution, from safety decisions, which do. (3) Agree shared minimum commitments, for example that medical appointments continue. (4) Offer joint sessions if wanted.
  • Example language (illustrative): "It sounds like you don't need to agree about spirits to agree that Dad keeps his cardiology appointments. Can we start there?"
  • Watch for: a family member using spiritual explanations to control another, and teenagers pressured to attend.

B7. Safeguarding children

  • Purpose: to protect children whose health or development may be explained only in spiritual terms, or whose care is delayed.
  • Steps: (1) Ask who manages the child's medical care and whether any treatment has been stopped or delayed. (2) Encourage medical and developmental assessment when concerns exist, for example possible autism or ADHD described only as "spiritual sensitivity". (3) Seek the child's assent and the parents' consent for any referral. (4) Where there is risk of significant harm, follow your jurisdiction's child-protection procedures. Brazilian law and specific court cases in this area [uncertain: not verified].
  • Example language (illustrative, to a parent): "I can see how much the centre supports your family. I'd also like your son to have the developmental assessment the school suggested, so we know all the ways to help him."
  • Watch for: refusal of urgent care, a child frightened of spirits, and a child asked to act as a medium. [synthesis]

B8. Referral and community liaison

  • Purpose: to link the client with the right help: medical, psychiatric, grief, or community.
  • Steps: (1) Refer to psychiatry for suspected psychosis or mania, or for medication issues. (2) Refer to grief-specialist services for prolonged grief. (3) Where the client wishes, contact a centre coordinator, for example to explain that the client is in treatment and to ask the centre to support continuing it. The centre's own volunteers are told not to act as psychologists. [source: Atendimento Fraterno pelo Diálogo] (4) For a client leaving a group that charges for healing or discourages medical care, see Section 5.
  • Example language (illustrative): "Would it help if I spoke with the coordinator at your centre, with your permission, so we're all supporting the same plan?"
  • Watch for: overstepping the client's consent, and treating the community leader as a co-therapist.

5. Handling problems

All guidance in this section is [synthesis] unless a source is given.

  • The client fears you will see them as "crazy" (rupture risk at intake). Name it early: "Many people here are Spiritist. I'm interested in what it means to you, not in judging it." If needed, acknowledge the history of Brazilian psychiatry treating Spiritism as a cause of madness. [history: Almeida & Moreira-Almeida 2023]
  • The client asks you to give a passe, pray with them, or say whether a spirit is involved. Decline warmly and keep roles separate: "That belongs to your centre. Here my part is to help with how you're feeling and coping." If you are Spiritist yourself, do not disclose it to gain alliance, and never combine roles. Consult a colleague if a dual relationship arises (for example you attend the same centre).
  • Stopping medication or delaying medical care "because the passe is working". Do not argue the passe. Remind the client of the movement's own norm (alongside ordinary medicine, prescriptions only from qualified professionals) [source: Atendimento Espiritual pelo Passe; FEB 2021]. Contact the prescriber with consent, and document. If there is acute risk (psychosis, suicidality, a serious physical illness), follow urgent pathways.
  • A spiritual diagnosis competes with yours ("they said it's obsession, not depression"). Hold both: "Your centre is helping with the spiritual side. Depression treatment helps with sleep, energy and mood. People often use both." Avoid ultimatums, and agree on observable markers (sleep, function) to review together.
  • A mediumship crisis: the client is overwhelmed after meetings, hears voices outside them, or is dissociating. Stabilise: grounding, sleep, and reducing stimulation. Suggest the client discuss a pause from mediumship work with the centre coordinator. Assess for psychosis, mania and dissociative disorder, and refer to psychiatry if indicated. See 098.
  • Dependence: daily passes, compulsive irradiação requests, constant seeking of messages. Frame it as reassurance-seeking if that fits, and build tolerance of uncertainty. Note that the movement itself warns against passes without need. [source: Atendimento Espiritual pelo Passe] For OCD-type patterns, use ERP within the client's values.
  • Financial exploitation: a paid "Spiritist" healer, a medium charging for messages, or pressure to donate. FEB states doctrinal activity must be free, and Kardec teaches that healing gifts are not sold. [source: FEB 2021; Atendimento Espiritual pelo Passe] Help the client compare what they are paying for with what the federation describes. Fraud or abuse may need reporting to police or consumer authorities. Healers who claim surgery or cures are covered in 101.
  • Grief stuck around mediumistic contact. Shift from "did the message come from him?" to "what does the relationship need now?". Assess for prolonged grief disorder and suicidal ideation framed as reunion. See B5 and 099.
  • Family deadlock. Separate belief from safety decisions, and contract on minimum safety commitments (B6).
  • Non-adherence to therapy homework framed as spiritual ("my guides will sort it"). Link tasks to the client's own values (charity, effort, moral progress) and make them smaller.
  • The client is leaving a group (a non-FEB group or a high-control leader). Explore losses (community, identity, meaning) and religious trauma, and support the client in finding a healthier community if they want one, Spiritist or not. Name a leader as a wrongdoer only on the basis of court, regulator or major-news findings (see 101 for documented cases).
  • Children's care refused or delayed on spiritual grounds. Use B7 and follow child-protection procedures. Specific Brazilian legal obligations [uncertain: not verified].
  • Past-life regression or spirit-release work in the client's history, including in some Spiritist settings [source: Bragdon 2011, publisher description]. Be alert to suggestion and false memory, and do not use recovered "past-life memories" as evidence. Cross-refer Domain VI 110.
  • Therapist countertransference (dismissiveness, or over-identification). Use supervision. Build spiritual and religious competence and examine your own attitudes. Vieten et al. 2013 list such competencies [uncertain: not verified].

Sources

Web sources:

Books and works cited:

  • Kardec, A. (1857). Le Livre des Esprits (The Spirits' Book). Paris.
  • Kardec, A. O Livro dos Médiuns; O Evangelho segundo o Espiritismo; A Gênese, chapters as cited in Spiritist training material [uncertain: editions and years not verified].
  • Lucchetti, G. et al. (2012). Spiritist psychiatric hospitals in Brazil: integration of conventional psychiatric treatment and spiritual complementary therapy [uncertain: not verified].
  • Vieten, C. et al. (2013), spiritual and religious competencies [uncertain: not verified].
  • American Psychiatric Association. DSM-5-TR Cultural Formulation Interview and supplementary modules [uncertain: not verified].

Cross-references: 098 (mediumship development circles), 099 (stage mediumship and grief), 101 (Spiritist surgery, Arigó and João de Deus), Domain VI 110 (regression harm account).

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