' A History of Spiritism in Brazil '...

n Brazil the ideas that gave rise to Spiritism date back to the early experiences with the so-called "vital fluid" (animal magnetism, mesmerism) by practitioners of homeopathy, namely the physicians Benoît Jules Mure, a native of France, and João Vicente Martins, from Portugal, who arrived in the country in 1840 and applied it to their patients...[2] Among the personalities interested in the study of the "vital fluid" were José Bonifácio de Andrada e Silva, the patriarch of Independence, also a cultivator of homeopathy, and Mariano José Pereira da Fonseca (Marquis of Maricá), who published a work with spiritualist teachings in 1844...[3] The oldest group of these scholars and practitioners was formed in Rio de Janeiro, then the capital of the Empire of Brazil, around the figure of the physician and historian Alexandre José de Mello Moraes, [4] and included Pedro de Araújo Lima (Marquis of Olinda), Bernardo José da Gama (Viscount of Goiana), José Cesário de Miranda Ribeiro (Viscount of Uberaba), and other prominent figures of the Second Reign. ................ from Wikipedia