The Restless Pursuit of Novelty

José Fernando

“For all the Athenians and the foreigners who were there spent their time in nothing else but either to tell or to hear some new thing.”
(Acts, 17:21)

It once happened that, while spending some time in a Spiritist bookstore, we had the opportunity to observe the steady flow of enthusiastic readers of the Spiritist doctrine. Neatly arranged on the shelves were Allan Kardec’s writings alongside older volumes regarded as the classics of Spiritism.

Completing the collection were psychographed books by mediums widely respected within the Spiritist movement. Prominently displayed near the entrance, however, was an abundance of colorful, eye-catching contemporary titles, also presented as mediumistic works, psychographed by various mediums who were far less familiar to the more traditional Spiritist institutions. As we left the bookstore, a troubling question lingered in our minds: why did so many readers pass by the shelves of classic works and head almost instinctively toward the latest releases, asking the staff what was new?

The scene brought to mind the great classical authors of Spiritism, including Allan Kardec, Gabriel Delanne, Ernesto Bozzano, Camille Flammarion, Chico Xavier, and Yvonne Pereira. It also raised another question: how many readers, eager for novelty, have actually explored the profound reflections found in the foundational works of the doctrine? Reflecting further on today’s study groups, we realized that one author in particular is seldom studied, despite his immense importance, especially for those engaged in mediumistic work and in the sacred task of dialoguing with suffering spirits. We refer to the prolific writer and mediumistic meeting leader Hermínio Corrêa de Miranda.

The study groups he organized, dedicated to investigating both mediumistic and animistic phenomena, frequently employed psychological approaches and memory-regression techniques to bring past-life experiences to the surface, whether those of the medium or of the communicating spirit.

Hermínio Miranda was born on January 5, 1920, in Volta Redonda, Brazil, and passed away on July 8, 2013, in Rio de Janeiro. Fluent in English, he worked for four years as an accountant at the headquarters of the Companhia Siderúrgica Nacional (CSN) in New York City, an experience that later enabled him to translate works by authors such as Charles Dickens, J. W. Rochester, and Luis Javier Rodríguez. An award-winning short-story writer and columnist, he contributed to newspapers and magazines, including O Globo and O Jornal. In 1958, he embraced Spiritism and left fiction behind to devote himself to writing regularly for Reformador, the official magazine of the Brazilian Spiritist Federation (FEB).

From that point forward, he dedicated himself to the systematic study of mediumship, publishing more than forty books, most of them devoted to the analysis of mediumistic phenomena. Works such as Dialogue with the Shadows, Our Children Are Spirits, and The Diversity of Charisms have together exceeded 1.5 million printed copies, with their royalties donated to charitable institutions.

Given the breadth of his work, it is impossible to summarize his contributions in only a few pages. Nevertheless, as an invitation for readers to discover his writings, we highlight several remarkable aspects of his research.

Starting with Dialogue with the Shadows, often regarded as the “Bible” of spirit dialogue, Hermínio introduced a new approach to communicating with spirits. In previous decades, spirit dialogue was generally limited to encouraging the communicating spirit to reflect on religious principles and the moral teachings of the Gospel. Miranda retained that foundation but complemented it with psychological dialogue, speaking with the discarnate spirit much as a psychotherapist speaks with a patient. Although separated from the physical body, the spiritual being in need of evolution still retains much of their human identity and emotional structure.

In Memory and Time (A Memória e o Tempo), Miranda develops the thought-provoking idea that time, as we ordinarily understand it— as in past, present, and future—may not truly exist as separate realities but as one continuous whole. He compares prophetic mediumship to someone climbing a high mountain, from whose summit it becomes possible to see landscapes hidden from those walking through the valley below. From this perspective, the foreseer medium is able to ascend psychically to higher dimensions and glimpse future events inaccessible to ordinary perception, leaving open the intriguing possibility that if the future can be perceived, perhaps it already exists in some manner.

In another remarkable work, The Marks of Christ (As Marcas do Cristo, Vols. I & II), Hermínio explores the fascinating concept of historical symmetries. Through a detailed comparative study of the lives of the Apostle Paul and Martin Luther, he suggests that they may have been successive incarnations of the same spirit, presenting evidence that invites readers to draw their own conclusions.

In The Novice and the Pharaoh (A Noviça e o Faraó), the author investigates the remarkable case of Dorothy Eady, an English woman who, after a childhood accident, began experiencing vivid memories of ancient Egypt and came to believe she had been the reincarnation of a temple priestess named Bentreshyt, who had lived during the reign of Pharaoh Seti I. Eventually relocating to Egypt under the name Omm Sety, Dorothy became a respected Egyptologist whose extraordinary intuitive knowledge of ancient Egyptian culture enabled her to guide archaeological excavations and identify forgotten sites with remarkable accuracy, often attributing her insights to memories of a previous life.

Finally, we come to The Diversity of Charisms (Diversidade dos Carismas). Like Dialogue with the Shadows, this volume deserves to be bedside reading for every practicing Spiritist medium because of its wealth of accounts describing the many forms of mediumistic and animistic phenomena.

Working with highly disciplined mediums of exceptional ability, Hermínio conducted mediumistic meetings in which spirits communicated through deep psychophonic trance. By combining hypnotic suggestion with magnetic passes, he encouraged both the mediums and the communicating spirits to recover memories of previous incarnations.

Beyond the works already mentioned, other noteworthy titles—including The Lady of the Night (A Dama da Noite), God’s Prosecutors (Os Procuradores de Deus), What Is a Mediumistic Phenomenon? (O Que É Fenômeno Mediúnico?), The Vizier’s Sister (A Irmã do Vizir), and Stories Told by Spirits (Histórias que os Espíritos Contaram)—offer readers both historical insight and fascinating accounts of mediumistic phenomena.

In these fast-paced times, marked by restless curiosity and the endless scrolling of phones and computers—often without discernment or reflection—it is worthwhile to remember the timeless words of Augustine of Hippo concerning human curiosity:

“There are some who long to know for the sole purpose of knowing, and that is shameful curiosity; others who long to know in order to become known, and that is shameful vanity… There are others still who long for knowledge in order to sell its fruits for money or honors, and this is shameful profiteering; others again who long to know in order to be of service, and this is charity.”