Spiritist Knowledge

T he present hour is a time of crisis and renewal. The world is in fermentation, corruption is in the ascendant: the mighty shadow spreads and the peril is great, but behind the shadow we perceive the light, and behind the peril, salvation. Society cannot perish: if it bears within it the germs of decomposition, there are likewise those of transformation and redemption. Decomposition confirms death, but it also heralds the new birth; it is the prelude to another life. And whence will proceed this light, this salvation, this redemption? Surely not from the Church, which is incapable of regenerating the human mind. Not from science, which cares neither from conscience nor for character but only for that which concerns the senses: devotion, virtue, justice, love, all that enters into the making of noble characters and wholesome societies - none of these appertain to the domain of the senses. That the moral level should be raised, that the two streams of superstition and sceptic...

E. Munch. By the Deathbed (1895) By Stephen Wagner , About.com Guide Close to the moment of death, apparitions of deceased friends and loved ones appear to escort the dying to the other side. It is a phenomenon that is more common than you might imagine. Father lies dying. The hospital is quiet. Visiting hours are over and the sun has long since set. Father has been sleeping off and on all day. His doctor says the end could come at any time. His wrinkled, sunken eyes open slowly. His breathing has been labored, but now it seems to ease and soften. His eyes track to a corner of the room where there is only a faded green vinyl chair. Father smiles. "You're here," he whispers. His daughter, determined to be with him in his final moments, takes his hand. "Yes, I'm here, dad," she says. But she knows he's not looking at her. "No," father says, never taking his eyes off the corner of the room. "There. It's your uncle Jerome. I nev...

During the 7th ENLIHPE (last August 20 2011), we have the opportunity to present the work: " A statistical approach for the determination of the time interval between succesive reincarnations ."  As it is well known, Spiritism as introduced by A. Kardec, was the first spiritualist movement in the West to fully understand the importance of reincarnation. Reincarnation is the only mechanism that can simultaneously explains many anomalies in the human personality but also show a world view more in accordance to principles of a natural justice and equity. Therefore, it is important to undestand the consequences of reincarnation not only for all of us (as individuals) but as a social and demographic phenomenon.  Assuming reincarnation as universal law of Nature, it is valid for all human beings and, therefore, it surely has collective consequencies. The aim of this work was to build a numerical model to calculate the time interval between sucessive reincarnations of a human in...

By Michael E. Tymn Although little is known of him outside of Brazil and other parts of the Portuguese-speaking world, Francisco Candido "Chico" Xavier is considered by those who knew him and witnessed him to be one of the greatest mediums ever. His biographer, Guy Lyon Playfair of the United Kingdom, a long-time investigator of psychic phenomena, subtitles his book, "Medium of the Century." Xavier, who dropped out of school at age 13, produced, by means of automatic writing, 458 books with sales in excess of 50 million. All of the royalties were donated to charity as Xavier lived on a very modest income from his government job and pension. In 2000, a newspaper in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerias asked its readers to vote for "person of the century." With more than 700,000 readers responding, Xavier won the vote over an aviation pioneer, a former president of the country, and the legendary soccer player, Pelé. More than 120,000 people lined up in a ...

Visit the journal's new website at www.paranthropology.co.uk to download the July 2011 issue for free. Download current issue at http://www.box.net/shared/namkaf0chc08vnzuqglj Welcome to the July 2011 issue of Paranthropology. This issue marks the first anniversary of the journal’s existence. By now the journal has attracted well over 200 subscribers and is continuing to grow and develop in new directions. At this point I think it would be useful to try to outline some of the directions I would like to see the journal move towards. The first is to put together a board of reviewers to peer-review articles submitted to the journal and to thus increase the academic respectability of the publication. This, I feel, is a necessary step as it will, to a degree, improve the way in which this sort of eclectic research is perceived by the academic establishment. This will also ensure that the quality of the articles published in the journal maintains a high st...

Ectoplasm (from the Greek ektos, meaning "outside", and plasma, meaning "something formed or molded") is a term coined by Charles Richet to denote a substance or spiritual energy "exteriorized" by physical mediums .( Wiki quote ) There is a lot of confusion and misunderstanding concerning the purpose and raison d'etre of such material that today stands as a mythical substance so many times discredited and ridiculed by skeptics, but that is the basis of some psychic manifestations produced by physical mediums. The production of this substance requires a unique set of special conditions besides a capable physical medium. Such conditions were reproduced in several séances that took place in Campinas/SP, Brazil, between 1955 and 1965 under the mediumship of Mrs. Otília Diogo and Mr. Antônio Feitosa and that were investigated by Mr. Nedyr M. da Rocha (1932-2010) and dozens of other people. In our previous post , we have already discussed and presented s...

A new book (in Portuguese) was recently released: " O fotógrafo dos Espíritos " by Nedyr Mendes da Rocha (1932-2010) (Edited by EME ). This is a long waited account by Mr. da Rocha who had the opportunity to make hundred photographs of spirit materializations in 1960´s and before with the mediums Mrs. Otília Diogo and Mr. Antônio Feitosa. Translations of some book excerpts will be presented here in many posts.    The book has 4 Chapters; Chapter I and II, the author presents his life story, how he became interested in Spiritism and psychic phenomena; he gives a short historic introduction to Spiritualism and the appearance of the "Spirit's book" by A. Kardec; how the first seances at Casa do Caminho  (or 'House of the Way', at his father´s house) in Campinas/SP had began. He also give us a description of a seance in Andradas/MG around 1950 where he first witnessed many physical effects. Chapter III gives further details of the regular sittings at Casa ...

“ Unshakable faith is only that which can meet reason face to face in every Human epoch .” - Allan Kardec. What it is • “Spiritism is a science which deals with the nature, origin and destiny of Spirits, as well as their relationship with the corporeal world.” • It is the set of principles, as revealed by the Superior Spirits, contained in Allan Kardec’s works, which constitute the Spiritist Fundamentals: The Spirits’ Book, The Mediums’ Book, The Gospel Explained by Spiritism, Heaven and Hell, and The Genesis. Allan Kardec (Taken from Qu’est-ce que le Spiritisme? - Préambule) Translated from the original French What it reveals • It reveals more profound concepts with respect to God, the Universe, the Human Being, the Spirits and the Laws which govern life itself. • Furthermore, it reveals who we are; where we have come from; where we are going to; what is the objective of our existence; and what are the present and past causes of pain and suffering. What it encompasses • Spi...

The principal international scientific organization studying parapsychology and the nature of consciousness, the Parapsychological Association (PA) will be hosting its 54th annual convention on August 18-21, 2011 in Curitiba, Brazil. Leading scientists and other academics from around the world will gather to present the latest parapsychological research into psi and other phenomena, such as extra-sensory perception, psychokinesis, psychic healing, altered states of consciousness, mediumship and survival of bodily death. Open to the public and academics alike, with most events in English but simultaneous translation available in English and Portuguese, the PA convention coincides with UNIBEM's 7th Psi Meeting and the 6th Journey into Altered States , adding local academic and experiential dimensions to the combined events. In addition to hosting the largest contingent of PA members and affiliates outside of the US and Europe, Brazil contains a rich diversity of groups and individu...

Dear Colleague, We are glad to invite you to the 7th MEETING OF THE LEAGUE OF RESEARCHERS ON SPIRITISM ( 7th LRS Meeting or ENLIHPE in Portuguese), São Paulo, Brazil, August 20-21, 2011. The event will be hosted by the CCDPE – Centro de Cultura, Documentação e Pesquisa do Espiritismo , an emerging center for studies in Spiritism in Brazil. The goal of the seminar is to bring together Brazilian and international scholars working on current issues in Spiritism. Thereby we will learn about different worldwide spiritist research and create a setting where work in progress can be improved and discussed in-depth. Especially the attendance and moderating function of members of League of Researchers on Spiritism offers an excellent possibility to receive meaningful feedback for submitted work. Therefore, we encourage submission of analytical, empirical and experimental research. Proposal submission deadline: 15th June 2011 . Goals To promote the exchange of ideas on Spiritist theori...

To find each of the language levels discussed before in many automatic writtings by C. Xavier is an interesting exercise. Mophology, sintax, semantics, pragmatics and intention all show up vividly in the many psychographic letters, but not with the same intensity and uniformity. Such observation reveals hidden aspects of the mediumship process that are totally in accordance with the notion of interference of the mediumship vehicle. The presence of medium's interference is a strong evidence of a communication process in action, since every communication occurence is affected by interference to some degree. The influence of interference in automatic writtings depends, however, on the linguistic level that is taken into account, but it increases at lower levels. the higher the cognitive functions that are required to manifest certain linguistic features (at higher levels) so the weaker will the interference be. Pragmatics and intention in F. C Xavier automatic writtings is dire...

" Of mediumship there are many grades, one of the simplest forms being the capacity to receive an impression or automatic writing, under peaceful conditions, in an ordinary state; but the whole subject is too large to be treated here ." Sir Oliver Lodge. Read more about this case here (access to SKL repository).   I n simple terms, a communication process is a set of stages that transfers a message from emitter to receiver. This is a very popular image of communication and we can call it ‘information transfer’ model. It is, however, severely limited in spite of its success in a variety of cases, mainly electronic devices. Recently, research about communication has been carried out by modern linquistic theories although other research fields – such as semiotics – study communication of ‘non human’ content (e. g. plants, animals etc). Modern linguistic approaches attempt to explain communication not in terms of information transfer only. An efficient communication proces...

"The most perfect philosophy of the natural kind only staves off our ignorance a little longer, as perhaps the most perfect philosophy of the moral or metaphysical kind serves only to discover larger portions of it. Thus the observation of human blindness and weakness is the result of all philosophy, and meets us at every turn, in spite of our endeavours to elude or avoid it. " David Hume ( An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding , 1772) Even though the scope of this page is not philosophical, it is interesting to realize that deep philosophical questions are behind the fact that most of our universe is invisible and that we are confined to a very limited sensorial realm. Such questions arise when one considers the existence of objects external to us, the objects of 'human enquiry' and how one can be certain about their existence. We know that science has developed its own procedures in order to explain natural phenomena. Today we known that there are many in...

Some examples of the 'empirical' classification presented in our past post are given below. Not all phenomena are observable as we see. Many of them are non-observable and cannot be sensed in any way. Observable and cyclic:  Conspicuous astronomical events: apparent movement of celestial bodies, eclipses of the sun, moon, tides - rise and fall of sea level;  Seasonal ocurrrences: change of color of leaves in the beginning of autumn, the menstrual cycle; Observable and noncyclic: A large category of natural ocurrences such as: Weather and climate: storms, lightning, hurricanes;  Life (biology): an interesting example are bat´s sounds at the threshold of what can be heard by humans (below 20KHz). Most of bat´s interaction with the environment is ultrasonic and, therefore (according to our nomenclature) 'invisible' (non-audible), almost all life occurrences are noncyclic and shows a strong cause and effect link;  Geology: vulcanic eruptions (...

For centuries, people were unaware of the invisible, that in Nature there are hidden things out of reach of our common senses. The progress of science has unveil a new Universe formed by phenomena that will never be disclosed by these senses alone.  However, they become tangible through a transducer or special media. The role of these media is to be   intermediaries  between the phenomena and our senses. Classification of natural phenomena The universe contains many strata of different phenomena. Some of them are cyclic occurrences while others are sporadic. Many phenomena were discovered with the progress of science, but quite a few of them are accessible to ordinary observation (the so called human senses).  Instead of categorizing natural occurences in broad areas (physics, biology etc), one can divide them  according to their accessibility to our senses. We suggest to classify nature´s event by the following definitions: Observable phenomena: oc...

“ [The universe] cannot be read until we have learnt the language and become familiar with the characters in which it is written. It is written in mathematical language, and the letters are triangles, circles and other geometrical figures, without which it is humanly impossible to comprehend a single word." (Galileo Galilei, Opere Il Saggiatore p. 171.) The 'Book of Nature' is the last great book that we are still browsing. It was written since the beginning of time by a single Author. It is written in a peculiar language, grasped by no men but admitting a single interpretation. It is also a code of laws applicable to all objects of the world, governing the relation between causes and effects. It can not be copied, but it can be imitated, and men frequently gaze at hidden passages that reveal a remarkable structure, an enchanting if not scary regularity. The content of this Book is infinitely larger than anything that we had ever known, showing the existence of in...