Spiritism

Emanuel Swedenborg, 75, holding the manuscript of Apocalypsis Revelata (1766).

Emanuel Swedenborg (January 29, 1688 – March 29, 1772) was a Lutheran 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."[9] See also Heaven and Hell #249.[10]

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

Fox sisters, left to right: Margaret, Kate, Leah

Sisters Leah (1814–90), Margaretta (1836–93), and Catherine (1838–92) Fox played an important role in the development of Modern Spiritualism. The daughters of John and Margaret Fox, they were residents of Hydesville, New York. In 1848, the family began to hear unexplained rapping sounds.[11] Kate and Maggie 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 Margaretta 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.

After the news of the Fox sisters came to France, people became more interested in what was sometimes termed the "Spiritual Telegraph". Planchette, the precursor of the pencil-less Ouija boards, simplified the writing process which achieved widespread popularity in America and Europe.[12]

Franz Anton 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.

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

• The Spirits' Book—defines the guidelines of the doctrine, covering concepts such as God, Spirit, Universe, Man, Society, Culture, Morals and Religion;
• The Mediums' Book—makes claims about the mechanics of the spiritual world, such as the processes involved in channeling spirits and techniques to be developed by mediums;
• The Gospel According to Spiritism—comments on the Gospels, highlighting passages that Kardec believed represent the ethical fundamentals shared by all religious and philosophical systems;
• Heaven and Hell—purports to provide interviews with spirits of deceased people intending to establish a correlation between the lives they led and their conditions in the beyond;
• The Genesis According to Spiritism—attempts to reconcile religion and science, dealing with three major conflicts 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 were posthumously collected into the Posthumous Works.

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

• "God is the Supreme Intelligence-First Cause of all things."[17]
• "God is eternal, immutable, immaterial, unique, all powerful, sovereignly just and good."[18]
• "A spirit is not an abstract, undefined being, only to be conceived of by our thought; it is a real, circumscribed being, which, in certain cases, is appreciable by the senses of sight, hearing, and touch."[18]
• "All Spirits are destined to attain perfection by passing through the different degrees of the spirit-hierarchy. This amelioration is effected by incarnation, which is imposed on some of them as an expiation, and on others as a mission. Material life is a trial which they have to undergo many times until they have attained to absolute perfection"[19]
• "A spirit's successive corporeal existences are always progressive, and never retrograde; but the rapidity of our progress depends on the efforts we make to arrive at the perfection."[19]
• "The soul possessed its own individuality before its incarnation; it preserves that individuality after its separation from the body."[19]
• "On its re-entrance into the spirit world, the soul again finds there all those whom it has known upon the earth, and all its former existences eventually come back to its memory, with the remembrance of all the good and of all the evil which it has done in them."[19]
• "Spirits exert an incessant action upon the moral world, and even upon the physical world; they act both upon matter and upon thought, and constitute one of the powers of nature, the efficient cause of many classes of phenomena hitherto unexplained or misinterpreted."[19]
• "Spirits are incessantly in relation with men. The good spirits try to lead us into the right road, sustain us under the trials of life, and aid us to bear them with courage and resignation; the bad ones tempt us to evil: it is a pleasure for them to see us fall, and to make us like themselves."[20]
• "The moral teaching of the higher spirits may be summed up, like that of Christ, in the gospel maxim, 'Do unto others as you would that others should do unto you;' that is to say, do good to all, and wrong no one. This principle of action furnishes mankind with a rule of conduct of universal application, from the smallest matters to the greatest."[21]

According to Kardec, the Spiritist moral principles are in agreement with those taught by Jesus.[22] 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.[23] 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.

The five chief points of the Spiritism are:[24][25]

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,[26] and evolves through a series of incarnations in the material world.[27]

Spiritists assert that communication between the spiritual world and the material world happens all the time, to varying degrees.[28] They believe that some people barely sense what the spirits tell them in an entirely instinctive way, and are not aware of 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 Spiritists as psychography or automatic writing).[28]

The most important types of practices within Spiritism are:

• Lectures—public lectures are held weekly in most centers, presenting notions of spiritism to a broader audience.
• Study groups—with a regular weekly schedule, usually on evenings and in small groups. They involve a prayer followed by the reading of books covering a wide range of topics related to the doctrine; elements of the doctrine are discussed, and further explained by a facilitator.
• Mediumistic reunions—private, regular weekly meetings reserved to a team of individuals with substantial knowledge of the doctrine, who voluntarily give their time to help both incarnated and dis-incarnated spirits in need; the presence of unprepared individuals is considered hazardous and is thus not recommended.
• Gospel at home-A brief meeting usually between family members to pray and read commentary literature related to the New Testament.
• Youth and children's meetings—once a week, usually on Saturday afternoons or Sunday mornings; the Spiritist equivalent to Protestant Christian Sunday schools;
• Healing; healing sessions often take the form of small group prayer and reading of a passage of relevant literature, followed by a laying on of hands and a prayer. Healing is mostly recommended for individuals who seek help and support for personal reasons. An initial and private meeting is usually held with workers of the center to listen to the person and give moral support and advice based on the doctrine. Mediumistic phenomena are not considered appropriate in these meetings.
• Conferences-Some lectures are held annually at larger seminars, in theaters or convention centers, often given by guest speakers; these events constitute the only occurrences where payment is required for attendance to cover infrastructure fees.
• Spiritist week and book fairs.

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,[29] such as the Federação Espírita Brasileira[30] and the Federación Espírita Española;[31] international organizations are called unions, such as the Union Spirite Française et Francophone.[32] Spiritism formally disencourages the involvement of financial transactions within spiritist centers, and state or national federations. The only means of income allowed are the sale of related books, and the voluntary contributions of active members. Spiritist centers are thus non-profit organizations; all studies, lectures, healing sessions and mediumistic activities are offered free of charge.

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.[33]

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,[40] which saw the Spiritist explanations as too simple or even naïve.[41]

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.[42]

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".[43]

In Brazil, Catholic priests Carlos Kloppenburg and Óscar 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,[44] 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.[45] Brazilian Spiritist, Hernani Guimarães Andrade, has in turn written rebuttals to these criticisms.[44]

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

• Chico Xavier, Brazilian film, casting Nelson Xavier and Ângelo Antônio. A box office success in Brazil, it follows the story of Brazilian medium Chico Xavier.
• Nosso Lar (literally "Our Home", but distributed under the title Astral City: A Spiritual Journey internationally) is a 2010 Brazilian film directed by Wagner de Assis, based on the novel of the same name by Chico Xavier about spiritual life after death.[46]
• Kardec, a 2019 Brazilian biographical drama film that follows the story of Allan Kardec, from his days as an educator to his contribution to the spiritist codification.[47]

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

• "A Viagem" (The Journey), produced in 1976–77 by Tupi TV, involving mediumship, death, obsession, reincarnation, etc. It was remade by Globo TV in 1994.
• "Alma Gêmea" (Soulmate), produced in 2005–06 by Rede Globo, tells of a woman who dies and is reborn to find her soulmate again.
• "O Profeta" (The Prophet), produced in 1977–78 by Tupi TV and 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" (Two-Face), aired by Rede Globo in 2007–8, includes a character named Ezekiel, who is a born-again Christian challenged by manifestations of his mediumship.
• "Escrito nas Estrelas" (Written in the Stars), ongoing as of July 2010, includes various Spiritist themes including reincarnation, spirit evolution, and mediumship.
• "Além do Tempo" (Beyond Time), ongoing as of October 2015, also includes many Spiritist themes, including a second phase in which the characters reincarnate, in order to show the ongoing fights between them, and also that in future incarnations, their social class changes, being that low class characters come back as rich people and vice versa.