O “Spirit Box” é um dispositivo muito comentado atualmente, sobre tudo por conta dos canais de “caça-fantasmas”. Até mesmo, with many mistakes, o “Canal Espírita” já abordou o assunto, conforme eu demostro in this video. But the subject is not new: for a long time, researchers in instrumental transcommunication (ICT) have said that they use electronic devices to communicate with Spirits. Allan Bispo describes the following curious fact:

We could say that the first case of a recorded paranormal voice took place in the experimental physics laboratory of the Catholic University of Milan, on September 17, 1952.

There, Fathers Gemelli and Ernetti carried out experiments with Gregorian chants to eliminate harmonics. At that time there were no recorders with tapes, only with wires. This thread broke frequently, so it was necessary to tie a very fine knot to avoid damaging the sound.

That day, the thread had just broken once again and Father Gemelli, upset, exclaimed: “oh, daddy, help me”, as he had been in the habit of saying for many years, since the death of his father.

Once the repair was done, they began to listen to the recorded material, however, instead of the expected Gregorian chant, they heard their father's voice in amazement: “of course I help you and I am always with you”.

BISPO, Allan. “Transcomunicação Instrumental”. Disponível em https://www.harmoniaespiritual.com.br/2011/09/transcomunicacao-instrumental.html. Accessed October 19, 2023.

Por esses e outros fatos, podemos constatar que a transcomunicação instrumental, mesmo através da “Spirit Box”, não é algo impossível. Na verdade, parece bastante factível. A questão, sempre, em se tratando de ciência, será saber analisar a tudo fria e metodologicamente, separando as coisas…

Interests

A grande dificuldade, sempre, será saber analisar e separar o que é verdadeiro, sério, daquilo que não é. O problema não é novo: na época de Kardec os charlatães já faziam uso dos mais diversos tipos de truques e artifícios para ganharem fama e, quase sempre, dinheiro. Por isso Kardec sempre recomendou o sangue-frio na análise desses supostos fenômenos, nunca aceitando nada apressadamente. Os artigos “A floresta de Dodona e a estátua de Memnon”, da Revista Espírita de fevereiro de 1858, “Fraudes espíritas”, de abril de 1859 e “O músculo que range”, de junho de 1859, são recomendados nesse sentido ((Todo o estudo da Revista Espírita é importante, é evidente)).

This problem, of the interests behind the supposed phenomena, is not restricted to communication through instruments alone. It also covers mediumistic communications, unfortunately. But, currently, a new (bad) contribution has added in this sense: the emergence of applications that, supposedly, allow communication with Spirits.

It is not in our position to say whether or not Spirits can interact through a cell phone application, simply because there is no methodological study on this. Since Spiritism is a science, this is clear: what is not developed by scientific methodology it cannot be admitted, nor summarily dismissed. But there is a relevant point: the Spirits do not interact directly on matter, that is, not without a medium of physical effects that allow them to obtain the animalized perispiritual fluid (ectoplasm) to carry out any action on matter. Having this medium at his disposal — often without the medium even knowing — the Spirit acts, so to speak, directly on the subject. Therefore, we can safely say that communication via objects (instrumental transcommunication) is just another option and, perhaps, the most limited of them.

be admitted, nor summarily dismissed. The point here is to point out the fact that, armed with such applications and false ideas, video channels on YouTube have become gigantic sources of profits and misinformation. Many of these channels, with hundreds of thousands of followers, generate monthly sums of thousands of dollars for their owners, who seem to find Spirits “trapped” in every abandoned property. Furthermore, we have the device and application market itself, which lives off the advertising carried out through these channels. It is a true pyramid of interests, where charity has no place.

False assumptions

Spirits preferably frequent the ruins

Due to lack of knowledge of Spiritism, the false idea is that suffering Spirits would be especially located in certain places, such as abandoned houses and cemeteries. This is false. As what is contained in The Book of Mediums in this regard is excellent in itself, I recommend reading the article “Haunted places“, do qual destaco o seguinte excerto:

4th. Is there any basis for the belief that Spirits preferably frequent ruins?

"None. Spirits go to such places, like everyone else. Men's imagination, awakened by the gloomy appearance of certain places, attributes to the presence of Spirits what is, almost always, a very natural effect. How many times has fear caused the shadow of a tree to be mistaken for a ghost and the cry of an animal, or the breath of the wind, for ghosts? Spirits like the presence of men; hence they prefer inhabited places to deserted places.”

This does not mean that there are no Spirits who remain attached to places, especially when it comes to their former homes. Sad reality, which causes suffering to the Spirit with attachment to materialistic ideas.

Only suffering spirits communicate

A fixed idea among “ghostbusters” is that only dark or suffering Spirits communicate. This is false. Inferior Spirits communicate through physical manifestations, but this does not mean that they are malicious or that their intentions are bad. Many times they just want to get attention or even thank you. The Revista Espírita is full of facts like these, one of them being the one told in the article “An old carter“, de dezembro de 1859.

Talking to suffering spirits causes obsession

This is another very false idea that reigns in the spiritist movement in general. What causes obsession is the free acceptance of the influence of another Spirit, incarnate or disembodied. As long as this influence is not allowed, by a greater moral force, it will not occur. We cannot, however, support the jokes and nonsense made through the evocations of Spirits, which can only attract frivolous or even malicious Spirits (who, once again, will only find room for influence if they find resonance in the ideas and actions of individuals ).

A strange fact is that one of the biggest factors in the installation of an obsession is the blind acceptance of what the Spirits say, something that most of the modern Spiritist Movement does. We have already discussed this in the article “Obsessed and Subdued: the dangers of Spiritism“.

One more fact: It is not the evocation that attracts the Spirits, but the thought.

Os Espíritos que se comunicam estão “presos” à Terra

Yet another oft-repeated idea, and false, é a de que os Espíritos precisem de “resgate” e que, se isso não acontecer, ficarão “presos” à Terra. Até mesmo um grande canal como o “Canal Espírita” divulga essa falsa ideia, baseada em opiniões. Como demonstra O Livro dos Médiuns (e a Doutrina Espírita inteira) os Espíritos se dirigem por intermédio de sua vontade. Pela vontade e por conta de pouca compreensão e de apegos, podem se ater a pessoas, situações ou lugares. Quando mais elevados e mais desprendidos das ideias materialistas — algo a que o Espiritismo favorece substancialmente — mais facilmente se desprendem da matéria.

It is a fact that a large part of the Spirits that leave matter, here on Earth, are still poorly developed Spirits who remain concerned and involved with worldly interests. But it's not like that for everyone. Again, the study of the Revista Espírita (1858 – 1869) proves this principle.

Summoning Spirits causes them to become Earthbound

This idea, repeated by Luiz Fernando, on Canal Espírita, also has no basis in Spiritism. In fact, it contradicts everything that years of serious research have demonstrated. Evoking Spirits (in a serious way and with good purposes) is useful and natural and, in the case of suffering Spirits, it helps them to reason and to detach themselves from matter. It is the opposite of what those who claim such things say.

Futility

In addition to uselessness and interests, we also have futility. In the same way that happened with the games with the compass and the moving glasses, the frivolous and futile evocation of Spirits can only attract frivolous and futile Spirits. Sometimes, an evil spirit seeks to play a trick or scare you. Other times, if there is resonance of ideas, you can find someone to obsess over.

Absence of usefulness

Assuming that some of these events are genuine communications and allowing for the possibility that they may occur, we need to ask what is the use of them, given that can only be performed by inferior Spirits? Now, it is a fact that these manifestations had their reason for being, in the past, in order to draw attention to spiritist facts, but would they be necessary today (except for very particular cases)? We ask: why not use mediums, which are much better and more complete tools for these communications?

It is also important to remember that Spirits cannot interact with matter directly, without the assistance of a medium, even if unconscious of it. This is evidenced in The Book of Mediums or guide for mediums and evokers > Second part — Spiritist manifestations > Chapter V — Spontaneous physical manifestations > Throwing objects. Thus, we reflect: since the medium is indispensable, wouldn't it be more logical to make them good tools, through study, instead of referring the Spirits to physical manifestations?

Furthermore, we must highlight that, apart from errors and charlatanism, there are genuine material phenomena of Spirits attached to materialistic ideas who, therefore, cannot find a better direction after leaving the body. Still here, it is noted that, due to the lack of knowledge of Spiritism, well-intentioned individuals, equipped with their “Spirit Box”, are no longer much more useful, as they do not know how to deal with this fact. They are based on current false ideas and add very little or nothing to help change that Spirit's thoughts.

Importance of Spiritism

Spiritism, as a scientific doctrine, is the result of years of serious and methodological research into the manifestations of Spirits. It is not something that someone has taken from their own ideas and said “I say it is so”. On the contrary: this study led, on several occasions, to individuals, including Kardec, being contradicted in their hypotheses.

For this reason, studying it is essential for anyone who wants to do good with fewer mistakes and practice healthy and useful communication with Spirits as it should be.

The word psychology literally means “study of the soul” (ψυχή, psyché, “soul” – λογία, logia, “treatise”, “study”). This is not, however, what we see reflected in current – and long-standing – studies on the subject, because, as much as this area approaches the understanding of the soul as “the intelligent principle, rationality and thought”, it still seeks to in the cerebral matter the origin of all the characteristics of the individual

“Our brain, involuntarily, looks for elements to lean on, reinforce its convictions or interests, which leads to an individualized, own lifestyle. No matter what you use to strengthen or motivate your desires, your hopes, all the various forms are valid. People who don't believe in anything tend to be pessimistic and negative., because for them, nothing can happen to change their lives. For the dominion of reason binds man to what is earthly. Genetics explains the origin of faith.”

SOUZA, Andreia Maria S. “What is the soul: meaning in psychology and psychoanalysis”. Available at https://www.psicanaliseclinica.com/alma-o-que-e/. Accessed on 09/10/2022. Emphasis added.

As can be seen, even faith, for modern psychology, is still materialistic, conditioned, for it, to genetics and not to the soul (necessarily, therefore, in progress).

)).

The search area of to be human being, of his “psyché” (psyche) is predominantly characterized by the Aristotelian ideas that define the to be as a result of the body – ideas that, going through the centuries, created, contrary to the philosophy of Socrates and Plato, autonomous and spiritualist in essence, a regrettable heteronomous and materialist doctrine, which, in addition to removing from the to be the principles of autonomy and will gave rise to the absurd ideas of racism, eugenics and, in the individual field, heteronomy, which, from the individual, contaminates his social environment and, finally, defines social, philosophical and political structures.

Guided and contaminated by the Aristotelian idea, where the individual attributes, when purely materialistic, all his moral characteristics to the genetics of the body and, when “spiritualist”, to one or more beings acting as arbitrators (as if God, or “the gods” , whether vengeful, interfering) or evil-enhancing beings – the devil, demon(s), etc. – society mischaracterizes itself as social, becoming predominantly selfish and insulating the being in itself, aiming at the care of your material needs, instead of leading him to the understanding of his will as the principle of everything, in the daily exercise and in solidarity with the other.

Religions, finally, took away, for sectarian interests, the autonomy of the individual, to subordinate him to the whims and punishments of other beings, interfering, bellicose and vindictive, when not malicious, while science, not seeing rationality in the dogmatic principles of religions, denying it completely, denied human spirituality, only to fall into the same error, taking away the individual's autonomy by transforming him into a “ventriloquist's dummy” of body chemistry. It is not by chance that Darwinian eugenics was based on Aristotle, because, if on the one hand it is right in observing the natural fact of selection, on the other hand, it extends it to the human being, placing it, once again, as It is made of your body, and not as a determining factor about it. Darwin said: “Linaeus and Cuvier were my two deities, but they are nothing more than schoolboys compared to old Aristotle.”.

We did not know, however, that for an expressive amount of time, and in capital of the world From the 18th and 19th centuries, a philosophical current was born that resumed the concepts of the autonomy of the individual as a fundamental principle of existence and the definition of (or of) to be. a philosophy that defined at moral sciences francesas ((Diz Paulo Henrique de Figueiredo in “Autonomia”: The first division of the sciences, presented in Paul Janet's Treatise on Philosophy, according to the structure prevailing at the Sorbonne University in the 19th century, was between:

a) The exact sciences or mathematics.

b) The natural sciences, which study the objects of the physical world (physics, chemistry, biology, etc.).

c) The moral sciences, which study the moral world, which comprises the actions and thoughts of the human race.

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

• The philosophical sciences, divided into two classes: psychological (psychology, logic, morals, aesthetics) and metaphysical (theodicy, rational psychology, rational cosmology).
• The historical sciences (history, archeology, epigraphy, numismatics, geography) study human events and development over time.
• The philological sciences (philology, etymology, paleography, etc.), whose object is language and human symbolic expression.
• The social and political sciences (politics, jurisprudence, political economy), which study the social life of human beings (JANET, 1885, p. 15-17).)) and which became a fundamental subject in the Normal School, in teacher training, and which later began to be adopted in lyceums and colleges, but which was surreptitiously erased from human history, together with two other philosophical sciences of the same foundation, as we will see below.

It was at the beginning of the 19th century that Maine de Biran and, later, Victor Cousin, among others, took up the concept of will as a principle psychologically elaborated by the soul, defining free will. For these thinkers – at a time when, as we have seen, philosophy was treated as a science – the autonomy of the individual is based on the will as a characteristic of the soul. From this fundamental principle, the principles that distanced the being from heteronomy were born, placing it as an autonomous agent of itself and, through its solidary action, of society. The individual was no longer a reflection of his genetics (or, as they thought at the time, their dispositions bile ((White bile defined good and black bile defined evil, in body chemistry. Based on this principle, many doctors performed bloodletting, often deadly, seeking to eliminate the black bile.)), but the primary reflection of its will.

This revolutionized the psychology of the time and totally transformed the moral sciences, as it placed the individual in the condition of being solely responsible for his moral conditions and choices. More: it started to deal with moral issues, under these principles, in order to separate what was external to the individual - the emotions (at the time called passions), pleasures, physical pain, etc. internal to the individual – the choices, born from the will of his soul (being that the soul would be, for them, the being that defines the will and that survives death, without, however, investigating it in that state) that, in the end, would determine your state of happiness or unhappiness.

This knowledge is fantastic and deserves to be recovered and studied! See: today, we define (or confuse) our state of happiness and unhappiness by external factors – if I don't have money to travel, or if I have a weakened body, or if I lost dear people, think unhappy, since happiness, for the current materialist thought, would be in the things of the world - parties, travel, money, etc. By understanding this morality defined by this spiritualist philosophy – rational spiritualism, as it became known – we begin to separate things: can I be unhappy because of a condition or event, or not having pleasures because of not having money, or having poor health, or physical limitations, but that is not what defines my happiness, for this is a construction of the will of my soul as far as morals are concerned, that is, in my striving for detachment of everything that arises from conditions external to my will. For example: as a condition external to my will, defined by my soul, there is the bodily impulse to react violently to a given situation; By allowing this impetus, which is born from the protective instinct, to dominate my will, I can perform actions that later make me regret (when I become aware), for what I will suffer. If I cling to such a way of acting, I will develop a habit and, hence, an addiction, which will make me suffer indefinitely, until, repenting, I consciously resolve to seek to detach myself from this error, in an effort that can only be autonomous. , and not imposed.

Perhaps the person who best defined these concepts is Paul Janet, in two main works: “Small Elements of Morals”, a very succinct and simple to read work (we recommend reading it!), available for download here and also available on Amazon Kindle, and “Elementary Treatise on Philosophy“, a much larger and more complex work.

But does not stop there. We mentioned the issue of black bile and white bile, which took over the medical concepts of the time and which, due to the absurd actions imposed on patients, such as bloodletting or “medicines”, which even mixed poison, weakened and sometimes killed the sick. Contrary to these ideas, still in the 18th century, Mesmer, observing some patients, arrived – in a very summarized way – to elaborate concepts that were also autonomous in the treatment of health, theorizing that the individual could also if heal by the action of your will. Hahnemann, with homeopathy, followed the same principle. For Mesmer, the external agent, acting through the will of the sick individual – what became known as magnetism – could help him to achieve, through persistent work, cures that, for many, would be impossible and, in some cases, almost miraculous (which, in fact, it was not: it is just an unknown science). Such was the accuracy of his theories that, already at that time, and against the scientific theories of the time, they were aligned with the concepts now in force and demonstrated by modern physics, such as those of the Quantum Field Theory and the existence of elementary matter, " quintessenced”, which gives rise to all matter (dark matter). It is all knowledge that would require a real book to treat it. As this book already exists, we recommend reading it: “Mesmer: the denied science of animal magnetism”, by Paulo Henrique de Figueiredo.

We also mentioned the question that the study of rational spiritualists was limited to understanding the soul as an agent of the will, external to the body and dominant over it, surviving death (by mere rational inference from the previous postulates), but with an unknown subsequent fate, since unobservable. It turns out, however, that “something” was happening, gaining ground for the establishment of a new science, born, at the time, like all the others: through the rational and methodological observation of the facts of nature.

Paulo Henrique de Figueiredo says, in “Mesmer: the denied science of animal magnetism”:

“The magnetizers proved very early on the relations of somnambulists with invisible beings. Deleuze, a disciple of Mesmer, in his correspondence with Dr GP Billot for more than four years, from March 1829 to August 1833, was initially reluctant, but eventually stated: “Magnetism demonstrates the spirituality of the soul and its immortality; he proves the possibility of communication between intelligences separated from matter with those still linked to them..” (BILLOT, 1839)”

[…]

Deleuze, in turn, stated: “I see no reason to deny the possibility of the appearance of people who, having left this life, take care of those they loved here and come to express themselves to them, to give them healthy advice. I just got an example of this.” (Ibid.)

[…]

“Years later, the magnetizer Louis Alphonse Cahagnet (1809-1885), with courage and determination, talked to the spirits through his ecstatic somnambulists, especially Adèle Maginot, recording in his work more than one hundred and fifty letters signed by witnesses who recognized the identity of the communicating spirits. Cahagnet anticipated this spiritist science research instrument by more than ten years.”

FIGUEIREDO. Mesmer: the denied science of animal magnetism.

We have arrived, therefore, at the birth of the spiritist science, a science, and not, as many believe, a “religion”. Being aware of the facts that swarmed across Europe (and the world, in fact) and, removing, through investigation, the quackery that only aimed to attract curious people and their bags of money, Professor Rivail ((Hippolyte Leon Denizard Rivail.)) set out, after much insistence from some known people, to a study that culminated in what became known as Spiritism, which, instead of being born, like all religious doctrines, from the isolated opinion of an individual or a group, was born from the rational analysis of thousands of communications, obtained from all “corners” of the world, in the same way that the magnetizers who preceded him also obtained theirs: through individuals placed in a state of somnambulism, induced by magnetism (from Mesmer). A fact was established, supported by reason: the soul, previously uninvestigatable, could, by its will, communicate through the soul of the individual placed in a somnambulistic state.

Through these communications, Allan Kardec, the name adopted by Rivail in order not to confuse his work as an educator and scientist with his new studies, inaugurated a new era in psychological study, because now, fully aligned with the concepts already developed by rational spiritualism, he studied the soul in its state, after death, of happiness or unhappiness, fruits of its choices. Not only: against the preconceived ideas he had, along with other scholars, regarding the origin of the soul, communications from countless Spirits evidenced, by reason, the law of reincarnation as a necessary element for the incessant progress of the Spirit ((Highlights Kardec, in his Magazine:

“Undoubtedly, say some opponents, you were imbued with such ideas and that is why the spirits agreed with your way of seeing. It is an error that proves, once again, the danger of hasty and unexamined judgments. If, before judging, such people had taken the trouble to read what we write about Spiritism, they would have spared themselves the trouble of such a light objection. We will therefore repeat what we have already said about it, that is, that when the doctrine of reincarnation was taught to us by the spirits, it was so far from our thinking that we had built a completely different system on the antecedents of the soul, a system that we actually shared. by many people. On this point, the doctrine of the Spirits surprised us. We'll say more: it upset us, because it overthrew our own ideas. As you can see, it was far from being a reflection of them.

This is not all. We don't give in to the first shock. We fight; we defend our opinion; we raise objections and only surrender in the face of evidence and when we realize the inadequacy of our system to resolve all issues relating to this problem.

In the eyes of some people, it may seem strange to use the term evidence, in such a subject, however, it will not be inappropriate for those who are used to scrutinizing spiritist phenomena. For the attentive observer, there are facts which, although not of an absolutely material nature, nevertheless constitute true evidence, at least moral evidence.

This is not the place to explain these facts, which can only be understood through continuous and persevering study. Our aim was only to refute the idea that this doctrine is nothing more than a translation of our thinking.”

KARDEC, Allan. Spirit Magazine. 1858.

)), in their choices to return to the subject, to continue their learning and, in many cases, to, after the repentance process, through your choices, and not by an arbitrary imposition, give rise to the necessary evidence for the search for detachment from habits and vices that, transformed into imperfections, led them to suffering.

Such studies complemented what Rational Spiritualism could not explain and demonstrated that the autonomy of the being, defined by his will and his free will, was indeed a determining factor in his progress and, consequently, in his state of happiness or unhappiness, as happiness would be the closer to the law natural would be, while unhappiness would be in fighting it, developing attachments. In recognizing the state of unhappiness and its reason, the Spirit would choose new opportunities that would provide learning, not being, under any circumstances, the effect of a punishment imposed by the mistake committed.

Here, dear reader, are the facts of the true psychological and philosophical revolution that, for more than a century, remained unknown to society, swept under the rug by a strong materialist reaction. Once recognized as a science, today, under the empire of a materialist – and inexact – understanding of what is science, is treated as pseudoscience, discredited and discredited under this classification. Here are the facts that, currently, are inconceivable to be addressed in the classrooms of philosophy, medicine, psychology and similar classes. Here are the facts, finally, that led the whole world to dive or remain under the fearsome principles that take away autonomy from being and that transform man into a veritable mass of flesh, defined by his body chemistry and, consequently, by his DNA. . Today, in general, one does not seek to investigate the origin of unhappiness, depression or disturbances by investigating the soul and its will: on the contrary, one seeks to investigate what is the gene of psychopathy, not considering that the “anomalies ” would be defined by the soul, not the other way around.

It happens, however, that the human being, precisely through spiritual progress, which does not cease, more and more search autonomy, because, slowly and progressively, it approaches, by reason itself, the verification and understanding of these principles, since the progress of the Spirit does not occur only in the state of incarnation. Autonomous ideas are starting to gain strength, both in society in general and in scientific circles, which, every day, come closer to this truth arbitrarily erased from human knowledge in the past. That is why, vehemently, we recommend the study of the cited works to, later, indicate, to those who feel compelled to do so, the study of the Spiritist Magazine, prepared by Kardec, from January 1858 to April 1869, where it is exposed, very clearly, the formation of this philosophical and moral doctrine that, in order to be well understood, lacks the understanding of the context in which it was born and formed.

We spoke of truth arbitrarily erased from human knowledge. Spiritism, having been the only scientific and philosophical doctrine that deepened the study of the psychology of the Spirit after the death of the body – this is why the Spiritist Magazine received, as subtitle, “Journal of Psychological Studies” – studied the facts that they were given rationally and with scientific methodology (which can be very well understood through a serious study of the work of Allan Kardec, and about which we have spoken a few times in our articles).

Duly contextualized in its time, the Spiritist Doctrine was so rational and logical, clear and, in a way, simple, that it “converted” ((Of course, the meaning given here to “convert” is to adopt principles and ideas of a doctrine, and not of affiliating with any religious system.)) countless people, even atheists and materialists, from the working classes to those occupying the highest social positions. Today, however, the Spiritist Movement, contaminated, for more than a century, by adulterations in Kardec's two final works and by ideas instilled in his environment, has lost precisely this rational and logical characteristic of an observational science. Currently, many move away from the spiritist environment precisely because they see their reasoning clashing with false concepts of debt payment, karma, divine punishment through reincarnation and unreasonable acceptance of any supposed spiritist psychography, without subjecting it, as Kardec recommended, to the scrutiny of reason.

This is why there is a need to study and get to know Spiritism in the original works ((The works Heaven and Hell and Genesis were respectively adulterated in their 4th and 5th editions, but the publisher FEAL currently already has the original works, with a huge amount of contextualizing notes by Paulo Henrique de Figueiredo.))] by Kardec. Spiritism Never it was a religion, nor was it born with the intention of competing with religions for a position that does not belong to it ((Kardec would say, in the Revista Espírita of 1862:

“With regard to the issue of the miracles of Spiritism that was proposed to us, and which we dealt with in our last issue, this is also proposed: 'The martyrs sealed the truth of Christianity with their blood; where are the martyrs of Spiritism?'

You are therefore very urged to see the Spiritists placed on the bonfire and thrown to the wild beasts! Which should make you suppose that your good will would not be lacking if that were still the case. You want, therefore, with all your strength to elevate Spiritism to the status of a religion! Note well that he never had that pretension; he never set himself up as a rival to Christianity, of which he claims to be the son; that he fights his cruelest enemies: atheism and materialism. Once again, it is a philosophy resting on the fundamental foundations of all religion, and on the morals of Christ.; if he denied Christianity, he would contradict himself, he would commit suicide. It is these enemies that show it as a new sect, which gives it priests and great priests. They will shout so much, and so often, that it is a religion, that one could end up believing in it. Is it necessary to be a religion to have its martyrs? Have not science, the arts, genius, work, at all times, had their martyrs, as have all new ideas?”

Allan Kardec – Spiritist Magazine of 1862

)). It is, first of all, a moral science, as we have demonstrated, but also a science born from the observation of the facts of nature. Studied as such, it removes prejudices and attacks the only real enemy of human autonomy, materialism, demonstrating it to be false and unsustainable.

“The Sorrows of Young Werther” is an epistolary novel by Goethe, from 1774, where its protagonist, a young man from the high German aristocracy, exchanges correspondence with a friend named Guilherme, telling about his travels and everyday experiences (see introductory paragraph of the article), until the encounter with the beautiful Charlotte.

Although both Werther and Charlotte are, in fact, living a love story, the boy cannot be completely reciprocated by his beloved, as she is married to another man. Werther, in turn, sees no other way out and puts an end to his life, shooting himself in the head. The moment of his suicide is one of the most moving episodes in the book and, considered by many, in the history of literature.

The realistic and disturbing tone of the novel caused a real commotion among the young people of the time, who, attracted by the passionate and depressive spirit of their respective protagonist, decided to follow the same path, putting an end to their own lives. There were a large number of suicides related to the reading of Goethe's little-great novel, quickly becoming a cursed work for the church. In psychoanalysis, a term called the Werther Effect was created, in reference to the character and characterized by his suicidal phenomenology.

And what does this story have to do with the Spirits? Why, everything! Goethe was a personality of an incarnated Spirit – a Spirit who, incidentally, later showed himself to be very sorry for the ideas thrown at unsuspecting minds, when, in 1859, evoked by Kardec, he responded like this, as presented in the Spiritist Magazine of that year:

12. ─ What do you think of Werther?

─ Now I disapprove of the outcome.

13. ─ Wouldn't this work have done a lot of harm, exalting passions?

─ It did, and it caused misfortunes.

14. ─ It was the cause of many suicides. Are you responsible for that?

─ Since there was an evil influence spread over me, that's exactly why I still suffer and regret it.

We are responsible for what we say and, if we cannot be fully responsible for the actions that others take as a result of our own – since it is up to the autonomy and will of the other to choose between acting in this or that way – we are, at least, largely responsible for inducing other minds in the mistakes of imperfections that, many times, hinder ourselves.

We follow, therefore, this brief reflection, presenting, in full, an article by Allan Kardec, in the Spiritist Magazine of November 1859 – “Should we publish everything that the Spirits say”?

This question was addressed to us by one of our correspondents.

We answer it as follows:

Would it be good to publish everything that men say and think?
Anyone who has a notion of Spiritism, however superficial, knows that the invisible world is made up of all those who left the visible envelope on Earth. But putting off the carnal man, not all, for that very reason, put on the robe of angels. There are, therefore, Spirits of all degrees of knowledge and ignorance, of morality and immorality. Here is what we must not lose sight of. Let us not forget that among Spirits, as on Earth, there are frivolous, inattentive and playful beings; false sages, vain and proud of incomplete knowledge; hypocrites, malevolents and, what would seem inexplicable to us, if we somehow didn't know the physiology of this world, there are sensuals, villains and debauchees who crawl in the mud. Alongside these, as on Earth, there are good, human, benevolent, enlightened beings endowed with sublime virtues. As, however, our world is neither in the first nor in the last position, although it is closer to the last than to the first, it follows that the world of spirits encompasses beings more intellectually and morally advanced than our more enlightened men, and others who are in an inferior position to that of the lowest men.

Since these beings have a patent means of communicating with men and of expressing their thoughts by intelligible signs, their communications must effectively reflect their feelings, their qualities or their vices.

According to the character and elevation of the Spirits, communications may be frivolous, trivial, gross and even obscene, or marked by intellectual elevation, wisdom and sublimity. They reveal themselves by their own language. Hence the need not to blindly accept everything that comes from the occult world, and to subject everything to severe control. With the communications of certain spirits, in the same way as with the speeches of certain men, one could make a very unedifying collection. We have before our eyes a small English work, published in America, which is proof of this. It can be said that a lady would not recommend it for reading to her daughter. Therefore, we do not recommend it to our readers.

There are people who find this funny and amusing. Let them delight in intimacy, but keep it to themselves. What is even less conceivable is that they should boast of obtaining unseemly communications. This is always an indication of sympathies that cannot be a reason for vanity, especially when these communications are spontaneous and persistent, as happens to certain people. This absolutely does not allow us to make a hasty judgment of their present morality, for we know people afflicted with this kind of obsession, to which their character in no way lends itself. However, like all effects, this one too must have a cause, and if we do not find it in present existence, we must look for it in previous experience. If this cause is not within us, it is outside of us. However, there is always a reason why we are in this situation, even if that reason is just a weakness of character. The cause is known, it is up to us to make it
cease.

In addition to these frankly bad communications, which shock any slightly delicate ear, there are others that are simply trivial or ridiculous. Will there be any inconvenience in publishing them? If they are publicized for what they are worth, there will be only a lesser evil. If they are studied as a study of the genre, with the necessary precautions and with the necessary comments and restrictions, they may even be instructive, insofar as they contribute to getting to know the spiritist world in all its nuances. With prudence and skill, anything can be said. The evil is in presenting as serious things that shock common sense, reason or conveniences. In this case, the danger is greater than you think.

To begin with, such publications have the inconvenience of misleading people who are not in a position to examine them and discern what is true and what is false, especially in a matter as new as Spiritism. Secondly, they are weapons provided to opponents, who do not miss the opportunity to draw arguments against the high morality of spiritist teaching from this fact, because, once again, the evil lies in seriously presenting notoriously absurd things. Some may even see a desecration in the ridiculous role we give to certain justly venerated characters, to whom we attribute language unworthy of them. People who have studied spirit science in depth know what attitude should be adopted in such cases. They know that mocking spirits do not have the slightest scruple to adorn themselves with respectable names, but they also know that these spirits only abuse those who like to be abused and who do not know or do not want to destroy their tricks by the means of control already known. The public, who is ignorant of this, sees only one thing: an absurdity offered to their admiration as if it were a serious thing, and because of this they say to themselves that if all Spiritualists are like this, they do not despise the epithet with which they were bestowed. Without the slightest doubt, such a judgment is hasty. You rightly accuse its authors of levity and say to them: study the matter and do not examine only one side of the medal. There are, however, so many people who judge a priori, without bothering to raise a straw, especially when there is no good will, that it is necessary to avoid everything that might give them grounds for censure, considering that if ill will joins If they give in to malevolence, which is all too common, they will be delighted to find something to criticize.

Later, when Spiritism is popularized, better known and understood by the masses, such publications will have no more influence than a book of scientific heresies would have today. Until then, circumspection would never be too much, because there are communications that can essentially harm the cause they want to defend, on a much larger scale than the rude attacks and injuries of certain adversaries. If some were made for that purpose, they would not be less successful. The mistake of some authors is to write about a subject before having delved into it sufficiently, thus giving rise to a reasoned critique. They complain about the reckless judgment of their antagonists, not paying attention to the fact that they are often the ones who reveal their weak point. Moreover, in spite of all precautions, it would be presumptuous to assume that they are safe from all criticism, at first because it is impossible to please everyone; then, because there are those who laugh at everything, even the most serious things, some because of their condition, others because of their character. They laugh a lot about religion. It is not surprising, therefore, that they laughed at the spirits, whom they do not know. If only these jokes were witty, there would be compensation. Unfortunately, they generally don't shine for their finesse, for their good taste, or for their urbanity, much less for their logic. Let us, therefore, do the best we can, bringing reason and convenience to our side, and in this way we will also bring mockers to our side.

These considerations will be easily understood by all, but there is one no less important, as it concerns the very nature of spiritist communications, and for this reason we must not omit it. Spirits go where they find sympathy and where they know they will be heard.. Gross and inconvenient communications, or simply false, absurd and ridiculous, can only emanate from inferior spirits.

Simple common sense indicates it. These spirits do what men do who see themselves complacently listened to. They attach themselves to those who admire their follies and often seize and dominate them to the point of fascination and subjugation.

The importance given to their communications by advertising attracts, excites and encourages them. The only true way to drive them away is to prove to them that we are not deceived, ruthlessly rejecting, as apocryphal and suspect, everything that is not rational; everything that belies the superiority attributed to the Spirit who manifests himself and whose name he uses. So when he sees that he's wasting his time, he walks away.

We believe that we have satisfactorily answered our correspondent's question about the convenience and opportunity of certain spiritist publications. To publish without examination, or without correction, everything that comes from this source, would, in our opinion, show a lack of discernment.. This, at least, is our personal opinion, which we submit to the appreciation of those who, disinterested in the matter, can judge impartially, putting aside any individual consideration. Like everyone else, we have the right to say our way of thinking about the science that is the object of our studies, and to treat it in our own way, not intending to impose our ideas on anyone, nor to present them as laws. . Those who share our way of seeing it because they believe, as we do, to be with the truth. The future will show who is wrong and who is right.

If we are responsible for our actions, we are no less responsible for propagating false or harmful ideas, resulting from the thinking of others, through an ostensible lack of care and study. We are dealing with Spiritism, and this matter is serious. Let us not do less, in this matter, than what is necessary, which is to study it without ceasing, in all its context, never giving as final affirmations what we have not found concluded in the doctrinal theses. We always remember that Allan Kardec himself left several issues open, due to the impossibility of advancing on them at that time, but we urge that this not be a reason to lightly accept any later communication as a complement to these matters, because, without the knowledge and the necessary methodology, we would make the mistake of not observing everything that Kardec pointed out in the text above, a summary of years of study in the face of Spiritism.

It is also our opinion that "to publish without examination, or without correction, everything that comes from this source, would, in our opinion, give evidence of poor judgment"! Goethe made the decision to publish something that was the fruit of his mind – and, very likely, of other spiritual minds, which led him to such ideas. What if those same minds, or Goethe's own Spirit, communicated to us a novel of such content, through mediumistic means? Should we just publish it?

Note that, in no way, this Group is critical of the medium. After all, it is the tool for exchanging ideas. The problem that stands out here is with regard to the analysis of these communications and the use that is made of them and, therefore, the reader can imagine how much we regret the various publications of supposed psychographed letters or even books that, indiscriminately, favor the dissemination and the inculcation of false ideas connected with the dogmas of the fall into sin, divine punishment, attachment to material things even in the spiritual world, etc.

– suicide is a mistake, of course. It may be the result of great despair, of a total lack of faith in the future – the result of materialism – it may be the result of a habit – whenever he faces a difficulty, he chooses to give up -, etc., but the fact, seen already in the study from the first year of the Revista Espírita (1858), is that we cannot link the action of suicide to standardized effects, such as, for example, saying that this spirit will suffer in the “valley of suicides” (which is not a place, as many think). Each case is different. And, after all, it is a mistake, like so many others. There is nothing “major sin” or “major crime” before God. God doesn't charge.

– I remember, finally, that the serious study of the Spiritist Doctrine in its originality, removed from the religious dogmas of sin, fall and punishment, linked to its inseparable twin sister – the science of Magnetism – led and leads many non-believers to reasoned and to regain the spirit for life.

– the Spiritist Doctrine is not a doctrine of false ideas, but a Doctrine that returns the Spirit to responsibility for itself, for autonomy and conscience.

– Moreover, I think that the best way to help someone in a state of depression or giving up is to demonstrate that:

1. He is not being punished for anything. Pains and sorrows, joys and pleasures are part *of matter*, and we all go through them. Happiness, however, is the conquest of the Spirit, who walks towards good and self-improvement, while unhappiness is the result of imperfections, developed by autonomous and conscious actions of the Spirit, linked to sensations, pleasures and passions. A happy Spirit will also go through pain and sadness in the flesh, but this will not define its state of happiness or unhappiness. Therefore, in order to achieve happiness and inner peace, we need to learn and place ourselves, in all honesty, under constant analysis of ourselves, seeking to detach ourselves from those factors that lead us to imperfections - remembering that making mistakes and learning is one thing, every world does in the learning process, while making mistakes and clinging to mistakes, in a conscious effort, because of pleasures and passions, is the big problem.

2. The difficulties faced are sometimes the result of wrong choices, even in this life. Other times, they are planned as tests, with the purpose of helping to overcome an imperfection. Anyway, these are opportunities that need to be faced, and the spiritist knowledge helps *too much* in this process.

3. Interrupting a life through direct or indirect suicide will only cause suffering*moral* last longer, because, as it originates from imperfections, it will only cease when these are overcome, through autonomous and conscious effort.

Spiritual aphorisms about suicide – suicide is a mistake, of course. It may be the result of great despair, of a total lack of faith in the future - the fruit of materialism - it may be the result of a habit - whenever he faces a difficulty, he chooses to give up -, etc., but the fact, seen already in the A study carried out in the first year of Revista Espírita (1858), is that we cannot link the action of suicide to standardized effects, such as, for example, saying that this spirit will suffer in the “valley of suicides”. Each case is different. And, after all, it is a mistake, like so many others. There is nothing "greater sin" or "greater crime" before God. God does not charge.

– Finally, I remember that the serious study of the Spiritist Doctrine in its originality, far from the religious dogmas of sin, the fall and punishment, linked to its inseparable twin sister – the science of Magnetism – has led and leads many unbelievers to reasoned faith and regaining the spirit of life.

– the Spiritist Doctrine is not a “doctrine of joy”, but a Doctrine that leads the Spirit back to responsibility for itself, through autonomy and conscience.

– Besides, I think the best way to help someone in a state of depression or withdrawal is to demonstrate that:

1. He is not being punished for anything. Pains and sorrows, joys and pleasures are part *of matter*, and we all pass through them. Happiness, however, is the conquest of the Spirit, which walks towards the good and the improvement of itself, while unhappiness is the result of imperfections, developed by autonomous and conscious actions of the Spirit, linked to sensations, pleasures and passions. A happy Spirit will also go through pain and sadness, in the flesh, but this will not define your state of happiness or unhappiness. Therefore, in order to achieve happiness and inner peace, we need to learn and put ourselves, in all honesty, under constant analysis of ourselves, seeking to detach ourselves from these factors that lead us to imperfections - remembering that making mistakes and learning is one thing, every the world does in the learning process, while making mistakes and clinging to mistakes, in a conscious effort, because of pleasures and passions is the big problem.

2. The difficulties faced are sometimes the result of wrong choices, even in this life. Other times, they are planned as tests, with the purpose of helping to overcome an imperfection. Anyway, these are opportunities that need to be faced, and the spiritist knowledge helps *too much* in this process.

3. Interrupting a life through direct or indirect suicide will only cause suffering*moral* last longer, because, as it originates from imperfections, it will only cease when these are overcome, through autonomous and conscious effort.

4. Trying to help someone to overcome the ideas of suicide through fear, which arises from false ideas, is a mistake, because the person who believes himself to be unfortunate or even sinful is already desperate. Instead, it is necessary to seek to help her to reason about the usefulness of every second of incarnate life to precisely overcome the imperfections that prevent her from being truly happy.

You have to be careful and study hard. False ideas are linked to our spiritist education for more than a century, but they are not an original part of the Doctrine.

Finally, I highlight question 957, from The Spirits' Book, which points to a very important conclusion:

957. What, in general, in relation to the state of the Spirit, are the consequences of suicide?

"The consequences of suicide are very diverse.. There are no specific penalties and in all cases they always correspond to the causes that produced it. There is, however, one consequence that the suicidal person cannot escape: the disappointment. But luck is not the same for everyone; depends on the circumstances. Some atone for the fault immediately, others in a new existence, which will be worse than the one whose course they interrupted.”

Observation really shows that the effects of suicide are not always the same. There are some, however, common to all cases of violent death and which are the consequence of the sudden interruption of life. There is, first, the more prolonged and tenacious persistence of the bond that unites the spirit to the body, since this bond is almost always in the fullness of its strength at the moment it is broken, whereas in the case of natural death it gradually weakens, and often dissolves before life is completely extinguished. The consequences of this state of affairs are the prolongation of the disturbance that follows death and of the illusion in which, for more or less time, the Spirit maintains that it still belongs to the number of the living. (155 and 165.)

A correspondent asked about what would be this supposed distance, always affirmed by us, between the Spiritist Doctrine and the Spiritist Movement.

To her, we can answer in this way, to exemplify for everyone:

“B…, isso é algo que cada um precisa realmente estudar ou buscar se informar, principalmente sobre as obras citadas ((

• In the sense of doctrinal changes: The Legacy of Allan Kardec, by Simoni Privato; Neither Heaven Nor Hell, by Paulo Henrique de Figueiredo; Final Point, by Wilson Garcia
• In the sense of knowledge about the doctrinal context: Autonomy: the never-told story of Spiritism, by Paulo Henrique de Figueiredo;
• In the real understanding of the Doctrine, in the essence proposed by Kardec, through the studies: Heaven and Hell and Genesis, both from the publisher FEAL, as the others are adulterated versions, still.)), because understanding and, hence, assuming new positioning, it needs to be a autonomous action. However, I can highlight some key differences between the Spiritist Doctrine (DE) and the current Spiritist Movement (SM):

• Evocations of spirits: DE was formed on them and demonstrated the need to be carried out, with method, to continue their development; ME recommends not doing it, provoking a wave of mediums who are only “available”, therefore, without control or learning objective.
• Generality of teaching: DE demonstrated the need to develop the spiritist study through the method of double control: universality and agreement of teaching and rational judgment; ME, infected by Roustaing, who saw a danger in this method (which would disprove her theories), started to take isolated communications as an expression of the truth, without reasoning.
• Life of the Spirit in Erraticity: DE demonstrated that emotions and physical sensations only exist for the attached Spirit; ME began to teach a fully materialized spiritual world, thus creating ideas of attachment harmful to the Spirit who disincarnates.
• Necessity of the incarnation: DE demonstrated that the incarnation is a necessity for the progress of the Spirit, in which he, even if involuntarily, plays his solidary role in creation. He removed the concepts of punishment and punishment as an arbitrary action of God, demonstrating that everything is the fruit of the conscious Spirit's choice; ME, under Roustainguist influence, inserted the false concepts of karma, redemption, law of action and reaction and law of return.
• Heteronomy x autonomy: DE demonstrated, throughout it, that the Spirit develops autonomously, being the first, if not the only, author of its choices; ME, influenced by Roustaing, started to deal with life in a heteronomous way – if I suffer, it is because I am receiving the return; if I have joy it is because I have been blessed, &c.
• Charity: DE demonstrated that charity is a disinterested action, fruit of the Spirit's duty, which consciously moves towards the good; ME started to treat charity as an external action, almost always only material. Due to the absence of DE studies, ME fails to do the good it could to help in the development of society through spiritist ideas.
• Moral: DE demonstrated that, all created simple and ignorant, the Spirits develop wrong and right, through the incarnations, choosing between acting in this or that way. There is no duality between good and evil. Some choose to repeat the mistake, developing imperfections from which they will be very difficult to get rid of, through reincarnation work, in a conscious and autonomous action; ME, influenced by Roustaing, started to treat the incarnation as a punishment, as if all the spirits that incarnate were imperfect.
• Method: DE has always demonstrated the way it would develop itself: through the study of human sciences, confronted, by reason, with the spiritist teachings, in the exchange of information with reputable groups spread all over the world; On the other hand, the ME practically does not study the fundamentals of DE, it has isolated itself in the centers in routines that include: monologues, almost always filled with all the errors mentioned above; passes, without knowledge of magnetism; and mediumistic sessions that, without method and without studies, lose the purpose and usefulness they could really have.

And so on.”

We see that the differences between the Spiritist Doctrine, in its origin, and what the Spiritist Movement professes or believes today, are profound and, almost always, harmful to the propagation of the Doctrine. Therefore, it is up to the voluntary effort of each one in honest and detached study, as well as in the fraternal and cooperative dissemination of knowledge.

Complementing the cited works, we cannot fail to point out the need to study the Spiritist Magazine, which demonstrates how the formation of the Spiritist Doctrine took place.

by Paulo Degering Rosa Junior

Há tempos venho realizando abordagens ((Veja os artigos “Spiritualism and Politics" and "The silence of the Spiritist Movement in the face of social issuesabout the impossibility of linking Spiritism to any political ideology and how harmful and harmful this practice is to the Spiritist Movement. When I defend that Spiritism should not be mixed with politics, I do not mean that it cannot give its contribution to it, but rather that it should not be mixed with the opinions and ideas of systems that, contrary to spiritist morality, , want to change society by force, by imposition, while Spiritism demonstrates that the only way to effect any change in society is by helping the individual to abandon bad habits and imperfections, in a gesture rational, conscious and autonomous.

Anyone who studies Spiritism with some dedication easily understands this principle. However, I needed to find a true pearl of Allan Kardec, inserted in the middle of a text that, until today, I confess, I had not read or known. The pearl in question is in the publication “Spiritist Journey in 1862”, in “Discourses pronounced at the general meetings of the Spiritists of Lyon and Bordeaux.”, item III:

I just said that without charity man only builds on sand. An example will make us understand better.

Some well-meaning men, touched by the sufferings of a part of their fellow men, thought they found the remedy for the evil in certain social reform systems. With minor differences, the principle is more or less the same in all of them, whatever name you give them. Community life as it is the least expensive; community of goods, so that everyone has their share; participation of all for the common work; no great riches, but also no misery. This was very seductive for someone who, having nothing, could already see the rich man's purse entering the social fund., without calculating that the totality of the riches, put in common, would create general misery rather than partial misery; that the equality established today would be broken tomorrow by the mobility of the population and the difference between skills; what permanent equality of goods presupposes equality of capacities and work. But this is not the point; it does not enter into my considerations to examine the positive and negative sides of these systems. I disregard the impossibilities I have just mentioned and propose to consider them from another point of view which, it seems to me, has not yet concerned anyone and which is related to our subject.

KARDEC, Allan. Spiritist Journey of 1862, my emphasis.

Kardec, as always very lucid in his notes, begins by pointing out the very clear problems that such “social reform systems” would bring to society. However, it does not delve into this, to then attack the moral theme, which is very important, and demonstrating, once again, that its interests, aligned with Spiritism, did not consist in destroying, but in building:

The authors, founders or promoters of all these systems, without exception, had no other aim than the organization of material life in a way that would benefit everyone. The goal is laudable, no doubt. It remains to be seen whether this building lacks the only foundation that could consolidate it, assuming it were practicable.

Community is the most complete self-denial of the personality((One of the principles of Spiritism is the relationship of Spirits with everyone, contrary to the false principle of individuality (N. do E.) )). Each one owing Giving oneself personally, it requires the most absolute devotion ((Moral Duty was something very well defined by Rational Spiritualism, of which Spiritism is the development(N. of E.) )). Now, the motive of self-denial and devotion is the charity, that is, love for others ((Disinterested charity (N. do E.) )). But we recognize that the The foundation of charity is belief ((Charity, to be possible, requires conscience, based on reason (N. do E.) )); that lack of belief leads to materialism and materialism leads to selfishness. A system which, by its nature and for its stability, requires moral virtues in the highest degree, must take its starting point in the spiritual element.. Well done! since the material side is their exclusive objective ((Because they are systems based on materialist philosophies, with their main origin in Aristotle and reproduced with great force by Comte (N. do E.) )), not only the spiritual element is not taken into account, as many systems are founded on a highly avowed materialistic doctrine((Let's see: imperfection can develop due to a complete inability to deal with life's issues, due to a lack of understanding of morals (lack of education). When seeking, for example, happiness in things and situations in life, the being begins to attribute unreasonable importance to the resources necessary to do so. If he does not have them, he feels unhappy (sad), but, judging that happiness is also his responsibility, he may judge that, to satisfy this, he must be It is licit to obtain it from those who have these resources in abundance. It is the materialist way of approaching the subject, reproduced by almost all of these systems (N. do E.) )), or about pantheism, a kind of disguised materialism, a true adornment of the beautiful name fraternity. But fraternity, like charity, is neither imposed nor decreed; it must be in the heart and it will not be a system that will give birth to it if it is not there; otherwise the system will collapse and give way to anarchy.

Ibid. Idem.

Kardec sowed the seed: moral virtues, from which fraternity is born, are not born of a system. They cannot be imposed or decreed. You have to be born from the heart.

Experience is there to prove that don't suffocate neither ambitions nor cupidity. Before doing the thing for men, it is necessary to train men for the thing, how workers are formed, before entrusting them with a job. Before building, it is necessary to ensure the solidity of the materials. Here the solid materials are men of heart, devotion and self-denial. Egoism, love and brotherhood are, as we have said, empty words; How, then, under the empire of selfishness, to found a system that requires self-denial to a greater degree since it has, as an essential principle, the solidarity of all with each and of each with all?

Ibid. Idem.

It is incredible not to see, yet, Kardec occupy space among the names of the highest moral philosophy. But it is not only morality that is forgotten, but also, along with it, rational spirituality.

Simple and without linguistic adornments that only serve to confuse and flatter, says the professor: “Before doing the thing for the men, it is necessary to form the men for the thing”. Always, always, attacking the heart of the issue, since his youth, with just over 20 years old: education. If you want to change society, you have to educate from childhood. Now, in a society where there is no education, but only instruction, what do you want to achieve, if not the results that we are forced to meet, daily, around the world? What can one expect from individuals who are trained, from their very first steps, in the schools of dispute, cheating, reward and punishment, in a word, heteronomy? Certainly, they will not be autonomous and fraternal individuals, much less charitable. And, for Kardec,

Without charity, there is no stable human institution; and there can be no possible charity or fraternity, in the true sense of the word, without belief ((Again, Kardec highlights the importance of knowledge, which underpins reason (N. do E.) )). So, apply yourselves to developing those feelings that, by increasing themselves, will destroy the selfishness that kills you. When charity has penetrated the masses, when it has become the faith, the religion of the majority, then your institutions will become better by the very force of things.; abuses, arising from personalism, will disappear. Teach, therefore, charity and, above all, I preached by example: is the anchor of salvation of society. Only she can realize the kingdom of good on Earth, which is the kingdom of God; without it, whatever you do, you will only create utopias, from which you will only be disappointed..

Ibid. Idem.

You don't have to go much further. Kardec's thinking is quite clear and lucid, and I take it not as an argument from authority, but because it is in full agreement with what I believe to be the best expression of knowledge in morals, philosophy and education, especially with regard to successive and progressive progress. of being, a principle demonstrated by Spiritism.

As long as we continue to fight for social transformations imposed by force, and even violence, we will only create utopias and disappointments. Let's see that the examples of this, after Kardec, are already several, and they swarm around us. In a way, he practically predicted what a good part of the world would face, in the following century, due to the materialist systems and ideologies that still prevail today and which, paradoxically, are defended by a significant part of the Spiritist Movement, which, in In fact, he still hasn't understood the true moral of Spiritism and wants to force others to change according to what external agents define as ideal, and not by conscience itself, in an autonomous and conscious movement.

When it comes to the Spiritist Movement, it is nonsense to see materialist ideas defended within this medium. Let us suppose, quite naively, that a law is created that obliges the rich to share their riches: this will only generate revolt in the spirits who have the imperfection of avarice and, at the first opportunity, in this or in other lives, they will fight to reestablish the power previously possessed. Not to mention the individuals who, accustomed to various vices, will only use shared resources to feast a little more. This is not how a society changes.

Without charity, which is born from the understanding of the morality of the divine law and from the autonomous movement towards the good, man only builds on sand..

Recently, an alleged psychographed letter from the director of Chapecoense appeared. The subject is tiresomely repetitive: whenever a tragedy occurs, whether individual or in a group, which draws the attention of society, a supposed psychographic appears that, due to the lack of care of the Spiritist Movement, no accident come repeat the false ideas linked to the dogmas of falling into sin and paying debts, karma, punishment, law of return, etc., already far surpassed by the spiritist science developed by the studies of Allan Kardec.

See an excerpt from supposed psychography:

“What appears to be injustice, when seen from above, all ideas and concepts about the divine are rethought, redone, put to the test, in remaking. First, I want you to know that nothing happens by chance. There are no victims in the Universe. We reap what we sow. I learn here that this is the universal and unalterable law, (…) the law of action and reaction […] We were together in other lives and we caused several air disasters during the wars. And divine good justice called us to right!”.

We never tire of highlighting how false this idea is, as we have already covered in length more than once ((refer to the articles “Law of action and reaction, law of return, karma: why do we suffer, according to Spiritism?“, “Karma (or karma), punishment, sin and punishment: how Kardec approached all this in A Genesis“, “Spiritism in the face of wars“)).

We will not repeat what we have already said in the cited articles. We will just remember: be careful, spiritists, because the spirits deceive the unsuspecting, the majority of mediums and workers who do not study the Spiritist Doctrine. To these, they reproduce communications full of false concepts, with a single objective: to keep the minds that blindly accept them away from true spiritist morality, which is autonomous and which is guided by the principle of successive progress.

São ideias repetidas por “professores” do Espiritismo, com canais e grupos repletos de centenas de milhares de pessoas, e que poderiam fazer um bem enorme a si mesmos e à sociedade, mas que choose to blindfold their eyes and cover their ears to the necessary study, por crerem já saber de tudo, posto que estão até mesmo “ensinando” os outros.

They are, in fact, individuals who do not think about the great harm they do to Spiritism and the disrespect to these families, judging deceased loved ones, when they are told “criminals of the past“.

Divine Justice is not guided by collecting debts, but by allowing all spirits to reach their destination, which is relative perfection, by self effort, conscious and autonomous. Therefore, supposed psychographics like this supposed psychographed letter from the Chapecoense director can only be one of three things:

• Fruits of an obsessive Spirit to which the medium surrenders;
• Fruits of an inferior Spirit, with almost no ability to understand the spiritist world and attached to old religious ideas;
• Fruits of the medium's own opinion.

In any case, the supposed psychographics must be ever analyzed by other people, knowledgeable about Spiritism, and only made public when verified as important and rational for the general interest.

O Study Group The Legacy of Allan Kardec repudiates this type of inconsequential act, which increasingly distances Spiritism from those who, judging by what they see reproduced by the Spiritist Movement, absent from studies, do not conform with such nonsense and with the absence of reason and charity in the Doctrine that says to excel in these two fundamental principles.

After the discovery that I didn't know anything about Spiritism (which happened almost a year ago) and with the confirmation that a series of doubts that I always kept in my mind, and that were accentuated as I started to put my head to work, I stopped reading the works carried out through the mediumship of Chico Xavier.

Recently, however, instigated by the suggestion of a girl, in a group, who recommended studying the work Ação e Reação to understand why animals suffer pain, I found several inconsistencies, from the many already known, among the “teachings” transmitted by André Luiz and the doctrinal postulates of Spiritism, passed through the double control of the sieve of reason and the general teaching of the Spirits.

I can no longer blindly overlook various concepts that were previously more or less accepted without reasoning. Not after getting to know Allan Kardec in his essence, through the studies of the Spiritist Magazine, and also after beginning to understand the concepts of autonomy and morality, based on Rational Spiritualism and developed by Spiritism.

Collective rescues? Action and reaction? Look, if there is any way to get something useful out of this work, it is first necessary to know Spiritism, deeply, understanding it as the development of Rational Spiritualism and making use of its concepts, because the most absurd ideas have spread, in the Doctrine , due to this lack of knowledge.

just see that complicated:

In our study, however, we analyzed the pain-atonement, which comes from the inside out, marking the creature on the path of the centuries, holding it in complicated labyrinths of affliction, to regenerate it, before the… It is very different… "

Now, it is established, by the study of Spiritism, that atonement and pain do not inherently go together. The passage above leads the unwary reader to understand that, in the face of “[divine] Justice”, the being is regenerated by the ache, being that pain is an inherent condition of the incarnate Spirit, and differs from moral suffering. From physical pain, he suffers the bad and the good. Atonement can go far beyond pain, but rely only on difficulties, often morally suffered, which, according to the planning of the Spirit, aim to give you opportunities for learning.

However, in possession of the new (actually, old) knowledge, we could give a whole different meaning to this passage, by simply observing the term “that comes from the inside out”, which implies that this pain is coming from consciousness to the outside.

It is necessary to be very careful to focus on these works - which, in fact, are novels, and not sources of studies - because we know the enormous reservations that Kardec always had in relation to spiritual ideas not passed by the double control of reason and general teaching. of the Spirits. Furthermore, without having the aforementioned knowledge, novels, in general, lead readers to a totally adverse path to what Spiritism teaches, in fact, and can cause (as they have caused) more harm than good.

So, to studies!

Cover image: photo by asiama junior at the pexels

Just yesterday, I wrote here, on this blog, the article “Root Spiritism“, talking about the absurd subversions being carried out by people who adopt the title of Spiritists, but who, about Spiritism, don't say anything. They talk a lot about concepts of certain Spirits, which, in short, does not constitute the Doctrine. These individuals, who, under the false guise of the “evangelizer”, with sweet words from the Gospel of Jesus (we have already seen such a case in practice, presented by Kardec, in the article Obsessed and Subjugated: The Dangers of Spiritism), take them to, slowly and progressively, subvert it to the most absurd and wide-open ideas, even prior to Christ himself, worthy of the time when human beings were consciously enslaved by the religious ideas of heteronomy, sin and punishment.

Behold, right after the conclusion of this article, going to Spiritist groups to share, I come across, in the largest of them, with hundreds of thousands of followers, the following post, from one of the administrators from the group:

MULTI-GENERATION DNA CLEANING

I, _____________ (your name), break, destroy, disintegrate and pulverize all the negativity that I bring in the family tree of my Father and my Mother, from the first generation that formed their families to the inheritance we receive from them in this life((This idea is directly subordinate to dogma of original sin, which, despite starting from a figure of language, in a very distant time, was instituted by the Roman Catholic Church as such, with the purpose of imprisoning the consciences of the faithful at its pleasure)).

[…]

I'm taking it all out of my DNA((Deoxyribonucleic acid is an organic compound whose molecules contain the genetic instructions that coordinate the development and functioning of all living beings and some viruses, and that transmit the hereditary characteristics of each living being (ref: Wikipedia). This phrase sums it all up : contrary to the demonstration, by Spiritism, of the soul and its relations with the Spirits as the principle of all what concerns the incarnate being, it is totally materialistic!))!
DECREE AND INSTALL HERE AND NOW:
A system of health, love, abundance, prosperity, serenity, trust and happiness guided by universal laws.

I was and still am perplexed and stupefied! I would consider it valid to find a message of this content in a group of religious linked to the ideas of original sin and materialism, contrary to Spiritism and its liberating doctrine... But within a group "spiritist", which establishes, as the first of its rules, that "our main objective is the STUDY OF THE SPIRITIST DOCTRINE“, and by the hands of an administrator?! Never! Now, it comes to disrespect the Spiritist Doctrine itself and Kardec's effort to fight, in the light of reason and with great effort, precisely these two systems contrary to Spiritism and the liberation of man: materialism and religious dogmatism.

The intention here is not to descend to the level of personal attack. Each one with their conscience and with the results of their actions. What I want to firmly emphasize is the following two very important points:

1. Caution, dear reader, with the wave of evangelical moralism spread in the spiritist environment! The Gospel is indeed very important, but Spiritism must be studied to understand it well. There are many "wolves in sheep's clothing” who hide under the words of the Gospel, but who actually spread ideas contrary to him.
2. We have been absorbed for a long time in inaction and in the absence of studies. This is why false ideas spread at a gallop. IT'S our responsibility, facing the doctrine and ourselves, study it, apply its moral consequences in our own lives and spread it in its essence! We can no longer accept that such ideas continue to be disseminated in the spiritist environment, undermining the Doctrine from the inside out!

the spiritist does not study not even the Gospel According to Spiritism, because, if study, could be on guard. It is not for nothing that Saint Louis expresses himself in this way, about false prophets:

If they say to you: “Christ is here”, don't go; on the contrary, be on your guard, because the false prophets will be numerous.. Do you not see that the leaves of the fig tree begin to whiten; you do not see its many shoots awaiting the time of flowering; and did not Christ say to you, Is a tree known by its fruit? If, then, the fruit is bitter, you already know how bad the tree is.; but if they are sweet and wholesome, you will say, “Nothing pure can come from an evil source.”

It is thus, my brethren, that you must judge; are the works that you must examine. If those who claim to be invested with divine power show signs of a mission of a high nature, that is, if they possess the highest degree of Christian and eternal virtues: charity, love, indulgence, the kindness that reconciles hearts; if, in support of the words, they present the acts, then you can say: These are really sent from God.

But be wary of honeyed words, be wary of the scribes and Pharisees who pray in the public squares, dressed in long robes. Be wary of those who claim to have a monopoly on the truth!

KARDEC, Allan. The gospel According to spiritism. My italics.

The Spirit of Erastus, in the same work, says the following:

False prophets are not only found among the incarnate. There are also them, and in much greater numbers, among the proud spirits who, appearing to love and charity, sow disunity and delay the work of emancipation of humanity, throwing their absurd systems through it, after having made their mediums accept them.. And, to better fascinate those whom they wish to deceive, to give more weight to their theories, they unscrupulously appropriate names that only men pronounce with great respect.

Ibid. Idem.

This exhortation, however, does not carry the meaning that we should not be on guard against the wolves in sheep's clothing, for it is they themselves who sow the disunity by throwing, in the midst of consoling ideas, the thorny fruit of the old religions. Kardec, by the way, highlights the need to keep away from these individuals, even when mediums:

It should be noted that when good spirits see that a medium is no longer well assisted and becomes, due to his imperfections, the prey of deceiving spirits, circumstances almost always arise that reveal his defects and distance him from serious and well-respected people. -intentioned, whose good faith could be lacquered. In this case, whatever faculties he possesses, his departure is not to be missed.

KARDEC, Allan. The Mediums' Book. 1862. Italics mine.

None of this means that we should fight with rudeness or hatred, on the contrary, because we would be in error too. But we must fight false ideas by disseminating true Spiritism, the one that is truly consoling. And how to do it? Understanding Spiritism and its context! It is necessary to understand Rational Spiritualism ((we recommend studying the book Small Elements of Morals, by Paul Janet, in addition to studying the work Autonomy: the never-told history of Spiritism, by Paulo Henrique de Figueiredo, or following the several videos on this subject, with this author, on Youtube)), it is necessary to study the Doctrinal essence in its unadulterated works((as always, we recommend studying the works O Céu e o Inferno and A Gênesis according to the editions of the publisher FEAL, translated and commented, among others, by Paulo Henrique de Figueiredo, as well as also following the study of these works in channel Spiritism for All)) and it is necessary to study the Spiritist Magazine, as we have done, in order to understand what Spiritism really is and how this doctrine was formed.

Finally, it's time to move. It is not only the spiritist milieu that lacks the recovery of the ideas of the moral theory developed by Spiritism and based on the Rational Spiritualism: is all mankind.

Do your part.

Definitely, I moved away from the discussion about proofs and evidence of tampering in your works. That is my opinion that they have become a huge waste of time. I explain:

At first, I had an opinion, that pieces of evidence regarding the adulteration were very overwhelming ((Facts presented in detail in “The Legacy of Allan Kardec”, by Simoni Privato, and “Nem Céu, Nem Inferno”, by Paulo Henrique de Figueiredo and Lucas Sampaio .)).

Then, emerged the evidence that it could had been indicated could that there were no adulterations and that everything was the result of Kardec's own work, according to the interpretation of some, and this led by indications and evidence that he, Kardec, had the clear intention of publishing new editions, with alterations, of O Céu and Hell and Genesis. I emphasize that, in my opinion, so far, all the evidence indicates that Kardec, at least in A Genesis, would have started a work in this direction, a work that was never completed and that gave space, precisely, to whoever would have the intention to wreak havoc in the only way possible on an unassailable Doctrine: by tampering with its postulates, in their origin.

There are those who disagree, of course. But there's a big although, on this subject, which I cannot ignore: the question precisely linked to spiritist science and to Allan Kardec as the honest, insightful, patient, careful and honest scientist he was. Of two, one: either he wrote very important and serious things under an anxiety that he never had, having later retreated in his opinions - which would demonstrate a serious flaw in his method and would represent a great danger to the whole Spiritist Doctrine - or he he was very careful, until the end, and only concluded what had to be concluded, after years of research and under the guidance of superior spirits, as he always tried to do.

Now, he himself said, years before the publication of these works, that certain doctrinal matters still needed to wait a few years and that he would not publish anything very soon, without the development of the Doctrine giving way to this. Heaven and Hell and Genesis were precisely that conclusion. I do not see how, therefore, especially in the first work, to make changes that, at certain points, alter completely the understanding of the idea and that, in A Genesis, make the concept or doctrinal postulate incomplete or misunderstood. But that's not all: Kardec was very austere in these two works, precisely with regard to the most sensitive points, and which gave reason to fear in the opponents of Spiritism, and it was precisely at these points where the “alterations” took place.

Let's look at some examples:

In A Genesis, chapter III, item 19, from the 5th edition onwards, the text reads as follows:

“The man who only acted constantly by instinct might be very good, but he would keep his intelligence dormant. He would be like a child who didn't leave the walkers and didn't know how to use his limbs. He who does not master his passions can be very intelligent, but at the same time very bad. Instinct annihilates itself; the passions can only be tamed by the effort of the will.“

However, in the 4th edition, now recovered and translated into Portuguese by the publisher FEAL, there is the following complement:

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

Kardec, A Genesis, 4th edition — FEAL Publisher

Now, it seems believable that Kardec drew this conclusion so important, profound and liberating of this postulate?

A little further on, in chapter XVIII, “The times have arrived”, the following passage was deleted (removed) from the 5th edition of the work. Read with attention:

To say that humanity is ripe for regeneration does not mean that all individuals are on the same level, but many have, by intuition, the germ of new ideas that circumstances will bring about. Then they will prove to be more advanced than one might suppose, and they will eagerly follow the lead of the majority. There are, however, those who are essentially refractory to these ideas, even among the most intelligent, and who will certainly not accept them, at least in this lifetime; in some cases, in good faith, out of conviction; others for interest. They are those whose material interests are linked to the current conjuncture and who are not advanced enough to give them up, since the general good matters less than their personal good — they are apprehensive at the slightest reform movement. The truth is for them a secondary issue, or rather, the truth for certain people lies entirely in that which does not cause them any trouble. All progressive ideas are, from their point of view, subversive ideas, and for this reason they have an implacable hatred for them and an obstinate war against them. They are intelligent enough to see Spiritism as an aid to progressive ideas and the elements of transformation that they fear and, because they do not feel up to it, they strive to destroy it.. If they thought him worthless and unimportant, they wouldn't worry about him. We have already said it elsewhere: “The more grandiose an idea is, the more it finds opponents, and its importance can be measured by the violence of the attacks to which it is the object”.

Kardec, A Genesis, 4th edition — FEAL Publisher

If the suppression of this passage doesn't seem like something carried out precisely by an opponent of the Doctrine, I don't know what would.

In O Céu e o Inferno, from the 4th edition onwards, we have, among other things, the suppression of important postulates, such as these (chap. VIII):

Through the examples that Spiritism places before our eyes, it teaches us that the soul in the invisible world suffers for all the evil it has done, as well as for all the good it could have done and did not do during its earthly life. That the soul is not condemned to an absolute, uniform, and time-limited penalty, but that it suffers the natural consequences of all its evil deeds, until it has improved itself by the efforts of its own will. It carries its own punishment within itself, and that wherever it finds itself, for which there is no need for a circumscribed place. Hell, then, is wherever there are suffering souls, as Heaven is wherever there are happy souls, which does not prevent one and the other from grouping together, by affinity of position, around certain points.

Heaven and Hell, Chap. IV, item 6, paragraph deleted in adulteration, p. 85

As all spirits are perfectible, by virtue of the law of progress, they carry within themselves the elements of their future happiness or unhappiness and the means of acquiring one and avoiding the other by working towards their own advancement.

Allan Kardec, Heaven and Hell, 3rd edition — FEAL Editor

We see, then, a great loss, for the suppression of these postulates. There are several other points, which, according to a certain understanding, can even be re-signified under a possible authorship by Allan Kardec, but the fact is that there are also strange changes in this work that do not make sense. Just compare the chapter "Future penalties according to Spiritism“, from Heaven and Hell, completely disfigured in the “alteration”.

There's more: admitting that all the existing alterations in these works were carried out by Kardec, means saying that he would have made a grotesque mistake, and not just once, but twice: not having obtained the necessary permission, from the government, to print new editions of these works. I've never met this careless and reckless Kardec that they've been showing around.

Knowing a little about Professor Rivail's extremely serious, conscientious and careful face regarding this science (as with others), I cannot admit the theories of alterations by his own hand, especially the deletions, and, from a scientific point of view, everything What I have seen so far, not counting the forced conclusions under chains of logic with some problems, at most, indicates an intention to publish a new edition, which was never completed and which, precisely, gave rise to adulterations subsequent to his death, by changing the movable type ((pieces used to make previous impressions, at that time. These impressions were analyzed and corrected, by changing the types (letters, punctuation, etc.) and, when it was verified that the work was finished, they were used for printing the headquarters, which is used for large-scale printing)) existing.

In fact, in possession of Kardec's manuscripts, made available by the CDOR, from FEAL, it was possible to identify that:

Some handwritten letters show that, in February 1868, Kardec was interested in adding excerpts in The Genesis, as it was his custom, after a while of release, to review his works. For this, he asked the spirits for advice to organize this work.

Some spiritual friends gave guidelines for a review of the work, with the express indication not to change the doctrinal issues in any way, as can be seen from the following excerpts from this communication:

"My opinion is that there is absolutely nothing of doctrine to be taken away; everything there is useful and satisfying in every way" and

"It is necessary to leave intact all theories that first appear in the public eye.”.

In this case, in addition to the legal demonstration of tampering with The Genesis, this communication also reinforces the fact due to the doctrinal changes identified in the work, with the suppression of several passages in which Kardec criticizes the heteronomous moral of religious fanaticism, among other manipulations.

Still in this communication, the spirit also suggested that he work without haste and without dedicating a lot of time:

"Above all, don't rush too much. (…) Start working immediately, but not in an exaggerated way. Do not hurry”.

https://espirito.org.br/autonomia/ncni-conselhos-sobre-a-genese/

Now, what do we observe in the alterations of Genesis, if not haste and carelessness?

This recommendation was justified because Kardec, in the midst of his difficult health condition, had priority issues to worry about, such as Spiritist Magazine and the project for the continuity of Spiritism through the collective direction phase.

That's my conclusion. However, we can even go so far as to say that these questions of adulteration or not are a mere “detail”, a “stumbling block”, which will be overcome when science is restored to its essence. Now, this essence remains unchanged and is available for our study. It is enough to study it, honestly, because the honest and humble man surrenders in the face of the results of scientific investigation. But, in conclusion, this study needs to be contextualized, and one of the greatest researchers of this context, Paulo Henrique de Figueiredo, is being put under the rug, by many, just because he shares the opinion of adulteration. And that attitude is definitely not science.