Doctor Rezende

Prayers, closed eyes, hands clasped together. Positive energy in memories and intentions that have been undergoing preparation. Saturdays and Sundays are the days to donate your own moving body as a passage: patients queue to receive the vibrations. Hands become bridges for stamina and renovation.

“A passe is the transference

of love’s vibrating power”

Dr Rezende

Healing passes are some of the main mediumistic works at Casa do Caminho, in São Paulo. A room is filled with in-treatment patients; on the nearby building, there are other more severe cases. Some may need an eight-week long treatment, while others have been getting weekly treatment uninterruptedly for years, even after they’ve been cured.

Dr Rezende himself was introduced to Spiritism due to a bodily need: at thirty-two years of age, he had sick kidneys, and this was his calling to reclaim the faith and devotion to the connection between body and spirits that had been running in his for hundreds of years. In Minas Gerais state, his parents, aunts, and uncles were among the first people to promote Allan Kardec’s religion in Brazil: today, there are more than four million declared spiritists in the country.

“Those practicing mediumship

often have one commitment:

readjustment or mission”

Dr Rezende

A family to which, out of friendship and affection, Chico Xavier also claimed to be a part of: the most important Brazilian medium was Dr Rezende’s godfather and mentor over his training years. He taught him the importance of recognizing evolution and commitment to a life devoted to Spiritism.

During his fifty-three years of uninterrupted work, Dr Rezende has not known the meaning of the word “holiday”, nor has he rested – even while asleep or in trance. He receives the spirits’ messages while conscious. As a hearer, he listens closely to the teachings and messages whispered mostly by entities of disembodied physicians, such as Dr José Aparício.

“A spirit is a triple dynamics:

our body, our perispirit, and our spirit"

Dr Rezende

His perispirit – a fluid wrapping that connects body to spirit, according the Spiritist doctrine – connects him mostly to voices. The content of these voices is what he psycographically writes during his Tuesday meetings at Casa do Caminho: he just synthesizes what he receives, with no excessive details or words.

Thursdays are for classes, courses, and preparations: it’s the medium school. Daily gospel readings, communication with spirits, and spiritual consultations (sometimes paired with prescriptions for naturopathic medication).

The house survives on donations and volunteer work, and it also regularly contributes with food and education for one hundred enlisted families. A same request is made to volunteers, those receiving donations, patients, and visitors: constantly pray for those who are sick in their bodies and their souls.

“Cure is obtained

through people’s current of faith”

Dr Rezende

The path to evolution is paved by all: listening ears, assuring hands to keep everything in synch, stories passed down as lessons. At Casa do Caminho, the belief is that everyone has some sensitivity: some see it as mediumship, others as intuition. Faith is what truly connects the sensation of a body to its truth, one story to all other stories.