In El Salvador there are not many academic studies on Spiritism. The few texts and references on this subject are often far removed from the academic world. It is possible to intuit that, starting with the Catholic reaction, the presence of spiritism practices was already present from the end of the 19th century, at least in large cities such as San Salvador and Santa Tecla. The diffusion and scope of these spiritism groups in the national territory during this period remains a pending subject for research.

Taking neighbouring countries as a reference, spiritism was established in various places such as Guatemala and Costa Rica. The twentieth century was undoubtedly a time when various collectives flourished in the intellectual groups of Central America. In this way, and following the line of other studies on this subject, throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, theosophy, Freemasonry, spiritism and other currents directly or indirectly confronted the materialism and positivism that were also present in the new nations that emerged after independence. On this point, recent studies show that Spiritism was essential in Central America for the development of certain emancipation ideas. People like Augusto César Sandino were strongly linked to the practices of spiritism and esotericism. However, it is worth mentioning that in 1921 the First Central American Spiritism Congress was held.

In the specific case of El Salvador, the Spiritism Federation of El Salvador was founded in 1956. This is not to say that there was no spiritism in the country before, but the work was of a private nature and its activities were scattered, although a magazine entitled ‘Eres’, an organ of dissemination of the rationalist Salvadorian spiritist school, was published. The first president of the federation was Julio C. Castro. There were around 23 spiritism schools that made up the federation, among them the ‘Humildad de Jesús’ spiritism society and the ‘Hermano Pedro de Betancourt’ spiritism centre.

However, in the 1960s, five schools split and formed what became known as the "Union of Spiritist Schools of El Salvador" on the initiative of Santiago David García. In the 1960s the bulletin ‘Luz’ was published and later the magazine El alba spiritism. It was not until 1992 that the Federation of spiritism schools obtained its legal status, its president being Dr. René Augusto Urbina. Thus, at the beginning of the 21st century, the federation had about 8 schools. 

Subsequently, the name of the federation was changed and today it is known as the "Asociación de escuelas espíritas de El Salvador" (Association of Spiritism Schools of El Salvador).