spiritism

Spiritism (French: spiritisme; Portuguese: espiritismo) is a spiritualist, religious, and philosophical doctrine established in France in the 1850s by the French teacher, educational writer, and translator Hippolyte Léon Denizard Rivail. He wrote books on "the nature, origin, and destiny of spirits, and their relation with the corporeal world," under the pen name Allan Kardec. Kardec's works are the result of the study of mediumistic phenomena, which he initially believed to be of a fraudulent nature. By questioning several mediums, while they were in trance state, on a variety of matters, he compiled, compared, and synthesized the answers obtained from spirits into a body of knowledge known as the codification. It speaks of the constant need to investigate the world around us (science), to make sense of our findings (philosophy), and to apply them to our day-to-day living to improve ourselves and the world around us (religion). This approach is often referred to as the triple-aspect of Spiritism: the conjoining of Science, Philosophy, and Religion. Spiritist philosophy postulates that humans, along with all other living beings, are essentially immortal spirits that temporarily inhabit physical bodies for several necessary incarnations to attain moral and intellectual improvement. It also asserts that disembodied spirits, through passive or active mediumship, may have beneficent or malevolent influence on the physical world. Spiritism also embraces the concepts of Theistic evolution.[citation needed] The term first appeared in Kardec's book, The Spirits Book, which sought to distinguish Spiritism from spiritualism. Spiritism is currently represented in 35 countries by the International Spiritist Council. It has influenced a social movement of healing centers, charity institutions and hospitals involving millions of people in dozens of countries, with the greatest number of adherents being in Brazil. Spiritism is a major component of the syncretic Afro-Brazilian religion Umbanda and also very influential in Cao Đài, a Vietnamese religion started in 1926 by three mediums who claimed to have received messages that identified Allan Kardec as a prophet of a new universal religion. From Wikipedia