The article emphasizes the importance of some studies dedicated to understand the subaltern classes performance through the analysis of fanaticism or the messianism phenomena. That can be noticed on pioneer essays of Nina Rodrigues and Arthur Ramos, and in the sociological analysis of Roger Bastide and Maria Isaura Pereira de Queiroz. With the passage from essay to sociology, the explanation of messianism was consolidated by the notion of mana. This new perspective enable us to elaborate another interpretation of the political aspirations of subaltern classes, as well as the leadership that they allow to be subjected.
Conscience of subaltern classes; Messianism; Brazilian social thought; Sociology