Once upon a time... Hippolyte Léon Denizard Rivail

Reading...Litlle story

A long time ago... a boy was born, on 3rd October 1804, in a country called France, far away from here, in Lyon. He was called Hippolyte Léon Denizard Rivail, a rather difficult name since he was French.

The boy grew up to be well educated, intelligent and good.

When he was ten years old, his parents sent him to another country – Switzerland – to the city of Yverdun, to continue his studies. Yverdun was a meeting point for children from all over the world, since it had one of the best schools at the time. It was a school that ensured the children and youth became responsible and useful in society.  Rivail became a great teacher. When he moved to Paris, the French capital, he began teaching many youngsters at his house, free of charge, since they couldn’t afford to go to school.

As a result of Rivail’s extensive studies, he learnt to speak many other languages other than his mother tongue French.

Around 1831, something very fortunate took place. He met Amélie Gabrielle Boudet, whom he married a year later. She was also a teacher.

Rivail and his wife worked very hard. He wrote school books, among many other things, thus becoming well-known and respected.

When he was about 50 years old, he became aware, through a friend, that a couple of strange things were occurring in the city. His friend told him that in a certain meeting he attended, objects started moving around and even a table spoke at some point.

With his vast knowledge and research, Rivail found that very weird. However, his friend finally convinced him to attend one of the meetings.

At the meeting, Rivail saw for the first time the tables moving on their own. Moreover, various objects, such as vases, flowers and hats levitated through the air, without any support.

The teacher wondered what was the cause for this, since the people there clearly didn’t have anything to do with it. Therefore, he started to research and attend the weekly meetings, eager to find out what was behind all that.

First of all, there was a special method to communicate with the table. When it hit the floor once with one of its legs, that meant ‘no’ and twice meant ‘yes’. A convention was later made for the alphabet, with the first letter being one hit, the second one two hits and so on. Afterwards, to make this process a bit faster, one person dictated the letters of the alphabet and the table hit on the floor when the desired letter was spoken. This way, a conversation could be established.


It was then that Rivail asked who made the table move and obtained the following answer:

- It’s us spirits.

Continuing with the dialogue, the spirits revealed that they were nothing more than the souls of men who had already left their bodies. They were not ghosts. They simply did not have a physical body. They had died, as we understand it.

In the same way, Rivail found out that when people died, they continued to live on, but with another body. Spirits also told him that he had lived other lives himself and was once known as Allan Kardec.

Following on with these conversations and annotating the answers, analysing and studying them, Rivail compiled all the teachings into a book: ‘The Spirit’s Book’, which was published. Since he was well known for the books he wrote as a teacher and it was not him, but the spirits, who actually dictated the book, he decided to name ‘Allan Kardec’ as the author, which is the name we know him by.

In conclusion, Spiritism is a doctrine revealed by spirits and compiled into a book by Allan Kardec.

Allan Kardec disincarnated on 31st March 1869.

Rivail’s wife continued to work to propagate the Spiritist doctrine for some years, until she disincarnated.

Apostila de Evangelização Infantil - Federação Espírita do Paraná - 

1º Ciclo de Infância - Unidade V = Espiritismo

Spiritism Evangelisation for the Youth
Claudia Werdine (translated from Portuguese by Fabricio Marques)
Thanks Claudia Werdine