It is a false concept, although widespread, to say that there is a plan in everything. If so, we would not have free will.

When it is said that even a leaf that falls is under the will of God, it means to say that everything is under his Laws, which are perfect. However, there is no direct effect of the will of God that determines that, at that moment, the leaf will fall or not fall.

Well then: we, as Spirits, before entering the realm of conscience and choice, are guided solely by instinct. It is he who guides us, for example, when we are animals: hunger makes us look for food, anger helps us to kill the animal that will serve as food and fear keeps us away from dangerous conditions. When we are an animal outside the top of the chain, many times we are killed to serve as food for another animal (see: there is no harm in that, but good, because we are following the Law of God). After death, the Spirit of the animal, which still lacks self-awareness and the ability to choose and, therefore, does not suffer morally, is very quickly reused in another animal that is born.

After entering the realm of free will, we progressively choose our lives, planning them in general terms. If I was very attached to jealousy, which causes me difficulties and suffering, once we understand this, we choose a way of life that will provide us with possibilities to deal with this imperfection. Friendly spirits participate in this planning who, throughout life, help us, influencing us, inspiring us and often leading us to situations that may be useful to ourselves.

All this was necessary to highlight: we are Spirits living incarnations in dense matter. We are therefore subject to spiritual laws and the laws of matter. The latter make us exposed to the conditions of matter, such as, for example, a torrential rain that causes a commotion in a mountain, that comes down on the houses, a volcano that explodes, an earthquake that generates a devastating tsunami or, still, a comet that hits the planet and destroys it completely. The idea of “collective karma”, therefore, is FALSE (in fact, the idea of karma, as we know it, is false).

From another point of view, we are also subject to the choices of other incarnate Spirits. See: God and the superior spirits respect the free will and time of men. This is why there is no divine interruption of a war, nor of a small-scale crime. Of course, good spirits try to dissuade bad choices through their influences, but in the end, man is the one who chooses to listen to them (or to his own conscience) or not. On the other hand, a person who is leading himself into a situation where he becomes a victim may also try to be inspired, if possible, to deviate from it. How many individuals escape accidents and crimes because of a dream or an insistent thought, or even through an event that causes them to get in the way?

Of course, this is not a concession to special people. We all have good spirits who love us, without exception, but we are often too far away from their influences or turn a deaf ear to their suggestions.

One more logical observation that we make is that when a person dies from a crime, he is NEVER “paying” for something from the past (but he may, of course, have been the victim of his own carelessness, when, for example, he gets into a criminal or dangerous environment of their own volition).

Finally, we arrive at the realization: the genre and the time of death can, yes, be planned before the incarnation of the Spirit, but the course of life can, of course, change this planning. There is no predetermined destiny, because if there were, we would be mere puppets in the theater of life. We can change our plans – and we often do. We can even create a disease, by our actions, that kills us sooner than planned, and we can also get rid of a disease or condition that would take us at a young age, if a series of conditions allow (and it is NOT part of these conditions what they call of "deserving".

Think of that person who crosses the street without looking: it is not a Spirit that impels him to such an act, but his own carelessness, a bad habit. Through this bad habit, he may, at any moment, encounter a car speeding along or a driver looking the other way, and he may crash and die. Think, too, of the parachutist who jumps out of an airplane, putting his life on a parachute. Instinct tells him to be afraid to do it, but his will, the fruit of choice, falsifies that instinct, and he, anyway, launches himself. If the parachute fails and he dies, it was not God who wanted it that way, nor a Spirit who spoiled the parachute, but the laws of matter themselves.

We believe that this thought was clear, but we close by highlighting what Kardec presents in Practical instructions on spiritist manifestations:

FATALITY — from Latin. fatalites, in fatum, destiny. Inevitable fate. A doctrine that supposes that all the events of life and, by extension, all our acts, are predestined and subject to a law from which we cannot escape. There are two kinds of fatality: one arising from external causes, which can affect us and react on us; we could call it reactive, exterior, eventual fatality; the other, which originates in ourselves, determines all our actions; it is personal fatality. In the absolute sense of the word, fatality transforms man into a machine, without initiative or free will and, consequently, without responsibility. It is the negation of all morality.

According to the spiritist doctrine, by choosing its new existence, the Spirit practices an act of freedom. The events of life are the consequence of choice and are related to the social position of existence. If the spirit must be reborn in a servile condition, the environment in which it finds itself will create events very different from those that would present itself if it had to be rich and powerful. But whatever that condition may be, he retains free will in all the acts of his will, and he will not be fatally drawn to do this or that, nor to suffer this or that accident. Due to the chosen type of struggle, he has the possibility of being led to certain acts or encountering certain obstacles, but it is not said that this must happen infallibly, or that he cannot avoid it through his prudence and his will. That's why God gives you the ability to reason. It is the same as if you were a man who, in order to reach a goal, had three paths to choose from: the mountain, the plain or the sea. In the first, the possibility of finding rocks and precipices; in the second swamps; in the third, storms. But it is not said that it will be crushed by a stone, that it will get stuck in the marsh, or that it will be shipwrecked here and not there. The choice of path itself is not fatal, in the absolute sense of the word: man will instinctively take the path in which he must find the chosen test. If you have to fight the waves, your instinct will not lead you to take the mountain path.

According to the type of tests chosen by the Spirit, man is exposed to certain vicissitudes. As a result of these same vicissitudes, he is subjected to drags from which he must escape. He who commits a crime is not fatally driven to commit it: he has chosen a path of struggle that can excite him to it; if you yield to temptation, it is through weakness of your will. Thus, free will exists for the Spirit in the errant state, in the choice it makes of the tests to which it must submit, and it exists in the condition of being incarnated in the acts of corporeal life. Only the moment of death is fatal: because the kind of death is still a consequence of the nature of the tests chosen.

Why, of course! Jesus was neither a demagogue nor a hypocrite when he called us “brothers”. He demonstrated that he was like us, an evolving Spirit.

This is a fundamental postulate of the science of Spirits: all of us, without exception, were created simple and ignorant and, from there, we followed the path of evolution. When and where, only God knows. Since God is the sovereign justice and Love in essence, he could not create privileged, full and evolved creatures, while creating others to suffer. This is a very ancient dogma taught mainly by the Roman Church, which we will not go into, given the extent of its discussion.

Everything that is exposed here is abundantly postulated in Kardec's works, with great clarity and rationality, and it is possible to find the necessary bases already in The Spirits' Book.

The fact that we highlight here is that nobody evolves in a straight line towards God. This is a false concept. The evolution of any Spirit goes through the same steps, passing through all kingdoms, including that of the animal, and then, upon entering the realm of consciousness, acquiring free will, that is, the ability to choose.

However, how can the Spirit choose in the face of a situation it has never faced before? It's impossible. He acts, obtaining a result that can be a mistake or a success. So, the next time you face the same situation, having already some knowledge of the result according to your way of acting, you can choose to act the same way again, or you can try to act in another way, which can make you right or wrong again.

While the Spirit is trying, it's making progress. The error that is born of the attempt is not a sin, but only an error. He is not committing evil, but good, for he had no basis for his own judgment on how to act. It's how much he spends choose act wrong, for whatever reasons, that the mistake becomes a habit and then becomes an imperfection.

Kardec, in A Genesis (chapter III), concludes:

“He who does not control his passions can be very intelligent, but at the same time, very bad. Instinct annihilates itself; passions can only be tamed by the effort of the will.”

However, that chapter ends here, in the 5th edition of this work, which, today we know, has strong indications of having been tampered with. Taking the 4th edition, we have the following closing, VERY IMPORTANT:

All men go through passions. Those who have overcome them, and are not, by nature, proud, ambitious, selfish, spiteful, vindictive, cruel, wrathful, sensual, and do good without effort, without premeditation and, so to speak, involuntarily, it is because they have progressed in the sequence. of their previous existences, having rid themselves of this uncomfortable weight. It is unfair to say that they have less merit when they do good, compared to those who fight against their tendencies. It turns out that they have already achieved victory, while the others have not yet. But when they do, they will be like the others. They will do good without thinking about it, like children who read fluently without having to spell. It is as if they were two sick people: one cured and full of strength while the other is still recovering and hesitates to walk; or as two runners, one of which is closer to the finish than the other.

Therefore, Jesus also went through the same path, including wrong and right. He is just a Spirit that has already run the entire scale, while we are still at the beginning of it, making efforts to get out of the third order of the classification of the Spirit Scale. Today, if a Spirit at the beginning of its life could evaluate us, we would think that we are demigods and would judge how wonderful the few deeds we can perform.

Far from this thought lowering Jesus, it elevates him and, at the same time, gives us hope, as it demonstrates that a Spirit who has already walked this entire path of evolution, through a free gesture of kindness and charity, has returned to teach us. One day we will be working with him, but let's not forget that, from now on, we can also make a difference in people's lives, without expecting anything in return.

During the nineteenth century, what we call the human sciences were established from a spiritualist assumption for their constitution. Meanwhile, in the natural sciences, such as Physics and Chemistry, materialism predominated. This condition is very different from what we are used to today, when the university is almost completely guided by materialistic thinking.

[originally posted on https://espirito.org.br/autonomia/livros-tratado-de-filosofia-paul-janet/]

This current of thought was known as rational spiritualism. For it was completely independent of formal religions and their dogmas. The fundamental basis was psychology, science of the soul, which had as a guideline: “The human being is an incarnate soul”.

As is explained at length in the book Autonomy, the untold story of Spiritism, Allan Kardec made psychology the conceptual basis for developing the Spiritist Doctrine. His monthly newspaper was the Spiritist Magazine, journal of psychological studies.

Rational Spiritualism was taught since 1830 at the University of Paris, also at the Ecole Normale, where teachers were trained, and also at the Lyceums, in the education of young people. For these, there were manuals, like Paul Janet's. This manual has been translated into several languages and adopted in many countries, including Brazil.

This manual is of fundamental importance to understand the conceptual basis of Kardec's studies, especially regarding spiritist morals.

The first division of the sciences, presented in the treatise on philosophy, by Paul Janet, work in two volumes, which can be downloaded here, according to the structure in force in Sorbonne University, in the 19th century, was between:

• a) The exact sciences or mathematics.
• b) The natural sciences, which study the objects of the physical world (physics, chemistry, biology, etc.).
• c) The moral sciences, which study the moral world, which comprises the actions and thoughts of the human race.

The moral sciences, in turn, were divided into four groups:

1) The philosophical sciences, divided into two classes: psychological (psychology, logic, morals, aesthetics) and metaphysical (theodicy, rational psychology, rational cosmology).

2) The historical sciences (history, archeology, epigraphy, numismatics, geography) study human events and development over time.

3) The philological sciences (philology, etymology, paleography, etc.), whose object is language and human symbolic expression.

4) The social and political sciences (politics, jurisprudence, political economy), which study the social life of human beings (JANET, 1885, p. 15-17).

The last three classes of the moral sciences (historical, philological and social) deal with moral facts or phenomena that are external to the human being, seen from the objective point of view. But, considering the human spirit “the set of the intellectual and moral faculties of man, such as they manifest themselves internally in each of us”, everything that concerns the I, an interior principle conscious of itself, is the subjective point of view, or “study of the soul itself” (JANET, 1885, p. 17). Hence a group of sciences called psychological sciences. They adopt the methodology of introspection and were a development of the scientific school started by Maine de Biran. However, to support the psychological study from a spiritual perspective, the conceptual bases of this paradigm needed to become an object of research, comprising a science of man (human spirit) and a science of first causes, or metaphysics. These are the objects of the philosophical sciences.

See more details at work Autonomy, the untold story of Spiritism.

Rare are the beliefs and even superstitions that, over the millennia, have no basis in truth. In fact, Allan Kardec has always tried to show that the truth has always been in the history of humanity, transmitted through all times, but that it was only muffled by the characteristic errors of human ignorance and also by the dogmas purposely created to control consciences.

In “Practical Instructions on Spiritist Manifestations”, Kardec defines it this way:

MAGIC, MAGE — from gr. mageia, deep knowledge of nature; whence magi, sage, scientist trained in magic; priest, sage and philosopher among the ancient Persians. Originally magic was the science of the sages; all those who knew astrology, who boasted of foretelling the future, who did extraordinary and incomprehensible things to the common people, were magicians or sages who were later called magicians. Abuse and quackery discredited magic; but all the phenomena that we reproduce today through magnetism, somnambulism and spiritism prove that magic was not a purely chimerical art and that, among many absurdities, there was certainly much that was true. The vulgarization of these phenomena has the effect of destroying the prestige of those who once operated under the cloak of secrecy and abused credulity, attributing an alleged supernatural power to themselves. Thanks to this vulgarization, today we know that there is nothing supernatural and that certain things only seem to derogate from the laws of nature because we do not know their causes.

Magic in Ancient Egypt

One of the greatest examples of this were the Egyptians, who were deeply knowledgeable about mediumship and many of the truths that Spiritism professes today. However, this knowledge was reserved for the initiates — the priests, in general — and, to the public, the mystical image of terrible and vengeful gods and a false superhuman power attributed to priests and pharaohs was passed on. The same structure was copied by other religions that followed.

The Egyptians also practiced the various rituals of magic (heka) which, far from the negative meaning that the West makes of the word, was one of the gifts granted by the god (in lower case because their belief was not exactly like ours, in a single, sovereign God, etc):

Well attended are men, the cattle of the god. He made heaven and earth for your sake, repelled the water monster, and made the breath of life (to) your nose. He shines in the sky because of you, and he made plants, cattle, birds, and fish for them (everything) to feed them. (however) he killed his enemies and destroyed even his own children when they tried to
rebel. He made daylight for your sake and sails (in the sky) for you to see. He erected […] his sanctuary among them, and when they cry he hears. He made them rulers in the egg, guides to lift the backs of the weak. He made magic [heka] for them as a weapon to deflect the blow of what happens (bad), watching over them day and night. killed the
traitors who were among them as a man beats his son for his brother's sake, for the god knows every name.

(ARAÚJO, 2000, p. 291. Our emphasis)((ARAÚJO, Emanuel. Written for Eternity: literature in pharaonic Egypt.
Brasília: UnB, 2000.)).

The Magic Among the Druids

Both the Egyptians and practically all peoples had their practices of magic. The same happened among the Druids, people in charge of counseling and teaching tasks and legal and philosophical guidance in Celtic society. In general, it can be said that they were priests and sages. They existed since before Christ, more than 3000 years ago.

One of the most legendary mages of all, Merlin, would have also been a Druid.

Considered as witches and sorcerers, full of rituals that would even include human sacrifices (which to date has not been proven) — the reason why they were largely exterminated by the Romans — the druids were, in fact, a priestly class that lived among nature and that gathered from it the elements necessary for their rituals, among them healing.

The magic for millennia

The ideas of magic or healing, as we said, perhaps permeated all people, at all times. In Brazil, we have healers, sorcerers and shamans, among the indigenous peoples and, more recently, faith healers, as well as Wicca, born in Europe, and countless other denominations that, wrapped in dogmas, rituals and particular beliefs, have, in deep down, the belief in the power of prayer (or formulas) and nature to cure illnesses — and they believe, some of them, to cast an evil spell against others. Wiccans, for example, going (to some extent) in the direction of Mesmer's Magnetism, which we will present below, believe that magic is the law of nature still misunderstood or ignored by contemporary science ((Valiente, Doreen (1973). An ABC of Witchcraft Past and Present. [Sl]: Hale. 231 pages)), and as such, they do not see it as being supernatural, but as being a part of the “super powers that reside in the natural”.

Mesmer's Magnetism

Kardec would say that “unshakable faith is the only faith that can face reason face to face, in all ages of Humanity“. Let us, therefore, take care to make an approximation with the science that already exists regarding these beliefs.

Mesmer came into conflict with the science of his time, which, in order to explain everything that could not be analyzed by devices and human senses, created the theory of fluids (for the scientists of the time, electricity would be a fluid, as well as magnetism and even life). For him - which later was confirmed by Spiritism and by current science — there was the Universal Cosmic Fluid, which gave rise to everything. Each different state of matter, even that which was intangible and imperceptible, would only be a different constitution of this original fluid, vibrating at a different frequency (this is exactly what modern physics explains, more than 200 years after Mesmer's theory).

According to Mesmer's theory - and spiritist science - the human being is capable, by will, of interacting on what became known as perispiritual fluid, which constitutes the link between Spirit and matter.

the perispirit

The perispirit, as concluded by Kardec, connects to the body molecule by molecule((KARDEC, Allan. A Gênesis. 2nd Edition. FEAL, 2018)) (in fact, cell by cell, but at that time there was no such organic knowledge) and, through the action of thought, through this intrinsic connection, it influences you positively or negatively, being able to obtain cures or create illnesses. It is the principle of illnesses psychosomatic and, in the background, of placebo effect, for which modern science cannot find a definitive explanation precisely because it ignores the sciences of Magnetism and Spiritism, which they call superstitious.

It should be noted that the perispirit is a theory based not only on everything that great thinkers have always conceived, including Socrates and Plato — and Mesmer himself — but also on reason and the observation of phenomena and spiritist communications, as presented. on here. Kardec would say, in The Mediums' Book:

Numerous observations and irrefutable facts, of which we will speak later, have led to the consequence that there are three components in man: 1st, the soul, or Spirit, intelligent principle, where the moral sense has its seat; 2nd, the body, a gross, material covering, which he temporarily clothed himself in, in fulfillment of certain providential designs; 3rd, the perispirit, a fluidic, semi-material envelope that serves as a link between the soul and the body.

[…]

The perispirit is not one of those hypotheses that science usually uses to explain a fact. Its existence was not only revealed by the Spirits, it is the result of observations, as we will have the opportunity to demonstrate. For now, and as we do not anticipate the facts that we are about to relate, we will limit ourselves to saying that, whether during its union with the body, or after separating from it, the soul is never disconnected from its body. perispirit.

In A Genesis, Kardec concludes:

Experimental Spiritism studied the properties of spiritual fluids and their action
about the matter. It has demonstrated the existence of the perispirit, about which there were suspicions since antiquity, being called by São Paulo Spiritual Body, that is, the fluidic body of the soul after the destruction of the tangible body. We now know that this sheath is inseparable from the soul; which is one of the constitutive elements of the human being; which is the vehicle for the transmission of thought and which, during the life of the body, serves as a link between Spirit and matter. The perispirit plays such an important role in the organism and in many conditions that it is linked to both Physiology and Psychology.

The perispirit is not, therefore, a theory, nor even a hypothesis, for Spiritism. Follows Kardec, in the same work, stating that…

As a means of elaboration, Spiritism proceeds in the same way as the Sciences
positive, that is, it applies the experimental method. When new facts are presented which cannot be explained by means of known laws, he observes them, compares them, analyzes them and, going back from the effects to the causes, arrives at the law that governs them; then it deduces its consequences and looks for its useful applications. It does not establish any preconceived theory. Thus, it does not present as a hypothesis neither the existence, nor intervention of the Spirits, nor even the perispirit, reincarnation or any other principle of the doctrine.. It concludes for the existence of spirits when it became evident by observation of the facts, and it has proceeded in the same way in relation to the other principles. It was not, therefore, the facts that later came to confirm the theory, but the theory that came later to explain and summarize the facts. It is therefore strictly accurate to say that Spiritism is a Science of observation, and not the product of imagination..

Cures, passes, black magic and sorcery

Here, however, it is necessary to make a very important observation, based on the two sciences mentioned above: since animal magnetism is not a transference of fluids, but an action of the will on perispiritual fluids, it is essential that the other end share the will and acceptance so that this interaction prolonged come true.

When Mesmer and many of his disciples healed, this action took place through countless hours of approaching the patient, from the sympathy of ideas and, figuratively, of energies and, then, the treatment, almost always through passes, started for long hours, and could be carried out periodically, in order to achieve the result. The patient, at this stage, made himself totally available and in favor of the cure, which, not infrequently, took place in a remarkable way. Then, Spiritism came to demonstrate that these cures are almost always associated with kind spirits who help in the process.

Of course, Mesmer's entire theory did not fail to create scathing enemies, but this is a topic for dedicated reading by the reader ((FIGUEIREDO, Paulo Henrique de. Ibidem)).

In the same way as with healing, black magic and sorcery rituals (which, in fact, are the action of the will - although maleficent - on the perispiritual fluid, with or without the participation of inferior spirits) depend inexorably on the acceptance of the counterparty for the influence to be fulfilled. See that, in any case, it is not a fluid that is transferred from one to another, but the effect of the mental action of one on the other. That's why, simply and correctly, the saying “if you don't believe it, don't take it” is accurate.

I go further: you know that idea that words of hate are a jet of negative energy that hits the other? It's also a myth. The other is only contaminated with the bad state if he allows it, and what happens is not that he lets an energy in, but that he himself creates the “bad energy”.

We see, therefore, that, with regard to "black magic", to begin by dissolving superstition is the first good that is done. The creature who doesn't even believe that already puts himself a foot away from this influence. However, it remains to be said that the vibration, here, enters with great propriety: the individual who, mentally, moves away from the good, either by ostensible action in evil, or by the cultivation of passions and imperfections, places his perispirit (being matter, but in a state quintessential) in a vibratory state susceptible of being influenced by the thoughts of other Spirits in the same tune, incarnate or disincarnate. Therefore, if the individual is in this state, he will not receive an influx of magic as if it were something tangible, but, through the action of someone else's thought, he will be able to influence himself. In fact, it is not even necessary to resort to magic for this: people influence each other, positively or negatively, day after day.

Is everything energy?

This statement is extremely common: we are energy. However, before proceeding, we have to say: not everything is energy.

Neither God nor Spirits are energy. Energy is something physical. God is something else, and Spirit is something else yet. If they were energy, they would be matter and, therefore, would be subject to the transformations of matter, including disaggregation and, therefore, would have an end. But we know that the Spirit is immortal and that God, in addition to being immortal, also does not have a beginning.

That's why anything that which is material has an influence on the Spirit, unless he believes it. By the same principle, nothing that is spiritual has direct action on matter. If this were not the case, it would be very easy for an evil Spirit to carry out a materially harmful action on an incarnate person, including creating diseases and installing control “chips”. We emphasize: all this is nothing more than superstition, and it is in this sense, so well understood here, that, in The Spirits’ Book, the following is stated:

Can a bad man, with the help of a bad spirit dedicated to him, harm his neighbor?

551. Can a bad man, with the help of a bad Spirit dedicated to him, harm his neighbor?

— "No; God would not allow it.”

KARDEC, Allan. The Spirits' Book, 1860

“God would not allow it” contains all the explanations given so far: a bad man, with or without the help of a bad spirit, cannot do evil against another, through spells, spells or conjurations. "It is the law of God."

We would say, however: “but a man can harm another by direct, even physical means”. This seems logical... But, if we think more deeply, even this harm done physically, such as, for example, a wound by a weapon or even death, can only represent harm to its victim if it allows itself to be harmed. Now, the other performs an action, far from good, through ignorance that he is doing evil to himself. As much as it hurts, it is my choice to let myself be affected by this action, allowing myself to linger over thoughts of anger, anguish, revolt, revenge, etc., which is when I myself do evil to myself. see what thought liberator!

Want a practical example? Let us think of Jesus: from our point of view, we have done him a lot of harm. From his point of view, however, nothing we did hit him, and he suffered no harm other than physical pain, for his degree of spiritual elevation no longer made him susceptible to anything they did. Here's our goal.

Flushing baths, coarse salt, herbs and amulets

Arriving at this point, we assume that the principle of “energetic” action between incarnated beings and the principle of the inexistence of an energetic action between Spirits and incarnated beings, and vice versa, is already quite clear. It became evident that no Spiritual action, whether by an incarnated or disembodied Spirit, can directly affect another incarnated individual (and it remains to rule out that the action between disincarnated Spirits is always moral and depends on the acceptance of the other). Therefore, recommending any material devices to attract or repel these influences is almost entirely a waste of time, since what is wanted is that the affected party rationally takes a firm stand against the influences of extraneous thought, which only happens. with the active moral transformation of the individual.

But what about the placebo effect? Of course, we don't rule it out. A person can, yes, believing in the power of an amulet or an herb, or even a bodily cleansing, or the environment, assume a different, more positive and active attitude and, from there, remove the previous influences. However, let's see, here is the will of that person, and not the supposed strength of those elements, which promoted the modification of his state. However, there is a very negative side to this aspect: being motivated by superstitious and unscientific beliefs, the person can often forget the main thing, that the modification itself, granting the desired effect to the action of these elements and, thus, prolonging his own suffering.

And, even clearer, we are not ruling out the effects physicists that matter has on matter; it is, moreover, the beginning of all that we have said above.

Finally, we can even resort to the much-mentioned action of André Luiz's mentor, in the novel Nosso Lar, que vai à Floresta, in the land, and there supposedly collects elements extracted from the trees to treat of the body of the incarnate individual. We know about the principle of spiritual healing, but it is important to remember that, for this action to be possible - from the collection of natural principles, to application to the sick, the existence of a medium is necessary who, even without consciousness, can provide some fluid specific perispiritual for this task. Who knows, following this theory, this didn't happen through André Luiz's own daughter, who demonstrated latent mediumship?

And does prayer or prayer work?

It depends, because the prayer or prayer must have the intention honest of the individual who recognizes his imperfections, his faults and asks for help to win these difficulties. That is the purpose of prayer. Through it, the individual elevates his thoughts, changes his tune and puts himself in contact with the superior spirits - as long as his intention is honest and true.

However, if prayer is done "with your mouth", a mechanical repetition of "sacred" formulas and if, above all, it transfers responsibility to someone else, whether to God or to a Spirit of any order, it will be ineffective, since the person is not attentive and committed to his own modification. Neither God nor any Spirit do anything for us, if not to inspire and direct us to the situations, contents and knowledge that can help us. That is, they take us to the door, many times, but opening it and entering is something that depends on us, exclusively.

Let's look at an example:

“[…] I now appeal to the 13th dimensional Security Circle to completely seal, protect and increase Michael Archangel's shield, as well as to remove anything that is not of a Christed nature and that currently exists within this field.

I now appeal to the Ascended Masters and our Christed assistants to completely remove and dissolve each and every implant and its seeded energies, parasites, spiritual weapons and self-imposed limitation devices, both known and unknown. Once that is completed, I call for the complete restoration and repair of the original energy field, infused with the golden Christ energy.”

This is an excerpt from the well-known “21-day prayer of Saint Michael the Archangel for spiritual liberation”. Review this excerpt and, if you wish, the rest of it. Compare with everything we have exposed so far. It is full of concepts. false and is based on the heteronomous concept: do it for me.

Therefore, we repeat, to emphasize and conclude: incarnate or disincarnate, all, absolutely all, from evil to cure, depends solely and exclusively on the action of our will. Without her, nothing gets done..

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Much has been said on this topic. Many teach that animals, after death, go to a beautiful spiritual colony, called Rancho Alegre, where the animals would stay together, enjoying the natural beauty of places in the world of Spirits. It sounds beautiful, but it is important to remember that Spiritism cannot be based on ideas that have not been validated by the necessary scientific methodology, because, otherwise, false ideas can generate mistakes, errors and attachments in our minds.

What spiritual science says

Kardec, in The Spirits' Book, presents important concepts about animals:

597. Since animals have an intelligence that gives them a certain freedom of action, is there in them any principle independent of matter?

“There is, and that survives the body.”

The) - Is this principle a soul like that of man?

“It is also a soul, if you will, depending on the meaning given to this word. It is, however, inferior to that of man. There is between the soul of animals and that of man a distance equivalent to that between the soul of man and God.”

598. After death, does the soul of animals retain its individuality and self-consciousness?

“Keep your individuality; about the awareness of your I, no. Intelligent life remains in a latent state.”

599. Is the soul of animals given to choose the animal in which to incarnate?

“No, since he has no free will.”

Animals, therefore, have a soul, or spirit. However, this Spirit, despite not being a machine, still has no consciousness of your own “I”. It does not, therefore, have free will, for it comes with the awareness of God's laws:

621. Where is the law of God written?

“In conscience.”

It is when man acquires conscience that, with it, he acquires free will. Rather, he is ruled by instincts: hunger calls him to eat, fear calls him to protect himself, anger serves to defend himself. By acquiring free will, you have free choice, from which mistakes and successes are born. From mistakes, learning or passion can be born, which is when the individual choose use instinct to strengthen a bad habit that causes you some sort of rejoicing. From this, an imperfection is born, which will be difficult to overcome through incarnations.

Animals have no moral suffering, nor need to reflect on them

The animal, however, is not at that evolutionary level, yet. When the lion kills the zebra, he is not committing evil, but rather good, as he is acting according to God's laws. The animal, therefore, has no guilt, no regret, in short, no moral suffering (although some animals learn, in contact with humans, to show similar reactions). It comes from there the Spirit living the animal phase does not need the period between lives to learn and reflect, because their learning, for now, takes place directly in contact with matter, living under instinct and under some capacity of will that, however, does not represent free will, which puts down the idea of a spiritual colony Rancho Alegre .

600. Surviving the body in which it inhabited, does the soul of the animal find itself, after death, in a state of erraticity, like that of man?

“It remains in a kind of erraticity, since it is no longer united with the body, but it is not a wandering spirit. The Wandering Spirit is a being who thinks and works of his own free will.. The animals do not have the same faculty. Self-awareness is what constitutes the main attribute of the Spirit. The animal's, after death, is classified by the Spirits who are responsible for this task and used almost immediately; he is not given time to enter into relations with other creatures.”

For the human spirit, the period of erraticity, between one incarnation and another, is necessary for its advancement and learning:

227. How are wandering spirits instructed? Right, don't they do it the same way we do?

“They study their past and look for ways to elevate themselves. They see, they observe what happens in the places where they go; they listen to the discourses of enlightened men and the advice of the highest spirits, and all this instills in them ideas that they did not have before.”

We need to return to Kardec

Therefore, friends, let us reflect on the doctrine forgotten by the Brazilian Spiritist Movement. Kardec's books were not created by him, but through the dedicated, organized and methodological study of the universality of the teachings of the Spirits. In the Spiritist Doctrine, there is a construction, where each point is firmly established on another, previously established, by the same process. It is necessary, therefore, to be very careful with the “new people” of Spiritism, almost always speaking of their own opinions. It is important to remember that what people see in a state of sleep or somnambulism (unfolding) does not always represent the truth, and may be altered by personal ideas and beliefs.

Kardec has always highlighted the need to judge everything, in the face of reason and science, something that the Spiritist Movement has not done. This same Movement, voluntarily forgetting this, began to accept spiritual communications and the opinions of prominent mediums as if they were something unquestionable... Which is a huge mistake, since the role of any medium is to transmit the communication, and it is up to others to judge it in terms of its acceptance or not, and it is not up to the medium to be offended by this.

This article, in short, is practically a cry, a plea: let's study Kardec, let's study his works, because the base of the spiritist science, that same base of the reasoned faith, the one that, according to the professor, "... is only the one that can face the reason face to face, in all the epochs of Humanity", is founded there. In short: no, the animals don't go to the Rancho Alegre Spiritual Colony, because they don't need it. In truth, even we, more evolved Spirits, do not need it: it is a myth that, when we die, our Spirits will go to any spiritual colonies, have soup and rest, because the Spirit does not need any of that.

From the newspaper O Tempo:

During the sect, herbs and alcohol were thrown on the child's body. Afterwards, the spiritual leader set her body on fire using a candle. The girl had almost 100% of the body burned. The child's grandparents, an aunt and her mother were at the ritual when the crime took place. The family members were left with burns for trying to put out the fire from Maria Fernanda's body. 

Unfortunately, this is one of the cases that we believed to have been in the past of human bestiality, but that still reproduce today, and even on Brazilian soil. Far from such an act being linked to Spiritism, it is diametrically opposed to it, because, from the study of the Doctrine, it appears that Spirits do not require any type of ritual, and the approach to the case would be totally different.

On the internet, information circulates that the child was sick and that the false spiritual leader would have promised a cure during the ritual, but this information has not yet been confirmed by the Civil Police.

I understand, therefore, that the case in question was a kind of exorcism, a practice condemned by the Spirits themselves:

477. Do exorcism formulas have any effect on evil spirits?

"No. The latter laugh and become obstinate when they see someone taking it seriously.”

The Book of Spirits

Let us not take long to remember, in conclusion, that superstition and mysticism have a very dark side, which is to instill in man the fear of natural things, for him inexplicable. By the action of these beliefs, cats, owls and other animals are killed, believing in “bad omen” and, unfortunately, even children, in irrational and absurd rituals.

Unfortunately, this is yet another case to tarnish the reputation of spiritualists, but also to motivate them to studying Spiritism in order to conquer, in this science, the important knowledge to move away from this type of scabrous situation.

One of the babies that Cristiano Ronaldo's wife was expecting died during childbirth. Another opportune situation not only to analyze coldly, but to take the philosophical vision of the Doctrine we embrace to the world.

First of all, it is necessary to remove the absurdities. There are those who say that this was due to the action of “karma”, which, as we already know, does not exist. So, how can God allow such disgrace to a soul that hasn't even taken the first steps in Earth's school?

On the one hand, there is the view of materialism: there is no God, there is no Spirit, there is no afterlife; there is only the flesh, and we are beings that live from dust to dust. A philosophical digression in this sense is not appropriate here, since this vision is totally removed from our ideas. It is only worth asking: if that were the case, we would be mere machines, for which good and evil represent nothing, and where the worst of murderers could be equated with the best of humanitarians. The good, in fact, would be nothing more than an illusion and life on Earth would be worth absolutely nothing.

Finding ourselves in the line of those who recognize the existence of God and the continuity of life after death, we need to make a distinction between those who assume that reincarnation is the explanation for everything and those who believe that the soul is created at the moment of birth or fertilization. . In the latter hypothesis, the child who dies before his first steps would be very lucky, for, having done neither good nor bad, he could not make mistakes, while the one who lived to old age, having almost always made several mistakes, may not have found time to correct them while still alive. We asked that God would be the one who would not give the repentant individual more chances.

No, our positions do not fall within any of these previous ones, but that of the doctrine of reincarnation, the only one in which it finds reason and logic that explains everything in a clear and sensible way. So, we will say: the individual who dies while still a child is a Spirit, who would only enjoy one more incarnation with a view to evolving. Having not avenged the baby, it will be born again in other conditions, continuing its evolutionary journey. There is, for him, neither advantage nor disadvantage.

It remains to be seen whether his death has anything useful or even necessary. In The Spirits' Book, there are the following questions and answers:

345. Is the union of the Spirit with the body definitive from the moment of conception? During this first phase, could the Spirit renounce inhabiting the body destined for it?

“The union is definitive, in the sense that another Spirit could not replace the one assigned to that body. But as the ties that bind it to the body are still very weak, they are easily broken. They can be broken by the Spirit's will, if the Spirit retreats from the test he has chosen. In such a case, however, the child does not succeed.”

346. What does the Spirit do if the body he has chosen dies before birth?

“Choose another one.”

The) - What is the use of these premature deaths?

“Most of the time, they are caused by the imperfections of the matter.”

347. What use will a Spirit find in its incarnation in a body that dies a few days after birth?

“The being is not then fully aware of its existence; the importance of death is almost none. It is often, as we have said, a test for parents.”

It is very clear: we are incarnate and, therefore, we are subject to the laws of matter. At the same time, premature death is a test (and not a punishment, under any circumstances) for the parents, who can gain a very important experience by going through this experience.

March 31st. A date little known or little remembered in the Spiritist world, it is the day on which, in 1869, the beloved and emeritus professor, scientist, philosopher and scholar of Spiritist phenomena, Hypolite Leon Denizard Rivail, died - spelled that way, as he himself corrected , in a handwritten document, made available by CDOR. This was Allan Kardec, the one who dedicated the last years of his life and did, in little more than a decade, what few do in a lifetime: he obtained, through the rational and methodological observation of spiritist, natural and intelligent phenomena, an entire Doctrine, consoling in its essence and which, one day, will be recognized as the great revolution in human thought regarding life, society, charity and the truth about good.

the sad day

With a poetic beauty, Simoni Privato, in The Legacy of Allan Kardec, expresses it like this, about Kardec's death:

As he felt that his incarnation was passing quickly and he saw that his doctrinal tasks continued to increase, Allan Kardec avoided wasting time. […] There [at the Sainte-Anne Passage] worked from morning to night and often from night to morning, without even being able to rest, since he was just about to occupy himself with a work whose dimension can hardly be imagined and which increased as spiritism spread.

As the lease for the property on the Passage Sainte-Anne was about to expire, Allan Kardec intended to leave it on April 1, 1869 and retire to Villa Ségur, where he intended to concentrate more on the elaboration of doctrinal texts. On the same date, the office for subscription and dispatch of the Spiritist Magazine, as well as the Parisian Society of Spiritist Studies would be transferred from Passagem Sainte-Anne to the headquarters of the Spiritist Bookshop, at 72 rue de Lille.

On Wednesday, March 31, Allan Kardec was at Passagem Sainte-Anne, organizing his books and papers for the move, which had already begun and should finish the next day. During the morning, he received an employee of a bookstore who wanted to purchase an issue of Revista Espírita. Upon handing him the copy, Allan Kardec suddenly lost consciousness and fell to the ground without having said a single word.

[…]

Until the last moment of his physical existence, Allan Kardec left deep teachings. He died as he lived: working for Spiritism. His industrious hands said goodbye to this world delivering the Spiritist Magazine — a periodical in which he recorded his teachings, his struggles, his victories and, in that last moment, his immortality.

[…]

In the cemetery, the curious tried to position themselves in the places where they could listen to the speeches. However, when the coffin descended to the bottom of the grave, emotion silenced the words; there was a great silence.

And this silence seems to have dragged on to the present day, in which most of the spiritist movement, in fact, does not know Allan Kardec and, much less, his work in the formation of the Spiritist Doctrine — Spiritism.

Allan Kardec forgotten

With great sadness, we can verify that, in the historical points that involve this great work, the name of Kardec does not exist, neither as Allan Kardec, nor as Rivail: it was erased by the time, as they did with all the scientists who dedicated themselves to study Spiritualism and Magnetism. There is no plaque dedicated to Kardec. There is no bust. There is no inscription on the wall or on the sidewalk, when, for much less, personalities of satirism or horror deserve a dedicated recording, under the light of the spotlight, on the sidewalks of fame that exist, around the world. Do not. On the streets of France, it seems that the only place where the dear professor deserves a memory is in the cemetery, as if out of obligation, and where, dead and buried, he doesn't attract anyone's attention with his “subversive” ideas.

But the big issue here is not just the forgetting of the figure of Allan Kardec, but his role as a spiritist scientist and his methodology, his honesty, his humility and his seriousness in the study of Spiritism. We do not worship Kardec, but we recognize his work and dedication. In a very pertinent parody, there are those who believe, today, that gravity is a great farce, for not having studied and understood the study of Isaac Newton, who started the physical sciences, as we know them today. It is the same with Spiritism.

An unknown doctrine

We said that the Spiritist Movement is unaware of Kardec and his work. Yes, in such a way that, in fact, to a large extent, they are unaware of the very Doctrine they claim to profess. Few know the enormous deviation that the Doctrine, or rather the Spiritist Movement, suffered after Kardec's death, at the hands of Leymarie and with the influence of Roustaing and his followers; few know that the works “A Genesis” and “O Céu e o Inferno” were tampered with, respectively in the 5th and 4th editions; few know that this influence spread and settled in the nascent Spiritist Movement, here in Brazil, right in its first steps; few know that Bezerra de Menezes himself, due to his religious inclinations, preferred Roustaguist ideas over spiritists and that, therefore, he spread them in Brazil; few know, still, that Kardec planned to start, from April 1869, a new phase of Spiritism, without centralizing figures or entities and without hierarchies, so that no one could dictate rules — a scenario totally different from what we live in our country. country, where, since the beginning of the Spiritist Movement, a Federation called itself centralizing and ruler — the same Federation that also put Roustaing above Kardec.

No Brasil, país onde o Espiritismo parece ter conquistado o maior número de adeptos, vivemos um movimento espiritista religioso, com rituais e paramentos, onde “o telefone só toca de lá para cá” virou lei e, pior, onde as ideias de pecado e castigo, carma, “lei de causa e efeito” ou “lei de ação e reação”, que Never were part of this Doctrine, they began to be taken as doctrinal.

I'm sorry, dear Chico, but, in the statement over the phone, he was wrong, or was misunderstood. However, the adepts err even more, who, due to lack of study and thoughtlessly, began to take the opinions of mediums and spirits as if they were the law or the unquestionable expression of truth and wisdom. That is why we reaffirm: the Spiritist Movement is unaware of Spiritism, since the fundamental point of the Doctrine is the one with which Kardec begins his latest work, A Genesis, presenting, right on the first page:

Generality and agreement in teaching, this is the essential character of the doctrine, the very condition of its existence, from which it follows that any principle that has not yet received the consecration of the control of generality cannot be considered an integral part of that same doctrine. It will be a simple isolated opinion, for which Spiritism cannot assume responsibility.

The Movement is much more unaware of the formation of the Doctrine, widely presented in the Spiritist Magazine (read This article), where Kardec, number after number, demonstrates several evocations of Spirits of the most diverse categories (according to the spiritist scale), asserting its usefulness. Kardec evoked assassins and scientists, wise and ignorant, suicides a few days after his death, kings and queens and, from all of them, he always obtained important teachings, which, progressively, through the method of seeking universal agreement, under the judgment of reason, common sense and human science, constituted a whole Doctrine and which later served as the basis for the formation of other works and for the complementation of The Spirits' Book.

The unknown tampering

But we cannot blame, at all, only the lack of commitment to study, as many studied, but studied without knowing that they were studying something adulterated, as was the case of A Genesis and Heaven and Hell[1]. Now, one of the most controversial points of OCI was born out of adulteration, as the following sentence did not exist in the original work, written by Kardec:

Every fault committed, every wrong done, is a debt that must be paid; if it is not so in one existence, it will be so in the next one or the following ones, because all existences are solidary with each other. He who discharges it in the present existence will not have to pay a second time.

Text inserted in the altered version of OCI, from the 4th edition

We know today, from historical documents, that not only these works, but the entire spiritist movement, under Leymarie's hands, was adulterated and subverted, in the name of money and vanity. One of the worst cases was the one known as “The Spiritist Process“, que manchou a reputação do Espiritismo na sociedade francesa.

The context of Allan Kardec

We also did not know the context of Kardec, where Rational Spiritualism and Moral Sciences gave base education, as we can largely verify in “Autonomia: the never-told history of Spiritism”, by Paulo Henrique de Figueiredo, a work that also presents the purely autonomous face of Spiritism, completely removed from notions such as karma, widely present in the current Spiritist Movement. Not only that, we also have the issue of Magnetism, constantly cited by Kardec as the twin science of Spiritism, so that one without the other would be incomplete. Now, Mesmer, “father” of Magnetism, only came to be understood recently, through the recovery and translation of his works, culminating in the book Mesmer: The negated science of animal magnetism, by the same author.

Anyway: we need to recover Kardec. We need to study him in his works and in the Spiritist Magazine; we need to understand the context in which it was inserted; we need to know Magnetism; we need to understand Spiritism as a science, which in fact it is, and not as a religion, which never was, but under the understanding of natural religion, according to the understanding of Rational Spiritualism. And, understanding Spiritism in its essence, we need to make it leave the closed circles of spiritist centers, to make it conquer society through its renewing and truly consoling ideas. But for that, change needs to start with the individual, then spread to the family and society.

Kardec overcome?

Muitos pensam e afirmam o seguinte: “Kardec está superado no passado, então esqueçamo-lo e sigamos com o estudo dessas novas concepções que temos hoje”, o que é um erro profundo.

Spiritism is a science, both from the point of view of the French moral sciences, in the context of its birth, and from the point of view of a science of observation, which deduces, infers, analyzes empirically, as is very clear to all who study it in its sources. As a science, it has a foundation, without which it cannot advance. The Nuclear Physicist also needs to go through Newton, to later reach Einstein and, later, the current scientists.

In Spiritism, there are at least two things that have not changed in relation to our current state: morality and the Spirits. The first needs to be studied since Jesus, and even before, being one of the central proposals of Spiritism. The Spirits, on the other hand, continue to belong to that entire scale, proposed by Kardec and refined by the Spirits, and continue to communicate with us, influencing and leading us in the same ways they have always used. Since there is undeniably a science in this, it is necessary to study and understand it.

It is by forgetting Kardec that, today, pernicious, irrational and anti-doctrinal contents are accepted in the spiritist movement.

Do we have a lot to learn? Well, of course it is! And the Spirits teach us what we are ready to understand, according to the progress of our material science. Kardec “scratched” on such profound scientific matters, but which could not yet be understood. Imagine what he could achieve if, back then, we knew what we know today? Imagine, moreover, what a serious, elevated and honest researcher like him could obtain, according to current science, regarding everything that could not be explored in depth at that time?

But that, my dear ones, will only be done at the right time. That's why I echo Paulo Henrique de Figueiredo's words: let's study, study, study, until we get tired. Let's understand Spiritism in the Spiritist Magazine and in its complements. Let us study the works of Kardec, those of Bozzano, those that, today, study the context of Spiritism, inserted in Rational Spiritualism, and let us also study Mesmer's magnetism.

When we are ready, as in the past, the Spirits themselves will look for us and, who knows, they will need to turn tables and play invisible drums again in order to get our attention.

More motivation to study

And, if you still lack a motivation to delve into these studies, I leave you with the following reflection:

What keeps us from real happiness are our imperfections, our moral vices, our unbridled passions. Only the Spirit that conquered its imperfections, through the tests, and that developed its reasoning, through knowledge, manages to progress on the path of spiritual evolution. We all will, sooner or later, but the speed depends on the will of each one, based on reason, because only the Spirit that really you see, rationally.

Diz Kardec, em A Gênese: “Aquele que não domina as suas paixões pode ser muito inteligente, porém, ao mesmo tempo, muito mau. O instinto se aniquila por si mesmo; as paixões somente pelo esforço da vontade podem domar-se”.

However, that chapter ends here, in the 5th edition of this work (which formed the basis for all translations and future editions), which, we now know, has strong indications of having been tampered with. Taking the 4th edition, we have the following closing, all-important, omitted for tampering:

All men go through passions. Those who have overcome them, and are not, by nature, proud, ambitious, selfish, spiteful, vindictive, cruel, wrathful, sensual, and do good without effort, without premeditation and, so to speak, involuntarily, it is because they have progressed in the sequence. of their previous existences, having rid themselves of this uncomfortable weight. It is unfair to say that they have less merit when they do good, compared to those who fight against their tendencies. It turns out that they have already achieved victory, while the others have not yet. But when they do, they will be like the others. They will do good without thinking about it, like children who read fluently without having to spell. It is as if they were two sick people: one cured and full of strength while the other is still recovering and hesitates to walk; or as two runners, one of which is closer to the finish than the other.

Everything that we live, therefore, as the Doctrine shows us, it's never about punishment, but of opportunities for our evolution. Spiritism is autonomous in its essence — “In the eyes of God, repentance is sacred, because it is man who judges himself, o que é raro no vosso planeta” [RE — outubro de 1858].

If all that doesn't motivate you to study Kardec, we don't know what else would.

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1. The FEAL publishing house already has the translations of these works, according to the original text. The context of the tampering of A Genesis can be understood by reading the work O Legado de Allan Kardec, by Simoni Privato; the adulteration of O Céu e o Inferno can be understood in the work “Nem heaven, nor hell: The laws of the soul according to Spiritism”, by Lucas Sampaio and Paulo Henrique de Figueiredo

French actor Alain Delon stated that he will perform euthanasia, as reported by Veja SP. Alain, who considers the suicide watched “the most logical and natural thing”, he said, in a post on Instagram:

“I made my decision a long time ago, I think my life was beautiful but also very difficult. I never liked getting old. All these everyday pains and challenges make me paralyzed.”

Unfortunately, the actor does not know Spiritism, which would be almost comical, if it were not tragic, for being, precisely, born in the land where the Spiritist Doctrine was born, more than 160 years ago. But I am not talking here about the Spiritualism-religion of the current spiritist movement, the one that says that the suicidal person will feel his body being gnawed by worms, or that he will suffer in the “valley of suicides”, or that he will be reborn in a defective body. We have already talked about the unreality of these generic claims. in this article.

No: here we speak of Spiritism in its scientific essence, a doctrine whose theory was born from the rational observation of the universally agreed teachings of the Spirits. This Doctrine, in its essence, shows us the following: life is an opportunity for learning and elevation. Finishing it ahead of time, on your own, is a great waste of time, as it distances you from the elevation and learning made possible by life's trials and opportunities.

It happens that every second on Earth, however difficult it may be, if well faced and overcome, brings us closer to the final goal, which is the happiness of the good and the just. How, however, to reach this state of happiness, without getting rid of imperfections and passions - which is only done through the tests of life, will and learning?

This, of course, is entirely different from the case of animal euthanasia.

The actor, unfortunately, is not aware of this fact of our spiritual reality. On the other hand, after committing the act, one day you will probably see the uselessness of it… And that's it. There is no punishment: there is error, born of ignorance. A better understanding of these issues leverages our progress, allowing us to reach happiness sooner, according to our commitment to elevate ourselves through our own effort. We wish him, and others, that they may soon understand these matters.

I close leaving the subject for reflection, as discussed in The Gospel According to Spiritism:

Is it lawful to shorten the life of a sick person who suffers without hope of cure?
28. A man is dying, prey to cruel sufferings. It is known that his condition is desperate. Is it lawful to spare him a few moments of anguish, hastening his end?

Who would give you the right to prejudge God's designs? Can he not lead the man to the edge of the ditch, to pull him out of it, in order to make him come to himself and entertain ideas different from those he had? Even if a dying man has reached the last extreme, no one can say with certainty that the last hour has struck him. Has science never been wrong in its predictions?

I am well aware that there are cases that can rightly be considered hopeless; but if there is no well-founded hope of a definitive return to life and health, there is the possibility, attested by countless examples, that the patient, at the very moment of exhaling his last breath, revive himself and recover for a few moments his faculties. ! Well then: this hour of grace, which is granted to him, may be of great importance to him. You do not know the reflections that your Spirit can make in the convulsions of agony and how many torments a flash of regret can spare you.

The materialist, who sees only the body and has no account of the soul, is unable to understand these things; the spiritist, however, who already knows what is happening beyond the grave, knows the value of a last thought. Lessen the last sufferings as much as you can; but beware of shortening your life, even for a minute, because that minute can save you many tears in the future.

St. Louis.
Paris, 1860