Spiritism and euthanasia (sacrifice) of terminal animals
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?”
ANOMALIES AND DEFORMITIES FROM THE SPIRITIST PERSPECTIVE
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)
[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
Spiritism and karma (or karma), punishment, sin and punishment
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!
Autonomy, the moral of the new world
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.
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.
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.
FEB article
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 400no and 700no. 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…
