WHAT IS SPIRITISM?
It is an integral and progressive science that "studies the origin, nature, and destiny of the spirit and the laws that govern its communication with the physical world or world of the incarnated", per the express definition provided by Allan Kardec, its Codifier. It is a spiritualistic, scientifically based philosophy that stimulates study, culture, and research with the purpose of orienting the human being in the process of self-knowledge and understanding of the physical and psychic universe that surrounds him. It is a philosophy of a rationalist character, which defends freedom of thought and expression, which invites the free analysis of all ideas, which rejects dogmatisms, fanaticisms, and prejudices; which rejects blind faith and all kinds of superstitious practices. It is an ethical stance in life, which invites the education of the intellect and the cultivation of higher emotions. It adopts a tolerant position that respects all philosophies, religions, and personal beliefs, which stimulates free will and does not impose or prohibit anything. Its proposal is based on reflection and free examination, regardless of any imposed or punitive formula. .
WHAT IS NOT SPIRITISM?
It is not a religion or pseudo-religious sect. In Spiritism, there are no dogmas of faith, churches, cults, rites, priests or pastors, sacred books, or infallible teachers. It does not approve or admit in its core practices such as witchcraft, voodoo, magic, divination, reading, handwriting, the use of tobacco, or cards as instruments of alleged revelations, nor many other superstitions and charlatanries, which are more related to a state of ignorance. There are no professional Spiritist or “merchants of faith” of any sort. No true spiritist creates wealth or is remunerated through Spiritism, since it does not constitute a career or profession. Spiritists are citizens who fulfill their civic and moral duties, and who honor the values of education and work. .
BASIC PRINCIPLES OF SPIRITISM
Existence of God
Spiritism accepts the existence of a Universal Intelligence, a primordial force organizing all natural laws, the utmost source of good and love. The spiritist idea of God is differentiated from the anthropomorphic conception of religions, since it does not conceive it as a personal or mutable being that rejoices or saddens, rewards or punishes, but as the primary and creative energy of the Universe, archetype of the Supreme Love.
Pre-existence and survival of the spirit
We exist before birth and continue to live after death. All living beings are dynamized by an indestructible and imperishable psychic principle, responsible for all intellectual and emotional functions. Such psychic principle acquires the attributes of the human spirit following a vast and intricate evolutionary process.
Reincarnation
The spirit uses different physical bodies throughout its progressive trajectory. It reaches new evolutionary states through innumerable successive lives. In this way, the past and the present are linked in a causal relationship, whose understanding is indispensable for the perfection of the Self and the shape of its future.
Mediumship
It is the natural faculty possessed by human beings - more acute in those who are specifically called mediums - by means of which the visible and invisible humanities can interact, that is, the physical world and the spiritual world. Through mediumship, the immortality of the soul is experimentally tested; we can rectify the false ideas of heaven, hell, demons, eternal damnation, or punishment; we can get in touch with loved ones, and receive valuable information, instructions or insights from various spiritual sources.
Plurality of inhabited worlds
Because life is a universal constant, it is not an accident that occurred exclusively on Earth. We are not alone in the universe. It would be a demonstration of rude anthropocentrism to deny the possibility that there is life on other planets, systems, or galaxies, which will obviously have acquired, through vast evolutionary processes, different forms of manifesting, according to their own conditions and circumstances.
WHAT IS SPIRITISM USEFUL FOR?
To demonstrate, from facts and via experimentation, the existence, pre-existence, and survival of the spirit as a concrete and individual being that retains all its intellectual, moral, and volitional faculties, after what we call ‘death’. To teach us that we are the protagonists of our own history, who are responsible for our actions, and the architects of our own destiny, subject to the consequences of the law of cause and effect. Therefore we will develop a better behavior in terms of personal, family and social environment, which will attune to the general efforts to establish a more free, democratic, just, equitable, and fraternal society. To understand that being born, dying, being reborn and progressing is always the fundamental law of existence. To be, in short, better persons and better citizens.
PURPOSES
To systematically study Spiritism in its scientific, philosophical, moral, and social aspects. To divulge the basic foundations of the spiritist philosophy through conferences, public events, books, magazines, and other tools of social communication. Foster scientific research aimed at demonstrating the existence of the spirit, its permanence after death and its various manifestations, as well as its evolutionary reincarnation process. Experiment with mediumship, magnetism, and paranormal phenomenology, under rational, ethical, and scientific norms. To study any scientific and philosophical discipline, cultural or artistic manifestation, whose notions train its members for a better understanding of the material and spiritual reality while contributing to its cultural elevation. Stimulate the teaching of Spiritism at all levels, whether in adults, as in young people and children, promoting their moral and cultural elevation based on the noble principles of Spiritism. To contribute to the solution of those situations in which obsessions or alterations of the personality are evidenced, which are of clear spiritual origin, through investigations and analysis of such, offering moral solidarity and effective relief. To defend pacifist and humanist ideals, freedom of conscience and the free expression of thought, while denouncing any restriction on human rights. To maintain fraternal relationships, of exchange and support, with all the spiritist organizations of the world. Recognize the merits and virtues of all thinkers and drivers who have contributed to the aggrandizement and elevation of peoples towards truth and love, without endowments or idolatries. To recommend the study of all Spiritist books, without discriminatory exception of author, within the widest freedom of interpretation.