Spiritist Knowledge

Since 2003, the annual meeting of LIHPE ( Association of Researchers on Spiritism ) has been a lively space dedicated to discussions and studies on Spiritualist themes according to academic standards. LIHPE is essentially a virtual community of researchers interested in academic studies but not necessarily composed by Spiritualist people (in this sense, LIHPE is a non-denominational group). Members should only observed the group behavior standards in order to participate. In its beginning, LIHPE was created to support records on history of Spiritualism (in its Brazilian version called Spiritism - a term originally created in France in the XIX century). Other research interests were then added to the group, from a wide variety of academic fields such as philosophy, physics, psychology, social sciences, anthropology among others. Since its inception, LIHPE founder, Eduardo Carvalho Monteiro, realized that simple collaboration at distance would not be enough to establish grou...

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...