Públio Carísio de Paula (photo) is from the Brazilian city of Araguari, in the state of Minas Gerais. He has a degree in Brazilian and English Literature and works as an editor and businessman, as the owner of the Minas Editora publishing house. He is also the author of ten books and vice-president of CEC Spiritist Centre (Centro Espírita Caridade - Charity Spiritist Centre), which was founded in 1924. He is also the creator of Sementear, a cultural project that links Spiritism, arts and education, as he explains in the following interview. 

How did you become a Spiritist?

I was born into a Spiritist family. My parents and grandparents were Spiritists. I now work as my mother’s assistant, as she continues the work initiated by my grandfather, Adolfo Carlos Carísio, both at CEC and at the Eurípedes Barsanulfo Spiritist School, where Sementear is based. 

How can Spiritism change your life?

Putting Spiritism into practice in our lives can change us in two ways: first, in the way we behave as citizens, at home, at work etc; secondly, it encourages our inner reform, as immortal Spirits, changing us from a moral perspective and showing us the way towards Spiritual enlightenment.   

Tell us about your experience in publishing.

I embraced my work in publishing, to promote books, when I was a young man, around 1981. I had a printing company which later became a publishing house in the 1990s. In 2000, it became Minas Editora (Minas Publishing House) and it published both Spiritist and Brazilian literature books. 

It was initially called Carísio Printing Company. We began publishing a newspaper for the Spiritist youth movement, Jornal Perseverança, in 1981. In 1984, my father bought new machines and began printing envelopes and other commercial work. But we continued, of course, with the Spiritist publications. Between 1981 and 2000, we published the newspaper I’ve mentioned, flyers with Spiritist messages and books. The numbers? Nearly one million issues of the newspaper, one million messages and 500,000 books. In the beginning of 2000, we sold the workshop and kept only the prepress business and we have continued publishing Spiritist and Brazilian literature books. 

What about SEMENTEAR? What is it?

Sementear began in 2019 as the first stage of a culture and education project. The CEC Spiritist Centre, founded in 1924 and where my grandfather worked all his life as a volunteer, always offered educational and cultural activities. They were held in a school building that CEC owns and in a theatre it built with 600 seats. I’ve worked in activities in that area along with my mother. Between 1951 and 2009, more than 40,000 students from primary, secondary and university education benefited from the activities offered there. We later expanded the offer to include typing, computing, dressmaking and sewing lessons, as well as foreign languages and other practical skills. In 2011, we began showing films in our cinema, but we couldn’t afford the transition to digital pictures and we were forced to stop it in 2015. In July 2019, we had a meeting with many volunteers at CEC and we decided to create Sementear. We are very happy with the progress so far and our goal is to have one day, in the future, our Arts School. It will take time but it will happen. The new phase the world is entering, of Regeneration, will bring with it more beauty, kindness, nobility, culture and education. We are a drop in the ocean, but with us the ocean is a bit bigger. May God bless us, we will persevere. 

What do you have to say, in the light of Spiritism, about the challenges the world is going through at the moment?

Humankind is going through very special times. The Covid-19 pandemic caught people by surprise as they lived their lives as usual and invited everyone to reflect on their existential goals and the transience of physical life. We are living in important times, where we will be able to fully implement our Spiritual principles, living as spiritual citizens and consolidating the New Era that we so dearly longed for. 

Notes:

Publishing house’s website: link-1 

SEMENTEAR channel:  link-2   

Centro Espírita Caridade - CEC - website: link-3 

SEMENTEAR and PIC – Arts School – Ponto de Cultura: link-4