Translations, from Portuguese, are automatic. If you notice any errors in the text, help us identify them, clicking here.

Subscribe to our Newsletters and receive our articles directly in your email.

This topic, always so present, arose in a Facebook group: is it okay to sacrifice a terminally ill animal, that is, to submit it to euthanasia?

I advance not – and this is not my opinion. But first of all, it is important to remember that no we must make them suffer needlessly, in no case – and this corroborates the view presented here.

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

Free will and moral suffering in animals

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

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

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

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

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

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

“There is, and that survives the body.”

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

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

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

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

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

the suffering of the animal

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Conclusion

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

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

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

---

Reading Recommendations (Books)

• Free PDFs by Kardec – https://bit.ly/3sXXBxk
• Autonomy – The Untold History of Spiritism: https://amzn.to/3PIvbyy
• Allan Kardec's Legacy: https://amzn.to/3RIn2gv
• Final point – the reunion with spiritualism with Allan Kardec: https://amzn.to/48PLaE7
• Neither Heaven nor Hell – The Laws of the Soul According to Spiritism: https://amzn.to/3F2voYO
• Genesis – Miracles and Predictions According to Spiritism (unadulterated): Free PDF or https://amzn.to/3RM91hF
• Heaven and Hell: Or divine justice according to Spiritism (unadulterated): Free PDF or https://amzn.to/3ZGrcal
• Spiritist Revolution. Allan Kardec's forgotten theory: https://amzn.to/3t7HIUH
• Mesmer. The denied science of animal magnetism: https://amzn.to/3PYc1X2
• The Book of Mediums: https://amzn.to/3PDNTHK
• The Spirits' Book: https://amzn.to/3QkcFx9
• Spiritist Magazine – complete collection: https://amzn.to/48Uxh7s
• Practical Instructions on Spiritist Manifestations: https://amzn.to/3QiR8Gc
• Spiritism in its Simplest Expression: https://amzn.to/3M6fXT5