Spiritism is a spiritualistic doctrine codified in the 19th century by the French educator Hippolyte Léon Denizard Rivail, under the codename Allan Kardec, later called the Kardecist Spiritualism Doctrine, it proposed the study of "the nature, origin, and destiny of spirits, and their relation with the corporeal world". Spiritism soon spread to other countries, having today 35 countries represented in the International Spiritist Council.