Spiritism

Origins

Spiritism is based on the five books of the Spiritist Codification written by French educator Hypolite Léon Denizard Rivail under the pseudonym Allan Kardec, in which he reported observations of phenomena at séances that he attributed to incorporeal intelligence (spirits). His work was later extended by writers such as Léon Denis, Gabriel Delanne, Arthur Conan Doyle, Ernesto Bozzano, Gustav Geley, Chico Xavier, Divaldo Pereira Franco, Emídio Brasileiro, Alexandr Aksakov, William Crookes, Oliver Lodge, Albert de Rochas, and Amalia Domingo Soler. Kardec's research was influenced by the Fox sisters and the use of talking boards. Interest in Mesmerism also contributed to early Spiritism.

Swedenborg

Emanuel Swedenborg (January 29, 1688 – March 29, 1772) was a Swedish scientist, philosopher, seer, and theologian. Swedenborg had a prolific career as an inventor and scientist. At 56, he claimed to have experienced visions of the spiritual world and talked with angels, devils, and spirits by visiting heaven and hell. He claimed he was directed by the Lord Jesus Christ to reveal the doctrines of his second coming.

Swedenborg, however, warned against seeking contact with spirits. In his work Apocalypse Explained, #1182.4, he wrote, "Many persons believe that man can be taught by the Lord by means of spirits speaking with him. But those who believe this, and desire to do so, are not aware that it is associated with danger to their souls." See also Heaven and Hell #249

Nevertheless, Swedenborg is often cited by Spiritists as a major precursor for their beliefs.

Fox sisters

Sisters Catherine (1838–92), Leah (1814–90) and Margaret (1836–93) Fox played an important role in the development of Spiritism. 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 or psychography, and later even voice communication, as the spirit took control of one of the girls.

Skeptics suspected this was deception and fraud, and sister Margaret eventually confessed to using her toe-joints to produce the sound. Although she later recanted this confession, 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, which contributed significantly to Kardec's ideas.

Talking boards

After the news of the Fox sisters came to France, people became more interested in what was sometimes termed the "Spiritual Telegraph". In its early form, a table spun with the "energy" from the spirits present by means of human channeling. As the process was too slow and cumbersome, the talking board was devised, supposedly from a suggestion by the spirits themselves. A typical séance using a talking board had people seated at a round table, with 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 were written down by a scribe to form words.

Early examples of talking boards, were baskets attached to a pointed object—usually a pencil—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"). By the 1860s. Planchette, the precursor of the pencil-less Ouija boards, simplified the writing process which achieved widespread popularity in America and Europe.

Allan Kardec first became interested in spiritualism when he learned of the Fox sisters, but his ideas about Spiritism were based on his experiences with talking boards. Some of the earlier parts of his Spirits' Book were channeled this way.

Franz Mesmer

Franz Anton Mesmer (May 23, 1734 – March 5, 1815) discovered what he called magnétisme animal (animal magnetism), which became known as mesmerism. The evolution of Mesmer's ideas and practices led Scottish surgeon James Braid (1795–1860) to develop hypnotism in 1841.

Spiritism incorporated various concepts from Mesmerism, among them faith healing and the energization of water to be used as a medicine.

Difference from spiritualism

Although there are many similarities, Spiritism differs from spiritualism in a number of ways, particularly regarding the goal of spiritual perfection and the manner by which the followers of each practice their beliefs.

Spiritism teaches reincarnation or rebirth into human life after death, distinguishing it from Spiritualism. According to Spiritist doctrine, reincarnation explains the moral and intellectual differences among men. It also provides the path to moral and intellectual perfection by redeeming for his mistakes and increasing his knowledge in successive lives. For this reason, Spiritism does not accept rebirth in animals as this would be retrogressive.

In What Is Spiritism?, Kardec calls spiritism a science dedicated to the relationship between incorporeal beings (spirits) and human beings. Thus, some spiritists see themselves as not adhering to a religion, but to a philosophical doctrine with a scientific fulcrum and moral grounds. However, many spiritists see no conflict in embracing it as a religion as well.

Unlike spiritualism, Spiritism is not a religious sect but a philosophy or a way of life. They have no priests or ministers and do not follow any religious rituals in their meetings. Their activities consist mainly of studying the Spiritist doctrine, applying spiritual healing to the sick, and organizing charitable missions.

Another author in the Spiritualist movement, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle included a chapter about Spiritism in his book History of Spiritualism, in which he states that Spiritism is Spiritualist, but not vice versa. As a consequence, many Spiritualist works are widely accepted in Spiritism, particularly the works of 19th century physicists William Crookes and Oliver Lodge. Such works are more accepted in Anglo-Saxon spiritist communities than by those in Latin-America.

Spiritist Codification

The basic doctrine of Spiritism ("the Codification") is defined in five of Allan Kardec's books:

Kardec also wrote a brief introductory pamphlet (What Is Spiritism?) and was the most frequent contributor to the Spiritist Review. His essays and articles were posthumously collected into the Posthumous Works.

Fundamental principles

As defined in The Spirits' Book, the main principles of spiritism are:

According to Kardec, the Spiritist moral principles are in agreement with those taught by Jesus. Other individuals such as Francis of Assisi, Paul the Apostle, Buddha and Gandhi are also sometimes considered by the spiritists. Spiritist philosophical inquiry is concerned with the study of moral aspects in the context of an eternal life in spiritual evolution through reincarnation, a process believers hold as revealed by Spirits. Sympathetic research on Spiritism by scientists can be found in the works of Oliver Lodge, William Crookes, William Fletcher Barrett, Albert de Rochas, Emma Bragdon, Alexander Moreira-Almeida and others.

Basic tenets

The five chief points of the Spiritism are:

1. There is a God, defined as "The Supreme Intelligence and Primary Cause of everything";
2. There are Spirits, all of whom are created simple and ignorant, but owning the power to gradually perfect themselves;
3. 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;
4. As part of Nature, Spirits can naturally communicate with living people, as well as interfere in their lives;
5. Many planets in the universe are inhabited.

The central tenet of Spiritism is the belief in spiritual life. From this perspective, the spirit is eternal, and evolves through a series of incarnations in the material world. It asserts that life in the material world is a short-term stage, where the spirit has the opportunity to learn and develop its potential. Reincarnation is considered the process where the spirit, once free in the spiritual world, comes back to the world for further learning.

Spiritist views of Jesus

Spiritists consider Jesus to be the greatest moral example for humankind. They believe he incarnated on earth to demonstrate the path to achieve spiritual perfection. In this way, Spiritism identifies as a form of Christianity, claiming it is based on Jesus Christ's teachings, despite having an interpretation that differs from those held by mainstream Christian denominations. The Gospels are studied and interpreted in Spiritism; it asserts that some of Jesus' words and actions are clarified in the light of the spiritual phenomena (presented as law of nature, and not as something miraculous).

Spiritual evolution

Spiritist doctrine stresses the importance of spiritual evolution. According to this view, humanity is destined for perfection, and 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. Later spiritist writers have claimed humanity cannot detect more advanced life forms on other planets because they are living in a slightly different plane, in the same way the spiritual plane is superimposed over this plane.

Mediumship

Spiritists assert that communication between the spiritual world and the material world happens all the time, to varying degrees. They believe that some people barely sense what the spirits tell them in an entirely instinctive way, and are not aware about their influence. In contrast, they believe that mediums have these natural abilities highly developed, and are able to communicate with spirits and interact with them visually or audibly, or through writing (known by Kardecists as psychography or automatic writing).(See The Book of Mediums by Allan Kardec Chapters X to XIII)

Spiritist practice

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

Meetings

The most important types of practices within Spiritism are:

Organization

Spiritist associations have various degrees of formality, with some groups having local, regional, national or international scope. Local organizations are usually called Spiritist centres or Spiritist societies. Regional and national organizations are called federations, such as the Federação Espírita Brasileira and the Federación Espírita Española; international organizations are called unions, such as the Union Spirite Française et Francophone. Spiritist centres (especially in Brazil) are often active book publishers and promoters of Esperanto.

For many of its followers, the description of Spiritism is three-fold: science, for its studies on the mechanisms of mediumship; philosophy, for its theories on the origin, meaning and importance of life; and religion, for its guidance on Christian behavior which will bring spiritual and moral evolution to mankind. Spiritism is not considered a religion by some of its followers because it does not endorse formal adoration, require regular frequency or formal membership. However, the mainstream scientific community does not accept Spiritism as scientific, and its belief system fits within the definition of religion.

Geographic distribution

Spiritism has adherents in many countries, including Canada, Britain, France, Germany, Jamaica, Japan, Portugal, Spain, United States, and particularly in Latin American countries such as Argentina, Uruguay, Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Brazil, which has the largest proportion and greatest number of followers. The largest Spiritist group in Asia are the Vietnamese followers of Cao Đài or Caodaists, who formed a new religion building on the legacy of Allan Kardec in 1926 in Saigon and Tây Ninh in what was then French Indochina

In Brazil, the movement has become widely accepted, largely due to Chico Xavier's works. The official spiritist community there has about 20 million adepts, although some elements of spiritism are more broadly accepted and practiced in various ways by three times as many people across the country. Some statistics suggest an adherence to Spiritist practices by 40 million people in Brazil.

Before World War I

Since its early development, Spiritism has attracted criticism. Kardec's own introductory book on Spiritism, What is Spiritism?, published only two years after The Spirits' Book, includes a hypothetical discussion between him and three idealized critics, "The Critic", "The Skeptic", and "The Priest", summing up much of the criticism Spiritism has received. The broad areas of criticism relate to charlatanism, pseudoscience, heresy, witchcraft, and Satanism. Until his death, Kardec continued to address these issues in various books and in his periodical, the Revue Spirite.

Later, a new source of criticism came from Occultist movements such as the Theosophical Society, a competing new religion, which saw the Spiritist explanations as too simple or even naïve.

Interwar period

During the interwar period a new form of criticism of Spiritism developed. René Guénon's influential book The Spiritist Fallacy criticized both the more general concepts of Spiritualism, which he considered to be a superficial mix of moralism and spiritual materialism, as well as Spiritism's specific contributions, such as its belief in what he saw as a post-Cartesian, modernist concept of reincarnation distinct from and opposed to its two western predecessors, metempsychosis and transmigration.

Post–World War II

The Catechism of the Catholic Church (paragraph 2117) states that "Spiritism often implies divination or magical practices; the Church for her part warns the faithful against it".

In Brazil, Catholic priests Carlos Kloppenburg and Oscar González Quevedo, among others, have written extensively against Spiritism from both a doctrinal and parapsychological perspective. Quevedo, in particular, has sought to show that Spiritism's claims of being a science are invalid. In addition to writing books on the subject, he has also hosted television programs debunking supposed paranormal phenomena, most recently in a series that ran in 2000 on Globo's news program, Fantástico. Brazilian Spiritist, Hernani Guimarães Andrade, has in turn written rebuttals to these criticisms.

Scientific skeptics also frequently target Spiritism in books, media appearances, and online forums, identifying it as a pseudoscience.

Chico Xavier

Chico Xavier (April 2, 1910 – June 30, 2002) was a popular spiritist medium and philanthropist in Brazil's spiritism movement who wrote more than 450 books and about 10,000 letters to family members of deceased people, ostensibly using psychography. His books sold millions of copies, all of which had their proceeds donated to charity.

They purportedly included poetry, novels, and even scientific treatises, some of which are considered by Brazilian spiritist followers to be fundamental for the comprehension of the practical and theoretical aspects of Allan Kardec's doctrine. One of his most famous, The Astral City, details one experience after dying.

Xavier appeared on Brazilian television several times, contributing to the rise of spiritism in Brazil.

In popular culture

The following works contain concepts related to spiritist beliefs:

Films

Soap operas

In Brazil, a number of soap operas have plots incorporating Spiritism.