From the book to the Spiritist center: what a worker recognizes in Uberaba and Sacramento

There is a kind of visitor who arrives in Uberaba or Sacramento without needing anyone to explain what a passe (the Spiritist laying on of hands) is, or a study meeting, or a line of people waiting for fraternal care. It is the person who works in a Spiritist center the rest of the year. For that visitor, the trip is not only history: it is a mirror. They look at what Chico Xavier and Eurípedes Barsanulfo left behind and, almost without meaning to, ask themselves what they are doing well in their own center and what they have let slide.

This text is for that person. We start from two André Luiz books that speak of spiritual work, Nos Domínios da Mediunidade (published in English as In the Realms of Mediumship) and Missionários da Luz ("Missionaries of the Light"), and then look at what Spiritist workers tend to recognize in the places tied to Chico and to Eurípedes. At the end, we talk about what you can take home.

Casa de Memórias e Lembranças Chico Xavier in Uberaba, on the April 2024 caravan

Front of the Casa de Memórias e Lembranças Chico Xavier in Uberaba, April 2024 caravan. Mundo a Passeio travel archive.

Two books that describe a center from the inside

In Nos Domínios da Mediunidade (1955), André Luiz and his friend Hilário leave the Nosso Lar colony and go to the earth's surface to observe closely how communication between planes happens. FEB sums the book up as an affirmation that mediumship exists throughout humanity, and as essential reading for anyone who wants to study it seriously. What a worker feels reading it is a kind of relief: they are not alone with their meeting doubts. The book has cases, mistakes and corrections that seem lifted from any Thursday night.

Missionários da Luz (1945), according to the publisher, talks about reincarnation, about the perispirit as the mould of the body, and about how mediumship connects Earth to the spiritual plane. Someone who gives passes reads in it a basis for understanding why the person attending must look after themselves: thought, habit and conduct all count. On the practical side, reread what FEB advises in the Spiritist passe, for those who give it and those who receive it.

Neither book is a procedures manual, and a working Spiritist knows that. What they offer is a climate of responsibility: spiritual work calls for study, discipline and humility, and it is rarely what it looks like from outside.

What is recognized in Uberaba

Uberaba is where Chico spent the longest years of his public life. The Chico Xavier Memorial, reopened in 2024 after renovation, brings together projections, booths with the medium's recorded voice, a timeline and personal objects. The Casa de Memórias e Lembranças, where he lived, keeps his room and belongings as they were, and a tourism guide we consulted says it is part of Uberaba's new Rota dos Museus Orgânicos, launched in June 2026.

What a worker tends to notice first is the human scale of the place. It is the house where a medium lived, with his room and everyday objects. Someone from a large center, with an auditorium and department coordinators, may ask in front of it how much of what they do depends on structure and how much on constancy.

The second recognition is material charity. The Casa da Sopa is on the itinerary of our trips, and the Memorial keeps the soup table linked to Chico's relief work. For a Spiritist, this undoes a familiar temptation: separating the mediumistic meeting on one side from the food basket and the soup on the other, as if one were spiritual and the other merely social. In Chico's story the two went together.

The third is continuity. The Comunhão Espírita Cristã, the first Spiritist center Chico founded in Uberaba, in 1959, and the Grupo Espírita da Prece, where he met the public for decades, remain active, according to our city guide. We recommend confirming days and times of any open activity with the groups themselves, because published information varies. That care is also part of respect: a Spiritist center works for those who attend it, and the visitor is a guest.

What is recognized in Sacramento

Sacramento is another scale and another tone. Eurípedes Barsanulfo was a pharmacist, teacher, journalist and, in Spiritist life, a medium and group founder. The Colégio Allan Kardec, which he created, is the subject of academic research at the Federal University of Uberlândia (UFU), and today the building houses the Eurípedes Barsanulfo Memorial and the Corina Novelino Museum, as we explain in who was Eurípedes Barsanulfo and in the history of the Colégio Allan Kardec.

Here, a worker in children's and youth Spiritist education may be moved. The question the place asks is uncomfortable and good: what does it mean to educate in the light of Spiritism when the school has to be a real school, with curriculum and discipline, and not just a Sunday class? Eurípedes kept a school and free care going in the same town, at the same time, with the same people. For someone running a youth program that struggles to keep children, seeing the size of what Eurípedes built is both inspiring and uncomfortable.

Also in Sacramento, the Grupo Espírita Esperança e Caridade, founded by Eurípedes, remains active according to our city guide, and the Lar de Eurípedes and the Escola Eurípedes Barsanulfo show that the work continued after him. Institutionalizing what was lived without losing its spirit is a theme for any center's board.

The center's four tasks and how each one speaks to what you see

The passe. A Spiritist who gives passes can use the trip to observe their own posture: silence, attention to the other, discretion, no spectacle. If there is an opportunity to receive a passe at a house you visit, follow the local rules, like any visitor. The FEB article cited above guides this well.

Fraternal care. Anyone who does this work knows that listening comes before advising. To learn how Chico's care worked, read the accounts gathered in Depoimentos sobre Chico Xavier, published by FEB, with testimonies from relatives and companions in Pedro Leopoldo and Uberaba.

The mediumistic meeting. What André Luiz's books draw, and what a visitor only truly understands inside a prepared center, is that a team, preparation, study and responsibility stand behind any communication. To know what to expect when joining a meeting at a house you visit, see mediumistic meeting: what to expect. Participation always depends on each house's permission and calendar.

Evangelization. This is where Sacramento speaks loudest. The Colégio Allan Kardec reminds us that forming children and young people in the light of the Doctrine is a service of decades, not of one semester.

What to take back to your own center

Not everything has to become a project. A few simple things tend to come home in the suitcase.

The first is humility of structure: reread your own calendar and ask what can be simplified without losing the essential. The second is putting material assistance beside spiritual work again, so that Thursday's table and Saturday's soup speak to each other. The third is resuming a study that stalled, perhaps Nos Domínios da Mediunidade in a group, one chapter a week. The fourth is caring for those who care: the volunteer who gives passes or attends people also needs rest, study and prayer. And the fifth, the most practical, is to write down on return three things you saw and want to test, and discuss them with the board before routine swallows everything.

None of this guarantees results. It is the kind of lesson the houses of Chico and Eurípedes seem to teach those who arrive ready to learn, and each person translates it in their own way.

Being in the places

People who go generally report a sense of calm on entering these spaces: low voices, slow steps, people greeting each other without knowing one another. Many speak of a good energy, and for Spiritists this fits what the books say about an environment shaped by thought and prayer. It is perception, unmeasured and without promise. What can be said is that the trip creates room for each person to live whatever they feel calmly.

See the itinerary at Minas Espírita and the departures at Saindo de Porto Alegre: caravana espírita (both pages in Portuguese). For the July 2027 Minas Espírita departure, the page still shows dates and prices as to be confirmed. If your group wants to talk about the trip, message us on WhatsApp.