Spiritism

The subject of Spiritism came up in one of my conversations and I had to do a little research about it. First I came across Allan Kardec and eventually Chico Xavier. Apparently Xavier would kick the ass of our Long Island Medium big time. The guy became a legend/saint in Brazil, was nominated to the Nobel Peace Prize twice and had testimonies from the dead accepted as evidence by the court of law...wow.
I'm not aware of any legit medium, but Xavier was definitely not after money. He apparently donated all of the proceeds of his books to charity and lived a very humble life advocating love and peace.
Why did he do it?
Sure people worshiped him and maybe he was an attention whore, but perhaps the situation grew out of control around him and he didn't want to disappoint his believers...STUCK in the middle of it, something like a modern Jesus. (assuming there is any truth to Jesus story).

This is a big pile of shit.

I'm confused, is this guy saying that a talking table is scientific evidence?

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Chico Xavier (Portuguese pronunciation: [ˈʃiku ʃɐviˈɛʁ]), born Francisco de Paula Cândido Xavier ([fɾɐ̃ˈsisku dʒi ˈpawlɐ ˈkɐ̃dʒidu], April 2, 1910 - June 30, 2002) was a popular medium and philanthropist of Brazil's spiritism movement. He wrote 468 books using a process known as "psychography".[1][2][3]
Xavier was born in the city of Pedro Leopoldo, State of Minas Gerais and is popularly known as "Chico Xavier" (Chico is the Portuguese nickname for Francisco). Xavier called his spiritual guide Emmanuel, who according to Xavier, lived in ancient Rome as Senator Publius Lentulus, was reincarnated in Spain as Father Damian, and later as a professor at the Sorbonne.[2]
Xavier's work produced religious teachings, novels, and works of philosophy. His books sold an estimated 50 million copies, profits of which were all channelled into charity work.[1] In 1981 and 1982, he was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.[2]
Xavier believed he was only a channel for the work of the spirits and that he was not able to produce any miracle such as healing people. He believed he could not contact someone that was dead, unless their spirit was willing to be contacted. His appearances on TV talk shows in the late 1960s and early 1970s helped to establish Kardecist Spiritism as one of the religions professed in Brazil. Xavier's popularity remained unchanged in Brazil throughout his life. Despite health problems he kept working up to his death, on June 30, 2002 in Uberaba. In 2010, a movie biography entitled Chico Xavier was released in Brazil. Directed by Daniel Filho, the film dramatized Xavier's life.[4]
On October 3, 2012, the SBT television TV show O Maior Brasileiro de Todos os Tempos named Chico Xavier "The Greatest Brazilian of all time", based on a viewer-supported survey.[5]

Source: Wikipedia

Quote :

spiritism (spiritualism )

Spiritism or spiritualism is the belief that the human personality survives death and can communicate with the living through a sensitive medium. The spiritualist movement began in 1848 in upstate New York with the Fox sisters who claimed that spirits communicated with them by rapping on tables. (The "raps" were actually made by cracking their toe joints.) By the time the sisters admitted their fraud some thirty years later, there were tens of thousands of mediums holding séances where spirits entertained with numerous magical tricks such as making sounds, materializing objects, making lights glow, levitating tables and moving objects across the room. The mediums demonstrated every variety of psychic power from clairvoyance and clairaudience to telekinesis and telepathy. Repeated charges of fraud did little to stop the spiritualist movement until the 1920's when magicians such as Houdini exposed the techniques and methods of deceit used by mediums to fool even the wisest and holiest of men and women.

The Hollywood version of séances is fairly accurate: people sitting around a table, holding hands in a darkened room, a faked trance by the medium who passes on to the group any information given by the spirit, often accompanied by tricks such as the levitating table, mysterious sounds, materializing objects, etc. For many, spiritualism was "scientific proof" of life after death, which didn't involve any of the superstitious non-sense of religion.

Spiritism was and is a worldwide phenomenon. In Italy, Eusapia Palladino was a star medium. In France, Hippolyte Leon Denizard Rivail was the main promoter of spiritualism. He wrote under the pseudonym of Allan Kardec and introduced the word 'spiritism'. In Germany, Anna Abend gained notoriety for swindling people in many nations. In Brazil, Chico Xavier amassed a large following, while claiming to get messages from the dead. James van Praagh, George Anderson, Sylvia Browne, Allison DuBois, and John Edward may think they have cornered the market on the dead, but these folks are tyros compared to Chico Xavier who died in in 2002 at the age of 92. Xavier published over 500 books of messages from the dead. Xavier sold 20 million copies of a book of poems he claimed were dictated to him by spirits. That was in 1932. When he died, his city and state declared three days of official mourning. According to Ronaldo Cordeiro (the Brazilian translator of the SD into Portuguese), letters from dead people allegedly channeled by Xavier were accepted by Brazilian courts as valid evidence in at least 2 murder trials.

Progress can be seen in the history of spiritism. In the beginning, such things as raps and taps had to be deciphered. Slates and talking boards with messages from the dead came next. As detection was inevitable with any of these cumbersome methods, it soon behooved the mediums to dispense with all such gadgetry and claim to get messages directly from the spirits. The messages would either be spoken, as in channeling, or written, as in automatic writing.

Source: Skeptic's Dictionary

That woman with a bed sheet in her head is supposed to be some kind of ghost materialization and Chico Xavier is the one with sunglasses. Btw...those things coming out of the guy's mouth are supposed to be ectoplasm discharges.
I'm not kidding