SPIRITISM AND THE CENTURY OF THE LIGHTS the influence of the Enlightenment and 19th century science on Allan Kardec’s work

Abstract

At the very beginning of the 19th century, occurs the birth of the founder of Spiritism, the French educator Hippolyte Léon Denizard Rivail, the civil name of Allan Kardec. He was born amidst a multitude of revolutionary ideas and thoughts resulting from the Enlightenment. This article aims to show the influence of the French Enlightenment and 19th-century science on his life and work, and consequently, it tries to clarify the environment in which Spiritism was coined. This intent will be achieved through bibliographic research in historical records and Kardec’s work. To achieve this goal, we intend to point out the influences over the Spiritism of some thinkers, such as Franz Anton Mesmer, Auguste Comte, Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, Jean Jacques Rousseau, and Francis Bacon. With this, we intend to show that, despite Kardec himself has attributed his work to the spirits, his intellectual baggage was fundamental in organizing the knowledge that was, according to his followers, being offered by the spirits, and how much this academic background facilitated its reception among those who received it.