RELIGIOUS GOVERNMENT OF LIFE: THE BRAZILIAN SPIRITIST PRESS THINKING ABOUT HUMAN AGING

Abstract

The article discusses, based on the examination of an article published in the periodical “O Reformador”, in circulation since the 19th century, the spiritist perspective on the experience of aging. The study starts from the consideration of the historicity of generational cuts, especially old age. The main theoretical dialogue takes place with cultural studies, with a certain production inspired by Norbert Elias and with discourse analysis inspired by Michel Foucault. The focus on the spiritist discourse was due to the importance of the religious element in contemporary Brazilian sociability, in which mediumistic religions, including spiritism, are very important. The problematization of the corpus led us to the understanding that Spiritism thinks of old age as a stage of life with two main characteristics. On the one hand, it is another moment of experience and of building life in itself, with its challenges and possibilities. On the other hand, old age is described and explored there as another moment when human beings can and must face themselves, in the sense of their transformation and improvement. In the movement of the text under study, several discursive strategies are activated to legitimize its regime of truth and its specific look. Finally, it is a strategy for governing life, in the sense that the forms of old age are associated with the subject's previous choices.