Allan Kardec: The Spirits’ Book

Impact

As a foundational text of the Spiritism movement, The Spirits’ Book helped to establish a broader belief system of spirit phenomena. Within twenty-five years of its publication The Spirits’ Book had been translated into several different languages and was found throughout Europe and the Americas, where reincarnation was a relatively novel concept. In particular, the importation of the book and the Spiritist philosophy to Portugal and Portuguese-speaking nations would help to establish long-lasting Spiritist ties with Brazil. This was largely due to the encounters between African religions and the Spiritism of Europe brought about by the Portuguese slave trade of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. West African religions, such as those of the Yoruba, meshed well with Spiritism because of the shared beliefs in reincarnation and a spirit realm.

Kardec’s codifying text is still used today among several different religious traditions associated with Spiritism. By conservative estimates, the adherents of Spiritism range from fifteen to seventeen million worldwide. The majority of these adherents reside in Brazil. The sheer numbers of such a following suggest that the ideas embodied within The Spirits’ Book are still relevant.