The real problem of the Spiritist Movement

Translations, from Portuguese, are automatic. If you notice any errors in the text, help us identify them, clicking here.

Let us return to the Spiritist Movement in Kardec's time, according to the "Statistics of Spiritism" published in the Spiritist Review of 1869:

: Roman Catholics, freethinkers, not bound by dogma, 50%; ─ Greek Catholics, 15%; ─ Jews, 10%; ─ liberal Protestants, 10%; ─ Catholics linked to dogmas, 10%; ─ Orthodox Protestants, 3%; ─ Muslims, 2%.

From the beginning, the Spiritist Movement has been heterogeneous in terms of the religious origins of its participants. This has never been a problem. No one needs to renounce their religious identity to study a science. The real problem lies in the loss of unity of knowledge within that science.

With Kardec, Spiritism possessed a clear definition, well-defined principles, and a vigorous defense of its method of observation, comparison, and control of intelligent manifestations. After his death, the science was distorted, the method abandoned, and the principles betrayed. In Brazil, in particular, the name Spiritism was hijacked to designate a syncretic religion, marked by mysticism, fatalism, and mediumistic idolatry—whose “Vatican” goes by the name of the [Non-]Spiritist Brazilian Federation.

We need to stop shifting blame. The problem with the Spiritist Movement is not, in essence, Catholicism or Protestantism. The central deviation is Roustainguist. Religious dogmatism, yes, contaminated the Movement, but only because it found fertile ground within it: Spiritists who, lacking intellectual autonomy, rigorous study, and critical thinking, allowed themselves to be led by human authorities and abandoned the scientific model proposed by Kardec.

In the past, this might have been excusable, since the Spiritist Review was only translated into Portuguese in the 1960s. There also wasn't the same ease of access to knowledge as there is today. Today—and for some time now—this is no longer tenable. There is no plausible excuse other than a pure lack of willingness to study the Doctrine as it truly is, instead wasting time on systematizing ideas gleaned from NOVELS (sic!).

This is the real problem. It's not about external factors, but about the doctrinal cowardice of those who call themselves Spiritists and don't dare to study, evoke, analyze, and confront errors—as Kardec did, with courage and method—as many others also did, whether they were freethinkers, Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Muslims, etc.

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