I’m very interested in world religions and have been reading about various neo-African Yoruba descended religious practices in and around the Caribbean, particularly Haitian Vodou, Louisiana Voodoo, Santeria, and Candomble/Umbanda. Aside from them all having ritual and pantheonic descent from indigenous Yoruban faiths, I keep consistently coming across Spiritism and Allan Kardec. I’ve read a little bit about him, and asked a practitioner and scholar of Afro Brazilian religions about the connection, neither what I’ve read nor the scholar’s explanation provide very much detail into how this seemingly random French dude who was really into contacting the dead manifested his spiritual beliefs into the core of seemingly every Afro-Hispanic/Brazilian religion being practiced today.

What was the process, and how/why Afro Latin religions? I know Espiritismo heavily exists across all Latin America, but why did it practicularly catch on with African religions?