Allan Kardec
Allan Kardec (born October 3, 1804 in Lyon , † March 31, 1869 in Paris ; actually Hippolyte Léon Denizard Rivail ) was a French spiritualist . He founded a religious doctrine, Kardecism, which is based on spiritualistic experiences and a belief in reincarnation .
Life
Rivail was born in Lyon in 1804 and studied with Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi in Yverdon, Switzerland . In 1828 he bought an educational establishment for boys in Paris, where he taught mathematics , physics , chemistry , astronomy , human biology , comparative anatomy and French . In 1830 he rented a hall in the Rue de Sèvres and taught some subjects there for 10 years for free. In 1831 he received the Medal of Honor from the learned society of Arras for an essay in which he compared different teaching systems. Rivail spoke several foreign languages.
In 1839 he founded a so-called "exchange bank" with a partner, Maurice Delachatre, a dealer. It should facilitate commercial transactions and thus create new opportunities for trade and industry by supporting them in arrears for natural products. The Chamber of Commerce and Industry set the duration of the Handelsbank at ten years.
After the revolution of 1848 he worked as a stage manager, d. H. as preparer, coordinator and executor of the presentations of the physics magazine Lacaze. This was located in a small room in the “Carré Marigny”, near the “Champs Elysées” in Paris. First called "Hell's Castle," it was better known as Lacaze Pavilion or Barrack Lacaze. It presented funny physics shows, phantasmagoria, scientific projections, curiosities and spiritualistic bouffonneries, in which the artist Lacaze evoked striking spirits long before the arrival of spiritualism. These were very popular shows in the middle of the 19th century when mankind began to rule electricity. However, this room was closed at the end of 1854 to make way for other exhibitions as part of the World Exhibition in Paris in 1855.
In May 1855 he met a certain Mr. Fortier, a magnetizer, who brought him to Madame de Plainemaison, a medium who lives in the Rue de la Grange Bateliere in Paris, a few steps from the Opera House. In the presence of other guests, he comes into contact with a ghost named Zephyr, who gives him the mission to be the spokesman for the dead. For him it is revelation. There he witnessed for the first time the phenomenon of rotating, jumping and running tables, as he himself described it with precision in his manuscript, written between 1855 and 1856: "My predictions regarding spiritualism".
Rivail died of an aneurysm on March 31, 1869 . His remains are buried in the Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris.
Rivail said he took the pseudonym Allan Kardec after a ghost told him at a spiritualistic session that his name was that in a previous life as a druid. Rivail liked the name and decided to use it to separate his work on spiritualism from his academic work.
Work for spiritism
Rivail first heard about the moving table phenomenon from a friend in 1854 . At first he was skeptical, but later he was persuaded to take part in a meeting in which the tables, according to his perception of themselves, moved back and forth, jumped and rose into the air. Unlike many others present, he was of the opinion after his observations that there might be a hitherto unknown law of nature behind it and decided to get to the bottom of this question. Since he was not a medium himself , he put together a list of questions and began to work with various "media" to ask these questions to ghosts.
On April 18, 1857, at the request of the "spirit beings", Kardec published the Book of Spirits , the first book in his collection and an essential work of Spiritism. It contains 1019 questions and answers regarding Kardec's view of the nature of spirit beings, the spirit world, the relationship between the spirit world and the earthly world, and much more. Later four more books followed: The Book of the Media , The Gospel According to Spiritism , Heaven and Hell, and The Genesis . Together they represent Kardec's spiritualistic teaching. The information contained in these books was supplemented by the magazine Revue Spirite , which Kardec published monthly until his death.
Kardec's teaching received a lot of attention at the time and convinced many well-known figures in social life. He was from Napoléon III. invited to philosophical discussions.
Teaching
origin
Kardec's spiritualistic teaching is based on the principles and laws that were passed on by "higher spirits" through various media and collected and thematically arranged by him. He was not the author of such works, but collected and classified them and published them with his comments. He claimed that the consistency of the news received in different countries from different, often juvenile, media outlets demonstrated the credibility of the works. So he wrote:
“One does not trust oneself to the opinion of a single person, but to the united voice of spirits; not one person, be it me or someone else, founds spiritism; also not a single spirit imposing itself on someone, but the totality of spirits that work on earth according to the will of God. This is the essential character of spiritism, that is where its strength lies. God wanted his law to rest on an unshakable basis and so he did not leave it to the weak head of a single person. "
Basic books
- The Book of Spirits (1857) - (Cover: Spiritualist Philosophy - The Book of Spirits - containing the principles of the Spiritist teaching on the immortality of the soul, the nature of spirits and their relationships with people, the moral laws, the present and the future lives, as well as the future of humanity. After the lessons given by the higher spirits with the help of various media. Collected and arranged by Allan Kardec ): presents the main features of the teaching and deals with topics such as God , soul , universe , man , Animals, culture , morals and religion .
- The book of the media (1861) - (cover sheet: The experimental spiritism - the book of the media - or guide for the media and callers, it contains a special instruction about spiritual beings, about the theory of all kinds of manifestations, about the means of communication with the invisible world, discovery of mediality, about difficulties that can be encountered when practicing spiritism, by Allan Kardec. ): represents the "mechanics" of the spirit world underlying communication via a medium, techniques that are developed by media can.
- The Gospel in the Light of Spiritism (1864) - (Cover: The Gospel in the Light of Spiritism with explanations on the moral rules of Christ, their agreement with Spiritism and their application in different situations by Allan Kardec. Only that faith is unshakable, which in can face all epochs of humanity in the eye. ): Comments on the Gospels and particularly addresses passages which, in Kardec's view, show an ethical foundation that is shared by all religions and philosophical systems. It was the first religious book to adopt life on other planets. Jesus' statement "There are many apartments in my father's house" ( Jn 14.2 EU ) is interpreted accordingly
- Heaven and Hell (1865) - (Cover: Heaven and Hell or Divine Justice in the Light of Spiritism, with comparative study of the teachings on the transition from the physical to the spiritual life, future punishments and sufferings, angels and devils, eternal punishments etc., followed by numerous examples in the second part that show the real situation of the soul during and after death, by Allan Kardec. ): A didactically prepared series of conversations with the souls of the deceased, which establish a connection between the lives they led, and to establish their condition in the hereafter.
- Genesis (1868) - (Cover: Genesis - The story of creation, miracles and prophecies in the light of Spiritism by Allan Kardec. Spiritist doctrine is the result of the common and unanimous teaching of the spirits. Science is asked, Genesis according to the natural To form laws. God shows his greatness and his power through the immutability of his laws and not through the abolition of them. For God the past and the future is the present ): tries to reconcile religion and science and deals with three main problem areas: the origin of the universe and life, miracles and clairvoyance .
Although these books were published from 1857 to 1868, they are still the basis of spiritualism today. They have been translated into 30 languages. Kardec also wrote a short introduction (“What is Spiritism?”) And from January 1858 published a monthly spiritualist magazine with various spiritualist topics (“Revue Spirite”).
Elements of belief
The universe was created by God as the highest spirit. It consists of the material things and the spiritual beings. The spirits, as spiritual, intelligent beings, form a spiritual world, which differs from the purely material things and which precedes creation in time and will also outlast it. Incarnated spirits should be able to communicate with the spiritual world via media . Incarnations should also take place on other planets besides earth.
An important part of Kardecianism is a doctrine of the migration of souls . Spirits live in two states: incarnated and not incarnated. The spirits are created ignorantly and require a gradual spiritual and moral development, which they can experience better in the incarnated state, in which the memories of previous incarnations and the non-incarnated state are, however, suppressed. The mental development always goes in the direction of a higher level or stagnates. There is no such thing as a fall to a lower level. The already more highly developed spirits (e.g. guardian angels) help with the ascent, to which Jesus is counted as a being who is responsible for the earth and who has completely gone through the entire ascent.
The Christian Ethics and the Ten Commandments are integrated into the Kardecianismus. Abortion , suicide , the death penalty , euthanasia and addiction are not compatible with the spiritualist teaching. Morally correct action in accordance with this ethic is considered more important than prayer . However, prayers are considered important to keep in touch with guardian angels and friendly spirits. There are no prescribed forms of prayer. The Lord's Prayer is considered perfect prayer.
An important element are spiritualistic sessions , which should serve the spiritual development, not the prediction of future events. The ability to be a medium is seen as a natural human gift that everyone has and can be developed. The special position is limited to the work in the séance and does not correspond to any priestly status and may not be exercised for a fee.
Religious history
Cardecian spiritualism occupies a special position. On the one hand, it is one of the few examples that can be used to observe how a cultic, so to speak shamanistic religion can emerge from a written work that was initially created as a desk product . However, the work refers to manifestations received extra-sensually through a medium from the spiritual world, thus a quasi religious experience. On the other hand, it is at a relatively early point in the development of spiritualistic ideas.
Fonts
- pedagogy
- Cours pratique et théorique d'arithmétique (1824)
- Plan proposé pour l'amélioration de l'éducation publique (1828)
- Catéchisme grammatical de la langue française (1848)
- spiritism
- The Book of Spirits ( Le Livre des Esprits , 1857)
- The Book of the Media ( Le Livre des Médiums , 1861)
- The Gospel in the Light of Spiritism ( L'Évangile selon le Spiritisme , 1864)
- Heaven and Hell ( Le Ciel et L'Enfer , 1865)
- Genesis ( La Genèse , 1868)
See also
Web links
- Literature by and about Allan Kardec in the catalog of the German National Library
- Allan Kardec (biography)
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Kardec, Allan |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Rivail, Hippolyte Léon Denizard |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | French founder of Spiritism |
| DATE OF BIRTH | October 3, 1804 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Lyon |
| DATE OF DEATH | March 31, 1869 |
| Place of death | Paris |