ABSTRACT
Considering translocal and transcultural trajectories and transformations of Spiritist practices, this chapter investigates divergent implementation, scaling, and adaptation of Spiritist healing practices to respective contexts and environments in Brazil and abroad. In Brazil, Spiritist approaches to mental healthcare are already bifurcated due to regional and ideological differences. Based on the hypothesis that they would do even more so in transnational frameworks, it compares ethnographic data of therapeutic spaces of Spiritism in Brazil and Germany and how participants negotiate and transform ideas and practices according to their subjective experiences. It illustrates (1) how they create and shape therapeutic spaces by “working with the senses” in different settings, (2) how these are translocally communicated and contested, (3) their importance in divergent Brazilian and German settings, (4) how they are implemented, taught, transformed, or transmitted as sensory practices, and (5) upcoming internal and external conflicts.
