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A Brazilian Reading of Belzen’s Towards Cultural Psychology of Religion

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Abstract

This article presents a Brazilian reading of the ideas proposed by Dr. Jacob A. Belzen in his book Towards Cultural Psychology of Religion (2010a). Dr. Edênio Valle was the Portuguese translator of this book and saw almost immediately the possibility of applying Belzen’s theoretical principles and methodological suggestions to his religiously multicultural home country, Brazil. Inspired by the examples described and analyzed by Belzen from the Netherlands, Valle attempts to reread a well-studied case of diabolical possession that happened in Brazil in the 1950s among a small group of rural Afro-Brazilian Catholics after they had gotten in touch with a millenarian, closed-minded Brazilian church called Adventist of the Promise.

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Notes

  1. Culture and Psychology, Los Angeles: Sage Publications (edited by J. Valsiner).

  2. See the December 2009 issue of REVER, Revista de Estudos da Religião, Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo.

  3. Instituto Terapêutico Acolher- ITA. See the institute’s website at http://institutoacolher.org.br.

  4. For a more detailed account, see Cataldi (2008) and Queiroz (2009).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo, Rua Ministro de Godoy, 969/Sala 4 E/CEP, 05015-001, São Paulo, Brazil

    Edênio Valle

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  1. Edênio Valle
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Correspondence to Edênio Valle.

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Valle, E. A Brazilian Reading of Belzen’s Towards Cultural Psychology of Religion . Pastoral Psychol 66, 427–436 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11089-013-0587-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11089-013-0587-8

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