Spiritist Knowledge

by Ademir Xavier Read the full article here (via SKL repository). 1 Introduction The development of modern science, starting in the 16th century, (Shapin, 1996) led to a world view in which almost everything should be explained in terms of rational or so called ‘scientific’ concepts. According to this view, all knowledge, in order to be true, must be tested in the laboratory, and, therefore, must be publicly available (Chalmers, 1999). The scientific method was conceived as the need of exhaustive and repeatable testing, data analysis together with the postulation of simple explanations in face of a universe that was definitely proved to be rational in their underlying structure and organization. An ongoing debate was then established between a community that is regarded fully rational in their judgments and a large contingent of people who still lives in a world filled with supposedly unfounded, marginal or rejected beliefs. This debate closely follows the conflicts be...

The possibility of Spirit influence is currently neglected by present day orthodox therapies that do not recognize the independent nature of human mind from its material counterpart. However, this does not preclude the existence of this phenomenon which is unfortunately widely spread in the population and can be considered as the origin of several mental disorders and leading to many hideous crimes. Already in 1861, Allan Kardec redefined obsession as the ' domain of some Spirits over certain people. An influence that is never exercised by good Spirits but rather only by those of inferior nature ' (1). If the human personality has its origin in a center of psychological forces known as 'Spirit' - which is by itself quite independent from matter - the phenomena of spirit obsession or attachment may be one of the leading causes of many tragedies in today's life, albeit rarely recognized as such. This happens because only part of the human nature dies in fact....

Paranthropology , (Vol. 3, n. 4, p. 49-51) published (on last October 18/2012) our review about Samuel Magalhães book: " Anna Prado: a mulher que falava com os mortos ". To get a digital copy of this text, the following links are available: via Scribd: http://www.scribd.com/doc/110398292/Paranthropology-Vol-3-No-4 via ISSUU: http://issuu.com/paranthropology/docs/paranth_vol_3_no_4 via Box: https://www.box.com/s/t38nnrdew0s7tvf48hu8 via Paranthropology: http://paranthropologyjournal.weebly.com/free-pdf.html There has been an international revival of the interest in phenomena of physical effects. The publication of Magalhães´ book is an important mark not only for the rescue of Anna Prado life and mediumship but also as a motivation for new studies. Paranthropology is a quarterly publication bringing many interesting research articles on the 'psi' aspects (therefore the prefix 'para') of anthropological experience...

Fig. 1 Brazilian postage stamp released in 2010 in commemoration to Xavier´s birthday.    Read more about Chico Xavier mediumship by clicking here (access to SKL repository). Introduction Brazil has a spiritualist tradition that dates back to the beginning of Spiritualism. The Spiritualist movement in Brazil is known as Spiritism and started after several works on psychic phenomena that flourish around Hippolyte Léon Denizard Rivail (1804-1869) in the third quarter of the XIX century in France. Allan Kardec, as Rivail was to be known later, introduced a set of Spiritualist principles (Kardec, 1985) encompassing not only the basic precepts of Spiritualism such as life after death, the possibility of communication between the material and the ‘invisible’ worlds, but alto the belief in reincarnation. Granted the stable existence of many Spiritist groups in Brazil, many mediums found a highly favorable environment for the development of their faculties starting with p...