Page 73 - Aesthetic Formations Media, religion, and the Sense

58 Martijn Oosterbaan

in the constitution of the imagination of spiritual purification are the mass
mediated expulsions of demons, both on stage during the massive church
services and on television, in magazines and in newspapers (Birman 2006;
Kramer 2005; see also De Abreu in this volume).
One of the center rituals in the Igreja Universal is the sessão de descar-
rego (deliverance service). This weekly church session consists of highly
ritualized mass exorcisms in which people are invited to enact their self-
empowerment and to change their social and economic conditions with
the help of the Holy Spirit. During the rituals of mass exorcism hitherto
invisible forces become visible as well-known Afro-Brazilian deities man-
ifest themselves publicly among the adherents. This demonic possession is
recognizable by the bodily postures of the victims, faces that show signs
of agony, bodies that show loss of self-control. Often, when interrogated
by the pastor in front of the pulpit, the demons confess, through the
mouths of their victims, that they are sent by the devil to destroy the lives
of the people they posses. After publicly demonstrating the true nature of
the Afro-Brazilian spirits the pastor exorcizes them in the name of Jesus
and the people peacefully return to their seats. Through this practice of
exorcism the church simultaneously identifies and expels the roots of evil
and offers direct spiritual interventions in situations of relative poverty
and violence in many of the marginalized areas of the Brazilian metropo-
lis (Antoniazzi 1994; Montes 1998; Birman and Lehmann 1999; Birman
and Leite 2000).
The mass mediatization of expulsions has thoroughly shifted the rela-
tions between religious institutions in Brazil. Rather than dismissing the
Afro-Brazilian religious beliefs and practices as superstitions, the Igreja
Universal incorporates the spiritual entities worshipped in Candomblé
7
and Umbanda and represents them as demons. The demons, or encostos,
are held responsible for physically harming the individuals they posses
and hindering them from achieving fortune and happiness in this life and
salvation in the Hereafter. While the spiritual warfare of the Igreja
Universal is mostly directed against Afro-Brazilian religious practices, the
Catholic Church is another prominent adversary. In its services and its
media, the Igreja Universal forcefully opposes the presumed idolatry of

the Catholic saints. The most famous public incident is known as the
chute na santa—the kicking of the saint. During a television broadcast, a
pastor of the Igreja Universal desecrated a plaster statue of the Catholic
Patron Saint of Brazil, Nossa Senhora de Aparecida. The assault on the
statue was not merely an attack on a Catholic icon, but an attack on the
cultural hegemony of Catholicism in Brazil (Kramer 2001; Birman and
Lehmann 1999).