SPIRITISM. — In attempting to explain the phenomena studied by metapsychics (q.v.), a field that has attracted considerable attention since the early days following the revelations and “séances” of the Fox sisters (Hydesville, U.S.A., 1848), the spiritualist hypothesis has been particularly prominent. According to this view, paranormal phenomena—whether psychic or physical in nature—are attributed to the disincarnate souls of the deceased. The spiritualist interpretation of metapsychic phenomena, especially those that deviate most from the norm and, if accepted as genuine, are most difficult to explain scientifically (ectoplasm, telekinesis, clairvoyance [q.v.] and precognitive foresight), was chronologically the first to be proposed. This was due both to the fact that an anthropological explanation could more easily account for the apparent teleological and intelligent nature of the phenomena, and to the natural tendency of the human mind, when faced with obscure and complex phenomena, to turn toward animistic and marvelous explanations.
clairvoyance [q.v.] and precognitive foresight), was chronologically the first to be proposed. This was due both to the fact that an anthropological explanation could more easily account for the apparent teleological and intelligent nature of the phenomena, and to the natural tendency of the human mind, when faced with obscure and complex phenomena, to turn toward animistic and marvelous explanations.
(cf. A. Lehmann, *Aberglaube und Zauberei*, Stuttgart 1908, pl. I, fig. 2)
SPIRITISM — A supposed materialization.
Indeed, Mrs. Fox and her daughters first presented these new phenomena in a spiritualist guise, imagining they were conversing with supposed spirits (1877). “Are you perhaps a spirit?” Mrs. Fox asked; “If so, knock twice!” The prompt obedience of the supposed disincarnate entity, along with the “typical” account it gave of its age and its killing in that very house, marked the first step in the cordial relations between the spirits and the Fox family and the official beginning of faith in, and the spiritualist explanation of, metapsychic manifestations. Following the same path, the distinguished physicist William Crookes, who conducted spiritist experiments with techniques widely criticized for their lack of scientific rigor, acknowledged the spiritual nature of a highly questionable materialization (the “ghost” of Katie King produced by the medium Florence Cook in 1874). Another renowned scientist, Oliver Lodge, in the years following the First World War, declared his conviction that he had made contact, during séances, with his son Raymond, who had died in the war (O. Lodge, *Raymond or Life and Death*, 12th ed., London n.d.). Other supposed materializations, claimed to be the spirits of the disincarnate, are passed over in silence (e.g., the “ghost” of Bien-Boa with the medium Marthe Béraud and the control of Charles Richet, etc.).
The primary source of assertions and the most abundant body of information supporting the spiritualist hypothesis of metapsychic phenomena comes from the words of “mediums” in “trance” or from their writings produced under the same conditions through “automatic writing.” This falls within the realm of so-called subjective metapsychics, a category that includes many phenomena certainly of a natural order (q.V. CLAIRVOYANCE). The “messages from the tomb” that spiritualists claim to receive through these means have served, particularly for their most authoritative exponents, to construct a full system of beliefs and precepts that constitute a veritable “creed,” a kind of religion in which the mysteries of the nature of a Creator Being, His relationship with worlds and creatures, the hierarchies and constitution of these, their destinies and future developments, and the norms of life that the incarnate must follow are dogmatically revealed.
Among such pontiffs of the “spiritual revelation,” the most prominent is Hippolyte Léon Denizard Rivail, generally known by the pseudonym Allan Kardec, born in Lyon in 1804. Through a large number of communications supposedly received—mainly via automatic writing from a considerable number of “mediums” in his employ—he proclaimed himself invested with the mission of founding a new, true religion, Spiritism, which was to annul and replace all others. Allan Kardec’s doctrine, amid a flood of assertions and constructions that are arbitrary, confused, contradictory, often pure fantasy, and in themselves ridiculous and self-contradictory, gives the impression of being more fully elaborated, thanks to the particular cast of mind and the scientific-philosophical preparation of Rivail, who had been a pupil of Pestalozzi at his school in Yverdon, Switzerland, and had taught for many years. He possessed an exceptionally imaginative nature.
Allan Kardec’s Spiritist doctrine is expounded at length in his work: *Le livre des esprits selon l’enseignement donné par les Esprits supérieurs à l’aide de divers médiums* (17th ed., Paris 1869). Its principal tenets are as follows: God is eternal, unchangeable, unique, omnipotent, just, good, and the creator of all animate and inanimate, material and immaterial things; spirits can temporarily incarnate by living on earth after assuming a particular temporary envelope represented by the body, whose destruction by death frees the spirit once more; man is composed of a material part (the body), analogous to animals, an immaterial part (the soul), and an intermediate principle linking the two (the perispirit), of a semi-material nature; upon the destruction of the body by death, the perispirit persists, forming for the spirit an ethereal or astral body, normally imperceptible to the incarnate, except under special conditions (spiritual apparitions), when it can become fully perceptible; there exists a hierarchy of spirits, ranging from the highest, most intelligent and good, closest to God, to the less good, deceitful and talkative (goblins or “light” spirits), down to the lowest and most wicked, full of our worst passions and vices, delighting in evil deeds; spirits do not possess a fixed condition but tend toward perfection, passing from a lower to a higher hierarchy through intermediate periods of reincarnation, sometimes as expiation, sometimes as mission; in this regard, we would all have had previous existences (metempsychosis) either on earth or on other worlds, always, however, with reincarnations in human form; every disincarnate spirit can come into contact with living humans, either spontaneously or after evocation; spiritual morality is summarized in doing good and avoiding evil, according to the maxim “do unto others as you would have them do unto you”; no fault is unforgivable, as everything is expiated in successive lives; free will is acknowledged.
the spiritual revelations bound by Kardec also contain negative points in which beliefs of other religions are demolished, in particular dogmas of the Christian and Catholic religion, against which the most violent attack and the greatest hatred of the spiritual doctrine are unleashed. Thus the Trinity is denied, the divinity of Christ (considered merely a great spirit), and of the Sacred Texts, the existence of Purgatory and Hell; the Catholic Church and the Pope are a favourite target, destined to disappear through the work of the «spiritual religion». The spiritist doctrine elaborated by Allan Kardec (and the same can be said of all subsequent variations) is a critical examination that is clearly inconsistent and impious. *Inconsistent*: indeed, it is not an original construction and is not a «gathering» of heterogeneous and contrasting elements taken from the most disparate religions and philosophical constructions (v. BUDDHISM; REINCARNATION; RELIGIONS, COMPARATIVE STUDY OF; THEOSOPHY). Its alleged revealed affirmations do not rest on any authority of absolute or demonstrated value, except for the gratuitous assertion of being communicated by spirits living in the hereafter. These supposed messages would wish to find in themselves their justification; on the contrary, critical examination demonstrates them to be no higher than the level of ordinary (often petty) human intelligence, contradictory, and for the most part of a very low moral level; some elements contained in them, acquired through the word or automatic writing of the «medium», which might at first glance appear foreign and superior to the content of his consciousness, when well studied can easily be explained by phenomena of the natural order (v. CLAIRVOYANCE; METAPHYSICS). On the other hand, the existence and ordinary intervention of disincarnate spirits in spiritual manifestations is not proven by the vaunted materializations and telekinetic phenomena, events that are very rare in séances, insufficiently controlled, and very often tainted by fraud, while there are serious reasons for denying the attribution of spiritual manifestations to disincarnate souls (v. A. Zucchi, *L'uomo*, II, Rome 1921, pp. 445-56). In substance, the proofs of the supernatural origin of spiritual doctrines miserably lose themselves in a vicious circle: the affirmations should be supported by the preternatural authority of the spirits; on the other hand, no other demonstration is given of their existence, nature, mission except their own affirmations, the sole proof of the nature and authority of the revealers. *Impious*: indeed, the spiritual doctrine denies the true essence of God (v.) and His attributes, as postulated by right reason and Revelation (v.) makes known to us; it aims to destroy the divinity of the Son of God and the origin, nature, and magisterium of the Church (v.) and of the Catholic religion, founded on the word and miracles of Christ, the prophets, and the saints. Whoever would wish to admit as true some absolutely preternatural facts (if indeed any exist), which are asserted to have taken place in the course of mediumistic manifestations, and would wish to accept them as demonstration of the ultraterrene origin of the spiritual revelation, in relation to the whole anti-religious inspiration that permeates spiritual doctrines, would be forced to admit in the unfolding of such facts the intervention of spirits of diabolical nature.
From the moral point of view, leaving the question of the nature of mediumistic facts unresolved (whose preternatural value many modern authors, even from the Catholic camp, entirely deny), the spiritual interpretation of metapsychic manifestations and their practice, with the aim of placing oneself in communication with disincarnate spirits, represents a grave fault of idolatry and superstition. For this reason, from the time of the Old Testament such practice has been condemned, declared worthy of the death penalty (*Deut.* 18, 9-12; *Lev.* 20, 6; 27) and at times directly punished by God with the greatest severity.
With regard to the magisterium of the Catholic Church, the doctrines of spiritualism, being a gathering of errors