Spiritism

Spiritism, also called Kardecism, grew out of nineteenth-century Spiritualism but developed its own body of teaching and its own rituals. Its origins lie in France in the mid-1850s; from the 1860s it took root in Latin America, where its influence has been greatest, above all in Brazil. Its founder, the French author and educator Allan Kardec, developed a philosophical system that included the idea of reincarnation. Spiritism shares Spiritualism's belief that the living can communicate with spirits, but it differs on reincarnation and looks mainly to guidance from advanced spirits rather than to contact with loved ones; see How Spiritism differs from Spiritualism.

Description

Beliefs

According to Kardecist teaching, God, who is one and good, created all souls equal and innocent. The purpose of each soul is to progress spiritually and ethically through a series of incarnations, on this world and others, until it no longer needs to be born again. Charity is the central virtue and the sign of a spirit's progress. Spirits who are not incarnate work with mediums on earth to help the living progress. Jesus is understood as a created spirit, the most highly developed ever to have been born in this world. There is no concept of original sin. Kardec described a person as made of three parts: the physical body, the spirit, and a semi-material link between them that he called the perispirit.

Kardecism does not believe in demons or other spirits that are evil by nature, and it teaches that spirits do not possess people. It does teach that less developed spirits can interfere with the living, from mild disturbance to serious loss of autonomy. Kardecist mediums accordingly speak of "working with" spirits rather than being "possessed by" them, and generally describe themselves as fully conscious while they work.

Kardec regarded Spiritism as a science and a philosophy rather than a religion, and many Brazilian Kardecists, like French Spiritists, still see their tradition that way.

Practice

The most common Kardecist activity is the study, alone and in groups, of classic Spiritist texts, especially Kardec's, together with public lectures and discussion. Trained mediums work in closed sessions, often through automatic writing, receiving advice from spirits regarded as highly evolved, or messages from people who have recently died. Kardecists hold that everyone has a natural ability to communicate with spirits, which can be developed.

Public meetings usually end with passe, a ritual derived from mesmerism. The person receiving it sits quietly in a dimly lit room while a medium passes their hands above the person's head and upper body without touching them. It is believed to pass on positive "magnetic fluids" or energies, either from the medium or from spirits through the medium, and mediums also give passe to the sick at home and in hospital as an act of charity.

Where a spirit is believed to be interfering with a living person, the response is a ritual called disobsession, which aims to help both the person affected and the spirit, mainly by helping the spirit understand that its actions are holding back its own development. Kardecism has no exorcism rituals. The Psi Encyclopedia adds that "group soul rescue", with several practitioners working together, is common in the Brazilian Spiritist movement. This approach, which treats the troubling spirit as someone to be helped rather than driven out, is close to Spiritualist rescue work.

Charity is central: Kardecists support and volunteer at hospitals, homes for older people and orphanages. The movement has its own rituals, including healing practices, centres where followers meet, and an ethical code.

Scope

What it includes

• Study of Kardec's books and other Spiritist texts
• Mediumship in closed sessions, often through automatic writing
• Passe, a non-contact laying of hands above the body
• Disobsession
• Charitable work

What it is not

• Spiritism is distinct from Anglo-American Spiritualism. Kardec's followers accepted reincarnation, while English-speaking Spiritualists, at least in the movement's first decades, rejected it. The scholar Steven Engler describes Spiritualism as focused mainly on contact between the living and their dead loved ones, while Kardecism places more weight on guidance from spirits seen as more advanced.
• It does not practise exorcism, because it does not teach spirit possession.
• In Brazil, Kardecism is distinct from Umbanda, a closely related but distinct Brazilian tradition of spirit incorporation in which Kardec's teachings are also central.

Traditions and lineage

Allan Kardec

Séances and table turning became a huge public phenomenon in France in 1853–54, and Kardecism took shape after Hippolyte Léon Denizard Rivail (1804–1869) took an interest in them. Writing as Allan Kardec, he published The Spirits' Book in 1857, compiling answers to philosophical questions he had put to Spiritualist mediums across Europe. In this book he introduced the word "Spiritism", which he later defined as a science of the nature, origin and destiny of spirits and of their relationship with the physical world. In 1858 he founded the journal La Revue Spirite and the Parisian Society for Spiritist Studies. Four more books, The Book of Mediums (1861), The Gospel according to Spiritism (1864), Heaven and Hell (1865) and Genesis (1868), form, with The Spirits' Book, what is in effect a canon.

Kardec drew on mesmerism, on Christianity and on esoteric traditions such as the doctrine of reincarnation. He also tried to keep Spiritists apart from the professional fortune-tellers and mediums who appeared in the wake of the Spiritualist movement, recasting it in a more organised form grounded in written texts.

Latin America and Brazil

Kardecist publications appeared in Mexico from 1858, in Brazil from 1860 and in Chile from 1862, and groups were founded in Argentina (1877) and Venezuela (1882). The Brazilian Spiritist Federation was founded in 1884. Brazil's first republican penal code, in 1890, made Spiritist activities a crime.

Spiritism later declined in France but became so successful in Brazil that Kardec has appeared on Brazilian stamps. In Brazil's 2010 census, 3.8 million people, two per cent of the population, identified as Kardecists, while the Brazilian Spiritist Federation estimates that up to 30 million Brazilians, many of them Catholics, regularly attend its study sessions and rituals. Britannica gives a 2020 figure of three per cent of Brazilians, about six million people, with some estimates as high as 20 million. Among the best-known Brazilian mediums was Francisco Cândido "Chico" Xavier (1910–2002), whose more than 400 books, written through automatic writing, have sold over 50 million copies, with the proceeds given to Kardecist charities.

Brazilian Kardecism has moved away from the French original: French Spiritism remains a small philosophical and scientific movement, while Brazilian Kardecism has become a large religion with a strong emphasis on spiritual healing.

Context

Within Spiritualism

Spiritism is a related but separate tradition. Britannica describes Kardec as having developed Spiritualism into "a distinct offshoot", and Paul Gillen, in his 1981 Macquarie University thesis, called Spiritism a Spiritualist variant that took hold in Latin America after spreading there from France. Both accept communication with spirits, but they have long differed over reincarnation: the Encyclopedia of Occultism and Parapsychology says Spiritism is built on the teaching that spiritual progress comes through a series of compulsory reincarnations, while American and English Spiritualists rejected reincarnation, at least in the movement's first decades, and many Spiritualists outside France denounced Kardec's doctrine. The National Spiritualist Association of Churches in the United States still answers "NO!" to the question of whether people must be reincarnated, though the Encyclopedia of Occultism and Parapsychology notes that some of its members and leaders have professed a belief in it. See also Past life regression.

How Spiritism differs from Spiritualism

The two are close relatives: Britannica notes that Spiritism was born from Spiritualism, with Kardec directly influenced by American practices then arriving in France. The main differences are these:

• Reincarnation. Spiritism teaches it as central, as described above; Spiritualists, in Britannica's words, "do not necessarily" believe in it.
• Doctrine. Kardec's work turned Spiritism into a structured doctrine built on a set of foundational texts, whereas Engler describes Spiritualism as often placing little emphasis on developing a doctrinal basis for its practice, while noting exceptions such as the work of Andrew Jackson Davis and many Spiritualist churches.
• Who the spirits are. Engler contrasts "horizontal" relations, in which the dead are much like us and differ only in having died, with "vertical" relations, in which the spirits are more advanced beings offering help. Spiritualism leans towards the first and Kardecism towards the second, though both appear in each. In practice, Spiritualist mediumship has centred on contact with loved ones who have died, while Kardecist mediums look more for guidance from advanced spirits. A British Spiritualist body, the Spiritualist Association of Great Britain, puts the medium's task as trying to give evidence of survival.
• Troubled spirits. Both traditions treat a troubled spirit as someone to be helped rather than an evil being to be cast out. Kardecism does this through disobsession; Spiritualists through rescue circles, and the National Spiritualist Association of Churches rejects the very term "evil spirits". See Spirit rescue and Exorcism.

A note on words: some scholars use "Spiritism" in a broad sense for any tradition that gives a prominent place to communication with the dead, and in that sense Spiritualism and Kardecism are both types of Spiritism. On Spiritfold, "Spiritism" means Kardec's tradition.

In Australian Spiritualism

The Victorian Spiritualists' Union includes Kardec's The Book of Mediums in its suggested reading list. Discussing belief in reincarnation among Sydney Spiritualists in the late 1970s, Gillen noted that Kardec's Spiritism had taught it before Theosophy did, but suggested that the idea may also have come back into Spiritualism through Theosophy.

A Spiritualist perspective

Spiritism and Spiritualism are sister traditions. They grew from the same nineteenth-century interest in communication with spirits and then went their own ways. A Spiritualist can read Kardec with real profit, as some Australian Spiritualists do, and can admire Spiritism's steady emphasis on study and charity, and its practice of helping a troubled spirit understand itself rather than casting it out. That sits comfortably beside the Spiritualist approach to rescue work.

The clearest difference is reincarnation, which Spiritism teaches and on which Spiritualists hold a range of views, as the sections above show. There is a difference of emphasis too: Spiritualist mediumship has centred on evidence that our own loved ones live on, while Spiritism looks more to guidance from advanced spirits. These are honest differences between neighbours. A Spiritualist would treat Spiritist centres with respect, and take care not to describe one tradition as though it were the other.

Spiritism in Australia

Kardecist groups exist in Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the United States, and groups have been set up in many countries among Brazilian emigrant communities.

Related modalities

• Spirit rescue
• Exorcism

Further reading

• Buescher, John B. "Spiritualism". Encyclopedia of Religion, 2005.
• Engler, Steven. "Kardecism". World Religions and Spirituality Project, 2022.
• Melton, J. Gordon. "Spiritualism". Encyclopaedia Britannica.