As a teenager in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Jailton Pinheiro da Silva (photo), became a Spiritist. He has become an active member of the Spiritist Movement and is the current president of the Cairbar Schutel Spiritist Association – Espiritismo.net. In this interview, he speaks about the creation of the Espiritismo.net internet portal 25 years ago, which replaced the well-known IRC-Espiritismo channel. 

How did you become a Spiritist?

It was through a school friend, when I was 16 years old. He had recently discovered Spiritism and began talking to me about it, raising my interest immediately as everything that he mentioned seemed to make sense to me. It was like I already knew those ideas. For my birthday that year, on July 4th, 1981, he gave me The Spirits’ Book and I often say that was then I sealed my commitment to Spiritism. 

When and how did the Espiritismo.net website begin?

Officially, on March 22nd, 1997, when we held in Rio the first IRContro event – a reference to the IRC chat website that until then we had on the #Espiritismo online channel. It had been offering content online for a few months. On October 3rd, 2007, the IRC-Espiritismo channel had its name changed to Espiritismo.net, which hasn’t changed since. From March 1997, we began providing daily study groups focusing on the books of Allan Kardec. We held most of the groups in the evenings, when phone calls were cheaper. After all, we still relied on dial-up internet. Later that year, we began focusing on disseminating the work we were doing and we also took part in some Spiritist congresses and other events across Brazil. From the beginning we realised there was strong demand for online counselling, or fraternal assistance. We have worked hard to meet that demand, which is even bigger today. 

What comes to your mind when you look back at the past two decades and compare it to the situation of the world today?

What comes to my mind is that it was worth persevering for all these years. We have managed to overcome the obstacles that appeared along the way, and will continue to come up. That has been achieved through hard work, good will and the assistance from the Spiritual Benefactors, who have helped us enlighten the minds of the people and comfort their hearts through Spiritism. 

What is the content currently offered on the portal?

Over the years, we have added many activities and we have improved the content available on our platform. We provide study groups (mainly on YouTube, where most of our public is); the Espiritismo.net congress, which was done online in December 2020 and December 2021 (-- we plan to do it in person in December his year); our 24/7 webradio; fraternal assistance, or counselling, services via chat and email on our site; online prayers; daily healing on Google Meet; a wide range of virtual material designed for children and young people; questions and answers; the Gospel in the home (which is our latest addition); comments on news and current affairs; and many articles. 

What is your strongest memory from all these years in the Spiritist Movement?

I believe it’s been the possibility of taking part in so many Spiritist events across Brazil, which has enabled me to meet so many people working hard for the dissemination of Spiritism. I have been able to exchange experiences with people dealing with very different situations, which has helped me open my mind and has encouraged understanding and solidarity among us all. 

And what is your best memory from working with the online platform?

That’s a difficult one… I would say it’s the fact that it’s allowed us to receive guidance over the years from our Spiritual patron, Cairbar Schutel, through the safe mediumship of the late Altivo Pamphiro. That’s something that has made an impact on me. Also, the opportunity to organise our regular events (known first as IRContros and later as ENcontros), which has strengthened the ties of friendship between all the volunteers working at the Espiritismo.net portal and those who access it regularly. 

Editor’s note:

To access the material provided by the organisation on social media and the internet, please click on the links below:

Website: site

WhatsApp: zap

Web-radio: radio

Instagram: instag

Facebook: face

Twitter: twitter

Espiritismo.TV: tvnet