Sceptic guards his tongue

Press, 29 June 1988, Page 17

Sceptic guards his tongue

From

HUGH O’SHAUGHNESSY

in Brasilia

“You see, the geological strata under Brasilia are made of solid crystal. That concentrates the cosmic powers around the city. It was prophesied that this place would be a place flowing with milk and honey.” Tadeu, from the city’s tourist department, was deadly earnest. Like most Brazilians he is a espiritista. He believes in occult cosmic forces and the immediate influence of the spirits on human activity.

That is handy for him because he is working in a massive campaign — part deeply felt, part blatantly commercial — to promote Brazil’s capital as a world centre of the occult.

The twenty-eighth anniversary of the proclamation of Brasilia as the nation’s capital comes in soon. Tadeu and his colleagues are taking the opportunity of pushing the city as “The Capital of the Third Millennium.”

“When the Age of Aquarius dawns and humanity is perfected, it will dawn here,” he says.

In a country where pagan cults which slaves brought over from Africa centuries ago still thrive, and where people are mesmerised by the idea of the spirit world, a new piece of occultism is sure to be popular. The official Brasilia guidebook proudly lists the dozens of churches and sects which have set up in the capital. Apart from the Catholics, Baptists and Lutherans there is everything from Yoga, Tantra, Zen, the World Messianic Church of Brazil and Mahikari to the House of Blessing and Rolling.

Campaigners are doing their best to draw every parallel they can between the new capital and the mysteries of ancient Egypt. The basic plan of the city, two large arterial roads crossing beside the artificial lake of Paranoa, is, they say, a modern representation of the ibis, the sacred bird of the Pharoahs.

The pyramid-shaped National Theatre is modelled on the pyramids of Cheops. The electricity board building is reminiscent of the pyramids of Sakkara. With all the fervour of the Druids at Stonehenge, the enthusiasts say there is significance in the fact that only on Brasilia’s anniversary does the sun rise between the twin towers of the Congress building.

The life of President Juscelino Kubitschek, the city’s founder, is said to have parallels with that of the Pharoah Aknaton, who built a new ceremonial city, Aton, beside the Nile. The occultists say that Aknaton died 16 years after the inauguration of his city, as Kubitschek did. Even the bus station, the central point of the city, is brought into the mysteries. “The underground level represents the Id, the Ego is the early level and the aerial level is the super-ego,” proclaims the official literature.

The Catholic Church, which fights a losing battle against Brazilians’ fixation with the occult, is being brought unwillingly into the campaign. The ultramodern cathedral is supported on 16 columns. “In the Hebrew Kabbala and in Egyptian, the number 16 represents a temple,” says the city guide.

Catholic authorities are uneasy, too, at the use the city is making of a remark by the nineteenth century Italian St John Bosco, who is supposed to have said that a new civilisation would emerge at a point beside a lake in South America between the fifteenth and twentieth parallel.

While occultists push forward with their promotional schemes, at least some of the city’s 1.8 million inhabitants preserve a healthy scepticism. “I think it’s a lot of nonsense,” says one young worker in the tourist department. “But if I said so too loud, I might lose my job.” Copyright London Observer Service.