Machado de Assis and Spiritism in the 19th Century: A brief approach to “The Wizard of Cosme Velho”

Introduction: This article is the result of Post-Doctoral research, carried out at Logos University International, between August 2022 and July 2023, seeking to understand man in his time together with the main vehicle of information of the period, the newspaper, the Spiritist theme and his considerations about it. Objective: The main desideratum aimed to seek to understand how the Spiritist theme was portrayed in the chronicles of Machado de Assis, more specifically, in the publications of the five series written by the author, between the years 1883 and 1897, for the Rio de Janeiro newspaper, Gazeta de Notícias, totaling 478 chronicles, all of which were read and analyzed. Method: The methodology adopted was the reading of the aforementioned chronicles through the use of digitized sources available in the Digital Hemeroteca of the National Library and which represent an enormous source of research through the website: http://memoria.bn.br/hdb/periodico.aspx, fully accessible via the Internet. Results: By reading the chronicles from 1883 to 1897, it was possible to uncover an entire universe through the pen of Machado de Assis and his considerations regarding the time in which he wrote, demonstrating his ability and talent in the act of writing. Conclusions: Through reading the chronicles, one can observe Machado de Assis's real intransigence towards spiritualism, characterized by the fine ironies directed at the theme.