Augusto Cantusio Neto (photo) is a Spiritist since 1997 and a member of the Spiritist Group Joanna de Ângelis (Seara Espírita Joanna de Ângelis) in his hometown of Campinas, in the Brazilian state of São Paulo. He is a civil engineer and a dedicated researcher of the work of the Spirit, Joanna de Ângelis. In this interview, he speaks about the importance of the well-known Spiritual author’s Psychological Series.

When and how did you get interested in the work of Joanna de Ângelis?

I became a Spiritist in 1977, through Vera Menni, who would become a great friend of mine. The first book I read was The Spirits’ Book and, in chronological order, the other works of Kardec’s Pentateuch. I read them at the time without worrying too much about an in depth study of the issues. It was just an introduction for me of the theory of Spiritis. 

Later, more aware of the logics of Spiritism and perhaps influenced by my training as an engineer, which prioritises logics, I began studying properly the basic works of Kardec. The next stage, as advised by Spiritist friends, was reading the 16 books by André Luiz, written by the late medium, Chico Xavier. From the beginning I believed that these books were written by a great team of Spirits who took the name of André Luiz.

Once I got better understanding of the Spiritist Teachings, I thought it was time to read and study the work of Joanna de Ângelis, as I attended regularly the activities at the organisation named after her.

What strikes you the most from all the work produced by this Spirit?

Among all the books dictated by Joanna de Ângelis, the 16 books of her Psychological Series are the ones that had a higher impact on me. A few years before I began reading these books, I had an informal chat with Hernani Guimarães, probably the biggest Spiritist research in the world. And he drew my attention to a particular point.

He had followed closely the work of the psychiatrist, Dr Ian Stevenson, who became well known for having studied more than 3,000 cases suggestive of reincarnation during his visit to Brazil in the 1960s. He later wrote a book entitled “Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation,” which gave his account about the spontaneous memories of children about past lives. Dr Stevenson eventually expanded his studies on reincarnation and published other books, most of them not translated or sold in Brazil. In these books, he associates those spontaneous memories of past lives to “birthmarks,” most of them associated to traumatic episodes of those children in previous lives.

Well, Dr Hernani in that chat we had suggested that we should observe the birthmarks, but also what he described as “psychological marks,” as they would be even more revealing. After all we all have psychological marks from a near or remote past. Linking this proposal by Dr Hernani to Joanna de Ângelis’s Psychological Series, I realised that the crucial information we needed to understand our psychological marks were there. In her series of books, the Spiritual author uses the terms created by traditional Psychology and its famous authors and expands them into a new perspective, no longer materialistic and brain centric. She analyses instead the spiritual aspects of the being and their huge psychological baggage, taking into account the reincarnation that promote our development.

Tell us about your work dealing with this material in your talks and lectures.

I accepted the idea put forward by a dear friend, Élcio Menni, and we began giving monthly talks at the Joanna de Ângelis Spiritist Centre based on the Psychological Series of books. It tooks us many months to finally cover all the 16 books.