Few know, but Kardec didn't stay silent after his death. The book Beacoup de Lumiere (Too Much Light), by Berthe Fropo (click here to download), presents some of his post-mortem communications, always in a tone of extreme agreement with his way of expressing himself, always serious, but kind and fraternal.

On May 18, 1882, a very touching communication regarding the Spiritist Doctrine was given to Gabriel Dellane, which we reproduce below in full:

I was with you for some time, happy to see you resolved to valiantly resume your role as propagator of the spiritist faith.

The doctrine, so to speak, has been dormant since my departure. It was impossible for it to be otherwise, since my sudden disappearance did not give me time to carry out the projects I had done and which would allow a homogeneous collectivity to continue the work that had been started. So, the misfortunes that arose in our dear homeland forced everyone to work materially to improve their own situation and that of our dear country. For it must be admitted that the greater part of Spiritualists, being like the first apostles, without fortune, have a duty to provide for the daily necessities of their families.

This is an obligation from which no one has the right to escape. Work is a law imposed on man by the Creator, it is important to perform it. It was therefore preferable to spiritualism that it should continue to spread among the lackluster families, rather than be led astray from its true path., which is the study of the facts and the recognition of the manifestations of the disincarnate who lived on earth.

Don't be afraid to call them, no matter how big they may seem to you, and any role they may have played down here; the more evolved they are, the easier it is for them to surrender to your call., the perispiritual envelope of the spirit, having been bathed in the environmental fluid of the planet, preserves in it, eternally, the faculty of going to all the places where memory calls it, and especially when this spirit has fulfilled a missionary role in one of those worlds where it is wanted. The more the spirit is elevated, the easier it is for it to cross the spaces. The spirit can travel through all the worlds in which it has lived, as easily as it is for you to go from one country to another, without you being obliged to leave a part of yourselves on the way; if, for example, you travel from north to south, you will leave a warm garment to put on a fresh one; you will adjust to the environment in which you find yourself, and nothing will be able to oppose your transitory transformation, if you have been careful. It is the same with the superior spirits, having acquired omnipotence over matter, they transform it as they wish without any law opposing it. Whoever says superior spirit, says humility, love and charity. Example: Christ came to incarnate in a humble and poor family. He had his reasons. It was to show us that we shouldn't be afraid to call him to us, as it was the environment he preferred. Do not be afraid to call all those you have great sympathy for. They will always be happy with YOUR evocations.

I am delighted with the awakening that is taking place and I must tell you that I am not indifferent to it.; nor to the new acquaintance you make of these dear friends, full of good will and who will do all they can to bring the work to a good end. But they need to be helped and assisted.

It is the duty of every sincere spiritist to prevent the doctrine from being diverted from its true course.; therefore, my friends, I am counting on you. I know how much you love our dear philosophy and how much you want to see it succeed; this is why I told you these things; these are friendly advice that I give you, knowing that I will please you, and that you will strive to work for the work of regeneration to which I devoted myself, a sublime mission which is to teach your brothers and sisters the way to happiness, which is, as the Christ, "of eternal life."

Return, therefore, courageously to the fight; the more you work for others, the more will be given to you by yourselves.

A cause can only be judged when it has been studied well and when it is well identified with it.. It's the same with work. To know the laws, it is necessary to work for yourself., if one wants to reason with precision and help to solve the biggest question of the century, which is the understanding of labor and capital.

Oh! If the men in charge of the march of progress wanted to seriously occupy themselves with spiritism, what a powerful lever would they have had in their hands?!

The chapter on responsibilities is the only one capable of making workers and gentlemen well understand that they are similar to the powerful, but that it is not only to themselves that they owe the momentary situation they now occupy, a situation that they will be able to improve easily the day after. who understand the law of reincarnation. Work, therefore, tirelessly and courageously for the social and moral edifice of our doctrine; the means will be given to you. The time has come, the occasion presents itself today, second it, dear friends, with all your strength; appeal to us. Organize yourselves into a committee. Read, reread, comment on all the facts that subject you and be careful not to be absolute on any point other than those fundamental., that is, the belief in manifestations and in reincarnation. Do not advance the facts that are under reservation. In a word, do as I did. You saw me at work.

Allan Kardec. My italics.

Nothing could be more clear and beautiful. The Doctrine lacks of defense, and it needs of the individual effort of each one of us.

Following this communication, there was this complement:

I do not wish to fatigue the medium. In the meantime, I urge you to go and see my dear wife. It is necessary in the interests of doctrine (this for you personally). It is very difficult to judge the human heart, because if it has its hours of fainting, it also has its hours of rebuilding. Go, therefore, without delay, and you will be very pleasing to me.

Allan Kardec

We believe it is also important to cite the following two paragraphs, by the author, which complement this communication presented:

Despite this urgent injunction, Mr and Mrs Delanne allowed us to spend the month of July undisturbed; only at the end of August, from the new communications, telling them how harmful their delay was to the doctrine, that they went there and Madame Kardec welcomed them with deep joy; she saw, at last, the dawn of that long-promised society. They proposed her to be the president, but she declined, on the grounds that she was already quite ill. “In my heart I am with you,” she told them, but she refused to fight “and destroy the society that my husband and I founded. I will give you a president, my best and most faithful friend, a reflection of myself, and I will remain neutral.”

Mr. Delanne told him that in Belgium there was fear of a disturbing split in doctrine, that a very zealous Spiritist wanted to make Spiritism a religion with worship and ceremonies. She rejected this idea forcefully, saying: "If Spiritualism becomes a religion, we will be nothing more than a sect, and the doctrine, this beautiful philosophy, will be lost." She also rejects the word federation, which sounded bad to ears after the commune. It was established that we would make an appeal to all sincere spiritists, we would draw up the statute and that the society would receive the title of “French Spiritist Union“.

Berthe Fropo

Friends, the communication and the facts mentioned above could not be more contemporary. How much longer will we let time pass, doing nothing? How much longer will we leave Allan Kardec's work, so serious and so important, in the transformation of humanity in oblivion? We very much criticize the Spirits who distort Spiritism with their false conceptions of the Doctrine, but what would they be, if not mere voices that few listen to, if the strength of the majority were under Spiritism in its essence - in other words: if Spiritists study?

To paraphrase Kardec, “It is the duty of every sincere spiritist to prevent the doctrine from being diverted from its true course.“. And both our group and the friendly group, SPIRITISM FOR ALL Study Groups (EPT), we lack volunteers. We are quite overloaded!

Examples of aid that could help all of us:

• sharing content in possible groups
• creation of short videos, with interesting excerpts, to share on video platforms (tiktok, reels, etc).
• creation of essential texts, linking the videos of studies and the texts covered, by Kardec, for publication on our blogs (and others)
• extraction of audios for publication on podcast platforms
• others

If you can help and would like to volunteer to cooperate in this important work, please contact us via WhatsApp: https://wa.me/5515998628392.

But if you just want to study, Click here.

Photo by samer daboul: https://www.pexels.com/pt-br/foto/fotografia-de-criancas-felizes-1815257/

Anyone who has ventured to know a little more about Allan Kardec's history knows that he was educated by the Pestalozzi method, being one of his most exemplary disciples. For his teacher, education must be guided by the principles of fraternity and love, away from the concepts of sin and punishment, which greatly shaped Kardec's way of thinking, which later was based even more fully on Rational Spiritualism and, later, by Spiritism. We also know that the investigative and humble character of Professor Rivail was also fundamentally formed by this education, guided by the exploration of the natural sciences through the scientific method, and this, of course, explains a lot the way in which he acted against Spiritism.

All of this – fraternity, learning about the moral principles of good and God's laws, disinterested charity, which is the fruit of this learning, humility, which is born from the heart of one who never takes as a principle that his word is the last, in short, everything that is contained in the Pestalozzian methodology – provides the basis for a much better quality education, from the first steps of human beings on Earth. It is, I have no hesitation in saying, one of the greatest tools for the (trans)formation of society, greatly complemented by the understanding of the laws that Spiritism came to demonstrate. The two, together, have the greatest power, from childhood, to prevent the installation or development of the most harmful habits for the individual and for society – selfishness and pride – but, to date, neither of them has gained the space it deserves. , due to human attachment to false concepts that, on the surface, seem to please, but that, deep down, only cause unhappiness and delay.

To exemplify all this, nothing better than reproducing, in full, the content of the homonymous article by Allan Kardec, presented in the Spiritist Magazine of February 1864.

Of all the moral wounds of Society, it seems that selfishness is the most difficult to root out. Indeed, it is all the more so the more it is nourished by the very habits of education. It seems that the task is taken to arouse, from the cradle, certain passions that later become second nature. And they marvel at the vices of the Society, when children suck it up with their milk. Here is an example which, as everyone can judge, belongs more to the rule than to the exception.

In a family we know there is a girl between four and five years old, of a rare intelligence, but who has the small defects of spoiled children, that is, she is a little capricious, weepy, stubborn, and does not always thank her when given something. , which the parents take great care to correct, because apart from these defects, according to them, she has a heart of gold, a consecrated expression. Let's see how they manage to remove those small stains and preserve the gold in its purity.

One day they brought the child a sweet and, as usual, they told him: “You will eat it if you are good”. First lesson in sweet tooth. How many times, at the table, do they tell a child that he won't eat that snack if he cries. “Do this, or do that”, they say, “and you will have cream” or anything else that pleases him, and the child is constrained, not for reason, but in order to satisfy a sensual desire ((Desire of the senses)) that stings her.

It is even worse when they are told, which is no less frequent, that they will give their piece to someone else. Here, it's not just gluttony that's at stake, it's envy. The child will do what he is told, not only to have it, but so that the other child does not have it. Do you want to teach him a lesson in generosity? Then they say to him: “Give this fruit or this toy to so-and-so”. If she refuses, they do not fail to add, in order to stimulate a good feeling in her: “I will give you another one”, so that the child does not decide to be generous unless he is sure of losing nothing.

One day we witnessed a very characteristic event in this genre. It was a child of about two and a half years old, to whom they had made a similar threat, adding: “We will give it to your little brother, and you will have nothing.” To make the lesson more sensitive, they put the piece on the little brother's plate, who took the matter seriously and ate the portion. At the sight of this, the other turned red and it didn't take either the father or the mother to see the flash of anger and hatred that came from his eyes. The seed was sown: could it produce good grain?

Let's go back to the girl we talked about. As she did not realize the threat, knowing from experience that they rarely carried it out, this time they were firmer, for they understood that it was necessary to master this little character, and not wait for her to acquire a bad habit with age. They said that it is necessary to train children early, a very wise maxim, and to put it into practice, here is what they did: “I promise you, said the mother, that if you do not obey, tomorrow morning I will give your cake to the first poor girl who pass." No sooner said than done.

This time they wanted to keep their promise and teach him a good lesson. So the next day, in the morning, having seen a little beggar in the street, they brought her in and forced her daughter to take her by the hand and she herself gave her her cake. Then they praised his docility. Moral of the story: The daughter said, “If I had known about this, I would have rushed to eat the cake yesterday.” And everyone applauded this witty response. Indeed, the child had received a strong lesson, but one of pure selfishness, which he will not fail to take advantage of another time, for now he knows how much forced generosity costs. It remains to be seen what fruits this seed will bear later when, at an older age, the child applies this moral to things more serious than a cake.

Do you know all the thoughts that this single fact could have caused to germinate in that little head? After that, how do you want a child not to be selfish when, instead of awakening in him the pleasure of giving and representing the happiness of the recipient, they impose a sacrifice on him as punishment? Is it not inspiring aversion to the act of giving and to those in need?

Another habit, equally frequent, is to punish the child by sending him to eat in the kitchen with the servants. The punishment lies less in exclusion from the table than in the humiliation of going to the servants' table. This is how, from an early age, the virus of sensuality, selfishness, pride, contempt for inferiors, passions, in a word, which are rightly considered as the wounds of Humanity, is inoculated.

It is necessary to be endowed with an exceptionally good nature to resist such influences, produced at the most impressionable age, in which neither will nor experience can find a counterweight. Thus, however little the germ of evil passions may be found there, which is the most ordinary case, given the nature of most spirits who are incarnated on Earth, it cannot fail to develop under such influences, while it would be necessary to observe the slightest traces in order to repress them.

Without a doubt, the fault lies with the parents, but it must be said that they often sin more out of ignorance than out of ill will. In many there is undoubtedly a guilty insouciance, but in many others the intention is good, yet it is the remedy that is worthless, or that is misapplied.

As the first physicians of their children's souls, parents should be instructed, not only in their duties, but in the means of fulfilling them. It is not enough for the doctor to know that he must seek a cure, it is necessary to know how to act. Now, for parents, where are the means of instructing themselves in this most important part of their task? Today, much instruction is given to women; they make her pass rigorous examinations, but was the mother ever required to know how to build up her child's morale?

They teach you homemade recipes, but was it initiated to the thousand and one secrets of ruling young hearts?

Parents, therefore, are left unguided to their own initiative. This is why they so often follow the wrong path. Thus, in the mistakes of their grown children, they pick up the bitter fruit of their inexperience or misunderstood tenderness, and the whole Society receives the backlash.

Whereas selfishness and pride are admittedly the source of most human miseries; that while they reign on Earth, neither peace, nor charity, nor fraternity can be expected, so it is necessary to attack them in the embryo state, without waiting for them to become alive.

Can Spiritism remedy this evil? Undoubtedly, and we do not hesitate to say that he is the only one powerful enough to stop it, from the new point of view with which he allows us to perceive the mission and responsibility of parents; making known the source of innate qualities, good or bad; showing the action that can be exercised on incarnate and disincarnate spirits; giving the unbreakable faith which sanctions the duties; finally, moralizing their own parents. It already proves its effectiveness by the most rational way employed in the education of children in truly Spiritist families. The new horizons that Spiritism opens up make things look differently. Since its objective is the moral progress of Humanity, it will inevitably have to shed light on the serious problem of moral education, the first source of the moralization of the masses. One day it will be understood that this branch of education has its principles, its rules, like intellectual education, in a word, which is a true science. Perhaps one day, too, the obligation to possess this knowledge will be imposed on every mother of a family, as it is imposed on the lawyer to know the Law.

Kardec gives full weight to the responsibility we have towards children and their habits. Spiritism shows the origin of children's innate tendencies, but it also demonstrates that the Spirit incarnated in a child may not yet be strong enough to resist a bad habit that their parents or caregivers teach them from their first steps. This creates imperfections that could be very difficult to overcome…

Commonly, in the flesh, the fruit of these imperfections will lead people to ask: “what did I do to deserve this?”, or “where did I go wrong?”. However, it is enough for reason to speak a little louder to the conscience for them to launch into heavy lamentations, born from the fruit of the realization that the suffering their son may have gone through not just in one, but in many earthly lives, originated , if not in all, but at least in part, in the first seed sown and cultivated by those who should help them develop under the morality of good, and not move away from it.

Therefore, parents and caregivers, pay much more attention to the Spirits that God has entrusted to you as children. It will be their own consciences, and not God, who will hold them accountable tomorrow...

Under a very interesting title, I found this work today, a compendium of questions and answers, freely distributed in PDF on the Internet. I then went to analyze it, which is why I leave here my observations on this work.

I must emphasize that the intention is not to denigrate or mock the efforts that many make, and that, I believe, it has a good intention, almost always. However, when we talk about Spiritism, we need to understand that this science, in short, do not make isolated opinions, and that any spiritist communication that has not met the method of double control of reason and the universality of the teachings of the Spirits cannot be taken, but as an opinion. In the article "The role of the researcher and the medium in communications with the Spirits” We have already pointed out, according to Spiritism, the various reasons for this.

This work begins like this:

This work, created by incarnate and disincarnate spirits, is structured in questions and answers, explanatory notes and complementary texts, footnotes and prayers. It is intended for all who wish to initiate or deepen their bond with the Creator through instructive and reflective reading, prayer, the practice of love and charity, self-knowledge and the constant search for intimate reform.

Until recently, I didn't see this as a problem. Today, however, I understand that there is a big mistake in the so-called “intimate reform”, which Never was, neither with these words nor with others, in the work of Allan Kardec. Because? Simply because you don't reform what isn't broken. Well, we are spirits in evolution, making mistakes and getting it right and, sometimes, acquiring bad habits that become imperfections. When there is imperfection, we will have to do some work to detach ourselves from it - then there is a certain work of "reform" - however we cannot accept as a generalized assumption the fact that we all must reform ourselves, as the Spiritist Movement has widely proclaimed . This places a heavy burden of guilt on the shoulders of those who are simply seeking to learn and evolve, but who start to believe themselves, always, as “broken things” – and this is, deep down, linked to the false conceptions of the fall through sin.

Complementation

In Chapter I - Complementation - I - Purpose of the Work, the following is said:

1. For what purpose was The Spirits' Book released in 1857 by Allan Kardec?
— To liberate the incarnates through the truth, to instruct them and, consequently, to lead them to the practice of good.

A. Has this purpose been achieved?
- Yea; obviously it depends on the free will of each individual, but everything is in God's plans.

B. Given this, is it necessary to complement it?
— Yes, communications and ways of understanding change over time, and it is important that the teachings keep pace with these changes.

Note: The intention will never be to contest what has already been written, but to state it with more clarity and objectivity, so that there is no dubious understanding, bringing the truth more explicitly, in order to promote the practice once exemplified by the master Jesus.

It is clear that, in order to complement something, especially when it comes to complementing Spiritism, through “communications from Superior Spirits”, it is absolutely necessary that a series of requirements be fulfilled:

1. The human being must be prepared for this, having known and understood deeply, and in a contextualized way, everything that gave basis to the formation of this Doctrine. As we shall see, this first point has not been met.
2. When the Spirits demand to help the man to reach new knowledge, they act distributing the same knowledge through all the corners of the world, simultaneously. That is required so that, in the light of logic and reason, researchers of the doctrine can confront the ideas transmitted from all sides, carrying out the same scientific method that Kardec did. Perhaps researchers have carried out a certain rational analysis, but since this is not due to the universality of the Spirits' teachings and since we were not given knowledge of the method employed - which seems to consist only of questions and answers given to some Spirits, supposedly superior , through a medium or more, from the same group, this second point was not answered either.

Then the following appears:

2. When the first work was released, was the intention to create a new religion?
— At the launch of the first work, the intention was to assist in the transformation of humanity through knowledge, making it abdicate from pride and selfishness, enhancing the practice of love through charity. Every religion created with the intention of aggregating rather than segregating the incarnate is positively viewed (see item V – Religion cannot cause division).

And, in addition to this, let's look for what is presented in item V of the same chapter:

16. How to promote the integration of Spiritism with other religions?
— The content must be the guide of your conscience; it has no religion, only the discernment of right and wrong. Therefore, everything that pleases her should be a factor of union, and not of segregation.

Now, the interlocutor starts from the wrong concept that Spiritism is more of a religion, contrary to what Allan Kardec has already demonstrated in the past (read more by clicking here). Thus, it biases, with a previous concept, the characteristic of the response.

Regarding the reliability of the work, there is the following:

7. What guarantees that this work comes from high spirits?

— The guarantee lies in cohesion and content, aligning them to what you feel at the core, to understand whether there is coherence or not. By filtering through consciousness, you will understand that the intention of the work is not to demonstrate the elevation of the one who instructs you, just as it is not to convince you that there is only a new communication, but rather to make you practice love and goodness.

My italics.

When the Spirit supposedly says that the guarantee is in the cohesion and content, “aligning them to what you feel in the core”, it is only stating that the answers will be cohesive, since they are born from the same idea, in the same group – which is contrary to Kardec's method - and set the precedent for this group, based on their ideas, and seeing them corroborated by the Spirits, only confirm them. Then, in “by filtering, through consciousness”, precedence is given so that the “filter” is consciousness itself, and not the rational and scientific logic of Kardec who, incidentally, was never satisfied with any spiritist idea , without judging it under the sieve of reason and, many times, he fought against them, according to science, to accept them only when he verified that the idea met, with excellence, all the questions involved.

The author follows:

8. What would Kardec say about a complement to your coding work?

— Who never intended to be the owner of the absolute truth, but to open the way so that, through science and discoveries, updates happen naturally and constantly. I would also say that truth accompanies human moral evolution; therefore, it needs updates as we evolve.

Furthermore, Kardec would say that, without the double control method, scholars would be easily led astray.

A. How can spiritists who believe that the first work is immutable be able to receive this complement?

— We hope that you will receive it with great love, but if not, you will obtain it through consistency, searching your conscience for the necessary discernment.
Nothing is immutable but God. You are all learners of eternal progress; today you know more than yesterday and less than tomorrow.

It's needed very careful with the “complicated” contents that are hidden under the different truths, taken as refrains. I am not saying that the communicating spirits necessarily wanted to carry out a mystification, but, at the very least, they reflected the same tendencies and the same thoughts of the group in question, which believed in its role in bringing, by itself, the updating of Spiritism, which it is also contrary to the lucid words of Allan Kardec in the Spiritist Magazine of December 1868.

Another issue is that we need to note the beliefs that those involved in this research were imbued with: why the need to copy the way of expressing themselves at that time, imitating the language of The Spirits' Book? “Will they get it”? Nobody uses these words anymore, nowadays, and it is natural that the Spirits would communicate differently nowadays, since they don't stick to languages.

About the work of the incarnates, it is said that:

12. Could the participants have been influenced by false prophets?

— We know the veracity of something by the content. The embodiment also matters. False prophets make a lot of fuss, but they can't hold the lie for long..

The simple fact that this work was completed with so much effort, dedication and in an unpretentious way already cancels this possibility..

Now, Roustaing's Four Gospels belie these claims: the wrong ideas were kept from beginning to end, and it was produced with a lot of effort on the part of the parties involved. Whether the effort is unpretentious or not is another matter. In fact, the Spirit does not need to want to lie to produce a work with wrong concepts: it is enough for him to believe in these concepts, presenting them. We see that in André Luiz all the time.

Another criticism of the work is that it does not make it clear, except in the questions and answers, whose text is presented: is it from the group? Is it from the reviewer? Is it from the Spirit? So it is in each of the introductions to the chapters.

General Elements of the Universe

Chapter II begins with a text talking about four energetic changes in the terrestrial globe, something that seems to have come out of eastern doctrines, which speak so much about energies, than from the Spiritist Doctrine. The text is given to Socrates, a weighty name, as if to give it more reliability.

24. Is there a predetermined hierarchy in Creation or is it the result of the evolutionary process?
— In Creation, the “hierarchy” is a consequence of the evolutionary process; as evolution takes place, the being or element increases its hierarchical position.

Although the author released a note in comparison to question nº 29 of OLE (The Spirits' Book), the answer has nothing of what a Spirit knowledgeable about the doctrinal truths recorded by Kardec would say. In OLE, the Spirits succinctly respond that the Spirits belong to different orders, not different hierarchies, which are quite different concepts. Furthermore, the Spirit says that “the being or element increases its hierarchical position”: well, do elements evolve?

Then, in III – Scientific Discoveries, the author, whoever he may be, starts from a wrong assumption, according to Spiritism, that morality must advance so that, only afterwards, we can advance in science. This is clearly opposite to what they themselves presented, shortly before, in note 27, of The Spirits' Book, and confirmed by the observations:

The Spirits' Book, question 780: “Does moral progress always follow intellectual progress? — It's its consequence, but it doesn't always follow immediately.”

KARDEC, Allan. The Spirits' Book. My emphasis.

When the author says that "one step at a time. Solidifying morals, science will take leaps and unravel many mysteries“, is leaving aside the well-known fact that the Spirit only progresses morally when he makes an effort of his conscious will. This demands intellectual advancement.

In the immediately preceding paragraph, it is said that “Technological advancement could be the salvation or destruction of the planet. It is for this reason that men will only have more answers when they have the morals compatible with this privilege.“. It is as if we said that God places a limit on human intelligence, man must first learn to love and then learn to build rockets. This would be illogical, because it is the consequence of building the rocket, which generates the bomb that is used to decimate thousands of people, which precisely promotes moral advancement, due to the consequences of the act.

Then the following question is asked:

28. What is the relationship between material and spiritual science?

— In material science, resources are limited, in spiritual science, they are unlimited. Spiritual science complements the material, because, offering infinite resources, it makes scientific advances happen through the use of human intelligence.

What is fake. Human science advances through the development of man's intellect, and not through scientific revelations from the Spirits, which, by the way, is not materialistic at all. Spirits do not develop super-technological automobiles, because they do not need matter at all, except when they incarnate to advance.

In question 35, another incongruity is found:

35. Since the first work, there have been significant advances in science.
How do the spirits see this advance?

— Naturally, because it is a reflection of the collective effort of humanity. However, the use of these findings was not always positive; they were allowed by God for the incarnate to use them for good, but, on many occasions, they used them for evil.

God neither permits nor forbids the use of science, nor its advancement. It is in accordance with the capacity of human intellectuality. The human being, through the use of intelligence, often makes mistakes and, with them, learns. This is not doing evil: it is the fruit of development.

The chapter follows with a slew of questions and answers about scientific concepts that actually go nowhere. I will not repeat them here, but I leave the question: would this be the “scientific update” of the Doctrine? Now, we know that, with regard to science, one of the points that was most studied by Allan Kardec, although limited to the science of his time, is the issue of the Universal Cosmic Fluid and the perispirit. Wouldn't this be very important knowledge to advance in the face of our scientific discoveries?

Another issue: the superior spirits, as shown by Kardec in Genesis, chap. XVI – Theory of Prescience, does not have our material references to talk about a matter of time or questions that belong to human science. That's why, even in Kardec's time, they never entered the scope of particularities, and it is up to man, in the role of researcher, to draw his conclusions, based on the comments, and not in the “revelations”.

Creation – The Childhood of the Spirit

This chapter begins with a question answered in a totally contrary way to the Doctrine of the Spirits:

60. Does the childhood period of spirits take place in a primitive world?
— Yes, in most cases, spiritual childhood begins in the primitive world, where the human stage begins.

A. Why mostly?
— The evolution of each being depends on its choices, free will and worthiness. In rare cases, the animal can also make evolutionary leaps, to the point of spending spiritual childhood on other worlds..

Note: In those cases, where the leap takes place from the terrestrial animal world to generate a childhood in another world, there is merit in that spirit, which, through its effort and resignation, although with few intellectual tools, he managed to evolve to the point of not needing to experience childhood in a world of trials and atonements.. Although it may seem confusing in your eyes, this is proof that God recognizes the effort in an individual and particular way.

My italics.

The answers attributed to a spiritual origin are completely contrary to Spiritism, as we said. Evolution does not make leaps, much less of a Spirit experiencing the animal phase, where has no self-awareness, no free will, to soon experience a human phase. Incidentally, it is in total contradiction to the answer given in OLE: “There is between the soul of animals and that of man a distance equivalent to that between the soul of man and God”. Furthermore, the absurd mistake is made of assuming that a Spirit can evolve without going through the tests, at least, which are the material vicissitudes that stimulate it to intellectual and moral development.

Soon after, in II – Material principle, in question 62:

62. Do molecules have a spiritual principle?

“No, they are part of matter. Have vital fluids, which, in turn, support them.
Molecular movements begin with the vital principle and are composed of vital and magnetic fluids. Molecules are exclusively organic, not spiritual, but they serve the spirit, through matter, when they compose the human organism.

Italics mine

The first error is in supposing the vital fluid, which was a materialist theory of science at the time of Kardec which, not being able to explain the invisible, assumed the existence of imponderable particles, such as the caloric fluid, the electric fluid, etc. Allan Kardec, who initially started from this idea, in A Genesis, abandoned her, leaving only the term "vital principle", generic, and with Mesmer's theory - that everything that exists, in matter of matter and energy (it is obvious that the Spirits are not part of either of the two) originate of the Universal Cosmic Fluid. This is well explained in The Genesis:

Is the vital principle something distinct, having an existence of its own? Or else, to be
integrated into the unity system of the generating element, it is only a particular state, a
of the modifications of the universal cosmic fluid, which becomes the principle of life, as it becomes
light, fire, heat, electricity? It is in this latter sense that the issue is resolved by the
previously reproduced communications. (Chap. VI, General Uranography).

The Genesis – Editora FEAL

It amazes me, moreover, that researchers, so penetrated by scientific formulas, which they discussed with the Spirits, have lacked this fundamental principle theorized by Mesmer and supported by modern science. We will soon see that this same mistake caused other mistakes, in the "updating" of The Spirits' Book, by the group in question.

Having reached this point, I now realize that I was wrong: the notes are almost all, if not all, of the Spirits. I wonder what the researchers did besides analyzing them, according to their ideas, and accepting them.

Fluids in the Universe

The chapter in question makes the same mistakes mentioned above: not having known and understood the science of Mesmer's magnetism and Kardec's concussions, they start from the false assumptions of an outdated science. In other words: to complement Spiritism, which, according to assumptions, would be outdated in science, they use a science that Spiritism itself has already surpassed, more than 100 years ago. Strange, no?

This is how a very wrong opinion is repeated and which, moreover, would be promptly corrected by a superior Spirit:

74. Is it the vital fluid that determines the time of human stay on Earth?
— The amount of vital fluid is determined by God, however, through your choices, you can shorten or extend the time you stay in the
orb.

First, as we have shown, does not exist vital fluid, let alone an amount of it. Second, it is not God who determines anything, but ourselves. This is exactly why animals, without free will, die, from natural causes, almost all at the same age, according to their species and race, while man dies, from the same causes, at the most different ages. And the foundation of it also is in A Genesis, presented by Kardec:

To be more exact, it is necessary to say that it is the Spirit itself that elaborates its envelope and adapts it to its new needs. He perfects, develops and completes his organism as he experiences the need to manifest new faculties. In a word, he molds you according to his intelligence. God provides you with the materials. It's up to him to use it. It is in this way that the more advanced races have an organism, or if they prefer, a more perfected tool than that of the primitive races. This also explains the special style that the character of the Spirit gives to the features of the physiognomy and the manners of the body.

KARDEC, Allan. The Genesis. FEAL Publisher.

Errors, based on these misconceptions, follow in droves in the chapter. I will not comment on them. In the following chapter, “Energy and Fluidic Transmission”, the authors continue to repeat false concepts, based on the same errors, of materialistic origin, spread by fluidists of the past, which opposed the ideas of the sciences of Magnetism and Spiritism. That's how they repeat, ipsis letteris, the very wrong idea that the pass would be an “energetic and/or fluidic transmission”. This is false, as false as the ideas that the supposed spirits repeat in the answer to question nº 92:

• “Magnetism instigates curiosity and is an intriguing science, but it requires the necessary knowledge so as not to offer risks to those who practice it or to those who receive it. You cannot include its practice in the Doctrine or confuse it with magnetic fluid.” – There is no magetic fluid, so what is this Spirit talking about?
• “Magnetizing is an ancient activity, which uses the vital fluid” – there is no vital fluid!
• “Magnetic fluid is different from magnetism and is exhaled whenever there is a need, through the assistance of the disembodied or incarnated people with due preparation” – same error, with an aggravating factor: magetism is the interaction of the will, through conscious thought, about the will of the other, who also needs to be consciously willing to be helped. There is no transfer of anything ((Mesmer – The Denied Science of Animal Magnetism, by Paulo Henrique de Figueiredo)).

Return to Spiritual Life

Of course, from what we've seen, it couldn't be missing, even if contrary to everything that Spiritism has already taught and that reason confirms, a great discussion about the concepts of “spiritual colonies”, threshold, physical pain in the Spirits, etc. It's the old mania of wanting to materialize the spirit world.

Sexuality, sex and morals

To complete our analysis, we refer to question nº 505, Part Three, chap. III - abortion:

505. If conception occurs through rape, is it right to abort?

- No, it's not correct. under no circumstances, for you must all pass your own tests. No one is a mother or child by chance. The divine law is wise and its main goal is to correct or alleviate suffering. The law of cause and effect generates responsibilities for all your actions, in this and other incarnations.. Interrupting the reincarnation of a spirit, even as a result of rape, is not correct: it will only bring more pain and increase the suffering of those involved. The preservation of life in the face of the pain of violence is an act of love. May you always fight evil with love, however difficult it may be.

Italics mine

A complete nonsense! Contrary to what we find in The Spirits' Book, question 359,

359. In the event that the birth of the child endangers the life of the mother, is there a crime in sacrificing the first to save the second?

“It is preferable to sacrifice the being that does not yet exist than to sacrifice the one that already exists.”

The answer to question nº 505, of the work under analysis, states that never abortion must be committed. Worse: that if the woman was raped, it is because, in the words of the Spirits, “the law of cause and effect generates responsibilities for all your actions, in this and other incarnations“. In other words: what is being said in this work, which aims to complementary and update Spiritism is that the raped woman is only paying, by the law of talion, for a lack of another life. This is complete and demoralizing nonsense. I need to reaffirm, in meeting the OLE, that abortion is preferable when the mother is at risk, and who are we to assess the emotional and psychological risk of a woman who has gone through such trauma, which is born of the crime committed by choice on the other, and not by the effect of a supposed debt collection!

Conclusion

The work itself seems like a real struggle of incongruities, false concepts, and some truths. It seems that, if there is really the participation of more than one Spirit, these Spirits have different knowledge, because the contradiction is frequent. There are several absurd and wrong ideas, contradicting the most basic postulates of Spiritism, as there are some truths scattered around. What to do then? We believe it is best to follow the advice of the Spirit of Erastus:

[…] it is better to reject ten truths momentarily than to admit a single lie, a single false theory, because on that theory, on that lie you could build a whole system that would collapse at the first breath of truth, like a monument erected on quicksand, whereas if today you reject certain truths, certain principles, because they are not logically demonstrated to you, then a brutal fact or an irrefutable demonstration will come to confirm their authenticity.

It remains to reaffirm that the intention of this article is nothing more than to warn, including the group from which this book originated, to be very careful not to get involved in these webs of false ideas, which will cost them a lot of peace in the future. that study in the background Allan Kardec, including – and mainly – in the Spiritist Magazine. That they study the new works, which come to recover the knowledge forgotten in time. Let them set aside, at least for the time being, the concepts resulting from mediumistic works, in order to seek the necessary learning. And let them never forget the very important exhortation of Allan Kardec, in The Genesis:

Generality and agreement in teaching, this is the character essential of 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.

This collectivity in agreement with the opinion of the Spirits, passed on to the others, by the criterion of logic, is what constitutes the strength of the Spiritist doctrine and assures its perpetuity.

It is clear that Spiritism, to a certain extent, in terms of human knowledge, is interminable, but it will not be about errors that it will be continued, especially when starting from the fundamental error, which is to treat Spirits as revelators, not respecting the necessary method, because the Spirits are not revealers of the truth, the Doctrine is not made only by questions and answers, but also by the investigation and observation of Spirits of all orders, from the lowest to the highest.

It is also interesting to note that, in the case of supposed superior spirits, as the human researchers involved assume, at no time have they corrected the flagrant errors of the latter, since doctrinal knowledge already exists. Instead, they always corroborated the information and misconceptions from which the incarnates departed.

The main error of this work arises from the lack of observation, as we have shown, of the fundamental characteristics of spiritist science, so well explained by Allan Kardec in the introduction to The Gospel According to Spiritism (emphasis mine):

The agreement in what the spirits teach is, therefore, the best proof. It is important, however, that it takes place under certain conditions. The weakest of all occurs when a medium, alone, interrogates many spirits about a doubtful point.. It is evident that if he is under the dominion of an obsession, or dealing with a mystifying spirit, he can tell him the same thing under different names. Nor will there be any sufficient guarantee in the conformity that presents what can be obtained by several mediums, in the same center, because they can all be under the same influence..”

At a time when efforts to revive Spiritism are multiplying, opposing efforts are multiplying, with the aim (foolish, let's face it) of causing confusion and delay. It is necessary to be on guard, especially with regard to the frequent invitation of the shadows, instigated by human imperfections, such as vanity and pride. Now, is there anything more exciting, in this sense, than saying the new elected to continue the great work of Allan Kardec? Let's not be us, and don't be you, in your group and in your lectures, to help the work of the Spirits that still don't understand the good and that are contrary to the progress of humanity.

“Spiritists!, love one another, this is the first teaching. Instruct yourselves, here is the second.” – Spirit of Truth

Root spiritism is to look at Allan Kardec, contextualized for knowledge of Rational Spiritualism and Animal Magnetism. It is not, in any way, adopting mystical ideas born from one's own or others' opinions, as unfortunately Eduardo Sabbag, from Espiritismo Raiz, has unfortunately done. Another individual with such great potential to help human progress, but who only sees the surface of Spiritism and favors delay, by spreading false ideas.

Tough times, those we live in. Everywhere, the spiritist doctrine of the most varied absurdities is undermined. Through the unwary, the unsuspecting and the great mass of resistant to the necessary study, Spiritism suffers as much as Isaac Newton's Physics would suffer if there were no Physics scholars to defend it against ideas such as the non-existence of the Law of Gravity or how Astronomy would suffer if there were no people to defend it against the ideas persistence of geocentrism or flat Earth.

Of course, the doctrinal basis will be understood more or less clearly, depending on the progress that the Spirit itself has made in this sense. This is what Kardec refers to when he says about innate ideas, which find, in many, full rational acceptance, because, for them, they are as natural as discovering that water vapor is the result of its evaporation. However, what is widely seen is that the absence of “instruct yourselves” leaves the ship adrift, at the whim of the wind.

“Spirits!, love one another, here is the first teaching. Educate yourselves, here is the second. All truths are found in Christianity; the errors that took root in it are of human origin. And behold, beyond the grave, in which you believed nothingness, voices come to cry out to you: Brothers! nothing perishes. Jesus Christ is the conqueror of evil, be the conquerors of wickedness!” – (Spirit of Truth. Paris, 1860.)

Allan Kardec – The Gospel According to Spiritism, Cap. VI, item 5.

The exhortation of the Spirit of Truth, when recommending “instruct yourselves”, makes clear the need to study the Spiritist Doctrine, the voices beyond the grave – which requires scientific methodology. But the “spiritists” forgot who Allan Kardec was. They buried their work, next to their body, and began to limit themselves to knowing the basics of the essentials: the law of reincarnation and our relationships with the Spirits. Even this, however, did not survive the absurd ideas unscathed, as reincarnation, with a consoling law, was filled with ideas of sin and punishment, and our relationships with the Spirits lost their former objective of enlightenment, becoming, again, in the same type of relationship that, amazingly, man had with the Spirits before of the coming of Christ.

932. Why, in the world, so often does the influence of the bad overcome that of the good?“

Because of their weakness. The bad are intriguing and daring, the good are shy. When they want it, they will prevail.” (The Spirits’ Book)

Yes, the scenario of the Spiritist Movement is sad. With the death of Allan Kardec, we are not only going back decades, but millennia, therefore, without the necessary instruction, we once again allow ourselves to be subjugated by the ideas that imprison consciences and, consequently, of progress. The Doctrine was emptied of its philosophical aspect.

The “spiritist” responds to the census, saying, “this is my religion”, but he does not know that what he claims to embrace is a science, and not a religion. He says he reads and studies it, but he has never studied Kardec in depth: he prefers to read novels, full of ideas from both sides, no matter how absurd they may be. He retired his reasoning and, with it, his own autonomy, in a scenario that, for him, seems much more comfortable – without knowing, however, that it is also one of the most painful. He embraces the ideas of karma, “law of return”, “law of action and reaction” and accepts mediumistic prophecies without even questioning his own conscience. And, finally, when he is presented to reason, by the few who try to demonstrate true Spiritism, the one that Kardec studied, dedicating his life, health and resources, finally, when he gets attention, he fights fiercely to keep clinging to the halter that leads him .

It desolates us to leave the cave, attracted by the light, to see that, everywhere, that light is muffled by the dust and the webs of old religious concepts. It hurts to see unconscious consciences, trapped in materialistic and petty concepts, without the ability, by choice, to see how much they suffer from ignorance!

Look at that one! At your side, a kind Spirit, full of light, breathes good advice into your ears. It leads you, in a moment of mental elevation, to the door of knowledge. Someone invites you: “Shall we study?” But the light goes out of his conscience: “who is this to tell me to study? Already read The Spirits' Book and I've already gone through the entire famous collection of that Spirit who taught about the threshold and spiritual life - although he wasn't even spiritualized. Furthermore, I am a medium and, in my astral travel, I see the truth with my own eyes!”

Look at that other one: he is a volunteer at the Spiritist Center, but he doesn't study. A mother, in full suffering, came to look for him: her son, born with physical disabilities, demands too much of his energy. Is tired. Your son is tormented daily under heavy commotions: screams, contortions. The volunteer tries to comfort her based on what he knows, and tells her that her son is suffering the law of action and reaction, as he was probably suicidal in his previous life. The woman is horrified and walks away: “who is this to say such a thing about my beloved son? This Spiritism is useless!”.

There goes one more. She is desperate, because they told her, in a certain spiritist center, that the man she loves is her soul mate. It happens, however, that the man married another woman. What will become of her now? how can you live half? Better to end your own suffering, she thinks. In a flash of inspiration, she goes to the spiritist center of the previous case, where she talks to the same volunteer, who tells her that she must never think about committing suicide, because, if she does, she will spend years wandering on the threshold or in the valley of suicidal, and that she must endure this “ordeal”, as it must be the consequence of a past life debt. She did, regretfully, but, leaving there, she thinks: wouldn't it be better to suffer punishment there than to suffer here?

Here's a man: he's haunted by thoughts of self-destruction too. Hear voices: kill yourself, enough suffering, they say. He arrives at the same center. The boy diagnoses him with obsessors, orders him to say a famous prayer to drive away spirits and also recommends him to clean the house with indigo. The scenario does not change and, after a few months, the man ends up taking his own life.

Another day, another scenario, the volunteer is looking for a woman. She is suffering psychological and physical abuse from her husband, who, addicted to alcohol, returns home with the worst company. It exposes the whole scenario. The volunteer tells her that she must be suffering the consequence of the law of action and reaction, as she must have done her husband wrong in her past life. Therefore, he must bear everything with courage, in order to “redeem this debt”.

As we said, the scenario is, yes, a bit bleak. But, if we are aware of this, it is because we need to do our part, starting with studying, knowing, because the Spirit only advances in morality through its own will. conscious. Root spiritism is to look at Allan Kardec, contextualized by the knowledge of Rational Spiritualism and Animal Magnetism. It is studying it carefully, in its original pages, away from the adulterations of Heaven and Hell and Genesis. It is to understand and retake the philosophical and moral aspects of Spiritism, so that, living in our own lives, we are active parts, and no longer inoperative, in social transformation.

There are many speaking, writing, acting in the name of something called Spiritism on the poster, but which is essentially dogma, because there are still few studying and acting in the name of the Doctrine, inspired by the honest and conscientious model of Allan Kardec, a man who, with his effort, helped to form the Doctrine with the greatest capacity to leverage change in the world.

Spiritualists: instruct yourselves!

Cover image: Photo by Andrea Piacquadio at the pexels

The Spiritist Doctrine has suffered a lot because of individuals who think that, because read Kardec — which is quite different from study and understand Kardec, which requires other knowledge, properly contextualized, as is the case of Rational Spiritualism — they believe that they can put themselves in the position of teaching, in your own way, what Spiritism is and, worse, how are the concepts and themes that were not even approached or developed in the space of time in which Spiritism developed as it should be: as a science.

See: Spiritism is a natural law. As such, it has always existed and will always exist and, of this law, we know only a small part, the doctrine named Spiritism. Recognizing, however, that we know very little about this law of nature does not mean to say that what we know is invalid and, in certain respects, conclusive, as long as it is very well grounded, with certainty, in doctrinal concepts. It just means recognizing that the spiritist science is not concluded, but rather that it is the basis, just as the studies of Isaac Newton provided the basis for Physics.

Our role first must be that of a humble student, because, most of the time, we do not even understand all the concepts brilliantly developed by Allan Kardec in his works. In fact, knowing that his last two works, O Céu e o Inferno and A Genesis were tampered with and that Rational Spiritualism and Magnetism were almost erased by time, we have to recognize that we learned a lot wrong and that we failed to learn so many others.

What we have today, in general, is a very meager and superficial knowledge, in addition to being often distorted, of Spiritism “contained” in Kardec's works. As if that weren't enough, putting Kardec into oblivion, we started to admit as doctrinal other concepts that, in most cases, did not pass through the sieve of reason, nor the control of the scientific method, so well developed by the coder. And, armed with all this lack of knowledge, many have wanted to dictate Spiritism, according to their visions and conceptions. That is why, of what we are not sure about, because there is nothing conclusive in Spiritism, we cannot say anything, although we can say, paradoxically, that many certainties, which persist today in the spiritist movement, are not exact, like the existence of the threshold.

We don't go much further. Our texts and studies are full of notes and examples of everything we said above. We end up reaffirming: we are not teachers, but students, and we will never be closed to re-evaluating any idea or content that proves to be wrong or incomplete, according to an irrefutable and irrefutable logic of facts that, perhaps, we have come to not fully understand or know.

That's it, for the sake of humanity, which we invite everyone.

Extracted from the work “Psychophonic Instructions”, by Chico Xavier.

“Brother “F” by which we will designate the companion, whose message we are going to transcribe, was a great banker on Earth. He was certainly not a criminal, in the common sense of the term, but, from the spiritual content of his manifestations, he seems to have been one of those “neither cold nor hot” men of the evangelical symbol, who, bringing his mind warm to the idea of gold, during his existence in the flesh, he was dominated by it in his early days, beyond death.“

“[…] Troubled and afflicted, I felt the need for confession. After all, I was a Catholic who had relaxed his faith. Without anyone listening to my pleas, I asked for the presence of a priest. I advanced towards the confessional and got down on my knees, but in a few moments the confessional became a bank window for me. Startled, I raised my eyes to the altar. The altar, however, had been transformed into a safe. I tried to console myself with the sight of the missal, but the book of worship suddenly appeared metamorphosed into an old book of mine, in which I secretly entered my notes of real income. I tried to isolate myself. I feared complete madness. Still, I lifted my gaze to the image of the Virgin Mary. Naturally, she would feel sorry for me, however, before my attention, the image was reduced to a high-priced jewel... It was made entirely of gold, of pure gold...

[…]

I asked for a water tank that I was familiar with at the top of the Santo Antônio neighborhood. The water, there, ran in spurts. I could bend over... I could drink as if I were an animal and, prostrate, no longer on my knees but crawling, I would implore God's grace. I found running water, clear water visited by sunlight and I stretched out on the ground... But, at the precise moment that my thirsty lips touched the pure liquid, only gold, gold appeared... I recognized that I had descended to the condition of a mentally insane person. . Then I remembered an old friend... Cícero Pereira... Cícero was a spiritist and, for that reason, he became someone I supposed, in my sad blindness, to have left behind in madness. The memory was enough for his voice to be heard. He answered my call. Supported me. Talked to me […]

A great example that one cannot blindly take the communications of a Spirit as if they were the expression of the truth. Imagine if that Spirit, being taken to a spiritual aid meeting, told only the part of the illusion in question and the unsuspecting people left stating that, in the world of Spirits, there is gold...

Do umbral and “Nosso Lar” exist? Where it is? Short answer: they do not exist as people believe, due to lack of knowledge of Spiritism. But, as this is a study group, you should not simply accept this answer, without reasoning, in the same way that you should not accept the isolated ideas of any Spirits, regardless of the medium.

Why is it that many spirits, before Spiritism or under other religions, say that, after death, they found themselves in Hell? Why, in Roman times, did the Spirits claim to be in Tartarus? Why do Spirits who have known Spiritism (that distorted one) say that they found themselves on the umbral or in the valley of suicides, and not in hell? It is very clear that this is due to their own conceptions, because, if one or the other were a reality, there would always be a uniformity in the ideas presented by the Spirits, at all times and everywhere.

Therefore, it is easy to see that these are conceptions of the imaginary. Are they an abomination? Of course not: they are part of our evolution. However, Spiritualism did not come to continue these ideas, in a more pleasant way: it came to present reality, helping human beings to get rid of these limiting conceptions that delay their step. Now, it is a fact that Spiritism has this purpose of leveraging progress, like all science, because, if it were not so, and since the Spirit is immortal, could God, in his Laws, let each one reach progress through infinite incarnations, learning by trial and error, only, and without any support. But He, being all goodness, gives us the tools, the greatest of which is intelligence and reason; it is up to us to use them or not, according to our will.

The role of the medium

The role of the medium is not to interfere in the communication of a Spirit and, through him, any type of Spirits can communicate, depending on the circumstance and the purpose, either of the medium or of the superior Spirits. The role of the scholar is to analyze and to judge these communications, based on the science already acquired and the riddle of reason((Read the article “The role of the researcher and the medium in communications with the Spirits“)).

After Kardec's death and with all the deviation that the Spiritist Movement took, mainly with the true plantation of tares that were Roustaing's ideas, the Spiritists, away from studies, they stopped reasoning and began to allow different ideas, without doctrinal basis, began to flood the imagination of the adepts of the Doctrine. Thus, fantastic and superstitious concepts began to slowly and progressively transform the Movement, which today presents itself as a religion, full of dogmas and false concepts.

What is in Spiritism?

Now, dear reader, there is in The Spirits' Book the following conclusion, presented in question 1012 of The Spirits' Book:

1012((Reviewers' Note: It should be noted that, in the numbering of the book's items, Kardec skipped no. 1011. Despite the obvious oversight, the text was kept that way in the fourteen editions that followed until Allan Kardec's death. To avoid confusion, this edition did not attempt to “correct” the numbering.)). Will there be limited places in the universe for the pains and enjoyments of spirits, according to their merit? 

“We have already answered that question. Pains and pleasures are inherent to the spirits' degree of perfection. Each one takes from himself the principle of his happiness or his misfortune. And as they are everywhere, no circumscribed or closed place exists especially intended for one thing or another. As for the incarnates, they are more or less happy or unhappy, depending on whether the world they inhabit is more or less advanced.”

The) - In accordance, then, with what you come to say, do not hell and paradise exist, such as man imagines them?

“They are simple allegories: there are happy and unhappy spirits everywhere. However, as we have already said, spirits of the same order gather together out of sympathy; but they can meet wherever they like, when they are perfect.”

The absolute location of the regions of penalties and rewards exists only in man's imagination. It stems from their tendency to materialize and circumscribe things, whose infinite essence it is not possible for him to understand.

KARDEC, Allan. The Spirits' Book. 1860

It is very clear that the places, in the world of Spirits, do not exist by themselves. They are mere allegories and, mainly, states of consciousness. The happy Spirit is “in heaven”, while the unhappy and suffering Spirit is “in hell” of his own conscience.

Let us note, however, an important detail, in question 1012-a: “However, as we have already said, spirits of the same order gather together in sympathy.“. This means that, according to their ideas and their states of evolution, the Spirits can come together. Now, knowing that less evolved Spirits are attached to the concepts of matter and knowing that, through the action of the will, the Spirit can act on fluidic matter, coming from the Universal Cosmic Fluid, it is easy to conceive that, together, the suffering Spirits gathered together can create veritable hellish or purgatorial landscapes, which, however, exist only as long as these Spirits shape them, that is, they are not places that precede them, but that exist only as creations of these groupings of intelligences.

Nor can we forget that we, mentally, are capable of creating true illusions, due to our ideas, beliefs, fears, etc. Therefore, it is easy to understand when a suffering Spirit says he is hurt, hungry, thirsty or even tired.

Important: the Spirits, in Spiritism, were categorical in this regard: there are no circumscribed places. On the other hand, about other concepts, they said: “calm down. This cannot be understood yet. Wait for the development of the Doctrine”. This demonstrates that it is false the idea that such concepts could not be taught at that time (which doesn't even make sense).

Let's not stop here, however. In July 1858, in the article “Berezina's Drum“, Kardec asks the following questions, after carrying out a series of inquiries trying to understand the moral and rational state of that Spirit, who was a soldier in his last incarnation:

28. ─ Do you see other spirits around you? ─ Yes, many.

29. ─ How do you know they are spirits? ─ Among us, we see ourselves as we are.

30. ─ How do you see them? ─ As spirits can be seen, but not through the eyes.

31. ─ And you, in what form are you here? ─ Under what I had when I was alive, that is, as a drum.

32. ─ And do you see the other spirits with the forms they had in life? ─ No. We don't take on an appearance until we are evoked. Other than that, we are formless.

The last answer was quite interesting, but so far it was just the opinion of a Spirit. Worthy of note is Kardec's methodology, probing matters of interest, instead of asking direct questions that could be answered in a biased way. Then, in September of the same year, in the article “Lectures from beyond the grave — Mrs. Schwabenhaus. Ecstatic Lethargy“, Kardec asks the following questions, getting the following answers. Please note:

29. ─ In what form are you among us? ─ Under my last female form.

30. ─ Do you see us as distinctly as if you were alive? ─ Yes.

31. Since you have been here with the form you had on Earth, is it through the eyes that you see us? ─ No, the Spirit has no eyes. I only find myself in my last form to satisfy the laws that govern spirits when evoked and forced to resume what you call perispirit.

Let's see, then: there are already two Spirits, of different elevations, besides the one who answered OLE's questions, saying the same thing: for the Spirit freed from matter, there is no form, like the one we understand. They assume the perispirit, attending to a natural law, only when they need to act materially, when, for example, they approach us to communicate (with materially I mean: they need to assume the perispirit to be able to put themselves in communication with us, which, above all, happens through this “clothes”).

General teaching and reason

Kardec always highlighted, as an indispensable method for the formation of spirit science, the double control of reason and the general teaching of the Spirits. But that's not all: the teaching, emphasizes Kardec, when it must be spread, it is given simultaneously over various points of the globe. The concepts presented here, however, were not established in this way: they were brought by a Spirit or medium, at a time, and, over time, began to be accepted by other individuals, who began to reproduce them. It is as if it were an inverted pyramid, in time: currently, from a construction of illusory theories of the past, a series of others were developed, contrary to the Spiritist Doctrine itself and recovering several concepts of the old religions.

“But I saw it on astral travel”

For the Doctrine student, it is very clear that the individual's ideas play a fundamental role in what he sees and how his physical mind interprets these “visions”.

Kardec, in A Genesis, cap. XIV, highlights that:

27. Spiritual vision is necessarily incomplete and imperfect among incarnate spirits and, consequently, subject to aberrations. Having its seat in the soul itself, its state must influence the perceptions. According to the degree of its development, the circumstances and the moral state of the individual, it can give, whether in sleep or in the waking state: 1st) the perception of certain real material facts, such as the knowledge of occurrences that happen at a distance, the descriptive details of a locality, the causes of an illness and the convenient remedies; 2) the perception of equally real things in the spiritual world, such as the vision of spirits; 3rd) fantastic images created by the imagination, analogous to the fluidic creations of thought (see above, no. 14). These creations are always in relation to the moral dispositions of the Spirit who creates them. This is how the thinking of people strongly imbued and preoccupied with certain religious beliefs presents them with hell, its boilers, its tortures and its demons, in the way they themselves imagine: it is sometimes an entire epic; pagans seeing Olympus and Tartarus, as Christians see hell and paradise. If, upon awakening or coming out of ecstasy, these people retain an accurate memory of their visions, they regard them as reality and confirmation of their belief, even though they are only the product of their own thoughts. A very strict distinction must be made from static views before accepting them. In this sense, the remedy for excessive credulity is the study of the laws that govern the spiritual world.

28. Dreams themselves present the three natures of visions described above. To the first two belong dreams of prediction, presentiments and warnings. In the third, that is, in the fluidic creations of thought, one can find the cause of certain fantastic images, which have nothing real in relation to material life, but which, for the Spirit, have such a reality that the body suffers an impact. , as hair has been seen to whiten under the impression of a dream. These creations can be provoked by exalted beliefs, memories, tastes, desires, passions, fear, remorse, habitual worries, bodily needs or malaise related to the organism's functions; finally, by other spirits, with a benevolent or malevolent objective, according to their nature.

That is to say, dear reader, that, according to spiritist science, places in the world of spirits are nothing more than false concepts. Unfortunately, falling into novel curiosity and absent from these foundations, the Spiritists began to admit the fruits of the isolated ideas of certain Spirits as if they were the full truth.

It remains to say, therefore, that there is no umbral, there is no valley of suicides and there are no spiritual colonies. as we believe: there are Spirits that come together, according to their ideas, and that, the more they are distracted from the purpose of the interval between incarnations, which should be to reflect and learn, reinforcing their will to overcome their imperfections in the next incarnation, they create “material” scenarios. , replicating earthly habits, which constitutes, for them, a real delay towards happiness.

Teaching the false concepts of umbral, suicide valleys, spiritual hospitals, etc., which are the external representation of moral suffering, is failing to teach what really matters: the analysis of one's mistakes and successes, the understanding that everything depends on the own will and the necessary action for one's own evolution. For a Spirit that suffers, and for ourselves, let's say: any suffering or physiological need, in the spiritual world, are FALSE sensations, a kind of moral repercussion ((see The Spirits' Book, second part, chap. VI, item 257)) . Now, it is Kardec's conclusion that the death of the body causes the Spirit to leave, disconnecting the perispirit, cell by cell ((see Genesis, chapter XI)). Since all the cells are dead and the perispirit is “released” (which will not take more than 24 hours after brain death) there is no repercussion from the body to the Spirit, other than through an externalization of moral suffering!

Therefore, you will not go “over the umbral”, but you will have to face your own conscience, at one time or another, and your conscience, depending on how you are and the concepts you carry, can very clearly indicate the path of readjustment. , or else it may set you in time-wasting states. Heaven or hell will be on your own conscience. Therefore, take care to learn Spiritism and draw from it the moral consequences in support of your own will. In this way, you will reach, sooner, the desired happiness, which is not living in a cozy little house in a spiritual colony where the Spirits are concerned with working to earn money in exchange, but the possibility of acting for good, through infinite space, making their part in divine creation.

And make no mistake: the Spirit is transported by thought, wherever he projects that thought. No need for a flying bus.

Where is the key to understanding all this, then?

It's in A Genesis, by Allan Kardec. Read with attention:

14. Spirits act on spiritual fluids, not manipulating them as men manipulate gases, but with the help of thought and will, which are for the Spirit what the hand is for man. Through thought, they imprint this or that direction on the fluid; they agglomerate, combine or disperse them and form sets with an appearance, a shape, a certain color; they change their properties, as a chemist changes those of a gas or other bodies, combining them according to certain laws. It is the great workshop or laboratory of the spiritual life.

Sometimes these transformations are the result of an intention, but often they are the product of an unconscious thought, because the Spirit just thinks about something for it to be done.

This is how, for example, a spirit appears to an incarnate spirit, endowed with spiritual vision, under the appearance he had when he was alive, at the time he met him, although he has already had several other incarnations. He presents himself with clothes, external signs, diseases, scars, amputated limbs, etc. who had; a beheaded one will present himself without his head. I do not say that they preserved such appearances; no, certainly, because, as a Spirit, he is neither lame nor one-armed, nor one-eyed nor decapitated. But his thought, referring to the time when it was like that, his perispirit instantly takes on this appearance, which also changes instantly. If he had been once black and once white, he will present himself as either black or white, according to which of the two incarnations he is evoked and where his thoughts go.

By an analogous effect, the Spirit's thought fluidly creates the objects it was used to using. A miser will handle gold; a soldier will have his weapons and his uniform; a smoker, his pipe; a workman, his plow and his oxen; an old woman, her distaff. These fluidic objects are as real to the Spirit as they would be in the material state to the incarnate man. But because they are created by thought, their existence is as ephemeral as it [thought].

It is very easy to understand, therefore, what we said: “why does it exist? Because they believe.” We therefore need to recognize the need understanding and separating what is false from what is true, because, as soon as someone says that, in the world of spirits, there are bogeymen who eat children, or spirits that vampirize the perispiritual fluid of the incarnate (the what no can happen, knowing the principle of universal laws that govern matter and Spirit), and that people start to, without thinking, believe, without reasoning, in these concepts, themselves, after they die, depending on their state of consciousness, will manufacture their own hauntings, that is, by the action of thought, will create such images and, then, in their mediumistic communications, they will reproduce the same ideas, probably increased here and there, after all, “whoever tells a tale, increases one point”.

Do you understand the problem, dear reader?

Explanatory video, with Paulo Henrique de Figueiredo

Conclusion

With all this, are we saying that Chico Xavier was wrong? NO, by the principle of Chico Xavier being just the medium. However, André Luiz, who was not even a spiritualist person, on Earth, presented his truth of things, according to his conceptions. And, since this opinion has no doctrinal and rational basis, it cannot be part of Spiritism.

It is important to note, however, that if such creations exist, it is because God allows them. In fact, this is something linked to the divine benevolence itself, which guarantees, to each one, a gradual and shock-free development. In the article “About the Spirits who believe they are still alive”, from the Spiritist Magazine of 1864, there is an important spiritual communication, from which we take the following excerpt:

Not everything is proof in existence; the life of the Spirit continues, as you have been told, from its birth to infinity; for some, death is nothing more than a simple accident that has no influence on the fate of the person who dies. A fallen tile, an attack of apoplexy, a violent death, very often, do nothing but separate the Spirit from its material envelope; but the perispiritual envelope retains, at least in part, the properties of the body that has just succumbed. On a day of battle, if I could open your eyes which you have, but which you cannot make use of, you would see many fights continue, many soldiers still rising to the assault, defending and attacking the redoubts; you would even hear them utter their hurrays! and their battle cries, in the midst of the silence and under the dismal veil that follows a day of carnage; the fight is over, they return to their homes to embrace their old fathers, their old mothers who are waiting for them. Sometimes this state lasts a long time for some; it is a continuation of terrestrial life, a mixed state between corporeal and spiritual life. Why, if they were simple and wise, would they feel the cold of the grave? Why would they pass abruptly from life to death, from daylight to night? God is not unjust, and He leaves this joy to the poor in spirit, hoping that they will see their state through the development of their own faculties, and that they may pass calmly from the material life to the real life of the Spirit.

We see, therefore, that the existence of such “places” is a fact, permitted by divine benevolence, to those who are not yet developed to understand something above and outside of matter and material needs.

We end by remembering what is printed on our homepage:

Generality and agreement in teaching, this is the character essential of 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.

This collectivity in agreement with the opinion of the Spirits, passed on to the others, by the criterion of logic, is what constitutes the strength of the Spiritist doctrine and assures its perpetuity.

Allan Kardec – Genesis

By Marco Milani

(Text published in Senda Magazine – FEEES, May/Jun 2022, p.5-6 ((Source: https://www.feees.org.br/?jet_download=3739)))

Throughout his speech to the community of spiritists in the French cities of Lyon and Bordeaux, in 1862, Kardec ((Book Viagem Espírita em 1862. Speeches given at the general meetings of spiritists in Lyon and Bordeaux. Speech I)) categorized the followers into three large groups: I) Those who believe purely and simply in the phenomena of manifestations, but who do not deduce any moral consequences from them; II) Those who perceive the moral reach, but apply it to others and not to themselves; III) Those who personally accept all the consequences of the doctrine and who practice or strive to practice their morals.

The true spiritist, therefore, applies to himself what many only manifest in normative discourses loaded with ennobling lessons, but empty of actions.

Among each of these categories, multiple subcategories could be identified, proportional to the moral and intellectual maturity of the individuals. One of them would be formed by those who present themselves as adepts, but adapt the teachings to their own interests and not infrequently seek to legitimize their particular opinions on various controversial subjects, claiming these are based on Spiritism. Such is the spiritist for convenience, who customizes the faith according to his interests and ambitions.

Customized faith is adopted at the expense of doctrinal coherence by new sophists who distort reality to shape the appearance of truth. Such distortion often stems from the passions that the supposed adept carries and directs his cosmovision and consequent argumentation. Instead of using doctrinal premises to get to know himself, improve himself and rethink his previous beliefs with a natural change of attitudes, he does the opposite, starting from deep-rooted ideological convictions to fit Spiritism into these proposals. What does not fit or is divergent, is simply ignored or reinterpreted.

 This is what happens with political passions. In a world of expiations and trials, there is no shortage of old social revolutionary proposals that promise the realization of the kingdom of justice on Earth as long as a certain guideline already devised by interpreters of history and planners of collective behavior is followed. Almost all of these utopian recipes for happiness ignore the interexistential process of development and preach the imposition of artificial and collectivist economic relations such as those that would morally transform the individual, but which end up suffocating him. For these, the Spirit Erastus ((Excerpt taken from Erastus' epistle to the spiritists of Lyon – 1861. A warning against materialist utopias. Revista Espírita, Oct/1861.)) manifests itself in this way. 

I just said the word egalitarian. I think it is useful to dwell a little on it, because we have absolutely not seen impractical utopias preached in your midst, and also because, on the contrary, we vigorously reject everything that seems to be linked to the prescriptions of an antisocial communism; above all, we are essentially propagandists of individual freedom, indispensable for the development of the incarnate; therefore, declared enemies of everything that comes close to these convent legislations, which brutally annihilate individuals.

 Fruit of utopian illusions, many spiritualists for convenience select and reinterpret doctrinal concepts to legitimize the political model they carry of systems of socioeconomic relations that depend on the moral perfection of all.

Transitory social issues were recurrently present in Allan Kardec's dialogues with the Spirits and the respective doctrinal teaching contains the fundamental elements for the construction of a more just and fraternal earthly society, based on the knowledge of the spiritual reality and the purpose of reincarnation.

The primordial contribution of Spiritism in social progress is evident in the condition of a powerful agent of moral transformation of humanity, without any framing in political-ideological conceptions already conceived.

As an inter-existentialist philosophy, Spiritism is not limited to the relationships of the material world, as it expands the understanding of reality and shifts the ultimate purpose of being towards the conquest of the true Kingdom of God in itself. Human miseries are reflections of the moral level of individuals, confronting them with the wounds of pride and selfishness, encouraging them to exercise their intelligence and practice charity in its true sense, in harmony with divine laws.

Spiritism, by demonstrating the responsibility of each one for their actions and respective consequences during the reincarnation process in full compliance with natural laws, moves away from the myopic materialist historical perspective that conceives man as a product of his environment and ignores his reincarnation baggage. , your evolutionary tendencies and needs for spiritual attainment. The expression “to each one according to his works” summarizes the meritocratic essence of the individual effort in the inner journey in search of true happiness, according to Spiritism.

Trust and rational belief in divine justice and in the future guided by the consequent benefits of the practice of charity, here understood as benevolent, indulgent action aimed at the forgiveness of offenses, should guide the adept's balanced conduct, promoting comfort and courage to overcome material challenges. The spiritist's conduct reflects his own moral progress in the works carried out and is recognized as consistent with the principles of peace and solidarity he professes.

Reasoned faith, from this angle, critically analyzes and admits the consistency of the set of teachings presented by Allan Kardec, inviting the adept of the spiritist philosophy to act according to doctrinal principles, reducing and attenuating habits and proud and selfish postures. Certainly, in a world of expiations and trials, sudden perfection should not be demanded and moral progress is gradual and proportional to the efforts and maturity of each one.

Social transformation, for Kardec, will not occur in an imposing and totalitarian way on the individual, but in the opposite way, resulting from the improvement of the individual while respecting each person's freedom of conscience. As stated in the February 1862 edition of the Revista Espírita ((Excerpt taken from the text Response addressed to the spiritists of Lyon on the occasion of the New Year, Revista Espírita, Revista Espírita, Feb/1862)), we have:

Look for in Spiritism what can improve you: this is the essential thing. When men are better, really useful social reforms will follow naturally; working for moral progress, you will lay the truest and most solid foundation of all improvements, and will leave it to God to see that they arrive in due time. In the interest of Spiritism, which is still young, but which matures quickly, oppose an unshakable firmness to those who want to drag you down a dangerous path..

 By believing only in what is in agreement with their political-ideological passions and rejecting everything in the spiritist doctrine that contradicts them, the adept for convenience exemplifies the selfish and proud posture that leads to doctrinal folly. Political militancy, with the aim of occupying spaces and disseminating its proposals to convince the largest number of people, disrespects the freedom of thought and free will of others in spiritist institutions and causes schisms.

Allan Kardec, addressing the spiritists in Lyon in 1862, already warned about the trap prepared by opponents of Spiritism who aimed to bring political discussion to spiritist groups ((ibidem)).

I must also point out to you another tactic of our opponents, that of seeking to compromise spiritists, inducing them to move away from the true objective of the doctrine, which is morality, to address issues that are not within their scope and that, just title, could arouse susceptibilities and mistrust. Don't let yourself fall into that trap; carefully remove from your meetings all that pertains to politics and irritating matters; In this respect, discussions will only cause embarrassment, while no one will have anything to object to morality, as long as it is good.

                       Acting as promoters of cizânia in the name of varied political passions, the supposed adherents who customize the faith enthusiastically launch themselves into the proselytizing of their personal convictions, camouflaging them from doctrinal matters, fostering discussions against or in favor of rulers, defending or attacking behavior of others, or even, trying to make believe that only those who share their political-ideological passions could be considered a legitimate spiritist.

That in these agitated times by political polarization, we can understand Kardec's warning about care in dealing with passions and respect for freedom of thought and exemplify in ourselves the behavior we would like others to have.

Let us not forget that Spiritism has enemies interested in hindering its progress, to whom its triumphs cause spite, not being the most dangerous those who attack it openly, but those who act in the shadows, those who caress it with one of their hands and tear each other apart. These evil beings insinuate themselves wherever they claim to be able to do harm. As they know that unity is a force, they try to destroy it, waving waves of discord. Who, since then, can claim that those who, in meetings, sow disturbance and turmoil are not agents provocateurs, interested in disorder? Undoubtedly, they are neither true nor good spiritists; they will never do good and can do much harm.

KARDEC, Allan. The Mediums' Book.

The enemies of Spiritism have been known for a long time, who, in the open, attack it from all sides and in all ways. There are those of religions, who fight it for preaching the principles of autonomy and free will; those of the materialist sciences, which cannot admit what they cannot see under the apparatus; those in politics, who see, in their ideas, no more than a threat to their hegemony; those of materialist philosophies, etc. These enemies, however, are declared. Worse are those who emerge, through carelessness or malevolence, in the bosom of the Doctrine, among studious men who should do everything for the good of this science.

There are in all areas the “judases” of Spiritism. Kardec met some, the most prominent of which was Roustaing, who, out of pride and vanity, turned against Spiritism. They are Spirits who have not yet managed to understand the essence of the Spiritist Doctrine, who consider it a threatening “religion” and who surreptitiously await the slightest error where they can catch on, creating a true storm in a teapot. For this, they rely on themselves, when incarnated, or on unsuspecting individuals or those who are not fully aware of the true essence of the Doctrine of Spirits, over whom they exert influence due to their ideas attached to vanity and pride.

It does not matter that, in the formation of human spiritist science, there are a thousand consoling, liberating and transforming concepts: a single concept, later seen as false or wrong, born from men's ideas of the time, is enough for them to try to put the Doctrine of Spirits, the ideas of the men who investigated it and the Spiritist Movement, three different things, in the same basket, labeled useless or harmful.

One of those ideas that causes the most rage to the unsuspecting and uninformed man is that of racism in Kardec. Yes, Kardec says, in your conclusions, and moved by the concepts of science of the time, that the black person, referred to by him as the “Hottentot”, the African “savage”, would be a breed materially speaking, where less advanced spirits would incarnate in search of atonement and basic learning. A terrible, racist idea? Yes but only from the current point of view. At that time there was not even the concept of racism, because it was natural, according to science, to classify human beings into races – dozens of them.

Kardec used the scientific concepts and postulates of his time. So it was with fluids, which were later abandoned, so it was with racism. That simple. Starting from this MATERIAL concept of the inferiority of the black race, did he suppose that the Spirits they incarnated were inferior? Why?

Well, let's put ourselves in Kardec's situation: he lived in an ethnocentric society; saw blacks being classified as inferior, by scientific concepts and treated like animals. Hence, he assumed that spirits chose to incarnate black people to atone for their imperfections. This is explicit in “O Negro Pai César”, in the Spiritist Magazine of June 1859. Is there an error in this? If we consider how blacks were treated and classified by science and society, which imposed heavy suffering on them, then it is not easy to assume that some Spirits chose a life like that, just as a Spirit chose to be buried alive, thinking that they would have to pay a past mistake?

A certain author puts it like this: “It is still recurring spiritist centers that do not accept or accept with reservations communications from pretos Velhos, Indians and other spirits that present themselves in an unconventional way as trustworthy”. Now, it is still recurrent, in Spiritist centers, to go up to the tribunes to teach concepts of karma and the law of return or even talk about “fluid water” and “the phone only rings from there to here”. And this happens for the same reason that leads this Spiritist Movement to not accept such communications: the lack of doctrinal and scientific studies. Let's not confuse the Spiritist Movement with Spiritism. They are different things, just as the human aspect and the spiritist aspect of the Doctrine are distinct.

I remember that the same Kardec who was guided by science to classify blacks (and also other peoples) in such a way, made an effort to demonstrate that, “in spite of anything” (in the context of these opinions), they should be treated with respect and dignity. This the author forgot to mention:

829. Are there men who are by nature destined to be the property of other men?

“It is contrary to the law of God every absolute subjection of one man to another man. Slavery is an abuse of force. It disappears with progress, as all abuses will gradually disappear.”

The human law that enshrines slavery is contrary to nature, since it makes man the irrational and degrades him physically and morally (note by Allan Kardec)

831. Does not the natural inequality of aptitudes place certain human races under the dependence of the more intelligent races?

“Yes, but for them to elevate them, not to further brutalize them through enslavement. For a long time, men considered certain human races as working animals, equipped with arms and hands, and thought they had the right to sell those of those races as beasts of burden. Those who do so are considered to be of purer blood. fools! They see nothing but matter. More or less pure is not the blood, but the Spirit.” (361–803.)

This same Kardec also made an effort to bring women to the same level of dignity and rights, as in the RE of January 1866 and in questions 817 to 821 of OLE. Still, in the same issue of the Magazine, he undoes, through Spiritist principles, the prejudices that give rise to homophobia:

“If this influence of the corporeal life has repercussions on the spiritual life, the same happens when the Spirit passes from the spiritual to the corporeal life. In a new incarnation he will bring the character and inclinations he had as a Spirit; if he is advanced, he will be an advanced man; if he is late, he will be a late man.

By changing his sex, he will therefore be able, under this impression and in his new incarnation, to retain the tastes, tendencies and character inherent in the sex he has just left. That's how they explain certain apparent anomalies which are seen in the character of certain men and women.”

Therefore, there is only difference between man and woman in relation to the material organism, which is annihilated with the death of the body. But as for the Spirit, the soul, the essential, imperishable being, it does not exist, because there are not two kinds of souls.

Allan Kardec, RE, Jan/1866

 And then Paulo Henrique highlights the use of scientific concepts of the time, again, by Kardec, to explain the term “apparent anomaly”:

It is very important to highlight here that the term “apparent anomaly”, used by Kardec, was present in the sciences of the time, referring to phenomena that escape the explanation of accepted theories, not being “normal” for them; but that, when a new natural explanation for the phenomenon is found in new theories, they cease to be “anomalies” and become natural phenomena. That's why she's "apparent"

Paulo Henrique de Figueiredo, Spiritist Revolution website, 08/25/2016

It was already a big step, for a man of that time, to have given soul to a people treated like a machine. But, we know, the march of progress advances and, as Kardec always said, we should always follow scientific advances, abandoning the opinion that proves to be wrong in the face of science. That's what we do here and that's what Allan Kardec would do if he were incarnated among us today. I disagree that there is a “lapse” of character in Kardec, as he demonstrated the opposite, all the time. There are concepts of the time, of a man deeply connected to the sciences.

The same author goes on to say that “In addition, it was very common for wealthy families to have black servants for all types of work. So, Kardec not only saw black people, but he had the opportunity to meet, talk and learn about African societies, as the black presence in France was common”, on which I make the following observations:

First, the reference given to the first statement — McCloy, Shelby T. Negroes and Mulattoes in Eighteenth-Century France. The Journal of Negro History, Vol. 30, No. 3 (Jul., 1945), pp. 276-292 — brings references only from the late 18th century. Rivail, having been born in 1804, would reach maturity only around 1816 at the earliest. There are 16 years of possible changes, and we cannot forget that France was a colonialist country and that, therefore, it sent most blacks to its colonies.

Second, the second statement lacks logic. Kardec was educated primarily in Yverdon, by Pestalozzi, where, at the age of 14, he taught other students. Afterwards, he lived, as far as we know, mostly among scientific and educational circles, dominated, of course, by the white man. Could it be that Kardec had so many opportunities to live with black people? Now, knowing Rivail's common sense, it is to be assumed that NO, otherwise he would have a different opinion in this regard.

And it remains to remember that the Spirits DO NOT advance the science that it is up to man to acquire, through his own efforts and intelligence. In the same way that the Spirits did not deny the false concepts of fluids (electrical, vital, etc.), abandoned by Kardec in A Genesis, to stay only with the theory of the Universal Cosmic Fluid, they also did not deny the human thesis of races, which only came to be overcome about a century later.

I cannot understand and agree with a text that, in a way, analyzes the subject in a partial way. It is not a question of minimizing the fact, but of presenting it in full. It happens that a person who does not know the facts completely, reads a criticism like this one, which puts, in the same basket, Doctrine, Kardec and the Spiritist Movement, and concludes: “Spiritism really sucks”. And that, my friends, is a great disservice to the Doctrine, so that, even today, many black people and followers of Afro religions still express resentment, prejudice and distancing from the spiritist science. Far from attracting, such opinions continue to drive them away.

We all go through the evolutionary process through incarnations. All, without exception. During this process, because of our choices, we can develop good habits or bad habits. The former become virtues, which bring us closer to happiness, while the latter become imperfections, which distance us from happiness and, therefore, prolong our sufferings.

“All men experience 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 freed themselves from 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 achieve it, they will be like the others. They will do good without thinking about it, like children who read fluently without needing to spell. It is as if there were two sick people: one cured and full of strength while the other is still convalescing and hesitates to walk; or like two runners, one of which is closer to the finish than the other.”

KARDEC, Allan. The Genesis. 4th edition (original), FEAL

Bad habits are of two types: moral and material (which, deep down, always have something moral, that is, the will of the Spirit). Bad moral habits are those easily recognized as avarice, jealousy, vanity, selfishness, pride, etc., the last two of which can be understood as the parents of all others. Bad material habits, on the other hand, are those such as addictions to drugs or the exaggeration of certain animal instincts, such as gluttony, addiction to sex, etc.

Both are very difficult to combat, now installed. Often, they require multiple incarnations and, not infrequently, we find ourselves in the condition of the one who you see where he goes wrong and the suffering it causes him, but who says: “he is stronger than me”. Commonly, in this condition, which is already the beginning of something very important, through simple recognition, we are going to look for different external ways of dealing with these bad habits, whether religious or philosophical, or medicinal. We look for hospitalizations, drugs that aim to combat certain aspects, religions that will commonly classify as sin or that will say that we need to change in a hurry, because “Jesus awaits us”. None of this, however, manages to change what is at the bottom of our souls, except with rare exceptions. It is that, in all this, a fundamental key is missing: the will.

Let's see: all external artifices can, of course, help a lot in the process of overcoming. Prayer or prayer, medication, external practices, in short, everything is a tool, but I am here to say that nothing will change unless the individual acquires the firm will to win. And this is a process, very greatly aided by reason. Spiritism, when it shows us that joy and sadness, pleasure and pain are purely material and transient conditions, but that true happiness lies in getting rid of the conditions that force us to continue incarnating in such brutal conditions, living under the fruit of our own imperfections, tells us: everyone will reach the heavens, but it depends only on each one When it will happen.

By understanding this aspect, we can begin to see life differently. Every difficult situation and every opportunity becomes a learning device. We start to face difficulties with different eyes and become more attentive to the opportunities to which the good Spirits lead us, as long as we have the will.

Still, winning seems something very distant and difficult. Many will say: the flesh is weak. Well, we really can't assume that overnight we will overcome a bad habit that is deeply ingrained in our minds. This is the first fundamental understanding. It is necessary to adopt reason and will to develop better habits, being who of them is the habit of learning to say “not today”. Let's learn to design our future: why do we want to get rid of one imperfection or more? Because we wish we didn't need to go through more lives in the same condition. Who knows, the transformation may be so great that, at the end of this incarnation, we can conquer the possibility of incarnating in slightly happier worlds? Even more: those who know the transformation may, albeit slowly, take place in such a profound way that we can, day after day, find a growing happiness in our hearts, in the face of the realization that we have learned to deal a little better with difficulties and bad habits?

This should be enough to provoke us with firm intentions for change, in the concrete hope of a better tomorrow for ourselves.

Therefore, when we struggle with our imperfections, let us learn to watch our thoughts, moving away, that is, not even thinking, about what leads us to the stumbling processes. And if today we were not strong enough and we stumbled, let's not say: "I can't, I'm not strong", but rather "I'm not perfect and I still haven't been able to overcome", analyzing where the mistake happened and remaining firm in the purpose of change. . We just can't take this principle as an excuse.

Dear reader, know and never forget: if you already notice an imperfection, this is the beginning of your change. Strengthen your will and know that, through it, you will never be abandoned. The friendly spirits themselves will lead you to the opportunities that you will have to accept or not. It's a good book that arrives in due course, it's a word from a friend, it's an article like this, designed to move you. Be aware of bad suggestions, however, which will continue to come from spirits accustomed to disturbance, and build up your strength in study and prayer, always seeking to reform yourself. The other things, such as doing good, studying the gospel, psychological counseling, are, yes, very important, but it depends on you, and only you, wish to achieve happiness.

Remember, after all, that Jesus, nailed to the cross, listening to the repentance and pleas for forgiveness of the thief nailed to the cross next to him, replied: “today you will be with me in paradise”. “Being with Jesus in paradise” means saying that the thief, having repented and found the will change, entered a new learning phase. It was not Jesus who saved him, but himself. Think about it.

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