A Spiritist since 1956, born in the Brazilian city of São Paulo, where she still lives, Encarnação Blasques is better known as Nena Galves (photo)
She is one of the founders of the União (Union) Spiritist Centre, or CEU, which in 2017 marked its 50th anniversary in São Paulo. Nena Galves spent a lot of time with the great Brazilian medium, Chico Xavier, as she says in the following interview:
When and how was the União Spiritist Centre founded?
Chico Xavier received a written message from Dr Bezerra de Menezes through his mediumship on December 18th 1965, during one of our visits to Uberaba, which we began to do in 1959. He encouraged us to return to the work in Spiritism, which we had abandoned after a few obstacles. He guided Galves and me to get together every day at the same time in a fraternal dialogue, studying Spiritism. In a new message, received later by Chico, Bezerra told us that the new group had already been formed in the Spirit World. On April 5th 1967 the União Spiritist Centre was founded in a small house the family had received as an inheritance from Galves’s grandparents, in the Jabaquara area of São Paulo. The name of the Centre was also suggested by Dr Bezerra. He said it was meant to symbolise the link between the teachings of Jesus and Kardec, the Master and the Disciple. Friends and other volunteers joined little by little. After all, such an important task could not remain in the hands of only two people.
A printing house and distributor of Spiritist books is also part of the Spiritist Centre. How does the operation work?
From the beginning, only the Spiritual side of the Centre was under my responsibility. Galves, now helped by our daughter Roseli Galves, took over the financial and managerial side. The bookstore, distributor and printing house are in another building, which was given to us by Chico Xavier as a present, in the central area of São Paulo. What we have there is a proper commercial company, with its employees (who are not volunteers). It comes from there most of the financial resources for the charity work we do and our activities to help disseminate Spiritism, like our television programme Vida Além da Vida (Life Beyond Life).
How many titles have you printed? Are all of them from Chico Xavier?
We, Editora CEU, have 71 books, 65 of them written through the mediumship of Chico Xavier. We have also launched 3 DVDs.
How many volumes of books written by Chico Xavier as a medium have you actually printed?
More than a million books have been printed. We also publish and distribute every month about 30 thousand messages written through Chico’s mediumship about a number of issues. They are distributed around the world, posted with the books we send to the many Spiritist Centres. This is a permanent work of dissemination of the Teachings as Chico always taught us. It is carried out by a group of volunteers from the União Spiritist Centre.
Tell us about Chico’s yearly visits to the Spiritist Centre? During those visits he also launched books, received messages in trance and also gave people Spiritual guidance?
Every month of October, Chico celebrated with us the birthday of Allan Kardec, which happened on October 3rd 1804 in Lyon, France. We used to say a prayer, read an extract of the Gospel and, while we made the comments, Chico used to receive in writing beautiful messages. The celebrations went into the night and he also launched books edited by CEU. Chico kissed, embraced and gave comfort to everyone.
What memories stay with you from all those years in which we shared Chico’s company?
The affection he had for everyone and the discipline he had as a mediu, respecting the Spirits and praising the work of Kardec. People came up to him with all sorts of requests and he never dismissed them: “It is not up to us to measure the extent of someone else’s pain,” he used to say.
What would you like to share with our readers from all that you have learned from Chico?
He left us countless examples and many pieces of advice, which were important to keep us on track and build what we have built, with the Spiritual guidance we had. First: to be faithful to Jesus and Kardec. Second: that the Spiritist Centre strived always to be financially independent and did not establish links with other organisations so it could be free to disseminate Spiritism. Chico taught us to work for Spiritism.
How about the memorabilia we have kept? What is the story behind it?
We have objects, books, clothes and photos that Chico left with us when he came to São Paulo. Everything was kept in his room, in our home. When he passed away, we had the idea of taking all the material do the Spiritist Centre. It all belonged to Spiritism, not to us. For those who want to visit, please send us an e-mail to make a booking, on ceu@ceu.com.br.
Is there anything else you would like to add?
The dissemination of Spiritism is carried out by us, Spiritists, with our words and acts. May Spiritism therefore be disseminated in the proper way, with good examples, knowledge and honesty, being faithful to Jesus and Kardec. Spiritism is new and the current generation has the responsibility of giving continuity to Christian Spiritism with the purity with which it was codified, with the same dedication and care that its pioneers showed.
