Olavo Luiz Pimentel de Carvalho (; 29 April 1947 – 24 January 2022) was a Brazilian self-proclaimed philosopher, political pundit, astrologer, journalist, and far-right conspiracy theorist.
While publishing about politics, literature and philosophy since the 1980s, he made himself known to wider Brazilian audiences from the 1990s onwards, mainly writing columns for some of Brazil's major media outlets, such as the newspaper O Globo. In the 2000s, he began to use personal blogs and social media to convey his conservative and anti-communist ideas.Monica Grin. "Raça": Debate Público no Brasil (1997–2007). Rio de Janeiro, Mauad X/FAPERJ, 2010Luísa Roxo Barja. A face obscura da política: governo e eleições no Mídia Sem Máscara. Aurora. Revista de Arte, Mídia e Política. n. 4 (2009)Gabriel Castro, "Olavo de Carvalho: Esquerda Ocupou Vácuo Pós-ditadura," Veja, 3 de Abril de 2011 In the late 2010s, he rose to prominence in the Brazilian public debate, being dubbed the "intellectual father of the new right" and the ideologue of Jair Bolsonaro, a label which he rejected.
His books and articles spread conspiracy theories and false information, and he was accused of fomenting hate speech and anti-intellectualism. He positioned himself as a critic of modernity. His interests included historical philosophy, the history of revolutionary movements, the Traditionalist School and comparative religion.PATSCHIKI, Lucas. Anais do V Simpósio Internacional Lutas Sociais na América Latina. Fascismo e internet, uma possibilidade de análise social através das redes extrapartidárias: o caso do "Mídia Sem Máscara" (2011) His views were rejected by mainstream philosophers.
From 2005 until his death, he lived near Richmond, Virginia, in the United States. He died in 2022 several days after testing positive for COVID-19.
Early life and education Olavo de Carvalho's father was a lawyer and his mother worked in the printing industry. They divorced while he was a child. His first name, which he claimed meant "survivor" in Norwegian, was chosen by his grandmother.
He told an interviewer that he was born sick and spent seven years bedridden. He had heart problems and Lyme disease.
He was in school up to the fourth grade of elementary school.
Career Carvalho acted as an astrologer from 1979 to 1982, having learned it from, among others, the Argentine psychologist Juan Alfredo César Müller. In 1979, he founded the "Revista de Astrologia Júpiter" ("Jupiter: Astrology Review"); around this time, he introduced himself in his business card as the "scientific director of the Brazilian Astrocharacterology Society", headquartered at his home. "Astrocharacterology" (astrocaracterologia) is Olavo's own pseudoscience, "whose task is to separate poetic language from symbolic language, showing the objectivity of astrological language".
From the 1970s to the 2000s, he wrote for several Brazilian magazines and newspapers, such as Bravo!, Primeira Leitura, Claudia, O Globo, Folha de S.Paulo (starting in February 1977 with an article about The Magic Flute in the "Folhetim" literary supplement“Segredos da Flauta Mágica” by Olavo de Carvalho, Folhetim literary supplement, Folha de S. Paulo, 27 February 1977), Época and Zero Hora.Dornelles, Beatriz. Mídia, Imprensa e as Novas Tecnologias. Volume 24, Coleção Comunicação. EDIPUCRS, 2002, p. 53.
In 2002, Carvalho founded the website Maskless Media (Mídia Sem Máscara). It presents itself as an observatory of the news media.PATSCHIKI, Lucas. Os litores de nossa burguesia: Mídia Sem Máscara em atuação partidária (2002–2011). Marechal Cândido Rondon: Programa de Pós-Graduação em História UNIOESTE, 2012 He was the host of the show True Outspeak on BlogTalkRadio, which aired from 2006 to 2013."A Brazilian Political Philosopher Tops the Charts at Blogtalkradio," Blogtalkradio, 18 May 2007 As of 2019, he wrote a weekly column for the Brazilian newspaper Diário do Comércio and taught philosophy in an online course to over 2,000 students. In his online classes, he often wore a cowboy hat or smoked a pipe. He is said to have introduced to Portuguese-speaking readers works of important conservative philosophers of the 20th century, such as Eric Voegelin.Kaio Felipe Mendes de Oliveira Santos, "O Duelo Filosófico entre Settembrini e Naphta em 'A Montanha Mágica'," Noctua, No. 3, 2011Horácio Lopes Mousinho Neiva, "O Dilema da Justiça Natural. A Crítica de Eric Voegelin à Dogmatização do Direito Natural," Jus Navigandi, Teresina, Ano 16, No. 2804, 6 March 2011 In addition to newspaper articles and many blog and social media posts, he authored a number of books, many of them collections of previously published texts. A list of his books published by one of his students in 2018 included 32 books.
Carvalho founded the Inter-American Institute for Philosophy, Government, and Social Thought in 2009, and served as its president. He collaborated with Ted Baehr, Paul Gottfried, Judith Reisman, Alejandro Peña Esclusa, and Stephen Baskerville through the Inter-American Institute. The institute closed down in 2018, possibly due to complaints made by Carvalho's former students to the institute's board that, among other complaints, he never concluded the secondary education, and was not, as his profile in the Institute claimed, a former senior lecturer in the Catholic University of Paraná.
In 2011, Carvalho had a written debate online with Aleksandr Dugin in 2011 on "The US and the New World Order".
In 2020, Carvalho was ordered to pay 2.8 million Brazilian reais in libel charges after accusing musician Caetano Veloso of sexual crimes against children.
Influence on Bolsonaro
Carvalho became one of the most influential individuals during the administration of Jair Bolsonaro. According to one account, Bolsonaro got interested in Carvalho's ideas in 2013. In 2014, Bolsonaro and Carvalho started transmitting their live video chats through politically conservative YouTube channels. In 2017, Carvalho was depicted as the "ideologue" of Bolsonaro, a title he refused.
Carvalho believed that the Foro de São Paulo "is the largest political organization that has ever existed in Latin America and undoubtedly one of the largest in the world". Partido dos Trabalhadores, the party of Bolsonaro's opponent Fernando Haddad, is a member of Foro de São Paulo. Shortly before the election, Olavo shared the false information that a book written by Fernando Haddad, the opponent of Jair Bolsonaro during the 2018 Brazilian general election, promoted incest.
In his first live speech on Facebook after being elected, Bolsonaro was pictured next to one of the books written by Carvalho, in what was interpreted as a sign of his influence over the newly elected president. Journalists writing for El País and Folha, respectively, claimed that Carvalho influenced the nomination of two prominent Ministers by Bolsonaro: Ricardo Vélez Rodríguez (Education) and Ernesto Araújo (Foreign Affairs). Leonardo Sakamoto, writing for the website UOL (Universo Online), also made these claims, but emphasized Bolsonaro's responsibility for these ministers.
In November 2018, after the Brazilian presidential election, Carvalho declared that, if nominated by President-elect Jair Bolsonaro, he would accept the role of Brazilian ambassador to the United States. However, in February 2019, Carvalho clashed with some key figures of the Bolsonaro administration, including the vice-president, Hamilton Mourão, whom he accused of being a "traitor" and an "idiot" who is "pro-abortion, pro-disarmament and pro-Nicolás Maduro". Mourão dismissed the criticisms.
On 17 March 2019, Carvalho criticised the presence of military personnel in Bolsonaro's administration, stating: "He didn't choose two hundred generals. Two hundred generals chose him. Those people want to restore the 1964 regime under a democratic aspect. They're ruling and using Bolsonaro as a condom. I'm not saying that it is the reality, but it is what they want. Mourão said that they would return to power democratically. If it is not a coup, it is a coup mentality."Para Olavo de Carvalho, se não mudar, governo acaba em seis meses Valor Econômico, 17 March 2019. Quote (Portuguese): "Se tudo continuar como está, já está mal. Não precisa mudar nada para ficar mal. É só continuar assim. Mais seis meses, acabou. Ele não escolheu 200 generais. Foram 200 generais que o escolheram. Esse pessoal quer restaurar o regime de 1964 sob um aspecto democrático. Eles estão governando e usando o Bolsonaro como camisinha. Não digo que seja realidade, mas o que eles querem. O Mourão disse isso. Que voltaram ao poder pela via democrática. Se não é um golpe, é uma mentalidade golpista."
In 2020, Sleeping Giants started a campaign to reduce his influence on Brazilian politics and convinced advertisers to remove their media buying from his online newspaper and YouTube channel. This led to PayPal deciding to cancel their contract with Carvalho, and remove their services from his online seminars, citing violation of terms of use.
Carvalho became critical of Bolsonaro in his final months and accused him of failing to repel communism.
Personal life
Tariqa Carvalho was a member of the tariqa headed by Frithjof Schuon. Although it was officially a tariqa, that is, an esoteric Sufi Islamic order, it was headed by Frithjof Schuon, the Perennialist author of "The Transcendent Unity of Religions", and therefore syncretically incorporated various elements from other traditions.
Family His eldest daughter, Heloísa de Carvalho Martins Arriba, accused her father of occasional maltreatment of his children. All content was wrapped in a letter that was later shared on Facebook. According to the letter, Olavo had even pointed a gun to the head of one of his children. She made other accusations, such as that, during the time in which Olavo had been a member of a tariqa, he kept a polygamous relationship, living with three wives simultaneously. The accusations were denied by her siblings and by Olavo himself, who initiated a lawsuit against her citing that in her letter she "distances herself from any contact with reality by spreading outrageous lies and vile insults".
Heloísa died on 8 January 2026, at the age of 56.
Death Olavo de Carvalho's family announced his death on social media, on 24 January 2022, eight days after he tested positive for COVID-19. His family's statement did not specify his cause of death, but his daughter Heloísa said that it was from coronavirus. His personal doctor denied it was COVID-19 and stated officially that his death was caused by respiratory stress associated with emphysema, heart failure, bacterial pneumonia, and a generalised infection. Source quotes the doctor's detailed official statement. Carvalho was known for his vaccine hesitancy and often questioned the severity of COVID-19 pandemic, spreading COVID-19 misinformation on his social media.
According to his family, he died at a hospital outside of Richmond, Virginia. He reportedly confessed his sins to a Roman Catholic priest and received the last rites before his death. At his death he left his widow, eight children, and eighteen grandchildren. He is buried at St. Joseph's Cemetery in Petersburg, Virginia.
Misinformation Carvalho spread fake news and false information on various topics.
Pepsi sweetener hoax Carvalho helped spread the hoax of Pepsi using cells from aborted fetuses to sweeten soft drinks.
Climate change Carvalho claimed that global warming is a hoax produced by a conspiracy.
Health In a 2016 Twitter post, Carvalho claimed that "vaccines either kill you or drive you crazy. Never vaccinate your children."
He spread a conspiracy theory that AIDS does not pose a risk to heterosexuals.