Spiritism

Spiritism is a scientific and philosophical doctrine established in France in the 19th Century by the French educator Hippolyte Léon Denizard Rivail.

In the mid 1800s, Mr. Rivail became interested in the wildly popular phenomenon of spirit-tapping, a strange phenomena at the time attributed to the action of spirits, reported in many different places, most notably in the U.S. and France.

Mr. Rivail studied the phenomenom, searching for his causes. Initialy he didn´t believe in the spirits hypothesis, but he observed that the supposed spirits answered correctly and rationally several questions formulated by him. Soon he started to believe that he was talking to incorporeal and intelligent beings. Theese beings revealed they were the souls of the deceased.

At the name of "Allan Kardec" Mr. Rivail compiled and organized a vast ammount of information in the form of five books: "The Spirit´s Book", "The Book on Mediums", "The Gospel According to Spiritism", "Heaven and Hell" and "The Genesis According to Spiritism". Theese books are considered to be the basis of the Spiritism.