Conscientiology

Conscientiology is a dissident movement from Spiritism, of a pseudoscientific nature, founded by Brazilian physician and medium Waldo Vieira. It proposes the integral study of consciousness, advocating for belief in parapsychic phenomena – such as out-of-body experiences – and in the seriality of life through reincarnation. According to this perspective, consciousness (also called ego, soul, or spirit) is said to have an independent existence that transcends biological life. Self-described as an "unconventional science," Conscientiology adopts the so-called "consciential paradigm," which values subjective approaches and personal experimentation over traditional scientific methodology. The movement emerged from Projectiology, a more applied subfield, and both share the same paradigm, often being treated as parts of a single system in their literature. Conscientiology employs a series of scientistic neologisms, such as "ressoma" (reactivation of the soma/physical body) as a replacement for the term "reincarnation". Although some of the scarce scientific literature classifies it as a religious phenomenon – situated within the context of the New Age or post-traditional religiosities – and identifies its scientistic discourse as a continuation of Allan Kardec's theodicy, its adherents reject any religious connotation, presenting it strictly as a study and research proposal.