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Spiritism

Allan Kardec (1804-69), "decoder" of Spiritism is a spiritualist philosophical doctrine, established in France in the mid-nineteenth century.

Spiritism, or French spiritualism, is based on books written by French educator Hypolite Léon Denizard Rivail under the pseudonym Allan Kardec reporting séances in which he observed a series of phenomena that could be only attributed to incorporeal intelligence (spirits). His assumption of spirit communication was validated by many contemporaries, among them many scientists and philosophers who attended séances and studied the phenomena. His work was later extended by writers like Leon Denis, Arthur Conan Doyle, Camille Flammarion, Ernesto Bozzano, Chico Xavier, Divaldo Pereira Franco, Waldo Vieira, Johannes Greber and others.

Spiritism has adherents in many countries throughout the world, including Spain, USA, Japan, Germany, France, England, Argentina, Portugal and Brazil - the one with the largest proportion and the greatest numbers of followers.

Definition

In his introduction to The Spirits Book (the first volume of the Spiritist Codification series) Allan Kardec claimed to have coined the term "Spiritism" to name the movement he was initiating because "new things deserve new names". However, much like the word daemon (which in Greek mythology merely designated supernatural beings and spirits, and had no negative connotation), the word Spiritism was eventually appropriated by non-Spiritists as a derogatory term for the various movements and religions that practiced mediumship attributing to them an evil concept, in an attempt to "demonize" Spiritism and the other religions. Religions that were at one time called "Spiritism" are Candomblé, Umbanda, Cao Dai, Santería, Quimbanda, Santo Daime and a host of African Diasporic and animist traditions. Such confusion less common today, as the followers of various religions tend to emphasize the use of their own proper names.

Spiritism began as part of the Spiritualist movement that emerged in the mid 1800s. In its broad sense, Spiritualism is any philosophical or religious movement that opposes materialism. In its narrower sense, it is any movement that believes that spirit entities exist and that human beings can engage in spirit communication and mediumship. Therefore, Spiritism is Spiritualist.

Kardec reaffirmed that on the cover of his groundbreaking work "The Spirit’s Book". Another famous author in the Spiritualist movement, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle included a chapter about Spiritism in his book "History of Spiritualism" confirming that Spiritism is Spiritualist (but not vice-versa). As consequence, many Spiritualist works are widely accepted in Spiritism, particularly the works of scientists Sir William Crookes, Sir Oliver Lodge and other intellectuals.

In the early 20th century, the broad Spiritualist movement faded and the surviving ones in America and England reorganized themselves in a religious movement, incorporating many aspects of a church organization (mass, pastoral leadership, chants, donation baskets). In the USA the name Spiritualism has sometimes been used to address this group only.

Character of Spiritism

Spiritism is not a religion. Rather, it is a philosophy with scientific roots and moral consequences that studies on rational basis concepts of religiosity and faith. It is a science that studies the relationship between incorporeal beings (spirits) and human beings, as defined by Kardec in "What is Spiritism?" book ("Qu’est-ce que le Spiritisme"). It is devoid of liturgical rituals, although certain format ritual activities are engaged. Spiritist rituality can be compared to the way in which a surgeon prepares for an operations. For someone ignorant of medicine, the surgeon’s ritual of preparation by taking a shower, washing the hands carefully with "holy" hot water, dressing a specially sterilised "blessed" garment, gloves, and mask, and lifting the hands high to protect them from contact with non-sterilised objects before the surgery would appear to this ignorant to look like a religious rite.

The religious aspects of Spiritism include praying to God, the ultimate causal principle/source of all things and beings. In the Spiritism, the concept of God does not need to be seen as a religious belief, but can be perceived as a natural and somewhat necessary hypothesis within the Spiritist paradigm in order to explain the good and interconnected nature of all human beings.

Making an anology to science, the conception of God is not unlike current scientific paradigms of cosmology: According to current scientific theories, the Big Bang is conjectured as the causal origin of the accelerated expansion of the Universe, and yet the Big Bang per se is the moment where physical laws as we know break down. Therefore it is impossible for science to completely describe what the Big Bang is in the current paradigm. In the same way, Spiritist doctrine does not define what God is, but simply describes some of its attributes which have been observed in Nature and in the human soul.

In accordance with its scientific approach, in Spiritism, prayer is not a rote ritual, since no specific words or prayers matter, but only the quality of a person’s thoughts and intentions matters. This concept is in accordance with three decades of experiments have been validating the power of thoughts. Remarkably, are said to have shown that the power of thoughts and prayers is multiplied in group gatherings; an idea also in agreement with Spiritist studies and practice.

The Spiritist moral principles are in agreement with the ones taught by prominent figures like Jesus, Francis of Assisi, Paul the Apostle, Buddha or Ghandi and are, therefore, universal. The philosophical side is concerned with the study of the moral aspects in the context of living an eternal life in spiritual evolution through processes of reincarnations, as revealed by a multitude of Spirits and indicated by a multitude of researches. The scientific inclinations of the Spiritist paradigm can be found in the works of Sir William Crookes, Ernesto Bozzano, the Society for Psychical Research, William James, Charles Richet (Medicine Nobel Prize), Prof. Ian Stevenson ’s group at University of Virginia, and Prof. G. Schwartz at University of Arizona, among many others. A good account of the early works can be found in .

The main characteristics of Spiritist movement is the emphasis on the study and investigation of the Spiritist Doctrine in its triple aspects, scientific, philosophical and moral.

Spiritism fulfills the role of the Consoler that was promised to mankind by Jesus (which interprets the Consoler as being a doctrine, not a person) to "reestablish all things in their truer meaning", since as a Science, Spiritism is in search of the truth of our spiritual nature, not biased by one person/prophet opinion only. Spiritism does not have believers, since everybody is invited to question its principles and it does not seek to convert any believers from other religions.

Precursors

Developments leading directly to Kardec’s research were the famous Fox sisters and the phenomenon of the Talking boards. Interest in Mesmerism also contributed to the early Spiritist practice.

Swedenborg

Emanuel Swedenborg, 75, holding the manuscript of Apocalypsis Revelata (1766).Emanuel Swedenborg (help·info) (né Swedberg) (January 29, 1688 - March 29, 1772) was a Swedish scientist, philosopher, seer, and theologian. Swedenborg had a prolific career as an inventor and scientist. Then at age fifty-six he entered into a spiritual phase of his life, where he experienced visions of the spiritual world and claimed to have talked with angels, devils, and spirits by visiting heaven and hell. He claimed of being directed by God, the Lord Jesus Christ to reveal the doctrines of His second coming.

From 1747 until his death in 1772 he lived in Stockholm, Holland and London. During these 25 years he wrote 14 works of a spiritual nature of which most were published during his lifetime. Throughout this period he was befriended by many people who regarded him as a kind and warm-hearted man. Many people disbelieved in his visions; based on what they had heard, they drew the conclusions that he had lost his mind or had a vivid imagination. But they refrained from ridiculing him in his presence. Those who talked with him understood that he was devoted to his beliefs. He never argued matters of religion, and if obliged to defend himself he usually did it with gentleness and in a few words.

Fox sisters

Fox Sisters, left to right: Margaret, Kate, LeahSisters Catherine (1838-92), Leah (1814-90) and Margaret (1836-93) Fox played an important role in the creation of Spiritualism. The daughters of David and Margaret Fox, they were residents of Hydesville, New York. In 1848, the family began to hear unexplained rapping sounds. Kate and Margaret conducted channeling sessions in an attempt to contact the presumed spiritual entity creating the sounds, and claimed contact with the spirit of a peddler who was allegedly murdered and buried beneath the house. A skeleton later found in the basement seemed to confirm this. The Fox girls became instant celebrities. They demonstrated their communication with the spirit by using taps and knocks, automatic writing, and later even voice communication, as the spirit took control of one of the girls.

Skeptics suspected this was nothing but clever deception and fraud. Indeed, sister Margaret eventually confessed to using her toe-joints to produce the sound. And although she later recanted this confession, both she and her sister Catherine were widely considered discredited, and died in poverty. Nonetheless, belief in the ability to communicate with the dead grew rapidly, becoming a religious movement called Spiritualism, and contributing greatly to Kardec’s ideas.

Talking boards

Just after the news of the Fox affair came to France, people became even more interested in what was sometimes termed the "Spiritual Telegraph". In the beginning, a table spun with the "energy" from the spirits present by means of human channeling (hence the term medium). But, as the process was too slow and cumbersome, a new one was devised, supposedly from a suggestion by the spirits themselves: the talking board.

Early examples of talking boards were baskets attached to a pointy object that spun under the hands of the mediums, to point at letters printed on cards scattered around, or engraved on, the table. Such devices were called corbeille à bec ("basket with a beak"). The pointy object was usually a pencil.

Talking boards were tricky to set up and to operate. A typical séance using a talking board saw people sitting at a round table, feet resting on the chairs’ supports and hands on the table top or, later, on the talking board itself. The energy channeled from the spirits through their hands made the board spin around and find letters which, once written down by a scribe, would form intelligible words, phrases, and sentences. The system was an early, and less effective, precursor of the Ouija boards that later became so popular.

Allan Kardec first became interested in Spiritism when he learned of the Fox sisters, but his first contact with what would become the doctrine was by means of talking boards. Some of the earlier parts of his Spirits’ Book were channeled this way.

Franz Mesmer

Franz Anton MesmerFranz Anton Mesmer (May 23, 1734 - March 5, 1815) discovered what he called magnétism animal (animal magnetism) and others often called mesmerism. The evolution of Mesmer’s ideas and practices led James Braid (1795-1860) to develop hypnosis in 1842.

Spiritism incorporated and kept some practices inspired or directly taken from Mesmerism. Among them, the healing touch, still in Europe, and the "energization" of water to be used as a medicine for spirit and body.

Doctrine

Spiritism blends together notions taken from Christianity, Positivism and Platonism.

Basic books

The basic doctrine of Spiritism ("the Codification") is defined in five books written and published by Allan Kardec during his life:

The Spirits’ Book - Defines the guidelines of the doctrine, covering points like God, Spirit, Universe, Man, Society, Culture, Morals and Religion.

The Book on Mediums - Details the "mechanics" of the spiritual world, the processes involved in channeling spirits, techniques to be developed by would-be mediums, etc.

The Gospel According to Spiritism - Comments on the Gospels, highlighting passages that, according to Kardec, would show the ethical fundamentals shared by all religious and philosophical systems. This may be the first religious book to acknowledge the existence of life elsewhere in the Universe, based on Jesus’ saying "The houses in the realm of my father are many" (John, 14, 1-3).

Heaven and Hell - A didactic series of interviews with spirits of deceased people intending to establish a correlation between the lives they lead and their conditions in the beyond.

The Genesis According to Spiritism - Tries to reconcile religion and science, dealing with the three major points of friction between the two: the origin of the universe (and of life, as a consequence) and the concepts of miracle and premonition.

Kardec also wrote a brief introductory pamphlet (What is Spiritism?) and was the most frequent contributor to the Spiritist Review. His essays and articles would be posthumously collected into the aptly-named tome Posthumous Works.

Doctrine

The five chief points of the doctrine are:

There is a God, defined as "The Supreme Intelligence and Primary Cause of everything";

There are Spirits, all of whom are created simple and ignorant, but owning the power to gradually perfect themselves;

The natural method of this perfection process is Reincarnation, through which the Spirit faces countless different situations, problems and obstacles, and needs to learn how to deal with them;

As part of Nature, Spirits can naturally communicate with living people, as well as interfere in their lives;

Many planets in the universe are inhabited.

The central tenet of Spiritist Doctrine is the belief in spiritual life. The spirit is eternal, and evolves through a series of incarnations in the material world. The true life is the spiritual one; life in the material world is just a short-termed stage, where the spirit has the opportunity to learn and develop its potentials. Reincarnation is the process where the spirit, once free in the spiritual world, comes back to the world for further learning.

Relation to Jesus

Jesus, according to Spiritism the greatest moral example for humankind, is deemed to have incarnated here to show us, through his example, the path that we have to take to achieve our own spiritual perfection. The Gospels are reinterpreted in Spiritism; some of the words of Christ or his actions are clarified in the light of the spiritual phenomena (presented as law of nature, and not as something "miraculous"). It’s only because of our own imperfection that we can’t achieve similar things; as we evolve, we will not only understand better, but we will be able to do similar things, for all spirits are created equal, and are destined for the same end.

Evolution and karma

Spiritist Doctrine stresses the importance of spiritual evolution. According to this view, we are destined for perfection; there are other planets hosting more advanced life forms, and happier societies, where the spirit has the chance to keep evolving both in the moral and intellectual sense. Although not clear from Kardec’s works, later writers elaborated on this point further: it seems that we cannot detect more advanced life forms on other planets, as they are living in a slightly different "plane" from ours, in the same way the spiritual plane is superimposed over our own plane. There is no scientific evidence to back this claim, despite attempts to apply concepts from modern physics -- quantum theory, multiple universes and so on -- to explain it.

Mediumship

The communication between the spiritual world and the material world happens all the time, but to various degrees. Some people barely sense what the spirits tell them, in an entirely instinctive way, while others have greater cognizance of their guidance. The so-called mediums have these natural abilities highly developed, and are able to communicate with the spirits and interact with them by several means: listening, seeing, or writing through spiritual command (also known by Kardecists as Automatic writing). Direct manipulation of physical objects by spirits is also possible; however, for it to happen the spirits need the help (voluntary or not) of mediums with particular abilities for physical effects.

Spiritist practice

Kardec’s works do not establish any rituals or formal practices. Instead, the doctrine suggests that followers adhere to some principles regarded as common to all religions. The religious experience within spiritism is, therefore, largely informal.

Meetings

The most important types of practices within Spiritism are:

Regular Meetings - with a regular schedule, usually on evenings, two or three times a week. They involve a short lecture on some subject followed by some interactive participation of the attendants. These meetings are open to anyone.

Medium Meetings - usually held after a regular meeting, only those deemed prepared or "in need" of it are expected to attend.

Youth and Children’s Meetings - once a week, usually on Saturday afternoons or Sunday mornings, are the Spiritist equivalent to Christian Sunday schools.

Healing

Lectures - longer, in-depth lectures on subjects thought to be "of general interest" which are held on larger rooms, sometimes at theatres or ballrooms, so that more people can attend. Lecturers are often invited from far away centers.

Special Meetings - special séances held in relative discretion which try to conduct some worthy work on behalf of those in need

Spiritist Week and Book fairs.

Organisation

Spiritism is not seen as a religion by its followers because it doesn’t endorse formal adoration, require regular frequency or formal membership and claims not to be opposed to science, instead trying to harmonize with it. It should be noted, though, that there’s no acceptance to Spiritism in mainstream science and that its belief system is largely coherent with the notion of religion (that doesn’t include regular frequency, membership, formal adoration or declared opposition to science).

Spiritism is practiced in different types of associations, formal or not, which can have local, regional, national or international scope.

Local organizations are usually called Spiritist centres or Spiritist societies. Regional and national organizations are called "federations", as the Federação Espírita Brasileira and the Federación Espírita Española , while international organizations are termed "unions", such as the Union Spirite Française et Francophone.

Spiritist centres (especially in Brazil) are also often active book publishers and promoters of Esperanto.

History

Spiritism shares its roots with many other religions and denominations, mainly Christianity and Western traditions. It is unknown the extent of the influence of Hinduism, Buddhism and Shamanism over the doctrinal aspects of Spiritism, as set by Allan Kardec because the mentions of such religions are sparse in all his works. Kardec, however, acknowledges the influence of Socrates, Plato, Jesus and Francisco of Assis; as well as the religious tradition of Greek and Roman Paganism.

Spiritism in popular culture

Despite being little known by the population at large; many works or art contain allusions to facts, circumstances and concepts that resemble some spiritist beliefs:

Films

Ghost, with Demi Moore and Patrick Swayze was perhaps one of the earliest depictions of an after-life moderately similar to Spiritist teaching. It was highly popular among Brazilian Spiritists too. Swayze plays the role of man that is killed by a petty thief, leaving his wife (Moore). He, as a ghost, makes contact with a "psychic" played by Whoopie Goldberg and manages to help his wife before finally leaving earth.

The Sixth Sense, starring Haley Joel Osment and Bruce Willis, is perhaps the better known film approaching the thematic of Spiritism. Cole Sear (Osment’s role) is an infant medium facing the disbelief of everyone.

What Dreams May Come, starring Robin Williams, Annabella Sciorra, Cuba Gooding Jr and Max von Sydow depicts an afterlife remarkably similar to the concept advanced by Spiritism, down to the tiniest detail. After his own death, Williams’ character seeks to rescue his wife from damnation for committing suicide.

Shutter depicts a passably accurate situation of obsession, complete with physical manifestations and materialization of a spirit.

The Others (2001) depicts what happens to spirits who do not realize that they are actually in spirit form, according to Spiritist doctrine.

Sole Survivor, a 1970 TV-film starring Vince Edwards and Richard Basehart, begins with a B-25 bomber crashing in the Lybian desert during WW2 and all crew members onboard dying. Decades later, the wreck is spotted and an Air Force team is sent to investigate the crash site. The spirits of the dead bomber crew, unaware of their disincarnate condition, are still there, waiting for a salvage expedition to find them. The behaviour of the dead in this story is in accord with Kardecist teachings and Spiritist theory.

Soap operas

In Brazil three soap operas have been produced entirely based on the concepts of Spiritism. Another soap opera, Terra Nostra included a subplot of a young man obsessed by the spirit of his mother’s youth lover who had been killed by his grandfather.

"A Viagem" (The Journey), produced in 1976/77 by the extinct Tupi TV had a complex plot involving mediumship, death, obsession, reincarnation, etc. It was remade by Globo TV in 1994.

"O Profeta" (The Prophet), produced in 1977/78 also by Tupi TV and also remade by Globo TV (2006/07) included spiritism as one of the philosophies trying to explain the main character’s gifts, including being able to predict the future.

"Duas Caras" (Double Sides), currently being aired by Rede Globo includes a character, namede Ezekiel, who is an a born-again Christian but is being challenged by manifestations of his mediumship.