Brazil

23 profiled groups with documented operations in Brazil — 1 Extreme-band, 7 High-band, 15 Moderate or below. Presence here describes documented operations, not a judgement about Brazil or its communities; many listed groups also operate elsewhere.

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Christian

Word of Faith Fellowship (Jane Whaley)

Spindale, North Carolina-based Christian sect led by Jane Whaley. The 2017–18 Associated Press investigation documented corporal punishment of children, forced labour at member-owned businesses, and 'blasting' prayer sessions to expel demons.

Christian

Latin American neo-Pentecostal prophetic / healing high-control movements (umbrella)

Umbrella entry covering a documented pattern of high-control neo-Pentecostal prophetic and healing movements within Latin American Christianity, primarily concentrated in Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, and Argentina, and documented in sustained Brazilian press coverage, in Brazilian criminal and regulatory proceedings against multiple named figures, and in academic work on Brazilian Pentecostalism. Several specific named ministries within this pattern are profiled separately in the catalogue. This umbrella covers the pattern at the genre level; it does NOT generalise to the broader diversity of Latin American Christianity.

Wellness / Multi-Level

John of God (João Teixeira de Faria)

Brazilian 'faith healer' João Teixeira de Faria, who claimed to channel deceased spirits at his Casa de Dom Inácio in Abadiânia. Multiple Oprah-Winfrey-promoted appearances. Convicted of rape in 2019; over 600 women have alleged sexual abuse.

Christian

Igreja Mundial do Poder de Deus (Apóstolo Valdemiro Santiago)

Brazilian neo-Pentecostal mega-church founded in 1998 in São Paulo by Valdemiro Santiago de Oliveira after his split from IURD. Operates 4,500+ branches in Brazil and ~50 countries. The 2020 'miracle COVID-19 bean' incident drew international attention.

Christian

Heralds of the Gospel (Arautos do Evangelho)

Heralds of the Gospel (Arautos do Evangelho) is a pontifical-right Catholic association founded in Brazil in 1999 by Msgr. João Scognamiglio Clá Dias, a former member of the traditionalist TFP movement, that grew into a residential apostolic community reporting several thousand members. Leaked 2017 videos of internal exorcism rites triggered a Vatican canonical investigation and Clá Dias's resignation as superior general; a subsequent apostolic visitation led the Vatican to order, by a June 2021 decree, that all minors be removed from Heralds residences and its boarding schools closed, citing a 'high risk of psychological and sexual violence' — the strongest official finding in a record that also includes roughly 40 unresolved Brazilian Ministério Público complaints of abuse, several reportedly dismissed for lack of evidence, against a founder who has not been criminally convicted.

Christian

Word of Faith / Prosperity Gospel networks

Word of Faith and Prosperity Gospel networks (Kenneth Copeland, Creflo Dollar, T.B. Joshua, much of TBN's flagship roster) blend Pentecostal worship with explicit teaching that financial gifts to the ministry produce divine wealth.

Christian

Igreja Universal do Reino de Deus / IURD (Edir Macedo, Brazil)

Brazilian Pentecostal megachurch founded by Edir Macedo (1977). Owns Brazil's second-largest TV network (Record). Subject of multiple Brazilian money-laundering and tax-fraud investigations over decades.

Wellness / Multi-Level

TelexFree (historical pyramid fraud)

Nominally a VoIP reseller, TelexFree paid 'promoters' to post internet ads — returns funded almost entirely by new promoter buy-ins. Before its 2014 collapse it took in roughly $3 billion from nearly a million participants across Brazil, the US, and beyond, hitting Brazilian and Dominican immigrant communities hardest. US criminal cases convicted co-owner James Merrill; co-owner Carlos Wanzeler fled to Brazil; massive parallel Brazilian proceedings ran for years.

Christian

Deus É Amor (David Miranda, Brazil)

Brazilian Pentecostal church founded by David Miranda (1962). Distinctive strict modesty code (no alcohol, smoking, dancing, jewellery). Substantial Latin American and diaspora presence.

New Religious Movement

Grail Movement (Abd-ru-shin)

International movement around Oskar Ernst Bernhardt ('Abd-ru-shin') and his 1920s–30s work 'In the Light of Truth: The Grail Message', administered from Vomperberg, Austria. Adherents treat the Grail Message as the definitive revelation of creation's laws. Governmental sect-observatories in Europe have catalogued family complaints about exclusivity and estrangement; documented coercion is limited, placing the movement in the Moderate band.

Christian

Reborn in Christ Church (Igreja Renascer em Cristo)

The Reborn in Christ Church (Igreja Renascer em Cristo), founded in São Paulo in 1986 by Estevam Hernandes Filho and Sônia Hernandes, rode Brazil's neo-Pentecostal boom to hundreds of congregations, a media network, and the mass São Paulo March for Jesus, built on an intense prosperity theology — tithes and offerings as the mechanism of blessing — and celebrity-inflected 'Apostle' and 'Bishop' leadership branding. The founders' legal record anchors the entry: arrested at Miami airport in 2007 with tens of thousands of dollars in undeclared cash — some famously concealed in a Bible — they pleaded guilty to US federal smuggling-related charges, while Brazilian prosecutors pursued fraud and misappropriation cases over church funds across years of litigation. In January 2009 the roof of the church's São Paulo cathedral collapsed during a service, killing nine and injuring over a hundred, with prosecutions over the building's condition following. The church continues at reduced scale.

New Religious Movement

Ordo Templi Orientis (OTO) — Crowley-tradition Thelemic order

Ordo Templi Orientis ('Order of the Temple of the East', OTO) is a Western ceremonial-magic religious order founded ~1904 in Germany by Theodor Reuss and brought to international prominence by Aleister Crowley (1875–1947), who used it as the institutional vehicle for his Thelemic religious system articulated in *The Book of the Law* (1904). Crowley took leadership in 1922 and rewrote OTO ritual and doctrine to express the Thelemic premise 'Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law'. Multiple post-Crowley succession disputes have produced the contemporary Caliphate OTO (the largest organisation, US-based), SOTO (Society Ordo Templi Orientis), and Kenneth Grant's Typhonian OTO. Included in the dataset as a Moderate-band boundary case in cult-studies literature.

New Religious Movement

New Acropolis

New Acropolis is an international esoteric-philosophy organisation founded in Buenos Aires in 1957 by Jorge Ángel Livraga Rizzi, teaching a curriculum of comparative philosophy in the Theosophical lineage through local schools in dozens of countries. Its public face is that of a cultural association — philosophy courses, volunteering, arts events. Its contested face comes from the 1980s–1990s European cult debates: the organisation appeared on the 1995 French parliamentary report's list of movements, Belgian and other inquiries examined it, and ex-member and watchdog accounts describe hierarchical discipline, uniformed ceremonial, loyalty structures, and an internal culture considerably more demanding than the evening-class exterior suggests. The organisation firmly denies sectarian characterisations. The profile scores the documented middle ground at low confidence.

Christian

Broader Brazilian neopentecostal boom (umbrella)

Broader Brazilian neopentecostal boom umbrella. Hundreds of denominations beyond IURD / Assemblies of God. Collectively tens of millions of Brazilian adherents.

Other

Santo Daime / União do Vegetal (Brazilian ayahuasca churches)

Brazilian Christian-syncretic churches that use ayahuasca sacramentally — Santo Daime (founded 1930s) and União do Vegetal (UDV, 1961). US Supreme Court 2006 ruling protected UDV ritual ayahuasca use. Mostly low-control; specific high-control sub-chapters exist.

Other

Tenrikyo (Japanese new religion)

Japanese new religion founded by Nakayama Miki (1838) teaching faith in Tenri-Ō-no-Mikoto. Headquartered in Tenri City, Nara Prefecture. Practises distinctive sacred dance (Otefuri) and pilgrimage to the Jiba (sacred axis).

New Religious Movement

Valley of the Dawn (Vale do Amanhecer)

Valley of the Dawn is a Brazilian spiritist-syncretic religion founded in 1959 by the clairvoyant former truck driver Neiva Chaves Zelaya — Tia Neiva — and headquartered in a purpose-built temple town outside Brasília. Its elaborate cosmology blends Kardecist spiritism, Christianity, Afro-Brazilian and indigenous elements, and ancient-astronaut narrative: initiated mediums, costumed in some of the most visually striking ritual dress of any modern religion, perform disobsession rituals channelling spirit phalanxes to relieve clients' suffering. The movement is open, non-residential for the great majority of its hundreds of thousands of adherents, charges no fees for its core rituals, and lacks documented coercive apparatus — scored low-moderate as an elaborate-cosmology comparator, with a negative modifier for its documented open, service-oriented culture.

Christian

Assemblies of God Brazil (Assembleias de Deus)

Largest single Brazilian Pentecostal denomination. Estimated 12+ million members. Mainstream Pentecostal low-moderate control.

New Religious Movement

Umbanda (Brazilian Afro-syncretic, mainstream)

Brazilian Afro-syncretic religion (1908) blending Spiritism, Candomblé, and Catholic elements. Substantial Brazilian following.

New Religious Movement

Spiritism (Allan Kardec, mainstream)

Mainstream French / Brazilian mediumship religion founded by Allan Kardec (1857). Substantial Brazilian following (millions). Distinctive doctrine of reincarnation and progressive evolution.

Other

Brazilian Eastern-religion imports (broader umbrella)

Broader umbrella for Brazilian Eastern-religion imports — Soka Gakkai Brazil, Seicho-no-Ie, PL Kyodan, Perfect Liberty. Brazil has one of the largest non-Asian memberships of multiple Japanese new religions.

Other

Candomblé (Brazilian Yoruba diaspora)

Brazilian diaspora variant of Yoruba Traditional Religion. Distinctive orixá worship in terreiros (community houses). Mostly low-control mainstream tradition.

Other

Yoruba Traditional Religion / Ifá (mainstream)

Mainstream Yoruba Traditional Religion / Ifá and its diaspora variants (Santería in Cuba, Candomblé in Brazil) are low-control reference points for African Traditional Religion.

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Complete list of 23 group profiles