Nicete Bruno and Paulo Goulart choose our Christmas message

Home and art

From Umbanda to Kardecism

The future: the crèche

The logical motherhood of reincarnation

And many other topics in this report with our two great artists

(Text by Marlene Rossi Severino Nobre.)

As I write these pages, my eyes fall on the soft tones of the rose that they offer me at the Goulart residence. In the delicacy of the flower, the moments of serenity absorbed in this brownish spring morning in São Paulo, so full of contrasts, endure.

We went to meet Nicete Bruno and Paulo Goulart, feeling sure that we would receive blessings of peace. The mental clichés archived over time through the various interviews given by the two artists appeared in my memory like fleeting rays of optimism and serenity. They really do convey a deep sense of peace and joy, work and hope. In their nest of love, they have built a solid foundation of praise and dedication to art, to the cultivation of beauty in its most legitimate expression.

In this interview, you will see this remarkable summary by Emmanuel, our spiritual benefactor: “Pure art is the highest spiritual contemplation on the part of creatures. It means the deepest externalization of the ideal, the divine manifestation of that ‘beyond’ which polarizes the hopes of the soul. The true artist is always the ‘medium’ of eternal beauty, and his work, in all times, has been to touch the vibrating strings of human feeling, lifting it from the earth to the infinite and opening, on all paths, the longing of hearts for God, in his manifestations of beauty, wisdom, peace and love.”.

Spirit Sheet – What was your first contact with Spiritism like?

Paulo - We had two very distinct phases in our knowledge of Spiritism. The first contact was the most common, the one that happens to most people: through Umbanda, in Rio de Janeiro. We then encountered the phenomena. Later, in a second phase, through the Brazilian Society of Spiritist Studies, in Curitiba, with Dr. Maury Rodrigues da Cruz, we had the full Spiritist initiation. We began to study Kardec's Doctrine and only then were we able to understand how mediumistic phenomena take place on different planes and why they occur.

Nicete - We stayed in Curitiba from 1962 to 1966 and, during our stay there, we maintained very close ties with this institution. Here in São Paulo, we have a center linked to the one in Curitiba: the São Paulo Experimental Center for Spiritist Studies. We have mediumship development, passes and we try to maintain a more direct approach to day-to-day Spiritist practice. In the future, we'll have a nursery - which I'd rather call a home - a Transitional Home, an outpatient clinic and all the care that is guided by the spiritual doctor Dr. Leocádio José Corrêa. There are several similar centers in Paranaguá, Recife, Anápolis, Rio de Janeiro and, of course, Curitiba.

Women's fulfillment

FE - Nicete, we were very impressed by the interview that the Spirit of Humberto de Campo conducted at the Memoriam Park Cemetery in Hollywood, with the Spirit of Marilyn Monroe and psychographed by Chico Xavier. Saying that the thesis of deliberate suicide is not true, she clearly implies that if she had had children, her life and death might have been very different. What can you tell us about motherhood, given that you are such a devoted and conscientious mother?

Nicete - The question moves me a lot. Being a mother is the only moment in which a woman is truly fulfilled. And I'm thinking right now of the many people who can't have children and I'd love to give them all a message of great optimism. I would remind those who are unable to become mothers organically that true motherhood can be felt, as long as they are aware of the true meaning of maternal love. There are many children who need a mother's affection; they are the sad children relegated to abandonment and oblivion. I have three children, but I intend to have many more with the construction of the nursery, which we hope will be, first and foremost, a home for many children, the other children we will have.

Nicete Bruno and Paulo Goulart

FE - Paulo, you've already told us that you found it easy to absorb all the basic principles of Spiritism. In the case of reincarnation, how did you react?

Paulo - I believe it was just a fitting of what we actors feel. We live multiple lives as actors and this predisposes us to a logical and intuitive constant of reincarnation. It was just a logical fit for this intuitive knowledge, a realization of what we experience.

Family, religion and work

FE - We feel that the spiritual atmosphere of our planet has changed a lot since the 1960s. It seems to us that something very different and very serious is happening...

Paulo - It's the approach of the New Age. Everyone is more aware of the times we are living in. Young people and children are in a hurry, everyone is trying to accomplish everything very quickly.

FE - Young people, in particular, are very interested in putting all things in their proper place. Their heightened sense of justice sometimes leads them down rough roads because they can't find answers to many of their questions.

Paulo - And we are the sandwich generation, we are the intermediaries between the two generations. We have to understand the difficulties of our elders and help the younger ones, trimming the edges as much as possible. The world has been built on certain false or misleading foundations, and young people yearn for justice and freedom and therefore don't accept these false beacons.

Nicete - Awareness of the truth will make men free. Young people seek freedom as Christ taught. The more experienced must understand this desire and seek to help. Many parents are aware of this responsibility.

FE - And where does religion come into all this?

Paulo - To the extent that young people become aware of certain values and realize that they can't change certain structures, religion is a support for them to accept this change, which isn't immediate, but is a consequence of the individual's attitudes towards the community. How important the tripod of home, religion and work is. When young people can't find the support they need at home, they look for it on the streets. At school, he encounters other imbalances and often drifts into drugs or creates new, very harmful values. The core of positive values lies within the family, religion accompanies human beings until death, even atheists, and work guarantees the stability of everything. Young people need coherent attitudes.

Nicete - Exactly when parents say one thing and do another (“do as I say, but don't do as I do”), it is this inconsistency that is unacceptable.

Paulo - Look, we're not making a dogmatic religious statement, we're just saying that young people need coherent attitudes from those around them. Dissonance is very disturbing. The language of attitudes is much more fruitful.

Atoms and the message of hope

FE - Nicete, in the case of the theater, did you feel it was something from other lives?

Nicete - There's no doubt about it. Ever since I was a little girl, theater has come very naturally into my life. You see, I believe that in our family everything happens by a higher determination, the formation of our home and now our children taking the path of the theater, without us having forced anything. With positivity and coherence, we experience everything we feel. It's the public emanation of this experience without anything having been taught. And all this in a very difficult period like the one we're living through...

FE - In fact, we are delighted to see three generations on stage. With “The effects of gamma rays on field daisies”, the play you are presenting, we have the participation of your dear mother, Dna. Leonor, and your little daughter Bete, and you give us a message of extraordinary cohesion. I'd like you to say something about the play.

Nicete - On stage, we are experiencing the exact opposite of our reality, that is, the mismatch of generations. For me, the message is above all one of hope for the young girl in the midst of all that rot. The girl who wants to be a scientist discovers that all men are made up of tiny atoms that came from the Sun, and her hope is focused precisely on the certainty that everything will be changed, giving thanks to God for the strange force that comes from atoms. It seems that the author was even more aware that the soul sleeps in the stone, dreams in the plant, stirs in the animal and awakens in man.

Contact with other worlds

FE - The '74 Nobel Prize was awarded to two British astronomers for interpreting radio messages from distant worlds. Paulo, do you think we'll ever achieve greater contact with other inhabited worlds?

Paulo - We, here on Earth, are at a much lower evolutionary level than on other worlds, which is why I find it difficult to establish deeper contacts due to our inability to interpret. We are unable to absorb the different stages of life and their manifestations. Earthly life values differ from the life values of other planets. Most of them are much more advanced evolutionarily than ours. Many of them develop in states of matter that we can't detect. But one day we'll get there...

Joy, power and knowledge

FE - In contact with you, we feel a great sense of peace and joy. How do you achieve peace in a world like ours, which is so troubled?

Paulo - Peace is found in the simplest people, who are like children. When we become intellectualized, we start to confuse theory and practice. The struggle for life, for survival, is a very strong call, and man begins to feel anguish. Only through religion can he find peace. This doesn't mean that I'm alienated from the problems, I just don't worry about them, I try to overcome them. No matter how distressing these problems are, they don't take my peace away, because I believe in God and man. Our belief in reincarnation and survival after physical death gives us the certainty that even if man tries to destroy our physical integrity and succeeds, he will not be able to change our sense of inner peace, because we will be aware of who we are, what we have done and the message we have transmitted through our actions.

Nicete - We really feel that people complicate things. A second tripod needs to be considered here: joy, power e know. You need to acquire the joy of living. If you're predisposed to achieving your goals, you'll succeed, you'll find the strength to achieve them, and this achievement will come about through knowledge.

Paulo - It must be stressed that all these elements have the same weight. You have to know that in order to achieve your goals, you have to be confident and happy. Power is subjective. It is in no way totalitarian or absolutist. You see, there's a lot of difference from the American formula of how to win in life, because they leave aside the fundamental values of existence. What counts - in their case - is getting ahead at any price, no matter who you step on or hurt.

Nicete - That's where the danger lies. Many injustices are committed with this philosophy of life.

Paulo - We don't get excited when things are going very well, for example when we're enjoying some artistic success at a certain time, nor do we get upset when unpleasant things happen to us, because we're prepared for all contingencies. To enjoy success, you have to go through many failures.

Nicete - Not for this reason do we stop living all things intensely, we just seek the necessary balance to receive everything with serenity and understanding.

Paulo - We are connected to all events. We just try not to exaggerate them, giving them the exact dimensions, so that we can maintain our inner balance. When someone wins or loses an election, it's the same thing, you have to not exaggerate the proportions. There has to be a lot of balance in this political turn of events so that it has better consequences, not worse ones.

Christmas message

“May Christmas and the New Year be filled with the realization of evangelical truths, of lucid, evolutionary expressions. May peace, love and faith increase in your life and in all yours. We have a great mission to fulfill. We will win in God, for God. May Christ bless and enlighten us, placing his love in our hearts.

With this message chosen by Paulo Goulart and Nicete Bruno, we wish all our readers peace and spiritual fulfillment this Christmas.