Spiritism

Let me explain about Spiritism.

Once upon a time, there was this man called Hyppolyte Leon Denizard Rivail, an educator and professor in France, who was invited to research about spirit-tapping phenomena. In the mid eighteenth century, communication with spirits was fashionable. At any social gathering, you could see someone receiving messages from the dead just for entertainment purposes. Mr. Rivail, who was raised as Catholic and absolutely skeptical about the seances, accepted the offer to research those phenomenas. However, despite his skepticism, he ended up not only believing those communications were true, but also compiled his research in five books that became the foundation of the new religion.

Mr. Rivail traveled the world visiting mediums of all ages and social status. In the seances, he would make questions and the spirits would answer his questions through the medium. What he came to realize was that the answers were the same wherever he was, even in different parts of the world. That could only mean they were genuinely coming from spirits.

The five books: The Spiritist Book, The Mediums Book, Gospel According to Spiritism, Genesis and Heaven and Hell became the basis of a new philosophy, and Mr. Rivail named it "Spiritism", because "new ideas deserve new names". He published those five books under the pseudonym Allan Kardec to differentiate them from his previous work as an educator. Allan Kardec, he came to find out, was in fact his own name in a previous life.

Basically, those books teach us about Life and Death, where we came from, where we are going to, the purpose of life on Earth, our mission here, God, Jesus, Reincarnation and much more. Science is extremely validated in his whole work.

Those books became popular in Europe, except in England, because the English elite refused to accept we could be born again in a less privileged condition, for example that a white and rich man could be born again as a slave, and vice-versa. However, his books continued to sell in Europe and finally came to Brazil, where they were very well accepted in the high society. What happens next, I will tell in my next post.

Peace!