The study of the Revista Espírita of July 1858 gave us space for an important aside, regarding Psychography. We talked about the following topics at our meeting, as you can see below.

In The Mediums' Book    

178. Of all the media, handwriting is the simplest, most comfortable and, above all, most complete. All efforts must be directed towards it, as it allows for the establishment, with the spirits, of relationships as continuous and regular as those that exist between us.. It should be used all the more diligently, as it is through it that spirits better reveal their nature and the degree of their improvement, or their inferiority. Because of the ease they find in expressing themselves in this way, they reveal their innermost thoughts to us and allow us to judge them and appreciate their value. For the medium, the faculty of writing is, moreover, the one most susceptible to being developed through the exercise of the medium..

Mechanical Mediums

They are those whose movement of a pencil, pen or even hands on a keyboard takes place independently at will. The movement is uninterrupted and the medium is not aware of what he writes.    

179. […] When absolute unconsciousness occurs, there are so-called passive or mechanical mediums. This faculty is precious, as it does not allow any doubt about the independence of the writer's thought.

Intuitive Mediums    

They are those who write under the influence of the Spirit, being aware of what they write.    

180. […] it is possible to recognize the suggested thought, as it is never preconceived; it is born as the writing is being traced and, often, it is contrary to the idea that was formed in advance. It may even be outside the limits of the medium's knowledge and abilities.

Semimechanical Mediums

181. In the purely mechanical medium, the movement of the hand is independent of the will; in the intuitive medium, the movement is voluntary and optional. The semi-mechanical medium participates in both these genres. He feels that his hand is given an impulse, despite his own will, but, at the same time, he is aware of what he is writing, as the words are formed. In the first, thought comes after the act of writing; in the second, it precedes it; in the third, it accompanies him. These latter mediums are the most numerous.

Inspired Mediums    

They are those who write consciously, but whose content origin is from contact with other Spirits. They are like intuitives, with the difference that the intervention of an occult force is much less sensitive there. In this case, it is much more difficult to distinguish one's own thought than the one suggested to it.    

182. […] It can be said that all are mediums, because there is no one who does not have their protective and family spirits, who strive to suggest healthy ideas to the protected ones.

If everyone were well aware of this truth, no one would fail to frequently resort to the inspiration of their guardian angel, in moments when they don't know what to say or do. Let each one, therefore, invoke it with fervor and confidence, in case of need, and very often he will be astonished at the ideas that come to him as if by magic, whether it be a matter of a resolution to be made or something to compose. If no idea comes up, it's just that you have to wait.

Foreboding Mediums

184. Foreboding is a vague intuition of things to come. Some people have this faculty more or less developed. It may be due to a kind of double vision, which allows them to glimpse the consequences of current things and the filiation of events. But it is often also the result of occult communications, and above all in this case those who are endowed with it can be called psychic mediums, which constitute a variety of inspired mediums.

278. An important question arises here, whether or not there is any inconvenience in evoking bad spirits.  That depends on the end one has in view and the ascendancy one can exert over them. The inconvenience is null, when they are called with a serious purpose, which is to instruct and improve them; it is, on the contrary, very great, when called out of mere curiosity or for fun, or even when the caller puts himself at their dependence, asking them for some service.. The good spirits, in this case, can very well give them the power to do what is asked of them, which does not exclude the daredevil who dared to ask for help and suppose them more powerful than God from being severely punished later on. . It will be in vain if he promises himself, whoever does so, to make good use of the help requested from then on, and to dismiss the servant once the service has been rendered. This same service that was requested, however minimal, constitutes a true pact signed with the bad Spirit and he does not easily let go of his prey.. (See no. 212.)  

279. No one exercises ascendancy over inferior spirits, except for moral superiority. Perverse spirits feel that good men dominate them. Against those who are only opposed by the energy of the will, a kind of brute force, they fight and are often the strongest. To someone who was trying to tame a rebellious Spirit, only by the action of his will, he replied to that one: Leave me in peace, with your air of slaughterhouses, which are not worth more than I am; one would say a thief preaching morals to another thief.  

282. 11th. Is there any inconvenience in evoking inferior spirits? And is it to be feared that, by calling them, the summoner will come under their dominion? “They only dominate those who allow themselves to be dominated. He who is assisted by good spirits has nothing to fear. It is imposed on the inferior spirits and not the latter on him. Isolated, mediums, especially beginning ones, must refrain from such evocations.. (No. 278.)

We have the general forgetfulness of the past life for a very important reason: so that the past, known objectively, in its details, does not get in the way of our walk. See: it is convenient for Spirits of our evolution, for example, not to remember that we did harm to the family member who helps us today, which could hinder our learning.

However, this oblivion is not total. We are not a blank page in each incarnation. We have, in each of them, a more or less new, different personality, shaped according to the creation of the family and the customs of the society in which we are inserted, but our true “I” is demonstrating its virtues and its imperfections from the first steps. from childhood.

At the heart of our Spirit, so to speak, is what we really are – in fact, this is what attracts or repels good or bad Spirits, and that is why a merely superficial modification (let alone rituals) does not drives them away or attracts them. During life, we often wear a mask of pride and vanity, which aims to hide, from ourselves and from others, our true face - especially with regard to moral imperfections. We get distracted by mundane things, not having much courage to face our inner selves. However, this is precisely what Spiritism calls attention to, repeating and expanding the teachings of Jesus: we need to put aside this mask, learning to look inside ourselves with the hard and judgmental look we keep to look at the defects of others. .

When we do this, we almost always discover – which can be greatly helped by a psychologist – a set of imperfections, many of them linked to the cultivation of passions. Whoever takes this step, far from feeling guilty, should feel happy for the bravery of coldly analyzing himself. With this, we must start to lead ourselves without fading, but calmly, step by step, on the path of moving away from these imperfections, developing better virtues.

This, in itself, which even makes me shiver to think about, constitutes a whole philosophy capable of completely modifying the directions of a Spirit that feels tired of suffering for its imperfections, and, in itself, this represents the essence of Spiritism, and not any concepts of sin and punishment, since guilt and punishment live only in our minds.

We leave the indication of the following video, from the study group Spiritism for All, with a deep digression in this regard:

This topic, always so present, came up in a Facebook group: according to Spiritism, is there a problem in sacrificing an animal in a terminal state, that is, in subjecting it to euthanasia?

I'll say no—and that's not my opinion. But first of all, it's important to remember that no we must make them suffer needlessly, in no case — and this corroborates the view presented here.

Here, we need to recover some postulates of the Spiritist Doctrine, obtained, as always, through a rational and concordant analysis of the teachings of the Spirits. In The Spirits' Book, we will find an important clarification in this regard:

Free will and moral suffering in animals

595. Do animals enjoy free will to perform their acts?

“Animals are not simple machines, as you suppose. However, the freedom of action they enjoy is limited by their needs, and cannot be compared to that of man. Being far inferior to him, they do not have the same duties as him. Freedom, they have it restricted to the acts of material life.”

Animals have a certain freedom, of course, and we can see that some of them have it in a way superior to others, as a species of more advanced intelligence, which, however, is still restricted to the acts of material life. Thus, animals are concerned with survival, and they do everything to do so. As difficult as it is to admit, there is more of a relationship of dependence, habit and need than of love, in them, in relation to us, because love is something that develops with the advancement of the Spirit. Of course: we cannot judge the point at which this spiritual ability begins to exist, so we cannot judge absolutely about it.

The most important point here is to note that animals do not have free will, that is, they do not have consciousness, as we do, about their actions. From the moment free will develops, even in the most latent states, the Spirit starts to have free will, that is, it starts to choose its actions and, from these choices, congratulates itself or suffers for its results. So, finally, we find that animals can't hurt: they kill each other, they attack the human being, they reproduce, but all subject to instinct. There is no harm in the lion that kills the zebra: there is an instinctive need to survive. There was also no harm in orca that drowned its trainer: there is curiosity, instinct, but not a thoughtful act.

We said that the animal still has no free will. if still doesn't have, one day he will. And what is free will, if not an attribute of the Spirit, the intelligent principle of Creation? So animals have souls? Yea:

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

“There is, and that survives the body.”

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

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

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

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

We see that it is a Spirit – or a soul, which is the incarnate Spirit – still in an evolutionary stage very distant from that of the terrestrial human Spirit: as if it were the same distance, according to the Spirits, that separates us from God. don't even have consciousness of themselves. It's a huge distance, but the important information is: yes, they have Spirits. So one question remains: do animals suffer? In what way?

the suffering of the animal

We, Spirits in the human stage, suffer in two ways: morally, as a result of our choices, and materially, as a result of our choices. when incarnate (The Spirit does not suffer materially when disincarnated, so that all reports of the type are the result of a mental externalization of moral suffering).

Moral pain, as we said, is born from the realization of a mistake we have made. And there could be no mistake if we didn't have the ability to choose, because without it, we would only be responding to external stimuli, through instinct. Now, this being exactly the case with animals, it is rational to suppose that they cannot suffer moral pain because of their actions – after all, imagine the moral pain that a lion would have after killing, from time to time, another animal for food!

The Spirit in the animal stage does not even need the time in the erraticity that the human Spirit needs, where he analyzes his past, his choices, his difficulties, etc:

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

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

We see, in the highlighted section, important information, which denies some theories of “dog heaven”, “animal paradise”, etc. The Spirit, in this evolutionary state, only needs to experience successive reincarnations, where they develop and, in no way, atone for their faults – because they do not commit them:

602. Do animals progress, like man, by the act of their own will, or by the force of things?

“By force of things, wherefore they are not subject to expiation.”

After all, is it okay to submit an animal to euthanasia?

Rationally, after the knowledge presented, it is easy to see that no, because, as the animal does not yet have moral suffering, does not need to go through material sufferings in order to obtain any kind of learning. This is exactly the opposite of the case of the Spirit in the stage of free will, because the physical pains, many times, planned for himself before incarnating, they offer precious crucibles of purification of the Spirit, which reflects on his acts, his choices, his mistakes and successes.

Note, however, that in no way are we saying that the Spirit must always go through pain to learn something, as is preached by the defenders of the doctrine of the "law of action and reaction", where, for these, the Spirit will always need to go through a pain of the same gender and of the same intensity in order to understand that the pain he has caused another to go through, hurts. They forget that the Spirit can see its error, suffer for it, but then, with more lucidity, plan a life with opportunities and trials - and, sometimes, atonements - where it can face its imperfections and seek to get rid of them through the apprenticeship.

Conclusion

We don't need to make the animal go through unnecessary pain – pain that is often the result of the lifestyles and diet to which we submit them – because it does not reap the moral fruits of this pain, which is only physical. The case is different for the human spirit, which should never be submitted to euthanasia., as the Spirits teach in The Spirits' Book:

Question 953 - When a person sees an inevitable and horrible end before him, will he be guilty if he shortens his sufferings for a few moments, voluntarily hastening his death?

“He who does not wait for the term that God has marked out for his existence is always guilty. And who can be sure that, despite appearances, this term has arrived; that unexpected help does not come at the last moment?”

In this group study, we treated the article in question in a somewhat different way, as we noticed that it gave us the opportunity to go into a very important depth regarding mediumship and the differences between how it was treated in Spiritism, as a scientific doctrine born from the rational observation of facts and spiritist (spiritual) communications and how it is treated today. Thus, we cover the following main topics:

• What is the medium's influence on communication?
• Animism and the fear of being a psychic
• Can and should we judge mediumistic communications? In what way?
• Myths: we cannot summon spirits; Evoking Spirits Causes Obsessions
• Lessons learned: the distance between the current “spiritualist movement” and original Spiritism; the need to resume studies

Based on the article “Impostor spirits — the false Father Ambrósio” — Spiritist Magazine, July 1858

We hope that both the video of our debate and this reading will be of great benefit to you!

The pitfalls of mediumship

We recognize: studying Kardec on your own is not always easy. It is a difficult language and, many times, full of references to neologisms and the context in which Professor Rivail was inserted, in a way that such contextualization¹ is very opportune, in the foreground, as the use of research in the web, while reading.

"I choose" means, figuratively, a difficulty. And Kardec opens the aforementioned article by discussing such difficulties:

One of the pitfalls presented by spiritist communications is that of imposter spirits, who may mislead their identity and who, under a respectable name, try to pass the grossest absurdities. On many occasions this danger has been explained to us. However, he is nothing to those who scrutinize both the form and the content of the language of the invisible beings with whom he enters into communication.. […] Nothing is easier than to guard against similar frauds, however small our good will.

Kardec seems to make quite simple, even banal, this task of identifying the communication of an imposter Spirit, isn't it? But why, then, nowadays, so many absurdities have been accepted, via mediumistic communications, as if they were the legitimate expression of a serious and honest Spirit, knowing the absolute truths?

It turns out that the “spiritualist movement” (I call it movement in order to distinguish Spiritism from what its adherents, who are not always well-informed and knowledgeable about the Doctrine, do) has largely forgotten the most basic postulates of the Doctrine of Spirits. Now, right at the beginning of the second part of The Spirits' Book, in items 100 to 113, Kardec presents us, didactically, a general scale, named by him “Spiritist Scale“, where, grouping in a more or less general way, the dear professor shows us the general characteristics of the Spirits in their different evolutionary scales, grouping them into three main orders: Imperfect Spirits (third order), Good Spirits (second order) and Pure Spirits (first order).

It is verified, even by the logical observation of our evolutionary condition, that we put ourselves in contact mainly with the Spirits of the last two orders, especially with those of the third, with whom we are more easily attuned mentally. It is also a known fact that spirits differ from us, incarnates, only because they do not have the constriction of the physical body and, due to the absence of this, they have a more free thought, in general, from the smothering of the physical brain. Therefore, like us, they do not change their opinion or knowledge simply by leaving matter through disincarnation and, like us, they can speak what they know, what they believe they know, or else they may seek to deceive, either out of ostensible malice or out of pride in wanting to say what they admittedly do not know.

We have already reproduced the Spiritist Scale in a previous article, but we are going to highlight some important details of this third order of Spirits, which is where the problems in mediumistic communications are concentrated.

How do third-order Spirits communicate – Imperfect Spirits

Tenth Class – Impure Spirits

They are inclined to evil, what they are worried about. They give treacherous, disloyal advice, blow away discord and distrust, and they mask themselves in every way to better deceive.

In language they are trivial, coarse, have baseness of inclination, and cannot long deceive with false wisdom.

Ninth Class – Levian Spirits

They are ignorant, malevolent, inconsequential and mocking. They meddle in everything, respond to everything, without worrying about the truth. They like to cause little annoyances and little joys; to produce discord; to maliciously mislead by mystifications and pranks.

His communications are almost always witty and lighthearted, but often lacking in depth.

Eighth Class – Pseudo-Wise Spirits

They have quite extensive knowledge, but they believe they know more than they really do.

It's a mixture of some truths with the most absurd mistakes, through which they penetrate the presumption, pride, jealousy and obstinacy, which they have not yet been able to undress.

Now, we have, here, a very important basic knowledge about the way these Spirits express themselves, don't we? And of course, as good spiritists, we will not stop here and will seek to study The Spirits' Book and other works, in order to acquire even more knowledge that can help in our contact with the Spirits. After all, it is not for nothing that Kardec, in the introduction to The Mediums' Book, begins like this:

Every day experience brings us confirmation that the difficulties and disappointments that many encounter in the practice of Spiritism originate from ignorance of the principles of this science, and we are happy to have been able to prove that our work, carried out with the objective of guarding the adepts against the pitfalls of a novitiate has borne fruit and that many people must have managed to avoid them after reading this work.

It is natural, among those who deal with Spiritism, the desire to be able to put themselves in communication with the Spirits. This work is intended to find the way for them, leading them to take advantage of our long and laborious studies, since a very false idea would form those who thought it was enough, to consider themselves an expert in this matter, to know how to put their fingers on a table, in order to to make her move, or to hold a pencil, in order to write.

One thing is certain: Kardec had no time to waste with empty words destined to embellish a pride or a vanity that, as it was very well demonstrated, he didn't have. So, what we have to do is put aside pride and dedicate ourselves to studying, instead of thinking that we know everything simply because we have any practical contact with the Spirits! That way it's much easier to judge a spiritual communication or trying to penetrate the real face of the Spirit that communicates – and Kardec, in that same article (by the fake Father Ambrósio) will give a simple and clear lesson on how to do it. We will deal with that later on.

How to deal with mystifying spirits?

To mystify means to deceive, to deceive. And we will highlight two questions asked by Kardec, directly to the mystifying Spirit (that of the false Father Ambrose, whom he had evoked) that raise important questions, which are discussed below.

“14. ─ What do you think of what you said in his name?

─ I think like those who thought of me listened."”

The question here is: who listened to them? The medium would be listening, necessarily? In other words: was that medium's fault that false communication?

“16. ─ Why do you not maintain the imposture in our presence?

─ 'Cause my language is a touchstone [material used to assess the purity of a material], with which you cannot be deceived."”

Why in that environment (Kardec's) did that Spirit say he couldn't deceive?

But in order to answer these questions, let's move forward in our reflections, which will make the answers very clear.

Animism

We think it is important to raise the question of animism, since it is something that persecutes and takes the sleep of many mediums and leaders of spiritist groups. Animism is the concept in which the medium presents his own content, his own thoughts, instead of presenting purely the thought of the Spirit who communicates.

It is something that actually happens a lot, being the reason for many fears, as we said, because the hypothesis was created that the medium needs to be a totally passive tool for spiritual communication. This is still true when we talk about the communication of a Spirit through a medium. However, it should not be turned into a tool of persecution or self-persecution. The importance of the question here is linked to the medium's honesty:

• When the medium acts in a totally honest way, seeking to be a good tool for the Spirits, stripped of vanity and pride, his mediumship can be developed through practice and favored by study. Thus, in more or less time, the communications given through it will be more and more “clean”, expressing the original thought of the Spirit. Therefore, animism, in this case, should not be something to be feared, as it is related to the degree of development of mediumship, considering that, in the early stages, the medium will commonly complete thoughts or translate them according to their own ideas, which are not necessarily contrary to those of the Spirit.

• When the medium consciously acts (under the gaze of material lucidity) expressing ideas that are not of a Spirit, that is, when he is not acting as a medium, but only by himself, in a waking state, but he tries to trick, as if it were a mediumistic communication, expressing the most terrible nonsense, yes this is a serious case, a problem directly linked to the medium's morals, which needs to be treated with fraternity but with firmness, so that this medium does not put the group's harmony in check. When it acts in isolation, in this case, it is only necessary that it is not taken seriously, as, unfortunately, many spiritists have done.

The honest medium must learn that, whenever he is unfocused or when no Spirit is communicated, he must inform the group, without any fear of being affected by a self-love that, in this particular case, should never exist. Unfortunately, the current spiritist centers, with the mediumistic meetings open to the public, have placed on the mediums' shoulders a deleterious responsibility of having to always be ready and available for mediumistic phenomena, which is not logical, since, mediumship being a capacity rooted in the organism, as a sixth sense, can also present several obstacles, just as a cold can take away our olfactory ability.

But there is a third aspect to consider: sometimes the animism may be welcome, as expressed in the following question from OLM (The Mediums' Book):

223 - 2nd. Can written or verbal communications also emanate from the Spirit incarnated in the medium?

“The soul of the medium can communicate, like any other. If he enjoys a certain degree of freedom, he recovers his qualities as a Spirit.[…] Because, you know, among the Spirits you evoke, there are some who are incarnated on Earth. They, then, speak to you as Spirits and not as men. Why shouldn't the same be done with the medium?”

In such a way, if the spirit of the medium itself can communicate - which happens more easily in states of somnambulism and ecstasy, as the answer to question 223-3a makes clear - it is clear that it can also bring valid and important knowledge, in the same way that a spirit freed from matter would do.

I believe that the subject of animism is relatively well understood from what has been exposed. But what about the fear that the medium may have of transmitting a communication of low content, that is, a communication frivolous, of indecent or deceptive language? We believe that the following approach will respond well in this regard.

The medium's moral influence

Having raised the issue of the fear that the medium may have of giving way to a communication of less high content, we need to reflect on the medium's role in this regard. Kardec addresses, of course, this questioning in OLM, seeking to identify the connection between the medium's morals and the mediumistic ability. Let's see:

226. 1st. Is the development of mediumship related to the moral development of mediums?

"No; the college itself takes root in the body; regardless of morale. The same is not true, however, with its use., which can be good or bad, according to the medium's qualities.”

5th. In the lessons given, in general, to the medium, without personal application, does he not appear as a passive instrument, for the instruction of others?
“Often, warnings and advice are not addressed to him personally, but to others to whom we cannot address ourselves, except through him, who, however, must take his part in such warnings and advice, if not blind him. self-love.

The first question reinforces what we said about the mediumistic faculty being rooted in the organism, which means that both the good and the bad can be mediums of greater or lesser capacity. However – and therein lies the main objective of the mediumistic faculty – the good or bad use we make of it is what will guide our morals and the will to use it for our own progress, in the service of humanity, or not.

The fifth question goes like this: the medium, as much as he is a passive instrument, must always be attentive to the communications he intermediates, because, no matter how much they are directed to others, they can have personal application - which reinforces the previous thought.

226. 6th. Since the medium's moral qualities drive away imperfect spirits, how can a medium endowed with good qualities transmit false or rude answers?

“Do you know all the corners of the human soul? Moreover, the creature can be light and frivolous, without being vicious. This is also the case, because sometimes he needs a lesson in order to keep his guard up.”

The sixth question points out that, often, a low-level communication can occur through the sympathy of mediums with Spirits who think like him or who have the same inclinations, even if this is not visible in the medium, on a daily basis. They can also happen because he sometimes needs a lesson to keep himself on his guard, or else, we suppose, so that the study group remains on guard, because we suppose that a good medium can still mediate a communication of this content. in order to test the attention of that group.

All this, however, is very valid if the group or the individual is attentive and they treat communications seriously and honestly. Otherwise, such communications, which will happen more often, will lead to the downfall of one or the other.

226. 8th. Is it absolutely impossible to obtain good communications from an imperfect medium?

“An imperfect medium can sometimes obtain good things, because, if he has a beautiful faculty, it is not uncommon for good spirits to make use of him, in the absence of another, in special circumstances; however, this only happens momentarily, because, as long as the spirits find one that suits them best, they give preference to this one.”

Spirits communicate in a friendly environment, preferably.

Note. It should be noted that when good spirits see that a medium is not well assisted and becomes, due to his imperfections, the prey of deceiving spirits, circumstances almost always arise that reveal their defects and distance them from serious and well-rounded people. -intentioned, whose good faith could be lacquered. In this case, whatever faculties he possesses, his departure is not to be missed.

a moral medium complicated but with good mediumistic abilities, it can be used by good spirits in specific situations, such as when there is no other or when the spirits think that they will produce good or that they will be able to avoid evil by doing so. Other than that, they walk away.

Kardec's note says it all: if a medium, due to his inclinations, is no longer well assisted (by good spirits) and becomes prey to inferior spirits, he is, by the good spirits themselves, removed from serious and well-intentioned people.

Conclusions about the moral influence of the medium

• A medium of good morals can be the target of a mystifying spirit. This can be a warning, as in the case that Kardec will address.
• A medium of "questionable" morals can be used, if he has a powerful mediumship, by a high spirit. However, much more often he will be the target of inferior spirits, who will end up making him fall, especially when he uses his mediumship for “questionable” purposes.

The False Father Ambrose

Kardec, in order to study the problem, approaches the case that occurred at Spiritualiste de la Nouvelle-Orléans (Click here to download the original, in French), where two deceiving spirits had posed as Father Ambrósio and Clement XIV, weaving a dialogue that was too frivolous and empty.

Kardec then evokes the three Spirits: The real Father Ambrósio, the false Fr. Ambrose and the false Clement XIV, but rather declares:

Let us hasten, however, to declare that this circle does not only receive communications of this order; there are others of a very different character, in which we find all the sublimity of thought and expression of superior spirits.

As it is possible to verify in the original magazine and also in the free translation done by our collaborator, Ariane, in the second part (third page of the document), the communications of the real Fr. Ambrose are much higher and deeper.

Kardec's conversation with the Spirits and our reflections

To the Spirit of the true Fr. Ambrose:

5. ─ How could you allow similar things in your name? Why have you not come to unmask the impostors?

─ Because I can't always prevent men and spirits from having fun.

6. ─ We understand you about the spirits. But as for the people who collected the words, they are serious people; they were not looking for fun.

─ One more reason. They must have immediately thought that such words could not but be the language of mocking spirits.

Not always good spirits can prevent such situations, because, above all, they respect the free will of others. In addition, they may allow such situations to serve as a warning to the group or individual.

7. ─ Why don't the spirits teach in New Orleans, principles perfectly identical to those they teach here?

─ Soon the doctrine dictated to you will serve you. There will only be one.

8. Since this doctrine will have to be taught there later, it seems to us that if it were taught immediately it would accelerate progress and prevent some from having harmful doubts.

─ God's plans are always impenetrable. Are there not other things which, in view of the means which he employs to attain his ends, seem incomprehensible to you? It is necessary for man to get used to distinguishing the true from the false. Not everyone could receive light from a jet without being dazzled.

The Spirit of the true Fr. Ambrósio makes it clear: the Spiritist Doctrine found, in France and in the Kardec context, the necessary basis to make itself shine with full force, without overshadow, since the sciences were very well prepared to receive their teachings, treating them rationally and with a scientific method.

A great lesson from Kardec

We talked, before, about the need to seek to distinguish the communications of the Spirits, identifying if they are honest or products of deception and if they are of more or less wise Spirits (remembering that a communication can be serious and honest, but, even so, of little importance). or no wisdom). Let's see, then, the following questions and answers exchanged between Kardec and the real Fr. Ambrose:

 9. ─ Would you be kind enough to give us your personal opinion regarding reincarnation?  

Spirits are created ignorant and imperfect. A single incarnation would not be enough for them to learn everything. It is necessary that they reincarnate in order to enjoy the happiness that God has reserved for them.  

10. Does reincarnation take place on Earth or only on other globes?  

Reincarnation takes place according to the progress of the Spirit, in more or less perfect worlds.  

11. This does not clarify whether it can occur on Earth.  

Yes, it can happen on Earth, and if Spirit asks for it as a mission, it will be more meritorious to him than if he asked for it to advance more quickly in more perfect worlds.

Now, Kardec was talking about a completely different subject. Suddenly starts asking about reincarnation? Because?

Simple: because he was trying to probe the knowledge of that Spirit, in order to know if he was really talking with a wise Spirit or if he was talking with a deceiving Spirit. Brilliant, no? This is how we should proceed, even today and always, but for that, it is necessary that we are attentive, that we have knowledge and that we leave the condition of simple passive spectators of spiritual communications.

Kardec continues, now asking the false Foot. Ambrose:

15. ─ Why did you use a respectable name to say such nonsense?

─ In our eyes, names are worthless. The works are everything. As from what I was saying, they could see what I really was, I didn't attach importance to the name replacement.

Look: the deceiving Spirit knows that the “listeners” (we know that communication was through psychography) could judge who he really was, through what he expressed. Therefore, he did not attach any importance to using the name of Fr. Ambrose.

lessons learned

We live in a Spiritism that is very distant from "Kardec's" Spiritism (in quotation marks, because we know that Spiritism does not belong to him nor did it originate from his mind). And this is not good, because "Kardec's" Spiritism is that scientific doctrine, born from the rational observation of spiritist phenomena and the universal agreement of the Spirits' teachings.

Today, in the Spiritist milieu, on the one hand, the medium is persecuted for “animism”; on the other hand, many mediums are treated as oracles, as if their opinions – because any individual thought, in the face of the Doctrine, that has not passed through the sieve of reason and universal agreement, can only be taken as opinion — of themselves or of the spirits that communicate, could be taken as the supreme expression of truth and wisdom. We have just seen how false and dangerous this premise is.

Should we not evoke the Spirits?

In addition, several myths were created, such as the one that says that we should not evoke the Spirits (which is only valid in case of lack of good intentions, which would constitute, in Kardec's words, a true desecration) and how what says that evocations can result in spiritual obsessions. Now the spirits are all around us all the time, and they approach us according to their affinities with what we are and think, in the depths of our soul. To obsess us, it is enough that they want to use our unwillingness and our permission and, for that, do not need to communicate with us through mediumship.

It is worth noting that if a medium or mediumistic group becomes the target of spiritual obsession, it is because there is a moral problem there, linked to the imperfections of each one, over which they need to be vigilant. Kardec and countless other researchers used educated and balanced mediums to evoke all kind of spirit, without ever suffering from obsessions to do so. Just to reinforce: these evocations had a serious purpose and were made by serious people. If they were made out of mere idle curiosity or amusement, they would be related to a moral problem, and so there we have the highlighted problem.

This question, of the possibility and validity or not of evoking the Spirits, was already very well addressed by Kardec in his article “Spiritism without the Spirits”, in the RE of January 1866, about which we made some important considerations in an article namesake (Click here to access it).

Also, in the 1858 Magazine, in the article “Obsessed and Subjugated” Kardec addresses the issue of the dangers of Spiritism in more detail. We suggest reading the article emerged from our studies.

Spiritism needs defense

Many claim that Spiritism does not need to be defended and, much more, that it needs updating, as it would be outdated. I begin by saying that Spiritism needs defense YES. Affirmations contrary to this seem to come from Spirits contrary to the propagation of this Doctrine, Spirits who, by the way, have never read Kardec, who should come out in defense of Spiritism whenever appropriate. It is not a defense that attacks religions or beliefs, but a defense that points out the inaccuracies and errors, in the face of Spiritism, in the so-called Spiritist affirmations and practices.

I've heard a lot, in the spiritist environment, in different parts: the times are come. For a long time I thought it was just a warning about the difficulties we are going through. However, today I reflect: analyzing it coldly, do we really live something very different from what we already lived in other times of humanity? Or could it be that the Spirits were informing that the time has come to restore what was corrupted?

One thing is a fact: it is time to start reorganizing thoughts and resume studies that have been forgotten or lost for a long time. Some researchers have brought very important information, based on documents and original works, hitherto unknown, allowing us to know not only Spiritism in its essence, but also the sciences that gave rise to it or that, together with it, form an inseparable set. .

Paulo Henrique de Figueiredo, in the work Autonomy: the untold story of Spiritism, brings us information about Rational Spiritualism. This formed the Moral Sciences of the time and which gave basis to Spiritism, which, according to Professor Rivail's own thought, was a development of the first; at work Mesmer: a denied science of magnetism, brings very important information about Magnetism, a science that is so often cited not only by Kardec, but by the Spirits themselves. As magnetism was a very well-established Science in its time, it never had in-depth explanations by Kardec, who could not imagine that it would be extinct in the following decades; and Simoni Privato, in Allan Kardec's Legacy, gives us information regarding not only an alleged adulteration of The Genesis, a subject that is still full of controversial discussions, but also gives very important information about the complete deviation that the Parisian Spiritist Society, later transformed into an Anonymous Society and led by Pierre Gaetan Leymarie, suffered at the hands of this gentleman.

Based on these studies and on Kardec's studies, Spiritists honestly interested in seeing the return of serious research work, together with Spirits, along the lines of Kardec, need to do their part in defending the Doctrine, disseminating it without accusing and, above all, , urging the mediumistic groups to re-register communications with the Spirits, delving into them and leaving the mere condition of patient spectators, living under the misunderstood phrase, which became the motto, “the telephone rings from there to here”, to resume serious evocations and produce important material that, one day, can be independently analyzed again (read this succinct article about this reflection).

Conclusion

Unfortunately, the spiritist movement is quite distant from Kardec and from Spiritism in its real face. It started to accept the most diverse blunders, allegedly transmitted by mediumistic sources, some well known, which has caused a lot of damage not only to the movement itself, which is increasingly emptied, but also to the image of Spiritism before the society, which has learned, in large part, to see Spiritism as that opinion that comes to the surface whenever any disaster happens to say that, there, people who were redeeming a collective debt were victimized, being, therefore, guilty and deserving of that event. And this kind of thinking is widely reproduced about individual or collective tragedies, causing aversion and distancing.

As if that were not enough, Spiritism, since Kardec's death (in 1869), began to be flooded with ideas roustaguists (by Jean-Baptiste Roustaing), a “doctrine” that was established in the Brazilian Spiritist community since before the beginning of the 20th century, including by great sympathy from Bezerra de Menezes to his ideas. Although the FEB, self-proclaimed “Spiritism summit in Brazil”, only adopted the obligation to study Roustaing’s works from 1917 onwards (read more here), the Roustainguist (or Rustanist) influence was already strong in this environment for a long time.

Then came the influences Ramatists, following the same pattern: ideas of a clearly pseudo-wise Spirit (Ramatis), who believes he knows more than he knows and who wants to put himself with messianic characteristics, rewriting the truth and putting Kardec in the trash, contradicting the Spiritist Doctrine and Science itself in countless points and, finally, without citing several other examples, came the divinism, also with the same messianic content, this time through an individual who proclaims himself the reincarnation of Kardec and who also produces the most diverse types of ideas contrary to what was already established by the universal agreement of the teachings of the Spirits and by reason.

Anyway: the Spiritist Movement is forgotten by Kardec, to the point that there is almost no Spiritism in many points, but a religious spiritualism (in the sense of dogmatic religion and full of rituals, hierarchies and priests). We need, I repeat, to do our part, actively, but without contention, that is, looking for groups and individuals honestly interested in this task, in order to assist in the restoration work, because,

what is basic, cannot be surpassed!

Views: 66 Various anomalies and deformities. Cretinism, mental, physical, intellectual disabilities. When questioning the reason for such physical complications, in the spiritist world, how many times have we heard: “it’s because so-and-so is repaying a past debt”. And for how long do we take comfort in this malicious and slanderous statement, made in a generic way?! But not anymore today. […]

After the irrefutable confirmation of changes to the two final – and fundamental – works by Allan Kardec, Heaven and Hell and Genesis[1], we were able to verify that such concepts were never part of the Doctrine of Spirits, being it originally and essentially based on free will, that is, on each one's ability to choose. However, such ideas still face great resistance, as many are those who come from a creation, including a spiritist one, which affirms the concepts of fall, sin, punishment, ransom, karma, etc.

O article of the same title, presented in Blog Spiritist Letters, hits on many points, but also brings this type of concept (debt and redemption), at a certain point, when using a statement by Suely C. Schubert (“The sick spirit, in debt“) and also when using a text from O Céu e o Inferno, based on the adulterated 4th edition.

Action and Reaction – what is it?

It is one thing to identify, as Kardec found in the law of successive reincarnations, that every effect has a cause, and that, almost always, this cause is found in previous lives. Another thing, quite different, is to say that every morally negative action will have a reaction in order to punish the original action in order to repair an alleged sin. This, within the scope of the Spiritist Doctrine, is a fallacy. Action and reaction is a material law of physics, not a moral law. So much so that there is no such law among those presented in The Spirits' Book.

Rescue?

Unfortunately, many modern spiritualists and spiritualists insist on preaching in people's heads that their pain, difficulties and current tragedies are "ransoms" of past debts, forgetting that, if on the one hand the Spirit can impose suffering for the purpose of to overcome the imperfections that made him fall before, on the other hand, hard tests can also be imposed that have nothing to do with past mistakes, but only as rich opportunities to learn virtues and to overcome aspects related to imperfections that have nothing to do with them, directly, with the type of evidence chosen. Thus, a Spirit may choose blindness only to be able to deal with the need to depend on the help of others, and not because it has blinded someone in previous lives. In fact, the whys are NOT FOR US TO PROBATE: it is only up to us to be charitable and help everyone along the way.

debts?

We need to understand that the “indebted” Spirit is not indebted to God or to any law, but rather to himself, and for believing so (this is very important). Because we all have the divine Laws in our consciences - a fact that makes us Spirits with free will - as long as we are not in denial, our own conscience accuses us of the mistakes made, for which we blame ourselves, as well as pointing out imperfections to us. that cause us moral pain. This is how a Spirit who, in the previous incarnation, had animated a rich and selfish man, often chooses poverty in the next incarnation, in order not to embark on the difficult path and so full of responsibilities that earthly riches bring.

I said “believe yourself like this” (indebted) because, when the Spirit really understands that what happened was a mistake, natural from its ignorance and imperfections, and that these imperfections and ignorance make it suffer, it ceases to believe itself a sinner. and deserving of punishment to understand himself as a Spirit in evolution, seeking, then, new proofs and atonements that give him the opportunity to learn and get rid of his imperfections, developing better virtues. Furthermore, he also understands that everyone is liable to mistakes and, therefore, he stops putting himself in the condition of collector and avenger. This is substantial, and this is what Spiritism essentially came for.

We are not saying, with that, that there are no physical consequences that the disturbed Spirit causes to appear on their body, since we know about the psychosomatic relationships that we keep with our body. But we are stating, based on the study of Spiritism in its originality, that WE CANNOT look at an individual with any deficiencies and affirm that this is because he is a “indebted” Spirit, as much as WE CANNOT (because it would be a mistake as much factual as well as moral) to tell a mother who lost her child by burning in a fire that "this happened because her child must have been a soldier in X's time who burned people". This is terrible, it causes revolt and distances people from Spiritism, a fact about which we will respond – in front of our own conscience.

Based on an error, another error is produced

Finally, I want to point out that the article in question makes the mistake – probably involuntary, due to lack of information – of basing itself on the adulterated version of O Céu e o Inferno, since it has already been duly and undeniably proven that the 4th edition of the work , bringing profound changes in the original thought, was not commissioned until after Kardec's death, not to mention that the careful comparative study of these changes indicates that the content was modified precisely to insert the concepts of sin and punishment that were never in the Doctrine of Spirits and that, although Kardec may have presented some previous thought in the sense of this belief, in the original work, from the first to the third edition (which are the same) it concluded precisely in the opposite direction.

See, in this sense, the differences between the original and what appears in the 4th edition:

[ORIGINAL]
“The mentally handicapped are beings punished on Earth for their misuse of powerful faculties. They have the soul imprisoned in a body whose organs are incapable of expressing their thoughts. This intellectual and physical mutism is one of the cruelest punishments on Earth. she is often chosen by the repentant spirits who want EXPIATE your faults”

[4th Edition]
“Cretins are beings punished on earth for the misuse they have made of powerful faculties; your soul is imprisoned in a body whose impotent organs cannot express its thoughts; this moral and physical mutism is one of the cruelest earthly punishments; often it is chosen by repentant spirits who want to REDEEM their faults”

Note that the meaning changes completely when talking about “rescuing” and when talking about “expiating”. As Paulo Henrique de Figueiredo says,

“To explain the laws of the soul according to Spiritism, while Christianity revives, restoring the true message of autonomy, as Jesus did, Allan Kardec will resignify terms such as punishment, repentance, atonement, reparation, eternity of penalties. The difference between punishment and atonement is the primordial point to understand the moral theory of Spiritism. For while punishment is a natural response to any thought or act that goes against the moral law present in conscience, atonement is a conscious, voluntary and effective effort to overcome one's own imperfection, through the choice of evidence. Ancestral religions reverse the meaning of these phenomena, dogmatically confusing punishment with atonement, as if they were one and the same. Furthermore, they consider punishment to be a deliberate choice of God and not a natural consequence.”

Figueiredo. Neither Heaven nor Hell: The Laws of the Soul according to Spiritism

There is also something very, but VERY important in practically ALL communications of this type, by the Spirits: the word CHOICE. Yes, there are proofs, there are expiations and there are punishments, even the most severe ones, but they are always CHOICES of the Spirit. See that, further on, in the same message, the Spirit repeats:

“[…] Some revolt against their voluntary torture, regretting having it chosen and feeling a furious desire to return to another life, a desire that makes them forget the resignation with the present life and the remorse of the past life that they keep in their conscience”. (Heaven and Hell, 3rd Edition)

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[1] Consult the works O Legado de Allan Kardec, by Simoni Privato, and Neither heaven nor hell: The laws of the soul according to Spiritism, by Lucas Sampaio and Paulo Henrique de Figueiredo

We invite the reader to pay close attention to this group study, with the participation of Paulo Henrique de Figueiredo. It's a big change in our way of thinking, still so rooted in the old concepts of heteronomy (the other's fault). Karma (or karma), action and reaction, rescue... Karma (or karma)action and reaction, debt recovery, all are themes that have never been part of Spiritism. It’s time to understand this!

We live in a world hitherto dominated by the concepts of heteronomy. To understand this concept well, we need to analyze the etymology of the word: heteronomy is formed from the Greek radical “hetero” which means “different”, and “nomos” which means “law”, therefore, it is the acceptance of norms that are not ours, but that we recognize as valid to guide our conscience that will discern the moral value of our actions. This understanding is fundamental.

the heteronomous world

In the heteronomous world, we attribute everything to something external: the fault lies with the devil or the obsessor, the effect lies with divine wrath, and reparation lies with the imposition. karma. Everything, absolutely everything in the heteronomous world comes as an external imposition, through laws that we respect out of obligation and not out of understanding. And in the absence of her or her actors, we find ourselves without limits and even without self-love.

Heteronomy is something inherent and perhaps even necessary to a condition of little spiritual advancement, when, without a deeper understanding of the mechanisms of life and evolution, we are forced to attend, out of fear, to the impositions of divine laws, humanized, or even human laws, divinized. Unfortunately, as we already know, it is also widely used by religions to maintain control over their faithful. But this is something that, as we can see, changes as the human spirit advances, both in science and in morality.

A big problem with the concept of heteronomy, or, rather, with the belief in it, is that for a certain time the evolution of the Spirit was involved: well, if the individual believes that his difficulties in life are a punishment imposed by God, he only accepts his submissively (which, yes, is important), but without doing anything to change it. He just waits for the end of his trials. Not even charity can really be understood and practiced in a heteronomous context, as the individual practices charity expecting a return, without understanding that it is a moral and natural obligation of the thinking being.

Another very problematic point is that when the individual believes in divine punishment - and, even worse, in eternal punishment - it is very common for him to lose any limit after making a mistake. Surely, the reader has heard the statement countless times: “I'm already going to hell, so one more sin, whatever”.

But we are wrong if we think that the heteronomous concept is found only in religions. Unfortunately, even in the spiritist milieu, this concept has also infiltrated, especially with the adulteration of the works O Céu e o Inferno and A Genesis, by Allan Kardec. If today we constantly hear, from the mouths of spiritists, the words “karma”, “law of action and reaction”, “rescue”, this is largely due to these adulterations, passed from generation to generation and that today make many of us , spiritists, we still believe that “karma” makes me reborn in this life to “rescue” a past mistake.

Let's see: it is precisely one of the most serious adulterations in O Céu e o Inferno that instilled this heteronomous thought, which delays the advance of the Spirit, in the heart of a Doctrine that was totally focused on the autonomy of being. In chapter VII, item 9 of the cited work, we read: “Every fault committed, every wrong done is a debt that must be paid; if not in one lifetime, it will be in the next one or more.” This item did not exist until Kardec's death, and only appeared in new editions made more than two years after the Professor's death.

No — I insist on saying: in Spiritism there is no karma, nor "law of action and reaction” and, much less, “rescue”. These are concepts that, deep down, have the same effect as the belief in divine punishment.

Autonomy

Opposed to the concept of heteronomy, autonomy (self — of oneself) places the individual at the center of its evolution. It depends on your will, solely and exclusively, both your actions and your thoughts and the spirits attracted or repelled by them.

In the concept of autonomy, which was not born with Spiritism, but which was expanded by this Doctrine — and demonstrated — the Spirit is master of itself and of its choices from the moment it develops consciousness and, with that, comes to have the free will. Thus, he chooses between good and bad, or rather, he chooses ways to act in the face of situations and whether or not he congratulates himself on its effects. However, when the effect is negative, it does not mean that you are being effectively punished by a punishing God, but that you are suffering the moral consequences of your actions. And these moral consequences only exist for the Spirit who is already aware of their existence, which is why animals, for example, do not have them.

This is how, evaluating the consequences of our actions and, when more conscious, the moral imperfections that lead us to make mistakes, we impose on ourselves lives full of evidence and atonements, in order to try to get rid of these imperfections, by learning:

“Some, therefore, impose upon themselves a life of miseries and privations, aiming to bear them with courage”, when they wish to acquire patience, resignation or know how to act with few resources. Others wish to test whether they have already overcome inferior passions and then “prefer to experience the temptations of wealth and power, which are far more dangerous, through the abuses and misapplications to which they can give rise”. Those who struggle with the abuse they have committed, “decide to test their strength in the struggles they will have to sustain in contact with addiction” (The Book of Spirits, p.220).

It is clear: when doing evil against Inferior Spirits, we will have an almost guaranteed chance of receiving, in return, revenge; but this revenge, if any, is the effect of choice of the other Spirit, and not of a “karmatic” reaction of a supposed “law of action and reaction” — which, by the way, is a law of Newtonian Physics, and not a divine one. When practicing revenge, the other Spirit also errs, as it gives rise to the habit of its imperfections and, therefore, it can enter a circle of error and revenge with the other that can last centuries. When this does not occur - and this is the key point - the effect is only the Spirit who errs to remain longer away from the happiness of good Spirits, due to his own imperfections.

There is no “law of action and reaction” in Spiritism

Many people, attached to old concepts of the past, feel perplexed by such a statement, but anyone who has dedicated themselves to studying Spiritism can perceive that autonomous morality, in everything, is made very clear to our eyes, through the agreement universal teachings of the Spirits. What do we gain by doing good? We will move faster. And what will we suffer for doing evil? We will be longer held back by spiritual inferiority and around successive incarnations in lower worlds.

Spiritism shows us that, when we enter the circle of consciousness, we start to talk about our own destinies, and the trials and atonements that we face in the current incarnation are due to our own choices, made before incarnating, although very difficult, since, in a state of wandering spirit (freed from the body), we evaluate our imperfections much more clearly and, thus, choose opportunities, even if suffered, to learn and rise. Spiritism, by the way, when well understood, favors us to make better choices, because we stop only wishing for atonement past mistakes, in a mechanics of sin and punishment, and we start to choose opportunities that take us deeper to learn and develop better habits, hiding the imperfections that we have turned into habits.

We have already addressed a very typical case, extracted from the Spiritist Magazine, which deals with the question of the Spirit's choices regarding its tests, treated by Kardec in Evocation of the assassin Lemaire, in the March 1858 issue.

Another very interesting case is that of Antonio B, who, having walled up his wife alive in the previous life, not knowing how to deal with this guilt, planned an incarnation where he ended up buried alive, after being thought dead. He woke up in his coffin and inside he suffered horribly until his death, as if he had “paid” that debt with his own conscience. What really matters in this case is that, effectively, in life, he was a worthy and good man, and he wouldn't need this tragic end to “require” anything.

A rational proof that there is no such “law”: if an inferior Spirit does evil against a superior Spirit, what will he receive in return? Nothing but understanding and love. The example of the murderer Lemaire demonstrates this. So where would the return be? In another Spirit that God would designate for his "vengeance", to "collect a debt", thus making him also a Spirit in debt to the Law?

No, dear brother: there is no return except in the realization, sooner or later, on the part of the Spirit itself, that he is not happy as long as he is imperfect. Of course, we also need to remember: the Spirit is in the environment where it likes, and it attracts Spirits of the same vibration to itself. Therefore, he may even feel happy, but the Spirit will never be happy, which, due to its predispositions, only attracts inferior Spirits to itself. In this also consists a kind of punishment.

Reason explains, guides and comforts

The greatest characteristic of Spiritism is to be a rational scientific Doctrine, whose theory was born from the logical observation of the facts and the teachings of the Spirits. Now, when it comes to God, what would be the reason for him to punish us with punishments, since he created us and knows that our mistakes are born of our imperfections? There is no rationality in that. It's as if we punish our children for getting math wrong or putting their finger in the socket: in either case, the pain or feeling of being left behind is the punishment itself, and by adding an additional punishment to that, we are only conditioning the being not to think and only to be afraid of making mistakes - and therefore, to be afraid to try.

We were talking about reason: because it is mainly through reason that Spiritism leads us to better evolutionary choices. By deeply understanding the Doctrine, we stop making choices because of impositions or external expectations, either because “God wants”, because “Jesus waits”, or because “the devil haunts”. We start to make better choices, with a more active will, when we understand that the more time we allow for our imperfections or our materiality, the longer it will take to get out of this painful and brutish “wheel of incarnations”.

This understanding is also great remedy against suicide: we no longer see it with the concepts of sin and punishment - which are still disseminated and defended even in the spiritist environment - but, with a rational understanding: if I am an inferior Spirit, full of imperfections, it means that life is a rich opportunity for apprenticeship. Shortening it by my choice, in addition to being a huge missed opportunity, will just be a waste of time, because I will see myself, in Spirit, imperfect as I am, maybe even more wide open, and I will have to go back and start a new existence to be able to learn and get rid of imperfections that make it impossible for me to become happier.

The atonement explained in the light of the Spiritist Doctrine

Kardec defines it like this, in Practical Instructions on Spiritist Manifestations, from 1858:

ATONEMENT — penalty suffered by Spirits in punishment of faults committed during corporeal life. As moral suffering, the atonement it is found in the errant state; as physical suffering, in the incarnate state. The vicissitudes and torments of bodily life are, at the same time, tests for the future and atonement to the past.

It seems, from this text, that Kardec then defended that, yes, we pay in the present life for past mistakes? Not exactly. We cannot forget that, for the Spiritist Doctrine, autonomy, or the Spirit as the central actor of everything, is the key piece of everything. Therefore, even in the case of atonement, is something that consists in the choice of the Spirit itself, in order to seek to overcome an acquired imperfection:

The duration of the punishment is subject to the improvement of the guilty spirit. No condemnation for a fixed time is pronounced against him. What God requires to put an end to suffering is the repentance, expiation and reparation – in short: a serious, effective improvement, as well as a sincere return to the good.

KARDEC, Allan. Heaven and hell. Translation by Emanuel G. Dutra, Paulo Henrique de Figueiredo and Lucas Sampaio. FEAL Publisher, 2021.

And, to better understand the use of the terms punishment and punishment, by Allan Kardec, it is necessary to understand the philosophical context of Rational Spiritualism, in which it was inserted. We already talked about this in the article “Punishment and reward: you need to study Paul Janet to understand Allan Kardec“".

However, we are well aware that “the times have come” and that the planet Earth will slowly cease to be a planet of trials and atonements to be a world of regeneration, where there should be incarnations a little happier than the current ones. Let us use, for a moment, reason to evaluate all that we have exposed so far:

If the Spiritist Doctrine, teaching us autonomous morality, outlines better paths and better choices, let's think: what does it teach the individual more? A suffering of the same kind and degree, as in the case of Antônio B, above, or, understanding the imperfections that led us to do evil, in the first place, a life full of opportunities, often quite challenging and laborious, to exercise learning and doing good?

Do you understand where we are going? everything, absolutely everything, depends on our choices in face of our ability to consciously understand ourselves, and, in this, the study of Spiritism leverages us in several steps.

This is why the world will cease to be a world of trials and expiations: because the Spirits who incarnate here will begin to choose their incarnations better, ceasing to apply the law of talion (an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth) to themselves in order to then take care to develop healthier moral habits. Even in this we contact that everything comes from the individual to the outside, and not the other way around.

Conclusion

Therefore, brothers, onward: let us study Spiritism in depth and, today knowing the adulterations in O Céu e o Inferno and A Genesis, let us study the original versions (already made available by FEAL) so that we no longer waste time with heteronomous concepts and, above all, so that we no longer repeat, in the Spiritist environment, the pitiful statements like those who say that “so and so was born with mental problems because he is paying for a mistake in his past life”. This, in addition to being an absurd mistake, keeps people away from Spiritism.

See an example:

Let's be amazed: this sentence is not from Kardec. Nor does it appear to be yours, nor can it be found in ANY of your works. This is one more proof of how much Spiritism was invaded by false ideas, almost always anti-doctrinal.

Our tests are rich opportunities, almost always chosen by ourselves, being imposed only in cases in which we do not have consciential conditions for such choices and, even so, they are given by action of benevolence of superior Spirits, and not as divine punishment.

The soul or Spirit suffers in the spiritual life the consequences of all the imperfections that it has not been able to correct in the corporeal life. Your state, happy or unhappy, is inherent in your degree of purity or impurity. (Heaven and hell).

The greatest punishment is that we continue for countless ages dragging ourselves in the mud of our imperfections. That's enough.

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Note: the name of the article comes from the text of the same title, which served as inspiration for this one, from the book Autonomia: a história sem contada do Espiritismo, by Paulo Henrique de Figueiredo.

study suggestions

We suggest to the reader the following additional content:

• Autonomy: the never-told story of Spiritism, by Paulo Henrique de Figueiredo.
• Article "The true law that governs our life!“, by Paulo Henrique de Figueiredo
• Article "For spiritism there is no karma or cause and effect.“, by Paulo Henrique de Figueiredo
• Heaven and Hell, by Allan Kardec (search for recent FEAL publications, based on the first French edition)
• Channel Spiritism for All

Allan Kardec was, above all, a scholar. At the beginning of the chapter of the Spirits' Book (Chapter II – General Elements of the Universe, 2. Spirit and Matter item 27.), new terms appear such as Universal Fluid, or UNIVERSAL COSMIC FLUID. It is about him that we intend to deal here.

Beforehand, we recommend that the reader study the work Mesmer: the denied science of animal magnetism, by Paulo Henrique de Figueiredo.

O Universal Cosmic Fluid it is a hypothesis that explains much of the spiritual manifestations and phenomena, that is why its understanding is so important for the student of the Spiritist Doctrine. In your latest book, Genesis, Miracles and Predictions According to Spiritism , Allan Kardec concluded the entire Spiritist Doctrine. It has a whole chapter dedicated to the fluids, chapter XIV. I suggest the new edition of FEAL as it contains a more faithful translation of Kardec's first edition of January 1868. It is worth reading. (note: Editions currently published in Brazil are from A Genesis from the 5th French edition onwards, which have been tampered with by a former helper involved with other ideas.)

O Universal Cosmic Fluid was first described by Frans Anton Mesmer, in 1784. He was a German physician who lived between 1734 and 1815. He developed the Animal Magnetism Theory.

In 1775, after many experiences, Mesmer recognized that he could heal through the application of his hands. He declares: "Of all the bodies of Nature, it is man himself who most effectively acts upon man." The disease would just be disharmony in the creature's equilibrium, he believes. Mesmer, who charged nothing for treatments, preferred to treat disorders linked to the nervous system. In addition to the imposition of hands on the sick, to extend the benefit to a greater number of people, he magnetized water, dishes, bed, etc., whose contact subjected the sick.

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His theory is that all phenomena in nature originate from a single principle, The original matter of the entire universe: O Universal Cosmic Fluid, because? Because all phenomena are explained from it.
And how does he explain?

It will grant the hypothesis that nature works through vibration states. each state of Universal Cosmic Fluid, which is for where is the vibration, it would have degrees of subtlety. And the vibration of each of these degrees would result in different phenomena. He talked about electromagnetic waves, but in other words... The “little problem” is that there was still no study on electromagnetic waves, nor was it known if they existed... At the time, in the 18th century, they believed that there was nothing between molecules. The Fluid would be where the transmission takes place.

note: Magnetism is the name given to the studies of phenomena related to the properties of magnets. The first magnetic phenomena were observed in ancient Greece, in a city called Magnesia. The first studies carried out in this area were carried out in the 6th century BC by Thales of Miletus, who observed the ability of some pebbles, which today are called magnetite, to attract each other and also to iron. The first practical application of magnetism was found by the Chinese: the compass, which is based on the interaction of the magnetic field of a magnet (the compass needle) with the earth's magnetic field. In the sixth century, the Chinese already dominated the manufacture of magnets. Studies on magnetism only gained strength from the 13th century onwards, when some work and observations were made on electricity and magnetism, which were still considered completely different phenomena. This theory was accepted until the 19th century. Experimental studies in the area were carried out by Europeans. Pierre Pelerin de Maricourt, in 1269, described a large number of experiments on magnetism. The names of the North Pole and South Pole to the ends of the magnet are due to him, as well as the discovery that the compass needle pointed exactly to the geographic north of the Earth. The great revolution in the study of magnetism was made by Oesterd in 1820. He discovered that electrical and magnetic phenomena are interrelated. According to this theory, called electromagnetism, moving electric charges generate a magnetic field, and a moving magnetic field generates an electric current. These studies were completed by Maxwell, who established solid theoretical foundations on the relationship between the electric and magnetic fields, that is, electromagnetic waves.

Dr. Mesmer believed that the ANIMAL MAGNETISM, that is, of vital principle, was an invisible natural force possessed by all living/animate beings (humans, animals, plants, etc.). He believed that such a force could have physical effects, including healing properties. This theory is known as MESMERISM.

He said that the denser matter is "vibrating" the waves materials through the fluid.

Let's exemplify, to illustrate: imagine the wind/pressure make water waves; then the waves of air, a little more subtle than those of water, would result in the phenomenon of sound; more subtle waves generate the phenomenon of light, which would be, for him, the vibration of matter in an even more subtle state. It's the most we can see.
So, Mesmer will grant a hypothesis: after the fluid of light, there would be something even more subtle, which would receive the vibration of our thoughts and our will. And these vibrations of thoughts and will, then, would extend throughout the Universe from a focus that is each one of us. and that the nervous system of other individuals could interpret that thought.

Note: Today it is known that the light it's a kind of wave visible electromagnetic field, formed by the joint propagation of an electric and a magnetic field. As is characteristic of electromagnetic radiation, the light it can propagate through different media and undergo changes in speed when passing from one propagation medium to another. Light can propagate in a vacuum with velocity of approximately 300 thousand km/s. The frequencies of light that are visible to the human eye are called visible spectrum, these waves have lengths between 400 no and 700 no. Electromagnetic waves that have frequencies lower than that of visible light are called infra-red, while those with higher frequencies are called ultraviolet. In Mesmer's time, there was no such understanding, yet... They believed that there was always a fluid, such as magnetic fluid, electric fluid, chloric fluid, etc. and the prevailing theory was mechanist, that is, everything was transmitted from one molecule to another.

Dr. Mesmer performed a series of experiments with applications of his hands to heal people. He realized that his patients, when awake, influenced perception at the time of healing. He then imagined the following: if I put this patient in a state of sleep, putting the body to sleep (this would be our hypnosis today), he would begin to perceive the subtlety of the vibration of the thoughts of others. This was his way of explaining somnambulistic lucidity by this method. It will grant the existence of a 6th. Sense, which, for him, would be in the our nervous system(I didn't think it was something spiritual). He will also perceive states of vibration above light, it would be a state of vibration of the universal cosmic fluid that would have thought waves. The Fluid is the medium through which the thought of the healing will reached the patient.

Mesmer says it like this: that's why, just thinking about the question, the sleepwalker, who is perceiving everything through the sixth sense, captures my thought.

quote from Paulo Henrique de Figueiredo in a lecture for the Spiritism For All Channel on 02/01/2021

Mesmer's hypothesis was that matter is the same in different states. And who acts on matter is the movement of this sixth Sense from our nervous system.
Mesmer spoke of conditions of matter veryuntessentialthe, most subtle, where thought can act. That would be the spirit world only he, at the time, didn't use the "spirit world" to explain...
He knew that at a certain point the matter was so subtle that it was possible for thought to act there.

When he did the healings he was talking to me out of matter. “He talked with the Spirit, by thought. Your proposal was very advanced.”

Kardec would say about Mesmer.

Around the 1850s, around 70 years later, Allan Kardec began his studies. He did not have access to all of Mesmer's work, but the Spirits knew, knew and talked with him about the Mesmer principle. The Spirits will explain that it is not an organ of the body's physiology that perceives the vibrations of thought, but our perispirit(which is a means by which the Spirit can communicate with the body). Kardec, then, developed the hypothesis that it is the Spirit who activates the fluid through thought-will and moves it. would be the smart principle.

So there is a difference between Mesmer, who conceived a Hypothesis, and Spiritism, which works from the observation of the Spirits of the reality of the spiritual world.

Mesmer never thought of perispirit. He couldn't "invent" something that far. He imagined that it was the nervous system that perceived the vibrations of thought. would never be a perispiritual fluid of a spiritual principle not belonging to the material world. Kardec, then, explained the phenomena from these hypotheses of Mesmer regarding matter. And the Spirits will explain to Kardec that no, “our thoughts really vibrate matter, but that matter does not belong to our universe”. This matter is spiritual.

This is very important for every spiritist to understand: the vibrations of our thoughts are not of our observable world. No device will be able to capture it. It is above the light. And light is our limit. Light and electromagnetic waves are at the limit of our observable universe. Thought vibrates above that. In other words, it belongs to another universe. And the Spirits explain this, they say: This is the spiritual universe. And there in the spiritual universe there is the “matter” that they will call perispiritual fluid and he who makes the matter of thought vibrate. And they go even further: that in the spiritual universe matter has various stages of subtlety, that as Spirit evolves, both Spirit and thought will vibrate in this higher range. That's why we're going to have a difference between the more evolved Spirits and less evolved Spirits.

So, the Spirits explained it like this: we have 3 things in the Universe: God, matter and Spirit. Matter is inert, and would be represented by the Universal Cosmic Fluid, because it is inert, it has no form. For a form to emerge, someone has to think. So the Spirit, in its simplest condition, when it thinks (or has a will), the form that appears in matter is the simplest particle.

And what is this unity of the Universal Fluid? She is like the thought of God. But as God created in all times, there are Spirits of all evolutionary scale: there are beings who live in the vegetable kingdom, in the animal kingdom, there are human spirits that range from the simple ignorant to the pure Spirit, all of this concomitant. And among us, Spirits in an evolutionary process, none is equal to the other. If an individual, with his characteristics, will reflect what he is, which is different than another form of another incarnate, with other virtues, other abilities, and so on. Each one completely different from the others, due to the choices and knowledge they made. In such a way that we present the most absolute variety. and everything inside Universal Cosmic Fluid.

Observation: We have to understand that Never does a Spirit manifest with a physical effect alone.. There has to be a medium, there has to be someone alive to mediate with a vital principle. There is no action in the world of the disembodied for the material world. The disembodied spirit acts in the intelligent principle of atoms, which is physical, that from there it effects motion. He acts in the THOUGHT of the incarnate. It is necessary that there be one or more mediums for this interference in the material world to happen. Spirit alone cannot transfer energy to us. You have to understand this very clearly. It is a animalized principle donated by the medium, human being. It can be conscious or unconscious. The spirit that wants the cure uses the vital principle of the medium. But that part is for another article… (coming soon)

So, the spiritual world is invisible, obscure, imponderable (we cannot measure).
We do not possess the foundations of the invisible and spiritual world… We do not know how it is made…

O The future holds for us the knowledge of new laws, which will allow us to understand what remains a mystery.
It may be that the Electromagnetism explain a lot of what mesmer theorized and then Allan Kardec explained with your hypothesis?

YEA!!!

But it may be that the future tells us that this mechanism is all different from that…

Source: Kardec, Allan, GENESIS – Miracles and Predictions According to Spiritism, chapter XIV – Fluids, chapter III, chapter I; Kardec, Allan Book of Spirits question 223 and following; Lecture given by Paulo Henrique de Figueiredo on 02/01/2021; Channel Spiritism for All, Study of Genesis by Allan Kardec; FEB – https://www.feeb.org.br/index.php/institucional/artigos/372-biografia-de-mesmer ; Figueiredo, Paulo Henrique Mesmer. The denied science of animal magnetism ; https://kardecpedia.com/roteiro-de-estudos/2/o-livro-dos-espiritos/64/parte-primeira-das-causas-primarias/capitulo-ii-dos-elementos-gerais-do-universo