Gabriel dCF

Hello guys. Well, this is my very first thread in this forum.
Here in Brazil, Catholic and Protestant churches are the most important religions, just like all over the Latin America. Yet, there�s another religion (which im Brazil has more adherents than judaism or islamism) that, I think, does not disturbs atheists anywhere else: the kardecism, a.k.a. spiritism or "white table".
Kardecists believe in the works of a french known as Allan Kardec (his actual name was Denisard Hypolite Leon, or somethingo like that), who claimed to be able to talk to dead spirits. Some of those spirits ansewerd up to a thousand questions and he put one by one in his "The Book of Spirits", the basis of kardecism.
Some of the principles of that religion are:
- There�s one perfect, everlasting, intelligent and conscient god.
- Everybody has an immortal spirit.
- Spirits most rebirth during the ages in order to "evolve", i.e., become more intelligent, achieve better moral and pay for the sins comitted in past lives (reincarnation)
- Everybody is a medium, i.e., everybody may, someday, sometime, be able to see and listen dead spirits (channeling)
Well, it's a very complex religion and there surelly are some imported points that I missed, but, even though, I�d like to ask you guys if there�s some religion/pseudoscience similar to what I described in U.S. or U.K. and how do you deal with it.

Thanks for the patience and I'm really sorry for my lame English.

NiceWookie

Hi, welcome! Your english is not at all lame as I can certainly understand you.

This Kardecism sounds alot like what is typically called "new age" spiritualism here in the U.S. Kardecism is a new to me, though I have heard of and read up on other channelers. Also many Neo-Shamans and Neo-Witches practice channeling information from unseen sources.

The "Seth" books by Jane Roberts are a good example of information gained by channeling non-corporal sources. You will find correlation and similarity to the four examples you listed as attributes of kardecism in those books and lots, lots more.

I am curious as to when Allan Kardec published this book, as I do find it interesting so many of these 'channelers' seem to end up on the same page with their channeled information with regards to God, Reincarnation, and other topics.

Gabriel dCF

Thanks for ansewring. Well, Allan Kardec wrote a lot of books, such as "The Genesis", "Heaven and Hell", "The Book of Mediuns" and "The Evangelium According to Spiritism" but his first and most important is "The Book of Spirits", which was published in 1857. Actually he was one of the beginners of that spiritualist fever that attacked Europe and America in ends of 19th century.

Anti-Creedance Front

I saw a picture of a Brazilian woman wading into the water to give praise to the god of the sea the other day. She did NOT look to be a native/Indian, as she was dressed in a mid-priced bikini... Is that Kardecism, or is there some larger quotient of pagan religion in Brazil we Americans are unaware of?

premjan

are there any african spiritual traditions that have reached wide currrency outside Africa (been exported)? I suppose Kardecism is indirectly one of these.