Spiritism

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Spiritism is a philosophical doctrine akin to Spiritualism, established in France in the mid 19th Century, which has become a sort of religious movement. Like Spiritualists, Spiritists believe in the survival of the souls after death and the importance of eventual communications received from them, but the two movements claim to be very different otherwise and any conflation or linkage of the two terms is regarded as pejorative by both Spiritualists and Spiritists.

Spiritism derives most of its principles from works by the French educator Hippolyte Léon Denizard Rivail written under the pseudonym Allan Kardec. Other important personages who wrote books linked to Spiritism were Léon Dénis, Arthur Conan Doyle, Camille Flammarion, Ernesto Bozzano, Chico Xavier and Waldo Vieira.

Contents 1 Definition 2 Character of Spiritism 3 Precursors 3.1 Swedenborg 3.2 Fox Sisters 3.3 Talking Boards 3.4 Franz Mesmer 4 Doctrine 4.1 Basic books 4.2 Doctrine 4.3 Relationship with the teachings of Jesus 4.4 Spiritual evolution and karma 4.5 Mediumship 5 Spiritist Practice 5.1 Meetings 5.2 Organisation 6 History 7 Spiritism in popular culture 7.1 Films 7.2 Soap operas 8 References 9 See also 10 External links 10.1 Books 10.2 Groups and Societies 10.3 Skeptics refutations

[edit] 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, he created the word with roots taken from the common language, instead of inventing a new word using erudite roots taken from Latin or Greek. This would cause a lot of confusion, as the word supposedly existed previously in other languages (like English) or was appropriated by other religious movements.

Spiritists often take offence at such misappropriations and usually try to clarify the meaning of the term, especially to tell it apart from various forms of religious syncretism that are often referred to by the same name. Confusion with syncretic religions is less common today, as the followers of such creeds tend to emphasise their proper names. Examples of religions that were often called "Spiritism" in the past are Candomblé, Umbanda, Cao Dai, Santería, Quimbanda, Santo Daime and a host of shamanic cults.

Regarding Spiritualism, the confusion is more common, even now, as the two movements were very close since the beginning. As a proper noun, Spiritualism is a religious movement, prominent from the 1840s to the 1920s, found primarily in English-speaking countries. Some authors, like Camille Flammarion and Arthur Conan Doyle wrote books that are accepted by both groups. Spiritists usually include in the list of famous followers people like Sir William Crookes or the medium Daniel Dunglass Home, who were actually related to Spiritualism. Nevertheless, the two movements have drifted apart over the years and since the very beginning Spiritists rejected the term "Spiritualism" on the grounds that it is a generic term for the belief on an immortal soul.

Spiritualism (in English) as a common noun (uncapitalised) is a largely obsolete term for animism and other religious practices involving the invocation of spiritual beings, including shamanism.

Spiritism was based on dialogues established between Kardec and what he believed to be incorporeal beings (souls of deceased people). His assumption was neither original nor uncommon, as such beliefs had numerous followers then (among them many scientists and philosophers) and séances were carried on very often by his contemporaries, though usually for recreational purposes.

Séances are still a chief characteristic of Spiritism, though they are now conducted differentl and more respectfully. Chanelling is the common source of new theological, philosophical or trivial knowledge.

Spiritism claims adherents many countries throughout the world, including Spain, USA, Puerto Rico and Brazil -- with this last country alegedly having the largest proportion and the greatest numbers of followers.

[edit] Character of Spiritism

Spiritists claim that Spiritism is not a religious denomination, but a social movement including religion, philosophy and technical aspects. The religious aspect derives from praying to the one God and following moral principles taught by prominent religious preachers, like Jesus, Francis of Assisi or Paul, the Apostle. The philosophical side is concerned with their studies of the moral aspects of Christianity as social contract among men and its implications for the afterlife. The technical aspect derives from their "investigation" of the other world (in which they have developed an extensive terminology), with the study of the possibility of survival of the human soul and of communication with spirits being their major goal.

In the religious side, Spiritism claims to be a collection of principles and laws based directly on the teachings of Jesus, with further revelation received from Enlightened Spirits. These spiritists believe that their doctrine is 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". Kardecist Spiritism not only claims to be a logical successor for Christianity, but also to be a truer form of Christianity, purified from unnecessary elaborations and additions: unlike previous doctrines which had been filtered by the imperfections of the flesh, the teachings collected in his books would be closer to the truth God commanded His messengers (Enlightened Spirits) to bring unto mankind.

Since Kardec's days Spiritism has lost most of its popularity among scientists and philosophers as most of both have a firm belief that Spiritism and Science are mutually exclusive and is not well-developed as a philosophy. They, however, keep their traditional approach as a neutral form of relationship: they embrace all Christian ramifications like a single Religion derived from the word of Jesus and, similarly to some oriental traditions, do not demand exclusive membership. They do not demand rituals or organisation either (these are taken from whatever religion the follower is associated to, which explains the differences of practice in different centres).

This policy is not always effective because membership to Spiritism is not regarded lightly by most Christian denominations and followers are often expelled. To cater for the religious needs of excommunicated members, most Spiritist centres encourage some form of active membership which includes "instructive", "social" and "medium" meetings, as well as charity work.

Present-day Spiritists see a fundamental difference between "Scientific Spiritism" (the study of spiritual phenomena, not to be confused with science) and "Kardecist Spiritism" (the religious and philosophical practice derived from it). The two aspects of the doctrine are seen as complementary.

[edit] Precursors

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

[edit] Swedenborg

Main article: Emanuel Swedenborg

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.

[edit] Fox Sisters

Main article: Fox sisters

Sisters 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 her 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.

[edit] Talking Boards

Main article: Table-turning

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 chanelling (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, 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 channelled this way.

[edit] Franz Mesmer

Main article: Franz Mesmer

Franz 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 ritual placebo (only in Brazilian Spiritism).

[edit] Doctrine

Spiritism blends together notions taken from Christianism, Hinduism, Positivism and Platonism.

[edit] Basic books

Main article: Spiritist Codification

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

1. The Spirits' Book — Defines the guidelines of the doctrine, covering points like God, Spirit, Universe, Man, Society, Culture, Morals and Religion.
2. 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.
3. 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).
4. 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.
5. 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 (Revue Spirite). His essays and articles would be posthumously collected into the aptly-named tome Posthumous Works.

[edit] Doctrine

Main article: Spiritist doctrine

The five chief points of the doctrine 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 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.

[edit] Relationship with the teachings of 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.

[edit] Spiritual 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 lifeforms, 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.

[edit] 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 psychography). 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.

[edit] Spiritist Practice

Main article: 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.

[edit] 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 centres.
• 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.

[edit] Organisation

Main article: Spiritist centre

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 harmonise 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 organisations are usually called Spiritist centres or Spiritist societies. Regional and national organisations are called "federations", as the Federação Espírita Brasileira [1] and the Federación Espírita Española [2], while international organisations are termed "unions", such as the Union Spirite Française et Francophone [3].

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

[edit] History

Main article: History of Spiritism

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 Francis of Assisi; as well as the religious tradition of Greek and Roman Paganism.

[edit] 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:

[edit] 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 commiting suicide.
• Shutter depicts a passably accurate situation of obsession, complete with physical manifestations and materialisation of a spirit.
• The Others (2001) depicts what it is believed what happens to spirits that do not realiaze that they are actually in spirit form according to the Spiritism doctrine.

[edit] Soap operas

In Brazil three soap operas have been produced entirely based on the concepts of Spiritism and one is currently being aired. 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 gift for predicting the future.

[edit] References

• CROOKES, William. Researches on the Phenomena of Spiritualism, Burns, London 1874,.
• DOYLE, Arthur Conan. The History of Spiritualism. New York: G.H. Doran, Co. 1926. Volume 1 Volume 2. ISBN 1-4101-0243-2.
• HESS, David. Spirits and Scientists: Ideology, Spiritism, and Brazilian Culture, Pennsylvania State Univ Press, 1991
• KARDEC, Allan, The Spirits' Book ISBN 0-922729-27-1
• KARDEC, Allan, Book on Mediums ISBN 0-87728-382-6
• KARDEC, Allan, The Gospel Explained by the Spiritist Doctrine ISBN 0-9649907-6-8

[edit] See also

• Allan Kardec
• The Spirits' Book
• The Book on Mediums
• The Gospel According to Spiritism
• Heaven and Hell
• The Genesis According to Spiritism
• Chico Xavier
• Karma in Christianity

[edit] External links

[edit] Books

• Spiritist.INFO Spiritist books for sale
• Spiritism Online offers book downloads
• The Spirits' Book in HTML format, translated by Anna Blackwell
• The Spirits' Book (pdf file);
• All Kardec's books and other related works.

[edit] Groups and Societies

• International Spiritist Council
• Spiritism Online
• Spiritist Society of Baltimore
• Federação Espírita Brasileira (Portuguese)
• Medical-Spiritist Association of the Porto’s Metropolitan Area(Oporto-Portugal). (Portuguese)
• Federación Espírita Española (Spanish)

[edit] Skeptics refutations

• Channeling - at the Skeptics' Dictionary;
• Medium - at the Skeptics' Dictionary;