Spiritist Knowledge

A Jewish wedding by Josef Israels, 1903, Courtesy of Wiki Commons. T he image of ‘twin souls”—the symbol of a supposed ideal union between two beings who complete and fulfill themselves -- is present in the poetic language and in the romantic tradition. One of the greatest sources of inspiration of this ludic concept is the Hermaphroditus Myth. This Greek narrative tells about beings with two heads four arms and four legs making up a third human gender both female and male. They were punished by Zeus for rebelling against the gods and cut apart on their backs and theses halves got lost and are always looking for their missing part. To have someone in particular that would satisfy us totally in all our affective wants is an attractive idea. It creates expectations especially in those who consider themselves solitary. What’s really worrying however is the fact that this idea projects our own happiness onto another person. As the “twin soul” concept is part of the popular ...

The spirit of Mozart has just finished to dictate to the medium, Mr. Bryon-Dorgeval, a fragment of sonata. The piece was perrformed by him in the presence of several artists and, as way of control, he did not mention the origin but rather asked them how the piece sounds like. Without hesitation they   recognized Mozart´s style. The piece was also executed in the presence of many experts in our society on last April 8th by Miss De Davan, a Chopin's former student and distinguished pianist. As a way of comparison, Miss De Devan first performed a known Mozart's piece. They all agreed not only on regard to the perfect identity of styles, but also on the superiority of the psychic composition. Then, with her usual talent, the pianist performed a piece by Chopin (A. Kardec, Revue Spirite, May 1859)   In commemoration to the first edition of the Spirit´s book on April 18 (1857), we present a new performed by Érico Bomfim of a lost fragment of sonata attributed to the spir...

A ballet dancer (*) by Degas through Luiz Gasparetto.  Painting and Drawing mediums: those who paint and draw under the influence of spirits. (A. Kardec, 1861," The Book on Mediums ", 2nd Part, Chapter XVI, 'Special Mediums'.) The literature of psychic phenomena has many colorful types of mediumship manifestations, of mediums with amplified human skills. These were the ancient wizards of primordial times, the prophets of the Biblical past. All types of human manifestations are, in fact, possible through mediumship including highly specialized abilities such as music composition, poetry and painting (rarely called psychopictography ). The most notorious example of music composition was Mrs. Rosemay Brown (1916-2001). In English speaking countries the poetic mediumship of Patience Worth (Braude, 2003) became very notorious. However, painting is also a registered feature of mediumship phenomenology. Although both kinds of 'artistic mediumship' are...

Both the spirit of the 'living' and the 'dead' are sensorially unobservables Every evidence of their existence is indirect, by means of an intelligent fingerprint exibited by any medium (body behavior, external symbols)... Therefore, both cases (of the spirit of the 'living' and the 'dead') are epistemologically identical (Chibeni, 2010). S. Chibeni has recently posted a presentation on GEEU webpage (Chibeni, 2010) about the scientific research of the spirit that has many points in common with the subject we have writen about here. His presentation is a set of elucidating slides about the scientific research of the spirit and survival of consciousness. Unfortunately, they are presented in Portuguese and here comment on 12 obstacles that Chibeni put forward as preventing the studies about survival of consciousness and the existence of the Spirit. After a brief introduction of the phenomenology associated to the substances 'matter' and ...

Calling all free spirits in London: Join us for a week of films that have potential to transform our lives. Come and get connected with like-minded souls, and discover the best of the production of spiritual films from Brazil, some of them movie blockbusters never seen in the UK. These features and documentaries inspire, enlighten and challenge us. Check the highlights below and click here for the full programme . All films are original Portuguese versions with English subtitles. Tickets for all individual films are available for free , so early booking is highly advisable. Some film screenings will be followed by a debate, and there will also be book stalls with plenty of books in all languages. Dates: February 21 – 25, 2012 Venue: Room G34 - Arts Building, Queen Mary University of London. 327 Mile End Road (Mile End Tube Station) - London E14 NS - Map Free bookings: http://bit.ly/SpiritFilm Nosso Lar (The Astral City) Direction: Wagner de Assis....

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...