Spiritism, Kardecism or Kardecist Spiritism is a religious doctrine of a philosophical and scientific nature, whose main belief revolves around the constant spiritual evolution of the human being, through reincarnations.
The Spiritist doctrine emerged in France, in the mid-nineteenth century, from the studies and observations made by the renowned French educator and educator Hippolyte Léon Denizard Rivail, also known by the pseudonym of Allan Kardec (1804 – 1869).
After devoting himself to the scientific study of magnetism and investigating the calls "turning tables", which consisted of events where the abnormal movement of objects on the tables took place without any kind of interference human, Kardec begins to be interested in issues related to the dematerialization of bodies and the path of the spirit human.
As a result, Allan Kardec published five main works that would serve as a guide for the entire Spiritist doctrine: "The Spirits' Book" (1857), "The Mediums' Book" (1859), "The gospel According to spiritism"
(1863), "Heaven and hell" (1865) and "The Genesis" (1868). The set of all these works would be known as the "Spiritist Codification".The contents of Kardec's works would be the result of his dialogues with 1st order spiritual entities, considered “spirits perfect", as they have already overcome all the trials imposed throughout their past lives and reached the apex of development spiritual.
Spiritism is open to the precepts of different religions, such as Christian and Umbanda, for example, and there are specific particularities in comparison to each of them.
In the spiritist doctrine, for example, Jesus Christ is seen as a spirit of the 1st order, that is, a superior spirit, with the mission to help guide all humanity towards spiritual perfection. In contrast to Christianity, Spiritism does not believe in the supernatural birth of Jesus.
However, the Christian Bible is often used among Spiritists as one of several literary references about the spiritual world, especially the account of the life and work of Jesus Christ.
Allan Kardec's spiritism is the synthesis of different doctrines, religions and even scientific studies, as in the case of Evolutionism, by Charles Darwin. For the Spiritist doctrine, the spirits are in constant evolution, as well as for Darwin the living beings would also be constantly evolving, according to the environment in which they are inserted.
Furthermore, the principles of charity and reincarnation are basic to spiritism, which are respectively typical of early Catholicism and Buddhism.
See also: meaning of Umbanda.
For Spiritism, all human beings are mediums, that is, channels of communication between the material and immaterial world (of the spirits). However, there are people with greater sensitivity to establish this communication link. Mediums are responsible for communicating with spirits in numerous ways, being the psychography and the incorporation the most common means.
Spiritism in Brazil
Brazil is considered the country with the largest Spiritist nation in the world, with approximately 2.3 million Brazilians who officially follow Spiritism as a doctrine, according to the IBGE (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics).
One of the main names in Spiritism in Brazil was Chico Xavier (1910 – 2002), known for being one of the most influential mediums in the country, responsible for making psychographics of various spirits.
Initially, the Spiritist doctrine began to become popular in the upper social classes of Salvador, where the work of Allan Kardec was hotly debated among intellectuals of the time. With the translation of Kardec's works into Portuguese (in 1875), spiritism became more easily integrated into other Brazilian social strata.
Currently, the Brazilian Spiritist Federation (FEB) is the main national organization with the mission to promote the doctrine of Spiritism in the country, as well as the basic precepts defended by the Spiritist principles.
