Spiritualism vs. Spiritism — What's the Difference?

Spiritualism is a religious movement based on the belief that the spirits of the dead exist and have both the ability and the inclination to communicate with the living. The afterlife, or the "spirit world", is seen by spiritualists, not as a static place, but as one in which spirits continue to evolve.

Spiritism, a branch of Spiritualism, is a religious and philosophical doctrine established in France in the 1850s by the French teacher, educational writer and translator Hippolyte Léon Denizard Rivail, who, under the pen name Allan Kardec, wrote books on "the nature, origin, and destiny of spirits, and their relation with the corporeal world".Kardec's works are the result of the study of mediumistic phenomena, which he initially believed to be of a fraudulent nature. By questioning several mediums in trance on a variety of matters, he compiled, compared and synthesized the answers obtained from spirits into a body of knowledge known as the codification.

The belief that the dead communicate with the living, as through a medium.

The belief that the dead communicate with the living; spiritualism.

The practices or doctrines of those holding such a belief.

Spiritualism

A philosophy, doctrine, or religion emphasizing the spiritual aspect of being.

Alternative form of Spiritism

(philosophy) A doctrine, opposing materialism, that claims transcendency of the divine being, the altogether spiritual character of reality and the value of inwardness of consciousness.

Spiritualsm.

A belief that the dead communicate with the living, especially through a medium. Used in a broader sense than spiritism/Kardecism.

The quality or state of being spiritual.

The quality or state of being spiritual.

The doctrine, in opposition to the materialists, that all which exists is spirit, or soul - that what is called the external world is either a succession of notions impressed on the mind by the Deity, as maintained by Berkeley, or else the mere educt of the mind itself, as taught by Fichte.

A belief that departed spirits hold intercourse with mortals by means of physical phenomena, as by rappng, or during abnormal mental states, as in trances, or the like, commonly manifested through a person of special susceptibility, called a medium; spiritism; the doctrines and practices of spiritualists.

(theology) any doctrine that asserts the separate existence of God

The belief that the spirits of dead people can communicate with people who are still alive (especially via a medium)

Concern with things of the spirit