A well researched and well-written account of Spiritism among contemporary Brazilians. Brazilian Spiritism is an important middle-class religious movement whose followers believe in communication with the dead via spirit mediums and in healing illnesss by means of spiritual therapies. Unlike Anglo-Saxon Spiritualists, Brazilian Spiritualists count among their number a well developed and institutionalized intellectual elite that has reinterpreted northern hemisphere parapsychology and developed its own alternative medicine and sociology of religion.

Hess examines Spiritism in the context of religion, science, political ideology, medicine and even the social sciences. Dr. Hess wrote this book for his Ph.D thesis and did a wonderful job. The Kardecian Spiritists of Brazil are about as inscrutable as the Sphinx. Many streams have fed the river of Brazilian Kardec Spiritism and David Hess traces each and every one. This is a must read for anyone interested in the mediumistic religions of Brazil.