The appropriation of a ritual as a strategy of expansion:

the case of baptism in Allan Kardec’s spiritism in Argentina, 1880-1890

Abstract

This article analyzes, from the perspective of religion anthropology, a baptism ritual celebrated in a Kardecist spiritualist center in Argentina in the late 19th century, and the discourses in favor of and against it by two spiritualist publications. The controversies are studied in order to understand the function and significance of baptism within the spiritualist movement, in the late 19th century. The ritual was used as a mechanism for expansion in a predominantly Catholic nation. The article also analyzes the origin of this practice, exposing that it was one of the consequences of a controversy that occurred as a result of a schism in the spiritualist movement.