We will have some articles to talk about Divaldo Franco’s psychography, focusing on its aspects and specifications. This is the first of a series to be followed in this magazine. Considering that Divaldo – from the countryside of Bahia, who did not graduate from High School, and that, since 1964, when he published his first book, until 2007 –, these decades of psychographic publications, produced and published more than 200 books, with over 8 million copies sold, and there were more than 90 translations, into 17 languages, and there is reference of about 260 communicating Spirits, such a fact makes him a truly editorial phenomenon. All  these  factors  need to be studied to

understand better what happens in this case. We know this kind of faculty (psychography, that is, the Spirits wrote the books) is normal, because there have been similar cases, in Brazil and all over the world, since the 19th century.

First off we need to understand the explanations for such a thing and analyze each of them in order to get to a conclusion.  

Possible explanations for psychography: Plagiarism, fraud,
pastiche and animism 

We need to analyze psychography itself, because all over the world there are books said to be written by the Spirits, since 1857. Of course, due to the psychographic phenomenon, hypotheses are brought up to explain it. Since 1948 Divaldo has psychographed mediumistic messages from Spirits who had corporeal existences and became people more or less known. The first thing that calls attention is that Divaldo does not make a point of convincing whoever it is about the authors of the messages, which was a certain Spirit, and he never worried about showing it to anybody, because he has no interest in people believing in his psychography. Why would he do this then? Would it be any good? Why simulate or copy the writing, the style from someone else? Why would he act like that?

This is really important to point out because it is hard to explain something if you do not make any profit of it and is totally disinterested...

Let’s see the explanations that in general are used, the common ones, to explain the gift of psychography.

The four most frequent explanations to justify such a fact are: plagiarism (which is the imitation of something); pastiche (literary technique employing a generally light-hearted tongue-in-cheek imitation of another's style; although jocular, it is usually respectful.); fraud (when the mediums cheats) and animism (when psychography would result of an unconscious act of the medium himself, it means, due to psychic explanations, or telepathy, in which the medium would sense the sub conscience of other people, cryptomnesia and subliminal conscience.

To support any of these explanations is not necessary a lot of literary or psychological knowledge, that’s why, in general, they are usually frequent and well-accepted.  

It is not easy to get to imitate the style of hundreds of Spirits 

In such hypotheses, either the medium would take from his own mind reminiscences of things he learned in the past, so it needs that one day he had had contact with the life and work of the Spirit when the latter was incarnated; or Divaldo would have to possess knowledge or psychic content to show such a literary style.

In other words, those who reject the possibility of psychography (which is the Spirits’ mind that tell the mediums the books and information), to argument that all the content of the message comes from the medium, is admitting, at least, that Divaldo is more than a genius, because we need to acknowledge that it is not easy to imitate the style of hundreds of Spirits!!!

To reject such arguments, let’s remember in first place that Divaldo, from the countryside of Bahia, only attended Medium School, and he never attended High School, he retired as a clerk and for sixty years he has had an agenda full of interviews and lectures, traveling more than 220 days a year for decades, making around 300 annual conferences (including the ones in Salvador, at the Spiritist Center Way to Redemption, which he established in 1947).

It is completely impossible or irresponsible to think that he could study or research something about the Spirits those he psychographs to know and be able to write entire books with different styles, characteristics and literary specifications of various and different authors.

Other hypotheses that are raised: the medium would imitate, consciously or not, the style and literary form of the Spirit, because Divaldo would have the capacity to sense others’ sub conscience (telepathy) of those who were present at the moment he psychographed, and these people had necessary knowledge to mentally transmit to Divaldo all the content of the book.

We remember it is enough to say that a person who was present during a psychography had had contact with the communicating Spirit when the latter was incarnated, to justify and understand such psychography. This person should know this Spirit’s life and work, his literary style, his characteristics etc.; this person should be an expert in the books of such a Spirit, at the moment when Divaldo psychographed, so that the medium could sense telepathically and psychically the thought, the information, the literary style and the characteristics of the Spirit.

Freud also attributed the psychographic phenomenon to the
medium himself 

If such thing could happen (telepathy), it would be really extraordinary this virtual transference (mental, telepathic) of knowledge, information, style, what would be superior to all the men technology. It would be something truly amazing and would revolutionize the book production. Such a fact would deserve attention and scrutiny. To be honest, never in the history of the world existed a man with such a capacity, ability to write hundreds of books in different styles. This type of explanation is typical of denial, trying to look for something to justify the phenomenon.

And this does not happen to Divaldo’s psychography, as related to the well-known writers and Spirits dictating messages to their relatives, because many times these people are not present (specialists in the life and work of the Spirits) when Divaldo psychographs a text (message or book); many times there is no one present who knows the communicating Spirit, or who is a specialist in the work of such a Spirit, as we are going to show in the next article.

As for animism, the doctor and psychiatrist Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) also attributed the psychographic phenomenon to the medium himself, because Freud only had the opportunity to know mediums that were not able to psychograph. Unfortunately Freud had never had the contact with sensible mediums that could actually receive messages from the Spirits and could write books; the animic arguments that Freud used, attributing the psychography to the medium himself, revealed he did not have the opportunity to study psychography. His hypotheses cannot be considered, then.

We said that Divaldo has had an intensive work in the social area since 1947, aiding the sick, needy children and teenagers, 3,500 daily, for free. We also said that he has a whole lot of lectures, interviews and homage that use up all his time.

It is explained, then, the sheer disinterest from Divaldo to prove that his psychographed books proceed from the Spirits who dictate, since all the copyrights of the books is donated, nullifying the alternatives of plagiarism, fraud, pastiche and animism, since they have no reason.

Another important fact is that in the books and messages that were psychographed by Divaldo Franco there are characteristics natural to the ones who dictated them (as we said, to be studied further), which proves the theory of the immortality of the soul. 

Writings could come from the extra physical intelligence

The most plausible explanation for the psychographic phenomenon is that the messages were really written by those who already died physically, it means, they came from the Spirits, or any other name that can be given, according to the cultural and religious aspect of the place.

Interesting that this hypothesis of immortality of the soul, or its personality after death, has been proved by scientists, psychologists and psychiatrists from the USA and Europe. They got to this conclusion apart from religious discussions or the study of psychography itself. These scientists only show the conclusion of scientific researches that they accomplish.

This hypothesis has been gradually proved by Science, and it can perfectly explain all the facts that intrigue those who study it, facts anticipated by the Spiritist Doctrine since 1857.

In our next article we will bring an amazing event that happened some years ago with Divaldo Franco and involved a politician from the south of the country, for which no animic explanations could be given, as we stated before, to explain psychography.

This person spoke in public, to 3,000 people, and is recorded in DVD, for those who want to watch it.

In future articles, we will make a rigorous and interesting literary analysis of some Spiritual authors who dictated books and messages through Divaldo, enabling everybody to get to their conclusions.