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6: Espiritismo
- University of New Mexico Press
- Chapter
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124 Cuban espiritismo is a varied set of religious practices that are exceptionally popular in Oriente. Although it is not an Africa-based tradition, it does include marker characteristics from the nation’s African heritage. espiritismo originates from practices in the United States and from the spiritual work of the frenchman Hippolyte Léon Denizard Rivail (1804–1869), better known as Allan Kardec. Kardec focused his work on cosmic ideas about spirits and their ability to visit the historical world of humans. He was concerned with demonstrating the scientific veracity of spirits and their capacity to communicate. Kardec held gatherings, called séances, to demonstrate that spirits of the dead did visit the living world, and in 1857 he published Spiritualist Philosophy:The Spirits’ Book.1 The practice he developed was known as Kardecian Spiritism, and its fundamental beliefs centered on such understandings about spirits. Kardecian doctrine drew from Christianity, including an articulated interpretation of the Ten Commandments, but his main idea was that spirits of the dead could be put into different groups or categories and that they communicate and visit the living. His séances were designed to converse with select spirits in particular categories, and principles of the tradition also contended that spirits reincarnate in another human body. The 6 Espiritismo 125 espiritismo doctrine became an international phenomenon, but it was more akin to philosophy than a religion with systematic ritual practices.2 Kardecian ideas and séance customs traveled to the Americas sometime in the decades before the 1860s, following the development of spiritualism in the United States. The North American movement materialized earlier in the nineteenth century and enjoyed popularity as the United States underwent geographic shifts in its expanding population, as well as significant social and cultural changes. Scientific and technological transformations also affected US family and work life and all of these factors joined forces with those of the hundreds of thousands of european immigrants arriving in never-ending waves at the nation’s ports. The mounting sense of social change and instability was equally affected by the increasing probability of civil war. The potential of war’s dire consequences served to heighten a focus on death and life thereafter; creating a ripe environment for Kardecian ideas. Residents of colonial Cuba were familiar with events within their northern neighbor’s borders. The two countries were more than geographic neighbors because of close relations between many of their leaders and intellectuals. Several Protestant principals from the island had studied in nineteenth-century US seminaries3 and the confluence of social relations brought US Spiritualism, influenced by Kardecian Spiritism, to Cuba sometime in the 1860s. As island insurgents of the Spanish colony prepared to enter their Ten years’ War of 1868–1878, Spiritualism/Spiritism as well as US-style Protestantism entered once Catholic-dominated Cuba.4 Cuba’s eastern region was particularly receptive to ideas of Kardecian Spiritism as influenced by US Spiritualism. Religious practices based on cosmic ideas about working with spirits of the dead were already deeply embedded in Oriente ritual life, and ideas about spirits resonated with inhabitants there. Many had working knowledge and behavioral familiarity with the Africa-based orientation that had arrived some three to four hundred years earlier with Africans from the Kongo Kingdom. Thus, ideas about and the practice of working with spirits was normal in Oriente, but with the arrival of Spiritualism/Spiritism, Oriente Cuban ideas could be aligned with a certain scientific and modern legitimacy. The search for legitimacy was important to populations of european descendants on the island. Many who had been born in Cuba but without distinguishable connection to european status and privilege were intent upon demonstrating their allegiance to their island and their opposition to [3.229.124.236] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 10:39 GMT) 126 Chapter 6 the colonial monarchy. This could be done partially by aligning themselves with the new scientifically legitimate Spiritualism/Spiritism and distancing themselves from Africa-based traditions or descendants. Things African were negatively associated with slavery, ignorance, and primitive underdevelopment . The goal of many light-brown to white-skinned Cubans, and some African descendants as well, was to have an independently recognized and respected Cuban identity whose cultural foundations were endorsed by or resembled customs of europe and North America.5 Religious legitimacy was noteworthy as part of this vision. It was a quest that intersected with growing nineteenth-century sentiment toward scientific development and nationalistic support for an independent Cuba, free from Spanish colonial rule...