Gabriel de Oliveira Mathias (photo) is a lawyer in the Brazilian city of Cachoeiro do Itapemirim, in the state of Espírito Santo. For many years, he has put his passion for music at the service of Spiritism and the dissemination of its principles and values. Between 2012 and 2019, he organised in his hometown the yearly Spiritist Musical Festival. He is also the creator of the music website, Acervo Espírita, as he explains in the following interview:

When and how did you become a Spiritist?

Even though I was born into a Spiritist family, I only joined the Spiritist Movement when I was 20 years old and began attending the local Youth Group (COMEERJ). 

How about your interest in Spiritist music? Where did that come from?

It came as a natural consequence of my general passion for music. I’ve always heard music all the time, from jazz to heavy metal. And for some time I was in a band with friends from outside the Spiritist Movement. When I joined the COMEERJ Youth Group, I found out about Spiritist Music and I was invited to join their musical team. Spiritist music was like combining business with pleasure and it has opened the doors for me to a new music genre. 

How did the idea of creating Acervo Espírita come up?

Acervo Espírita (Portuguese for Spiritist Collection) came up in a very unusual way. Initially, the idea wasn’t to create a website. But in 2009, I bought my first guitar after playing the bass for almost 10 years. I realised that I didn’t have the same capacity of memorising songs for the guitar as I did for the bass. I began, then, a small collection of the songs we used to play at COMEERJ and I set it up as a static site, which at least was already organised alphabetically. Some friends from the nearby city of Campos dos Goytacazes, including the songwriters Junior Vidal and Evaldo Junior, felt like adding their songs to the site. That’s how it began to expand. The news spread quickly and I received messages from many wonderful people across Brazil who were interested in having their songs available on the site. Acervo Espírita would eventually change from a personal songbook into a gateway for the dissemination of Spiritist music, open to all of those who may be interested in sharing their work online.

How many songwriters and songs, roughly, do you have on the website?

It is about 1,750 people at the moment (songwriters and singers), 7,000 songs and 550 albums. 

How do you deal with the issue of copyright?

Firstly, it is important to stress that all songs on the website were either voluntarily sent by the songwriters and/or singers or requested to them. Not a single song available in Acervo Espírita for streaming or downloading is there without the owner’s consent. However, there are many grey areas that you have to deal with concerning copyright when you build a site like Acervo Espírita. 

The first issue is a historical one: during decades Spiritist songwriters preferred not to register their songs to avoid being labelled as vain or individualistic, which has made locating and salvaging much of the material something quite complex. The second point is a moral one: Spiritist artists were for a long time (and still are, to a lesser extent) accused of being too vain and even under the influence of negative Spirits merely for being artists. So, many of them didn’t register their songs and published or recorded them without any reference or using an alias. There are many cases in which songs belong simply to “various authors” or “collective creation.” A third point to make involves mediumship. Spiritist cultural production is largely the result of inspiration or intuition, through mediumship. In music, very often the final product goes well beyond the skills or capacities of the individuals involved. And, unlike Spiritist books, which are popular with the public, Spiritist music doesn’t sell well. The only way to disseminate the songs is during live performances, which poses practical problems for many musicians. Also, to record the songs and to register the copyright they often need to spend their own money. The fourth issue is one of a structural nature: as music is only a part-time activity for most Spiritist musicians, very few songs are actually recorded in the studio, which creates many practical problems for everyone. The fifth issue concerns the lack of free time available. Even though Acervo Espírita is generally protected from the possibility of legal action, as we don’t charge or generate any money, some extra care is necessary. Ideally, every author or singer should give us written authorization to use their songs on the site, but many simply lack the time to do so. That leaves us, in a way, in limbo from a legal perspective. 

Is there anything else you would like to add?

I would like to thank you for the opportunity to share with your readers a bit about this project, which has changed my life and my relationship with the Spiritist Movement. Here is my email acervoespirita@gmail.com for all of those who may want to get more information about the project, or send us ideas, suggestions or your songs. Just bear in mind: we may need to be patient as we have a backlog of messages at the moment. God bless you!

To access Acervo Espírita, click here: http://www.acervoespirita.com.br/