Transnational mediumship and the development of a transhistorical self in the Vale do Amanhecer

Abstract

The mediumistic practices of the Brazilian Spiritualist Christian Order Vale do Amanhecer (Valley of the Dawn) are spreading transnationally through migration and spiritual tourism. This article illustrates the mediums’ circulation between Brazil and Europe, how they forge sacred spaces and mediumistic bodies, and the challenges of translation of the doctrine and rituals. It then proposes a phenomenological approach to the transnational circulation of mediumistic practices focussing on the experiences of mediums, analysing a particular conceptualisation of the self in a transhistorical dimension, which may foster or inhibit transnational mobility. It argues that the notion of a transhistorical self in the context of transnational mediumship gives rise to new configurations of the relationship among place, history, and self, allowing new embodied spatial dispositions and ways of knowing while expanding possibilities of being and belonging trans-space and time.