BRAZIL

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: STARGATE
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP96-00792R000700300002-6
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: November 4, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 28, 1998
• Sequence Number: 2
• Content Type: RP

Approved For Release 2000/08/11: CIA-RDP96-00792R000700300002-6
To understand parapsychology in Brazil, one needs to be
famaliar with the cultural milieau frmo which it has evolved, one
that is dominated by Afr-Brazilian cults and Catholicism.
Spiritism is strongly influenced in Brazil by the Afro-
Brazilain cults such as Umbanda and Candomble which derived from
the African religions brought to Brazil through the slave trade.
Spiritism also came from France to Brazil through the teachings
of Allan Kardec. Spiritists believe the influence of spirits and
the effects of healing.
On the other hand, the Catholic tradition developed a system
that uses parapsychology to fight and eventually destroy all the
movements the church sees as superstition and threats to the
esbablished Catholic dogmas.
This system has been developed mainly through the work of
Father Oscar Gonzalez Quevedo, a Spanish-born Jesuit priest
living in Brazil He founded the Latin American Center of
Parapsychology (CLAP), of the Anchieta College of Sao Paulo in
1970.
The goal of this Center is to disseminate scientific
parapsychology in order to clarify the misconceptions and
superstitions produced by lack of undestanding of psychic
phenomena. The CLAP used to publish a magazine called Revista de
Parapsicologia, which summarized the activities of the Center and
contained mostly theoretical articles.
Another dimension of Brazilain psychical research is the
Approved For Release 2000/08/11: CIA-RDP96-00792R000700300002-6
 Approved For Release 2000/08/11: CIA-RDP96-00792R000700300002-6
work by researchers within the Spiritist oreintation. One
example is that conducted by the engineer and psychical
researcher Hernani Guimaraes Andrade, who in 1963 founded the
Brazilian Institute of Psychobiophysical Research (IBPP). The
name was chosen to make it clear that the Institute intended to
explore biological and physical as well as purley psychical
phenomena.
One of the most significant things about this Institute is
that it emerged from within the Spirits movement and has
conducted well-planned and detailed investigations of
reincaranation and poltergeist cases. Andrade has also published
one of the first systematic treatises of parapsychology in
Portuguese entitled "Parapsicologia Experimental" in 1967. This
is a basic introductory manual of the quantitative method used in
parapsychology and includes a detailed description of the
statistical model used in experimentation with ESP cards.
Another parapsychological group in Brazil is the recently
established ECLIPSY-Instituto de Investigacoes Cientificas em
Parapsicologia. This group aims to pursue a different approach,
one separate from the more traditional approaches associated with
Spiritist or Catholic orientations typical of most Brazilian
research centers. It received support from from the University
of Sao Francisco to organize its first conference in
parapsychology, held in 1990, which included participants from
the University as well as researchers from Argentina, Brazil and
Mexico. This group plans to conduct experimental research that
will be reported in its new journal, called "Revista Brasileria
Approved For Release 2000/08/11: CIA-RDP96-00792R000700300002-6
 Approved For Release 2000/08/11: CIA-RDP96-00792R000700300002-6
de Parapsicologia. According to its president, Wellington
Zangari, it will include translations from major experimental and
theoretical articles published in the English-language journals.
Boaventura Kloppenburg immigrated with his parents from
Northern Germany to Brazil in 1924 at the age of four. He
entered the Franciscan order and distinguished himself as a
scholar, going on to teach theology for many years in Rio De
Janeior, later in Medellin, Columbia and Rome. He then returned
to Brazil where he served four years-as bishop of Salvador before
becoming the Bishop of Novo Hamburog in September 1986.
Kloppenburg has published many articles and several books.
He was writing about Spiritism in Brazil, i.e., Umbanda and
Candomble and the teachings of Allan Kardec, as early as the
1950's.
Kloppenburg spent some time in the U.S. studying
parapsychology at the renowned Duke University Laboratory. He is
currently interested in "New Age" movements in the US and Europe.
Approved For Release 2000/08/11: CIA-RDP96-00792R000700300002-6