The Atlantic Introduces the Intellectual and Spiritual Founder of Brazil’s Esoteric Far Right
By Julio Severo
The mind of an occultist is a labyrinth of
truths, half-truths, outright lies and contradictions. For Brazilians, the best
example of this is Olavo de Carvalho, a Brazilian philosopher-astrologer who
self-exiled in the United States in 2005.
The Atlantic, as part of its “Democracy
Undone” series about the erosion of liberal democracy around the world, decided
to address the Brazilian case, in a report titled “Meet
the Intellectual Founder of Brazil’s Far Right.” Because Carvalho is
prolific in Portuguese, but not in English, The Atlantic used the report of
Letícia Duarte, a Brazilian journalist based in New York. She visited Carvalho
in his U.S. residence to make the interview with him.
She had to submit herself, to get the
interview, to an imposition from Carvalho: to
read 10 books and booklets by him, only available in Portuguese. When U.S.
journalists, including from the Washington Post, requested an interview with
him, he subjected them to the same imposition, but they showed no interest
because he does not have 10 books published in English, and they abandoned the
idea of an interview. And even if he had 10 books in English, would this
protect him from scrutiny and criticism? Carvalho just hates any criticism of
his writings.
The only interest of U.S. journalists is
not in Carvalho’s books, but in how he came to lure a Brazilian president. They
are not interested in seeing what he wants to show in his more presentable
books. They are more interested in what he seeks to hide, in what he does not
show in his current books, even though his older books, which he hides from the
public, show a lot of his occult record. His dark secrets beg to be
journalistically investigated, and just by chance he chose for his self-exile a
nation where journalists love to investigate everything. If
they spare him, will it be a sign of dark forces protecting him?
Duarte was more persistent and read the
books, even though, very obviously, Carvalho listed for recommended reading
only the more recent political books penned by him, omitting all the books he
wrote in the 1980s promoting astrology, alchemy and other forms of occultism.
She noticed in Carvalho’s office “More
than 100 smoking pipes were lined up on a rack,” but she failed to mention that
Carvalho is an avid advocate of smoking, denying its bad effects. Even though
he and U.S. President Donald Trump have the same age, Carvalho’s appearance is
older and obviously sick.
Mention of Carvalho’s advocacy of smoking
would be relevant, considering that recently Trump
approved a bill raising the legal smoking age from 18 to 21 for both cigarettes
and vapes to protect young people of the evils of smoking.
I presume that the Brazilian journalist is
left-wing, because in her long interview she never talked about Carvalho’s role
as the
most prominent Brazilian denier and advocate of the Inquisition. He denies
that the Inquisition tortured and killed multitudes of Jews and Protestants,
adding that it was a fiction created by U.S. evangelicals. And he advocates
that the Inquisition was a promoter of human rights.
Carvalho says that in the past, he was a
communist. I suppose that as a communist he denied that communism tortured and
killed multitudes of people, adding that it was a fiction created by Americans.
And probably he advocated that communism was a promoter of human rights. So he
has not changed in his denials and advocacy. He just adapted his speech to fit
his new ideologies.
Before, he was a communist and astrologer.
Now, he is a right-winger who “foresees” infallibly. So if an astrologer is a
man who foresees and the main characteristic of Carvalho is predictions, how disconnect
him from astrology when his political activism is marked by predictions? He
just adapted, again.
Because Letícia Duarte was hired by The
Atlantic to give the U.S. public a vision of Carvalho that only a Brazilian can
have, I will just fill the gaps with more information and corrections, quoting
necessary excepts.
The journalist had already interviewed
Carvalho in 2018, and he was very displeased, with the journalist recording his
reaction now:
“You’re very malicious, naughty, a
liar—you are defaming me!” he shouted.
“You’re a slut,” he went on, wagging his
finger. “You come to my house with this cynical smile … You’re worth nothing,
woman!”
Yet, no one can charge that Carvalho
reviles only left-wingers and journalists. He has reviled conservatives and Protestants,
including Luther and Calvin. Including also me, against whom he has used all
kinds of dirty language since I exposed him for his lies about the Inquisition.
Carvalho has admitted that his foul mouth
was inspired by the Russian communist revolutionary Vladimir Lenin, who had a
foul mouth. So no one in the alleged Brazilian right follows more Lenin than
Carvalho does. His logic is that if dirty language was a success for Lenin, it
could also become a success for him.
She tolerated his reviles for the sake of
the interview. She said,
Worshipped by the right and ridiculed as
an extremist by the left, Olavo and his beliefs are discussed
almost
daily in Brazil, everywhere from threads on Twitter to long magazine articles. He is powerful for another reason. The
72-year-old is the architect of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro’s far-right
vision. A self-educated philosopher who never completed high school, Olavo has
formed a new generation of conservative leaders in Brazil through an online philosophy course he has taught for 10 years. He
estimates that about 5,000 students are currently enrolled in his program, and
20,000 people have watched his classes, including members of Bolsonaro’s
cabinet.
Carvalho has the same number of Facebook
followers as Walter Mercado, the famous late Puerto Rican astrologer, had. The
difference is that while Mercado conquered many weak hearts through his
astrological TV show, only Carvalho achieved the feat to lure the hearts of the
Brazilian president and his sons. Such feat was seen before only with Rasputin,
who lured the Russian czar and his family.
It is very natural for Carvalho to be on
the spotlight on a daily basis, because Bolsonaro and his sons just are not
able to stop promoting or talking about him, just as the Russian czar was
unable to escape the enchantment of Rasputin.
Because Bolsonaro chose to attach his
dependence and fame to Carvalho just as the Russian czar chose to attach his
dependence and fame to Rasputin, it would be no surprise if Carvalho received
the same attention Rasputin received. Books and movies have been made of
Rasputin and his influence on the Russian czar. Will books and movies similarly
be made of Carvalho and his influence on Bolsonaro? Probably so.
Because of attachment, the name of
Rasputin became so famous as the name of the czar. Will the Brazilian case have
the same destiny?
Duarte said,
It would be easy to liken him to another,
better-known, right-wing ideologue who offered guidance to a surprising
presidential winner. Yet Olavo bristles at the
comparisons to Steve Bannon, or at least he used to. When I first met
Olavo, a year ago, Bolsonaro had been elected but not inaugurated, and Olavo
had not yet met Bannon in person. He told me at the time that he didn’t take
Bannon seriously. Much has changed since then. Two weeks after Bolsonaro’s
inauguration in January, Bannon met with Olavo at his Petersburg home, and a couple of
months later, Olavo was the guest of honor at an event hosted by Bannon at the Trump Hotel in Washington, where
the former White House chief strategist introduced him to a select group of
about 100 conservative guests. “Olavo is one of the great conservative
intellectuals in the world,” Bannon has said.
Filling the gaps, today
Carvalho and Bannon are close friends. Perhaps Bannon made his event in
Trump Hotel, which is open to any event because it is a commercial building, to
draw the attention of Trump: “Hey, Trump! I have managed to influence the
Brazilian government through Carvalho. Can you hire me again?” It did not work.
Even though Bannon spent a lot of money to rent a room in the Trump Hotel,
Trump did not hire him again. By the way, before Trump expelling him from the
White House, Bannon was labeled “Trump’s Rasputin.” But
Trump was able to expel this bad influence from his presidency.
As to Carvalho’s attitude that Duarte
noticed, with him not respecting Bannon before, and after their meeting
changing him in a man highly respecting Bannon, Carvalho is the kind of man who
praises those who praise him. So he can change constantly.
Duarte said,
The day after Bannon feted Olavo, it was
Bolsonaro’s turn. During a visit to Washington—the Brazilian leader’s first
international trip as a head of state—Bolsonaro hosted a formal dinner at the
residence of the Brazilian ambassador. Olavo sat on Bolsonaro's right, Bannon
on his left. Bolsonaro said
in a speech that he had long dreamed of setting “Brazil free from the nefarious
leftist ideology.” Then he looked at Olavo and said, “The revolution we are
living, we owe in large part to him.”
Again filling the gaps, when Bolsonaro
chose to have Carvalho and Bannon at his right and left side, he chose two
adherents of the Islamic occultist René Guénon. Both Carvalho and Bannon have
been inspired by Guénon, who is better known by his most prominent disciple,
Julius Evola, who became a guru of Benito Mussolini, the Italian fascist
dictator. Evola was a “philosopher” and author of right-wing and occult ideas
that inspired Nazism in Germany.
In 2014, in a conference at the Vatican,
Bannon praised Guénon and Evola. Carvalho used to praise Guénon very much, but
after I began to criticize such dark connections, he has tried strategically to
keep a distance from the Islamic occultist who formed his political activism.
Adherents of Guénon, including Evola,
Bannon and Carvalho, share the same political ambition to dominate everything
and everyone. Another Guénon adherent, Alexander Dugin (or Aleksander Dugin),
has the same ambition regarding Russia. He praises Evola in the same way Bannon
has praised him. In the same way Carvalho bristled at the comparisons to Bannon,
he bristles at the comparisons to Dugin, even though both share the same source
of political, esoteric and occult inspiration. Even though they bristle at one
another and allege that they are different, in spiritual and political
ambitions they are equal. They share the same soul.
In spite of their ambitions, Bannon
was expelled from the U.S. government by Trump himself
and Dugin was fired from a government university in Moscow in 2014. Only in
Brazil one of the equals has been treated differently: Carvalho
received from Bolsonaro the highest award from the Brazilian government.
Nor Bannon neither Dugin ever received such award and excessive admiration from
a president.
The fact is that because this is an
interconnected occult web, adherents share the same source, praises and
interests. For example, on December 2019 the
Brazilian police identified a Catholic suspect in an attack on Netflix gay
Jesus filmmakers. In his house, police officers seized books by Carvalho and
René Guénon, interpreted as
Islamic books, because Guénon praised Islam. Eventually, the suspect fled to
Moscow, allegedly to seek help from Dugin adherents.
As to Bolsonaro saying that the revolution
Brazilians are living, they owe in large part to Carvalho, it is a sad sign of
his excessive dependence on Carvalho. Yet, before the election, Bolsonaro said
several times that without evangelicals he could not be elected president. He
told televangelist Silas Malafaia several times that if most evangelicals voted
for him, he would win. Most evangelicals voted for him, and the rest is history.
Also, in his interview with CBN, the
famous evangelical TV channel in the U.S., Bolsonaro recognized that
evangelicals were fundamental to his victory.
Did he mean that evangelicals were
fundamental for him to advance a revolution inspired and controlled by
Carvalho? It seems so, even though he said nothing about Carvalho on CBN.
Bolsonaro is founding a new populist party
and to record members, he is not asking the assistance of Carvalho, who has not
the thousands and thousands of members churches have. He is asking the
evangelical churches, which hope that if they give him enough members, he could
give them one or two cabinet posts. Meanwhile, Bolsonaro has hired, for high-ranking
government posts, more and more adherents of Carvalho. And they just love to
promote occultism. For example, Brazilian
Foreign Minister Ernesto Araújo has a diplomatic essay praising Guénon, Evola,
Carvalho and Bannon.
So it is no wonder that Duarte’s
conclusion was: “Bolsonaro and members of his cabinet are followers of
Olavo’s.” And indeed they are. In the Bolsonaro administration, everybody is
supposed to pay homage to Carvalho. If they criticize him, they are fired.
Perhaps in the future books will be
written about how evangelicals in Brazil were deceived and used to advance the
revolution of an adherent of Guénon.
Duarte also said,
It was not the first time that Bolsonaro
had publicly honored Olavo. In his first speech to the nation after his
election, the former army captain placed four books on his desk: the Bible,
Brazil’s constitution, Winston Churchill’s Memoirs of the Second World War, and
a book by Olavo—The Minimum You Need to Know to Not Be an Idiot. “What I want
most is to follow God's teachings alongside the Brazilian constitution,” he said. “I also want to be inspired by great leaders, giving
good advice.”
The Brazilian public sees Bolsonaro rarely
quoting Churchill. Sometimes he quotes the Bible. But all the time he mentions
Carvalho, or by sharing articles, through his social media accounts or the
accounts of his sons, from Carvalho and his adherents. So in the Bolsonaro
administration, Carvalho is in the first place, the Bible in second, etc.
Dependence is so big that often the populist Bolsonaro slogan “Brazil above
everyone, God above everything” is understood to mean “Carvalho above everyone,
Carvalho above everything.”
Duarte said,
Olavo first came to the United States in
2005, to work as a Washington correspondent for Diário do Comércio, then a
financial print newspaper. He told me that although he was previously in close
contact with American politicians and journalists, he soon “lost interest”
because “they are a bunch of boring people.”
I understand why Carvalho soon “lost
interest” in American politicians and journalists. Several prominent American
conservatives, Catholics and evangelicals, know him personally, but they do not
dare to recommend him. They probably suspect strange things in him. He has so a
problematic and nebulous history, involving from occultism, Islam to swindling
that critics, even the most malicious, have no need to invent any fraudulent
accusation against him. His record is filled of accusations against himself.
To Duarte, Carvalho said that he came to
the United States to work as a correspondent. There are two reasons for
Carvalho’s self-exile. In an interview with the New American in 2010, on the first
reason he said he left Brazil because he was tired of receiving weekly death
threats from leftist maniacs. But since Brazil today has a president who is an
Army captain who loves him, there would be plenty of protection for Carvalho to
visit Brazil.
Would his reluctance to return to Brazil
actually be fear to face lawsuits from former students who felt cheated by his
astrology and occult courses? Would it be the fear of facing lawsuits from
ex-partners?
The second reason he used as an
explanation was that he took a job at the Brazilian newspaper Diário do
Comércio to be a correspondent in the U.S., although it is not clear how this
newspaper, which is not large, could afford to give Carvalho a compatible high
salary guaranteeing a correspondent’s visa in the U.S.
How the Diário do Comércio, a
small-circulation newspaper (just 25,000
copies), could afford to support a correspondent’s visa for Carvalho for
years in the U.S. is a mystery. The newspaper ceased its print edition in 2014.
Schemes for obtaining American visas were also detected at
the Inter-American Institute, created by John
Haskins, but whose creation Olavo attributes to himself.
Duarte describes alleged “tactics” or
personal traits of Carvalho by saying that he
often uses sexually charged language to
garner attention—in our initial meeting, Olavo described Bolsonaro’s election
as a “premature ejaculation.” He argues that dissidents should be intimidated
and, in one video posted by a supporter on YouTube, instructs
viewers on how to use personal attacks to intimidate “communists.” His
followers should, he says, use “all bad words from the Portuguese language”
against critics. “It’s not about destroying ideas,” Olavo continues, “but destroying
the careers and the power of people. You have to be direct, and without
respect—that’s very important.”
Clarifying: Carvalho preaches
intimidations and attacks not only against “communists,” even though he was virtually
silent when Bolsonaro
visited China in the 70th commemoration of the communist revolution. He
attacks anyone challenging his “intellectuality.” In 2013 he began a relentless
campaign of daily, weekly, monthly and yearly smear against a conservative
evangelical author who defied his idea that the Inquisition did not torture and
kill Jews and Protestants, but promoted human rights. I can speak about this
case, which involved every kind of foul language from him against the
evangelical author, because the victim was me. Good conservatives have told me
that in my place, they would sue him, but in my place they could not afford a
U.S. lawyer to defend themselves.
Perhaps the most insightful and important
moment in the interview with foul-mouthed Carvalho was when Letícia Duarte
caught, right in the end, the essence of his ambitions. She finished the interview
by saying:
Olavo proudly told me that through his
teachings he has created a “genius factory” online. “My influence on Brazil's
culture is infinitely bigger than anything the government is doing,” he said.
“I am changing Brazil’s cultural history. Governments go away; the culture
stays.”
Rasputin managed to be so famous as the
Russian czar. But Carvalho has bigger ambitions: He wants his fame as
infinitely bigger than the Bolsonaro administration. Carvalho’s intent is to
surpass the “normal” Rasputin to become a big Rasputin in the Brazilian
history. As far as it is dependent of Bolsonaro, he will have his wishes
served.
The only force that can resist this
malignant revolution is the same force that elected Bolsonaro: Evangelicals and
their prayers.
I hope evangelicals may react, because if
they do not do, history books will tell that evangelicals were responsible for
the occult revolution sweeping the Bolsonaro administration with the full
blessings of Bolsonaro and his sons.
I cannot avoid the thought that
Protestants and Catholics in Germany, to defeat the communist threat, elected
the Nazi revolution, which was inspired also by Julius Evola, a right-wing
occultist praised by Bannon and the highest-ranking cabinet minister in the
Bolsonaro administration, Ernesto Araújo, who has also praised and met
regularly Bannon and Carvalho. They have in mind their own revolution,
regardless what evangelical voters think.
Portuguese
version of this article: Revista americana The Atlantic apresenta o fundador
intelectual e espiritual da extrema direita esotérica do Brasil
Recommended Reading:
Brazilian Minister of Education
Abraham Weintraub and His Right-Wing Socialism or Right-Wing Statism
How
the Powerful Union of Trump with Evangelicals Saved the U.S. from Steve Bannon
and His Occult Plan of a “Traditionalist” Government
Right Wing Watch, of People for the
American Way, Attacks Jair Bolsonaro: “U.S. Right Helps, Cheers Rise of
Brazilian Authoritarian”
Supported
by Evangelicals Angry with the Left and Its Anti-Family Attacks, Jair Bolsonaro
Is Elected Brazilian President
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