Monday, January 06, 2020

The Atlantic Introduces the Intellectual and Spiritual Founder of Brazil’s Esoteric Far Right


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 decided to publish an article on him. Who is The Atlantic? It is one of the oldest magazines in the United States. The mission statement published in the very first issue of The Atlantic, in November 1857, was signed by many of the greatest American writers, including Ralph Waldo Emerson, Herman Melville, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Nathaniel Hawthorne. Melville is the author of the famous classical Moby-Dick.
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.
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.
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.
Where will this revolution take Brazil into?
Recommended Reading:
Recommended Reading about the Inquisition:

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