“"The True Face of Spiritism": an expectation proportionate to the accusation.
Project preparation “"The True Face of Spiritism"”, The announcement by the Dom Bosco Center naturally raises expectations. And this expectation is directly proportional to the seriousness of the announced proposal.
If someone sets out to reveal the "true face" of an entire doctrine, especially a doctrine built upon extensive written work, comparative methods, and systematic investigation, then an equally extensive, rigorous, and intellectually honest effort is expected.
In the case of Spiritism, this means a serious analysis of the 23 works by Allan Kardec that comprise the fundamental body of Spiritist science. Not isolated fragments, phrases taken out of context, criticisms directed at the modern "Spiritist movement" as if this automatically invalidated the doctrine organized by Kardec. The target of the criticism, if the book's title intends to be intellectually consistent, needs to be the original doctrinal structure.
Therefore, we eagerly await the publication of the work.
We expect to find in it nothing less than a broad, rational, and documented demonstration that, throughout these works, Spiritism teaches something objectively evil. Something contrary to good, to morality, to human elevation.
A clear demonstration is expected that Spiritism:
- Encourage selfishness;
- Discourage genuine charity;
- promote cruelty;
- encourage material attachment;
- foster pride;
- Destroy moral responsibility;
- Legitimize hatred;
- Encourage exploration of others;
- lead people into moral vice;
- despise human brotherhood.
Because that is precisely the level of proof required when accusing a moral doctrine of possessing a dark or perverse "true face," as the Dom Bosco Center insists on maintaining.
The accusations are simple. The difficulty has always been to substantiate with documentation that a doctrine whose moral foundation continually insists on charity, responsibility, and moral improvement is, in essence, something contrary to good.
There is yet another distinction that is frequently ignored: it is one thing to criticize practices, exaggerations, mysticism, personalism, or distortions present in sectors of the modern Spiritist movement. It is quite another to demonstrate that the Kardecian codification, in its original structure, possesses a negative moral essence.
Confusing these two things is a basic logical error. It would be equivalent to judging a scientific theory solely by the deviations of some of its adherents, without examining its foundations.
Furthermore, any intellectually serious critique of Spiritism would need to confront an unavoidable historical point: Allan Kardec did not present Spiritism as a personal creation or individual revelation. Kardec himself repeatedly insisted that Spiritism was a set of observed facts, methodically organized through the universal comparison of teachings attributed to spirits. Whether one agrees with this premise or not, honest criticism must first correctly understand what it intends to refute; otherwise, the debate ceases to be analysis and becomes mere caricature.
Therefore, the expectation surrounding “"The True Face of Spiritism"” It is legitimate. Such a strong title demands proportionally solid content. If the book truly addresses, in a comprehensive, documented, and contextualized manner, the 23 fundamental works of Spiritist science, then it will have produced something relevant for the debate of ideas. But if it resorts only to excerpts, simplifications, emotional associations, peripheral episodes, confusion between doctrine and movement, or rhetorical attacks without a global examination of Kardec's work, then it will end up like all the others: falling into ridicule. We await further developments.