Paper short abstract:

This paper addresses ‘trance-formative experiences’ in the Vale do Amanhecer – namely, how mediumistic trance is learned for therapeutic purposes fostering a transformation – comparing experiences across the Atlantic between Brazil and Europe, and also across the spiritual and biomedical domains

Paper long abstract:

This paper addresses ‘trance-formative experiences’, namely, how mediumistic trance is learned for therapeutic purposes fostering a transformation. It calls for an attention to the process of learning spirit mediumship, comparing experiences across the Atlantic between Brazil and Europe, and also across the spiritual and biomedical domains. It refers in particular to the transnational spread of the Brazilian Christian Spiritualism of the Vale do Amanhecer (Valley of the Dawn) and the development of what mediums describe as ‘mediumistic trance’. The experiences of those who undergo mediumistic training show how besides spreading in Europe through transnational religions these practices are also to be understood as embedded in a growing network of therapeutic practices. This demands to overcome some conceptualizations of spirit mediumship and possession as being individual psychic phenomena or marginal practices belonging to some distant otherness. Instead, this paper proposes to tackle them along with contemporary therapeutic practices operating besides the biomedical field, and so in relation to both spiritual and therapeutic networks.