In everyday speech, "Spiritism" and "Spiritualism" are used almost interchangeably — for séances, table-turning, contact with the dead. Historically, that is wrong. The two words denote two different movements that were even at odds in the 19th century — and "Spiritualism" carries a third, purely philosophical meaning on top of that. The striking part: the man who actually coined the word "Spiritism" was the one who defined the difference most clearly.
Spiritualism: The Phenomenon Religion from America
Modern Spiritualism was born in 1848 in Hydesville, New York, when the Fox sisters demonstrated a system of knocking communication with an unseen counterpart. From there the movement spread with astonishing speed — as far as Victorian England, where it became an organized religion.
Three features define classical Anglo-American Spiritualism:
- Empiricism rather than dogma. Death is not an end but a transition to another plane of existence. Crucially, this survival is not to be believed blindly but evidenced through the phenomena of mediums — raps, levitations, apports, deep trance. From this attitude grew the scientific investigation of the phenomena by researchers such as William Crookes and Oliver Lodge.
- A church, not a doctrine. Spiritualist churches arose, with services, hymns and a subsequent "demonstration of mediumship". In Britain this was organized in the Spiritualists' National Union; mediumistic training still takes place at the Arthur Findlay College.
- No reincarnation. In its classical form, Anglo-American Spiritualism rejected rebirth. After death the soul progresses continuously through spiritual spheres and never returns to an earthly body.
Spiritism: Kardec's System
When the American wave reached Europe, a French educator and scholar turned the phenomena into a closed body of doctrine: Hippolyte Léon Denizard Rivail published The Spirits' Book (Le Livre des Esprits, first edition 18 April 1857) under the pseudonym Allan Kardec. With that, Spiritism — Kardecism — was born.
Its cornerstones:
- Reincarnation as the core axiom. For Kardec, repeated incarnation was the sole path to the moral and intellectual advancement of the soul — on Earth and, in his teaching, on other worlds. One returns to be tested, to atone and to perfect oneself.
- A claim to be an experiential science. Kardec saw Spiritism not as a new religion but, in his own words, as a science investigating the laws of the spirit world. He gathered the communications of many mediums and ordered them into a systematic framework.
- A moral orientation. Communication serves not entertainment or mere proof of survival but moral instruction and spiritual healing (through prayer and "passes", a form of energetic healing). Spiritism is strongly Christian-ethical in character.
The Dividing Line: Reincarnation
The decisive difference is rebirth — and Kardec named it precisely himself. In the introduction to The Spirits' Book he explains why he coined a new word:
"For new things we need new words [...] instead of the words spiritual, spiritualism, we use, to designate this belief, the words spiritist and spiritism."
Kardec thereby cleanly distinguishes two terms: Spiritualism is simply the opposite of materialism — whoever believes they carry something other than matter within themselves is a spiritualist; but it does not follow that they believe in the existence of spirits or in their communication with the visible world. Spiritism, by contrast, is precisely that belief: in the relations between the material world and spirits.
Out of this boundary grew a genuine fraternal war in the 19th century. Anglo-American Spiritualism rejected reincarnation; Kardecism placed it at the centre. When the movements met, the communications of their respective mediums tellingly confirmed each side's own worldview: in Paris the spirits affirmed rebirth, in the Anglo-American sphere they did not. Each camp interpreted the other's mediumistic evidence through its own lens.
The Second Meaning: Spiritualism in Philosophy
As Kardec hinted, "Spiritualism" was long since taken — by philosophy. There the term denotes the view that spirit, not matter, is the fundamental reality: the counter-position to materialism. In this sense a thinker like Henri Bergson was a "spiritualist" without ever attending a séance.
The two meanings touch where philosophers approached the question empirically — for instance in William James, who was both a philosopher and a researcher of psychical phenomena. So whenever you read "Spiritualism", check the context: the American spirit religion — or the philosophical refusal of materialism.
Today: The Brazilian Giant
While classical Anglo-American Spiritualism lost much ground in the 20th century — partly through exposed frauds — and became a niche religion, Kardec's Spiritism made one of the most remarkable geographic shifts in religious history. Exported to Brazil in the late 19th century, it found ideal fertile ground there.
Today Brazil is the world's foremost spiritist country: millions of adherents and a dense network of spiritist hospitals, orphanages and schools. Mediums such as Chico Xavier, who is said to have produced over 400 books by "psychography" (automatic writing), became national icons.
Why the Distinction Matters
For reading the other articles on this site, the map is now clear: Hydesville and the Fox sisters describe the birth of Spiritualism. As soon as that movement reaches the Continent and is joined to reincarnation — in the milieu of figures such as the astronomer Camille Flammarion or the criminologist Cesare Lombroso — the nomenclature shifts to Spiritism. And where "Spiritualism" is meant in the philosophical sense, the issue is the standing of spirit against matter, not contact with the dead.
Three words, three meanings — a confusion that the inventor of the third tried himself to avoid.
Sources
- Kardec, A. (1857): Le Livre des Esprits. Paris (first edition 18 April 1857) — introduction with the terminological distinction spiritisme / spiritualisme.
- Wikipédia (FR), Spiritisme (Allan Kardec) and Le Livre des Esprits (history of the term and doctrine).
- Standard literature on modern Spiritualism (Hydesville 1848, Spiritualists' National Union).