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Purity and the Devil 61

practices such as in the attachment of evangelical banners, stickers, and
nameplates on walls, doors, and entrances. These spatial markers serve to
define a house or office as a place of evangelicals and simultaneously to
purify and protect a space against demonic invasion.
An example of the popular conviction that one’s house in the favela
should be protected against demonic presence comes from Leonildo, a
man in his forties who had accepted Jesus only a few years before I first met
him. Leonildo, a presbítero (elder) in one of the congregations of the
Assembléia de Deus in the favela, explained to me that, after his conver-
sion, he no longer let certain kinds of people enter his house:

Before anybody could come in, but nowadays they have to stay on the
threshold. They can bring demons in with them, like a dog that carries
fleas. As a Christian you should not let all kinds of people inside. My neigh-
bors, for example, do not live like Christians. You should not let people
enter who don’t have the same faith. The Bible says so. 10

It is striking that even while straightforward demonic presence and exor-
cism is less common in the services and doctrines of the Assembléia de
Deus, many people of these churches nevertheless envisaged social rela-
tions in terms of the fight against demons. This indicates the growing
influence of the discourse on demonic presence that the Igreja Universal is
spreading. Yet, at the same time, it needs to be noted, the Igreja Universal
itself is tapping into a wide range of existing beliefs and practices to put
their message across. Many of the techniques of spatial purification
encountered in the Igreja Universal and in several other Pentecostal
churches demonstrate similarities with purification techniques of Afro-
Brazilian religious movements and of the Catholic Church. Sal grosso
(unrefined salt), for example, is commonly used in Umbanda and
Candomblé to purify individuals and to protect them from harmful spir-
its. It is also striking that in these Afro-Brazilian movements salt is also
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often used for a banho de descarrego (ritual cleansing bath). The Brazilian
Catholic tradition also knows many practices, which are meant to protect
a place or a person against evil. Some Catholics in the favela, for example,

had attached stickers with portraits of Saints on their door to protect their
house. One could also think of the popular scapulars (escapulários), neck-
laces that have portraits of Jesus, Mary, or Saints on both the front and
back side, thus fully closing of the body (fechar o corpo) against any poten-
tial threats.
All these and other practices that are used to purify and protect body
and/or space strike a chord with the important work of Mary Douglas. As
Douglas has taught us, practices of distinction and separation of the pure