Spiritualistas

Spiritualistas refers to a group of people in Argentina and Uruguay who were adherents of a spiritualist movement during the second half of the 19th century. The movement was characterized by a focus on spirituality and the search for higher states of consciousness, with an emphasis on the power of the individual in shaping their own reality.

At its core, Spiritualistas subscribed to the theories of French spiritualist and philosopher Allan Kardec, whose writings emphasized the concept of reincarnation, the importance of the laws of spiritual causality, and the possibility of communication with spirits of deceased individuals. This spiritualist framework, coupled with ideas of free will and the inherent goodness of the universe, attracted many followers in South America, particularly among the urban middle class.

In Argentina and Uruguay, the Spiritualistas movement began to take shape in the 1870s, with a shift from an initial focus on mysticism to a more organized and structured approach to spiritual practice. The movement gained significant traction in the following decades, with adherents establishing spiritualist centers, salons, and associations, where discussions on topics such as telepathy, clairvoyance, and precognition were debated and experimented. While certain elements of the Spiritualistas movement have been viewed as a response to the positivist intellectual currents of the time, the movement's meaningfulness and relevance to its adherents cannot be dismissed.

Intersections with politics and literature and intellectual history form part of the movement's complex narrative. Similarly, conflicts with other cultural movements of the period also erupted, eventually contributing to the movement's disarray and subsequent decline. Despite this, the Spiritualistas movement played a significant role in shaping the landscape of spiritualism and intellectual culture in its respective time.