Samuel Nunes Magalhães (photo) taught for more than 20 years Mathematics, Physics, Economy and Accountancy. He is a retired empoyee from Brazil’s state owned bank, Banco do Brasil, and has lived in the capital, Brasília, since 2009. He works there as a volunteer at the Brazilian Spiritist Foundation (FEB). A Spiritist since 1982 in his native state of Ceará, he is the author of seven books on Spiritism, as he explains in this interview.

Tell us first about your work in Spiritism and the books you have written. 

As soon as I read the first Spiritist books – The Gospel According to Spiritism and The Spirits’ Book – I began helping in the activities of the Spiritist Centre I was attending. And I have never stopped. As for my writing, it began in 1999, when I began researching with a group of fellow Spiritists the life of Dr Bezerra de Menezes. We published a book about his life in 2000, marking the centenary of him passing away. With Luciano Klein, who had invited me for this first work, I wrote other books about the history of Spiritism in the states of Amazonas and Pernambuco, as well as the biographies of Charles Richet and Anna Prado. The aim is to disseminate our studies about the history of Spiritism and to encourage others to follow the same path. 

What encouraged you to publish the books about the lives of Anna Prado and Charles Richet? 

I began almost by chance to research the life of Charles Richet and was fascinated by his greatness. He won Nobel Prizes for Medicine and Physiology and played an important role proving the veracity of the Spiritist phenomena. He was also an altruistic and generous man, truly a good man. When Luciano Klein in Ceará and Eduardo Carvalho Monteiro in São Paulo found out about my research they suggested that I wrote a book about the great French scientist. 

As for the book on the life of Anna Prado, it began when I travelled to Amazonas state and read about her. I spent eight years researching, struggling to find bibliographic references, documents and pictures about the great medium.  

In both cases my motivation was realizing the important role both of them played in Spiritism. My aim is to recover the history of Spiritism, which is important to understand the phenomena and the struggle faced by its pioneers.

What method did you apply for writing these books and how long did it take to write them? 

The first stage of research was slow and costly by the very nature of the work, which focus on the theory and history of Spiritism. Work was hampered by the lack of reliable sources of information. The second stage was planning how to organise the book, having finished the research, and what writing style to adopt. The decision was to write the books as historic novels, which appeal to more people. We focused on other aspects too, such as the theoretical aspects of Spiritism, matters concerning the era when the events took place and a wide range of issues. After all, Richet deal with a vast number of issues, from Medicine to aviation, literature and peace movements.  

What do you think should change to improve the quality of Spiritist books in Brazil? 

I will say it once more: it is necessary to study the codification of Spiritism. And then, to make a firm commitment to the dissemination of the Teachings, giving priority to good boos, working towards the improvement of study groups in Spiritist Centres and preventing the publication of any material that clashes with the principles of Spiritism. I hear many people say that novels are an effective way of getting people into Spiritism and that they are an important source of income for Spiritist Centres. I think that is a mistake. Novels are only valid when they follow what the Teachings codified by Allan Kardec teach. Also, we must study the works of Leon Denis, Gabriel Delanne, Ernesto Bozzano, Carlos Imbassahy, Deolindo Amorim, Hermínio Miranda, Suely Schubert and others and the works written through the mediumship of Chico Xavier, Divaldo Franco, Raul Teixeira, Yvonne Pereira etc.  

What are your plans? Do you intend to continue writing? 

I continue to be committed to the historical research of Spiritism, but also to the theoretical aspect of the Teachings. I am giving special attention to Primitive Christianity, with its purity and historic value, using the extraordinary key offered by the Spiritist Teachings to achieve a better understanding of the message of Jesus. 

What is your final message to our readers?