Chico Xavier e o mundo dos espíritos: um estudo de representações sociais

• Ano de defesa: 2013
• Autor(a) principal: Albuquerque, Tiago Paz e
• Orientador(a): Sá, Celso Pereira de
• Banca de defesa: Araújo, Maria Clara Rebel , Zangari, Wellington , Marques, Sergio Corrêa , Wolter, Rafael Moura Coelho Pecly
• Tipo de documento: Tese
• Tipo de acesso: Acesso aberto
• Idioma: por
• Instituição de defesa: Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro
• Programa de Pós-Graduação: Programa de Pós-Graduação em Psicologia Social
• Departamento: Centro de Educação e Humanidades::Instituto de Psicologia
• País: BR
• Palavras-chave em Português: Xavier, Francisco Cândido, 1910-2002; Representações sociais; Religiões - Brasil; Espíritos; Religião; Psicologia social
• Palavras-chave em Inglês: Chico Xavier; Spirits; Social Representation; Religion; Social Psychology
• Área do conhecimento CNPq: CNPQ::CIENCIAS HUMANAS::PSICOLOGIA::PSICOLOGIA SOCIAL
• Link de acesso: http://www.bdtd.uerj.br/handle/1/15109

The medium Chico Xavier (1910-2002) was interposed as one of the most admired and polemic character in the Brazilian religious landscape, since his affirmation of being able to communicate with death people's spirits, assigning to them more than 400 books psychographed by him, as well as the care activities developed. In 2010, the centenary of his birth's celebrations had a wide repercussion, with various articles in the media, book's (re)launched and movies' productions. On this context it was developed this research about the social representations produced about him by people with or without religion, according to the Social Representation Theory's Structural Approach. The data collect was done though a standardized questionnaire, applied though "web", in which was associated a free recall task to the inductor term "Chico Xavier". The answers of 1.960 participants were analyzed, among spiritistits (56,6%), catholics (15,5%), theists (12,1%), umbandistas (4,6%), atheists (4,2%), evangelicals (4,1%) and agnostics (2,8%). The evocations analysis allowed to identify the following terms, possible centrals, as most shared by those groups: love, charity, humility - evoked by spiritists, umbandistas, theists and catholics; spiritism, mediunity-psychography - by the theists, catholics, agnostics and atheists; catholics and theists were distinguish by the reference to goodness and peace; and evangelicals and atheists referred to deception-lie; agnostics evoked yet the charity term; and atheists, the terms charlatan-fraud, mentally ill. The building of the co-occurrences' tree confirmed the themes "love" and "spiritism" as the most characteristic of Chico Xavier, suggesting the existence of two different representations of the medium. On this way, "love" seems to organize the catholics', spiritists', umbandistas', theists' representations and "spiritism", the evangelicals', agnostics' and atheists' ones. The questionnaire analysis revealed the following groups' decreasing ranking regarding the proximity relative to Chico Xavier: spiritists, umbandistas, theists, catholics, agnostics, evangelicals, atheists. Altogether, the data showed representations' affinities between the groups, mainly being similar the spitirists' and umbandistas' and theists' and catholics' representation. We observed a Chico Xavier's representation built from three different signification's planes: of the "virtue", of the "belonging" and of the "truth". On the first one, it's characterized by the appreciation of "love", which situates him in a wide meaning's order, recognizing him as someone capable of having lived and demonstrated this virtue in a irrefutable way, making him an example; on the second, by the appreciation of "spiritism" happens his identification inside group limits, as someone who lived according your beliefs and became a prominent figure of them. And the third, passing through these two planes, by the attribution of a "truth" or "lie" meaning about the things he lived/taught about life after death and the communication with spirits. Thereby, Chico Xavier, in a general way, is represented by the spiritists, umbandistas, theists and catholics as someone virtuous who lived/taught the truth; and is represented by the evangelicals and atheists as a non-virtuous spiritist, who lived/taught lies. The agnostics positioned themselves, mainly, in an ambivalent way, nevertheless the small tendency to emphasize the virtue and the truth in Chico Xavier.